Being classified as "single" typically implies that you are alone. Without love, without companionship, without a man or woman...ALONE. Attaching the words "single" and "mom" together creates the idea that someone is a "lonely mom", a woman who is fending for herself, a woman who is raising her child without a partner, a woman who comes home to an empty house at the end of the day, or exists with her passenger seat perpetually empty (until her child is old enough to ride in the front seat, that is)-alone.
Being a single mom doesn't mean "alone" at all. In fact, I would argue that it is the polar opposite. When you become a single mom, you are literally NEVER alone again. There are 8,760 hours in a regular 365 day year and beginning the day your child is born, as a single mom, each of those hours is spent in the company of that child.
It could be argued that you are alone when you go to work, the grocery, an evening out to dinner with girlfriends, etc...but you aren't alone then either. In most work places, there is at least one or two people around you at any given time, and I don't know about you, but I've never been to an empty grocery store. Heck, if it was legitimately ever empty I'd say we would all be getting free groceries that day because that would imply that there were no employees either.
Some single moms have the luxury of working from home and being able to be present 100% of the time in their child's life. I am lucky to be one of those very very few moms. I have created that opportunity for myself and although I am home "alone" all day, I never pee alone, bathe alone, watch tv alone, sleep alone, work alone, go for a walk or a car ride alone, or any of the things that I once did by myself. If the word single implies that I am solo which ultimately means alone, then I am most certainly NOT a single mom.
On the off chance that something happens and you do find yourself alone as a mother, you still aren't alone. If your child isn't with you in body at any given moment during the day, they stay on your mind... running around and around and around inside of your head, leaving you completely exhausted at the end of the day regardless. You are literally never alone.
Despite never being alone as a "single mom", there are moments where you find yourself feeling more lonely than you ever imagined possible. It's lonely when you are watching a tv show or a movie and something funny happens and there is no one to laugh with...when your baby does something new and exciting and there isn't another parent to share the excitement with...when you sit down to eat dinner and there is no one across the table...when there isn't someone to argue about taking out the trash, doing the dishes, getting up in the middle of the night to change a diaper, etc...when your phone doesn't ring or notify you for anything not work or immediate family related for days at a time...when friends who once texted you daily fade into more of a memory than a friend...being a "single mom" isn't alone, but it sure as heck can be lonely.
We are not "single moms". I am not a "single mom". I am sometimes a lonely mom, but what mom isn't?!