Gena Reine was 36 years old when she decided to become a single mother. “I had finished graduate school, got a job outside of Houston and was buying my first home,” says Reine, a Jefferson Parish school psychologist. “At that point I realized I was ready to move on to the next phase and have a baby.”

She wasn’t in a serious relationship and didn’t want to wait any longer for Mr. Right before starting a family. Reine had already decided if she was ready to have children and wasn’t in a relationship, then she “would consider artificial insemination by an anonymous donor.” After two years of fertility treatment, Holden Patrick Reine was born Dec. 17, 2002. On that day, Gena Reine, at age 38, voluntarily became a single mom.

And she is not alone. Reine is one of more than 2,000 women nationwide who are members of Single Mothers by Choice, a national nonprofit support group for women who decide to become parents without a mate.

The group defines a single mother by choice as a woman who decides to adopt or have a baby — by donor insemination, in vitro fertilization or sex — knowing she will be the child’s only parent. The group offers information to single mothers by choice and to single women considering motherhood and provides a peer group for the children.

“Our biological clocks have made us face the fact that we can’t always wait for marriage before starting our families,” says Jane Mattes, the New York-based psychotherapist who started the Single Mothers by Choice in 1981. She is also the author of “Single Mothers by Choice: A Guidebook for Single Women Who Are Considering or Have Chosen Motherhood.”

“Sometimes, women have to grieve the dream of finding the perfect man and getting the white picket fence before having children. You can still have those things, of course, just in a different order,” she says.

Single Mothers by Choice members are usually college educated, professional women between 30 and 45 years old who usually earn more money than the average man, says Mattes. “And the number of women seriously considering single parenthood is increasing.”

Single motherhood, by choice or by circumstance, has become more common. In 1970, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures, there were 3 million single mother households; in 2003, there were 10 million.

“Women are just not finding the ideal situation. As a society we idealize traditional families and marriage, which convinces people this ideal is out there somewhere waiting for them, which isn’t always the case,” says Michele Adams, assistant professor of sociology at Tulane University. “Most people want to get married, but it’s a growing trend that if women aren’t finding it and want to have a family, they can take advantage of their economic freedom and use other means to have children.

“Most would rather be partnered with someone than be alone, but if Mr. Right doesn’t come along, single motherhood is a real alternative,” Adams says.

Reine knew single parenthood was a viable option for her by age 28. “The possibility was always in the back of my mind,” she says. “I was just waiting for the right time to have a child.”

It took a while for her family to get used to the idea. “My mom grieved over my not having a husband, probably more than I did,” she says. “I had already come to terms with it, but mom was particularly concerned because she was worried about me being alone.” Reine’s mom changed her tune after Holden’s birth. “My family hasn’t missed a beat,” she says. “They can’t get enough of him.”

The concept of consciously choosing to be a single parent still seems strange to those outside the family, though. “Some people thought I was crazy, but they were always nice to my face,” Reine says with a laugh. “When people have expressed concern, they have always done so in a nice way.”

Single moms are getting a much warmer reception than they did a generation ago, because “there is less stigma on single motherhood,” Mattes says. “Everyone seems to know someone who is a single mother and people are seeing their children grow up and turn out OK.”

But there are stereotypes to battle. Single motherhood has been blamed as the source of social ills ranging from crime to poverty, says Sue Mennino, Ph.D., a Loyola University sociology instructor who specializes in family issues. “The idea of single motherhood leading to juvenile delinquency has stuck, too, even though the number of parents has nothing to do with the way a child turns out.”

What does affect children is “the quality of the parenting and the caring and support they receive,” says Mennino.

“It’s hard to pigeonhole a single mother by choice,” Reine says. “I made a very conscious decision to have my son. I did so when I felt financially secure and emotionally prepared to handle a child.”

Thanks to the support of other Single Mothers by Choice members and the hours of research Reine did before making the decision to have a child, life as a single mother hasn’t harbored any surprises. “I expected to do things on my own. I knew there would be times when I would be tired or stressed,” she says. “But I’ve been blessed with the caregivers I have found for my son and the support I’ve gotten from family and friends.”

Reine admits single moms by choice do have their own set of parenting challenges, such as the inevitable “dad question.” “I wasn’t sure when Holden would recognize that he doesn’t have a dad,” she says, although it came sooner than she expected. “Now, when he is disappointed or hurts his finger, Holden will say ‘daddy, daddy.’ He hasn’t asked ‘Where’s my dad?’ yet, but my plan is to be honest with him.

“I wrote a story for him about how he came to be,” Reine says. “It has some information about the sperm donor. We don’t know who he is, but my plan is to be frank with my son about it and answer his questions as honestly as I can.”

In the meantime, Holden has plenty of men in his life, including uncles and a doting grandfather.

Holden is now a vibrant 29-month-old, and Reine gets tears in her eyes when he calls her “mom.” “Just being a mom is my greatest joy,” she says.

So joyous that Reine, now 40, is thinking of becoming a single mom again. “I’d never planned for Holden to be an only child. I am analyzing my finances to see if I can afford to have another baby.”

Single mothers by choice give a lot of thought to siblings, Reine says. “We are older and we know at some point we won’t be around for our children anymore,” she says. “With a sibling, at least Holden would have another family member.”

She has the option of becoming pregnant by the same donor, so Holden would have a biologically full, rather than half, brother or sister. In the meantime, Reine feels lucky just to be a mom to one child.

“Holden is a real joy. He is everything I ever asked for, everything I prayed for and everything I waited for,” she says. “I’m very pleased with my decision. It was the right decision for me.”

The Ozzie and Harriet Myth:

On the first day of her Sociology of the Family course, Loyola University sociology instructor Sue Mennino asks her students to draw a family. Without fail, most of them turn in pictures of a husband, wife and children. “The nuclear family is our cultural reference point, our idea of what is normal,” says Mennino.

This vision — a father as breadwinner, with mom staying home to take care of their biological children — is what people think of as the “traditional family,” Mennino says. “It’s the 1950s Ozzie and Harriet. We hold it up as the ideal despite our own family backgrounds.”

The term “traditional family,” however, is misleading. “It makes it sound like this is a long-standing family type in our society, when really it was an anomaly,” Mennino says. “The 1950s are really the only period in our history when this was the dominant family structure and only because a good economy made it possible.”

Only 10 percent of families now fit this definition, according to U.S. Census Bureau’s 2003 “America’s Families and Living Arrangements” report. Since 1950, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson have been supplanted by a rise in dual-income households where both spouses work; “blended,” or step families, resulting from remarriage after a divorce; single-parent households created by chance, choice or divorce; same-sex couples with and without children; singles living alone; and unmarried couples who live together.

“A generation ago, parents wouldn’t even let you bring your unmarried cohabiting partner to dinner, but that’s changed,” says Michele Adams, assistant professor of sociology at Tulane University. “Society is increasingly open to a variety of family structures.”

“There really is no such thing as a typical family anymore,” Mennino says. “The modern family is comprised of all sorts of combinations.” Adams and Mennino attribute the shift to a convergence of economics and the changing roles of women. Mothers are in the work force in record numbers, the average age men and women have children and get married has risen, and divorce is much more common.

Changes in the family unit, however, haven’t fundamentally altered parents’ ability to raise happy, competent children. “The formula for the successful family is the same: unconditional love and quality time,” Mennino says. “The caring and support are what matter. It’s the way we raise them, not the family structure, that contributes to successful children.”