Even though, Mothers Day is celebrated on November in Russia, I think that each day in the calendar we must celebrate as if it was this special day. If you ask me who should be the national hero, or to whom we should build a monument – I will say- to our Mothers.  And if you take a really good look at Russian mothers, I think you would agree they are truly our heroes!

According to statistics each 7^th child in Russia is brought up in a single parent household. Of course 94% of such families are composed by single mothers. More than 10 million Russian women are single mothers and many of them have two, three or even four children. Here’s a quotation from a single-mothers website:

“What to do if you are left alone with the child? First, don’t panic and don’t get depressed because nowadays it is fairly common. Now you don’t depend on anyone and have a great opportunity to take your own decisions and bring up your own child”.

Today, with these types of messages, women prefer to keep their children not giving much importance to the fact that most of them are fairly young they take full responsibility of their kids.

My best friend is the perfect example of a single mother bringing up her own child: the State pays her ք 3,700.00 rubles a moth – which is roughly dlls $100.00, which is obviously not sufficient to sustain the usage of hygiene products, food, and clothing of a fast growing child. So what should a girl do? The obvious answer is to work of course!

 But what happens when a single mother goes to work? Where does she leave her child during her work day? The director of the Department of Education said that 1,7 million Russian children that come from single parent environments can’t be accommodated in daycare. Of course, after the Soviet collapsed most of the existing daycares have been privatized and converted into casinos and malls.

So the only way to make ends meet is to call upon the grandparents to help with the babysitting, as well as working double shifts, or getting extra jobs to sustain the family’s economic situation. That’s what 10 million Russian women do every single day, that’s what my mom did. And you know what? I was a happy child! As happy as my mates, who by the way none became criminals even though not a single one of them came from traditional family structure.

Screw the statistics! Single mothers are heroes! And they have been bringing us up, providing us with our primary needs, development opportunities and a love that not all children get in “traditional” families. Now my friends are consciously becoming single mothers because they know that there is no greater happiness than having a family. Although I do wish the State could help them more, if not economically, with household supplies.

Post written by Ira Phedorenko/ Vladivostok on the move

Picture taken from Flickr Creative Commons Attribution License “MFC-Mother and Child”, by user catnipstudio flickr.com/photos/catnipstudio/4158739622/