“Tomorrow will be two years since I became a mother. Every day I am thankful for it and quietly dream that I would like 3 more children, but apparently, that will remain just a dream,” began S. Žemaitytė in her post, not hiding that this day is very emotional for her and brings tears to her eyes.
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The woman admitted that it is now she has come to a deep understanding of what she has truly done over these two years and what hundreds of thousands of other single mothers do every day. S. Žemaitytė did not hide her anger towards men who think they have the right not to care for their offspring (she openly calls them “curds”), but even greater disappointment is caused by the double standards of society.
“I am amazed by our society, which scolds the single mothers, drinks beer, eats octopus, and as if nothing, punches fists and supports them on the shoulder. They create businesses… What do you think a person who abandons their own child to fate can do?” asked the event organizer rhetorically.
Meanwhile, according to her, women with children in their arms are forced to collect receipts in stores to prove to former partners that the child does not live on air alone. S. Žemaitytė also shared shocking but real situations women face: “Those fathers come to their children if the weather conditions are good. Yes, yes, I am not joking – ‘I will come to the child if the weather allows.’ Or they ask the woman for the receipt for childbirth and offer to split the expenses in half. Or, when the child is sick, they simply block the mother’s number. And that’s it – no problem.”
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During these two years of motherhood, S. Žemaitytė says she has understood one undeniable truth – single mothers are endowed with simply inhuman strength. They work, raise children, do not sleep, take them to doctors, pay bills, and comfort children even when “they themselves want someone to carry them at least once.”
Nevertheless, she urges society to change its attitude and stop romanticizing the hardships women endure. “I don’t want us to just say: ‘How strong you are.’ I don’t want a single mother to have to be strong. I want us to start asking not the mother how she manages everything alone, but the father – why she does everything alone at all?” emphasized S. Žemaitytė.
She ended her sensitive post by expressing hope that one day she will manage to contribute at least a little to making it easier for mothers raising children alone in Lithuania. She calls her son Petras the greatest gift of her life and the main reason to “speak loudly about what has been conveniently silent for too long.”
