It's National Single Parents Day — Where's My Cake?

Today is National Single Parents Day. You didn’t know, did you? If you go to Target you probably won’t see an aisle dedicated to single parents even though I’m just now realizing this is a genius idea and they should start that immediately. You probably won’t see any cards or anything. The only way to know it’s National Single Parents’ Day is that a single parent will tell you. Because this is what our lives look like. We have a special day and we are the ones who have to tell everyone because it turns out there is no one else to hint or nudge or buy a cake when we really want a cake.

It is ever thus for single parents when a holiday comes around. Like say it’s Mother’s Day or Father’s Day which comes every single year and wow, the children you are raising are so shocked that it came back again. Just like they are shocked by every bedtime, dirty dish, and homework assignment but I digress.

They forget, you remind them, you feel weird about reminding children that there’s a holiday coming where they have to celebrate you and they feel resentful about being reminded because they were going to remember in a minute you just aren’t patient enough to wait. So Happy Birthday, here’s your cake and homemade card served with just the slightest hint of eye roll.

Birthdays and such are hard enough, so good luck with trying to celebrate National Single Parents’ Day. Especially since truly no one knows about it and even the few people who do don’t actually know what it means. What does it even mean?

I also support the idea of pins, t-shirts, and other accoutrements.

Like are we celebrating ourselves or is someone else out there celebrating us? Can we get the day off work or something? Is this one of those “awareness” things where this is a day to remind everyone that single parents exist? Oh my God… do we get a minute of silence because everyone is so sad for us? I wouldn’t really be opposed to that, if I’m being honest. I would like to know what time that would happen so I could be in a grocery store wearing a “Hi, I’m a single mom” pin and then I would just look so dignified while people were silent, thinking of me. I could cry just thinking about it.

National Single Parents Day has no chance of becoming a thing if we don’t make it happen which feels so poetically on brand for us. Much like we’re the ones who have to pay the bills and organize everything from homework to hair cuts to the worst job in the world, sorting the recycling. We know how to take the initiative. So let’s make it happen. Let’s make this the last year that everyone is all surprised that National Single Parents’ Day exists. Don’t wait for someone else to tell us what we want, let’s pick for ourselves. Here are some ideas to get us started:

We need a color scheme.

Christmas gets red and green, Easter gets pink and purple. If we want places like Target and Walmart to get on board with National Single Parents’ Day accessories we need to give them a color scheme to get it started. I look really good in a light green, not a St. Patrick’s Day green, so I would vote for that as one choice please. I also support the idea of pins, t-shirts, and other accouterments to highlight our many achievements with phrases like, “I paid the electric bill on time three months in a row!” or “My kids went away for the weekend and I made plans that were not eating takeout pizza in my pajamas.”

Celebrity endorsements wouldn’t hurt. If pressed, I would be happy to reach out to single parent celebrities like Andy Cohen and Mindy Kaling.

I would not say no to a parade.

Imagine getting dressed up with our kids (but someone else has to put them in their fancy clothes this is our day) and walking down main street while everyone cheers. They could throw rose petals at our feet that we don’t have to clean up after.

Feed us.

It strikes me as no coincidence that National Single Parents’ Day falls on National French Bread Day. If you really want to show a single parent that you understand their plight (although please stop calling our families a “plight” it’s massively offensive) why not set up a nice dinner where you give us all French bread and cheese and other good things while a trusted loved one watches our kids.

This is a good start for us, guys. Maybe next year we can all wear some form of light green and band together to eat French bread after our parade. Then we can start talking about silly little issues like tax credits, child support accountability, and access to affordable housing

But first, we eat!