Raising children when you are two adults taking care of business is – to not gloss over it – pretty bloody hard work at times.
Raising children on your own as a single parents is, I can only imagine, even harder in that you have no-one there to do the job (and it is a lot of work, we all know that ) with you at all times.
But actress January Jones, who has son Xander, 5, just revealed in an interview that she finds being a single mum empowering and that she has never missed having a man in her – and her son’s – life.
Jones, who has never revealed the biological identity of Xander’s father, has raised her son on her own since he was born, and even claims there are some actual benefits to raising a son without a father.
“It’s good to have strong women around a man. To teach him to respect women,” the 38-year-old told Red magazine.
“He doesn’t have a male person in his life saying ‘don’t cry’ or ‘you throw like a girl.’ All those s—ty things dads accidentally do.”
Now, she does have a point, no?
On her friends trying to set her up, the stunning Mad Men actress is quick to dismiss she is desperately hunting for romance.
“I just don’t feel I need a partner. Do I want one? Maybe. But I don’t feel unhappy or lonely,” she continued.
“It would have to be someone so amazing that I would want to make room. Someone who would contribute to my happiness and not take away from it. I realize I have very high expectations and will probably have to compromise but my life is so full. It’s not like, ‘Aww, I wish I had a man.’
January admits that after she had her son, she went on a couple of dates, but it wasn’t worth her while.
“I was like, ‘I’d rather be at home sleeping, or watching TV or hanging out with my kid,.”
When it comes to female energy and empowerment, the mum-of-one also talked about her son’s 2011 birth, and explained that she only wanted females around her for the event.
“My younger sisters [Jacey and Jina] and my mum and my doula were in the room. My brother-in-law and my dad were next door. I only wanted women with me. And I was embarrassed — your body does all these crazy things. It was a 30-hour process but it was awesome. I’d love to do it again.”
The downfall to fulfilling the roles of both mother and father? You have to play both “bad cop” and “good cop.”
“I don’t want to be bad cop. But to have his respect, I have to be both,” she said. “I mean, I’m an emotionally immature person. I’m an actor for God’s sake. I see myself behaving like a child all the time.”
