Being Raised by a Single Mother in India

Being raised by a single mother in a country like India is more often than not a harsh lived experience that no one should belittle or discount.

Even within the subset of people raised by single mothers in our country, people may have different experiences. For instance, as a woman who was raised by a single mother in a place like Haryana, my experiences are very different from a male friend who was raised by his single mother in Mumbai.

Yet, both of us know that while growing up, our lives were fundamentally different from folks around us who casually called their parents “folks”. That plurality in the reference which comes naturally to so many people is something they don’t pay heed to. We notice it because it is something we are acutely aware of not having.

But it’s not something that puts us on the back foot.

In fact, in the times that we are in, being raised by a single mother only puts us at an advantage, for it gives us unique perspectives on many things in life that no degree can provide.

In that sense, it is an educational qualification that we should actively consider mentioning on our CVs.

Recently, someone tried to do just that. But they were derided for it in a viral thread about CVs/resumes that evoked polarising reactions on Twitter. “I really don’t need to know that you were ‘raised by a single mom’,” said the user in their thread.

And it got me thinking about why someone would have thought of putting something so personal in their CV because I have never thought about mentioning it in my resume.

I realised it’s because being raised by a single mother is one of the most significant factors that shape our personality.

In most cases, being raised by a single mother means having a different worldview because we don’t grow up seeing a gender-wise demarcation of roles — because our mother does everything.

I have seen that men brought up by single mothers are less likely to exhibit sexist tendencies at work and in life because they have seen their mothers fight to sustain their family in a male-dominated world.

I grew up to be financially independent because I have seen my mother raise us with no safety nets to fall back on. I think I’m also a bit more ambitious because my mother braved hardships both at work and at home to raise us, and yet excelled at both. It inspires me like no superhero tale.

Being raised by a single mother means that a lot of us learn to make ourselves strong enough to lead a life all by ourselves.

We learn to fight for and protect ourselves because we are always aware that the world thinks we are an easy target as we don’t have a father to protect us.

If someone is telling you in their CV that they were raised by a single mother, they are giving you a chance to have a conversation about what that means to them and what that could, potentially, mean to what they can bring to the workplace.

We are the people who have lived in unconventional family units that are only becoming more commonplace now, as parts of the country, and the world, see a glimmer of a progressive attitude towards women… giving room to single-mother households, single adoptive mother households, lesbian households, et al, to thrive.

When you are raised by a single mother, you unconsciously practise the Japanese art of wabi-sabi (embracing the imperfect) from the get-go.

We always start with “incomplete” as our best-case scenario. And we are bloody proud of that.

I hope more people talk about being raised by single mothers in their CVs and during their interviews and in life, in general. I hope people on the other side keep an open mind in understanding how much can be learnt from the lived experiences of people like us that cannot (voluntarily) be acquired.