Becoming a Parent Without a Partner - Raising a Child Solo

What makes one a parent? Is it biology?

- Natasha Ali

Is it the nurturing instinct or love and care for the child? These are questions that have existed for eons, but are coming more into focus in recent times, given that the definition of what a family is has been undergoing a slow yet steady shift. Over the last decade, we’ve seen a growth in what can be termed non-traditional or “different” types of parents – single parents due to separation and divorce, blended families when previously married people with children remarry, adoptive parents, and also single women and men who’ve chosen to become a solo parent.

The Modern Family: What makes a family today?

While in India, the norm is still of a two parent family, of a mom and a dad, who choose to have a child within the confines of marriage, there are more stories coming to light of single parenting – by choice. Whether for millennials choosing to remain single and unmarried, or slightly older folks in their late 30's or early 40's for whom a wedding just hasn’t happened, maybe due to a focus on career or never quite meeting the right person, parenthood is no longer a closed door. Women who’ve chosen motherhood without a partner in their lives, using in vitro or having found themselves pregnant, have decided to embrace that role as single moms.

Changing social mores and demographics have opened those once closed doors, with women working and earning enough to support a child as a single parent, and the options for day care and schools have also multiplied to make this a workable endeavour for Indian women. And the reaction of school principals and teachers too, is slowly shifting – no longer do they look quite as askance in the big cities, when a woman is a single/unmarried/ adoptive parent.