Today, I just want to give kudos to single moms.

Not single moms like me, who lack husbands but have an ever-present cadre of support and others in the wings who I know I can call on in a pinch.

Not even the single moms like I used to be when I worked three jobs, attended school full-time and somehow managed to eat breakfast and dinner with my son during the week, and generally managed to add in lunch on the weekends.

I eventually gave up on my dream of spending my life in the ivory tower, got a real job, traded my bus pass for a car and tried out the nuclear family thing only to discover that I'm more of a village person, in the Hillary Rodham Clinton sense.

During a trip down memory lane with my 12-year-old (uphill both ways, of course), I reminded him of his early years, when I'd push him in his stroller to his baby-sitter's, about a half-hour or so away, then collect my thoughts after I dropped him off to transition from mommy to scholar before I hit campus. I told him that when he entered daycare, I washed dishes at the center to subsidize his tuition, and ended up in journalism not because I was following in my father's footsteps, but because working at a college paper was the most flexible (and lowest-paying) job I could find.

What I didn't tell him was that aside from organizing our schedules, the rest was easy. We could walk to school, unless we were more in the mood to bus it. We lived across the street from a grocery store, so shopping for fresh food was easier than hitting a fast-food joint. We were broke all the time, but I could make $17 stretch for days and was proud of it.

Fast-forward a decade and I can't make my son feel guilty about a lifestyle I loved, any more than I can complain about the 5-year-old who has brightened every single day since she entered our lives. Sure, I'll be forever puzzled about why I could take on a million things when it was me and my son on our own, yet I'm stumped almost daily about how to juggle one job and two kids who attend the same school. Shouldn't life be less complicated?

Instead, I find there are days when science projects and reading homework and conflicts between kid activities and my work schedule make my brain seize up before I can figure out how to resolve it all. At those times in particular, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for the people in our lives who pitch in with advice, emotional support or just hands-on help.

I know when pushed, moms can and will accomplish the most daunting things on their own if their kids need them to. Some days, though, I just have to give props to the single moms who do it all the time without a second thought.