Single Moms Won't Tell You.

If you're alive in the world today, you've got single moms in your life. 

We're in your family, we're in your friend groups, we're in PTA and Junior League and Team in Training with you, we're everywhere. 

I'm talking about single moms who are the only adult in their household, who are solely responsible for their expenses. The ones with very little support, and a whole lot of fucking pressure. 

Single moms have it rough at the holidays. 

If we want to receive gifts from our children, we have to make it happen. If we want to enjoy stockings with the kids, we have to fill them. Every present, every Santa surprise, every card, every teacher gift, it's all on us. 

Sometimes we are gifted things from people in our communities, and it is so wonderful to be remembered, it feels so warm and loving. 

And...

...a lot of times, we receive things that don't make sense for our day to day lives. And I think it's time we talk about it 😬 (But don't worry, I'm going to include a list of things that will be hits for ANY single mom.)

For instance, it would be an absolutely incredible gift to give a single mom an entire spa day, five hours plus a luncheon. SO extravagant, so thoughtful!

Only...if the person has to arrange and pay for childcare or miss a kid's soccer game to use it, that gift certificate is very likely to go unused. That gift that would be such a slam dunk for a friend with different resources just isn't as relaxing or indulgent for a single mom who has no reliable or free childcare.

Here are some ideas for gifting to single moms. They require paying some attention to the receiver, and believe me, that attention will be so appreciated. 

1. Find out who cuts her hair and buy a gift certificate for a haircut from her stylist specifically. 
2. Ask her for recommendations for skin care, makeup, or perfume, and then use those to inform your Sephora purchase.
3. Does she travel but have animals at home? Ask who her pet sitter is and either pay them in advance for a trip, or offer your own pet sitting services for one trip. (Only do this if you'll be doing this labor happily--if you don't like animals or won't have time, do not offer this!)
4. Ask her what is broken in her home. I promise you, something is broken. Get it fixed. You can pay a TaskRabbit to help, send a tradesperson, or do it yourself. 
5. Offer to pay for an upcoming school trip/event/yearbook/uniform/whatever, and then follow up and make sure it happens. Otherwise you'll never hear about it again, because saying "Hey remember when you said you'd pay for the field trip? It's time," is incredibly difficult.
6. Buy a gas card for the station she uses most frequently. 
7. Schedule a time to mow her lawn, weed the garden, mulch the beds, whatever makes sense. She doesn't have time and it's a million dollars to pay someone to help. Just say when you can go help and then go do it. She doesn't even need to be there. 
8. Put her on your Amazon Prime account, your wholesale club membership, your streaming platforms, whatever. Just make sure it's something she already uses herself. 

Look, most of this boils down to the following point that very few people are going to be honest about:

We want to buy our own shit. 

But we can't, because every single dollar is going somewhere. 

We'd really like for someone else to buy the $150 worth of animal food we have to buy each month so that we might spend that $150 how we'd like to. We'd really like someone else to mow the lawn so we can spend the two hours it would take on literally anything else. We'd really like someone to notice what we actually need and then just make it happen. 

From all the single moms in your life I want to thank you for even reading this, let alone considering the real emotion behind it. We love your support. We appreciate your thoughtfulness. You're a good community member 🫶