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So I am a single mom and I am about to go have a family portrait…I do my hair, I might even have it done (gasp!), makeup and shocker I wear clean clothes…Angelina isn’t allowed to do the same a photo shoot for a magazine? Is she not allowed photos in a magazine or is she just not allowed photos where she has hair, makeup and clean clothes on? In 100 hundered years I would never think I could possibly be as well put together as Angelina, simply because I do not have millions in the bank (or her talent) in order to get myself looking like that on a daily basis. Hating on Aneglina for being a movie star mom? Come on. It’s boring, tedious, and not attractive.
PS. I have white sheets and a white duvet (the are easier to take care of)
PPS. I can take or leave Angelina
PPPS. Back on topic…O’Reilly should be muzzled

You lost me at “Bill O’Reilly Says..”

I’m not exactly a fan of the man, but if you watch the video, he *did* give props to single moms trying to make it and doing a good job (“those who were abandoned, etc…” I think he said something like that). I don’t know, either, that Jennifer Aniston has that much sway over people (I would hope not) and, she was also talking in the context of her movie (although her own life could certainly go in the direction of single parenthood). Anyway, as Anonimom said, he has a point. I often bristle when I hear stories of women “choosing” to be single moms. It takes an awful lot of either hubris or denial to think you can raise a kid well on your own. Everyone always cries about how both parents have to work, how overstretched they are, on and on, so why would you think one parent could have an OK time of it. My thought is it would be a struggle from day one except in very rare situations (maybe a woman’s mother, the grandma, is retired and doesn’t mind raising the kid for her…or maybe the mother is independently wealthy and does not have to work…at all?) Still, even those circumstances don’t take into account the emotional stresses of being a parent (not that it’s the end of the world. or soooo hard, but there are moments) that, yeah, are best shared with a life partner. And while I support same-sex couples rights to marry and adopt, I still do think the man-woman combo is the ideal…

Lets not forget that most single moms arent single by choice. If your going to address the small portion of single women that choose to have babies on their own then you have to address the number of fathers that are not involved in their childs life. I know the number of dead beat dads is far larger than woman choosing to have a baby by themselves.

Actually those successful 40 year old professionals are glamorizing and glorifying it. And it bothers me. You should not *choose* to have a child on your own. If it happens to you, you have my sympathy, and I hope, society’s support. Again, the best word to describe someone CHOOSING this is hubris. Look it up.

And, michelle, I see your point about the difference between the two categories of single moms, but I don’t think that’s all that relevant here. The single moms whose husbands (or baby daddy!) leave or won’t step up, I feel sorry for, and the ones who choose it, I don’t. And those professional jobs and fortunes can easily be lost. Why not have the added help of a partner? Oh, I don’t need that, I am a strong, independent woman. I don’t need no man. Please! I also realize there are some structural problems in our society that make things harder for people, but, if you father a child, you have to make the choice to be a father to them. You can’t blame society. You do for your kids. Poor people have been working hard and doing this for years and years, some people just don’t have the moral fiber or tenacity to do the right thing. Yes, people need some help, but that’s no excuse to leave your family in the lurch. The whole professional, educated single mom thing is a whole other story, really…

You might not fuck it up, but, you can’t have everything you want, always. I was thinking about this more and also had the idea that maybe if these professional educated women are so very well off and wonderful, that they might adopt a child (or children) rather than bringing more children into an already over-populated world just because they “want” to. It’s very selfish. I don’t get it. And, as you can plainly see, I am not that lovable.

I know *I* *can* make it on my own. I could make it if I was injured and lost a leg or was paralyzed from the waist down, too. That doesn’t mean I’m going to go dive head first into 3 feet of water. And *I* making it on my own is quite a different thing from *I* and a child making it. And, again, we could make it. I want more for my life and that of my child than “making it”, though. I wouldn’t be screwed, of course, but life would be a hella lot harder. Why would anyone sign up for that? Maybe because they have NO idea what it takes to really raise a child right. It’s just an ego extension of their goal-oriented lifestyle, maybe?

Gretchen, not sure how anyone could argue that all women should be bound by certain constrained life choices, and yet here you are trying (bizarrely) to make this argument. So if I have this straight, married women should have children, and unmarried women should not? Sorry but there is more to the story than this. If you can show me a real fact-based argument for why upper middle class women who have not yet found a partner should not have kids on their own, fine, otherwise it’s just empty moralizing. Socioeconomic class and cultural factors are at the real root here. Poor women are not out there going “I don’t need a man.” If this were true, their circumstances would have had to have changed drastically since the 1950s when most mothers were married. That’s not the case for these women — if anything they now need the support of a partner more than ever. What is really going on is cultural. They are surrounded by unreliable, unemployable men, and have no real prospects themselves — why not have a child since it will love you unconditionally and give you meaning and purpose in life? You did kind of get at this before: women don’t necessarily think through the consequences. But then again, what incentives do they have to do so? We as society don’t give them any. By the way, having kids on your own, usually with plenty of support and resources, is “selfish”? Newsflash: all people who have children do so largely for selfish reasons.

How do you *know* just being married in itself would help the circumstances of these mothers and children? Maybe not being married is a symptom and not a cause. But you know, that pesky logic, always getting in the way of preaching.

I don’t *know* but it is a start. And your argument has little based in logic, and, as I said, I don’t need to preach. Sure, not being married may very well be a symptom that you can’t get along with another person, you’re unwilling to make any compromises, you just do what you want when you want to do it…none qualities that are great for a parent. Most of the major world religions hold that a man and a woman are the cornerstone of a family. Most healthy societies are built on this framework. Are THEY all wrong and you right? So very self-important, aren’t we? And yes, people can be married to abusive assholes, and no, women who accidentally get pregnant should not necessarily abort, but I maintain that it is foolhardy and self-important for a person to seek out becoming a parent on their own, and at the very least they should consider adoption…of an older child. Of course, I do realize it’s none of my business, but for the sake of conversation, I said what I thought.

I’m not big on saying what “morally wrong”…more like “stupid and selfish”…I’m not a fan of anyone being artificially inSEMINATED. You can easily have lots of premarital sex and not have babies if you have half a brain.

Gretchen, It’s good that you decided not to have kids on your own. Wonderful even. Because it sounds like you don’t think you could have done it without somehow depriving your kids. I’m a single mother by choice and am often complimented on how well behaved and happy my children are. I don’t even find it that hard to be a single parent. As a matter of fact, I have single friends who have decided to have kids on their own because I make it look so doable. Is living my life glamorizing and glorifying single motherhood…I guess if you say so…and thank you for the compliment. To me I’m just living my life. Am I filled with hubris? Only if a justified confidence that I can raise two children to be happy, confident, productive members of society is hubris. My children are thriving. Was it hubris to believe I could make it so? No. It was just something you don’t think you could have done. So I guess the only thing left to you is to denigrate those who can.

Since you feel compelled to elaborate on the many ways others don’t live up to your ideals, let me explain all the ways in which you do not live up to mine. You are not kind. You are not compassionate. You do not think before you speak (write). You are disingenuous and mean and smug. Due to the fact that I disapprove of you, please refrain from creating more mini-yous. The world does not need more people like you in.

I don’t even go to church, and I am not going to continue to debate NOT because I feel as though I’ve “lost” but, because one simply can’t “win” when you are debating people who a) have already made up their minds and b) don’t even read your posts
Feminists may not understand this, but, for many married people, children are born out of the love between a man and a woman. Many people have sex and get pregnant for all manner of reasons and lack of reasons, but many others, who have their heads on straight and are following some universal law (I hesitate to bring God into it, because then y’all will really blow your gaskets) have sex with their husband or wife who they have committed to for life, and who they love, and then they have children as the natural product of that. Afghan tribes, if left alone by Russia, the U.S. and whoever else, would probably have been just fine, as were Afghans in cities before Russia came in and screwed them over. (Same for Iraq, blah blah blah). “Afghan tribes” of which there are many, and I am sure you do not know their values, are not even a good example, anyway.

Wrong, as usual, Gritch. I guess we can add Afghan history to the ever growing list of things-GP-spouts-off-about-without-having-an-actual-knowledge. FYI, the Afghan people were better off under USSR rule than they were either before or after. Tribal tensions were eliminated and woman had rights. Oh, you’re a complete, DA.

10 years ago I would have stood up and shouted at the rooftops that women could have kids on their own. Then I had a kid. And it’s hard. I married his father and I am all for intact families having kids -gay-straight-whatever but the best thing is 2 people, not one.