Qualifiers.

I've been lucky. I've never really had to deal with mom-shaming. I've heard of The Mommy Wars, sure, but I've generally found that everyone is just trying to get through the insanity that is motherhood. I have friends whose parenting styles differ from mine, of course, but I've always just figured that different things work for different people and that was the end of it.

Until I joined a Single Mom Support Group on Facebook.

A couple weeks ago, my baby daddy had to cancel his visitation. Normally this isn't a huge deal, but my son has been having some behavioral issues stemming directly from the fact that he doesn't see his dad much.

My son is picking fights at preschool. He's throwing fits constantly. Bedtime is a nightmare. He usually screams for his dad for at least a half an hour.

So I was frustrated. While I love all my mom friends, none of them are single parents. My cousin is a single mom, but her son's father is very involved, so she doesn't have to deal with this particular issue.

I vented, saying I was upset for my son and upset for me, since I only get 12 hours a month for myself.

Of course, I love my son and love spending time with him. But as a full time single mom, there are times when I'm desperate for a break.

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. I was immediately met with criticism, saying that I should be lucky I even get 12 hours a month. Comments going on and on about how easy I have it because I have a baby daddy who is involved.

Comments saying I'm not really a single mom.

Now, I've been alone through all of this. Through the newborn sleepless nights, I didn't have a co-parent to lean on when all I wanted to do was cry. Through teething, through his asthma diagnoses and his horrible allergies. Through taking him to the ER because I thought he was dying when he had croup. Through my sweet little baby being prescribed an EpiPen and having to deal with the thought that I might have to use it one day. To breaking him of his pacifier, potty training, breaking from co-sleeping.

It has always been me. Alone.

Yes, his dad takes him for a few hours every other week (when he can), but that doesn't mean I'm not alone.

There was no one there to stare at him, wide awake, at 4 in the morning when he was a newborn. No one to marvel at the beautiful thing we made together.

There is no one there on the nights that he screams for his dad and lashes out at me with tiny hands and feet, punches and kicks that land like tiny daggers because the beautiful thing you made wants nothing to do with you.

There shouldn't be qualifiers to what does or does not make you a "real" single mom. And another person's struggles do not cancel mine out.

I'm allowed to be frustrated and upset. I am a single mom, and I'm doing the best that I can. Don't you dare tell me I'm not.