Mindy Kaling Shares Why She's Content To Be A Single Parent
Mindy Kaling is keeping it real about why she’s completely fine being a single parent to her two children
In a new interview for Yahoo Life‘s So Mini Ways, Mindy Kaling opened up about her experiences as a single mom to her 4-year-old daughter Katherine and her 1-year-old son, Spencer, both of whom she calls “so full of joy and so funny.” Kaling gave birth to both children as a solo parent, which allowed her to realize her “great dream in life” of becoming a mom without waiting around to see if she’d find a partner to share the journey with.
Of her decision to have her first baby at 37, Kaling shared, “I had some professional things that I’d been hoping for not come through or had been delayed. And I just thought like, ‘What am I doing? Like, I just gotta have a kid.'”
Kaling revealed she felt “panic” that parenthood might not be in the cards for her, especially having lost her own mom after a battle with pancreatic cancer in 2012. “I [didn’t] want to wake up and just never be able to, because more than writing and creating shows, my great dream in life was to become a mom, because of my relationship with my mom.”
When she did decide to get pregnant, it was because she’d “had enough time to basically earn enough money so that I could have childcare when I wanted. Of course, you can have children without a ton of money — millions upon millions of people are doing it every day — but I will say that my amount of free time and happiness is really dependent on the fact that I just waited a little until I had saved.” She calls herself “blessed” and credits her nanny and her dad for pitching in, too.
Now a mom of two, Kaling is decidedly chill about the fact that she doesn’t have someone to share co-parenting duties with — and it sounds like she’s perfectly fine to keep it that way. “I think of myself as my kids’ parent, and if I have someone that comes into my life down the line, that would be great, but I don’t think it’s their responsibility. It’s mine. They’re just, like, my blood; they’re my responsibility. I’m not in a place now where I would necessarily want or need that from somebody else, to have someone else step in as a co-parent.”
Of her two little ones, she shared, “The biggest reward is seeing how happy my children are. Like, they’re just so full of joy and so funny. There’s nothing jaded or cynical about them… they just love life. For whatever reason, they have no fear in expressing themselves. You know, I was a really shy kind of repressed kid, [with] ‘be seen and not heard energy,’ and they’re very heard. And I feel great about that.”
We’re fully here for all of the single mom representation and appreciation — it sounds like she’s doing a fabulous job, and we love that she’s parenting on her own terms.
