“單身媽媽”的快樂

Single File

Affluent， educated and autonomous - more women are enjoying motherhood on their own.

生活富裕、受過高等教育、獨立自主——越來越多的單身女性正在享受作媽媽的感覺。

Nestled among happy birthday cards， wedding and anniversary congratulations， and get well soon wishes， there's a new \"life event\" category in the aisles of your local card shop: Birth Single Mother. It's now official - being a single mom is in.

賀卡店里的貨架上擺滿了各種各樣的賀卡，有生日卡、結婚和紀念祝福卡、健康卡等等，但這其中又有一類新的卡片：單身媽媽卡。可以看出，作一個單身媽媽現在是件很新潮的事情。

According to Statistics Canada， there are more than 1.6-million female-headed households in Canada， an increase of 63 percent in 20 years. A growing number of these women are single moms by choice - not your stereotypical bitter divorcee or accidental teenage pregnancy struggling to get by. The majorities of these new single moms are university-educated， in their 30's or 40's and have well-established careers. They're breaking out of the conventional life pattern - go to school， fall in love， get married， buy a house， have babies…Instead， they've skipped some steps and added others. In the process， they've taken control of their lives， not to mention that infernal， nagging internal clock.

根據統計數據，加拿大現在有超過160萬個單身媽媽家庭，這個數字在20年里增加了63%。這其中有越來越多的女性是自愿成為單身媽媽的——不是我們一般認為的因為婚姻失敗或者是年輕時意外懷孕不得已而為之。這些單身媽媽絕大多數都接受過大學教育，年齡在30或40歲之間，而且事業有成。她們正在打破傳統的生活方式——求學，戀愛，結婚，買房子，生孩子……相反，她們跳過了其中一些步驟，同時又添加了一些其它的東西。在這個過程中，她們掌握了自己的生活，而且也不用再擔心自己變老失去生育能力了。

\"It's a stronger force than me，\" says Jill， a 26-year-old editor in Vancouver who is considering donor insemination (DI). Since she started thinking about DI， Jill says she feels calmer. The pressure to find a mate， chiefly to mate， is gone. \"You get to your 30's and you want to be this baby machine and you're not meeting anyone，\" she says. \"Then there's this generation of women in their 40's who find out they can't have children.\" Jill vows she won't be among them. \"As much as life is about destiny or fate， this gives me something to grasp on to. It makes me feel much more sanguine about not meeting someone. I feel somewhat sorry for men; they don't have this choice.\" Jill is not alone in taking advantage of that option. According to Dr. Sam Batarseh， director of IVF (in vitro fertilization) Canada， the number of single women coming to him for DI has tripled over the last 30 years.

“年齡因素是我不能回避的現實，”26歲的溫哥華編輯吉爾說。吉爾目前正在考慮人工受孕。自從開始考慮人工受孕后，吉爾說她感覺自己平靜多了。尋找配偶的壓力，而且主要目的只是生孩子，現在都沒了。“女人到了30歲就會想要個孩子，可這時又碰不上合適的人選，”她說。“有些女人已經40多歲了，失去了生育能力。”吉爾信誓旦旦地說自己絕不要成為那樣的女人。“雖然有很多事情是命中注定的，我也要努力抓住我要的東西。它讓我不再那么擔心找不到合適的另一半。我真替男人們感到遺憾，他們沒有這樣的選擇。