written by Love Isn’t Enough contributor Renee; originally published at Womanist Musings
I recently came across a piece about single motherhood on Clutch magazine that I thought would lead to an interesting conversation.
Nobody wants to grow up without a father. No matter what Oprah Winfrey suggests.
After viewers turned off their televisions from Oprah’s Lifeclass last Friday, the cameras kept rolling and captured a scene where Oprah comforts an audience member who was balling in tears over feeling inadequate as a single mom.
“You’ve got to know that you are enough for your children,” said the media mogul, entrepreneur and philanthropist. “You are doing what so many women have done. You are living in the expectation and the dream that you had,” Oprah continued referring to the woman’s wish to raise her children in a dual-parent home.
Taken back by her kind words of encouragement, I started to think about Winfrey’s family history (or what we know). Oprah is a product of a single parent household and experienced much hardship during her childhood. She has built an entire business around her trials and tribulations. She is also not a mother. Not that this negates her ability to offer parenting advice, but her support does not go far when it comes to dictating what someone so far removed could suggest. Frankly other than business, Oprah is the last person I would take childcare or relationship advice from.
It is no secret that in recent years the decline of households headed by married couples and the increase in households headed by single parents has been disproportionate. With the increasing trend of people having children outside of marriage— among other circumstances– more and more guilt surrounds women and their womb. I have experienced the struggles a single mother faces first hand. This observable fact challenges women to ask… are they enough for their children? Empowerment is one thing, Winfrey is great at, but it can be misleading at times. When it comes to placing the blame, I would advise to Oprah and others that we have to recognize the truth hurts. After listening to her sanguine advice, I can only give Oprah kudos for motivating the distraught mother. However, pending the circumstance, it can be very difficult and frustrating, being a single mother is not enough. (source)
I was raised in a two parent household, and I raise my children in a two parent household. I cannot begin to speak to the challenges that are specific to single mother because that is outside of my experience, but I can speak about what it is to parent. Sometimes I think that children exist to make us age before our time. Whether it is homework and bedtime battles, or the constant worry, parenting is hard work. I know that I am fortunate to have someone to share the experience with and spare me when I reach the point where running away to join the circus seems like a much easier thing to do.
I know without a doubt in my mind that if you don’t spend time worrying about whether or not you are doing right by your kids, you are not an active and engaged parent. I worry about whether I love and support them enough. I worry whether they feel safe and secure in their home. I worry about the things I cannot give them, no matter how hard I work. I worry that they are not internalizing the messages that I am trying to teach them and that I am potentially raising yet another generation of bigots. In short, I worry. There is no such thing as a parent who truly cares, but does not worry about their children.
The rub of it is that despite all of the hours we engage in worry, no parent is perfect. When we look back, there is always going to be something that we wish that we had done differently. There are going to be events that you miss because work gets in the way. I remember when I missed Destructions little league play off game because I could not get the day off work. I was riddled with guilt and he told me how much he missed having me in the stands cheering for him. At the time I thought that I had taught him that I was willing put work above him. Since then, I have had many opportunities to be there for him in real and concrete ways. I know now without a doubt that he knows that I have his back when it really counts. I also know that I will disappoint him again, because no matter how much I love him, or how much I want to be there for him, shit happens and I am only human.
When it comes right down to it, children want and need one adult to love them, teach them and guide them. It is always going to be easier to raise a child in a two parent household because despite the whole, it takes a village to raise a child mantra, parenting is an isolating job. There are few social support systems for families, let alone parents that are doing it on their own. The problem isn’t the single mothers, but a society that claims to care about children and families and does absolutely the bare minimum to support them. If you doubt that, think about the reduction in after schools programs, the reduction in subsidized daycare spots and the constant attack on teachers unions.
I am sick and tired of the ongoing attack on single mothers. Being a single mother is enough. This article does not even take into consideration that some women parent with other women and suggests that a father is absolutely necessary to the home. It does not consider inter-generational households, where extended families parent a child. There are families where siblings raise a child together. There are many ways to raise a child and not being partnered does not necessarily mean single. Even in the case where a child is truly being parented by one person as long their is love, that is all that matters. Instead of attacking single mothers, what we need to do is fight for a support network that makes it easier for women to parent regardless of what their situation is.
Wonderful post. I cannot even state the number of times my husband and I have said to one another, “Can you imagine doing this as a single parent?” I would never have villified single parents, but I didn’t understand how incredibly difficult parenting was, even with two of us living in the same household, until we became parents. It humbled us and gave us a sense of awe for people who raise children without any support network.
And nothing makes me angrier than politicians who talk all over the place about “family values” but cut services to children and families as often as possible. AND the religious right who says “single mother” like it’s some kind of disease.
My family and I have an interesting relationship with single parentdom. My husband was raised in a house where it was just his non-driving, non-working-outside-the-home mother and 2 older sisters (9 and 7 years, respectively) during the week, and his father in the house on the weekends only (supposedly for work… but it was less than an hour away, as he realized later in life. He and his sisters still go “unh-huh” on that one and are mentally prepared for a half-sibling to appear one day). His mother didn’t have to do the kids-and-job shuffle, but things were always financially tight and she didn’t have the support structure you expect when you think of a married mom with 3 kids.
I was raised with an absolutely fabulous, if overprotective, single mom, one who held a torch (more like a bonfire) for my father, complete with on-again-0ff-again relationship, for decades. DECADES. But my father never lived with us, visited a few nights a week when I was little, and now comes over to see my children when my mom takes care of them. Financially, my mother held 2 jobs and used her savings to send me to a really good school, which paid off, I guess, in high school scholarships that let her chuck one of those jobs. My father finally started chipping in when I was in about 7th grade, but I had to be thankful and respectful about it. Unlike my divorced friends, there was no agreement or court ruling about visitation and support, so I never knew when my father would decide to grace us with his presence or when I’d be invited along to something on his side of the family, etc. The randomness hurt, because I was an afterthought, and to a certain extent, I still am. There were times where I wished my father would just go away for a while, or at least be consistent so I could plan ahead. As an adult, I can look at my father and see a person who has his own familial demons and his default coping mechanism will always be to withdraw from people he cares about. And I can look at my mother and see a person who is still not over an emotionally distant father, and who overcompensates by leading with her heart instead of her brain, usually at her own expense.
But overall, I have NOTHING to complain about. My home was secure and safe (hell, my mother fought off a burglar/rapist single-handed by breaking her own steak knife with her hand, my mother is a GODDESS). I had the emotional support and room to grow so that I could realize the flaws in my parents’ relationship, and what I wanted different in my own. At the same time, I had a good model so that if I WERE to be a single parent, I’d know what to do, how to prioritize and put the kids first, and the pros and cons. At one point, I really thought I would parent on my own, possibly even by choice (I had at least one gay unpartnered friend ‘volunteer’, because his momma thought we’d have gorgeous babies *snerk*), and that I’d be GOOD at it. In my heart of hearts, I know that I still would be, if I had to be.
Funny thing is, this pattern is all over the place. My great-grandmother was left in a lurch raising 5 kids (after just losing a daughter as a toddler) during the Depression when her husband walked out on the family. My grandmother, the eldest of the brood, married the responsible but emotionally-challenged guy who was my mother’s dad. Then my mother ends up being the single parent, but attached to another emotionally-challenged guy. My uncles… well, both were/are married, and neither has had a traditional marriage. One does the “home on the weekends” thing, but actually has a job 200 miles away and we know where he is at night, so it’s cool. Sticking your city wife in the top of a mountain “for safety” for 30 years while she raises the 2 kids on her own during the week… may not be that cool. YMMV. And the other uncle had a codependent relationship with a highly functional alcoholic, that resulted in her being a recovering alcoholic, a surprise!mom of a lovely baby, and then…. my uncle became his father, working hard and emotionally unavailable and honestly clueless. When his wife died, he could not cope with single fatherhood and my cousin was raised by a maternal aunt.
I know this is all tl;dr: So to sum up: Having a 2-parent household is no guarantee that you’re going to be happy. Having a 1-parent household is no guarantee that you’re going to be miserable. PARENTING IS PARENTING, and physical presence =/ emotional presence.
There are no guarantees in life and the most stable two parent families can be divided. I hope that in most communities there are supportive places for single parents. Thankfully the nursery school our children go to offers finacila aid and is always aware of the moms who are going it alone. In related news, my mind today is clouded and very upset over the Penn state sexual abuse charges. The charity that this “alleged” rapist founded was targeted at low income children and I’m assuming children of color given the racial demographics in Pennsylvania. This “man” had six adopted children and was a foster parent at one point. Two white cohorts let him get away with it (to the point of perjuring themselves) so to me this is white supremacy in action at its most barbaric. The perceived dire need for a father figure and male role model in low income single parent families foisted on the public as a sick disguise. I pray for the victims.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Sandusky#Sexual_assault_charges
I think that the context of being a single mother is being misunderstood. It really isn’t a matter that one parent is enough or isn’t enough when you are a single parent, because it is what it is, and you make due with what you’ve got and you do the best you can. That may be a whole bunch of cliches but it really is true. I might just be applying my own experience of single motherhood, but the thing that makes me want to break down and cry isn’t that I feel inadequate as a parent, but that I’m not getting the necessary love and support that I need as a person, as a woman, as a mother.
It can be very isolating, especially when you are a 24/7 (no joint custody/ no 2nd parent in any meaningful way.) If you are at all attractive, the married mothers will shun you, or relegate you to “coffee” and most of the time they will be very quick to assume that you want to steal their husband (no matter how much of a troll he is) or that you have low moral standards and would have no problem stealing someone else’s man. In the back of their mind, maybe even very very far back in the deep subconscious, you are a threat, and thus a potential whore, etc…. If you are unattractive, or if you are capable of suppressing all signs that you are human being, and thus sexual on any level, you can have female companionship- but will your needs as a woman be met? Or even your needs as an adult- for you will certainly not be included by other couples to participate as a friend socially, no matter how friendly you are in passing, no matter how much you enjoy and respect each other. For whatever reason couples only seem to want to be friends with other couples. But external social life aside, on a daily basis, a mother needs to vent, she needs advice, she needs support and without a life partner there is very little access to a safe space for all those things outside of paying a therapist- and that costs money, and doesn’t provide the deep emotional support a single mother is really looking for. It’s hard to find people who you can be fully known to, and fully know in return, but it’s so necessary. The absence of that kind of deep connection certainly makes me break down and want to cry from time to time!
I think that married people assume that single parents can get their social needs met from other single parents. In reality, this just isn’t the case- it doesn’t happen that way. While it is true that single parents are more open to each other and understand each others trials and tribulations better, it can be logistically very difficult to get together- single parents are usually stretched pretty thin. And the other thing is that if you are a single mother raising your child alone, you would probably like your child to have healthy interactions with healthy male role models. You would not like to raise a kid with a daddy complex! Both boys and girls get them- usually by either having a caustic relationship, or more usually NO relationship, with an adult male. Single mom’s would like very much to make sure that their daughters and sons grow up to love and be loved in healthy ways, and to do that they need positive interactions with men who are capable of nurturing children. So no amount of single moms getting together is ever going to counter that. (I don’t mean to suggest that Lesbian couples aren’t raising their children right- I know that they are!) And if you happen to be straight, you probably don’t want to live in an all female world- and the expectation that you should somehow want to is deeply insulting.
The bottom line is that single moms need love and support and too often we are treated like a cautionary tale, if not a downright threat. Instead of being invited in, we are left out.
As a single mama of two–by design–meaning I adopted my oldest, and brought my second into the world with the help of a donor–I was so thrilled to read this piece. I have this strange love hate relationship with the single mother thing. I believe that I work about 6,000 times harder than many two parent households to make sure my kids get everything their kids do-swim lessons, soccer teams, theater tickets, French classes, pool parties, authentic this, and meaningful that, not to mention the groovy weeks at the lake. I was raised in a very traditional suburban two parent, three kid, two car garage kind of setting. So I HAD all that and the summer excursions to Europe.
I am exhausted.
I have AMAZING friends who are married–all who are married or partnered. I agree that single mothers have little or NO TIME to hang out with other single mothers. I find that my friends love to be part of the boys lives–to help out. I schedule months in advance to get help with the pick up from school when I have a meeting that is going late, or to take them to swim lesson, so I can get the other to the non sibling invited birthday party (talk about hell for a single parent!!). I am great at asking for help.
My discovery early on was that folks really like to be asked. It is easy to say no. My kids know they are being raised by a community. Our community is as diverse as we are (we are white–me–Black–my oldest–and Mixed–the younger) and offering much more than I can on my own. I think in some ways I have it easier in this way. I can invite help and meaningful relationships with married folks–because there is so much room for the relationship here. A married man–is not “competing” with my husband/partner for my boys attention when he takes them to the Y to shoot hoops or takes them to a movie. What I mean is that the menfolk don’t have to posture or negotiate social cues to be in my kids lives. I pose no threat–and not because I am not an attractive woman–but because I don’t have designs on peoples husbands. If anything the threat I pose is that often married women think; “Wow I envy how much ease you have. You can make all the decisions, don’t have to negotiate this and that… have no in laws to argue with, etc. etc.” I work so hard to do this well, people think I have it easier some times!
When I was writing last summer about inviting relationships with people of color into our sphere with much greater intention in the last few years–I realized that that too might be easier for me–because I am not dealing with my partner’s internalized racism–or white mind too. I am just doing my own work with my community/family of choice.
I am rambling everywhere. I suppose I wish I could stop thinking I have to one up–or be not just as good but better than-everyone who is not a single parent. Truth is we are doing great. My kids are well secure in themselves, and in the love they feel. They will not be sucked down the vortex of statistical expectations of the stigmatized “child of a single mother” as long as I stop spending so much energy fighting against it…
oops sorry I somehow italicized that entire post. I only meant to italicize the word; “their”.
No offense mamaC/catherine- but you are a single mother by choice. Your children have been adopted, and created by artificial insemination. The way you have become a single mother is absent of sexual connotations. You are “safe.” But the fact remains that women who become single mothers because they were never married, or by abandonment, do carry varying levels of stigma- depending on varying cultural values. For certain there is a very real stigma in middle class white america against single mothers, and especially single mothers of biologically mixed race babies. It is subtle, but pervasive. That’s not your specific experience. Fair enough! But it’s very real and I would appreciate your not attempting to delegitimize my experience. Thank you.
(by the way- I have married friends too! I live in a mixed race world too! yay me!)
The great irony is that not having my spouses support and respect as a married mother helped me in parenting now as a single parent. I know what it is like to parent with a partner who isn’t a healthy partner and parent.
At the same time, I have yet to hear a man say that they never missed their father or felt their father’s absence in their life when they were being parented by their mother only. I worry about my son when he cries that he misses his father and also due to specific circumstances also tells me how he didn’t feel safe with his father. I know men who reflect back on their childhood and state how much they appreciate their mother for everything she did to raise them but how they felt lost without their father, but did not want to upset or sadden their mother by telling her that. I also know single mothers who struggled with the teenage years with their sons, because their son really did believe they had to be the men of the household, and the man of the household does not take orders from a woman. I am sure you could imagine the conflict they had with their son when he began to smell himself.
I have observed similar responses to me by other married mothers that Gina speaks of. I believe that a lot of it has to do with stereotypes about Black mothers — and stereotypes about single mothers — I am often perceived to be much younger than my age, and navigating my interactions with other mothers has been interesting.
I had to figure out men on my own because my father never had a conversation with me about men and dating when I was growing up. He and my mother were married for over 40 years, yet he left the child-rearing to my mother, and withdrew to the basement of the house towards his own hobbies. I felt I was left to fend for myself–and did not feel protected by my father, nor my mother from the slings and arrows of society as a child growing towards adulthood — everything I faced, sexual harassment, discrimination, sexism, I faced on my own. Any problems I had, I handled on my own.
In adulthood, it meant that I picked the wrong person to marry. Interestedly, I chose the person who verbally, psychologically and sometimes physically reflected back to me that I was not safe.
I worry that children are not being taught how to have healthy long-lasting love relationships with non-relatives. And because of my worry, I am happy that my son gets to see healthy relationships in other married couples, partnered couples and dating couples through my friendships. I do not want my son to be raised in an all-female environment, if I can help it, thus I appreciate my father being in his life, and his interactions with people who are in healthy loving relationships in different arenas of his life. I want my son to know that he is valuable as a Black male, and not someone who is expendable from his family–I never want him to look at the mother of his child and throw up his hands and say “you got this, I’m out” and abandon my grandchildren or treat the women he dates the way his father treated him. (And I worry about that because statistics show that 85% of boys who witness domestic violence end up in a relationship where domestic violence exists)
I wholeheartedly agree with you. I was raised (most of) my childhood in a two-parent household. I raised my children in a two-parent household. In both cases there were times that it might have been better for the children if one of the parents had been on leave of absence. And children’s lives are exactly what they are. We can’t ever be everything to each of our children…nor could we if we were two, or four, or an entire village. No matter what we give to our children, sometimes it just doesn’t work for them. Hooray to all of the single parents. Kudos to you for doing a difficult job in the best way you can and for doing it without the support of another person who is vested in the outcome. I can only wish for each of you that there is a family member, friend or mentor to listen when you need an ear.
Pingback: The Perfect Parent(s) | A Letter to my Children
I am not married, but I am not a single parent. My boyfriend and I raise our almost-three-year-old daughter. As a mother, full time employee, and student, I am constantly beset with worry that I am not spending enough time with our daughter. I can’t imagine being a single parent, but I wish to offer two thoughts that I find comforting during my worry: People sharing a life together embark on a merging of life journies (whether it’s a couple, a parent and child, or any other arrangement of intertwined lives) and what develops is some sort of compromise based on the intricacies of our individual experiences. Also, I truly believe that our intentions are shine through, and are deeply felt by children. No matter what, love will be felt and internalized by children who are loved. While I wish I could spend more time with my daughter – I wish there were more hours in a single day; I also am my own person, with my own ambitions and goals and feeling of committment towards the world. What message would I send if I encouraged my daughter to pursue her goals but neglected my own?