In Praise of Single Mothers: Here’s What They Do Right
If you haven’t yet read the Huffington Post piece by Bella DePaulo – “In Praise of Single Mothers: Here’s What They Do Right” — which went up Mother’s Day, I encourage you to take a look.
DePaulo, the author of Singled Out: How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, says that it’s time for us:
“…to let go of the fantasy that all children living in nuclear families have two totally engaged parents who lavish their love and attention on all their children, and on each other, in a home free of anger, conflict, and recriminations. The second is to grab onto a different sort of possibility - that many children living with single mothers have other important adults in their lives, too. I don’t mean just kids who have Grandma living with them. I also mean all of the kids who have grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, teachers, family friends, and others who care about them and make sure they know it.”
After analyzing many national studies on single parenthood, DePaulo adds that what matters is “NOT how many parents there were, or whether the parents were biologically related to the children. Instead, whether children had problems with their grades or with their siblings or friends depended on whether there was a lot of conflict within families, high levels of disagreements between parents, or endless arguments between parents and kids.”
Bravo. This is precisely what I imply in my essay in the new anthology Single State of the Union: Single Women Speak Out on Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Happiness (Seal Press/Avalon, May 2007), edited by Diane Mapes.
When readers in the Washington Post bashed me last year for dating as a single mom, I wondered what planet they lived on. Whenever I’ve dated, my daughter has been in the most loving company: with her grandpa, aunt, close friends. Often, when I got home, she was having such a ball, that she wanted me to leave again.
What child wouldn’t want all of this one-on-one attention, day in and day out?
Bella DePaulo, Huffington Post, Washington Post, Singled Out, Single State, single parents, single moms, single dads, studies, nuclear family
June 17th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
HURRAY! well, not hurray that WaPost readers are such puritanical bonehead. Hurray that someone is finally standing up and showing how single mothers do it best: we get the whole tribe mentality, and our kids are loved by more than just a ‘nuclear’ family. Single moms who actively build a loving community of adults and peers for their children are giving their kids the best things in life.