THE CHILDREN OF ONE - The number of single women choosing to have children is increasing, writes SHARON DELL
~ The Witness, 5 Dec 2006

FIFTEEN years ago, Penny*, a government high school teacher in Durban, might very well have been kicked out of school. Not because she was a bad teacher, but because she was considered a poor role model for her pupils, having chosen to have a child out of wedlock.

Today, Penny (44) is the proud and single parent of a well-adjusted five-year-old boy, the product of artificial insemination from sperm donated by his mother’s male friend who is gay. And Penny still has her job.

In fact, she received more support from friends and colleagues over her decision to become a single mother than she could ever have hoped for. It was such a positive experience that she attempted a second pregnancy the same way, but when that didn’t work she decided to call it a day. Time was no longer on her side.

These days, a shift in societal attitudes, combined with advances in reproductive technology, mean that more women are exploring the option of being mothers without traditional male partners. The number of women choosing to have children outside of marriage seems to be increasing.

An August survey based on face-to-face interviews with 800 South African mothers of children aged under six, most of whom enjoyed a household income of over R7 000, found that 46% were unmarried.

The research, commissioned by Alchemy Publishing, publishers of Your Baby and Your Pregnancy, suggests that a significant number of South African women are raising children outside of marriage, thereby challenging society’s understanding of the family unit. Of the 46% who were unmarried, the survey found that 17% weren’t involved in a long-term relationship and 16% were living separately from their partners. One percent were divorced, two percent were separated and one percent widowed. The balance of the sample group was either married or engaged.

The sample was 51% black, 23% white, 20% coloured and six percent Indian.

The South African sample mirrors international trends. An article in Britain’s Sunday Independent in March, for example, noted that the number of inquiries received by the Oxford Fertility Unit from single women seeking artificial insemination or IVF had quadrupled.

And in an October article in the Christian Science Monitor, it was reported that one out of three children in the United States is born to an unmarried woman.

Despite the trends, anecdotal evidence suggests that falling pregnant outside of a relationship is not the first choice for many women. While having a baby in a secure and happy relationship is seen by most as first prize, when that doesn’t happen it seems that women are prepared to seize the initiative. Likewise, women in unhappy marriage are prepared to end the relationship, often for the sake of raising their children in a happier environment. In both cases, it seems that women think long and hard about making such a decision.

For Penny, the desire to be a mother was a longstanding one. “I always wanted to have children. When it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen [the conventional way], and the biological clock started ticking, I thought I had to make it happen.”

She started planned the whole process carefully, taking a year off school to work in Korea teaching English. In this way she was able to raise enough money to have her baby and stay at home for a year after the birth.

She describes the pregnancy as “fabulous”. “I loved every minute of it, even the nausea and the tiredness. Probably because I wanted it so much.”

Until a year ago, Penny and her child shared a home with the boy’s father, but he has since moved to another city and her child visits him during holidays. She receives support from her house-mate sister, her family and the family of the biological father. But it’s still hard work. “The buck stops with me,” she says.

Penny admits that despite the shift in societal attitudes, she worries about how her child will be treated. At the moment, her son tells anyone who asks that he has “two daddies” – his biological father and his partner. “I’ve given my son a strong emotional grounding and I hope that he will be able to deal with these issues if they arise.” Penny also tries to cultivate male role models.

Jane* is a single, 39-year-old Pietermaritzburg educationist who has invested time, emotion and a large amount of money in trying to have a child. After artificial insemination and the more expensive (about R26 000) in vitro fertilization (IVF) failed, for reasons which may be physiological and age-related, Jane put her project on hold, but she’s not given up on the idea.

Like Penny, she’s always wanted to be a mother, and while her first choice would not be to raise children as a single person, she’s also no prepared to wait around for a relationship in order to make motherhood a reality. “I decided to take control of my life. It was a conscious decision to do something.”

“It’s incredibly tough,” she says of the decision. And there are the views of others to deal with. “I’ve not told some of my close family members because I know they’ll be critical. They may say I won’t be able to manage it. I don’t need to hear that now because it’s hard enough as it is,” she says.

“Others have expressed doubts around the ethics of choosing to raise a child without a father. My response has been that there are lots of single mothers who don’t set out to be single and whose children turn out fine.”

There were also the “problematic” attitudes of some of the medical professionals she consulted. “One woman doctor in Pietermaritzburg told me that I didn’t have a right to have a child like that.

“These doctors didn’t seem to understand how important it was to me.”
Jane also says that people tend to be unaware of how traumatic the process of trying to fall pregnant as a single person is. For artificial inseminations, donor sperm is only available in Durban. Jane had to fetch the sperm from Durban. “It must be kept warm, so you clutch this precious little vial for the journey from Durban to the doctor’s rooms in Pietermaritzburg. And then there’s the physical procedure … The whole thing is very odd, mechanical and bizarre. You want to laugh and cry.”

When the IVF procedure failed, Jane was worried that she’d left things too late.

Many of Westville-based gynaecologist and fertility expert Dr Anil Ramdeo’s patients share this concern. Ramdeo’s perception of an increase in the number of single women looking for help to fall pregnant coincides with the fact that more women are having children later.

This is particularly true in Europe where, he says, a large proportion is putting off having children until after 35. At this age, women’s ovarian reserves are generally lower as a result of genetic or acquired conditions or being older. “When a women is born, she has about half a million eggs. There is a major attrition of the eggs after the age of 35. Also, the eggs are aging and there’s a risk of chromosomal problems,” says Ramdeo.

“Some of these women want to have children and may not have a partner. Time is not on their side,” he says. “I wouldn’t say it’s a major trend but we are likely to see more single women seeking help with pregnancy as they delay having babies.”

And conception is only the first hurdle. Jane says she’s thought a lot about the practical issues of child-rearing. With no family members nearby, she says she’d have to “buy” support in the form of a live-in nanny. “I know from watching friends how hard it is to cope both physically and emotionally,” she says.

Her other concerns relate not so much to the absence of a male parent in the child’s life (although she is sensitive to the importance of male role modeling) as much as the absence of another adult. “But the lack of another adult is not a problem that only afflicts intentionally single mothers,” she reasons.

There’s also the issue of the child asking about the father. A law passed in the UK last year gives children of sperm donors access to the identity of their genetic parents once they are 18 years old. In South Africa, donors of both sperm and eggs are still anonymous. Although unable to track their donor fathers in the United States, children of sperm donors are meeting their half-siblings through an innovative website.

Even if the law in South Africa stays unchanged, there remains the challenge of dealing with the inevitable questions from the child about the father.

For Jane, her desire to have and nurture a child will have a positive impact on the child’s life. “Being so wanted must compensate for not knowing [who the father is]. This is different from a conscious rejection by a father or a mother; which happens in real life.”

And time has shown that happy family unit are flexible entities and the definition of a family in the 21st century is largely up for grabs, particularly in view of the number of gay couples now raising children. The website of a New York organization called Single Mothers by Choice, which was set up over 20 years ago, makes the following observation: “The children of our original members are in their twenties and they seem more comfortable with being in non-traditional families than most of us would have expected.”

Jane is adamant that hers is not a social experiment. “Lots of people live without two parents. The only difference is that this is an intentional arrangement. And I know I’d parent well. Whether that’s enough to make up for no father … it’s hard to say.”

For 36-year-old Trish*, it was easier to leave the father of her child than stay with him. When her son was 18 months, Trish made the decision to separate. Now he is five-and-a-half years old and Trish doesn’t believe his life is compromised in any way.

“He was being raised in an environment in which there was no affection between his parents and it wasn’t healthy. This was a major part of my decision to end the marriage.

Trish encountered criticism of her decision. Among certain female circles she was made to feel inferior as a divorced mother. And her ex-husband’s family said it would have a detrimental impact on her son. “But they were wrong,” she says.

Trish is in no hurry to reconstruct a conventional family model. “I do date, and if I met someone, I’d have to be absolutely sure he would add value to my life and my sons.