A couple of months ago (I’ve been sitting on this one due to time issues) Bitch Ph.D. reviewed a book on single motherhood called Promises I Can Keep. I haven’t read the book and can’t comment on that myself, but there were several things in her review that plucked the brainstrings. BPhD says:
The authors are sociologists/anthropologists who did a study of poor single moms. So the book is kind of sociology/ethnography. Which means that it does a great job of combining interesting, readable stories about individual women (told in the women’s own words a lot of the time) with a longer-focus analytic view that helps interpret the stories… What Edin and Kefalis found is that the moms have mainstream, even conservative ideas of what marriage should be, and they don’t want to get married if they don’t trust that the men will be faithful, help provide for their children, not be abusive, etc. And that these fears are quite reasonable, given the men they have to choose from.
But. The women also have mainstream, conservative ideas about the value and importance of children–so much so that they often think of abortion as irresponsible. Which is an interesting and profound realization, I think, and one that those of us who are pro-choice would do well to think very hard about. A lot of the time we argue for abortion rights as if we were doing so on behalf of poor women; we need to realize that many poor women are not themselves pro-choice, and that if we really want to advocate for them, we should start by listening to what they have to say.
The key thing the women in this book have to say is that having kids while young and poor has been good for them. According to their own account (and the author’s observations), their children have given them a reason them to straighten up their lives, grow up, and become responsible adults. Their children provide a source of love for these young women, where boyfriends, peers, and parents have so often failed them. I think most of us in the middle class think it’s a little fucked up to want a child for the love that child will give you (and Edin and Kefalis say this too). But at the same time, I think those of us who have had children will say that one of the most powerful and gratifying things about parenting is precisely that experience of love. It’s possible that poor young women, who are often much closer to the experience of parenting than their middle-class peers by virtue of helping raise their siblings, or seeing friends have babies, are simply more realistic about the emotional benefits of parenting than the middle class is.
If you’re familiar with my life story, you know I got pregnant at 17 and gave birth at 18, meaning that my legal adult life began with parenthood. Further, you’d also know that previous to my transition into adulthood I was a common fuckup — drugs, promiscuity, general irresponsibility, a couple of institutionalizations, etc. The one thing that led me away from the choices that kept me in trouble toward more responsible adult choices was knowing that my responsibility affected another person in the world that was dependent on me, or simply, that my existence stopped being about me and my choices alone.
The question underlying it all is why people have children under “less than optimal” circumstances, in which case I paraphrase the Bitch herself: Not having children is The Choice if you are a sexually active woman. If you are a sexually active woman, you will likely become pregnant unless other measures are taken. The end of that uninterrupted inertia is childbirth, and likely a child for whom you are responsible. Welcome to Nature. The “less than optimal” line of thought is employed by the middle class as insurance on behalf of guaranteed outcomes — college, marriage, financial security. If these things aren’t a regular part of one’s community, what is the incentive to put off parenting?
Over the years I’ve seen several feminist bloggers express frustration with the “fulfillment” or “contentment” or whatever middle-class cliche people use to illustrate this phenomenon, that becoming a mother is about growing beyond the Self, but in my experience it is invariably true, and true for the single moms I engage with on a regular basis. Parenthood, for some, is a pathway out of self-destruction, out of abusive patterns and relationships, and out of aimlessness. I won’t lie — I came from an upper middle class home with upper middle class expectations, not that I paid attention to them. That’s neither here nor there since I’ve broken from these expectations, and had actually broken from them long before hence my foray into the criminal and underclass aspects of my community. Similarly, I know several other single mothers I grew up with who used their children as an excuse to get fucked up, to do drugs and dump their kids on other people, as an excuse to get away. But these stories are the only ones you hear about on the news. For all the emphasis on the bad apples you’d think conservative media would have had the gumption to indoctrinate these “traditionally-valued” single parents.
I found something condescending in the presentation of the research, this imprinting of conservative and middle class values on the image constructed of the single moms BPhD takes from the book (I am reflecting on her reflections mind you, not ascribing these ideas to her). This condescension is in contrary to my own experiences and a particular value of mine that clashes up against some contemporary feminist rhetoric regarding birth control and anti-choice rhetoric. My primary issue is how situations like mine, situations like women in the book, apparently, are used as ammunition for the argument for birth control. I find it consistently dehumanizing to be used as an example of What Can Happen If. Unless. Danger. To me it’s suspicious to see these conservative and middle class values used as a feminist frame to warn the masses about the dangers of unplanned pregnancy.
Don’t get me wrong. I realize I’ve been lucky in a lot of ways, but I also know that people with far less than I have are as successful, if not more so, than I’ve been as a parent. And in my opinion, I’m doing just fine. And I’m on birth control.
It’s a squidgy situation, knowing that many of your feminist peers are just as cautious about your lifestyle as the conservative critics, because access to birth control and abortion is important, and because the advance of women’s opportunities across the board are important, and you need women in the circumstances to achieve these levels of social involvement in order to open the doors for others. And yet. Most women who have abortions are mothers or will be mothers someday. Disconnecting this fact from the frame is a disservice to the pro-choice community, many of whom also advocate on behalf of motherhood.
But I’m not sure that I would characterize the values of single mothers as “traditional” so much as contextually pragmatic. BPhD posits that this population may be “closer to the experience of parenting than their middle-class peers by virtue of helping raise their siblings, or seeing friends have babies, are simply more realistic about the emotional benefits of parenting than the middle class is,” and this is in part true, but there is often a general narrative positing that this is just how life goes, and so goes it. You fuck, you have babies. You’ve seen women with children achieve levels of success outside of the traditional sphere, so you can too. You’ve been with men who haven’t respected you and so you’ve left, and you have figured it out. Marriage becomes optional — you don’t depend on it. You have role models and community supports that don’t see this choice as tragic or irrational, so it’s normal and you make it work just like they did. The decision to have children when you get pregnant, whether or not you’re in the marital frame and whether or not you’re of middle-class readiness, is not necessarily emotional — the disincentives are fewer than the incentives. Thus, as BPhD concludes, you have a situation where the poor have much to teach those who feel parenthood is merely an optional choice for those wealthy enough to undertake it.
Straddling this culturally poor and wealthy divide, I’m of a skeptical mind as to just how damaging single, unplanned parenthood is to young people. Marriage is no insurance, neither is waiting or going to college. BPhD touches on this as well:
Poor women’s economic prospects are demonstrably no better if they postpone childbirth than if they have children young. In fact, there’s some evidence that their lives, economically and otherwise, would be worse, as kids provide them an incentive to stop using drugs, to end abusive relationships, to get jobs, and to further their educations. Setting an example for their children, or improving their situations for their children’s sake, proves to be a much more powerful motivator than doing so for themselves.
But I’d go even further: Many if not most of people find some sort of reason to aim for emotional and financial stability once they reproduce if instability has been an issue in the past, regardless of what class stratus in which they fit. The middle class narrative is one of false security, as many feminist writers are eager to point out. Marriages dissolve, employment is a goal but not a guarantee, and a college education may not mean anything if you aren’t in an optimal job market for your degree. The narrative of guaranteed success is hollow.
And for what it’s worth, I reject the narratives that position having children young and out of wedlock as a “badge of honor.” This attitude is a “fuck you,” a subversive bird flipped to a world that says you’re a loser and a slut, a world doesn’t believe in you anyway. You’re making it, and that’s your badge of honor. Wear it.
More: As per BPhD’s suggestion in her post, follow up by reading the second chapter of “Promises I Can Keep” here and an article explaining their research here.
This is a powerful corrective, Lauren, to a lot of my own views. Teaching at a community college, I’m part of that cadre of feminist profs who urge their students to delay marriage, delay childbirth, until they’ve achieved independence, autonomy, and financial stability. Even as I utter these bromides, I’m often aware that the chance of actually getting full autonomy (financial or otherwise) is slim for many, and that it may not actually be what many of them want. And while I bend over backwards not to stigmatize single motherhood, I could do more here — and you’ve given me a lot to think about. Thankya.
This is something BPhD said, not you, but her post is old, so I hope she doesn’t (and you don’t) mind if I respond to it here:
If we don’t listen what other anti-choicers have to say, why is it that poor women have a better case to make? I understand respecting a person’s individual case against abortions for themselves, but I don’t understand any person, no matter what their personal circumstances, being encouraged in their desire to remove that choice for others.
——————-
Also, I’m interested in “child-as-motivation-to-clean-up-life.” I guess what I wonder is, what’s the predictor? How do we know which mothers will be like you, and which mothers will “use their kids as an excuse”?
I’m not saying we have to know this. It’s not our business, except inasmuch as those children are our future. Snark. But it’s just such a drastic gamble and the stakes are so high, it’s interesting it ends up being a lottery for the kid.
It’s not our business, except inasmuch as those children are our future. Snark. But it’s just such a drastic gamble and the stakes are so high, it’s interesting it ends up being a lottery for the kid.
I would argue that all of life is a lottery, inasmuch as parenting, career, relationships, etc., go. And in doing so I argue that because all of life is a lottery you have to go with hope. It’s naive and I’ve been shot down for it before, but I can’t argue anything differently.
Educate yourself, be cynical, hope anyway. It’s a philosophical belief on my part more than anything. And if anything, it requires you to trust people, and specifically in this case to trust women.
True. And it also occurred to me, after I posted that, that a mother who “parties” is still not necessarily “doing harm to the kid.”
And it also occurred to me, after I posted that, that a mother who “parties” is still not necessarily “doing harm to the kid.”
Indeed, and this is also a narrative that is bothersome to me. One of the weird unexpected benefits to having a joint-parenting or community-parenting arrangement is having regular time off from being a parent. This is not something I’ve discussed because *some people* mind find it offensive, but it is nice to have somd downtime, or at least to have some down time to arrange your adult activities around, and married and single-unit families don’t usually get that guarantee.
I turned 21 well after my gateway into parenthood and I still got people asking me where my child was and what he was doing if I had the gumption to show my face in a bar on my weekends off. Still do. And yes, it is offensive.
Teaching at a community college, I’m part of that cadre of feminist profs who urge their students to delay marriage, delay childbirth, until they’ve achieved independence, autonomy, and financial stability. Even as I utter these bromides, I’m often aware that the chance of actually getting full autonomy (financial or otherwise) is slim for many, and that it may not actually be what many of them want.
Let’s put it this way: I’m suspect of any Guaranteed Route To Success that relies on middle class values. Clearly these aren’t the only avenues to financial or familiarl stability, and furthering these views as part of the feminist cadre is only alienating to those for whom this narrative has already been disproven. Women can have success and happiness in all sorts of ways, and in my experience, many of these ways are not dependent on their heterosexual relationship to men. I also believe that furthering these narratives are harmful to those in communities in which potential for stable relationships are few because it leads to a belief in one’s own failure. And furthermore, I think it limits the definition of “success”.
Relationships and communities are important, but insisiting on heteronormative, career-oriented relationships is a limited way of approaching parenting, especially when the research shows that what children really need in their development is security in belonging within the community, and not necessarily in having a two-parent, heterosexual family.
Well, and as you know, I’m very amenable to
almost pathologically so, so I wasn’t really forgetting that “party moms” aren’t necessarily “bad moms” - inasmuch as this latter creature even exists - but really just thinking about the kind of mom who might make no lifestyle concessions whatsoever to parenthood, to the point of near-neglect.
We’re not disagreeing, anyway, simply defining our terms, I suspect. :)
You should cross-post this on Unsprung. :)
I tried to but it was eaten! I’ll retry cross-posting now.
Lauren, I completely agree with you as far as the Guaranteed Route To Success. I think so many people cling to those things because they think it provides them with insurance that will protect them from bad things happening to them. In reality, of course, nothing is guaranteed, and as with everything else, you can’t easily predict the impact single motherhood will have on women or children.
Two things leap to mind reading the comments–one that many women who have husbands are single parents for the most part, but they have that social stamp of approval because there is a man somehow related to the family, even if he does nothing to help. I have friends whose work and worry load would be reduced if they were single parents and able to let go of the need for that social stamp of approval. At least it would cut down on the laundry.
Secondly, it’s that same social stamp of approval that creates a serious double standard where leisure time is involved. When I was a single mother, I was very aware of (and frequently reminded, lest I forget) what the perception was of the fact that twice a month I went out to the bar and went dancing and drinking. It made no difference that my children were in the care of their father when I did that. Now, remarried, my husband and I go to a friend’s party every Friday night, and no one ever questions that. Instead, we hear how good it is that we take time for ourselves. So, it’s okay for married couples to go party away from the kids, but not okay for single mothers. I used to say that the best enemy to unite the country was a single, welfare-recipient mother. Everyone seems to hate them.
“I turned 21 well after my gateway into parenthood and I still got people asking me where my child was and what he was doing if I had the gumption to show my face in a bar on my weekends off. Still do. And yes, it is offensive”
yeah, I hear that a lot. In fact, I think it’s the first thing people ask me (if they know me), and yeah, it’s really offensive. I always tell them that she went to a bar down the street (which tends to shut them up).
The fact that husbands can be more trouble than they’re worth is ignored by those who demonize single mothers as a matter of course. It blows their argument out of the water, and even conservatives who hand-wring about single motherhood usually don’t hesitate to dissolve unhappy marriages themselves. Oh, but it’s justified when it’s them. Women who start off as single are often making the smarter choice than someone who marries because they should and then just breaks it up later anyway. Why put yourself through the pain of divorce if you don’t have to? Much smarter not to marry him in the first place.
What a lot of people who whine and chastise ignore is that for a lot of women, the kind, supportive husband who contributes to the family is not an option. Most single mothers, if given the choice, would snatch such a husband up. Granted, a lot of conservatives would tell women who can’t find a good husband not to have children, which drives home what this is really about—making sure that women’s lives are at the behest of men, that women are dependent on men, and that women cannot define themselves as things like “mother”, but have to have a man do it for them.
The argument that I’ve always found most persuasive for abortion and birth control is individualist; that women are in a unique position in that our bodies can become occupied against our will and we can become responsible for another life not always by our choice. Children should never be considered a burden, and a woman’s life should never come under threat because she chooses to be a mother, but many women who are not ready for, or cannot handle another pregnancy need to have control over their reproductive systems.
For many reasons. Obviously, unless women are in control of themselves, they cannot advance as individuals in society. This doesn’t mean that women who have children cannot have jobs or hold office, but if a woman can be impregnated and forced to care for a child against her will, that necessary sense of personal wholeness and self control, that sense of physical integrity that should be the right of all people, will be compromised.
Motherhood is a woman’s choice and no one else’s. Children have little to do with this, except that their lives are improved by reproductive rights. When mothers are willing participants in their child’s life, children grow up in a healthier environment and are likewise healthier in body and mind. This is what the “right” doesn’t realise.
It’s all well and good to acknowledge that many single mothers are “traditionally valued” but singling out any demographic to illustrate the need for something as universally necessary as the basic right to control one’s own body in the first place is a mistake.
Bingo, Amanda — which is why one part of the movement has to focus on enabling male transformation. It’s not women’s job to do, of course, it’s men’s — but it is vital work.
Your experience resembles that of a friend of mine from high school. She came from a middle class background, as did her boyfriend, and both of them were really into drugs (he even sold them a little, in a very low-level kind of way). He’d dropped out of high school and gotten his GED; she managed to graduate, and they both ended up in a good state college together where they proceeded to ignore their classes and drink all the time. When she was 19, she got pregnant. All our friends were taking bets on how long the guy would stick around (we had a dark sense of humor). Turns out, with some financial (not much, but some) and emotional support from both their parents, they not only managed to stay together and finish school, but do really well. They cleaned their shit up. She gave birth right before spring semester exams, and still managed to get 2 A’s, a B, and a C. She’s now an elementary school teacher, he’s some sort of financial person, they got married when their daughter was 2 years old, and they have a picture-book suburban family, complete with house. (Not that such a thing is the only or best marker of success, but it’s the kind of transformation that the media makes it sound like could never, ever happen when two kids are as “irresponsible” as they were as teenagers.) Most importantly, they’re happy, and they both adore their little girl and are incredibly responsible parents. Though it’s impossible to know, I suspect that early parenthood WAS the right thing for them, and without it, they would have floundered a lot more.
However, it shouldn’t be understated that it would have been much harder for them had they not had some financial help from their folks in the early years.
I ended up a single parent after trying to do it the “right” way… husband, financially-stable, etc. Now that I am a single parent, I am begrudged every minute of personal time (or similarly, personal expenditures…. God forbid I get a pedicure), most often by family but also by others. The double-standard is always striking to me. At family gatherings for instance, no one ever held the baby for me, or gave me a break, or offered to get me a plate of food, etc. They also would offer each other glasses of wine or beer, but bring me a soda (if that). It was all very subtle, but the message was clear… that my children were my cross for me to bear because I chose to go it alone. In the meantime, those same people have planned “date nights” and “poker nights” and a variety of free time. I am a proud “party mom”, I have a sitter who comes on a regular basis so I can go have some down time. I think the kids and I both benefit from that, but it did take me awhile to get past some of the guilt and I still don’t tell family about that.
I have been married (twice), I have a decent little career going, I have my education, and all kinds of life experience, but my children have by far been the centering force in my life, the glue that pulls it all together and makes us a functional unit. I grew up in a dysfunctional home, and I our road together as a family has been a bit bumpy as we figure out our course, but we are doing well. Sometimes reality sets in and I realize I could have just as easily headed down a completely dysfunctional path, or that I could make a series of bad choices and still end up there. But for today, I am content because I know I provided a home for them. Again. Today. And tomorrow I’ll do it again.
As for waiting until all your ducks are in a row before you have kids… yikes, that’s a gamble. Who is ever really ready? Sadly, I have several women friends in their early 40s who put off having kids until it was “the right time” and now they are regretting waiting so long. That whole concept is a flawed theory and very misleading. Life is no fairy tale.
Waiting for your ducks to be in a row before having kids is a matter of degree. I remember one discussion on a parenting group I used to read, back when I was still hoping we’d be able to have kids. A guy came in and challenged us as to how one could afford to have kids and responsibly provide for them, and it turned out that his sense of what was necessary to feel “responsible” when having kids was a set of things that could well challenge a pair of Ivy League grads in employable fields: home ownership (not just any house, but one upgraded to have an extra room for a home office in addition to the kids’ room), substantial savings for retirement, making one parent an at home parent for many years, a brand new car, allegedly in order to be absolutely up to date on safety features, etc., etc. Which, you know, is OK, for a personal standard, even if it may price you out of having kids, but really annoyed all the parents in the group, because his way of asking made it sound as if anyone who went ahead with less was making a huge and unreasonable gamble. And so of course a lot of people made the “There’s never a right time,” and “You make do once the kids arrive” kinds of argument. But at the same time, I think some of those same people, themselves college educated, middle class, and professional, would have been talking completely out of the other side of their mouth if it were a matter of their kids having children before the college degree was in place, etc. And would have been making a rational assessment in each case: If the ducks are relatively easy to get in order, and would probably make providing and caring for your kids much easier, you try to get them in order before having kids. If not, not.
Me, I did all the appropriate things, by getting the college degree, then getting the job, then marrying while still in my 20s after making sure I was marrying a man who also wanted kids, and being ready to have kids while still young enough that it shouldn’t have been hard. And I don’t have kids. But I can’t regret any of my choices, because, after all, I picked the best odds I had available, when it came to becoming a parent, and that’s all you can do.
If we don’t listen what other anti-choicers have to say, why is it that poor women have a better case to make? I understand respecting a person’s individual case against abortions for themselves, but I don’t understand any person, no matter what their personal circumstances, being encouraged in their desire to remove that choice for others.
Having a choice, in practical terms, has more than one part: there’s the part about which choices are legal, and there’s also the part about which choices are practically available to you. Abortion could be totally legal, and practically unavailable for large numbers of women, for various reasons. Single motherhood, likewise, can have lots of practical barriers placed in the way, or fewer.
I read “Promises I Can Keep” a few months ago, and found much that resonated with me—I nodded my head all the way through it. And the thought did occur to me that single mothers could be a powerful political force, if we were organized. We have a lot in common.
And…I agree that characterizing the values of the women in this book as “traditional” is problematic—and reductive. The conservative trope is that single motherhood (or “unwed” motherhood—that terminology is supposed to conjure visions of sobbing women left at the altar, as opposed to women who’ve DTMFA) is punishment for the crime of having sex before marriage. Children are the albatross around the neck—the scarlet letter forever declaring the soiled status of the women. Yet, that isn’t how single mothers view their children—quite the contrary.
And that’s transgressive. Choosing single motherhood despite the slings and arrows from all-comers (anti-feminists and unfortunately, some feminists), despite the low expectations others have for you and your child(ren). Carving out a piece of this world anyway. Taking that bite.
Fabulous post! I identified with it on so many counts. I had my first child at 19 and I have often wondered how much longer I would have floundered had I not become a mother so early. I’ve got to read this book!
Regarding why we should listen to poor women who might not be pro-choice - I read that comment as saying that if people want to advocate for poor women, they might want to listen to what the poor women themselves say their needs are, as opposed to just deciding that what they really need is abortion rights.
Lower-income single (and even partnered) moms might have other things higher on their agenda, like access to childcare, health insurance and education, for instance.
And yet we know that single parenthood correlates to childhood poverty: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Nov05/child.poverty.ssl.html
The answer is undoubtably less focus on the values at play and more focus on supporting mothers and children, regardless of marital status. But still, I don’t see how you could possibly blame someone (feminist or otherwise) who suggested that single motherhood is, on balance, a thing to be avoided if possible at this point.
My college roommate recently had a baby. When she got pregnant, and getting pregnant was a deliberate act, she was engaged. By the time the baby was born, she was no longer engaged. The difference in how she viewed herself and her motherhood (and how her family did so) was pretty astounding.
Now, even though she literally lived right around the corner from me, I didn’t see her much anymore, and for a variety of reasons (many of which had to do with the way she treated me once she had a MAYUN! in her life), our relationship had become strained. I ran into her one night last summer, when she was newly-pregnant and engaged and immersed in wedding plans, and never heard from or saw her again until a month or two ago, when she called me up to tell me that she was moving out of her apartment and she had some things of mine that she needed to give back.
When she’d told me she was pregnant, she was joyful, looking forward to it, she and her fiance had been trying for some time, blah, blah. But once he left the picture, the baby was something that wasn’t even acknowledged with an announcement. He became a source of shame, it seemed.
I didn’t really get a chance to talk to her about what had happened because her mother was buzzing around, helping her pack. And, boy, was it ever clear that she didn’t think much of Lisa having a baby with no man and no wedding in the picture. And this is no teenager who was facing a life on welfare — this is a 39-year-old woman who planned for and wanted this child, who has substantial retirement savings and assets and a good job that gives her generous paid maternity leave. But without the middle-class trappings and the marriage, Lisa’s mother and Lisa herself made it very plain that she had suffered a very big loss of status and the birth was nothing to be celebrated.
But without the middle-class trappings and the marriage, Lisa’s mother and Lisa herself made it very plain that she had suffered a very big loss of status and the birth was nothing to be celebrated.
Actually, I should amend that: she has the middle-class trappings of job, savings, money, etc. What she doesn’t have is the man, and that’s what makes the difference.
The thing with being a single parent is that there is this underlying shame thrust on you by society. My son has autism. His diagnosis was delayed because the specialists attributed his delays to “the family situation”. I am quite sure that if we had been in a two-parent home (even a bad one) other options would have been explored.
If one day my boys are successful and contribute to society, it will be “in spite” of their upbringing. And, if they go the wrong way in life, there will be much tongue-clucking and “see, we knew that would happen”. Damned either way. But, my success will be my own and my failure will be my own and I am okay with that.
“But once he left the picture, the baby was something that wasn’t even acknowledged with an announcement. He became a source of shame, it seemed.”
How true. My second was conceived “out of wedlock”. The family members who had sent gifts for the first with much fanfare sort of just forgot the second. The brother that had agreed to be guardian in my will suddenly could not do it. There was even great relief when I said I was going to have him baptized as his brother had been (I guess single parent = heathen). I was 36 and self-sustaining and happy about the pregnancy. But oh the shame! When the dad and I got married, which hadn’t been my first thought when we found out I was pregnant, suddenly everyone could speak of the pregnancy in the open. Sheesh.
But still, I don’t see how you could possibly blame someone (feminist or otherwise) who suggested that single motherhood is, on balance, a thing to be avoided if possible at this point.
Sure, but why?
I had a similar experience that you had, and a similar realization that I was facing censure from all corners: my feminist friends (who urged abortion as well as putting distance between the abusive man who impregnated me) and conservative relatives (who urged me to marry that same man). In retrospect, I feel I made the right decision in not aborting the fetus who turned out to be my son, but an enormous mistake in marrying his father, however briefly. I guess I should have taken no one’s advice!
If we don’t listen what other anti-choicers have to say, why is it that poor women have a better case to make?
Well, inasmuch as a lot of the pro-choice argument rests on the backs of poor women and young women. When we’re trying to justify abortion, we often do it by holding up women like Lauren–”of course she’s not ready to have a baby yet!” The end result of that is that you get “pro-choice” people making some shitty arguments about how X group of women “should” have had abortions, that after all, they have the “choice” not to have had children, and that the fact that they had a kid or kids under adverse circumstances shows their poor judgment.
The real issue in my mind is that pregnancy happens, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not a moral issue: it’s just reality. Abortion, also, happens. Women who do not want to bear that child are going to do whatever the hell they can not to, and their reasons for it are irrelevant to anyone but themselves.
don’t see how you could possibly blame someone (feminist or otherwise) who suggested that single motherhood is, on balance, a thing to be avoided if possible at this point.
Depends how they go about doing it. If the point is, being a single mother is fucking difficult, *not* because of any inadequacy on your part but because society is so fucking mean to single moms, and no that’s not fair but it’s reality so you know, think about it–then fine. But usually that’s not the argument. Usually it’s just “Are you crazy?” or “how irresponsible,” or “you’re more likely to be poor, you know” (as if the poverty were the result of children, rather than of discrimination). Which, not fine.
Anyhoo. Lauren, thanks for the response. I should probably say that my own friendships with a lot of single moms are a big part of my feminism as a parent.
I don’t think it’s correct for children to be fetishized as “the thing that will make you grow up”. Why should that be their job?
I don’t see it as a very different philosophy from the idea of a child as an accessory that we “have” to have to be complete or fit in or whatever.
I guess a lot depends on what it is you think parents owe children.
I don’t know that the argument is as simple as children being a tonic for the wild and irresponsible youth of the parent(s). What I got out of it is that it seems more like Lauren’s saying that not only is it not always a disaster to have a child young and unwed, but it can be an actively positive experience. It’s not so much that the child is some fetish, or totem, that magically transforms the young mother from hellion to saint, or whatever, but that to have a kid you have to decide to have that kid. The belief that voluntarily taking on an enormous responsibility can be an opportunity for equally enormous personal growth isn’t an especially controversial one in the abstract, I don’t think, so why wouldn’t it apply in this case as well?
I don’t know that the argument is as simple as children being a tonic for the wild and irresponsible youth of the parent(s).
That’s certainly something that’s pushed at you when you don’t have children, though, and particularly when you’re so “selfish” as to announce that you don’t intend to. But then, it seems like you need *both* the man AND the child to be considered an adult. Having one without the other makes people very uncomfortable, as does having neither.
During the whole Terri Schiavo mess, I often thought that her parents might have backed the fuck off if she had had children. Because they were treating Michael not as her husband, not as the person Terri had an adult relationship with, not as her legal guardian, but as the guy who was fucking their daughter, who they still considered a child (not to mention a possession). It seemed like it wasn’t enough for her to marry in order for possession to pass from the parents to the husband, they didn’t consider her an adult in her own right because she didn’t have a “family of her own.” Never mind that Michael was her family.
Count me as a grown up happy child of a single mother. Your post is beautiful and thoughtful.
One teeny tiny quibble. I’d love to see people use the phrase “sexually reckless” instead of “promiscuous’. I hate ‘promiscuous’, almost as much as I hate ’slut’, ‘whore’, etc. Does that make sense?