18 I There’s Nothing Wrong With You! You’re Just Single

Almost half of American adults are single, yet we still treat being unpartnered as a problem to solve. But being single is not better or worse than being in a relationship, it’s just a different experience. In this episode, Julia interviews her single friends about what they love about being single and how they navigate a world built for couples. 

Then she chats with author Glynnis MacNicol about challenging the narrative that women need to be partnered to be happy.  

Check out Glynnis MacNicol’s books, No One Tells You This and I’m Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself. You can read her New York Times articles here.

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.
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Julia Winston: I’m Julia Winston and this is Refamulating, a podcast that explores all the ways to make a family.

How would you describe yourself? For me, the first place my mind goes is: I’m a 40-year old Jewish woman, I’m unmarried and child-free, I’m a Texan, I’m a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a podcast host. I’m a bunch of other things too, of course, but these are the labels society puts on me - and the labels I put on myself.

For most of my life, "single” has been one of the most prominent labels I would use to describe myself. “Single.” It’s a loaded word, and for me it has come with many joys and many challenges. One of the reasons I started this show is because I wanted to feel less alone as I wrestled with the question, “what does family mean for me as a single person?” I donated my eggs to help other people start their family and that felt great but who would my family be? 

To be honest, I always felt a lot of shame about being single. I’ve had a great career, I’m blessed with many friends, I even bought a house, but for most of my adult life I haven’t had a romantic partner and that missing puzzle piece has made me feel like a failure.

But why? Why have I felt that way? Well, because society told me to. Our larger culture told me I should be partnered. That message has been hammered into each of us from every possible direction since the moment we entered the world. We hear it from older generations, we see it in the movies and the media, and we feel it in our laws and policies, which all favor heteronormative couples. 

So when I learned that almost half of American adults are single - that is people who have never been married or have been divorced or widowed - I was stunned. How could our social narratives be so out of balance with reality? 

This statistic comforted me because I felt less alone. I realized this is not a "me" problem, and in fact maybe it's not a problem at all. Maybe being single these days is just normal. 

But I also found it disturbing, because it likely means that around half the adult population in the US feels the way I’ve felt, which is to say: inadequate. Inferior. Incomplete.  

As we discussed in episode 11, Reframing the American Dream: Part 1, there are many other ways humans have lived throughout history that do not reflect couples and nuclear families. We are hurting ourselves by perpetuating this story that we should all be coupled. We’re especially hurting women, and we have been for a long time.

The purpose of this episode is not to analyze why so many of us are single these days. The intention here is to simply honor the experience of being a single person in today’s world. And with Valentine’s Day coming up this week, what better time to celebrate single people, who never get any love on Valentine’s Day?

A personal note here: I’m someone who has been single for most Valentine’s Days throughout my life, but since we started working on this episode, I’ve actually started a relationship with someone who feels like a true fit - something I’ve never experienced until now. So going back to that question I posed about how you would describe yourself - well, my sense of self is changing. When it comes to being single, I am refamulating. But I will never forget how it feels to be single in a world that glorifies romantic partnership. 

And by the way, partnership is not a fixed state. Just because you’re partnered now, doesn’t mean you always were, or that you always will be. We all have or will live our lives as a single person at some point. And being single is not better or worse than being in a relationship, it’s just a different experience. So if we want to extend more love to the single versions of ourselves we’ve been or will be - and to almost half of today’s U.S. population - it’s up to all of us to flip the script. 

First, I’m going to introduce you to some of the amazing single people I know about their experiences…

Margie: I'm happy I'm single because the alternative isn't Prince Charming. It's one of the losers I've dated

Julia Winston: bGlynnis MacNicol: I'm enjoying the person that I am. I think the irony of sort of sliding off cultural narrative is it can be both punishing, but it can be both freeing too, because there's no path laid out here for me of how this is supposed to go. So I'm going to continue down the path of what makes me feel the best.

Julia Winston: This one goes out to all the single people out there. I see you. And guess what? There’s nothing wrong with you. And also…I love you.

 Julia Winston: Hosting a podcast is a great excuse to ask people probing questions about deep shit and I wanted to go deep about being single. So I reached out to a handful of single people I know. They all live in different places and have been single for different amounts of time. These are people I know who I’ve been in the trenches with for years when it comes to being single. Being single gets a bad rap but I know that there are so many awesome things about it. So the first thing I wanted to know is what do they love about being single?

Margie: Making big life decisions like by myself and doing whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it.

Julia Winston: This is my friend Margie. She’s in her early 40s, she’s one of the most brilliant women I know. And she’s been single for a long time.

Joanna: Generally speaking, just not having to navigate someone else's schedule or preferences feels very liberating and freeing.

Julia Winston: That's Joanna, one of my closest friends who lives in Oakland.

And this is Alex, we used to work together.

Alex: Mostly, I love the freedom and flexibility that I get to choose my own path and have my own life 

Rachel: to me, being single is a luxurious way to spend the day. Um, I can choose how to fill my time, how not to fill my time without having to explain it or justify it. 

Julia Winston: That's Rachel, she’s a writer and one of my besties in Austin.

Rey Joaquin: I think what I love about being single is that I can Walk around naked and not have to put myself together for anybody 

Julia Winston: Yes honey, me too Rey. I looooove walking around naked! 

Allie: it's just nice to sort of be free and in my own energy and able to move about the world, um, thinking about myself and what feels best for me as opposed to always having to compromise with another person.

Julia Winston: Allie is a soul sister music producer who lives in both Berlin and Mexico City. 

Tal Lee: I'm an empath, and so when I'm with someone else, it's almost compulsive that I'm constantly thinking about what they need, what they're feeling, what their schedule is, what their people are doing. 

Julia Winston: That’s my friend Tal Lee, who actually reminded me about a bunch of reasons I’ve loved being single. 

Tal Lee: there's something really freeing about not having that second center of gravity and being just truly centered in myself. I feel like I get to be a really good friend because my friends are my community and my relationships right now. I get to do a really kick ass job at work because I can work in the evenings if I need to or want to and can kind of organize my life around that to the degree that that feels right. And then I get to be really present and committed to my hobbies because I can spend Friday night tango dancing or spend all of Sunday gardening, um, and there's really nothing holding me back from that.

Julia Winston: I think we’re expected to beat ourselves up for being single but actually for many of us, but if you haven’t met someone who feels like a good fit, why would you give up all the awesome things about being single? 

Margie: Like I'm happy I'm single because the alternative isn't Prince Charming. It's one of the losers I've dated and I'm so happy I haven't married any of the losers I've dated. I want big partnership. I don't want just to feel validated. And I feel like a lot of my friends got married cause they wanted to feel chosen and not left out  of this club.

And honestly, I think it's a little bit of a pyramid scheme.  And people keep recruiting you into it.  Join us in our misery. Yeah, join us. We're not going to tell you how bad, like, the margins are for these Cutco knives.

Julia Winston: So yes, there’s a lot to appreciate about being single. And we shouldn’t overlook these things! But I don’t want to sugar coat it because like anything in life, there are times when being single sucks. I know this intimately well, but I wanted to hear about it from other people. I found it healing to hear from my friends about what they find challenging about being single.  

Rachel: I often worry what people think, not what they think about me being single, but whether they think that me being single means that someone doesn't want to be with me or some type of narrative that there's something wrong with me.

Julia Winston: Girl, me too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt that way. Hearing this from another person made me feel less alone, but it also bummed me out because I think a lot of people feel that way. When I asked what their biggest insecurities are about being single, that feeling was at the core.

Tal Lee: I think the biggest one is that there must be something wrong with me

Joanna: how people perceive me and I think primarily if they think that there's something wrong with me.

Alex: I think the biggest thing is that our society isn't built for single people, and sometimes I feel insecure that I don't fit into the mold.

Rey Joaquin: I often think about How I'm not Good enough And perhaps maybe that's why I'm still single. 

Tal Lee: If everyone else has found their person and I haven't, that must mean I'm not enough in some way, that there's something wrong with me.

Rey Joaquin: So that bleeds into, like, I don't look a certain way, I'm too brown, I'm too gay, or not gay enough. I think all of that brings out a lot of, um, My insecurities about my worth.

Alex: I think a lot of people, especially in older generations, have some pity for single people or see it as a deficit and sometimes I take that on and feel like it is a deficit or something is broken within me.

Julia Winston: That's so true. I have a physical response in my body when I listen to all of these thoughts because I have felt this so deeply. It’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between how you feel and how other people think you should feel. Here’s Margie again:

Margie: I always feel like I'm okay with being single when I'm by myself. It's when I'm like with other people and they project things. And I'm like, wait, should I feel that way? Should I be nervous about that? it's subtle in the zeitgeist, but you can hear, like, I was just watching, like, a Real Housewives, uh, reunion, and a dig women give to other digs of, like, well, you, you're not even married.

So, like, as much as we've progressed, you still know there's a hierarchy, um, communicated subtly, directly, indirectly to you. people try to fix your singleness status a lot. Um, Where I'm like, you want me to fix your marital status? Because I know shit about your marriage that I'm not saying anything about. 

Julia Winston: Beyond negative perceptions about being single, there are some real practical challenges. 

Margie: I think there's like with singleness, there's a little bit of an existential dread, like no one's assigned to like, take care of you if something happens. If you lose your job, there's not a second salary you can, or like health insurance, you can draft off of for a couple of months. It's like, you've got to figure it out and quick.

Here's Joanna: 

Joanna: in a lot of ways that our society is shaped to support people who are in partnerships or traditional families, even as something as mundane as taxes, um, or going on a vacation. Typically the cost per person for a single person to go on a trip is 15 to 30 percent higher than that if you were to get like a double occupant. Occupancy, occupancy room, and it just makes me feel like I'm constantly being financially penalized for not having found the person that I want to spend my life with. Even in terms of sharing rent or buying a home, these things feel much more burdensome, um, not just financially, but in terms of major decision making because I'm making these decisions pretty much alone by myself.

I can't help but feel as if I'm just not meeting the same adult milestones as my peers. And as much as I've tried to think about the things I enjoy about my life and hold those present for myself, it does, your brain naturally compares yourself to the people that you spend your time with.

Julia Winston: Yup, check check check. I’ve definitely felt socially and financially punished for not having a partner. And it can be a really lonely experience because couples don’t have to worry about things like that. 

I know another thing that can be really stressful as a single person is wrestling with the question of what to do if you think you want to have kids. Not everyone I talked to wants to be a parent, but Tal Lee does. 

Tal Lee: when I think about fertility, the stress is around finding the partner to build a family with. I, I do have my eggs frozen, so I have the option, but I would really love to do it in partnership with someone.

So does Rachel: 

Rachel: I really want to be A mother and not because my biological clock is ticking or that I have maternal proclivities or that society expects it of me, but because there is this inner knowing and longing. 

Julia Winston: It is very vulnerable to talk so openly honestly about being single. I know first hand how private it is to think about the joys and the challenges, so I want to thank all of my friends for sharing their truths with us. 

I want to sit with this feeling of longing that Rachel just mentioned. This feeling of longing is like an old friend for me. We do ourselves a disservice by saying being single is either good or bad. Like everything in life, it’s all true. The complexity of accepting and loving your single life, while also longing for companionship is one of the most natural things in the world.

Rachel: I celebrate my independence. I just feel so fortunate to live this way, and I also recognize that that same feeling coexists with the part of me that aches for love and partnership. And the part of me who still does want to have this idealized family life in some way, shape or form, even though not only does it not look like the version that I imagined as a child, but I don't actually want it to look that way anymore. And still I am here struggling how to hold space for understanding that these two things Are in both conflict and in conversation with one another. 

Julia Winston: So for anyone listening who is single at this moment in time, everything you feel about being single is valid. We can hold it all. 

When we come back, we go deep about what it’s like to fully embrace being single with author Glynnis MacNicol.

Julia Winston: Anyone who has been single amidst a sea of married friends has probably, at some point, felt like a failure. And that’s because, especially for us women, we spend the first part of our lives being bombarded with stories and narratives about a woman FINALLY finding happiness when she falls in love. Or becomes a mother. So when you don’t achieve those things it’s easy to feel like you failed. But as I’ve gotten older and spent more time being single, I’ve realized that the feeling of failure has come from comparing myself to these stories. But what if there had been different stories to compare myself to? What if there were a slew of Disney movies about young girls pursuing a creative passion. Or a rom com about beautiful friendships and building community?  

Glynnis MacNicol: It's hard for me to think in a grounded way about partnership or even thinking of myself as being single in those terms because I just sort of have don't, Frame my life in those terms anymore.

Julia Winston: This is Glynnis Macnicol. She’s a writer who lives in New York City, and has written a lot about her life as a single, child-free woman in her 40s and now 50s.

Glynnis MacNicol: there's no happy stories about women that don't end with wedding or a baby, and like just purely enjoyment for enjoyment's sake. it's the absence of narratives to me. It's that so many women are leading lives,outside of, you know, motherhood outside of partnership, and we don't have any narratives attached to that, that we still default onto, you know, you're either frivolous or sad or bitter or lonely. And, and certainly we all experience, all people experience all of those emotions because we're, you know, human, but to attach those primarily to single women, I think far more than men .

Julia Winston: Glynnis has a lot to say about the stories we tell about single women. 

Glynnis MacNicol: I moved through the world with so many women who've made similar choices, and, uh, Few of us experience this is the primary way that we operate, and we're not seeing any versions of our life culturally that would even suggest that this is enjoyable, or there's pleasure to be had, or these choices are rewarding in and of themselves, or that we're fully fleshed out people all on our own without, you know, being parents or parenting.And so I we still don't know how to tell stories about women outside of these tropes, even as a majority of women are living outside of these tropes.

And so not seeing yourself reflected is punishing for anyone, right? It leads to unfair laws. And just personally, it can be excruciating to just not think that you exist in the world. You have to develop such a strong belief in your own experience you don't see it reflected because when there's no ritual or celebration around any element of your life, you just have to believe yourself that you're enjoying yourself.

Julia Winston: Glynnis writes about enjoying herself as a single, aging woman without kids. Her latest book, "I'm Just Here to Enjoy Myself," is a memoir about a summer of seeking pleasure in Paris the year she turned 50. Her first memoir, "No One Tells You This" is about when Glynnis turned 40 and chose to let go of the narrative that she was a failure because she was single. I read it when I turned 40, and I was single at the time so it was a very empowering perspective for me. 

Glynnis MacNicol: When I was turning 40 that came out of no one tells you this is that I was really having to ask myself Did I believe that I was enjoying the life I like my life wasn't an accident. It was intentional. Understanding it was intentional and then really asking myself, was I enjoying this life I had chosen for myself? I was having to make up my own mind about it with no reassurances in sort of the larger cultural narrative, and that's difficult and can feel very gaslighting. when you can't participate in cultural rituals You really have to say to yourself, like, I really am having a good time. 

Julia Winston:  Yeah the reality is, single people have to reassure themselves because cultural narratives tell us we shouldn’t be content until we find our person or get married. That’s when we’ve ARRIVED! 

But that’s ridiculous. Because not everyone in a relationship is happy or fulfilled, just like not everyone who’s single is happy or fulfilled. But sometimes people are! So if someone is having a great time being single, why would we discredit that? We don’t go around asking our married friends “are you SURE you’re happy”???? 

Glynnis mentioned cultural rituals and I want to dig into that. Things like weddings, baby showers, and housewarming parties are all popular celebrations - But all of these milestones are focused on the nuclear family. If you're like Glynnis, single and child-free, it’s like there’s no reason to celebrate. 

Glynnis MacNicol: The absence of a rite of passage, a tradition, is a narrative. There's a reason why we still struggle to have any films, again, that are not, She's a success. She either dies in the end or we know she's a success because, you know, she found love or Children like we thought they these rites of passage are narratives. And that's how we know that you have progressed. And when When you don't have a right of passage, you have no sense of momentum or that you or recognition that you have Progressed or your life is progressing. And subsequently, you are always the witness to other people's progress, but there's no witness to you.

This sense that you were the audience and not such a tick tock phrase, but like not main character energy. and I want the progress, the fact that I continue to develop and evolve and face challenges and become a different person is just as true, sometimes more so, when you're outside of partnership or parenthood than not, and it's How do you measure it when there's no measuring stick? I think is the thing that we are both coming back to and that sense of being left behind is simply because there is no way to measure how much you're progressing. 

Julia Winston: So if you're in your 30s or 40s and you're single. You've definitely gone through this experience that I'm about to describe. So your best friend gets married, or they get pregnant, they start building a family. Your life starts diverging. There's a chasm between you and the people that you've been closest to and something is getting lost.

Even if you're still really close and you feel fully seen by them, this chasm creates this experience where you're like, Oh, now I'm alone having to reinforce that I'm having a good time and that I'm okay. And you feel a little bit left behind. And then it happens over and over again. And with every wedding or birth or life event, You, you are having this experience of grief because you're losing something, but it's invisible. And you can't ask anyone to acknowledge it because they're having a rite of passage. So this, you've referred to as the disappearing act of friends. And it's something that I was excruciating for me in my 30s. And I've eased up on that.

Glynnis MacNicol:It is really hard in those first five years because small kids are consuming. And that's just the reality of the situation.after that five year period, though, I have found so many of my friends have come back because their friendship circles diminished enormously because they only have time. They don't have time that they are desperate for your friendship that Your friendships can evolve if you hang on Friendships go through ups and downs, long term friendships the same way marriages do, even though we still don't fully recognize the prime primacy of friendships in our lives. 

And so, like, I do sort of say to people like if this is a friendship you want at some it's not always going to be fair, like it might be the next few years you're going to be the person. It's Who's got to do the holding on and then that switches again but that those friendships come back around in really extraordinary ways that if you can allow yourself to be open to it, which is not easy, um, The balance shifts and in it's, in it's wonderful and, and rewarding and enriching, but you have to sort of try and see over that hump, which is really tough.

This is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, feeling left behind. I definitely felt as I wrote about no one told you this in my late thirties that I was like a decade behind everyone else. And all I can tell you turning 50 is I'm a decade ahead of everyone else. because once you have kids, you are like in it for a long and I'm just, I have like leapfrogged over it where I feel like I've reached the point at 50 that most people traditionally have not gotten to until 65 or 68 from like life decisions and financial restrictions and all this other stuff.

And I, that I'm able to get here at an age where like physically I still have the energy and um, Outlook and excitement has made me feel like it's a weird shift that happened in the last few years where I'm like, oh man I'm so far ahead of everyone else. It's fantastic.

Julia Winston: I think there's probably a lot of single people who are like, Oh no, I've been left behind. And then they're in their, you know, they're in their struggle with that. And then, okay, so five years later, people start coming back. But like, they didn't have a sense of community maybe. So how have your friends played a role in your life? And how do you create a community of people who provide the same care and support that, you know, many people find with a partner and kids.

Glynnis MacNicol: In my late thirties, when, excuse me, that core group of friends I have, some of whom I'd lived with for a decade, um, Really moved on and it was so destabilizing and, and it should be destabilizing. And I think again, that's where we, you know, the punishment of not having ritual or like the grief you experienced, like it should be destabilizing your entire infrastructure, your financial infrastructure, your emotional infrastructure leaves, and there's no obligation to say, like, how is this impacting you? And then it's a cause for celebration. And you are sort of cast in this role of like, Oh, you're bitter about this. Cause it's not happening to you. And you're like, actually, this is really tough because my entire life has been upended without anyone checking in to see how this is impacting me. I think at some point I was using a table analogy, like you have a table with four legs and. Three of them are removed and it's like everything gets wobbly and crazy. And it's like, well, how do you achieve sort of like stability is I started making more friends, Which I recognize it's not does not come as naturally to people.

But I really recognized that I needed a wider, um, support system or I wasn't going to survive this in any real way. And travel was part of that, But, whenever I travel somewhere, go somewhere new, I ask everyone I know if they know someone there and I meet everyone and sometimes it turns out to just be a coffee.  But sometimes like my close I have a very close friendship circle in Paris at this point, which started out with like a random blind friend date. 

And so I just made more and more friends. And as you age, the people time to be friends with you are often people who have made similar life decisions that you've made. And I'm, I don't discriminate with age either. I mean, I have friends in their twenties and I have friends in their sixties. And I have a lot of friends my age. So I try and just remain extraordinarily open to it. And the result is I'm 50 with like a really deep bench. 

Julia Winston: I’ve also found that focusing on friendship and community is a really enriching source of connection as a single person. But it’s still hard to watch coupled people move on and shift their attention to marriage and children. There have been many times over the years when I’ve asked myself, “Am I doing something wrong?” 

Glynnis MacNicol: when I feel like that, it's usually my, me responding to Instagram, which is reinforcing certain narratives. So whenever I feel, or I'm like, Oh. I'm not ever going to have that. I actually go to a home where everyone has the thing I don't have. And I'm like, Oh God, I don't want any of this. Like I'm very, it's oftentimes when I feel like that it's not based in reality. I'm not ever in someone else's marriage thinking, wow, I wish I had all of this. I'm mostly in someone else's marriage thinking, I'm so glad I have access to this and also my own apartment I can go home to, um, which is like having my version of, you know, it's the narrative versus the reality. And the thing is, there's, you know, those narratives are shiny and appealing. 

But like the reality of marriage, even for people in the strongest marriages is so disconnected from the narratives were presented about marriage that navigating Through that is the challenge of, you know, I would say the first decade of marriage and, and the loneliness of being in a relationship that's not fulfilling, particularly a relationship that culture reinforces as the most fulfilling choice you can make is complicated in very similar ways to what I talk about in terms of being happy and never seeing a good version of it out there.

When it's the flip, it's being, you know, unfulfilled when there's You know, so many versions of how it should be fulfilling out there. It's, you know, it's the disservice we're done by the stories we are told about how life should be lived. So I do think that in this is not just in this instance, but just in general, like real life is a very good antidote to this, uh, anxiety and depression.

Julia Winston: One thing I’ve noticed is that where you choose to live can really contribute to your experience as a single person. For me, living in proximity to others has been an important factor because being single can sometimes be lonely. 

Glynnis MacNicol: I live in New York City, which traditionally and anyone who's read Rebecca Traister’s all the single ladies book. She writes about this New York. Is a hub for single women traditionally, like long before sort of we had the financial or bodily agency to make these decisions primarily because the city itself functions a lot of times as a partner like you, there's the setup of apartment buildings, the fact the isolation that I would experience living on my own. Say in a suburb somewhere is deeply mitigated here by the fact I see like three people on the way to the elevator and like 100 more before I've crossed the street. So there's like a social interaction that alleviates isolation significantly. And I think when we talk about these life choices, um, I'm always careful to point that out.

Because when I am on book tour, I hear from people and they say, you know, I live, you know, just for example, You know, in a suburb of Minneapolis and I have my own house and it gets very lonely because my friends are married and I have to make dates with people. Like, what do you suggest? And I just think, I don't, I recognize why that is so difficult and why it can be so isolating and lonely because my life allows for me to have my own apartment and for me to live on my own without feeling isolated whatsoever. And that is one of the reasons I think we see, you know, more single women attracted to urban hubs is for, for that exact reason. 

Julia Winston: What's like the short version of the question to how you came to the choice of not wanting to have kids?

Glynnis MacNicol: I think right around 40, I recognize that I wasn't in partnership and that if I wanted to have Children, I'd be having them on my own. And I really had to look that in the face and. Think hard about did I want Children badly enough to have them on my own and take on all of the risks and financial precarity and and all the rest of it, um, to achieve that. And the answer was I didn't. And what I recognized was I was going to be okay without Children. 

That I can have a fulfilling, meaningful, satisfying life that I'm built for. Um, like I recognize that I'm built for the life I'm leading in ways that are pretty extraordinary. Uh, and I will be okay if Children are not a part of that. And I think that was really the conclusion I came to more than like, I don't want to have kids. It's that I don't want them enough to pursue them.

Julia Winston: But you do tend to play roles in other people's families as I've heard you mention and as I've read from some of your writing What roles do you play in other people's family units and what roles do they play in yours?

Glynnis MacNicol: I think early on in the case of some friends, it was, you know, literal, you know, support of showing up or just being involved or, you know, being present. I don't have any godchildren. I have, but it's a lot, but I'm Auntie Glynnis to a lot of people.

I really was intentional of wanting to establish myself as a person they could trust. And I think that that is really, and so, and I think that's true in the case of the kids that are older than me, is I have a trusting relationship with them where they feel able to come to me and talk to me.

I love having children in my life. Um I think that was one of the major issues I actually took with the JD Vance thing, was not like Childless Cat Ladies, which feels like so boring and like stale of criticism. It was more this idea of not being invested in the future if you don't have kids. And I thought, what a, what a limited, mean spirited way to think of how children benefit from being loved by many people. And also how I benefit from having many children to love and how much I enjoy it and how grateful I am for it. 

In the past summer, I've sort of like been in the worlds of two year olds and in the worlds of seven year olds and the worlds of 15 year olds and like getting to like, like live in all of those different worlds, which are so different from my own and so different from each other just feels like such a gift. It's like, and those are people are all of my family. 

Julia Winston: I know what you mean. I recently went to my friend's, uh, kid's fourth birthday party and it was chaotic. And there was, you know, a lot happening and she lost her keys and needed to get back in the house. And so I was like, Ooh, I'll go get your extra set of keys. And it felt so good to be able to offer that, you know, like I don't have that chaos in my life. So I was like, let me like, throw me in coach. I want to help. And like, that felt great. And I think…

Glynnis MacNicol: I think there's this also this idea that caretaking is only limited to being a parent as anybody who's been a full time caretaker, which I have for aging parents can tell you, like there's many forms of caretaking and caretaking is an act of love and sometimes it's awful. But you know, even those smaller things of like Let me care for you, and I don't want this to be my 24 hour role, but like there's joy in that It's lovely to care for people. That's just being a human being. 

Julia Winston: Glynnis has let go of any shame or disappointment that our culture wants her to feel about being single. And if you read her books you’ll see how much fun she has in her life and how much she loves the life she's built. 

Glynnis MacNicol: I take joy in my ability to move freely, it would be to understate it to a degree. I've said that, you know, sex is great and I enjoy it. And I hope that's the case for everyone having sex, but like. I wouldn't give up my bike for sex. If I had to choose between my bike and sex, I'd choose my bike every time. But my ability to move freely is so at the top of my list of absolute Fundamental core to who I am that every time I get on my bike, I feel like it's a ritual celebration.

Julia Winston: This sense of freedom is a big part of being single that we don’t talk about enough. I think it’s a really empowering part of the experience to have freedom in all areas of your life. I know the feeling of cruising down a hill on your bike, and that’s how i’ve felt at different points of being single. Even in moments of longing, that sense of freedom is so beautiful. But in order to feel truly free, you have to reach a level of comfort with being your own companion. 

Julia Winston: You know, one thing you do that you have experienced is this idea of being comfortable with yourself. How have you gotten there? What's been your journey to become more comfortable just being with you?

Glynnis MacNicol: I really think the number one, you know, challenge in life for everyone is coming to terms with who you are and accepting that it's like expanding so you fill your whole skin essentially. And for me, I think really turning around and confronting those things I was scared about or anxious about or angry about right around when I turned 40 and then having two parents die really was like, looking in the face, the choices I've made and and recognizing that they weren't an accident.

And then when you make them on purpose is, you know, you have a feeling of agency, but it's also responsibility. Like I'm choosing this life. I have to take what comes with it.  And I think it's just, it might, maybe it's just an age thing and sort of a continual, the fact I am a writer and I tend to write about personal issues means that I'm constantly having to sort of interrogate myself and why I'm doing certain things and, and come to terms with it. But I, you know, I know it feels good.

I'm enjoying the person that I am. And, um, Once I think the irony of sort of sliding off cultural narrative is it can be both punishing, but it can be both freeing too, because you're like, there's no, there's no path laid out here for me of how this is supposed to go. So I'm going to continue down the path of what makes me feel the best.

Julia Winston: One of the truest things we never hear is that every relationship we’ll have in our lives begins and ends with ourselves. 

The biggest gift I’ve received as someone who’s spent most of my life being single is the opportunity to cultivate an incredible relationship with myself. 

So this Valentine’s Day, I’m here to say: I love you, Julia. And for everyone listening, whether you’re single or partnered, I hope you love you, too. 

14: The Single Greatest Choice: Embracing solo motherhood

Katie Bryan grew up in a nuclear family in Texas, and always dreamed her future family would include a doting husband, a beautiful house in the suburbs, and of course, children. She spent almost 20 years searching for the right partner so she could make this dream come true, but at 39 she was still single and child-free. That’s when she realized she didn’t have to wait for a partner, she could have a baby on her own. In this episode Katie shares her emotional journey of releasing the idea of what a family should look like, and building the family of her dreams. 

Learn more about solo motherhood by choice at Katie's website.

Listen to Katie’s podcast, The Single Greatest Choice.

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.
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Julia Winston: Refamulating is not just a podcast, it's also a word, and I define it as a process of inner and outer transformation: the way your family is changing and the way it's changing you. Because when your family situation is changing on the outside, it’s likely that powerful shifts are happening on the inside, too. Usually those shifts have to do with mindsets and expectations around family.

Katie Bryan: I'm Katie Bryan. I live in Austin, Texas, and I, oh my gosh, I forgot how old I was for a second. I'm 43. I just turned 43 last month.

Julia Winston: Katie is someone who's experienced a huge transformation around her mindsets and expectations around family. For most of her life, she imagined her future family as…

Katie Bryan: married, white picket fence, you know, two or three kids, golden retriever, like the traditional picture of family. That's what I grew up with. It never even occurred to me that I wouldn't have that, that it would look any different than that because that was just kind what it was supposed to look like.

Julia Winston: But life doesn't always unfold the way we want to just because we made a plan. Katie is not married. She doesn't have a home with a white picket fence, but she does have a kid, just one. The biggest departure from her dream though is that Katie is a solo mom by choice, meaning she decided to become a parent as a single person. She used a sperm donor to get pregnant and made the choice to start a family on her own.

Katie did not ask for this situation. In fact, for a long time, she looked down on the idea of becoming a solo mom by choice and thought it was sad or indicated that she'd failed somehow. 

Katie Bryan: I had a lot of shame around what other people would think. But I still didn't want other people to know about it because I was so worried that people would pity me.

Julia Winston: When push came to shove, Katie's desire to be a mom overrode her desire to have a traditional family. She's now the mom to a three and a half year old little boy and calls this the family of her dreams, even though it's not the picture of what she imagined for most of her life.

Today, I want to tell you Katie's story of accepting her deepest desires around family, shedding expectations around how to get there and how she functions as a solo mom by choice.

Julia Winston: When we launched the first season of Refamulating, a few people suggested I reach out to Katie. We both live in Austin. We're around the same age, and she is also talking publicly about her non traditional family. Katie hosts a podcast called The Single Greatest Choice, and it's geared towards people who are interested in solo parenting, specifically women, and also coaches women who want to be solo moms by choice. Katie and I have another fun thing in common.

Julia Winston: You have like a Texas gay blended family just like me

Katie Bryan: yes. 

I didn't grow up with a gay dad. I grew up with a closeted dad who had his own demons because he was, you know, not living his truth. And there was a lot of, negative impact of that. When one person has a secret that big, there's no way to not have that kind of infiltrate the atmosphere. And I think though we might not have known what it was, I think everybody kind of had a sense that like something was not authentic or not right. We were a pretty traditional nuclear family. I would say there was a lot of laughter and like it felt good some of the time. And then there was a lot of like weird silence and distance.

Julia Winston: Katie's dad didn't come out until she was in her late twenties. So this traditional - and emotionally distant - nuclear family was the only model she knew, for a long time. So that’s what she internalized as “normal” and “right.”

Another thing that was modeled for her was religion. Her mom was Christian and went to church most weeks. So when Katie was in high school and college, she became more religious too. Church became her community, and everyone there had families that looked pretty similar to the one she grew up with.

Julia Winston: What were your dreams during that time? In early adulthood, You know, what did you see for yourself? What did you want?

Katie Bryan: Like if I could have a Christmas card that looked the way it was supposed to look and, you know, by 30 for sure. then, then I, I think that that was my goal. I didn't really have career ambitions. Um, I went into education because it seemed like a good career for a mom. 

So I Think in college, I sort of made an unspoken agreement with myself that I was going to apply all of my perfectionism to this family unit versus career. And I feel like there's like a whole or friendships or travel or like any of the other things. Right. And so I think my personality was just like wired to like, Go hard on something.

Julia Winston: The most important part of the equation was finding a husband, because the cute house and 2 or 3 kids couldn't happen until she got that piece first. When Katie was a sophomore in college, she met the guy. 

Katie Bryan: here's this guy and he's so cute. And we're like, we're kind of like flirting and stuff. And then he asked me out and we were supposed to go out, um, September 11th, 2001. And we kind of watched the world fall apart together that day. I really feel like that fear was the like connecting point for our whole relationship. He ended up enlisting in the military in response to September 11th. And so much of our five years prior to marriage was long distance. And we were allowed to really like romance this fantasy of what it would be like to be together without actually having to, like, be in the thick of actually being together.

Julia Winston: Katie got married when she was 23, after almost five years of long distance. Once they were married, they were still kind of transient because of the military. They lived briefly on the East Coast, far from friends and family. 

Katie Bryan: And I think any kind of Difficulty that we had or loneliness that we had or, or struggles that we had, we were just like, well, when we get back to Texas, it'll be better. 

Julia Winston: They moved back to Texas a couple years later, when Katie was 25. And finally, things started clicking into place. She was married. She was building a career in education, which she thought was perfectly suited for her life as a mom. And they’d found the perfect house. For the next five years they built the future she’d been dreaming of. 

Katie Bryan: We lived in Cedar park. We had a new construction home with a white picket fence. We had a golden retreat. I mean, we literally were building the life that I thought that I wanted, but completely out of just like, maybe I'll feel safe and secure if it looks this way on the outside. Um, and then he started to kind of push against that and just feel not ready for that. And he was turning 30 and just kind of like going through all kinds of emotional processing and like that life so far hadn't been what he had hoped. And he decided at that point that he didn't want kids. 

Julia Winston: This was a shock to Katie. They had talked about having kids. She had made sacrifices like moving from one place to another so she could build a life with this man. And now he’d decided that traditional family life was not the life he wanted.

Katie Bryan: And even though we'd been together 10 years and five years married, he just was like, I have to. I have to go out and figure out what else I want. He thought he wanted to be a rock star. He, I mean, he was just like, you know, kind of spun out. And, um, I think it's interesting to think back because I was devastated about the loss of the relationship. But I also just was so frustrated that he wasn't cooperating with my plan because it just, it felt like it really set me back. And it's so sweet to look back and know that like, I was only 29, like I was a baby, but I felt like now I'm behind, like I was. I was ahead and now I'm behind and that's kind of how I was thinking about life and family at that point. 

Julia Winston: Katie's divorce was the first in a series of events that started to shake her idea of what her ideal family should look like.

Katie Bryan: I was the very first divorce in my entire family lineage that I could trace, like no one had been divorced. And I joke that I kind of opened the floodgates because there have been many since. But, um, I got divorced at 29 years old in 2010. And that same year my dad came out, my parents divorced and my dad was already in a relationship with his current husband. Um, and so that kind of came to light at that point as well.

Julia Winston: The divorce also forced her to look more critically at her faith. Because being married was part of her image to be a “good Christian girl”, and now that was gone.

Katie Bryan: I think religion played a big piece in it because around the time that we divorced was around the time that I started feeling major doubts. Um, about like,  I don't think I actually believe any of this and the implications of not believing like my entire world will shatter. And so it was kind of making the decision with myself at that time to stay in a marriage that didn't feel right. And to  stay in a religion that didn't feel like just to pretend, which is very much what my childhood looked like. Right. Like just, just fought, just play, play the role.  And make it look okay on the outside and that's how you're going to be okay. 

Julia Winston: So what happened after you got divorced? How did it change your perspective?

Katie Bryan: Um, I was devastated. I mean, absolutely devastated. I really deeply loved this man and he really loved me and we were a terrible match for each other. Like we would not have voted the same in any election that has happened since we've been apart. We like our, our values somewhat overlapped, but our, the way we,  Like I would not go on a first date with him if I encountered him now. And I kind of knew that,  but I thought,  I don't know. I just, I thought we would somehow, it looked okay on the outside.

Julia Winston: After the divorce, Katie was really focused on what she’d lost: the chance at a family. 

Katie Bryan: And was feeling a lot of pressure about the clock, I was 30 and 30 was scary. And then I was 31. 

Julia Winston: Her way of dealing with that pressure was to really put herself out there so she could meet someone.  

Katie Bryan: But mostly I was just hustling. I'm an introvert and I have a very like extroverted job. And so what I wanted to do was like come home and recharge. But what I was doing was driving from where I lived in like pretty far North Austin down to downtown Austin to do like run clubs with rogue running and like charity events. And like I was at some sort of like social or charity event most nights of the week thinking, Maybe I'll meet someone or maybe I'll make a girlfriend who connects me. Like I was just, I was networking for my worth and networking for my relationship status. Like it felt like I had to, right? So I would work my job and then my second job was like, get back to where you were with like, The white picket fence and the partner and, you know, but do it better this time. 

Julia Winston: While Katie was busy hustling, she was surprised to meet someone much closer to home, at the elementary school where she taught. This was the last place she expected to find a single man. He was a divorced dad of one of the kiddos, and she saw him every morning during drop offs.

Katie Bryan: And then somehow we were chatting at some point and found out we were both training for the same marathon. So we started doing runs together. There were red flags all over the place, but I so wanted the outward appearance of the family and I felt very behind because at this point I was 34 I think and Lots of my friends had young kids and some of their kids were Kindergarten first grade and here this guy has a first grader. So I went from being single to dating this guy were like, I was showing up at the family barbecues and I was bringing like a first grader with a lightsaber. And I was like in the game. Like I got, I felt like I got to like skip, skip a step, um, and get right back to where I had hoped that I would have been at that point.

So we actually got engaged. We planned an entire wedding. And we got pretty close. And so I really ignored all kinds of red flags until I just couldn't. And then I was like, you know what? I, this is, I can't, I can't do this. So, um, I ended it with him.  

And I think at that point is when I really learned this cannot be about what it looks like on the outside. It has to be deeper than that. Um, so I think that was my big lesson of my like teens to mid thirties. I wish it hadn't taken that long to learn, but it did. But from then on, I just honestly like, didn't give a shit what it looks like on the outside.

Julia Winston: I want to go deeper into that for a second. What are some of the stories you were telling yourself in your twenties and thirties about marriage and children?

Katie Bryan: I really thought that being chosen meant a lot about me. And I think I had like decent self confidence. I think, I don't think that I truly was needing another person for me to feel worthy. I think I felt like I needed another person for the rest of the world to see my worth, um, that I had been chosen. And I really think it was about kind of matching what so many of my peers were doing, what my sister was doing. I think I just wanted to look the way that I thought that I was supposed to look at that stage in life.

Julia Winston: When Katie ended her engagement, she was 34 and once again lost the opportunity to have a family. And this is when Katie’s mindset started to shift. It didn’t happen overnight, but ending her engagement helped her start to realize that the standard she’d been holding herself to might actually be holding her back.

Katie Bryan: I would say that the end of that relationship also marked me truly saying out loud and letting go of my religious  ties. Um, and so that was a huge turning point to me, um, because those were the things like being like a quote unquote, good Christian girl and being like a mom and a wife  that those were what I was using as the marker for like,  And, and really like more so than success, safety, like emotional safety and just like, I'm going to be okay.  So when I was letting go of the religious piece, I was still very interested in locking down the relationship, but my relationship that I ended was pretty unhealthy emotionally. And there was some definite emotional manipulation and just some really unhealthy patterns, um, in that relationship.

Julia Winston: She was starting to accept that settling for the wrong person just because she wanted kids was not a good plan. So she tried something new, something she never dreamed of. She embraced her single life as a 34-year-old woman. 

Katie Bryan: I was so relieved I think to be out of that situation that there was this sense that like the world is my oyster. I also moved closer to downtown Austin. I started like hanging out with other single people in their thirties versus like all my friends who were like married with kids in their thirties and just realized like I'm not alone. And there was still always this desire and this hope that I would find my partner. That didn't go away. I mean, it never really went away. I just, I think it got less intense and I, I got a little bit more, um, open to a different timeline. And I remember saying out loud at some point, I thought that I was going to get divorced and like quickly remarry and that the singleness was going to be this like blip in my story that was like barely detectable. And at this point I remember, and I don't remember how many years in it was, but I remember thinking now singleness is a significant part of my story. And whether or not I couple and parent and all of those things with a partner, like I will always have to acknowledge like this chunk of time that as an adult, I was single. And I just never thought that that was going to be. Like, I was the girl that got married at 23, so I just thought, like, we'll just insert different husband and carry on, and that's not what happened.

Julia Winston: But the single, fun loving Katie was only a detour. She still knew she wanted to be a mom, and she was starting to feel more and more pressure as she got into her mid 30s. 

Katie Bryan: My fertility clock is is ticking and i'm still not coupled. I really started to believe to feel a lot of shame around it and to believe that maybe there is something wrong with me and the way that I'm going about d ating and relationships. And, and it was both like a lot of self compassion and, and like understanding, like I'm trying so fucking hard. And I, I see that in myself and I know that I'm someone worth Worth dating, worth loving, worth marrying. And also what, why is this so hard? Why can I not find this partner?

Julia Winston: When she was 37, the pressure she’d been feeling started bubbling to the surface. In the back of her head, she started thinking about solo motherhood. But she really hoped it wouldn't come to that. So once again, Katie threw herself into dating. 

Katie Bryan: I did decide in 2018, maybe I'm just not focused enough, which is a weird way to think of it. But I decided in 2018 to make it my goal that that would be the year that I would find my partner and to really be almost like systematic in my dating and I started going out on a minimum of two first dates a week and like cataloging each date and like really trying to be reflective about like not liking someone's teeth is not a reason to not go back out with them or like, not like, like not like being more aware of how I was being, how I was screening people, right.

I went on 50 first dates in six months and was starting to get really burnt out on that. And on the 51st, First date. I met an incredible guy who is just so dear to me. And I thought, okay, this is it. I was right. I just had to, I just had to be diligent and stick with it. And it was, it was, To this day, best first date I've ever been on. Um, I felt all the butterflies and, and so did he, and I think we were both just like, yeah, this is it.

Julia Winston: So Katie has this great first date, and the same week she meets that guy, she got the results of an at-home fertility test she’d randomly ordered online. 

Katie Bryan: And that fertility test indicated that I was like, right on the line, the line between average and diminished ovarian reserve. And so that really, like, sparked this realization that it maybe isn't just all going to be okay. And maybe I don't have all the time in the world. But at that point I realized like, I really do need to freeze my eggs. I really do need to see a doctor and start thinking about this, but it was all in the context of that relationship that was brand new at the time.

That really made it difficult to be present and be someone that someone wanted to be in a relationship with, um, in that brand new relationship. And so essentially the relationship imploded. I don't blame myself. I don't blame him. I just think like, gosh, that was so hard. And I have so much compassion for both of us and where we were in that. Um, but it just like the, my fear, the relationship just couldn't hold it. Like I would just, I had to get out and start trying to be a mom.

Julia Winston: After that relationship ended, Katie fully admitted to herself that she was gonna try to have a baby on her own. It wasn’t her first choice, but she realized she couldn’t wait around for the right relationship at the right time if she wanted to be a mom. 

The first step she took was freezing her eggs. She was 37. She also started meeting with doctors and thinking about a possible sperm donor. 

Katie Bryan: Even as I was gradually coming to the realization that like I do think I'm really well suited to parent solo and there are a lot of advantages to parenting solo. I started to decide that it was something that I really was excited to do, but I still didn't want other people to know about it because I felt so much shame and I was so worried that people would pity me.

Julia Winston: But she reluctantly kept moving through the process. The desire to have a baby was starting to slowly overtake her desire to have a traditional family. The next step was choosing a sperm donor. She first explored the idea of a known donor. She knew someone who seemed like he'd be a good fit. His sister had been a surrogate, so he'd seen this kind of situation up close and he was open to it. But…she ultimately decided against it.

Katie Bryan: I worried about boundaries. I worried about me resenting him. I worried about me being confused about his role, even if we agreed about what his role was going to be. He's already a dad and I worried about the dynamic of this man is a dad, but not my dad for my child. And I just thought it would be tough to navigate over time because we're in the same city because we're friends, because he's someone that naturally I would invite to my child's first birthday party because he's my friend. But like, now is he coming as the kid’s dad?  Like I just, it just felt like too much. 

Julia Winston: So she decided to go with a donor from a sperm bank. And once she had a donor, she started the IUI process. This is what Katie calls.

Katie Bryan: a medically supervised turkey baster situation. 

Julia Winston: The way it works is that a doctor inseminates her with the sperm in the clinic. It’s not as accurate as IVF, but much cheaper, so it’s where many fertility patients start. Katie had to do a few rounds of IUIs before anything happened.

Katie Bryan: I did get pregnant in June of 2019 and was devastated. Um, had so much regret, was so upset. just was not ready. 

I just sort of thought that a baby would trump any other emotion that I was feeling or any doubts that I had, because I knew the one thing I really, really knew was that I wanted to be a mom. And ultimately that did not end in a successful pregnancy at a very early miscarriage. So it felt so like, right, right. Like I needed that experience. I'm so thankful to my body and the universe and you know, all the things that conspired to like, help me see how unready I was, um, without the implication of like, it actually being a pregnancy that was viable.

Julia Winston: Katie wasn’t ready because she hadn’t truly embraced the idea of solo motherhood. It still felt like a backup plan. Getting pregnant filled her with sadness because she still wanted things to be different than they were. She got what she wanted, but not in the way she wanted. That’s a complicated feeling, but she confronted it head on. 

After the miscarriage, Katie knew she needed to fully embrace this choice if she was going to try and get pregnant again.  

So she took a few months off from IUIs to let her body heal and recalibrate. During this break, she also found a new doctor who made her feel much more comfortable and capable. She started to feel more confident in the choice to do it alone. 

The new doctor told Katie she should do another egg retrieval and start considering IVF, a more scientifically accurate way to try and get pregnant. It’s also a much more expensive endeavor. Katie was prepared to go into debt to do IVF, but in the end she got some help from her family. 

Katie Bryan: I did another egg retrieval. I got similar results. I had seven eggs. And so I, I, um, thawed the, the original seven eggs, which was a really hard decision for me because I wanted to preserve those for a future relationship. but my doctor was just really frank with me about, you know, seven may not give us. What we need, 14 may not even give us what we need, but I think cost wise it makes the most sense to like have those eggs thawed and fertilize all of them at the same time because you're it's going to be the one cost for all of the fertilization and the monitoring and the, Genetic testing versus like doing one batch and then need like will very likely need to come back and do the second batch So that's what I did.

I used my frozen eggs. I brought them over from the other clinic I did a second egg retrieval. I ended up with 12 eggs in total because two of the originals didn't thaw Um, uh, all of them fertilized. Eight of them continued to develop into embryos and at day five they biopsied those eight embryos. They sent them off for genetic testing, and I got five genetically normal embryos, which is statistically completely unheard of. 

And so, um, I'm very thankful for those results of those embryos because it gave me something I hadn't had in years, which was a fucking break. Like it gave me the ability to take a deep breath. Step back and not try to get pregnant.

Julia Winston: And that's what Katie did. She took a few months off from thinking about pregnancy and doing IVF. COVID started around this time, which further solidified her choice to chill out. Then, by July 2020, she was ready to schedule her embryo transfer. She was 39. 

Katie Bryan: And that was such a gift because I got to go into my embryo transfer so excited and so clear and so ready. And I love looking back at pictures of myself. I took like some selfies that day and I like got dressed up and I put on red lipstick and I was just like, I was there for it and it didn't have at all the same feeling as all of those IUIs where I was like, I guess this is just my lot in life that I like have to do this or else, you know, it was like a thing that I absolutely could choose not to do that month or that year, but I was wanting to do it. So I think that freedom was everything to just get to choose the timing. 

Julia Winston: And this transfer worked. Katie got pregnant in the summer of 2020 and felt like the timing couldn't have been better. 

Katie Bryan: And so my pregnancy was all like, I was working virtually. I didn't have to put on real pants the whole time. I watched the entire, um, series of Jane, the Virgin, they're like a hundred episodes. It's so good. Um, I ate grilled cheese. That's like a big part of the show. And I just like laid in bed, eating grilled cheese and watching Jane, the Virgin and like growing a human. And it was like, so fun to just get to like, rest. Like my whole pregnancy was just full of like rest and reading and nurturing myself. And like, meanwhile it was a very scary time because like, we weren't sure what was happening with, with COVID and you know, I was worried about my dad and his health and my grandma and you know, just, it was a scary time, but it was also just like a really sweet time.

Julia Winston: It was during lockdown that she also started her podcast, The Single Greatest Choice, to talk about her experience becoming a solo mom by choice.

Katie Bryan: And I was connecting with women online who are pursuing this path. And that was really opening my eyes. And I was really excited. Just shedding all of those layers of shame around the decision that I made and, it was like, okay, I can have thoughts about women who have to have a baby on their own because they couldn't find a partner and all that in air quotes, right? I can have thoughts about what that means about us. These women, but I'm sitting here pregnant as a woman who did that. And so those thoughts don't serve me at all. And so like, what else is true? And the more I talked with other women, it's like, Oh fuck. Like we're the women who didn't settle. We're the women who let our bar stay high, even if it meant letting go of everything we thought our life was going to look like, like we have so much like integrity with ourselves for like not settling. And I was so proud to be part of something that like, the more women I met, the more I could see that, like, it doesn't even make sense to hold on to any of that shame because they're also badass. And I can't be the one woman in this pool who isn't a badass when like, I, all of them are, you know what I mean? So I just, I feel like I found my people and I found so much solace in like other women's stories and so part of my pregnancy was like really owning that this didn't happen to me. I chose it and I'm so proud.

Julia Winston: Wow. I don't even It's just so like, what a,  that transformative, that transformative realization inside your own, it's like a blooming inside your own heart, mind, body, soul. That of pure acceptance and self love and stepping into and choosing. That is so empowering. That is so different.

And you had to go through everything you went through in order to get there. And I hear your gratitude for everything that you went through in order to get to that place. We just don't know how the pain and the trials and tribulations that we're experiencing are lending themselves to something that we do want. It's just like, the mystery is so profound.   

Julia Winston: Katie had a healthy pregnancy, full of grilled cheese and dreams about what life would be like when her baby arrived. Her birth went well, really fast in fact, and she gave birth to her son.

Katie Bryan: It was beautiful. Best day of my life. So much fun. I would absolutely do it again. I immediately thought I'm definitely gonna have another kid and I would totally be open to being a surrogate if I ever had that opportunity because I just loved pregnancy and birth so much.

Julia Winston: When we come back, Katie begins her life as a solo mom.

Julia Winston: When Katie was pregnant, she knew the first major choice she'd make as a parent would be finding childcare for her infant. She knew she'd have to go back to work three months after giving birth, so she quickly found a daycare that fit her budget. This was in 2021, when we were masking to avoid major COVID outbreaks at schools and daycares.

Katie Bryan: And my dad and his husband came with me to the orientation. We, you know, had this tiny baby. We're all wearing masks. We did the tour and I was feeling so self conscious with my dad and his husband, like walking through the school, because on the one hand it was like, it was one of the first big, big decisions I'd made as a mom independently. And also my resources financially are like somewhat limited. So I chose, The best school that I found that was in my budget, knowing that there were places that I would have been much more excited about that just were outside of my budget.

And so I felt a little bit self conscious like doing this tour of this center with them, even though it was a lovely place and I was happy to have my child there. But, uh, we did the whole tour. We got back out to the parking lot. And I was like, so what did you guys think? And my dad was like, it was great. And I w I was like relieved. And I think I started to cry and he's like, Oh, he's not going there on Monday, but it's a great place. And I was like, what? And I just started bawling. Cause I thought, I felt like it was like a judgment of this decision or that I wasn't being a good mom. I was still very hormonal and emotional and going back to work and all the things. 

And he's like, what's he going to do? Lay and like stare at the ceiling and these women and masks and faces he doesn't know. We'll take care of them. And I was like, what? Um, cause it wasn't anything we had discussed. I think that was maybe a Friday and he was supposed to start on Monday to like, all of a sudden they were full time. Like I went back to work and they stayed at my house and took care of him all day. Just two men who had never changed a diaper, had no idea what they were doing. We had a little whiteboard where I would write down all the instructions. I think they texted me like, you know, 20 times a day. And, um, but they stayed they did that. About until he got to where he was crawling. And then they were like, this is a lot. We're exhausted. And so I, I, at the time I knew I couldn't afford a nanny cause nannies are like double daycare. But then I was like, Oh wait, hold on. I can afford half a nanny cause I can afford daycare. Right. And so I was able to get a nanny to come for the first few hours in the morning and then they took the afternoon shift. And so we did that all the way until he was almost a year. 

Julia Winston: The support of Katie’s dad and his husband that first year helped her get on her feet as a solo parent without the cost of full-time daycare. But after a year, they were tapped out and it was time for more support. Since then, daycare has been the biggest financial burden for Katie as a single mom.

Katie Bryan: Daycare is expensive. My daycare cost more than my mortgage. So that's not fun. But, it's an ongoing cost, but it's also a temporary cost. Like I'm two years away from not needing to pay that. so it's, was just a reality that, like, I won't be saving during these years. That money will be going straight to daycare. There's a lot of reallocation , right? Like I'm not ever going out to, to, you Brunch or I'm not like a lot of the money that I was spending on, like fun, um, is now fun in a different way. Cause I'm buying tickets to like a dinosaur park or, you know, different types of fun.

Julia Winston: During her first year of parenthood, Katie was working for the school district. Her salary hadn’t changed much since she’d been a teacher, but she had a little more flexibility, so she started a coaching business to work with other women considering becoming solo moms by choice.

Katie Bryan: So my business was a complete accident that kind of just unfolded through hosting a podcast and having lots of people DM me asking, um, all kinds of questions. But I think the underlying question to every question they asked was Am I going to be okay? And is there something wrong with me for, for ending up here? Like those are the two big things women want to know. Can I do this? And what does it mean about me that I've found myself in a place where this feels like the best choice for me when it's not the life that I dreamed for myself. The women that I work with are typically the ones that came here, you know, kicking and screaming. And this was not even plan B. It' s like, I don't know, X, Y, or Z like somewhere down the list, you know, but it was just slightly more desirable than, than missing out on motherhood. Um, So I think like talking with so many women, um, has just like the need was so apparent that I just couldn't deny it.

Julia Winston: Through her coaching, Katie helps women adopt the right mindset to take on pregnancy and parenting by themselves.

Katie Bryan: Like if you think it's going to be miserable, it absolutely will be. Okay. Right. You can be a mom or you can never be a mom, but you can, if you're, if you're going to be a solo mom who constantly notices the deficit of the extra help, the extra parent, like you will be resentful, you will be miserable. And it's the same way you can remain childless and be so happy with your decision. You can acknowledge there maybe is like this alternative life you would have enjoyed or this longing that maybe, you know, is never going to be satiated in a way that like a motherhood might've, but that, but you can still be so, so happy because of what you choose to think about it. 

I would say our goal in our coaching sessions is for them to want, to want, to be a solo mom. Like they are so kind of defeated and sad and depressed by the idea that it's like, let's just, let's work on getting to a point where you want to want that. And then we can work on you actually wanting that. And then maybe you will want it. And then we'll talk about how it's going to be right. 

Julia Winston: Katie's son is now three and a half, so she's deep in the reality of what it's like to actually be a solo parent.

Katie Bryan: I think every season has had, it's, it's different hard parts. Um, at first it was sleep. Um, I always say it is so good that my son is so perfect in so many other ways because he is like the world's worst sleeper. And I'm not sure I could have done it if, if I hadn't just like been so in love with him during the waking hours because he just didn't sleep. I mean, he just like for two whole years, sleep was really, really, really rough. Um, to the point where there were times where I like, I don't, I don't feel safe getting behind the wheel. so that was like super, super hard and I had to really get good at asking for help and um, and I wasn't great at it. I mean, I would, I would wait until like the resentment and the just like complete, depletion bubbled up to a certain point and then I would just kind of like melt into that victim mode of like someone has to take this kid for one night so I can sleep.

So I'm not super proud of how I navigated that, but I did learn quite a bit about asking for help before you get to that point instead of like waiting around for people to step in and offer because the reality is a lot of people were willing to help me. So I think just being really clear about what our needs are and like asking for help and just knowing that it's like someone's prerogative to say yes or no. But like, if you don't ask, then they're, They don't even know the need.

Three is no joke. He has got some big feelings and it's, it's tough. He is still the sweetest, most snuggly, funniest, like most incredible little human. but three is just big feelings. And so I would say right now the hardest part of being a solo mom is, um, my own emotional regulation. Like when I am frazzled because We're running late or the dog peed on the rug Like I'm I'm up to here because of something else and then you're getting that Like just the incessant need Or they're just like doing the exact wrong thing at the time when you just like, can't take one more thing.

And also they're three. So you like can't lose your shit on them like that is really, really, really hard. And so, um, learning how to manage my own emotional regulation needs in my like nervous system and how to like, there are times pretty frequently where I step out onto my back porch and shut the door and just take two or three deep breaths. because it's just really hard when there's no way to like tap out even for five minutes and the things that you did pre baby aren't accessible. You can't go for a run. You can't call a friend. You can't like, none of those things work in the moment. You have to stay You still can have them, but you kind of have to like schedule them. so that I think is the hardest part is just the relentlessness of it's never your turn to be having a bad day because you've got to be there for somebody else

Julia Winston: It can be hard not having an extra set of hands But Katie has found unexpected benefits to solo parenting.

Katie Bryan: I love that I get to parent without Like watching and having an opinion about how I'm doing it. Um, it's just, there's such freedom in parenting solo. There are a lot of things that are hard about being a solo parent. It's not harder And in a lot of ways I think it's easier. And so I'm, yeah, I'm really thankful. I love parenting solo.

Julia Winston: One thing she loves is that there’s no one around to judge or question her parenting style. She can quickly make decisions about her son without consulting someone else.Which frees her up to focus on him during an age where he needs a lot of attention. 

Katie Bryan: I had this realization one time when I had a friend over and I noticed that in the time That she was over at my house, my son, who was so sweet and fun and funny just minutes before she walked in the door was like kind of being a nightmare when she was there. And I was like, what is going on? Like, is he hungry? Like what is happening? 

And I realized the dynamic when there are two adults is that the conversation is up high at adult level and we only really like look down and acknowledge needs like, Oh, can you open this package? Can you fix this toy? And I would imagine that in, in a, in a two parent household, a lot of the conversation is happening up above. And I just had this, this recognition of the fact that my household, the default is like this diagonal down from me to him and him to me and the communication that we're having. I just think there's so much benefit. And it's so interesting because I worried so much about, um, depriving him of a second parent. And that's one like huge daily way that I feel like he really benefits from. the attention that he's getting because my attention is not split. 

Julia Winston: And Katie's also learned that she might be the only parent to her son, but she doesn't have to carry the full burden of parenting alone. She's learned to ask for support when she needs it, and she gets it from more than just one person. In the last three years, she's met other solo moms in Austin and built a whole community of women who show up for each other and each other's kids.

Katie Bryan: I just think it's, it's so important to feel that connection and that community and that sense of family. I do think of my solo mom community as my family and something that I get asked frequently is, should I do this? Should I make this decision, a parent solo, if I don't have a strong family support system. I don't live near my parents or my parents are much older or my family's not supportive of this decision or we just aren't close. And what I usually tell these women is, you know, I'm very lucky that I do have that supportive family. And if something were to happen today, my first phone call likely would be my dad because he's supportive and he's local.

And he's someone that could help me in a pinch, but my next three phone calls. would all be people I did not know before I got pregnant. They would all be other solo moms that I've, that I only know because I went down this path. And so I just think the idea of like family and connection and community, it's like, it's, it's always evolving and you just never know. I think you have to have the faith that it's going to unfold and the identity of like, I am someone who connects. I am someone who creates and I don't know what that's going to look like. And I don't have to know what it's going to look like in order to take the next step. But I do have to like have the faith that it's going to be there.

Julia Winston: I often think of this metaphor of a school of fish swimming next to each other. And we don't know that we're in a school of fish. We feel alone. There's just a deep blue sea in front of you and like a deep blue sea behind you above you and below you. But if you could swim out ahead just a little bit and turn around,

Katie Bryan: Yes. Yes.

Julia Winston: endless school of fish right next to you. And I think that's, that's like what, I think that's what both of our You know, callings are really like this work that you're doing and the work that I'm doing. And this interview is part of that. This conversation is part of that. It's of, um, it's of us swimming ahead just a little bit and turning around and saying, look, look at all of these people, just like you, just like me who are navigating, but we are together if can see it, if we can open our eyes to it, if we can welcome it in. And you did that. 

Katie Bryan: I really feel like I'm parenting in a village. I feel like I'm parenting in the way that it was always meant to be. And kind of like going back to like a more tribal way of like just doing it in community. I get excited when my son outgrows things. I'm saving a lot because I do plan to have a second child, but I love passing on things that I've spent money on that are good stuff to other moms so that they don't have to. And honestly, I, I just, I'm so content. Like making my way through this world and like navigating all of the things with my my community of women that I really don't feel like there's a Not only do I not feel like there's a deficit of not having a partner for parenting. I feel like I'm at an advantage. 

I mean, I have solo moms whose kids I think of like nieces and nephews or like family, where I just know that like In their teen years when there's something uncomfortable that maybe they're not quite ready to talk to their mom about, or that's just a little awkward, like that they might come to me and that my son might do the same. And just that there's this whole kind of network. And because we're not putting it all on one person, like it's just spread a little bit more. Manageably. Right. Um, and so it's not that I don't want partnership, but I don't actually want parenting partnership. I'm actually kind of hopeful that I will find the love of my life once I'm past like the bulk of the parenting years, I would be open to finding that person, um, at any point. But I, I kind of would love if it was like when my son is like, 10 or older, you know what I mean? Where of like established like some of the, um, patterns and I've done kind of the laid the parenting.

Julia Winston: It's just so striking to me that so much of the fear that you experienced was, Oh God, I'm going to be alone and all stigma and shame around being alone. And what you're finding is you're more connected and there is more abundance than you could have imagined. 

Julia Winston: Katie would like to keep growing her family. She still has four healthy embryos and loves the idea of having a second baby. But she's held off because she knew she couldn't physically and financially handle a second child while her son is still so young.

Katie Bryan: Like I just couldn't imagine a scenario of affording two kids in daycare at the same time. I didn't really know what the financial, uh, realities would be of parenting solo until I was in it. And now that I can actually see the breakdown and the numbers, it just is not mathematically feasible. But I have made some big changes in my career that I hope will increase my earning potential. And so it's possible that I may find myself in a position where it feels more feasible to afford two kids. And. My son is eventually going to go to kindergarten, right? So he's not going to need daycare. One of those two things will happen and then I will be ready. I really, Long to be a mom of two. I would love to have two boys. I did not want them to be five years apart and I would rather have them five years apart than not at all.

Julia Winston: What about romantic love? What role has partnership, dating played since you embarked on solo motherhood. 

Katie Bryan: Not at all. is one of, to me, the biggest shockers because I was so, I dated Hard, you know, like I dated a lot and I was very, very focused on, um, relationship for decades. I mean, it was the thing, it was the problem and also the solution. And I mean, it was everything that I was focused on far more than career friendships, travel, finances, like any of it. And so there is so much freedom. In just shedding that, like, I think I would be totally fine if I never found, like, a life partner. Now, I certainly want to have intimacy. I want to flirt. I want to have, like, that side at some point. Uh, but it may never look like someone living in my house, like, like being my family.

Julia Winston: When Katie got married at 23, she thought she was giving herself security. But there’s no such thing as security when it comes to family. Families are messy because people are messy. We change, we evolve. 

In the 20 years since Katie got married, she’s experienced a total transformation.  She no longer thinks she needs a romantic partner for her family to be complete. She doesn’t care what others think about her choices. What’s important to her is that she has a loving family, which is really what she’s always wanted. 

She wasn’t always confident in the decision to be a solo mom, but she kept following her gut. And when she embraced the unknown, a new version of her life opened up. She became a mother. She started a business. She gets to travel and host retreats with other women. Her life has been filled with opportunities she never could have imagined. 

Katie Bryan: my whole life just feels like this, this openness and this abundance and this adventure. It's so different than like the, the clinging and the like fear of the life that I lived before, where it was like, I just need these certain things so that I feel okay. And then I know that I'm going to be okay. 

For years, it was about finding my partner and creating the family that I had always dreamed of. That I would end each journal entry with the statement, um, this or something, I can't even say it without crying, like this or something greater for the highest good. And I could not imagine that that would not be me with the husband and the kids and the white picket fence. Like if I could just have that, I mean, I would have given anything to have that, but I was willing to kind of leave that space. And I honestly don't think I believed that there was anything greater than just like feeling that sense of like home with my family, but that openness of like this or something greater, I cannot even tell you the lives that I've touched the daily DMs and emails and phone calls and. Like the women who are like, I would not be holding my child today if I didn't have the confidence that I gained through the work that you're doing. 

Like this could be the super sad story of how I ended up here, but like, why would I tell that story? Right. Because what's also true is how much I've learned and how much I've grown and how much freedom has come from, um, This life that I've chosen. And that's why my business and my podcast and everything is called the single greatest choice because we're, we're single mothers by choice. Right. And I used to hate that label.

I hated it so much. I could not own it because I wanted the world to know I am a single mother by necessity. I did not have a choice. There was no other option for me. Had I had like the other door, I would have gone through it. Right. did, I could have, I could have settled. I could have lowered the bar. I could have tricked some guy into knocking me up. Like there were a million other options. And I did choose this and I'm proud that I chose it. And so I think that the single greatest choice is this idea of becoming a single mother by choice, but it's also the choice that we're talking about the lens through which you view the moment and like the big picture story. It's like you get to choose.