A long time ago, family used to mean a mom, a dad, two kids, and a minivan. But these days, families are fluid. I grew up understanding that there are countless ways for a family to exist: single parents, kids raised by their grandparents, same-sex parents, couples who call their dogs their "kids." Which is why I was stunned at the way people reacted when I got pregnant and chose not to marry my long-term boyfriend after the birth of our son.
My partner and I met in college and were together for nearly six years before we had our son. Admittedly, having Leo wasn't planned, but we quickly found our little "oops" to be the happiest accident either of us had ever had. We were in love, already living together, both with pretty stable and relatively well-paying jobs. And while we had no idea how to raise a child — because who ever does? — ours seemed like a good environment to bring a baby into. Until the pressure started mounting, at least.
Once we revealed our happy little secret, friends, family, and even work colleagues made a habit of asking us when we were going to get married, directly and indirectly implying that it was the best thing to do "for our child." My own mother, who married my father young, divorced him shortly after the birth of my younger sister, and has ardently refused to get married again, even expressed these views. "Are you and Michael going to get married before the baby comes?" she asked me one day over lunch when I was five months pregnant. "It doesn't have to be a big thing, you guys can just go to the courthouse."
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While I managed to brush her off with some careful deflection, my partner's parents were a little more adamant. It took months of long, tense conversations and uncomfortably stiff comments about the state of our relationship before we could convince them that our child wasn't going to be shunned by his future peers because his mom and dad weren't married.
As the daughter of two happily divorced parents, I was confident in my view that marriage doesn't automatically create perfect families. My own "broken" family had managed just fine. Hell, one of the happiest families I'd ever seen belonged to my great aunt, who'd gotten pregnant in the '70s and proceeded to "shack up" with her boyfriend and daughter for the next 40 years in what appeared to be a pretty blissful life.
Still, even with my firsthand knowledge of the many forms in which families function, I became increasingly unsure as time passed. Would my child feel less loved if my partner and I raised him as an unmarried couple? Would his happiness be constantly overshadowed by the fact that Mama and Daddy weren't technically man and wife? Even with our strong convictions, my partner and I felt that giving in and "just getting it over with" would lighten the emotional load our well-intentioned family and friends had placed on us.
But we didn't do it. Instead, we talked about what staying unmarried would mean for us as a family. How we would operate, how we would deal with things like insurance, taxes, homeownership, and savings. We were even forced to tackle the tough subject of what would happen with our child should we ever separate. Our conversations brought out a new level of maturity and closeness that hadn't previously existed in our relationship. In the end, we had a clear idea of what we wanted our family to look like and an even deeper understanding of how much we loved our child and each other.
These conversations also brought about a deep understanding that our unmarried status would be a source of contention for a lot of people for a long time. My son is nearing 2 now. He is happy, healthy, and as playful as a child can be. Even though it's clear to most that my partner and I are doing a pretty decent job of raising our kid, we are still often faced with judgments — both sly and obvious.
During my short-lived time in one particular, small mom group, I was the only unmarried woman in the bunch. While the group wasn't a good fit for me for a number of reasons, it was comments from group's de facto leader that finally forced me to leave it behind. "I just feel like marriage adds a certain sense of security," she'd say with faux concern.
While I refrained from doing what I really wanted to do — which was to release my inner bitch and tell her to kindly go to hell — I said nothing, instead choosing to remove myself from the situation altogether. But that wasn't the first or last time others offered their judgments about my status as an unwed mother.
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Constantly having to call people out on their ignorance about my family and relationship is exhausting, so it is something I try to avoid as much as possible. But I do still try to educate people. I try to explain that being unmarried doesn't make me or my family less-than. There's no ring on my finger, but there is someone by my side constantly — someone who I have chosen to raise a child with; someone who takes great pride in his title as a parent; someone who makes me almost disgustingly happy to be in a relationship.
In understanding the different ways that a family can exist, it is important to show respect and consideration for how other people want to live their lives — even mothers like me who have chosen to shirk the more "traditional" familial expectations. I'm not married and probably won't be anytime soon, but I refuse to let other people's bullshit hangups influence the way I feel about my family.
