Conservatives obsess over moral decline, and liberals worry extravagantly — and one could argue condescendingly — about children, but all exhibit a fundamental lack of imagination about what family can be — and perhaps more pressingly — what family is: we now live in a country in which 53 percent of the babies born to women under 30 are born to unmarried mothers.
I happen to have two children with two different fathers, neither of whom I live with, and both of whom we are close to. I am lucky enough to be living in financially stable, relatively privileged circumstances, and to have had the education that allows me to do so. I am not the “typical” single mother, but then there is no typical single mother any more than there is a typical mother. It is, in fact, our fantasies and crude stereotypes of this “typical single mother” that get in the way of a more rational, open-minded understanding of the variety and richness of different kinds of families.
She goes on to say that she dislikes “studies’ (scare-quotes hers) and tends to disregard them. Which is fine, but “studies” have actually shown that the reason children of single mothers tend to have more problems than children of married mothers is because of financial and familial instability. Which, duh. And while Katie might think that single mothers are just as varied as married mothers, the truth is that disproportionate numbers of single mothers are low-income, and face significant challenges. I’m on board with her arguments that single motherhood isn’t a bad thing and marriage is definitely not the solution to the problems faced by low-income moms, but whitewashing the reality in favor of discussing her own situation isn’t really helping. I will give her credit, though, that she’s right here:
All of the liberal concern about single motherhood might more usefully be channeled into protecting single mothers, rather than the elaborate clucking and exquisite condescension that get us nowhere. Attention should be paid to the serious underlying economic inequities, without the colorful surface distraction of concerned or judgmental prurience. Let’s abandon the fundamentally frothy question of who is wearing a ring. Young men need jobs so they can pay child support and contribute more meaningfully to the households they are living in. The real menace to America’s children is not single mothers, or unmarried or gay parents, but an economy that stokes an unconscionable divide between the rich and the not rich.
Well also single mothers need basic support systems: health care, day care, protection from discrimination, fair wages. Roiphe’s set-up here again places mothers as care-takers for children who are financially dependent on men — it’s young men who need jobs to pay child support, not women who also need fairly-paying positions (and federally mandated parental leave). If the problems are stretched finances and familial instability, there are pretty easy fixes: Make sure that every American can cover the basics (health care, day care, rent) and quit using “get married” as a solution to all of womankind’s problems. “Get married,” if it takes precedence over “take care of your family, whatever that family looks like,” encourages women to stay with crappy partners who don’t pull their own weight and who contribute to the exact instability that’s damaging to kids. Marriage isn’t a panacea. It’s not a problem-solver. In the aggregate it often means two incomes, which means greater financial stability, which often does mean fewer fights and fewer day-to-day stresses, but that doesn’t make married parenthood automatically better than single parenthood for all or even most couples. A lot of single mothers are single for a reason, and not just because they couldn’t trick a man into putting a ring on it. Maybe start supporting all kinds of families — and not just the ones who are Bohemian and charming enough to make it into the New York Times.
Yeah, I was surprised that this wasn’t worse also, considering the author. The “we’re all different” thing can be tricky. I’m also a single mother in a somewhat atypical situation – I chose to have my son on my own with the help of a friend/known donor. I realize I have waaay more financial stability and resources than most single moms, and it’s important for me to recognize that, but I also hear people make this distinction, like, ok, you shouldn’t get shit on because you’re different than those other, bad, single moms who are younger or poorer or whatever. It’s why I kind of bristle at the “single mother by choice” thing. Yes, I made a deliberate choice, but so did someone who chose to leave an unsupportive or abusive partner. And even if it wasn’t by choice, so what? At a certain point you are where you are regardless of how you get there. So yes, we should acknowledge that overall many single mothers are struggling need better support and less judgement while recognizing everyone’s experience is different.
Watching someone spend an entire career concern-trolling her mom … is there someone who finds this interesting, instead of simply unseemly?
Jill,
Not only did you accurately cover a lot of ground, I appreciate how you’ve nailed it: marriage isn’t the answer, support For single mothers raising the future as an American family is.
Two kids, two dads etc is my story, too-my kids need responsible mentors & examples of healthy relationships.
This post is brilliant-let me know more When you write more whenever you wish-you’ve got the gift of insight. Thank you for sharing it.
Yeah I’m not single by choice. What’s more being low income and a single parent makes it feel impossible to date because I’m supposed to be financially and academically complete before I try to partner up with someone else.
Then I think, why am I applying an ablist/classist standard to my ability to date just because it’s repeated by people who are capable of finishing a college degree or working in a job where they can be self reliant dictate that people who struggle with mental health issues/income earning/academics should not be allowed to date?
I think it’s pretty sound advice in that people are better able to choose a really good mate if they are financially secure or securely on the path to become financially secure— but I think it’s funny that I’m still trying to meet some middle class standard of who I’m supposed to be even when I logically disagree with the mentally. Reminds of that quote “The greatest tool in the hands of the oppressors is the minds of the oppressed”
I didn’t want to be single and still don’t, but it’s very tricky in this difficult situation to date at all. In fact I’ve been on like five dates in five years and there just isn’t time or money for it and I’m just too proud to let my dates, or even friends pay for me to do things with them or get a sitter.
NO I don’t think dating someone for the money would fix a darn thing, but I guess what I mean is, I have found support from family and most of my single mom friends without family support have straight up leaned on, dated, married, and escorted men to provide better for there kids. And sometimes real love can happen within that context and some of those marriages do work, and I don’t really want judgement put on women who use such options or do rely on men to stabilize the poor conditions of being very poor and having kids with needs to developing into functional people within this societies standards….
I find it understandable. I think creating better options for moms that aren’t *men* for financially stability or to spend time at home with kids (which many women desperately want more than being in the workforce 40 hours plus forever more!) is better for EVERYONE including the same relationships that many have sprung up for financial reasons. I.e. if you found love in the context of making financial/romantic/sex trade– you could likely have found it in each other without the pressure of financial instability. (If the love is really genuine)
A quarter of the paragraphs in the article – fewer than those discussing studies of single mothers and deployed to make a point about her atypicality- are about Roiphe’s own experience. Since familial and financial instability causing the greater incidence of problems for children of single parents appears to be the centerpiece of her critique, I’m left wondering what those paragraphs compelled her to whitewash. That single mothers are disproportionately low income doesn’t mean they are less varied than married mothers (who are disproportionately high income).
“All of the liberal concern about single motherhood might more usefully be channeled into protecting single mothers, rather than the elaborate clucking and exquisite condescension that get us nowhere.”
Maybe I’m dense, but what is she talking about?
GumbyAnne -
What I would say is it’s easy to talk about single mothers, but no one really want to do the work and step up to protect them from discrimination, welfare cuts, and so much more. I wrote an 11 part series about some of the issues such as the unconstitutional discrimination against unwed mother run families.
[...] for somewhat (but not entirely) different reasons than David Blankenhorn, Jill at the blog Feministe doesn’t much like her piece, either: Maybe start supporting all kinds of families — and not [...]
is it just me or is it pretty ironic when writers like this go on about ‘condescension’ and ‘economic inequity’ while there actual wrting itself is so high minded and full of big words that half the people shes writing about wouldnt even understand half her sentences. its like its purposefully written so its difficult to understand and disguise the fact that underneath its simplistic self-cngratulatory rubbish.
Ugh, where to start?
First the body policing starts with slut-shaming single mothers for daring to fornicate or have sex with a husband who would leave them at some point in the undertermined future.
Then so many single mothers are made to feel like shit for not having abortions.
Next, comes the issue of money. They have a job that pays maybe 35-45K a year but rent is 14K a year and childcare is another 14K which leaves 7,000 a year BEFORE taxes to spend on food, clothes, diapers, milk, wipes, soap, shampoo, pads, transportation to and from work and daycare, healthcare, dental care, vision care you get the picture. She can’t afford it alone without some sort of help. Which takes us back to how she should have had an abortion.
NOW you have people saying they refuse to be her “babydaddy” and have “their” tax dollars support her *insert deragatory term/phrase for reproduction* so they harbor this contempt for women, not even necessarily poor women prior to being pregnant, with children.
This is a textbook example of how not to write an article — for a blog, broadsheet or otherwise — if you want to avoid looking like a narcissist navel-gazer. Then again, she found a way to get paid for talking about herself, so maybe she’s outsmarted us all.
I appreciate your inclusion of this piece and your comments because I avoid reading Katie Roiphe. It’s always all about her opinions crafted from her own limited experience, no matter what the topic. She doesn’t like the nasty criticism about single mothers, which is a good point. But she should read “studies” and get out of her bubble of privilege. When she does that she might realize that many societies where there is a strong social support network of good day care, family leave for both parents, widely available excellent health care, and fair work policies simply do not have a problem with single parenthood. Europe has the best documented case studies of single parenthood and the evidence shows clearly that parenthood without marriage does not have to be a signal of social and moral doom.
It will be a fine day indeed when an article titled, “In Defense of Single Motherhood” doesn’t cascade with “I” sentences and end with “author of forthcoming book…”
Hungry for more nuanced perspective on the strength of single parenthood from non book-pushing fem careerists.
Oh dear. I really hope to see the day this craze with all-about-me arguments like this comes to a full stop.
And not to derail too much, but isn’t Katie Roiphe also the same asshat who, along with Christina Hoff Sommers, said that rape isn’t as common as people think and that rape victims who don’t call their experiences of forced sex rape weren’t actually raped? The world is an awful place.
@10: I think that’s basically it. Our society can’t get past being angry that women have sex *at all*, and the “concern” over single mothers is rooted in that.
Of course, I want to speak up for using the word “I” in your writing. Women are already told, over and over and over and over, that we don’t deserve consideration. That the mere use of the first person pronoun is a display of unfeminine self-centeredness that must be paid for in spending months self-flagellating and performing unrequited sex between cooking for someone else to make up for doing that thing reserved only for men: Being caught thinking of ourselves in the slightest. Women should talk about ourselves and tell social pressures to always put someone else first to fuck the fuck off.
Personal narrative is a valuable part of feminist history; early feminist organizing was around women telling their stories and helping each other come to the realization that their private pain (illegal abortion, rape, domestic violence, husbands who made sneering putdowns if you asked for “help” around the house) was actually shared and therefore political. I don’t think Jill is suggesting that Roiphe shouldn’t say “I” or use her personal story to make these issues relatable. The problem is that Roiphe doesn’t allow for the unfortunate realities of women who are less privileged than she is.