Single Mothering: Challenging and Herotic
The traditional American family is pictured as a two parent household made up of a mother and father. Times have changed and families are anything but traditional. In fact according to the U.S Census Bureau, there were 11.7 million single parents living with their children in 2010. Of these, 9.9 million were single mothers and 1.8 million were single fathers. (Commerce) These facts may be astonishing to some, and a cold reality to others. While there are undoubtedly many challenges and difficulties raising children single-handedly for both parties whether it is a single father or a single mother, there exists a strong, unfair judgment against single mothers that single fathers aren’t faced with. Single fathering is indeed a noteworthy duty, but this essay will focus solely on the specific challenges of single mothering.
There are many biased and harsh criticisms that exist for single mothers. A quick Google search on “Single Mothers” will pull up numerous websites dedicated to educating society about the dangers of single mothers. Although not everyone in America will use their spare time creating anti-single mother websites and spreading ridiculous lies about whom single mothers are, there is still an underlying belief that single motherhood is wrong and immoral. A Pew Research Center poll on family structures reports that nearly 7 in 10 Americans think single mothers are a “bad thing for society.” (Roiphe) Living the life of a single mother will mean that you will be up against 218,114,341 people in this country who don’t agree with your lifestyle. That means that more people are accepting of interracial and gay relationships than they are of single mothers. What is it about single motherhood that creates such animosity among our culture? Many people will say that insecure people are the first to judge or that hurt people hurt people. Rich Moran, Senior Editor of the Pew Research Center puts forth a few reasons for these results on NPR news: “…people who
There are many biased and harsh criticisms that exist for single mothers. A quick Google search on “Single Mothers” will pull up numerous websites dedicated to educating society about the dangers of single mothers. Although not everyone in America will use their spare time creating anti-single mother websites and spreading ridiculous lies about whom single mothers are, there is still an underlying belief that single motherhood is wrong and immoral. A Pew Research Center poll on family structures reports that nearly 7 in 10 Americans think single mothers are a “bad thing for society.” (Roiphe) Living the life of a single mother will mean that you will be up against 218,114,341 people in this country who don’t agree with your lifestyle. That means that more people are accepting of interracial and gay relationships than they are of single mothers. What is it about single motherhood that creates such animosity among our culture? Many people will say that insecure people are the first to judge or that hurt people hurt people. Rich Moran, Senior Editor of the Pew Research Center puts forth a few reasons for these results on NPR news: “…people who
Cited: Commerce, U.S Department of. United States Census Bureau. 26 August 2011. 23 September 2011 . Hananel, Sam. Huffington Post. 14 June 2012. 25 September 2012 . Ketteringham, Kristin. Yahoo! Voices. 6 June 2007. 24 September 2012 . Mather, Mark. U.S Children in Single-Mother Families. May 2010. 25 September 2011 . McCandles, Sarah. How to Manage a Single Parent Household. n.d. 28 September 2012 . Roiphe, Katie. The New York Times. 11 August 2012. 3 October 2012 . What is Growth? May 2010. 28 September 2012 .