Single mothers

The percentage of households being headed by single mothers is rising in urban India. Most of the scholarship on single mothers in India has examined their financial struggles and their overall lack of support from the state. Despite such economic and emotional hardships, the number of single mothers continues to rise in India. Probing deeper into the experience of being a single mother in India, a country which largely functions on the two-parent norm, this chapter explores the aspirations, career choices and the mother-child relationship of divorced and widowed mothers belonging to different class groups and residing in urban areas of India. Through in-depth interviews administered among single mothers who hold professional white-collar jobs and single mothers who belong to lower-income groups and work as domestic help, this chapter shows how, in spite of many challenges and the stigma of being a single mother, these mothers continue to harbour aspirations for their children. Scholars have noted that post marriage women and their children are mostly the responsibility of the husband, and his family and married women receive limited support from their own natal kin. The situation is particularly complicated for widows who often have to rely on their sons for financial security. In contrast to these studies, this chapter draws upon the scholarship of changing aspirations, neoliberalism and upward mobility among different class groups of India and highlights how single mothers in urban India are valuing education and salaried jobs for their children and utilising all their resources as well as foregoing their own desires and needs for another husband with the aim of providing the best opportunities for their children. In addition to highlighting the everyday concerns of being a single mother, this chapter also unpacks the many support systems and networks of care developed by these mothers to attain a balance in their jobs and motherhood roles. Finally, against the backdrop of the pandemic, this chapter indicates how the mother-child bond was strengthened owing to a global public health crisis.