Single motherhood

Listen to article

Motherhood is celebrated with sentiment, but single motherhood — arguably one of its most demanding forms — remains cloaked in silence and social discomfort. The system acts as a monster striving to devour the spirit of these mothers and their children.

Whether due to widowhood, divorce, abandonment or separation, single mothers in Pakistan face systematic discrimination. At every step, a challenge awaits them as Kiran M, a single mother and a psychologist, explained and I quote, on these pages for readers to know there is light at the end of the tunnel — always.

"My name is Kiran, and I never imagined I would be a single mother at 29. I grew up in Lahore, in an educated household. I got married at 22 to a man I thought I'd grow old with. But soon the reality struck me on my bridal makeup-matted face. Even the initial days were hard; money was tight for me, and affection was extinct. My husband, although highly educated, refused to show an ounce of respect to me.

He suffered from childhood trauma and came from a home where abusing women was the norm. As if this was not enough, he would tell me stories of his girlfriend and how he gifted them while I starved, even for my meals. It continued until one night I was kicked out of the house and my five-month-old daughter was taken away.

"Grief didn't come with a manual. One moment I was a wife, and in the next, I was on the street without my baby and a world to figure out at my parents' house. People came, offered condolences, and then disappeared. Bills didn't. I reeled at the absence of my baby. I had to file for her custody, file for khula, needed money, needed a job, and had to deal with outbursts of my emotions, more painfully — all alone!

"I applied to a local school for a teaching job but was told they preferred women with 'husband support' because the hours were long. I started tutoring kids at home, sometimes up to ten in a day, to make ends meet. What hurt more than hunger was how society saw me — as if I was incomplete, a burden, someone to be pitied, or worse, gossiped about.

"But I refused to let that be my story.

"I got custody of my child with the help of my family. I created a small learning space in my home, not just for income but for other women like me. Within months, four other single mothers were sending their kids to me. Meanwhile, I completed my education as a psychologist from a leading university on scholarship. Alia was always with me in courtrooms, conference halls, board meeting or seminars.

"Alia is nine now. She reads better than most of her classmates. I still face judgment but I don't want sympathy. I want dignity. I want policies that recognise unpaid caregiving. I want schools that don't charge discriminatory fees from fatherless children. I want single mothers to be seen — not as broken — but as brave."

These are not isolated stories - they echo across Pakistan, in whispered support groups, late-night tutoring sessions, and legal aid queues. Yet the systemic barriers remain unchanged. Single mothers often face immense difficulty obtaining child passports, inheritance rights, and even accessing healthcare without male guardianship.

Maternity policies typically assume the presence of a nuclear family, while no major public sector policy explicitly recognises the legal or emotional burden shouldered by single-parent households. Culturally, too, they are frequently marginalised - excluded from school parent-teacher meetings, judged in job interviews and labelled in extended families.

There are no crash courses for grief-fuelled motherhood, no government support for solo caregiving, and almost no representation of these women in media without stigma. Yet, these women are everywhere — raising children, earning, grieving, protecting, and often doing all of it in silence.

As a society, we owe them not pity, but respect, visibility and support. It is time we wrote them into the national narrative — not as exceptions, but as examples of quiet strength and everyday leadership.