What To Expect: The First Day, The First Week, The First Month

The first few days and weeks of single motherhood can be surreal. But if you know what to expect, it can make the transition easier. Here's a snapshot of some of the immediate stuff you might experience, and some tips for getting through. Preparedness is half the battle.

The First Day
You may come home to a house in which the silence is deafening and be inclined to bang the kitchen cupboards extra hard while making dinner or talk in a loud, unnaturally cheerful voice so the kids don't focus on the change. Every little thing you do might take on a out-of-proportion importance, because somehow, perhaps, you never really believed it would happen. You may catch yourself making strange observations like, "This is the first time I've walked into this room as an unmarried person." After you put the kids to bed, the house has echoes and whispers. If you can get a close friend or family member to come over and see you through this first night, the echoes and whispers will diminish.

The First Week
Talking helps lessen the surreal feeling. If your friends can't come over immediately, get on the phone. Talking to family and friends will help you unload, connect. As much as they love you, it would probably make sense to stop just short of wearing them out. You're going to need them for the long haul. You may think that your work will stop you from thinking about this, but actually this will stop you from thinking about your work. So if you have a job, consider scheduling a few days off during this first week.

The First Month
The first month you may be hesitant to tell anyone who doesn't need to know: acquaintances, parents at your children's school, next door neighbours. You might not want to endure questions, looks or gossip, real or imagined (most of it imagined). You might have the feeling that you want to shield your little ones from unfiltered comments from other children. And you may cherish a notion that nothing need change and that you can hack it alone. (By the time of my child's birthday party at an apple farm I still hadn't told school parents or asked for help and a dozen three to six-year-olds got lost in the haystacks, got rained on, started crying, couldn't find the party cabin and went home hungry. I wised up and started to tell people.) Once you tell the broader community, you'll be amazed at the unexpected places you get help, and equally amazed at the places you don't.

You'll most likely go on to discover that none of the fears of those first hours were well-founded, or at least didn't deserve the crippling power you allotted them. Through all of this, one of my closest friends who is a single mother kept saying "It gets better! It gets better!" And it did. It gets good. It even gets great.

Figure at a Window by Salvador Dali; Philadelphia Museum of Art