The Changing Face of the Single Latina Mom

More and more of us are becoming single parents in our 30s and 40s. Two good reasons? We want to, and we can.

- Ana Connery

“I ALWAYS WANTED KIDS, BUT I ONLY GOT PREGNANT JUST AS I WAS SPLITTING UP WITH MY HUSBAND OF 11 YEARS,” SAYS CANDI ESTRADA, 40, a Mexican American college professor from Huntington Beach, Calif. “It felt like a miracle to me, not nearly as scary as I’d thought. My son is now three and we’re doing well, we’re a team. I don’t feel like a single mom, I just feel like a mom.”

Estrada’s story is hardly unusual in 2016: While out-of-wedlock birthrates have been plummeting among Hispanic teens, national studies show that more and more Latinas over 30 are going it alone as parents. Why the dramatic change?

When I was growing up, no one in my family was divorced, and single mothers didn’t generally get that way by choice. That doesn’t mean there weren’t unhappy marriages. But people stuck it out, for better or worse.

Even after one of my aunts caught my uncle cheating, she stayed with him, unsure of what to do without him.In Latino families like ours, tradition was still the rule.

Fast-forward two decades to my divorce. My son’s father and I had grown apart, and we separated when our child was just a year old. Unlike my aunt, I had bachelor’s and master’s degrees fueling my career as a magazine editor, and I’d experienced enough acculturation to feel confident I could make it work as a single mother. Living in the era of “You go, girl!” had made an impact—not just on me, but on my family, too. They supported my decision.