This year, on the day when we celebrate our mothers, the first Happy Mother's Day call I will make is to my sister. She has been one of those women on the front lines of motherhood, with the most difficult job in the world: A single mom. Of teenagers.
I love my sister and her two great children, and I am in awe of her. As a divorced mother, I have an inkling of the incredible amount of responsibility and work that single mothers undertake. So I was surprised, and saddened, to read that, rather than praising their hard work, we denounce single mothers. Nearly seven in ten Americans, according to a recent Pew study, say single motherhood is "bad for society."
What is it about motherhood that we are so quick to pronounce on and judge other people's choices? I have been reviled as a bad mother for leaving my children for four months to work, and then being the one who moved out of their house after my divorce. I have been scolded for admitting publically that I had not wanted to be a mother. People have commented that my children must be ruined for life, and even though I have said they are fine and well-adjusted, these people insist they couldn't possibly be. My two boys find such comments presumptuous, but also very amusing. They like to joke with me, these days, about how I "left them on the side of the road" while they do their homework on my couch.
But it is not just me -- far from it. If you don't take primary custody, you are a bad mother, but you are also a bad mother if you push your children too hard to play the violin. If you think you are being a good mother when you enroll your child in a school district where his father lives and you do not, think again: you will be arrested. The same thing will happen if you are homeless and therefore have no school district. Reality TV can offer the opportunity for us to obsess on just about any kind of mother, from loveable to loathable. And now, we are judging the woman who does stay, who does work. The woman who takes care of everything that two parents usually do, five million of whom are owed child support.
Why?
Is it that old bugaboo, the welfare mom, raised most recently in connection with Natalie Portman? In defending his comments about the actress, Mike Huckabee claimed, "most single moms are very poor, under-educated, can't get a job, and if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death." Not true. In fact, according to the Census Bureau, 80% of single mothers work and less than a quarter receive public assistance. But fighting and accusing and attacking is what captures our attention. How many of us were able to escape Ann Coulter's nationally televised claims that single motherhood is "a recipe to create criminals, strippers, rapists, murderers"? Here is that dire warning about my children being ruined coming back through a bullhorn.
These are our children she is talking about. Our next generation.
I would like to think that the study shows that we understand how hard single motherhood is. So overwhelming, in fact, that we worry that the strongest, best-intentioned mother can't give her children everything they need. It is probably fair to say that most of the single mothers working to make all their ends meet aren't living in luxury. They could use more time, more help, more money. Couldn't we all?
What this study does say is that a majority of us see a need. The question, on this Mother's Day, is: how do we meet it? Nearly ten million single mothers are caring for twenty million children. They are us: our neighbors, our family members. In the end, we judge mothers based on whether or not they give their children enough support, and the right kind of support in our view. If we care about these children, we should be putting our money where our mouth is as a society. Instead of criticizing, and cutting funding for nutrition, education and other services for women and children, why don't we focus on helping single mothers do what every mother, regardless of her circumstances, truly wants to do: Protect, love, support and care for the children.
My niece and nephew are adults now, on their own. They love their mother, and can certainly appreciate better than I can what she did to bring them up as good, kind, loving and responsible people, none of them "bad" for society. Even with the three hour time difference between me and my sister, I know I won't be the first one to get to her with my Mother's Day wish. Her children will. And, like the other twenty million children of single mothers, my niece and nephew certainly won't be thinking of the word "single" when they call.
Liya Kebede: This Mother's Day
Why is it husbands can not get the woman who publically agreed to marry them to stay in the marriage?
The answer to this question is a root cause. The answer of course is probably a woman's fault.
/s
"I have been reviled as a bad mother for leaving my children for four months to work, and then being the one who moved out of their house after my divorce. I have been scolded for admitting publically that I had not wanted to be a mother." -- Not exactly the perspective of someone focused on anyone or thing but themselves. An awful lot of I's for a blog that is supposed to be about her sister.
The single Mom who ends up divorced, with zero support from spouse, raising kids.
The OTHER single mom is the poor, uneducated woman who, under pressure from societal mores,
decides to get pregnant. With no source of income, no career prospects, no parenting skills, the woman is now tied to the welfare network, if not for life.
And the cycle gets repeated.
Sick of women who decide they need a child to make them whole and sticks the taxpayer with the cost.
I want to drive an Escalade. But, I CANNOT AFFORD IT.
Doesn't seem to matter when a woman decides she wants a baby.
Graduate high school
Get married before you have children
If you get married, stay married
Get a job, any job. A minimum wage job is a stepping stone
Avoid engaging in criminal behavior
Actually, they work pretty well statistically! Those who follow those rules have a low rate of poverty compared to those who don't.
One could also add:
Don't buy liabilities--expensive items that require a lot of upkeep.
Invest a little every paycheck.
Treat your spouse right. That way you are less likely to divorce.
Don't smoke. Put equivalent of cigarette money into savings.
Avoid salt, refined carbohydrates, and get regular exercise. You'll use up less of your money in health care.
I didn't always know or follow these rules. I got smart later in life, after I had messed up one marriage. I'm hoping to get some younger folks on the right path early in life, when it counts the most.
"Experience is great teacher--and a fool will have no other..."
Read the good economists such as Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, and investment advisors such as Bob Brinker and Larry Kudlow. You'll end up much higher on the income quintile scale than you otherwise would.
Now to the subject at hand. There is a terrible disconnect between the perception of the life of the single mother and the reality.To an extent I see two causes of this. One was the myth of the welfare queen, having children to collect benefits. This was a great tool for the Republican minded, convincing the voter that there were scores of women just breeding for bucks. Today these low income women are scorned and scapegoated for availing themselves of things like WIC, food stamps and medicaid for their kids. But there has also been a self inflicted wound created by the other end of the single motherhood spectrum. The women who had money, freedom, choices. This very small but vocal and public segment was quite proud in proclaiming they did not need a man to have and raise a child. They wanted a child and by G-d, they were going to have one. Since they didn't need a man to put a roof over their kid's heads, or food, clothing, education, their kids didn't need a dad, because we still live in a society that all too often reduces a father's role to just this, financial provider.
Neither end of the spectrum truly represents the reality of life for most single mothers. Most are hard working middle class women struggling and juggling and sacrificing for their kids. Most did not chose to find themselves in this position. How they do it, I really don't know. But on this Mothers' day, I applaud them. And that is the end of my rant.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/05/03/public-support-rising-for-joint-custody/25861.html
As far as "single mothers" are concerned, don't forget that most women are, in effect, "single" mothers whether they are married or not, in terms of who does the caretaking of the children. In most cases, when a woman has a child, her life changes completely; when a man has a child, his life doesn't change at all.
You tell on yourself by the friends you seek,
By the very manner in which you speak,
By the way you employ your leisure time,
By the use you make of dollar and dime.
You tell what you are by the things you wear,
By the spirit in which you burdens bear,
By the kind of things at which you laugh,
By the records you play on the phonograph.
You tell what you are by the way you walk,
By the things of which you delight to talk,
By the manner in which you bear defeat,
By so simple a thing as how you eat.
By the books you choose from the well-filled shelf:
In these ways and more, you tell on yourself.
Let's stop mindlessly bashing ALL men because some are irresponsible and because some women choose irresponsible men to copulate with.
Pays to make wise and careful choices in your mating habits, doesn't it?
I'm not "anti male"...but I am wondering why we find it so easy to blame women for things that took TWO genders to facilitate.
But sexual relations, other than rape, are consensual, no? And foregoing birth control is a decision, is it not? So there is certainly blame on the man who dodges his responsibility but there is also blame upon the woman who chooses such a man and who chooses to become impregnated by such a man. Playing the victim card doesn't work when you had choices to make that could have prevented the problem.
I hope they talk about it.
It will help the women/men they involve themselves with.
The need to know is so important.
I don't see a downside to knowing..