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The Real Problem With Single Parents Is That They Don’t Feel Enough Judgement and Self-Doubt
Judging from her latest piece, Emily Yoffe, Slate’s advice columnist, is going after Dear Abby’s job. Incensed that Dear Abby stole her advice thunder by insisting that the rape of one man’s sleeping wife is obviously a big ol’ lie, Yoffe tried to up the ante by writing a concern troll piece on single parenting, concluding that the real problem with single parents, namely single mothers, is that they don’t feel enough proper shame for their failed attempts at parenting, i.e. shame for their stupid, destructive children. Yoffe cushions her assertions with a bit of social science that leaves out wide swaths of information about the realities of why single parents opt to remain single, and tries to couch her concern in economic blither and psychobabble blather. There’s so much wrong with her essay that I sprained an eyeball by rolling them so hard, starting with the ever-present definition of “single parent” as “unmarried woman.”
I prefer “dumb whore” — it keeps things simple:
Having unmarried parents can be devastating for children who start out with no cushion in life. In 1999 congressional testimony, Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution said that the increase in single-parent families—mostly due to unwed motherhood in the past few decades—”can account for virtually all of the increase in child poverty since 1970.” A recent study found that the stress of early childhood poverty can literally damage developing brains.
I don’t doubt the effects of poverty on the brain are true and devastating to a child’s development, but Yoffe, taking the Bush administration’s solution to the issue of child poverty, asserts that the solution to raising smarter, more productive children is not providing kids and parents with better resources, but marriage. Heterosexual marriage, you see, is the panacea to all things deviant. Children of marriage have never grown up to be criminal, drug-addicted losers, and any that have are merely exceptions to the rule. Gay parents, meanwhile, are totally out of luck.
Of course we find that the catalyst for Emily Yoffe’s rant on the dangers of “fatherlessness” is the movie “Juno.” Fucking “Juno” (I’m starting to hate this movie), a piece of “Gilmore Girls” -brand chatty fiction, and possibly the one mainstream piece of cinema in ten years that hasn’t moralized a pregnant, single woman into an emotional or physical ghetto. Enter Yoffe:
Why is it verboten to express the truth that growing up with a lonely, overwhelmed mother and a missing father is a recipe for childhood pain?
Because marriage isn’t magic. Marriage doesn’t protect you from finding out your partner is a lying, cheating, alcoholic loser. I didn’t become a single parent because I am stupid, I became a single parent because I couldn’t predict the future, one of the reasons that the “you should have known better” approach to single mothers is so infuriating. Nobody enters a marriage planning to divorce, nobody enters a relationship optimistically anticipating a nasty break up. I opted not to marry because we made each other miserable, and endless nights of arguments and crying jags are not elements of a good relationship or stable household. The reasons weren’t economic, Ethan’s father is a fine provider and always has been. It didn’t work and never would have worked, and we made the smart decision to avoid a messy, expensive divorce by never marrying in the first place. People thought I was crazy, rejecting a guy that I’d had a baby with who had done everything to let me know he was open to legitimizing my honor, but I had plans apart from being an angry, resentful housewife whose only commitment to my husband was some social duty.
You’d think an advice columnist would have run across a letter or two describing a lonely, overwhelmed mother and missing father who married for life, raising neurotic, angry kids who grew up in a household of quiet resentment, but perhaps not. Sadly, this is the truth of many marriages I know of, and in my opinion, a more dangerous recipe for childhood pain than avoiding a shitty marriage altogether.
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What I hate hate hate about these single mother castigating articles is that they always attack this strawman. It's like the nation is awash in women who were given the choice between a) a loving husband who shares the responsibilities of the home equally, licks your stretch marks, and has a fulfilling, lucrative career and b) single motherhood in poverty, and because they're stubborn bitches high on feminist rhetoric, they'll like, "I don't need a man!" and ditch Mr. Perfect. Not likely. Yoffe faces up to the fact that a lot of women writing her aren't married because their relationships with the father have failed, but she can't seem to reach the logical conclusion: Single motherhood is usually the best choice out of a bunch of imperfect choices. The worst part is that the women who write her are trying really hard to live up to this "good woman" ideal that the judgy people lay out: Standing by your man, letting him take the lead, overlooking massive flaws for the sake of the kids. All it gets them is *shit*, because they are doormats and their boyfriends are going to walk all over them. Having the option to be single and unashamed is perversely the best way a woman can in fact get a good man who treats her right---that backbone gets the assholes out of the way so that the path is cleared for when you do meet a good guy. Witness, for instance, your life, as Exhibit #1.