One Child’s View Of Single-Motherhood
July 21, 2012 at 11:00 am
Michael Dougherty at the American Conservative shares his experience of being raised by a single mother:
"....there are some things only a child of a single-mother could tell you about single motherhood.
... Not having a father around meant I took on more student debt than I would have otherwise. It meant I would be recalled from college to do things around the house on the weekend, or I would come home just to make sure she was alright and make sure she spent time with someone. Instead of her helping me start life financially, I was helping her manage her mortgage payment, or paying for a new water-heater. I was happy to do so when I could. Though I often wondered where her actual inabilities were real, or when they were manufactured (even unconsciously) to bond me with her, even in hardships. In other single-mother households I knew, things functioned much less smoothly.
Helping her meant diminished resources for starting my own family when it came time. It also meant that there was no one else to manage things when she became sick and died last year.
My young childhood and adolescence (maybe my whole life) was wrapped up in searching for substitute father figures: uncles, neighbors, teachers, professors, priests, even God. I know I’m not alone in this. This state of life makes one especially vulnerable to peers and to predators. I survived just fine, others in similar situations don’t.
19 Comments
That sounds like less of a single-parent problem and more of a co-dependency, mental health issue. I've known people with similar parents (who are still married), and it can be devastating, especially when the parent sees the child as their only sign of self-worth and then forces the child to fulfill that (impossible) role.
Don't get me wrong, though -- it sounds like it was aggravated by his mother's single status, but it also sounds like the underlying problem was not her singlehood but her codependency.
Wow, what a compelling story. And all that angst/heartache could have been avoided, had he enjoyed a mom AND a dad in a stable, low-conflict marriage and home.
Garrett
I think you're right, even married people can place unhealthy expectations on their children to fill some void in life. Typically when the relationship with their spouse is dysfunctional or lacking intimacy.
"but it also sounds like the underlying problem was not her singlehood but her codependency."
It is quite possible that the *structure* of single parent households make co-dependence more likely.
Or it could be that co-dependency issues (and other mental health issues) can put stress on married relationships, increasing the likelihood of divorce.
Which can then aggravate those existing conditions.
You clearly have no idea what it means to be a single mom. Part of that is it a of co-dependency. A single mom is single, simply cannot do everything and must as soon as a child is able to ask him/her to help out and when that child becomes old enough to work, that can mean money too. That can happen in families that have two parents as well, there is in my opinion nothing wrong or weird about it. Add on to the fact that single moms often work in lower paying fields and have less than understanding bosses and if they are unlucky enough to have no family or friend support, well than it gets even harder. Most people have no idea just how hard it is to be a single parent. I support one woman, one man marriage, but not all of us are so lucky as to find the right one or keep it together, so what you should be thinking is, she did a very good job with her son, in that he is well balanced and emotionally way more mature than most men his age. He gets it, but apparently you do not - Garrett.
Garrett, it could be that the author felt compelled to do these thing for his mother, because his father didn't. It could be that his mother did depend on him, because she didn't have anyone else. It could be that his FATHER who was absentee was the problem. Why does everyone assume the mother is the one who is the problem. Maybe the dad was just a dead beat. The mother did not necessarily have to have a codependency issue.
I was also raised in a single parent home. While my,and evveryones, situation is different. They are all very similar. Its not the codependancy you all are seeing. A mother can only do so much. And those of us raised in this situation do face many challenges that children of 2 parent homes do not. I think that was the point. While I haven't faced the same challenges he has, I've had many that I wouldn't had my parents stayed together.
I think Garrett hit the nail on the head. The fact that the mother in this story was a single parent may certainly have aggravated the situation, but most of this story (save the last paragraph) could have happened in a two-parent home, as well. Poverty isn’t unique to single parents, just more likely.
My experience with divorced parents and the experiences of all my friends who shared my situation growing up is that it makes for an unnecessarily stressful childhood. You have to learn to take care of yourself much more at a younger age than you would if you have two parents to care for you.
I lived with my dad, who tried his best to make it work, but it seemed like no one was ever there for me emotionally. I didn't have a mom (my mom had left our family with no desire to see me again, apparently), and I missed it. We were okay financially, I got all I needed without working to contribute to the family. But there was a hole there that a mom should have filled.
The fact is that if either parent is missing, the family misses out on a necessary part of its structure.
For my husband, who never had his father in his life, it meant getting a job to help pay the rent (not a mortgage) from the time he was 15. College wasn't even an option or a blip on the screen. It meant seeing his mother cry often due to the financial hardships and feeling that he was to blame. He was not allowed to pursue personal interests, as most hobbies usually involve money being spent. His "father" wanted him aborted, but thank God, his mother let him live and he is a wonderful father and husband despite his past hardships.
Per the 2010 census: Poverty rates
Married couple 6%
Single dads 15%
Single moms 32%
It's amazing how our society's leadership dances around the solution.
I'm 100% for traditional marriage and I don't believe in divorce. However, I also don't like the stigma attached to children from single-parent households. They're (we're) not predestined to be immoral derelicts. It's ok if you let your kids befriend them. it's ok if you let them into your house and 'gasp' let them share your table. You an be nice to them. You can accept them. Pitying them is insulting. Just some thoughts.
I agree with Tammy. And Garrett does not know how to be a real man, just like most men these days.
I am in no way saying that single mothers have it easy. I think they are, in fact, one of the most overlooked and villainized segments of our population. And I think that because of our culture's intent on denigrating the accomplishments of women (female role models who prove otherwise are often, sadly, exceptions to the rule), single mothers face an especially uphill battle, expected -- if not forced -- to take care of the children and, if married, often expected to stay home with the children leading to a lack of marketable skills and employment history if divorce or the death of a spouse might occur.
That said, I do believe that we need to provide more for single mothers, not just prevent single motherhood. Being a single parent is rough, but often, as rough as it is, it is sometimes the lesser of two evils when one is caught in an abusive relationship, when one was never married to begin with, when one's spouse dies. Let's stop demonizing single mothers (through subtle rhetorics that says single motherhood is bad and implies that single mothers, no matter how valiant and self-sacrificing in their efforts, have somehow failed to provide their child with a father) and start supporting single mothers -- socially, economically, culturally.
When I talk about co-dependency, I'm talking about this specific article. I'm not generalizing to all single mothers, no more than NOM and its readers should expect this author to be speaking for the experiences of all children of single parents. Many children with single parents excel. Many don't. Most face more hardships, though, because of cultural expectations of what a family is supposed to look like and subtle implications of "failure" when it doesn't look like that. (Even when the charge of "failure" comes with an air of pity and compassion.)
Fornication, adultery, divorces, single parent family, unnatural attraction to same sex, all such problems in the world can be summarized by one single word: Evil. Indeed, evil rules in the world, more so as the issue of SSM rages in our country. The obvious question is why Evil rules in the world if God is all-good and all-powerful. This question is answered in this book, “Why Evil Rules—If God Is…”
It is a must read book, it will not only open your mind but provide guidance and strength to overcome all evils. Please call 1-888-795-4274 ext. 7879 to order your book or buy it on Amazon or Barnsandnoble
I believe, Garrett, that codependency has been found not to be a valid illness by the American Psychiatric Assoc., but the behavior is now explained as the nurturing part of human nature usually attributed to the feminine. You are the type of young man and conservative I find frightening. I am conservative and a single mom. I saw myself and my relationship w my son in this posting and although it evoked much sadness for my son, it certainly evoked no guilt on my part. You sir, frighten me because you blame the victim. You blame the mother for a malady when most likely she has been drained from doing the work of two people, and hard, taxing work, for twenty years. She has probably done it, as I did, and other single mothers do, in isolation, with an enormous amount of sacrifice, and with a great deal of prejudice coming at her daily, towards herself and her children. You appear to be very callous and insensitive to the extreme. Before blaming this woman for having a sickness, perhaps you should be more reflective and certainly less misogynous and talk to yourself about the missing person in the family, the weak link, so to speak, the father. Where is he and what judgements are you unjustifiably placing on him? Fathers are a very important part of a family unit, especially when a family has been broken apart. People like you who judge single mothers so harshly remind me of those men from Islamic cultures who would gladly take me out, and other single moms like me, and stone me to death. You, I believe, would be one to happily cast the first stone. Shame on you, Garrett. shame on you.
Sue:
1) I am no conservative, so you may rest easy.
2) Codependency is not categorized as a mental illness because it is considered a symptom of other mental illnesses (e.g. bipolar disorder, alcoholism and other substance addictions, reactive-attachment disorder, etc.). It is often a sign of an underlying mental illness.
3) I saw co-dependency in this example because of the author's mention that "I often wondered where her actual inabilities were real, or when they were manufactured (even unconsciously) to bond me with her, even in hardships." I saw this same pattern in many of the families I worked when I was a mental health professional, and it was a traumatic experience for both children and adults. It was a very difficult cycle to break.
3) Perhaps you missed my last paragraph where I also say I am not generalizing this author's experience to the experiences of all single-mother households, and I also encourage readers to do the same? Perhaps you also missed the part where I say that single mothers are one of the most overlooked and over-vilified segments of our population and we need to do more to care for and support them? Perhaps, Sue, in your haste to judge me, you failed to actually read what I wrote? All of the problems I pointed out were problems with society's acceptance of single mothers, not single mothers themselves.