Friends S9e7

[Emigdio Binet]

Listenas we chat with Rebecca about dating and meeting her now-husband while raising her daughter on her own. We discuss making decisions that are right for you, turning hard experiences into opportunities, and prioritizing romantic relationships with it all.

The Dateable podcast is an insider's look into modern dating that the Huffington post calls one of the top ten podcast about love and sex. On each episode, we'll talk to real daters about. From sex parties to sex droughts, date fails a diaper fetishes and first moves to first loves. I'm your host Yue Xu, former dating coach turned dating sociologists. You also hear from my co host and producer Julie Krafchick as we explored this crazy dateable world. Hey everyone welcome to another episode of dateable a show all about modern dating. I have to be honest growing up. I always felt like the family family I envisioned in the future would be a mother a father and like maybe a few kids and that was it. That's your traditional household but as I get older and as Dayton us. I see my friends change. Their kind of relationships setups figuration. I realized that is no longer the case so our guest here is to talk about dating as a single mother but before we get into that Rebecca. Do you want to give quick high before we get into your story. I everybody everybody she's here to talk about dating as a single mother and becoming sexually empowered in aspire to find her life partner but before we get to restore. I want to bring up some statistics that I found online first of all super. CDC study that said that twenty five percent percents families are headed by single mom that's a really high percentage the CDC Center for Disease Control Okay and traditional nuclear families as with to married heterosexual parents are now the minority of the US while the rise of Single Motherhood is the largest influence of this trend followed followed by gay families and Multi Generational families and we see this in some of my friends have younger kids who are in preschool or they're in elementary school and they'll tell only about the family make-up's that they see and it's just every kinda thing so you can't even when you talk to your kids classmates. You can't say tell me about your mom your dad it. You can even ask that question and you have to tell me about your family and they'll tell you know kind of like what kind of situation there in so with Rebecca. You are a single mother of how how old of a child I was a single mom for seven years but of a daughter who's now at eleven. She's now eleven thirty three years old. You live in Oakland Glenn. You grew up in the bay area. You're now married so no longer a single mom. Tell us about your story getting to where you are now. Oh man that's like uh-huh so basically the way that I became a single. I think that's what people are really curious to hear writing so in college. I went to UC Berkeley so I'm from from the Bay area and go bears. I know in college I did have a partner a boyfriend and it was not necessarily like college sweetheart but I would say that because of being together on an offer so long we felt like the next step was gonna be to move in together to start a family. we did talk about getting engaged. I ended up having my daughter before any of those things happened and so the relationship ended up not working and so found myself in a situation where I had to decide to continue down the path of this relationship that feels on and off and continue to build that or do I do this by myself as a single mom and figure out the dating side starting over later to meet it was like a gut reaction and it was always this like listening to my intuition that it wasn't GonNa work and so I I decided to raise my daughter on my own. It ended up being seven years which is crazy when I think about it because now she's like this preteen and just had her in a actually just hadn't baby two months ago so I have a girl old. Were you when you had your first baby so I was a kid twenty. Two turning twenty the three and just graduated college just graduated Calgary literally. I was finishing my finals and all of those wrap it up courses. While I was the birth I was trying to wrap all this up and trying to just figure out next steps for life. So what was your reaction. When you found out you were pregnant I bet on my gosh. That's such a question because I think that there's a lot of seeking stories that we hear where it's like. You're excited and there's this magical moment but but there's so much stuff that goes through your head when you find out you're pregnant when you're not expecting to be pregnant which is half of all pregnant so this unplanned unplanned. Half of all pregnancies are unplanned implant. Wow Yeah so I felt very like confused. I felt overwhelmed. I did feel happy and excited just just because I pictured this journey of motherhood being like once in a lifetime so there were so many mixed emotions on it so at twenty two you did envision Asian yourself being a mother or was this something that never crossed your mind until then I knew I wanted to be a mother definitely not that young and the thing was that I felt like I had a supportive community.

You know how they say. It takes a village when I was weighing options and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I ultimately gently decided I could do this on my own because I had that college degree Andrew My bell. I had a supportive family. I felt like I could co parent with her. Dad So there were a lot of layers to this but ultimately I decided I wanna do this and I want to experience motherhood and it won't be in a traditional. I'm doing like air away but I was. I was excited. Although I knew that it was going to be really tough and did the father did he want to stay in the picture and be part of your child's life totally and he the thing is that I think when we're in college we're figuring out so much about ourselves and a lot of people do become college sweethearts and they end up being together and getting married and all them but for us. We were just nominated to be in a relationship. I felt like it was an interesting time where he did take some time to figure himself foul. I would say for about a year and so that year of completely doing it on my own was when it was like this realization that we have a lot of power as human beings to handle a lot on our plate and I was figuring out I want to go to Grad school raising this baby curl trying to get a job. There were so many pieces to it so I had that year processing I would say so walk us through the timeline you graduate college and you have to get it like okay so was dating somebody on and off for about four years during the fourth year which is like when most people are graduating college got pregnant and so. I was really Gung Ho on I'm finishing this. I'm going to finish am not taking a gap year. I WanNa Finish College so I was taking classes while I was pregnant while at cal and I was the only only one who was openly like showing pregnant in any of my classes so there was just that whole story openly as in some people may have been pregnant. We just didn't want to show it right right right right and so I was going through that process. I ended up having my daughter Amoebic three months after I graduated from that point on like I was basically single single mom during my pregnancy. I separated from her dad during the pregnancy when I decided I was going to do this on my own. It was interesting because I think that everybody Eddie was pretty much on board to support me but I don't think anybody really realized how much work it was gonna be so for example God bless. My parents were amazing but basically after the a year of graduating that was when I was on my own with Alani. That's her name okay if my daughter Rani. That's a great name. Now I mean I can't imagine because we have some friends who are pregnant. Order have given birth know mount help could ever make you feel less overwhelmed a new parent so I can't imagine the kind of stress that you're going through it there's only to did you and her father like get back together or was that when he was out of the picture we never got back together. Okay drew a line in the sand and I said if I'm going to do this I'm going to X. Wchs make it so that this is my journey with her and I'm not going to expect anything although I really hope that he steps up to the plate and does the co-parenting thing with me. All all of that good stuff has never got married or anything we actually we were married that last year it was like six months. You were married big part of uh-huh. That's very mature way. So you got married like media. That year was like a blur because it was like colleges ending. He asked me to marry him and we found out we were having her. I quickly saw that. He was not who he said he was. It was like everything all at one. Eh grew up in a I don't WANNA say super traditional household but Latino households tend to be pretty religious in general so the idea of having a baby but not being married was like constantly only something today I do not follow religion in the same way but it was something that was always on my mind and being that young you know we're still figuring it out. I did feel feel. The pressure of get married have the baby and today now seeing looking at it backwards of psycho. I was so young I treasure. You really really no need. I feel like that's like logical so you got married and divorced before Alani was even born got married when I was pregnant. Okay six months happen so now take it to like six or seven months of pregnancy. I'm realizing there's a lot of stuff about this man that I did not realize and that did not like and I did not want a child to be a part of I separated from him and once I had her went through the official paperwork to get divorced are Scott it. Did he propose because of the pregnancy. I think that was a big moment like a big trigger for him but we had been talking about it. It just it was this thing where I realized that our goals were no longer aligned in college.

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