Word of Mouth: Irate Single Mothers, Please Think Before You Speak.

Everyone was quiet during the sleepy train ride to work yesterday morning with the exception of one riled up mother.

She was yapping away on her cell phone to her "no good" baby father.

I closed my eyes, turned up my iPod and tried to tune her out. But phrases like "You ain't shit" "you good for nothing" and "I wish I never fucked with you," overpowered the Adele that was now blaring from my earphones.

I didn't get too upset. I knew it was only a matter of time before she was forced to pipe down and hang up the phone when she lost her signal in the tunnel.

I was right. Once the train hit the tunnel, her call dropped and all was right in the world until she started directing her baby daddy grievances toward someone else on the train instead.

I finally had to turn around to see who this woman was and who had become her unlucky sounding board.

My jaw dropped.



There she was, an attractive, black woman with a short, perfectly coifed cut (think Janet Jackson's new hairstyle), possibly mid-twenties telling her son (he couldn't have been any older than five or six-years-old) that his father was the scum of the earth.

"I can't stand your father," she said loud enough for everyone within a 1/2 mile radius to hear. "He's such a coward. He's constantly lying to me. Lie after lie after goddamn lie. When is he gonna man up?"

The little boy sat stone-faced looking head on while he fiddled with an action figure in his hand and the Spiderman book bag that sat in his lap.

It was hard to read his face. I couldn't tell if he was embarrassed because everyone on the train now knew he had a loser for a father and a mother who clearly didn't understand how inappropriate her public tirade was. Or if he had grown so accustomed to his mother's rants, that his stoic facial expression was a coping mechanism he had developed to help tune her out. Either way, her question remained unanswered.

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Single Mothers:

I know your life is no crystal stair.

I'm the product of a single-parent home. I watched my mother work a full-time job, keep a roof over my head, food on the table and gifts under the Christmas tree every year all on her own.

I remember her crying when someone threatened to call social services on her because they found out I was staying home alone after school until she got in from work.

I remember her schlepping to my parent/teacher nights dead tired; teaching me how to cross the street when it was time for me to start walking myself to school; showing me how to use the microwave to heat up food for myself when she worked on the weekends.

She did it all by herself.

But what she didn't do was degrade my father to my face. And trust me, she had every reason to do so.

My father went to prison when I was two-years-old and wasn't released until I was twelve. My mother never received one red cent of child support. And when he was "free" to be a father to me, he was so busy violating his parole, getting high and coming to grips with his sexuality, that he screwed up practically every opportunity he had to make amends.

She could have had a field day telling me what an awful person he was.

But what good would it have done? Made my father step up to his responsibilities faster? Made me appreciate my mother more? No.

But what it could have done was cause me to wonder if my mother regretted having me. Made me feel like a burden she was stuck with. Left me questioning my own self-worth.

My mother allowed his absence to speak for itself and griped about his deadbeat ways to herself, close friends or through prayer to keep from talking to me about it.

I'm not condoning that you paint some imaginary, fanciful image of your child's father for your children. But I believe it's important for children to get to know their absentee fathers in their own right. Their reputations need not precede them.

My mother said one of the hardest things for her to do was to allow me to get to know my father on my own terms. She knew that he would leave me hurt and disappointed, which he did. But it was something that I needed to experience on my own so that I could formulate my own opinion of him based on my interactions and experiences, not hers.

Looking back, it's the best thing she could have done.  It left the door open for him to rectify his wrongs and make a fresh start with me when/if he chose to do so.

Don't get me wrong. I was no fool. I knew there was something about him that was off. I was visiting him in jail after all. But by keeping mum, my mother made my father accountable for his wrongdoings and responsible for explaining his situation and bad choices to me.

I'm not saying my mother is the poster child for single motherhood. Every situation is different. But I feel like it's a selfish display of misplaced frustrations and emotions when you badmouth your child's father in their presence.   Remember, once you've vented and moved on to something else, your child is still left to digest and compartmentalize the anger you've shown towards their father.

Yes, there are a lot of men out there who are horrible fathers. But in the words of my favorite playwright August Wilson: You can't visit the sins of the father upon the child.

Who knows? Maybe I just caught the woman on the train on an off day. I don't know her life story or what the father of her child had done (or not done) to upset her. She left that part out. And for all I know, the little boy's father could very well play an active role in his child's life.

But I doubt it.

I've heard those debilitating phrases used as daggers in the war of words on nonexistent dads time and time again.  I just wish mothers would keep in mind how easily their children can get caught in the crossfire.

What do you think about this topic?

I'd love to hear from the single mothers out there who have strained relationships with their children's father.

What's your take on this situation? Do you bicker with your children's father or badmouth him in their presence? Got any tips on how mother's can avoid this pitfall?

Were any of my readers raised in single mother households?

Although your father may not have established or maintained a presence in your life, did your mother manage to stay neutral, leaving your impression of him untarnished?

Talk to me.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.