The writer Katie Roiphe is an affluent?Manhattan?professional who has two young children by two different fathers, neither of whom she lives with.??Which situation ?apparently puts her in mind of the need to point out to the rest of us that being a single mother by choice is really, really, really OK.
More than OK, in fact ?for Roiphe and her?children, according to Roiphe, it?s terrific!? Her home is ?messy, bohemian, warm.?? Her kids are great, cute, smart, lovable.? She has plenty of money. All?is well with her two ex?s, and the children don?t mind at all!??About the only thing she can think of that?s wrong, when it comes to her kids, is that they and others like them are ?oppressed? by the crummy, mean-spirited, moralizing idea out there in repression-land of ?the way familes are ?supposed to be.??? (You know, like, there is ?supposed to be? a father in the home.)??But other than that, ?everything is just great for her and hers, in a warm, bohemian?kind of way.
Yes, Roiphe?is aware that there are ?studies?? (the scare-quotes are hers) out there?purporting to?document?the problems that?children?from mother-headed households in the U.S.?tend disproportionately to experience, but Roiphe is ?not a huge believer? in these studies.? She?feels the need to?remind us that real life?can be?very very very complicated, contradictory, and messy (and?of course sometimes warm and bohemian) ? which is something that the??studies??fail to appreciate, in her view.? Sara McLanahan, call your?office!? (Funny aside: I know Sara McLanahan, and she herself was a single mother for more?years than (I think) Roiphie, to date, has been. But I digress.)
Her other beef against the ?studies??produced by McLanahan and her ilk?is that they show unpleasant correlations between one-parent homes on the one hand?and poverty and? instability for children?on the other.? But Roiphe feels the need to remind us that, if you just use your imagination take away the poverty and instability parts (either by saying that?society should give?single moms?money?or other stuff, or by?stipulating a home that is warm and bohemian instead of unstable) then everything is suddenly?fine, just like it is for the Roiphes!
She wraps up her reflections by reminding us (lest we fall into the error of believing otherwise) that no family form?is perfect; that a wedding ring on a mother?s finger is no guarantee that everything will turn out well for the kids; that what kind of mother?a woman?is, is?more important than who she?s sleeping with; that in this crazy world?lots of things happen or don?t happen due?to luck and accident; that helping single moms?is good and moralizing about them?is?not much to their liking; and that anway, the?real problem out there, in case we didn?t know, is economic inequality and injustice.
I apologize if my description of this essay sound patronizing and disdainful.? Read the thing yourself and see what you think.? But?I am disdainful.? I have rarely?encountered in one short essay such a mixture of?banality, self-congratulation, and?class arrogance, all?presented in a virtually fact-free flow.
Categories: Children of Divorce
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Source: http://familyscholars.org/2012/08/12/in-defense-of-single-motherhood/
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