According to a recent report from National Center for Health Statistics, nearly 40 percent of all babies born in the United States in 2007, up from 34 percent in 2002 and 18 percent in 1980, were born to “unmarried” (their word) women. And the other week (May 26), Cathy Young asked in a Boston Globe article (“Single Mothers and the Baby Boom“) whether we should be treating single motherhood as “the new normal” or (once again) as a problem that needs to be addressed. Writes Young:
Today, we have two contradictory trends. Millions of fathers are involved in hands-on child care to an unprecedented degree; millions of children have little or no contact with their fathers. Ironically, the mother-child family unit takes us back to a very pre-feminist idea: family and child-rearing as a feminine sphere. (For both biological and cultural reasons, men are far less likely to parent on their own.) Male alienation is another likely result.…Certainly, many single parents do a wonderful job of raising their children and many married couples do not. But in general, the two-parent family does work best for children, women, and men, and marriage seems the best way to ensure it. No one wants to go back to the day when unwed mothers and their children were outcasts. But restoring a cultural commitment to married parenting is a goal that should unite sensible conservatives, sane fathers’ rights advocates, and reasonable feminists.
Call me unreasonable, but I’m not so sure.
And on that note, be sure to check out Rachel Lehmann-Haupt’s awesome new book, In Her Own Sweet Time: Unexpected Adventures in Finding Love, Commitment, and Motherhood
(Thanks, of course, to CCF for the heads up on Young’s article.)
Comments
anniegirl1138 — June 10, 2009
I've done it both ways and married is easier. I see nothing wrong with marriage. Emotion aside, it is the surest way that a couple can protect each other and their children should something awful happen to either one of them.
As to the issue of father's rights, like it or not, once the child emerges into the world at large they have should have - barring proven unfitness - equal rights. And sensible, sane conversation on topics is a good thing.
gwp_admin — June 11, 2009
I wanted to share two comments people posted on this post at Facebook:
Writes Jeremy Adam Smith, "The mother of my child was "unmarried" when Liko was born. For all I know, she's still counted as a "single mother," though my son does indeed have two parents who share a home together. I suspect the categories they're using are irrelevant to the way most people live."
Writes Cora Fox, "Also, as a single mom by choice of a lovely little girl, parenting in what she [Young] has labeled a "pre-feminist" feminine sphere, I can tell you that the men in our lives are not feeling particularly alienated. On the contrary, they are in different kinds of families of their own--some traditional, some not. Secure men who have confidently made their own choices do not resent women who make choices too. She’s disguising a hateful conservative agenda with a veneer of feminism, but as real feminists we should run from anyone who wants to limit the choices we have about our lovers and children."
gwp_admin — June 16, 2009
Two more, via Facebook:
Julie Frank at 11:25am June 10
You have to wonder how many women surveyed were lesbians with partners who identified as "unmarried."
Katherine Chaitin Greisman at 12:53am June 12
To add a non-politically correct point of view...As a woman who single parented out of necessity not choice, I can say that I think it is useful for a child to have two parents living in one home. Whether they are of the same sex or opposite sex is not so important. Different parents serve different functions for children and without two parents, the single parent has to serve both functions. It can be done and I think I did a good job of it but it would have been easier on my daughter if she had two parents living in her own home throughout her childhood.
Karen — June 17, 2009
This conversation bothers me for what it is not addressing. First, I don't have numbers to qualify what I am going to say, but problem is numbers aren't there if no one is counting and no one is looking. What I do know for sure is that there is a trend of mothers losing custody of their children, being denied even visitation by father's rights. (BMCC, Mo Hannah). One stat is 70% of fathers who fight for custody get it. What this means is that women and children (like always) are really just living on a matter of 'luck' and a matter of making sure you find the 'nice' guy, and making sure you don't threaten him too much. I know there is a wide continuium to social issues, but all women and children are not safe until all of us are.
Attorney Phebe Diperna — October 9, 2010
This site is fabulously interesting. You are a very articulate speaker.