This is the snide remark that I often hear from other women when I'm out at the park with my kids, and during idle conversation someone asks me what my husband does for a living. When I say I'm a single mother, or divorced, often the conversation will just teeter off to nothing.
It's sad, but alot of women have low opinions of other women trying to go it alone. I had a hard time understanding that, because truthfully we do double the work with half the resources. However, a quick read of works like Ann Coulter's "Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and their Assault on America" might give people an entirely different viewpoint on single-motherhood.
I'll say in advance that I do not agree with the author on many points, but here are some of the supporting statistics about children raised in single parent households listed in her book:
-70 percent of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences were raised by single mothers
-72 percent of juvenile murderers and 60 percent of rapists come from single-mother homes
-70 percent of teenage births, dropouts, suicides, runaways, juvenile delinquents, and child murderers involve children raised by single mothers
-Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous and more likely to end up divorced
-Account for 63 percent of all youth suicides
-Account for 70 percent of all teenage pregnancies
-Account for 71 percent of all adolescent chemical/substance abuse
-Account for 80 percent of all prison inmates
-Account for 90 percent of all homeless and runaway children
Everyone in Virginia who goes to court regarding custody of children is required to take a class on co-parenting, and many of these statistics are given in those courses to discourage couples from seperating.
Do I believe children should have two parents? Yes. Did I want my kids to only have me to count on? No. My situation was not pretty, and I did the right thing for my children, who have both been happier and healthier since my seperation.
Are there some single moms out there who just suck? I'm sure there are. But every single parent that I have met has shined- because when we realize that we are it for our kids, we step up bigtime.
But I have news for you, Ann Coulter. These kids are not failing because their mom (or in some cases their dad) is a bad parent, but because the court system has completely failed them. The simple fact is that a single parent will never be able to provide the income of two; so many of the children end up living in poverty or on less then they should.
What is the answer to that? Child support. Yeah, right.
Did you know that most states have not changed their child support guildlines since 1988? And I'd like to know, Mrs. Coulter, where a single mother, struggling to feed her children, is supposed to come up with tens of thousands of dollars to fight in court for child support owed to her.
I was a stay at home mother prior to my seperation. When I left, I realized that I could not support two small children on the salary I was capable of making. I enrolled in school for nursing to make sure that I would be able to provide for their futures, but in the mean time my family has spent more then 15,000 dollars and two years of time getting my children's dad to make his payments. I'm one lucky woman to have such a supportive family. Many do not.
So, a little news for you. It's not sucky parenting by single moms that is 'corrupting' our youth. It's red-tape, dead-beat dads, and big businesses unwilling to offer the type of flexibility and benefits that single parents need.
Maybe we should focus on that before blaming the moms. And as for your attack on ending a marriage, I'll bet that most of the single moms you talk to do not want to be single, and had a very good reason for taking on the challenge of sole-parenting. It's not exactly easy or glamourous. Lord knows I wouldn't have done it if I had not believed that it was the best thing for my kids.
Ann, you have used the statistics to meet your purposes, but their is a flaw in the way you present them. Why? Because people in bad home enviroments get divorced, instead of staying in the marriages. So, Mrs. Coulter, lets see you somehow do research on statistics of children raised in two-parent homes filled with hatred, violence, and mistrust, if they had stayed together instead of divorcing. I bet that those statistics would be much more frightening. Maybe I'd even buy that book. I'm sure that the royalties would go a long way towards getting you a second mansion.
Coulter, A. (2009) Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America. New York: Crown Forum
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