Single Mothers Harming America and its Children?
Last updated: July 9, 2012 by Susan
Kay Hymowitz, contributing for the Winona Daily News, singled out single motherhood – or ‘lone motherhood’ – as a significant contributor for poverty in America.1
Hymowitz points out statistics showing 40 percent of single-parent families are poor compared to just 8.8 percent of two-parent families, which is pretty significant when you consider that more than 50 percent of single mothers younger than 30 giving birth to children.
From a practical point of view, single motherhood indeed deprives both parent and child from the income of a traditional two-parent family. Having two people contribute their earnings – no matter how meager the earnings are – will yield more overall profits than a single person.
However, blaming single parenthood for causing harm to both children and America is taking things a bit too far.
The whole reason that women prefer to be single mothers is because the core values of two-parent families were crumbling in the first place. Many men not only began to fail to contribute to the financial prosperity of the family, draining more money than they were putting in, but these same men also did more harm to their children by being both physically and verbally abusive.
Women are also realizing now that they have the capacity to earn and live without having to be at the mercy of egoistic husbands. This empowerment has shaped women into social, financial and political movers instead of relegating them as second-class citizens that have no say in the way we run our society.
But things need not be this way.
Both man and woman need to realize that they have active roles to play in the family and that they need to respect each other as equals. No one is superior over the other despite their differences, and the burden of raising a family should be shared equally between the two of them.
Only when this culture of mutual respect, recognition and love becomes dominant in our society will two-parent households become viable in a strong, independent and empowered America. Until then, mothers have the option of raising their children alone and without a deadbeat and/or abusive husband tying them down.
- Kay S. Hymowitz: Increase in single mothers harming children, nation [↩]