Episode 77 - Unconventional Choices: Single Mom by Choice with Carla Moats and Paige Dempsey

Welcome to the second episode of my special series on Unconventional Choices.  I am so grateful to my guests, Carla Moats and Paige Dempsey, for sharing their journeys to parenthood. In a society that often scrutinizes solo parents, Carla and Paige exemplify courage in making a choice that aligns with their values—the choice to become single mothers. 

In addition to being incredible solo parents, Carla and Paige are each incredible coaches, too. Paige is a certified Life and Relationship Coach dedicated to helping women have better relationships by fostering authentic, empowered, and fun connections–with others and themselves! Carla is a financial and money coach for women solopreneurs. She helps her clients quit feeling scared of their finances, take control of their business and personal finances, and put more money in their pockets to live their dream lifestyle.

Join us as we explore what it means to be a parent and a family, and discover how unconventional choices often turn out to be the best choices we’ve ever made. Ditch any preconceived notions you have about family and tune in to celebrate and embrace all paths to parenthood. 

I can’t wait for you to listen. 

Find Paige here:
Website: https://www.paigedempseycoaching.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/relationshipcoach_paige/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paigedempseycoaching/

Find Carla here:
Website: http://www.carlamoats.com
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/carlamoatscoaching
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carlamoatscoaching

Find Sara here:
https://sarafisk.coach
https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/
https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/
https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333
https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach
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Transcript

0:51

You are listening to the ex good girl podcast episode 77. This has been a conversation. How long have we been trying to make this happen? I first reached out to Carla Motes and Paige Dempsey, uh, eight, seven, six months ago, because I was so fascinated by an aspect of their life. That was just so different from my own. They're both single moms by choice. And because I love doing podcast episodes with people who don't follow the rules, the rules that I definitely was brought up, you know, thinking it had to be a certain way. I wanted to talk with both of you about this particular aspect of your life and your decision making. And I'm just grateful that you would take some time to talk with me. Thank you. Let me have you introduce yourself first and then page. I'm Carla Motz and I am a, I call it solo, parent, because I adopted my daughter who just turned 18 as, an infant internationally. And it has always just been the two of us with, family support. She was born in Guatemala, came to the U S past her first birthday so we're a multicultural family as well. It's definitely, the biggest blessing of my life. So sounds kind of cliched, but it's the truth. I love it. Paige. Yes, I was actually a stepmom before I was a mom. So I was a stepmom and then a mom and then I got divorced. So I was a sort of a single mom by circumstance. And then lastly, a couple of years ago, I also became a single mom by choice. I've played a lot of different roles as a mom, but, having my second on my own has been just one of the best things I've ever done. Well, the pictures I've seen of Aoife are just, Gorgeous and adorable and the way that your son cares for her and seeing the two of them interact. It's just, it's such a beautiful, thing to see even at a distance. So let's just start from the beginning. What were the ideas of family, marriage, parenthood that you grew up with? Because I grew up in a very conservative, religious. culture where you definitely got married first and then you definitely had children. And in the particular tradition that I was raised in the LDS faith, you had as many children as you could have. So I have five and love each and every single one of them. And That is a ton of work. So let's just start at the beginning. What were the ideas of marriage and family that each of you grew up with? My ideas of marriage and family were very traditional. I mean, I'm in the Midwest and I really thought I would get married and have four kids and, they'd all come home from college and we'd be like in you know, one of those movies where we're all playing football on Thanksgiving out in the backyard and all, you know, the great. Soundtrack going, but I also grew up in a divorced household. So I will say now, as I'm older, I didn't have a very good role model for marriage and raising kids and family. My expectation was get married, mid twenties. I just had a completely traditional expectation of family. What happened instead was I got married at 38 to a man who already had 2 kids. I didn't have my first baby till I was 39. When that happens, sometimes you have to reconsider and rewrite what you expect your life to look like. I'll give it over to Carla. I grew up with a traditional family, and my parents are still married. They are celebrating 60 years this December, my grandparents were married over 60 years. I think in my twenties, I expected to get married. I was never 1 of these kids that kept like a bride's book, or my dream wedding or anything like that. I was going to go to college, have a career. I remember my mom tell me, she had a job didn't finish her college education, which I think she regretted, she had a job, but she still did the, traditional, cooking and cleaning. But, I was raised. I was going to have a career. I think in the 20s, I really thought I would get married and have kids but for whatever reason, I think that kind of subsided. In my 20s, it wasn't really anything I pursued. I was probably different than a lot of my peers where they were really focused on. Where do you go to meet, your husband to be? It wasn't on my radar. And I have a younger brother who has 3 boys. And I was the aunt and he lived across the country. I really, enjoyed being an aunt and I would get more emotional when the kids would go home and, I remember sending an email to my mom 1 day and she lived about 4 hours away. So if I go to some adoption, information sessions, will you go with me? And my mom had actually talked about, you could adopt or you could, do, in vitro or sperm donor or whatever. Like 1 day just woke up and said, okay, if I'm going to do it now's the time to do it. I didn't want to wake up at, 50 or 55 and regret something that I hadn't done, but I don't think I had this, like, big lifelong. Focus on getting married. I also had a similar feeling too. When my brother was having kids when I was 25 or six or seven, like it's fun to be an aunt, but I don't want to only be an aunt, or my kids were having friends younger than me. And I'm like, I want more than this. I want to be the mom. I don't want to just be the aunt or be the fun friend of the mom or whatever. Yeah. I wanted to experience it. I will say if anybody's gone through the adoption process, as I'm sure anybody who goes through in vitro, not a short process. And I went through a period of mourning. I would say when she's about two or three, cause I realized I probably wasn't going to adopt again. I went through a period of mourning that, this was it. No more kids. My DNA is not gonna, exist beyond me. But other than that time, I just didn't have any desire to do the whole childbirth thing. A lot of people in my family had some really difficult deliveries so it was a good path for me. Paige, when you were in that kind of the pursuit of that dream where, the credits are rolling over the happy family in the backyard playing football on Thanksgiving, what did you make of the fact, if anything, that that was not what was working out for you? I don't know. That's a good question from when I was younger. It's hard to remember and it's hard to know. And I think that could have worked out for me actually a couple of different times. My relationship capacity in my 40s is so much more advanced and mature than it was in my 20s. When you're 20 something, 24, 25, 26, whatever boyfriend I was dating, and I had long term boyfriends. I mean, this could have been my path pretty easily, I think, but then you think, well, he didn't do this, or he should have done that. Or if he loved me, he would do this, or maybe he's not the right one. So, um, I think I ever took it to mean something bad about me. It just was like, we have to pivot and when I met my husband, I owned a small business. I wasn't out meeting a lot of men. And so we actually met on eHarmony. Which was like pre Tinder pre Bumble. Yes. I remember early days of like, I mean, this was like 15 plus years ago. So the early days of online meeting, match. com and those sorts of things, it's like, how else are we going to do this? Anytime we want to put something in action on our lives, it's like, well, I'm just not, I was not in a place in my life like college or something. We're just meeting man all the time. And so that was that 1st step towards making that happen. It's fascinating for me to just have these conversations because I just grew up with such a different paradigm, like, to not be married by. I got married when I was 25 and I already had, a group of concerned people, right? You should definitely be married by then, and you should be getting started on your family. And so to hear you say, you know what, I just, I don't know that I made it mean a lot of things, just like it just didn't work out the way I wanted to at the time. And to have the awareness now your capacity for relationship is so different. That's so true. And I think if someone were listening to this, what I hope that they can understand or get out of that is that. There isn't a timeline that, if there is a timeline that is patriarchal, Western bullshit programming that tells you that certain things should happen by a certain time. I mean, Carla is, 39 when her daughter is born and In a lot of places, that's very old, but you created this beautiful life for yourself, not on anyone's timeline. Well, and I think in my case, I had a grandfather, I think he passed away when I was 29. And towards the end, that was his biggest concern. I would go and visit him. And he, when you're gonna get married, he was very concerned. Yes, and it came from a good place. But he was very concerned that I wasn't married and that I didn't have prospects. And I had cousins that would always ask me, who I was dating or whatever, I think, that was just kind of the, 1980s, 90s. That was still the, expected thing. And I will say when I adopted, The path the page took, I don't think was near as common as it is now, because I think I thought about it for a short period of time, but at the time it felt more comfortable to me to go the adoption around. But I will say the path that the page took. Was not near as common. At least in my circle, it wasn't near as common as I see it being now. I'm not sure I would have made a different decision. But for me, adoption was just kind of the path of least resistance. And it felt kind of mature. So, um, but yeah, the only real concern I have my family is my grandfather. He was a little worried what was going to happen to me when he was gone, because I didn't have a, man to take care of me. It's so interesting how much. woman's value is tied to her relationship status, right? Like whether or not she has a man to take care of her or is married. And, and what I love about this particular group is that you and Paige you became single mothers by different means. And we can go into that page. I want to hear what you want to have to say about that, but you also are at kind of book ends of that experience. Like Carla, your daughter Has graduated and is moving out and you are moving into empty nest stage and page your daughter is still very young. So I think this is just such an interesting group to talk with because you're in such different places and major choices. By different means. I was just going to piggyback when we were talking about expectations of marriage and whatnot. I think one thing that was helpful to me. Again, I grew up in the Midwest. Most people here, many of my peers or whoever. Get married right after college and did what you did. But, I. would visit the East Coast or had friends that moved to the East Coast. And if you're in New York or Boston or DC and you're getting married before 30, it's like weird, you know? So like, I mean, I think that's one thing that having a bigger perspective can kind of be helpful. Like not to be married when they're 24, you know, a lot of people on different in different places wait a little bit longer to do that. So, I'm sure I felt bad about it at times, but. Just sometimes life is what it is, right. And you can't create a husband or a partnership out of nothing. Well, you certainly can't create a husband out of nothing if you have standards because and like piggyback on that you had sort of asked about my path to having a child by myself. I had looked at adoption for years and years and years also so that has always been on my heart having kids has always been on my heart as you get older. There's cutoffs, like, well, if you're 45 and I didn't have my first child from my marriage until I was three weeks shy of 39. So we're both, late moms by that means. But as I was considering having my second child, the one I have by myself, with donor sperm. not only can you not create a relationship out of thin air, you also cannot create men who want to have babies out of thin air. And so as I was divorced and dating, I very squarely asked almost every guy that I met up with or went out with, you know, just asking the question, like, do you have kids? Do you want to have more kids? And nine times out of 10, the answer was, I can't have more kids. without, some surgical reversal of something that's already been taking place and nor do I want to, right? And so. When you're 25 and young and hopeful, and I'm going to meet a partner, and then we're going to have our family. It's like those prospects at 40 or 45, the men just, they've already done it. And most, all of the ones that I had connected with were not interested in doing that again. And so you're back to sort of looking at the clock going, do I just keep dating people forever and ever I met? And looking for that needle in the haystack that wants to have more kids. And not only do they want to have more kids, but they want to have more kids with me. And then we would work out and then, you know, that takes a couple of years. And then my fertility is declining because I was already in my forties. And so, that probably helped me along in my decision to go, wait a minute, there's other ways to do this, and I have friends and family partnered mostly, but friends and family who have done IVF. And so that idea was not foreign to me. I just started. Making calls and I started doing research and I started like, can I have coffee with somebody who's done this? And what was that process like for you? And again, all of those people were partnered, but I was more just trying to learn about what would that be like? It just kind of went from there, and instead of going on like match. com and looking at dating profiles, I would go on like the sperm bank, look at, you know, donor profiles. Similar very different. Yes. Yeah. So, and that's a wild thing to do too, because most of the donors are like early 20s and I was in my mid 40s. And so I had to sort of suspend for a minute. Like, I'm not looking for a partner. I'm looking for a potential. It's kind of interesting again, it's not that you're, a 25 year old looking at 25 year olds. I was like, I'm a 45 year old looking at 25 year olds, but, that's a great thing too. I always, always argue that, you know, women who choose this path have way more information about health and background and all of this stuff than probably you even did when you got married and have five kids. They've had genetic testing, they've had psychological testing. They've had to, answer all these in depth questions and, it's a very thoroughly vetted way to create your family much more so than a lot of people that do it the old fashioned way. That's so, this is so fascinating to me because it's literally like taking control of this choice, I want a child and centering that choice, what do I need to do to get a child, not like I have to have the partner first, I have to have the family first, I have to have the relationship first. And, although I'm several years out of this, religious community now, it's just so fascinating to me that you could feel so empowered to make that choice for yourself. Can I speak to one thing that you said, I want to have a child and that was me. Yeah, that's totally me. And then also I want to be careful about like it. I don't want it to sound like I just ordered it on Amazon. Of course. And so. What I have found now that my daughter's here and she'll be three in September, I not only wanted to have more children for me, I wanted my son, to have a sibling to grow up with and be in family with number one. And number two, now that my daughter's here, I feel sometimes like. She had a big role to play in this, like her spirit or something came to be through me. You know what I mean? Yes. I definitely feel that with my daughter. I'm not. You know, consider myself particularly religious or even spiritual, but I definitely feel like there was some greater power that be and they say that to you a lot during the adoption process is not to page this point. It's not where you just order it up. We could do a whole podcast about the ups and downs of, the adoption process and, instead of being part of for 9 months, you're. Paper pregnant, for anywhere from 18 to 24 months from from start to finish. And I know people whose adoptions took 4 years. So, it's an incredibly intense emotional process. You have very little control during the entire process, but they always tell you it'll all be worth it when they come home. You'll feel like you were destined to be together. It's not an easy process. It's not, but I've had a few comments about, how, oh, that must have been so nice not to experience labor I was like, you have no idea. You have no idea. Yeah. It goes into the process or when somebody calls you and says, well, we've rejected your paperwork. This is where, you know, we're talking about the patriarchy. I was in Guatemala. You had to go through what was called PGM, which is basically their, state department and they have to certify you and I got a call in January. I was expecting to bring her home in February. She had been born in June. I got a call. I still remember I stand in my kitchen and they said, they want proof that you're not homosexual. And I was like, excuse me, they're like you need to go find a psychiatrist who will attest to the fact that you are not homosexual because it's Catholic country. They would not knowingly adopt, to anyone who is homosexual. I had to go see a psychiatrist. I met with the psychiatrist. I was like, tell me what you need me to say. Who who do you need to call? Because if I couldn't prove it, I was done. So, it's a lot of hoops you jump through and, even when you go, the adoption route, there's still a lot of patriarchy, even within that, process. So, Paige, when you decided to go the IVF route, were there people who objected? Were there people who said you're doing it wrong? Did you run into any of that? Um, yes and no. So I did not ask for a lot of people's opinions. That's the way to go. Well, and I, I share that because I'm in some of these single mom by choice groups and that includes folks who've had babies and people who are considering having babies and the, you know, one might share, I talked to my mom and she doesn't agree or my dad doesn't agree. I was like, well, the way you solve that problem is you don't. Bring them into your decision making process. So the only person I think I probably really talked about it with was my sister, who was supportive and understanding, but my dad has passed away. I didn't even tell my own mom that I was pregnant. Like, I didn't even tell her until I was already like eight weeks pregnant. And so that included a year of traveling out of state of doing my own shots of taking supplements of taking hormones, because it was my own decision to make, funny, interesting story. The other person that I did tell was my ex husband, because although we had a somewhat, Difficult and contentious divorce as our son has gotten older. We've become like friends now, but even then just we were more cordial or whatever. And so, a point of just being up front, I had lunch with them 1 day and said, hey, I just want to tell you something. I am going to start the process of trying to make a little brother or sister for our son. He said right away, oh, don't expect me to be, you know, this is not my baby. This is not my responsibility. Don't expect me to help out or whatever. And he is just the most men with my little daughter that, he just, every day is texting me how it's on the picture. I was, you know, how's the little one, dah, dah, So, um, I just didn't really ask a Input, on the flip side, as I was pregnant, I did lose some. Long time friends over this decision, because as the last couple of years have progressed and our values and politics and things have sort of changed that a couple of my really starkly religious Catholic traditional friends have just sort of been like, that's not. The way we do this. And so that's okay. I've made new friends, but I haven't personally encountered a lot of criticism. Now, if people are critical of my choice, that's fine. Like, I like to tell people too, we don't have to make other people's thoughts be our thoughts. And so that's fine. You know, like, if you want to have an opinion that you don't think this was the best idea for me, that's fine. But most people I meet, even in dating too, most people are categorically like, holy cow, that is so awesome. You are such a badass, so like complimentary because it's not an easy thing to undertake. By yourself, financially, emotionally, you know, physically, like whatever. And so, those are the people I call in and I don't worry about the others. In my family. So it's been very supportive. I think probably with us more it's been on my daughter's side, because we don't look alike at all. she's Latino and, we'll joke with people. It's like, yeah, we, you know, we look so much alike, but she gets some microaggressions. They don't necessarily come from a bad way, especially with kids at her in school. She used to get comments well, where's your dad? They would ask her questions about her dad or, people will assume, I think the thing that drives her crazy is everybody assumes she speaks Spanish. She knows a little bit of Spanish, but she's not fluent or anything. So she's had some microaggressions, that we've had to work through together. But, I've never felt anything except for support. There's been some, some friends and family who've made some comments and then I just, they're not people that matter to me. So I either correct him or I ignore him. Yeah. So. I did another podcast, episode with a group of women who are child free by choice. And when I asked them what went into that decision, they all said the same thing, that they wanted to have children with someone who was a true partner, who would help with page, the load that you showed that the finances, the child rearing, that physical, that And they just couldn't find that person. And so they decided, I'm not going to take this on myself. So, Paige, how did you particularly create that support system for your child and for you? The first part of the question, the other thing to know is I am a divorced woman who knows a lot of divorced women and sees a lot of, conversation online about divorce and marriage and partnerships in, mom's groups and whatever. And so, the first thing that I want to say is that a lot of women think You must have partner and that somehow that that is going to be the magic answer to having kids and if any of you know any woman who's been married with children, not all men, but in a lot of relationships and a lot of traditional relationships, as you know, Sarah, I'm sure you did this in your own family. Women do most of the frickin work. And so. You know, when I see a single mom, Oh, if I only had a partner, if I only had a partner, I'm like, I don't know. Like I had a partner and actually had, categorically speaking a good partner in the sense that he was a good dad and he had a good job and he did stuff around the house. He wasn't a great to me partner wise, but here's the thing that I'll tell you that I have found is that being a single mom with a young child is a thousand times easier. Okay. The being a partnered mom with a young child, if your partner is not doing their share of the load and 99 times out of 100, they're not going to be. So in addition to being tired and overdone with like, I got to make dinner and I got to feed the kids and I got to get the bottle and I got to breastfeed and I got to do that time. You're also have the weight of disappointment that your partner's not doing. Anything or enough or their share or why do I always have to ask? Why do I have to tell them? You know, so the example that I would give is, my ex husband when my son was little and is crying in the middle of the night, somehow he just doesn't hear that. And so not only now I'm awake, I have to get up with the baby. I'm pissed that I have to also, try to make it make sense to my husband. Like, why can't you get up and help with this baby? So now I have my own, I'm doing this on my own and it's just easier because if my daughter wakes up, I just go get her. I don't have to have the added frustration of a partner who's not helping right or who's not hearing or who's not seeing what needs to be done. And there's a huge weight lifted in doing it that way. So, in terms of building my support system, I don't have a huge support system. I'll be very honest about that. My father's passed away. I have a brother that I, you know, his kids are older and we just really don't have a relationship. I have a mom who's lives close to me, but she's not that involved. I have a sister with three kids and they've got their own stuff. From my nuclear family standpoint, there's not much, one of my supports is my ex husband kind of, if he drops our son off and we have a little overlap time, we're at a soccer game or whatever, he likes to play with my daughter a little, but I don't, I don't have a huge support system. So how do we build that? Well, I build it by just reaching out to other moms or reaching out to other single moms or reaching out to married moms you have to kind of let go of all the things because I'm an older mom by definition. So if I'm having a baby at 38, 39 and everybody else had their babies at 28, 29, I don't worry about what age or whatever. I'm more like looking at the stage. So I've got a couple of gals that I connect with like, Hey, they're younger than me, but the kids are the same age. Go ahead. You want to go to the park. Do you want to go to the splash pad? Do you want to connect? Do you want to come over? Like I got bikes. I got trikes. I got a playset. Go to my house. I'll go to your house. I've also connected with some ladies who are older than me, a grandma esque age lady who's like, Oh, my God, I love your daughter. I'll babysitter. So. I think a lot of times people think it has to be another single mom, or it has to be this, or they're not my same age, or I'm an older mom and everybody's younger. I'm like, I don't care. I connect with anybody, I just think we have to let go a lot of the expectations of who should be doing what at what age and what stage and just sort of open ourselves up to support in places this is really important is you, you will not get support from people that you think you will get it from. And you will find support from people that you did not expect to get it from and we just have to stay open to that. I would say, like, page, I really don't have much of a very big support system. I have parents who are very involved, but they live 4 hours away. They're older. They're in their 80s now. When she was little, they would come up every, 4 to 6 weeks if she got sick. But I don't have an extended family here. I have a brother who's great with her when he's there, but it's not like, he would, come over and, take her or something like that. I remember she was in daycare, I would have somebody if I was late for work who could watch her for an hour or so. But, I will ditto what page said. I have a lot of divorced friends. And. My life is so much simpler. I don't have to run decisions by anybody. We come and go as we please. I don't have to coordinate schedules with anybody. It's a much simpler. Once I got her home it was pretty fairly smooth from there. I think a lot of it's your own expectations of things, I think sometimes the partner or even the support system thing gets, maybe overstated. Because when I was dating, I don't actually date now, but when I was, it was like, I couldn't find people when I would picture, I was like, my life would be so much more difficult with this person than it is now. I will say getting your own friends and your own, social outlet, I do think that's a piece of it because I do see some. Particularly single adoptive parents, single adoptive moms who make their kid the sole purpose in their life. And I see that have some repercussions, or some bittersweetness about empty nesting, but, I'm not so tied up that when she leaves that I'm going to, go into a complete, inability to live, which I got people I know who are going to struggle with that. It's like their kids, their entire identity. So I think that's probably even more important. It's not so much as for me. It's not so much a support system for your to help you with your kids is a outlet for you so that you had so that you don't completely lose your own identity. I compare my life to my life and my, my worst friends who are. Shuttling, custody or whatever. As we wrap up here, is there anything Carla that you wanted to make sure you said about this? This has been just such a great discussion. And then page. It's definitely the best decision I've made. It's not the easiest thing, but I don't think anything in parenting, even married couples, there's highs and lows, but, if anyone's sitting out there thinking that they wanted to, to have kids, but they need that partner, you don't need that, you don't have to have that partner. To create your own family and, families which you make it, it could look like however you want it to look. Yeah, I think that's a great point. The other added benefit that not everybody has one of the nice things that I have found is I've connected with a group of other families online who use the same donor that we had. So, I don't have a lot of family support for my immediate family, but I've created a whole new family of like, you know, donor siblings and whatnot. So that's been really fun and interesting. And yeah, if anybody's considering this, you know, I've been, I see a lot of women Tuesday. I've been waiting for the partner. I'm away from partner. I've been waiting for the partner. There's like nothing to say. The partner can't come later. You know, But absolutely, this has been more like the best decisions I've ever made. If anybody ever wants to talk more about it, I personally am always open to having this conversation with people, it's just, it's a great way. There's, as Carla said, there's a lot of different ways to have a family and to make a family. And I don't think there's one right way to do it. So we have to find a way that that works for us and where we're at. Yeah, I think sometimes life is what happens while you're waiting for your partner. Well, thank you. Thank you to both of you for giving us a peek into what that decision was like and how you've made it and the beauty and the satisfaction that that's brought into your life. I really appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for having me. It's always nice to talk about. Yeah. And thanks for having this conversation. I think it's really important that women especially know that there's lots of ways to do life. And so I love talking about this all the time.