The demonisation of single mothers.

I'm a single parent by choice. I got pregnant in a casual relationship. The father didn't want to be involved and I knew this as soon as I found out I was pregnant. I would have preferred him to have had some input into my DD's life mainly because I bought into the belief that children need two parents, he chose not to.

I am not aware that I have been demonised for being a single parent. I am a home owner and have worked almost full time since her birth, not sure if this is the reason.

I have been looked down on on mumsnet when I've argued that it's a fundamental human right to have a family, not just for women who have mangaged to bag themselves and man. It's been argued back that my family isn't valid because there isn't a man and that children generally do better living with two parents. I guess people on an anonymous forum might voice opinons that they wouldn't dare to your face so perhaps that is secretly what people think that I meet but I haven't been made aware of it.

BillHicks, women work in more dangerous jobs than men. The two most dangerous jobs in the world? Nurse and prostitute.

Childbirth is a fairly dangerous occupational hazard too.

Why do you have to adapt the workplace? Why would you pay two people the same if one is unreliable and the other is always there on time, staying in late, missing family appointments to finish projects? What you're saying is that a career-orientated people need to change the way they work to suit people who are dividing their time between the difficult task of raising a HUMAN BEING and equally difficult task of furthering a career.

Well they run deep because people keep repeating them. A few weeks ago, Ian Duncan Smith made a big speech, in which he repeated all the old stereotypes about the children of lone parents - truancy, criminality, lack of qualifications etc. Now IDS has done a lot of work on this and he knows very well, that if you take income out of the variables, the figures all level out and the children of single parents do exactly the same as children of couples at the same income level - so the reason for bad outcomes, is not single parenthood, it's poverty. He knows this - he's worked with the Rowntree foundation, Gingerbread, etc., he has access to all the data. But he chooses to ignore it, because the implications would be, that

• you have to up benefit levels for the children of lone parents

• you have to force absent parents to pay maintenance (currently 3/5 of them don't, and the ones who do, generally pay it at derisory levels)

• you have to make the workplace more adapted the needs of mothers and children and families, so that lone parents can function in the workplace much more easily thna they do now.

None of which he and the government are interested in doing. They would rather just force unhappy, dysfunctional people to stay living together and role model unhappy, dysfunctional relationships. So of course, he ignores that major factor and hammers out another single parent myth, which goes into the general pot of myths out there and affects people's consciousness.

BillHicks- Yawn

Those who say single mothers who don't rely on the state are not demonised, this is what happened to my mum:

• her 'friends' stopped asking her to dinner parties - until that is she married again 15 years later. Did they think she was a threat? Yep I bet they did - she's gorgeous! Does this excuse it? Of course it doesn't.
• not one friend ever babysat for her, as because she didn't have a partner so couldn't logistically repay the favour
• the vicar started to look the other way
• she lost several friends
• many many people, in the course of normal conversation about the state of the country or similar will include that part of the preceived demise is because of broken homes/ single parents.

Sakura Sun 05-Dec-10 13:46:36

"They won't. After the revolution, after patriarchy is crushed, then we can all relax, but until then, until women have at least 50% of economic and political power, then I wouldn't hand back hard-won rights over children to men."

So when women earn 50% of the money, will they be 50% of the work-place related casualties too? Or will you just pay men less to work on your sewerage systems? Pay men less work with dangerous electical cables? Pay men less to work dangerous seas to catch your fish? How will it work? Will you pay women more to do the jobs they have already? I mean, there is no WAY that a teacher, nurse or office drone should get paid anywhere near as much as an electrician, a plumber or a deep-sea fisherman.

As it stands, women are like 7% of workplace casualities... Heh, which means not many are doing the dangerous, high-paying jobs that people like my father get severely injured doing.

Where I come from, the average electrician earns more money than say your average office drone. Being an office drone myself, I work with alot of women. My father, the electrician works with entirely men.

He's broken bones falling off ladders, knocked half his teeth out in one fall. When you put up with his level of stress, physical labour and risk to your body, you deserve to get paid as much as him.

I like my cushy desk job and I like my air conditioned cubical, I'm willing to get paid a little bit less if I stay cool, clean and well-caffinated. Why aren't women? In all seriousness, are women too good to work on a construction site?

It's funny isn't it whelk. People are so strange, these stereotypes run very deep.

Interesting discussion. I am the product of a single mum! Fantastic she was/is too!

People are always amazed (and don't hide it very well)when they hear this as I am reasonably successful professionally and personally (nowt special but just normal I suppose)

Yes agree with you both (naturally ). it was more the point that, until the revolution comes we have to work with what we've got, and without financial independence in our society you are screwed - which is the reason so many single mothers live in poverty. Until we rearrange society it's a common sense move really. Reading all of the threads on here where women are being subjected to quite extreme financial abuse, it's so frightening.

PS I like that this thread avoided derailment!

that's my motto, I think HB

She's right and she isn't ISNT. You do need a financial back up, but at the same time, thanks to the fashion of pretending that reading your kid a bedtime story twice a week is the same as doing 50% of the parenting, the danger of working full time, as BonsoirAnna is always pointing out, is that in a climate where the patriarchy is always looking to attack women, that can be presented as him being a primary carer and women losing custody of their children, because the bar at which men are seen to be good fathers, is so much lower than the bar at which women are seen as good mothers.

Basically, whatever you do, you're fucked.

Or indeed that child-rearing is not actually work. When many women freely admit that they go to the office to get their sense of self back after a baby, to get away from the slog of baby-rearing. The slowing down it takes to raise a child is not really compatible with the modern world, and we expect children and mothers (or care-givers) to adapt themselves to this capitalist-driven mess we've made. I think that's backward.

yes ISNT, I agree with that. BUt I'm dead against Xenia in that her world view is very patriarchal. SHe votes Tory, for example. I don'T see how a feminist woman could do that, knowing how they ride roughshod over women, especially single mothers.
I also think it's patriarchal to believe that the world of work is more relevant and that's the patriarchal world-view that I rile against.

That's not true byrel. If our children misbehave, people put it down to them being the dysfunctional product of a broken family,. If other mother's children misbehave, well, kids do, don't they?

As to only sngle mothers on benefits being demonised - well, given that lots of us work in the public sector, there's an awful lto of us going to be crossing over that line from "worthy" single mother, to the demonised sort.

ISNT, I read in "Injustice" (by Daniel Dorling) that in the U.S armed police have to stand outside schools in some areas, because of the pupils !

I have to say though that I'm with xenia on a lot of this, although maybe not so hardline

In our current setup it is important for women to try and get a good education, into a good job, get a decent income, not chuck it all away when they have children, always bear in mind what they're going to do if their relationship fails, that sort of thing. Try and maintain a financial backup plan IYKWIM. So easy not to, but nonetheless, it's what I'll encourage my daughters to do. Financial independence is so so important in this society.

I don't think that all single mothers are demonised, the ones that are are the ones that are either wholly or mostly reliant on the state

oh his post has been deleted.

I expect it's because of his hate-speak.

Yes I think you're totally right there 13.46 sakura.

are thousands of police officers killed every year in the US? I thought it must be iraq or somewhere

Oh God, I won't look

He's over on that Are Men Oppressed thread, ranting on.

Am resisting the urge to get involved, life is too short to bother with MRA's.

gotta be America

I'd be interested to know what country it is that bill hicks comes from though. It sounds awful.

"Women have so little in society that hanging onto their children is a big deal..."

no, I agree with this ISNT.

MY main point, I suppose is, that women shouldn't give up their rights as mothers in the name of something elusive called equality. Patriarchy always moves the goalposts, or they dissapear. I can see mothers signing away their children in the hope that women will somehow achieve equality that way. They won't. After the revolution, after patriarchy is crushed, then we can all relax, but until then, until women have at least 50% of economic and political power, then I wouldn't hand back hard-won rights over children to men.