A friend of mine recently e-mailed me to get some information on international adoption, which I supplied. She is single, has been thinking about adoption for some time now, and is seriously considering going forward with it. She did not ask my opinion on her decision to become a single parent, and I wisely refrained from giving her any assvice. (See how much I’ve learned from you people on the internets?) But it made me wonder: Had I never met Husband, or a suitable facsimile, would I have chosen to go the single-parent route?

Husband just returned from a three-day business trip, so I am eminently qualified to comment on single parenthood. News flash: it’s hard.

It’s not just the missing pair of hands — you could, I suppose, rent or borrow the sort of help that an extra parent would provide. And it’s not just the profound craving for adult company that you’re left with after a day spent in lockdown with a small child — I have many single-parent friends who have active social lives and romantic partners. The hardest part, for me, was the constant pressure of working without a net, that I had to plan every last detail of every move far in advance for anything to go smoothly.

On Tuesday, for example, I had to get the baby and dog up and to their respective day cares by 7:15 a.m. so I could be downtown for an important meeting at 9:00. This required the kind of advance planning normally only engaged in by organizations with the words “Special Ops” in their titles. Despite my best efforts to foresee any contingency, I was tripped up by an empty gas tank, an unexpected construction detour, and a misreading of the conference room location, leaving me sitting on the 6th floor while the meeting was starting on 2. But I did make it, and by virtue of getting everyone up, dressed, fed, and delivered, I felt I had pretty much fulfilled my accomplishment quota for the day.

But there’s no resting on laurels for the single parent; when you get home from work there’s the second shift (feeding, bathing, and bedding the baby); the third shift (house work and homework that didn’t get accomplished because you left work “early” to get back to day care at a reasonable hour); and then the midnight shift (night wakings and sick kid). All the shifts are yours. Sure, you can relax, but you have to schedule it, and then you spend half your time going, “Don’t think about anything for an hour goddamn it try to relax STOP THE THOUGHTS!” as your brain tries to plan the week’s meals on autopilot.

At one point this week, I contemplated a strike. “I can stop the motor of the world, you know, Aitch,” I threatened as I changed a soaked pair of pajamas for the third time that day. Aitch was unimpressed. He knew if I slacked, it would hurt me more than it hurt him. The less I plan and do, the more my world tends to entropy, destroying any hope of a free, peaceful moment.

This is how you know that John Galt was not a single parent. Single parents do not have the luxury of work stoppage. And I’ll bet that Dagny got her tubes tied as soon as they got married, or whatever Objectivist partnering equivalent they recognized in their Colorado fort.