Living Last Call for Motherhood

By Jill Smolowe

At monthly meetings of Single Mothers by Choice in New York City, coded name tags speak volumes about the complexities of modern-day parenthood. The letter T indicates the woman is thinking about having a baby on her own. A signals that she is attempting to get pregnant. P announces that she has succeeded. M is for mother. The second letter on the tag flags her method of choice. I means donor insemination. N specifies a sex partner. A stands for adoption.

The women who wear the tags are pioneering the way -- by choice -- toward yet another permutation of the American family. They have made a calculated and intentional decision to raise a child single-handedly, despite a tangle of cultural, biological and sometimes legal complications. Virtually all either have tired of waiting for Mr. Right or have no interest in finding him. Most are women who have achieved a measure of economic self-sufficiency but have delayed childbearing to the point where they hear their biological clocks approaching midnight. "I could imagine going through life without a man," explains Paula Van Ness, 39, executive director of the National Community AIDS Partnership in Washington, "but I couldn't imagine going through life without a child. My biological clock started sounding like a time bomb."

Though the numbers of single mothers remain small, the ranks are rapidly rising. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that from 1980 to 1988 the birthrate among unmarried white women between the ages of 30 and 34 surged 68%, and 69% for those 35 to 39. Merle Bombardieri, a Boston-area psychotherapist, says that of the almost 1,000 women contemplating single motherhood whom she has counseled, about two-thirds are heterosexual and one- third lesbian.

Gail, a 38-year-old Los Angeles accountant, had been through a divorce and several failed romances when she began contemplating her decision. "My relationships were not developing along the course I had hoped," she says. "I really love kids and feel I have a lot to offer." She discussed the idea of single motherhood with her own mother, friends and a psychotherapist. But it was concern about encountering fertility problems as she grew older that convinced her that "the time had come." She was impregnated by donor insemination, and was expecting a baby in late October.

While such a choice is unconventional, it is also natural, argues Dr. Robert Nachtigall, a reproductive endocrinologist in San Francisco. Because women have a monthly hormonal cycle, "they can't escape the fact that their bodies are telling them to do something," he says. "The biological drive to reproduce may be stronger than the cultural yen to get married."

Once a single woman has decided to follow that drive, she faces a choice of methods. Each option presents its own perils. For adoption, there are long waits, deals that fall through, no control over genes. Intercourse with a selected partner or insemination by a known donor can open the door to future wrangles over custodial rights. Hence many women opt for insemination with the sperm of a faceless donor. The amount of information about the donor varies from clinic to clinic; a few provide detailed medical histories and personal profiles.

Anonymous insemination does raise a touchy issue: what to say when the child yearns to know who his or her father is. "They are not going to be happy being told their dad is No. 456," says Dr. Cappy Rothman, who heads the California Cryobank in Los Angeles. Some single mothers, sensitized by the related debate regarding adoption, want to carve out an option for their children now. The Sperm Bank of California in Oakland offers a new contract that, if signed by both sperm donor and mother, would allow a child access to his father's name upon turning 18. Lawyers warn, however, that such contracts are largely untested in the courts.

Women who embark on single motherhood cannot overestimate what "a tremendous undertaking" it is, says Suzanne Bates, 42, a Manhattan certified public accountant who has adopted a Paraguayan baby girl. Every parental concern, from finding child care to coping with illness, weighs more heavily on the single parent. As for the children, no one can yet say what the psychological consequences will be. Will these families be any different from the countless American households in which a father is missing through divorce or death? Many single mothers argue that the truly wanted child of a single mother is better off than a child who must contend with constant conflict between divorced or unhappily married parents. Jane Mattes, a New York City psychotherapist and director of Single Mothers by Choice, advises her fellow single mothers to "stress the positive" with their children and emphasize how loved they are. She tells how her son, age 10, once commented, "Wasn't my dad silly not to want to be a dad? He is missing out on all this fun." Little did that youngster know it is precisely the desire not to miss out that is propelling women like his mom to take the bold, unconventional step of becoming a single mother.

With reporting by Melissa Ludtke/Boston and Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles