Single Parenting

Weeds Single Mom Nancy Botwin

Single motherhood in the media appears to have come a long way since the 1977 movie The Goodbye Girl, about a divorced mother and her daughter who are forced to move in with an off-off-Broadway actor. Single motherhood has come even further since the stigma of Murphy Brown.

For one, more single mom characters are popping up on the tube. There’s Desperate Housewives’ Susan Mayer — played by Teri Hatcher, who’s a single mom to a daughter in real life, too — trying to find love. And Showtime’s highest-rated series, Weeds, stars widowed mom Nancy Botwin (played by Mary-Louise Parker) making a new life for herself in a pristine, LA suburb.

But if you look closely, these single mom representations might not be something to cheer about.

In a Desperate Housewives episode, for instance, a new single mom character — Nora Huntington (Kiersten Warren)– was portrayed as an insane husband-stealer, and then she was shot after just a handful of episodes in a bizarre hostage situation. What does this say about the finale for single moms?

And how does Weed’s single mom — who has no discernable career skills — make her living? As the well-paid local pot dealer. What does this say about a single mom role model?

What we need to see on TV is strong, assertive, smart single mom characters.

We’ve come close in HBO’s Sex and the City, in which the polished big city lawyer Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), decides to have a baby on her own. The show did a credible job of showing Miranda’s agonizing transition from single woman to single mom. (Bravo to HBO for showing the realistic scene in which Miranda’s crying baby interrupted her getting hot with a man.)

Like Miranda, we all have struggles and flaws — but these flaws don’t need to be the focus. Why does the media insist on making single moms klutzy and pitiable, like Desperate Housewives’ Susan? It’s about time viewers see how sharp and self-assured we are.

Positive portrayals of single moms will not only give us single mom’s something to cheer about — it will also make our kids feel a whole lot better to see more families that looks like their’s — and look happy and healthy.