Single mothers! Ah! We’re sluts! We’re whores! We’re uneducated! We’re losers. We don’t know how to get a man and keep him. We’re poor. We’re too busy. We’re too stressed. Most of all, we’re an archetype to be talked about, written about, judged. We’re not whole people. Individuals with individual circumstances. Stories. Real Lives. We’re “single mothers.” We are a group. A homogeneous one, for the most part, unless whoever is writing about “us” divides “us” by class or race. Then we’re “black or Latina single mothers” and “more-educated single mothers.” (Read: white.) We exist in a vacuum, in a world where there are no fathers, even when there are fathers, because of course there are fathers. Last I checked you can’t make a baby without a father, unless you’re a “more-educated” (read: white) single mother who had a baby on her own with donated sperm, then you’re just an alien (especially if you’re “0ld”). Also, single women don’t choose to adopt children and raise them on their own because that would mean single women are independent, thoughtful, capable and caring, so if you did that, I hate to tell you this, but you’re not actually alive. My condolences.