Remember how the advice column “Dear Prudence” at Slate used to be written by this nifty, warm-hearted, genuinely feminist woman? And how the universal rule that all mainstream publications must eventually tend towards shit kicked in, and that “Prudie” left and was replaced by someone who seemed really stupid? I mean, she had this weird anti-female bias in her writing, but it came off less as reactionary and more like, “I’m too dumb to know better than to buy every sexist big of crap fed to me.” That’s what I assumed, at least, but I confess that she was so bad I quit reading, especially after she wrote this jaw-dropping column advising a woman to marry a man that she was considering dumping because he went to Asia and had sex with a prostitute there. The answer was very much in the, “But the unpleasantness aside, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” Seriously, her answer was, “Well, if he’s otherwise great besides the cheating on you with prostitutes overseas who are probably 12 years old, then why fuss over that minor detail?” Any sane person would realize that “sleeping with prostitutes, especially on overseas business trips” is the giant red flag of red flags that you’re marrying a grade A asshole at minimum, and perhaps you’re even running the risk of marrying Neil Bush. But Prudie shrugged it off. So, I thought she was stupid.
I should have looked harder. She’s not stupid so much as she’s a crazy reactionary misogynist.* (Though she’s often pro-gay and otherwise socially liberal in other writings, but just has this weird blind spot when it comes to women. It’s typical Slate dressing-up-reactionary-politics-as-something-daring-since-they-come-from-an-ostensible-liberal.) She has recycled the same old story about how single mothers are the end of civilization (because civilization is defined as a system of making sure that women’s reproductive functions are used to keep them dependent and subject to men) and there seems to be no indication on her part that she realizes that everything she could possibly say on the subject is both mean-spirited bullshit and has been said a billion times before. She does go the extra mile, though, with this quote:
We still think of the archetypal unwed mother as a Jamie Lynn Spears—a dopey teenager who dropped her panties and got in over her head. A generation and more ago, that’s who most unwed mothers were. But according to the most recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, teenagers account for only 23 percent of current out-of-wedlock births. That means the vast majority of unwed mothers are old enough to know what they’re doing: Unwed births are surging among women ages 25 to 29.
That conservatives generally think that it’s a bad thing that single mothers can be happy and self-actualized, instead of punished with shame and fear and having their babies taken away from them is not a new story, but this paragraph makes the anti-woman bent of all this even more stark. The fact that single motherhood is an active choice made by adult women, instead of a passive thing that just happens to teenage girls, somehow makes the trends worse. Girls that passively fall into a trap aren’t near the same castration threat as women who take control of their own lives and choices.
Then there’s some blah blah about how “some researchers say” that single motherhood is the cause of crime, poverty, etc. (though you can rub a single mother on your hands to remove warts, so there’s a silver lining) without actually showing the research to back it up. That would be because the causation/correlation line probably runs the other way—the factors that create poverty and crime also create a class of women that doesn’t have the same opportunities to get married or the same reasons to do it.
What I find really amazing is that Prudie takes a look over the mail she gets as an advice columnist, and detects a trend:
For 10 years, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study at Princeton University has followed the families of 5,000 children, three-quarters born to unwed parents. According to the research, most of these parents, both women and men, said they wanted to get married—and to each other. But they somehow feel this mutual decision is beyond their power to make. And by not making it, the forces of inertia start pulling them apart. Five years after their children’s births, only 16 percent of the couples had married, and 60 percent had split.
Among the most poignant letters I get are those from young women wondering whether they will ever convince the father of their children finally to marry them. “My boyfriend and I have a 4-year-old son. We’ve broken up but realized that we truly are meant for one another. My father was diagnosed with stage four cancer last year, and I’ve made it known to my boyfriend how important it is for me to have my father with me when I get married. When I bring up marriage to my boyfriend his reply is we will get married, I promise, but he has not asked me.”…..
Sometimes the writers start with a conflicted sense of hope. “My ex is rather immature and irresponsible. I had a recent fling with him that resulted in pregnancy. I am overjoyed with the impending arrival of my baby, but I fear that no one else in my life will feel the same way.” This is followed by more conflicted and less hopeful letters when the kids are small. “My boyfriend and I have a child who is almost 2. He also has a daughter and I have two other children. We bought a home together, but a week before we were about to move in, he left me. Now it’s four months later, and he’s bought me an engagement ring, but I found out he had a girlfriend during the time we were split.” “I have two children with my ex-boyfriend. We broke up because last year a paternity test he was ordered to have came back positive. Even though we are not together, I still want my kids to have a father in their life. I also know he is ignoring his new son because he wants nothing to do with the mom, but that little boy also deserves to have a male figure who cares.”
It appears that her mailbag is full of letters from women who are being strung along by men, given promises by the men that won’t be backed up, and then left holding the bag when the men finally leave after they said they wouldn’t. The irony here is these women are trying to live up to the standards of feminine behavior demanded by conservatives. They’re striving for marriage and babies. They’re standing by their men, putting the men first in their lives, instead of their own happiness. They’re trying to keep it together for the children. They’re being passive and letting men take the lead.
So, naturally, Prudie puts all the blame on them. They need to pick better men; it’s their fault for screwing losers. If being a good, passive woman doesn’t spare you from being dumped on and blamed for everything, I fail to see the point of it.
No, these women will not be helped by more patriarchy, I’m afraid. The idea that men treated women better in the past is a belief drawn from watching Nick At Night, not from reality. We don’t need evo psych bullshit to explain why so many men lie, cheat, string women along, knock women up and then accuse the women of sleeping with other men. They do it because they can, because they’re in a privileged place in society, and because people like Emily Yoffe can be counted on to lay all the blame and responsibility at the feet of women. And this has always been true. The popularity of the paternity test should cause one not to reflect on the degraded morals of today’s society, but on what happened to women in the days before there was a paternity test, and a woman bearing a child out of wedlock simply had to live with the fact that the guy who knocked her up will say someone else did it (dragging her reputation through the mud).
If you want women to stand up for themselves against these losers, you need more feminism. The divorce rate has gone down as society has become more feminist for a very good reason—when women can leave, men have a lot more incentive to play nice. I suspect many of the women Yoffe describes would actually do better to let go to their attachment to the idea that you have to have a man to lean on/husband to support you/father for your children. When men have no consequences to their actions, and know full well that they can cheat, lie, ditch you, or string you along and you’ll put up with it because you have limited options, a lot of them are going to take advantage of that. Not all, of course. A lot of people are good people because they just are. But some need to have some consequences to keep them honest. Not that I’m saying that these relationships described are fixable, but ditching the guys in question is good practice for getting the backbone that will help you stay out of these fucked-up situations in the future.
*To be true to the both/and spirit of the blog, though, I have to point out that these two things often go hand in hand.
68 Responses to “Single moms can’t win for losing”
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Perhaps the force of parenting rather than the force of inertia pulled them apart. Haven’t you blogged about the added pressures of children on relationships before?
“because civilization is defined as a system of making sure that women’s reproductive functions are used to keep them dependent and subject to men” - best summation ever.
Gotta wonder how many of those “unwed mothers” are lesbians with partners. If we let marry they wouldn’t be “unwed” anymore, would they?
I guess it would be mean to point out that the statistics quoted for breakups of relationships are not all that different from the stats for breakups of marriages involving couples in parlous economic, social or demographic circumstances. (They all go together, but couples who marry young are particularly likely to separate and/or divorce.)
Also probably mean to point out that a) any statistic that requires a woman with offspring to have a state-approved wedding license to be counted as a non-single mother is missing a big chunk of the partnered population and b) the unmarried women in their late 20s who have decided to have kids aren’t effing writing some prissy advice columnist about it, because they don’t need anyone’s advice.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that her point isn’t that “it’s a bad thing that single mothers can be happy and self-actualized” so much as that it’s almost impossible for the average middle-class-or-lower woman to raise a child alone — that is, raise him or her *well*. That for every ‘Murphy Brown’ there’s a hundred women who find themselves poorer, more overworked, and more negligent of their children than they thought they would be when they were daydreaming of parenthood.
I’d imagine there are a million different ways of loooking at this through a feminist lens — but saying that in today’s society that single-parent homes on average lead to just-as-well-adjusted-children as dual-parent homes is probably not the best. (On that note, I also have no problem with the underlying assumption that all prospective parents should make 100% sure that the proper supports are in place before they start breeding, whether it’s that there are two parents, supportive-in-advance grandparents or other caregivers, a massive lesbian commune, whatever.)
In other words, I am pretty sure what she’s trying to say is that she thinks a lot of people enter into parenthood too lightly, and mostly by ‘too lightly’ she means as solo parents, as having a couple warm bodies to earn $$/look after the kids is the most standard way to go. Not sure why that’s a problem.
it’s almost impossible for the average middle-class-or-lower woman to raise a child alone
Again with the teenage our youthful mama assumption. I’ve known a number of women who find parenting challenging on their own, but they owned property and had investments before they decided to either adopt, inseminate, or say “well, I’ll just keep this one” when they became pregnant.
She writes an advice column for women and thinks that because, shockingly, some women that write to her for advice are single and with children that means all are falling apart? Does she really have delusions of grandeur to think that she gets letters from a sizable enough population to draw any inferences from a bag full of mail? I’m unwed, with two kids, and not writing anyone for help because we’re quite happy with things as they are. And if someday we split, at least I won’t have to deal with divorce court. So there!
Well of course. Men come with signs stapled to their foreheads that have their “quality” (or lack thereof) written on them. Or if they don’t come with that, then women should use their dainty “women’s intuition” to decipher a man’s potential as an ideal husband and father. Only real dainty, prudent ladies have that, which is why they always end up with the “perfect” husbands and fathers, and living the “perfect” life in their pearly white, gated surburban neighborhoods.
Fuckin’ eh! Women are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. Put women on a pedestal just to knock them off, and then blame them for being knocked off. Catch 22 incarnate…welcome to the female experience in a patriarchal society. And all the while, the men in these situations are given a free pass and all the *sympathetic understanding in the world…because all women are conniving Jezebels, daughters of Eve, and those skanky bitchez on Maury Povich, who trick men– with their treacherous feminine wiles– into relationships and fatherhood
*Coddling, catering, ego-stroking, entitlement, privilege, etc…
Well, just look at all the other anti-feminist, pro-Stepforwives, self-appointed female “experts” (with doctorates, some how) when it comes to “women’s troubles.”
From ACM:
“She writes an advice column for women and thinks that because, shockingly, some women that write to her for advice are single and with children that means all are falling apart?”
I doubt she’d claim that *all* are falling apart. Do you disagree that parenting/supporting a child (or children) is difficult, and that there is a pile of evidence showing that children of single parents tend to do worse than children with multiple parents?
This isn’t to say that there aren’t successful independent women of means (those Murphy Browns) that can make it work, or that there aren’t women who *aren’t* of means who still manage to struggle through and raise some kick-ass kids, but damn . . . it seems to me that the evidence for the causal relationship proposed here:
1) Societal mores change to put less value on marriage before kids –>
2) Which leads to more single-parent homes –>
3) Which leads to (on average) less cared for children
is pretty strong.
(Note I didn’t say less loved, but less cared for, due to the financial, emotional, etc. burden faced when a parent has to go it alone.)
I’d imagine there are a million different ways of loooking at this through a feminist lens — but saying that in today’s society that single-parent homes on average lead to just-as-well-adjusted-children as dual-parent homes is probably not the best.
Strawman. No one is arguing that, never have, never will. That’s your first problem. The notion that millions of women are given a straight up choice—blissfully happy marriage with a loving man who shares the responsibilities equally and likes to kiss your stretch marks or single motherhood—and they choose the latter is nonsense. Even Yoffe carefully acknowledges towards the end that single motherhood is a “life happens” sort of thing. She says, oh yeah she doesn’t think anyone should get into a bad marriage. But maybe that exception actually covers 99.9% of the single mothers she’s castigating. I suspect it does, and so by allowing herself the “you don’t have to get into a bad marriage” exception, she’s actually railing against a set that is close to zero.
No, Forrester, she’s saying we don’t shame women out of single-motherhood strongly enough, while providing examples of women who actually wanted to get married and blaming them for a lack of respect for marriage that they don’t even have.
Besides which, a feminist response to the difficulties of single motherhood is not to shame individual women or suggest that their rightful place is to be tied to a man. Regressive attitudes towards women who have children and aren’t married lead to policies which make it even harder for them.
That’s always the way they play the blame game, isn’t it? People do things too casually, or too lightly, or otherwise were being stupid and so 100% deserve any negative thing that ever happens to them. Please note she didn’t dare suggest that men enter into parenthood “too lightly”. Nope, just those slutty morons who thought being a parent without a man in the house was so clever.
My wife and I are the children of single moms. We watched them struggle to raise us, work long hours, endured various kinds of neglect from them, and watched with sadness the toll it took on them. But we don’t blame them for divorcing the men who sired us and never coughed up a dime of child support or bothered to stay in our lives. Our mothers were there for us and provided the best they couid - which turned out to be pretty good. They deserve support and respect, not shame and scorn.
My wife and I are lucky to have each other. We have a stable, loving marriage, and we love our kids. But, hey, guess what? Shit is still hard. We aren’t always there for our kids, money is tight, work conflicts with special functions, we get tired, cranky and short-tempered. We worry that we might not be able to give our kids a college education. The house is a disaster.
In other words, conservatives should get over their 50s sitcom notion of family life and recognize reality. Wages are down, debt is up, health care is expensive or just not affordable, education is treated as a privilege, and employers demand more time and productivity away from the family. Single or married, parents all over are struggling.
Amanda, these statements:
“The fact that single motherhood is an active choice made by adult women, instead of a passive thing that just happens to teenage girls, somehow makes the trends worse.”
“Then there’s some blah blah about how “some researchers say” that single motherhood is the cause of crime, poverty, etc.”
“That conservatives generally think that it’s a bad thing that single mothers can be happy and self-actualized . . .”
“I suspect many of the women Yoffe describes would actually do better to let go to their attachment to the idea that you have to have a man to lean on/husband to support you/father for your children.”
don’t quite jibe (in my opinion) with calling this statement of mine a ’strawman’ that nobody would ever argue with
“I’d imagine there are a million different ways of loooking at this through a feminist lens — but saying that in today’s society that single-parent homes on average lead to just-as-well-adjusted-children as dual-parent homes is probably not the best.”
or this:
“Even Yoffe carefully acknowledges towards the end that single motherhood is a “life happens” sort of thing. She says, oh yeah she doesn’t think anyone should get into a bad marriage. But maybe that exception actually covers 99.9% of the single mothers she’s castigating. I suspect it does, and so by allowing herself the “you don’t have to get into a bad marriage” exception, she’s actually railing against a set that is close to zero.”
Your original essay made a series of overlapping points, one of which seemed to be yay-with-individual-choice-to-have-kids-while-single. Now you’re waying that you agree it’s a ‘life happens’ sort of thing, that nobody really makes that choice, that it’s always the case that the woman really really things she’s going to have that support in place, just doesn’t turn out that way?
I can appreciate that there’s something contradictory about Yoffe’s column, that criticizing women for thinking the guy would be there (or be the right guy), having a kid, and then finding out he’s a douchebag, is not really productive/useful. But most of your response isn’t taking her to task for that, rather it seems to be a defense of the choice of single parenthood.
And single parenthood is generally a really dumb idea. I’m not one of those ‘the child needs a faaaaaaaather’ type, but kids are damned hard to raise with just one primary caregiver, and the fact is that when there a father w/no mother or vice versa, you’re often looking at a one-primary-caregiver situation.
This is actually what has annoyed me about the way Murphy Brown is brought into this debate pretty much since that storyline began. Everyone, everyone, even most of her defenders, manages to forget that the father of her child refused to take any responsibility. He stood in her living room and basically said, well, you can do what you want, but I’m not ready to grow up and deal with the fallout of my actions, so I’ll be taking off now. It was presented as better than that, of course, but that’s basically what it amounted to. Where was the national outcry castigating him?
Flash forward a few years, and everyone is falling all over themselves to praise the father of my sister’s child for sticking around. She, meanwhile, is maybe getting some credit for having a plan that would eventually make her self-sufficient, but is mostly getting clucked at.
Possibly I will be less blinded with rage over this when my own husband isn’t getting fawned over every time he changes a diaper, but I doubt it.
Reminds me of an old TroubleTown cartoon: “How irresponsible of you to be pregnant out of wedlock - you can’t have an abortion, though…”
Let’s see - can’t have access to birth control, can’t have an abortion, and it’s the woman’s fault if she marries a creep (but, of course, she should go ahead and marry the paedophile who likes 12 year old child prostitutes, he’ll be a good role model for their daughters…)
Only if you set at naught all the other factors that were shifting during the time Yoffe sets this victim-blaming social process in.
And more importantly, ignore that offsetting the clear costs of attempting single-parenthood there were some costs involved with the normative status quo you and Yoffe are appealing to. Including that in so many cases, the marriages were often cruel hoaxes.
As Amanda pointed out, enabling women to realistically consider leaving a bad marriage not only saved them and their children from putting up with abuse, it also gave them bargaining leverage to tip marginal marriages into better ones, when the husbands began to realize that their menange might really slip away if they didn’t wake up and play nicer.
As for other variables that might mitigate your perception of a “strong” correlation–well, the generation after the crescendo of liberation movements of the ’60s was also one that faced much tougher economic times than the postwar-1970 years. And it was also a generation in which a form of political reaction organized around opposition to the Civil Rights movement and eventually against “Liberalism” as such would often target many specific programs and practices intended to help children and to some extent their mothers.
Yoffe implies that all these woes stem from a lack of shame and fear compelling pregnant women to either hide their pregnancies and get rid of the child (either by abortion or adoption–the point was that either was shameful and done in secret in the Good Old Days) or get married, no ifs or buts or delays. It makes sense to Yoffe that somehow if everyone just felt compelled to suck it in and Do The Right Thing that automatically this grit and forbearance would be rewarded with better social opportunity–therefore it makes sense for her to argue that a sudden plague of fecklessness would lead directly to economic and social malaise and, depending on whether she sees the New Right as a bad or good thing–either our general moral weakness leaves us at the mercy of ruthless powermongers; or thank God these heroes of righteousness stepped in to firmly chastise us in the error of our ways.
Well. I typically doubt that deep and major economic currents have much to do with subjective mental fashions and fads, and that the latter are more likely to be shaped by the former. So I don’t think that a “weakening” of shame has cost us anything economically. Perhaps it is more the other way round; as times got harsher for more and more people through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and this miserable decade, more of us accepted outcomes dictated by necessity. But actually I think that gender liberation has been a very good thing, and possibly has kept us out of even worse general disaster–certainly at any rate it is better for women and their children to be able to leave a dangerous relationship, even if it is only possible at severe economic cost.
My point here–you appear to be myopically focusing on a victim-blaming, very subjective, rationalization of circumstances that probably need a more inclusive and objective set of explanations. And your willingness to find Yoffe’s obsessive script “compelling” in the face of the considerations you ignore, suggests that you, like her, want to believe a certain set of things for reasons you aren’t acknowledging.
I mean, I suppose this chain of reasoning you find so illuminating might possibly be a total revelation to you, but it looks a lot like the most hoary old chestnuts of thoughtless reaction I have heard parroted to me back when I was a kid. It’s just old-fashioned religion, in secular American form–just do the “decent,” normal thing, and everything will be all right, and if something goes wrong it’s clearly your fault for stepping out line somehow.
Sure it’s only common sense that one should provide carefully for the future. The tricky thing is, we live in a society where most of us are in effect on a treadmill providing for someone else’s future–the propertied classes–before we are allowed to provide for our own, and vice versa no one prospers on their own independent efforts alone–everyone needs some kind of cooperation.
And what is it with “Murphy Brown” anyway? I haven’t heard so much about that character since 1992, when the show was actually airing on prime time. At least Dan Qualye had that much excuse to obsess about a fictional character–how has she become such an icon to people like you and Yoffe, half a generation later?
Forrester, if there’s one thing I’ve learned reading this blog, and there are in fact several, it’s that one has to stop thinking “either/or” and think “both/and”. I actually learned that one well before the internet, but this blog articulates it very well.
It seems that Amanda is arguing both that single parents who choose to do so, knowing that there are downsides to it but having sufficient salary or assets or caregivers makes it possible and even preferable to marriage to a low-grade man, AND that we should not point the finger at other women who become single parents having thought that the man would stick around and be a good husband. That perhaps we might be better off going after child support payments more aggressively, or creating institutions designed to aid single parents in taking better care of their kids and so forth, rather than scapegoating the single mothers in question for having made “choices” that were not really choices at all.
For example, better education and access to birth control might perhaps reduce the number of young women who become pregnant by men who by any reasonable standards should not be allowed to breed. Blame the patriarchy, not the victim: it’s more fun, anyway.
I’m almost positive that Yoffe isn’t anti-birth-control or anti-abortion.
Just because someone is an Asian prostitute doesn’t mean she is 12 years old. There are plenty of prostitutes in Asia, and everywhere else, of legal age. Shame on you for making such an awful allegation.
*raises hand*
Count me in as a single mother who is very happy that way. Got intentionally pregnant at 34. (DIUI) My best friend of 15 years who went through the procedures and pregnancy with me adopted my kids. He is quadriplegic due to spinal cord injury and he is great with them. But he lives down the street and I do 95% of the parenting myself.
I really like it that way. It is hard work. But it is the good kind of hard work. But here is the best part of all about it: I know all of these married moms now that thought they were in an equal partnership before kids, then when the kids came…the gloves came off. Now they see and struggle with the workload and the “mental” energy and responsibility for caring for the kids and their husbands slack off and act like the kids are just hobbies to be partook in their spare time when things are fun. It is easy to split the load 50/50 when it is just the two of you. How hard is it to take care of yourself? But when the kids come along and the mother sees how she has to sacrifice her career, her sleep, her time, her health, her energy, etc to such a greater extent than his, it is really hard to bear. And they get caught in a trap of trying to get the husband to get off his ass, and being too tired to also parent the husband by trying to get him to get off his ass.
I became much more of a feminist after having kids. It is a whole new ballgame. Sure, many of the things that affect all mothers affect me, too. But I’m much happier doing all the work alone because that is what I chose than I would be if I thought I was going to have a partner and I was doing all the work while he sat on his ass right in front of me.
So, I think that kids cause marriages/relationships to break up or never start much more than having kids out of wedlock causes woman to stay involuntarily single. Well, I don’t mean kids per se, I mean the patriarchal view of how men take responsibility (or don’t) for kids.
someone tell my what its always a WOMAN’S responsibility to get the birth control???
i mean, what the fuck, condoms are CHEAP. waaaaay cheaper than the Pill, or the Ring, or the Shot. why the HELL aren’t MEN ever blamed for not putting on a condom?!?!?!
i have been with my b/f for almost 4 years. he pays for half of my NeuvaRing (okay, he actually pays every other month, but that is also half). and before that, he bought the condoms a little more than half the time.
of course, i am insist that he pay half. but he has NEVER complained, or even disagreed. i said “you pay for half” and he said “yeah, that makes sense. want me to pay half each month or rotate months?”
my point, buried underneath my indignation, is that i think “shaming” would go a LOT further towards affecting the problem if it were applied properly. if we are going to shame, anyway. which it appears the media insists on doing.
Leora
we posted at the same time, so i have to double post, to say how awesome it is for you to have that chance, and to pick someone who probably couldn’t be a parent any other way. i can’t have kids myself, because i have some severe chronic health problems (yay for me, so long as there is a “life of the mother” clause… presuming that there is a place to get an abortion done. anyway…). Not THAT severe, thank gods! but the whole idea of being responsible for a child, when there are days when i can’t dress myself, is terrifying. and then i read your post. and you do most of it, but let him include himself as he can (at least, that is how i read it). its actually very inspiring to me.
Denelian-
Thank you, it works for us. Yes, your take on the situation is pretty accurate. He does chip in financially for them from time to time, but in essence, he cannot financially support us, so it is mostly me–financially and otherwise.
(When they play house, the ‘dad’ always has to get himself a wheelchair. A stroller, wagon, whatever. Dads use wheelchairs in their world. He is a dad who comes with fun machines and gadgets!)
Also wanted to add:
I’m no Murphy Brown. I am educated with a masters, but I have a disability which makes it hard to work full-time and I do not make some kind of huge salary. I work part-time from home, live within my 30some-thousand dollar income and have no debt. My kids and I have health insurance that I pay a pretty penny for, they receive an excellent education, and have a community and a couple of extended family members to support them.
That said, I probably spend 20-22 clock hours with them a day. They are not neglected. I’m not saying I am a perfect parent, but in general I don’t think they are getting yelled at or ignored more than the average kid in a two parent home. I can’t predict the future, but I cannot foresee any reason why they wouldn’t do as well as kids in a two parent family.
I recognize that I make sacrifices that married mothers don’t have to. With my time, my energy, my career, my wardrobe and shopping proclivities. But I resent to hell this idea that in order for kids to do well they must live in some upper middle class suburban neighborhood lifestyle in order to succeed as a kid from a single mother. The problem here is not single mothers, it is the policies laid forth that do not support mothers (single or otherwise) to provide for their kids. Healthcare, childcare, education and the like.
My situation may be unique in many ways. And I totally understand that pulling in an extra paycheck is extremely helpful for a single mom. However, I don’t agree that being in a bad relationship with a guy which doesn’t create a healthy family dynamic is in anyway worth that extra paycheck. And that is what we are talking about here, lousy relationships. Because if the relationship is good with the father and he is responsible enough to pull his own weight and do his share, then they are probably together, or at the very least, in an amicable co-parenting situation.
denelian,
I remember reading about *something* of a situation like yours, except in this case the woman made her boyfriend responsible for making sure she took her birth control every day. He kept the packs and had to bring her the pill and the water every night to make sure she’d taken it. There was one incident where he accidentally dropped a pill down the sink and freaked out because he didn’t know if it was okay for her to skip a day or what. To make sure she stayed on track he made a late night run to a 24 hour pharmacy to get her another pack. I thought it was really interesting way of making your partner responsible for the birth control as well, but your idea is good too.
Birth control should be a women’s responsibility because we are the ones who get pregnant. Pretending otherwise isn’t doing anyone any good — particularly not the younger generations looking to us as role models.
I don’t get the condom argument; I never have. If a condom is the birth control method that a woman has chosen then she makes damn sure it is used. It’s not difficult.
Single parenthood absent wealth, extended family or some other support system is a difficult life for both the parent and the child, so since we’re dealing with an innocent here (the child) we really need to get over the “right” to be single parents and address the responsibility we have toward the life we are creating. That’s the adult thing to do. This issue has less to do with women bashing and more to do with irresponsible adult bashing; it just so happens that the majority of single parents are women, because, well, we are the ones who get pregnant.
If this were a flow chart, there would be an arrow pointing back to the first paragraph.
Single parenthood as a result of the demise of a relationship is sad, and no one is to blame for that. Shit happens. But single parenthood as the result of some perverted understanding of adulthood — namely, that “right” trumps “responsibility”, is not only wrong, it actually serves to set women back in our quest for equality by aligning us with an adolescent, self-indulgent philosophy that is a far cry from true maturity.
We don’t need evo psych bullshit to explain why so many men lie, cheat, string women along, knock women up and then accuse the women of sleeping with other men. They do it because they can, because they’re in a privileged place in society, and because people like Emily Yoffe can be counted on to lay all the blame and responsibility at the feet of women.
Do women not cheat? Do women not cheat at roughly the same rates at men that cheat? Why do you put all the blame for cheating on the men? Do you think that none of the unmarried women in the study have cheated on the men in the study? Or at similar rates?
There is only one relevant question here. Just one.
Why the hell in 2008 do you — or anyone with an IQ over 75 — waste your time reading Slate?
Somewhat OT, but perhaps we’ll get lucky and New Prudie will be replaced by Regina Barreca, whose op-ed in the Philly Inquirer today includes:
“Other women look at this travesty and think: “If the governor of a large state, a man who happens to be married to a Harvard J.D. with great hair and a couple of not-for-profits under her belt - in marked contrast to the coin purse carried by Ashley Dupré under hers - needs to pay to get dated by strange women, then how can I believe that any other guy, for example my boyfriend, who looks like Homer Simpson, isn’t going to do the same?”
While it’s enough to make a person nervous, it’s also reassuring. It helps women understand that IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE, HOW GOOD A PERSON YOU ARE, OR HOW MUCH YOU’VE ACCOMPLISHED. IF HE’S GOING TO STEP OUT ON YOU, HE’S GOING TO STEP OUT ON YOU. Whether or not the man in your life is faithful has nothing to do with your hip measurement or I.Q., but has everything to do with his character.
(Whew. I feel better now.)
Look, I simply do not accept the argument that men are driven by their testosterone the way a plant is driven by photosynthesis. I respect men too much to see them as, basically, rhododendrons.
However, I also refuse to allow for the high seriousness demanded by those who choose to regard Spitzer’s passions as anything besides raw material, rich soil for humor or, at the very least, a lot of dirt . . .
I’m an unwed mother having become one at age 35 after 10 years in a stable, monogamous, heterosexual relationship. My kid is happy, healthy, and smart. In what way would she or anyone benefit from my partner and I getting a sex license before her birth?
Birth control should be a women’s responsibility because we are the ones who get pregnant. Pretending otherwise isn’t doing anyone any good — particularly not the younger generations looking to us as role models.
I don’t get the condom argument; I never have. If a condom is the birth control method that a woman has chosen then she makes damn sure it is used. It’s not difficult.
Single parenthood absent wealth, extended family or some other support system is a difficult life for both the parent and the child, so since we’re dealing with an innocent here (the child) we really need to get over the “right” to be single parents and address the responsibility we have toward the life we are creating. That’s the adult thing to do. This issue has less to do with women bashing and more to do with irresponsible adult bashing; it just so happens that the majority of single parents are women, because, well, we are the ones who get pregnant.
If this were a flow chart, there would be an arrow pointing back to the first paragraph.
Single parenthood as a result of the demise of a relationship is sad, and no one is to blame for that. Shit happens. But single parenthood as the result of some perverted understanding of adulthood — namely, that “right” trumps “responsibility”, is not only wrong, it actually serves to set women back in our quest for equality by aligning us with an adolescent, self-indulgent philosophy that is a far cry from true maturity.
I’ll try this one more time, omitting the word “sh#t”, and hope that was the reason it has not appeared on this site.
Birth control should be a women’s responsibility because we are the ones who get pregnant. Pretending otherwise isn’t doing anyone any good — particularly not the younger generations looking to us as role models.
I don’t get the condom argument; I never have. If a condom is the birth control method that a woman has chosen then she makes damn sure it is used. It’s not difficult.
Single parenthood absent wealth, extended family or some other support system is a difficult life for both the parent and the child, so since we’re dealing with an innocent here (the child) we really need to get over the “right” to be single parents and address the responsibility we have toward the life we are creating. That’s the adult thing to do. This issue has less to do with women bashing and more to do with irresponsible adult bashing; it just so happens that the majority of single parents are women, because, well, we are the ones who get pregnant.
If this were a flow chart, there would be an arrow pointing back to the first paragraph.
Single parenthood as a result of the demise of a relationship is sad, and no one is to blame for that. Stuff happens. But single parenthood as the result of some perverted understanding of adulthood — namely, that “right” trumps “responsibility”, is not only wrong, it actually serves to set women back in our quest for equality by aligning us with an adolescent, self-indulgent philosophy that is a far cry from true maturity.
Sorry for the repeats — I didn’t think it had gone through.
If a condom is the birth control method that a woman has chosen then she makes damn sure it is used
Condoms have two major advantages as birth control: One, they also protect against disease. Two, barrier protection, combined with abortion as a backup, is the safest method of birth control available for all ages. Of course, that is assuming that the condom is used every time. The simplest method for ensuring that it is used is to put it on yourself. Plus it’s more fun if you make putting on the birth control part of the foreplay.
Single parenthood absent wealth, extended family or some other support system is a difficult life for both the parent and the child, so since we’re dealing with an innocent here (the child) we really need to get over the “right” to be single parents and address the responsibility we have toward the life we are creating.
There are relatively few major undertakings that are easier for one person than for two. However, I disagree with the implicit statement that having a child outside of marriage is necessarily irresponsible. It’s harder to raise a child in a bad marriage than to raise one as a single parent. It’s harder to raise a child in the absence of extended family than in the presence of same, unless the extended family is pathological. It is harder to raise a child if one or both parents is/are sick. But rarely do we see people decrying the lack of responsibility of people who have children even though they are just married (and therefore have little idea of whether their marriage will last or not), live far from their families, or have a chronic illness. For that matter, it’s much easier to raise a child in a country where the child automatically has health insurance, daycare is cheap and available, and maternity leave with pay the law. But I’ve never seen anyone argue that it is “irresponsible” or “not adult” to have children in the US, even though the US lacks all of the above.
I remember going to a panel discussion on motherhood and academia. One of the panelists was a very successful scientist who had been a single mother the whole time — the guy who got her pregnant in grad school walked right out, and she considered herself well rid of him. She definitely had partners in raising her son. They were her parents, and sometimes friends and neighbors she was very close to.
What’s messed up is assuming that you have to raise children alone, and mothers married to a man get hit with that nearly as often as mothers not married to a man. Yes, you need support in order to raise a child. No, that support does not have to be in the form of a husband — especially when that particular husband wouldn’t offer much support anyway. It can be in the form of your parents and your friends — and your workplace and your society, having family-friendly policies.
Ok - we’re all having the wrong argument. It’s beside the point to worry about who must take responsibility for birth control and safe sex because it should be every person having SEX regardless of gender.
The other point is that in our society women are considered wrong no matter what we do. That’s it, that’s all, it sucks and it should change.
Yoffe’s rant was extra offensive considering she’s on record as saying that hetero couples who reject baby-making are wrong and need to be corrected, because parenthood is just so damn wonderful, in such unexpected ways.
But if you’re poor, or not yet favored with a marriage proposal from a prosperous man, you’ve got almost no chance of attaining financial security for the reasons Mark Foxwell and others have explained. So, have a heaping helping of more loss, and STFU. Go to your grave deprived of what Yoffe calls the greatest reward. You don’t deserve a child.
All the folks talking about how single parenthood is hard — parenthood period is hard. Two of us, as flexible a work situation as you could ask for, and parenting still regularly kicks our asses.
And in many traditional marriages with kids, let’s face it, the extra parent doesn’t make things easier, he makes things harder, because that’s just one more set of demands to meet. The superficial financial situation may be better (or not) but that doesn’t necessarily counterbalance the difficulties of having another mouth to feed, another set of booboos to bandage, another set of insistent calls for attention. Oh, and the built-in sibling rivalry.
If a condom is the birth control method that a woman has chosen then she makes damn sure it is used. It’s not difficult.
I am glad for you that your life has been devoid of dangerous assholes. Not all women are so lucky as you. Indeed, historically and globally? Your experience in a minority experience. Please consider your particularist fallacy with more care.
It’s a damn shame that the people who call themselves “pro-family” never are; they’ve managed to pervert the word “family” into meaning “braindead prude.”
The reason I’m bringing this up is because, when you think of the sorts of programs that would be really pro-family–universal health care, after-school programs that bridge the gap between the time school lets out and the time most parents get home (if you don’t have kids, you may be unaware of the high-stress child-care tap-dance most parents have to perform every school day afternoon; it’s even worse during summer vacation), jobs that aren’t structured to suck the life out everyone who does them (even nasty jobs can have a little more dignity and take less time, and while you’d think there’d be a direct relationship between how unpleasant a job is and how well it pays, the opposite seems to be true), better public transportation (remember Jesse Jackson’s speech about women who took the early bus?), affordable housing (and zoning that favors granny flats), damn good schools (it’s a shondah that any American parent should have to worry about their kids education), etc.–the question that comes up is, how come we don’t have them? (Especially when other countries seem to manage.) (1)
Because every time we make it easier to be a parent, we make it easier to be an unwed parent. Even if you’re in a two-parent household with a stay-at-home mom, you’d benefit from the above measures (even the clown-car uterus lady–and lord knows, her kids too), but that’s secondary to shitting on unmarried mothers–and their kids.
These people are so screwed up w/r/t sex that they’re more worried about promoting promiscuity (like a single mom has time for promiscuity) than doing what’s right.
(1) I’m looking at you, France. By the way, have we thanked you lately for the Treaty of Paris?
Well, of course women cheat. But I’m not entirely convinced that they do it exactly the same—this willingness to flaunt how you’re mistreating your partner and expect her to hang in seems to be more a guy thing. It’s like domestic violence is far more likely to be male on female than vice versa. Like exponentially. That’s not an isolated thing. Men and women both do the cheating by going out of your way to hide it from your spouse, but that flaunting kind of cheating? I’ve seen a couple of women do it, but a lot more men. But YMMV.
I do think that’s why evo psychologists manage to say, “Oh men are polygamous and women monogamous” and people go along with it, even though women cheat as much. It’s because men have a space (thankfully diminishing) to cheat flagrantly with the expectation that his wife just puts up with it. It’s diminishing fast, but as the letters Prudie gets show, there’s still a strong belief out there that women should put up with a lot before they walk out.
It is my right to have a child, patschican. (And it is also my right not to have one.) In either case, with rights come responsibilities. In excersising my right to have children, I took on the responsibilities.
Now, in excersising my right to not become pregnant, I have responsibilities to take preventative measures.
If a man wants to exercise his right not to have a child, he needs to take the responsibility to take preventative measures. If he wants to have a child, he needs to take on the responsibility of caring for that child.
There is no either/or here. Doubling up on birth control because both partners have taken individual responsibility never hurt anyone. Or, if they are in a relationship where one purchases it and another one takes it or some such agreeable solution…fine.
No one is arguing personal responsibility here. I think what is being argued is that society places all the responsibility on women while at the same time, trying to take away her rights to birth control, to abortion, to being able to work and have her kid in a safe childcare environment, to being able to provide healthcare.
Men on the other hand, seem to have all the rights to have a kid, walk away from a kid, use protection or not, without anyone holding them responsible.
And I will also repeat, patschican, I am NOT wealthy. I AM a single mother. And my children are doing just fine.
exercising, EXERCISING!
(roll eyes at self)
It’s typical Slate dressing-up-reactionary-politics-as-something-daring-since-they-come-from-an-ostensible-liberal.
It’s typical of the so-called liberal media as a whole. And it hurts actual liberal causes immensely that liberalism has become identified in the public consciousness with this kind of wankery.
As women have gained more control of their lives and better jobs, the amount of cheating by women has gone up. IMHO the differences are that cheating by men, in general, seems to be more about the sex whereas in women, we have a mix of women with an emotional relationship that leads to sex (the “it just happened” approach) as if that adds some sort of justification/honor/rationale for what they’ve done, and those who act pretty much the same way as men traditionally do. The truth is that, in “cheating”, both genders are just focusing on doing what will gratify their id and neither wants to consider, let alone, face any untoward consequence.
As for the propensity of the wives who stick it out after such a public humiliation, many of these women have their own reasons for doing so (often financial, but not always). For all we know there was a tacit agreement that the behavior and risk was acceptable to the injured spouse provided there was discretion or the injured spouse has inflicted their own pain on the one we’re now giving the stink eye to. Truth be told, we don’t really know what goes on in the relationships of other people and this is just one reason why things like adultery or someone’s sexual proclivities* [at least those involving consenting adults] should be used against one in a public/political setting.
*mind you, if the public figure rages against other for sexual immorality and/or casts him or herself above others, evidence to rebut them is fair game
Dianne:
“However, I disagree with the implicit statement that having a child outside of marriage is necessarily irresponsible.”
I never said outside of marriage. I don’t give a hoot about marriage one way or the other. However, the decision to simply have a child because you’re 35 and worried that your eggs are drying up, without regard to your financial situation or support system, is irresponsible. We all want lots of things, but adults realize that, as the ever sage Rolling Stones said, you can’t always get what you want. And if you make a decision that affects the life of an innocent, because you just had this “aching urge”, then you’re really no better than a teenager, acting on emotions without thought to consequences. Women are better than that.
We can stick our heads in the sand and pretend that the single parent who gets up at 5:00, gets the kids up, gives them breakfast, takes them to daycare, then goes to work for 8 hours only to pick them up, make them dinner, clean up, bathe them, put them to bed and finally collapse, going through life constantly sleep deprived if not frustrated and yes, resentful, is going to offer the child the most supportive and loving environment possible. But I for one don’t believe it.
Honestly, what single women should do is band together and raise kids in a group setting, where every parent can have one or two nights off a week. Sort of like the show Big Love, but without the patriarchal figure head.
“It’s harder to raise a child in a bad marriage than to raise one as a single parent.”
Oh, I agree. Again, I have nothing but sympathy for people who split up and suddenly find themselves as single parents.
Caroline:
“Yes, you need support in order to raise a child. No, that support does not have to be in the form of a husband — especially when that particular husband wouldn’t offer much support anyway. It can be in the form of your parents and your friends — and your workplace and your society, having family-friendly policies.”
I completely agree, and in fact, I’m beginning to think that an unconventional environment that offers more adults and more quality time for the child trumps the conventional marriage/kids setup.
Shelly:
“Ok - we’re all having the wrong argument. It’s beside the point to worry about who must take responsibility for birth control and safe sex because it should be every person having SEX regardless of gender.”
No. Women get pregnant. For us to give up control for one second because we feel that it’s patently unfair that we have to bear the burden is not smart and does not serve us well. A truly emancipated woman is one who accepts full responsibility and control over reproduction.
Garrity:
“I am glad for you that your life has been devoid of dangerous assholes. Not all women are so lucky as you. Indeed, historically and globally? Your experience in a minority experience. Please consider your particularist fallacy with more care.”
Dangerous assholes? Are you talking about rape? Because that is another issue entirely. I was talking about wearing a condom, and in a non-rape situation, it’s pretty damn easy to make sure that the man wears a condom. Implying otherwise infantilizes women, which to me is the opposite of feminist.
Lenora:
“It is my right to have a child, patschican. (And it is also my right not to have one.) In either case, with rights come responsibilities. In excersising my right to have children, I took on the responsibilities.”
I don’t know that I believe that we have a right to be parents. I mean, sure, nature grants us that right, but isn’t the beauty of being human that we have developed the ability to think thing through to their ultimate conclusions and not act on pure impulse and desire?
I’m not saying that you are a bad parent by any means. I don’t know you nor your situation. Perhaps you made necessary allowances for the burden of parenthood, creating a support system of friends and family and really calling upon them when needed. You might be the best parent in the world. But we can’t deny the fact that single parenthood is much harder than dual parenthood, and going along those lines, triple parenthood would be even better.
I’m not saying that every single parent is bad, I’m saying that deciding to bring a child into the world because you want one without making sure that you have the financial means to support the child along with a support system consisting of other adults is not realistic, and there seems to be a trend lately, in our quest to prove that we don’t need a man, to just do it.
Actually, the whole divorce is terrible for the kids things has to be taken with a bit of a grain of salt. In one of my psych classes, we learned about how important secondary effects can be by looking at studies about kids and divorce. Basically, the earliest studies only looked at the kids and had a binary divorced/not-divorced role for the parents. These studies also often had the kids rating how happy their parent’s marriages were before the divorce.
When they started doing two-generation studies, looking at both the parents and children, what they found was that depression, alcoholism, poverty, bad stuff in general, tracked from parent to child. Parents who were depressed were both more likely to have gotten divorced AND have a child who was depressed. Poverty in parents causes both divorce and poorer children. Divorce isn’t as simple a factor as it seems. But it does make it easier to dump on women doesn’t it?
Amanda I think you and Ol Crankly, lack any data apart as to who cheats more and why. But I find it telling you are now willing to listen to the evo psychologists.
But there have been backdoor men and women opening that door for decades. Long before feminism or economics started lifting people.
Instead of the rote demonizing of men for being sexual, I think you ought stick to studies and give proper credit to women instead of portraying them as victims of a seducer.
Since women file the majority of divorces, it’s not clear to me who really has the space to cheat….
Wha, yeah!
C’mon, yeah
Yeah, c’mon, yeah
Yeah, c’mon
Oh, yeah, ma
Yeah, I’m a back door man
I’m a back door man
The men don’t know
But the little girl understand
Hey, all you people that tryin’ to sleep
I’m out to make it with my midnight dream, yeah
‘Cause I’m a back door man
The men don’t know
But the little girls understand
All right, yeah
You men eat your dinner
Eat your pork and beans
I eat more chicken
Than any man ever seen, yeah, yeah
I’m a back door man, wha
The men don’t know
But the little girls understand
Well, I’m a back door man
I’m a back door man
Whoa, baby, I’m a back door man
The men don’t know
But the little girls understand
“But there have been backdoor men and women opening that door for decades. Long before feminism or economics started lifting people.”
“Yeah, I’m a back door man
I’m a back door man
The men don’t know
But the little girl understand”
…so you like anal sex? Bottom or top?…
If you have to shore up your argument by mind-reading a demographic, perhaps it’s not all that good an argument.
MikeEss, are you really that dim? Do you really not know what this back door refers to?
I mean, sure, nature grants us that right,
Nature doesn’t grant rights, only abilities.
Oh, I agree. Again, I have nothing but sympathy for people who split up and suddenly find themselves as single parents.
Then you’re more sympathetic than I am. I think that people who marry when they’ve known each other for about 2 1/2 days because they’re in loooovvvve are foolish and if they get pregnant/make the other pregnant during that infatuated phase of the relationship, regardless of their marital status then they’re even bigger fools because that’s just asking for a nasty breakup with a child involved. And I have greater confidence in a single 35 year old woman to raise a child reasonably successfully and have her support system in order than I do a couple of 18 year olds or 20 year olds, even if they do manage to stick together. Coupledom is all very nice, but it’s neither necessary nor sufficient for raising a child well.
patschican, check out paul above at #3. You’re being a hardboiled realist about the single life for women while idealizing their married life. Being married typically won’t make parenthood easier for a mother, unless there is money involved–YMMV and all that, but the typical contribution that husbands offer to childrearing is financial. And a lot of women who want children don’t have access to well-off men.
And can we all admit that there is no way to guarantee that someone will be a wonderful parent or that their children will have wonderful lives? A nice upper middle class couple who has been together for years and is surrounded by friends and family can turn out to be abusive or neglectful jerks. A drug addicted 15 year old who has been disowned by her family can turn out to be a wonderful parent. Good finances, health, stable relationships, etc all improve the odds, but having children is still a gamble and if things go wrong it can ruin not just the child’s life, but the parents’, the child’s siblings’, other relatives’, etc. That’s one reason that I feel strongly that no one should ever be forced to have a child. It’s simply not something to be entered into lightly or without consent.
“Do you really not know what this back door refers to?”
As a long time fan of The Blues, I’m well aware of what is being referred to. But I also don’t think the double entendre was accidental.
Blues lyrics are often crammed full of euphemisms, double entendres, and all sorts of other interesting verbal goodies. At least half of all blues songs seem to relate directly or indirectly to sex. And that’s the way we like it…
Since you sound like an MRA, I figured an attempt at a little nasty humor was worth it…
“MikeEss, are you really that dim?”
Good question…
Patschican, I like your style.
Saying that women cheat just like men cheat is now part of being an MRA? Trying to keep the discussion reality based is now part of being an MRA?
I am sorry I tried.
You’re right MikeEss, only men cheat. Women are pure creatures, loyal to the last with no sexual desires of their own and no agency to bring those desires to fruit.
Why do these morons think having a man around necessarily makes it easier to raise a child? Many married women might as well be single moms, because many men can’t be bothered to lift a finger around the house or put time in with their kids. Husbands are just additional children in a lot of marriages. But we women better put up with it because having a deadbeat, good-for-nothing dad is better for the kids than having no dad! Having a lousy “partner” is better than no partner!
I’m ready to hear absent fathers blamed for single motherhood. A lot of these women wouldn’t be single if the baby-daddies hadn’t run out, right?
and in a non-rape situation, it’s pretty damn easy to make sure that the man wears a condom. Implying otherwise infantilizes women
Actually, I have never had to be the one to “make sure” that the man wore a condom, because I do not sleep with infantilized men (lucky me.) If the men you have known require you, as the woman, to enforce their condom usage, what else do you have to do for them–tie their shoes? Zip up their flies? The kind of guy who doesn’t look after his own dick is a dangerous asshole whether or not he’s rapist into the bargain. Don’t patronize women who are used to sleeping with grown-ups.
And here we go again: objecting to a man’s dishonesty, unreliability and/or emotional cruelty is “demonizing” his sexuality. Le yawn.
Notorious:
Thanks!
Mythago:
“If you have to shore up your argument by mind-reading a demographic, perhaps it’s not all that good an argument.”
Well, that’s the option that paints women in the best light. The other two options are (1) didn’t properly use birth control or (2) got pregnant on purpose hoping it would solidify a relationship.
Also, I admit, I know more and more women who are opting to just do it on their own.
Dianne:
“Then you’re more sympathetic than I am. I think that people who marry when they’ve known each other for about 2 1/2 days because they’re in loooovvvve are foolish and if they get pregnant/make the other pregnant during that infatuated phase of the relationship, regardless of their marital status then they’re even bigger fools because that’s just asking for a nasty breakup with a child involved.”
I like you a lot. Agreed.
“And can we all admit that there is no way to guarantee that someone will be a wonderful parent or that their children will have wonderful lives? A nice upper middle class couple who has been together for years and is surrounded by friends and family can turn out to be abusive or neglectful jerks.”
Yes and no. Can we agree that a child who has one-on-one time with adults versus hours in front of the TV is going to grow up better adjusted and happier? And can we agree that one-on-one time is contingent upon having the time to spend with a child, which is nearly impossible if one is also working 40+ hours a week, doing all the housework, doing all the cooking…etc….?
“That’s one reason that I feel strongly that no one should ever be forced to have a child. It’s simply not something to be entered into lightly or without consent.”
Agreed again, and I apply this standard to men too. Men should never be forced to be parents if they don’t want to and expressed it prior to entering into the romantic/sexual relationship. If the woman does not believe in abortion and the birth control method chosen is not one with nearly perfect effectiveness, they should not have sex.
SarahMC:
“I’m ready to hear absent fathers blamed for single motherhood. A lot of these women wouldn’t be single if the baby-daddies hadn’t run out, right?”
Did they want to be fathers in the first place? Were they consulted about their wants/desires?
Sophonisba:
“Actually, I have never had to be the one to “make sure” that the man wore a condom, because I do not sleep with infantilized men (lucky me.) If the men you have known require you, as the woman, to enforce their condom usage, what else do you have to do for them–tie their shoes? Zip up their flies? The kind of guy who doesn’t look after his own dick is a dangerous asshole whether or not he’s rapist into the bargain. Don’t patronize women who are used to sleeping with grown-ups.”
I was originally responding to a comment along the lines of, “why can’t men wear condoms?!” My response is, how are these unwrapped men getting to have sex with women who are not otherwise protected? We’re the gate keepers – it can’t get past us unless we let it.
So no, I am not implying that women should treat them like kids and tie their shoes while we’re at it, rather, I am saying that it is impossible, absent rape, for an irresponsible man to impregnate a responsible woman. So, if we assume all control over birth control, how can we experience unwanted pregnancies? Aside from the extremely low instances of failure rate, we can’t.
patschican,
“Agreed again, and I apply this standard to men too. Men should never be forced to be parents if they don’t want to and expressed it prior to entering into the romantic/sexual relationship. If the woman does not believe in abortion and the birth control method chosen is not one with nearly perfect effectiveness, they should not have sex.”
But if they DO have sex, knowing that birth control isn’t 100% and that the woman will not get an abortion, the man HAS consented to taking the risk that he will be a parent.
Right?
Can anyone spot the contradiction here? Anyone? Anyone?
The women in those examples she cites are not self-actualized. They are not single mothers by choice. They had children despite not having the commitment they craved from the fathers of their children. I hope that this isn’t the case for most single mothers. I’m skeptical that a mother who was abandoned and who had a child with the expectation of support from the father will be as good a parent as a mother who has support or who chose to have a child knowing that she would be on her own.
But I fail to see a problem with expecting people to get what they need or what they think they need to raise a child before they actually have that child. In other words, if you think you need a commitment from a man in order to raise a child, then get the commitment before you get pregnant.
Ismone — right.
OK, Erika, so what about accidental pregnancies? Many are, even in committed relationships.
And what if you get the “commitment” but it isn’t sincere, or you come to realize that this person is toxic?
Why do women have to be the moral gatekeepers?
And I really don’t think you should create some kind of hierarchy of “better single mothers” (those by choice) and “worse single mothers” those by happenstance.
Finally, if my parents and grandparents waited for the kind of financial stability that I and my fiance have now (sans children) we never would have been born. Many of us, if you go back a few hundred years, are descended from slaves, indentured servants, or (farther yet) serfs. They had very little to offer their children compared to what even the very poor have today. If you really think that people should only have children when they reach a certain level of financial solvency, you are saying that a large proportion of the population should never have children. Particularly in countries where there is a larger rich-poor gap than this one.
And I do not think it is a contradiction to say that women having the power to divorce and walk away creates better behavior in those they just might walk away from. Amanda also points out that these actualized women (i.e., Lauren, for one) are not the ones writing to “Prudence.”
i think no one is looking here anymore… but just in case:
i meant what i said. okay, yes, i am the one who is going to get pregnant if something fails, if we don’t use birth control.
but if my b/f and i were married, people wouldn’t say “I” was pregnant, they would say “WE” are pregnant.
it takes TWO to tango. to have sex. to PREVENT pregnancy. and it is the responsibility of ALL adults who have sex to use birth control. those poor girls who are now single moms? in many cases, they relent to having sex with no birth control, after lots of time spent on the guys part wearing them down… she ends up pregnant, he takes off. and its then HER fault?
sometimes, yes, its her fault. she never asked for BC to be used. sometimes, its his. MOST times, its THIERS.
na da?
i think no one is looking here anymore… but just in case:
i meant what i said. okay, yes, i am the one who is going to get pregnant if something fails, if we don’t use birth control.
but if my b/f and i were married, people wouldn’t say “I” was pregnant, they would say “WE” are pregnant.
it takes TWO to tango. to have sex. to PREVENT pregnancy. and it is the responsibility of ALL adults who have sex to use birth control. those poor girls who are now single moms? in many cases, they relent to having sex with no birth control, after lots of time spent on the guys part wearing them down… she ends up pregnant, he takes off. and its then HER fault?
sometimes, yes, its her fault. she never asked for BC to be used. sometimes, its his. MOST times, its THIERS.
na da?
Wow, Amanda, thank you for this!
I’d also blogged about this Ms. Emily — http://singlemomseeking.com/blog/2008/03/20/so-what-if-jamie-lynn-spears-doesnt-get-married/– and I so appreciate knowing that I’m not alone here. I’m grateful for the intelligent discussion you’ve sparked.