How women over 30 are rewriting the single mom narrative in America

toggle caption Maansi Srivastava/NPR

WINCHESTER, Va. — It's 6 a.m. and still dark outside. But Adrienne Rumley's two-bedroom apartment is alive with kinetic energy. A 4-month-old kitten darts around. A big dog patters back and forth. Another cat stealthily watches the morning unfold from behind a chair. A 2-year-old child is sleepily sucking on a pacifier and watching TV.

The scene may seem chaotic. But 37-year-old Rumley's morning routine is running in clockwork precision. It has to — she's the only parent.

An alarm beeps every few minutes, keeping her on schedule for her next morning task. Brush her kid's teeth. Put on her work clothes. Dab on a spot of makeup. Get her daughter, Lorelei, ready for day care.

toggle caption Maansi Srivastava/NPR

"I leave at exactly 7:02," Rumley says. "I don't get stuck behind the school buses. And if you get stuck behind school buses, then you're going to be late."

Sponsor Message

Rumley is among millions of American single mothers raising children by themselves. These moms are likely never to have been married and many don't live with partners.

Today, 40% of all babies in the U.S. are born to unmarried women, a dramatic increase since 1960, when they made up only 5% of births.

Increasingly, they are women over 30, like Rumley. This group has swelled in number by over 140% in the last three decades, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Loading...

NPR spoke to over two dozen single mothers in this age group. Up and down the income spectrum, they paint a starkly different picture than the persistent stereotypical image of single mothers as irresponsible and incompetent. That's partly because in the 1980s and '90s, most of them were teenagers or in their early 20s. Today, that's less likely.

Women over 30 have more life experience under their belts and they're a lot more capable; they're more likely to have full-time jobs, more education and earn more, all of which