The demonisation of single mothers.

I think there's an interesting dynamic in heterosexual couples that don't have children (whether by choice or circumstance) because in those relationships I know, they truly are together because of want, rather than need. They tend to both work and contribute economically to the household and that balance is a lot harder once you throw children (not literally :o) into the mix.

I am a single mother by choice and I hadn't realised until I had a conversation with a male friend about my son how very threatened that obviously makes a lot of men feel. My friend is in a relationship with a feminist who is the WOHP while he is largely responsible for childcare but even though he is happy to accept that role reversal, the idea that he is entirely surplus to requirements obviously makes him very uncomfortable.

Hmm. I imagine some people look down on me for being a single mum, but for most of my life some people have looked down on me, bein made angry by my very existence, tried in various ways to make me 'be normal' - I have been slagged off and criticized for (among other things) being long-term single, being a feminist, refusing monogamy/marriage and now refusing couplehood altogether, working in the porn industry, campaigning against censorship, being moderately fat and not apologising for it, ever, or going on a diet, ever...
THough I suppose to be technical i'm more co-parent than single mother in that DS' dad, while not my partner in any sexual or romantic sense (well we did have sex in order to accidently have DS) is a very involved and good father. Who is in fact in the next room playing with DS.

If you see feeding the child as part of childcare Janos, then I don't think you can argue that it is a social construct. Women are designed to feed their babies from their bodies. Men aren't. Having said that, there was a very interesting link to a tribe where the men "breastfeed" their babies when the women aren't around - in effect, having their nipples used as dummies.

Also the stigma of not being the parent with care and control if you are the mother, is extremely strong in our society.

But then men can't breastfeed/carry children inside them. So hmmmm....

I don't see that women are innately better at childcare than men apart from social conditioning/construct.

Isn't society set up to give men more freedom?

V interesting questions ISNT

I tend to think that when DC's are babies and toddlers, the biological tie to them is stronger than when they are older -not that you love them more or anything, but that physical need for them and them for you, is obviously much stronger. And yes, it's difficult to tell how much of the wish for care and control, is socialised - if you have given up your career (or downgraded it, as is probably more common now), because the workplace is structured so that you have to do that to spend lots of time with your young children, to then have the insult of losing them, without the benefit of a well-paid, high status career, would be too much.

I can imagine that in a world where 50 50 childcare is the norm before any break up, it would be far more emotionally and practically acceptable after any break up. But I also imagine that break ups would be less traumatic, because all the social shit that goes along with it in our present society, wouldn't be there. Heteronormative monogamy might not be the dominant lifestyle, for example. (Sorry, have jsut been dying to get that phrase into a discussion since I saw SGB use it somewhere and I haven't been able to do it in RL so have to settle for here.

"I just don't think that mothers love/need their children more than fathers IYSWIM. But for true equality, we'd have to give some of that up, wouldn't we."

I agree with you there ISNT.

That should have been a question at the end.

What does utopia look like in terms of parents and childcare and so on?

Also (controversial) it is hard to tell how much of a mother's desire to "retain" her children and how much of a fathers (usual) acceptance of relegation to non-resident parent is socialised.

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

Sakura will disagree wildly

I just don't think that mothers love/need their children more than fathers IYSWIM. But for true equality, we'd have to give some of that up, wouldn't we.

On the question of who is happier to live alone and who wants to be settled. It's complex isn't it.

Reading threads on here many men still enjoy a powerful "head of the household" type set-up where they get all of the good stuff and little of the shit, who would want to give that up? Having a little kingdom all of your own where you are boss.

If things were genuinely equal - in society and for the experiment to work in each individual relationship - then I suspect that people's personalities would come to the fore and there would be equal numbers of homebods and people wanting to be by themselves of each sex.

Yes I just thought that was what she was getting at, as a kind of experiment. Switch it around then - fathers dead hot keen to have the children and look after them full time. Do women want that either? Not really. Most women on here would react strongly against ideas even about shared custody 50/50.

So how do you put together a society where the work of caring for children is retained as the woman's more or less automatic responsibility, and yet she is valued for it and not penalised in any way in her work outside the home?

I mean even trying to think quite openly about rejigging society, it's still a bit tricky

Ah, interesting angle ISNT.

I just can't imagine that happening under our current system, because you would need a whole load of men willing to take responsibility for childcare, willing to change the law and workplace so that they could take proper paid paternity leave and fit work into childcare commitments and of course, raising the status of childcare such that they would be willing to do it.

In itself, it sounds like it would be a Good Thing, because as Sakura points out, as soon as men start doing something, the status of it goes up.

But I also can't imagine it happening because on the whole, men are less willing to live without women, than women are to live without men. (See the oft-quoted order of happiness index: Married men, single women, married women, single men.) Under a patriarchal system, it's pretty obvious why that is, but under a system where an equal number of men to women were actually genuinely doing childcare (rather than fobbing it off onto their Mums or new girlfriends and then imagining that they're doing it themselves) I wonder if that would be the case? Would men be happy to live without women? Would women be keener on living with men/

If they were, I still think that would be a Good Thing - I return to my mad ideal idea of how nice it would be if everyone lived together because they wanted, rather than needed each other.

Stats here

ISNT, you're right about the teenage mums stereotype. That's kind of what I was getting at.

Also, as HB says, most lps are actually in their mid 30s, and are so because a relationship has ended.

I'm sure somebody posted stats to that effect on MN somewhere.

Because reading threads on here I think that when relationships fail most women want to retain custody of the children.

Re the teenage mums I am sure lots of younger mums make an excellent fist of it, it's more a comment on the manipulation by some parts of teh media.

"I took maktaitai's post a bit differently, to mean that if there were loads of single fathers around raising the children, and doing it happily and cheerfully, would women really want that either. And the answer I suspect is usually no"

But why shouldn't they be, ISNT?

Great minds ISNT!

And I'd love to know what proportion of that 7% are 18 or over. I think the term 'teenage' has all sorts of connotations, none of them good in this context.

HB also the press has made it so that when they shout "teenage mums" people are programmed to have an image of a 14yo school drop-out with a fag hanging out of her mouth drop into their mind.

But of that 7% you are looking at a lot of 18 & 19 yo, women who may have finished their education and be married (gold star in DM world for marriage), the stat is rubbish when connected with the image. If they mean deprived 14yo having babies then use the stat for that ie it's really low and not sensational enough.

I took maktaitai's post a bit differently, to mean that if there were loads of single fathers around raising the children, and doing it happily and cheerfully, would women really want that either. And the answer I suspect is usually no.

Yes it's almost as if society wants younger mothers to fail - put up as many barriers as possible to success and then point and vilify when surprise surprise, sometimes things go belly up.

Should point out her that only 7% of lone parents are teenagers. You'd think 90% of us were the way the meejah talks.

"Wthin the wider community, the treatment of younger single Mothers has been like a witch-hunt and it has sickened me for a long time the way younger and in many ways vulnerable single Mothers have been treated by the press."

Agreed, Shanahan. I know of quite a few young mums who put me to shame with their all round sortedness and parenting ability.

makaitai - don't lots of them behave like that already though?

The lp topic for example has a few of us (by us I mean lp's not me specifically) who've been left in the lurch by a man who has decided he doesn't want to be a parent any more and is able to walk away.

Any so many posts on MN about men in relationships, married with children, who act like they aren't a parent...just carrying on as they have always done and leaving their wife to do all the childcare/housekeeping etc?

"I'm not worried by a world in which men and women don't need each other tbh. I'd rather have one where they want each other and so therefore treat each other with respect and kindness."

I completely agree with this. My ex used to get really upset because he felt I 'didn't need him'. I always used to argue that this was a brilliant thing - it would mean that if we were together it would be because we wanted to be, not because we needed to be. We obviously aren't.

I'm quite happy being a single mum; I'm actually trying for another baby :)

Sorry there might be another way of looking at it too, but those are my 2 ways so far...