The Problem with the Single Mother: Lifestyles of the Poor and Infamous
Dr. Ben Carson, one of the most unqualified 2016 Presidential candidates, has a back story somewhat similar to mine. Like me, he has one sibling, a brother, and like my mother, his mother became an involuntary single mother. The involuntary single mothers are the ones who were married before they were pregnant, but whose husbands either deserted, died, or were divorced by the mothers. My father, who was an alcoholic, deserted us twice, the second and final time when I was twelve. My mother later divorced him and remarried. Carson's mother divorced her husband when she discovered that he was a bigamist.
According to the Carson legend, his mother was thirteen when she married the bigamist and had only a third grade education. After she divorced her husband, she lived at times with a half-sister, and she received welfare and food stamps. But she also worked hard at multiple low-paying jobs and figured out how her children could become successful. She encouraged them to read and do well in school. Some Republicans might like her story because it illustrates the importance of hard work and education, but more of them probably like it because it supports the stereotype of immoral (the bigamist husband), uneducated blacks.
My less stereotypical, but equally hard-working mother graduated from all-black Douglass High School, married at eighteen, and had her first child at nineteen. As she will proudly tell anyone who will listen, she and her children were never on food stamps or welfare. What she doesn't say is that she didn't go on welfare after my father deserted, and a few months later she lost her job at the hosiery mill, because she didn't want anyone to tell her what she could and could not buy.
Instead of letting the government support her and her children, my mother left Henderson, Kentucky, and moved to Highland Park, Illinois, where she took a job as a live-in maid. But children are not usually welcome in homes where maids work, so my brother and I stayed with relatives. Initially, he stayed with our paternal uncle while I stayed with our paternal aunt and grandmother (who lived with her daughter). After trying to live in Evanston, Illinois, with a maternal second cousin, my brother and I moved back to Henderson and continued living with relatives. For the next two years (until my mother remarried), my brother lived with our paternal aunt and grandmother while I lived with our widowed maternal grandmother.
Until I became an involuntary (since neither of us expected her to live long enough to need the kind of care she now needs) caretaker for my mother, I always believed that she had financially supported my brother and me during those years when we lived with relatives. After all, she sent money to our temporary guardians every week. However, now that I am her sole financial support, I realize that she had financial help. While she sent me enough money to buy my food, pay for the beautician, church dues, etc., I didn't give my grandmother any of that money. I didn't help her pay utilities, nor did I pay for the food--her food--that she occasionally cooked for me. And while my grandmother's rundown home was paid for, she still had to pay property taxes, and I didn't use my mother's money to help with those. So my involuntary single mother not only received free child care from our relatives, but they also provided her children with free shelter.
Of course, single mothers (voluntary or involuntary) are not the only parents who need help. As another more qualified 2016 Presidential candidate once said, it takes a village to raise children. So even mothers who live with their babies' daddies need their parents, siblings, neighbors, their children's teachers, ministers, doctors, and various entertainment, political, and athletic role models to help them raise their children. However, two-parent households are less likely to need financial support from the government, relatives, friends, or charities.
The problem with single mothers (voluntary or involuntary) is illustrated by two sisters in my family. The older sister graduated from high school but did not attend college. At nineteen she had her first child, and before she finally "had her tubes tied," as we Southerners describe the sterilization process, she'd had two more living children, one miscarriage, and one stillborn with two different men. This woman, who will be 39 this year, has lived, to quote another Southern expression, "from pillar to post," and she (to quote still another one) "doesn't have a pot to piss in." She and her three children have stayed with one baby daddy and often with her parents. She's now living with her fiancé, who is not the father of any of her children and has his own children (I'm not sure if he was married to their mother(s)). She is so broke that she can't afford to come to California to see her relatives.
The younger sister completed college with a double major in criminology and Spanish. She found a job in criminology and worked several years before marrying a Marine. She and her husband bought a home before they were married. After the marriage, they had two children. The younger sister is now doing well enough financially to pay for her parents to visit her and her family in California.
Usually, I prefer the hard-working or even non-working poor to the entitled, pampered rich, but when it comes to single mothers, I prefer that they be rich or at least middle class. I appreciate celebrities like Diane Keaton, Charlize Theron, and Angelina Jolie (she was single when she adopted the first two children) who adopt children and give them a wealthy, pampered lifestyle. I don't appreciate single mothers like my relative who have to depend on the government or family members to help them financially support their children.
In fact, on this Mother's Day, I not only salute the voluntary wealthy single mothers but the women who gave up the children adopted by the wealthy celebrities so that their babies could have a chance at a better life than they would have living with mothers who couldn't support them without help from taxpayers and taxed relatives.
According to the Carson legend, his mother was thirteen when she married the bigamist and had only a third grade education. After she divorced her husband, she lived at times with a half-sister, and she received welfare and food stamps. But she also worked hard at multiple low-paying jobs and figured out how her children could become successful. She encouraged them to read and do well in school. Some Republicans might like her story because it illustrates the importance of hard work and education, but more of them probably like it because it supports the stereotype of immoral (the bigamist husband), uneducated blacks.
My less stereotypical, but equally hard-working mother graduated from all-black Douglass High School, married at eighteen, and had her first child at nineteen. As she will proudly tell anyone who will listen, she and her children were never on food stamps or welfare. What she doesn't say is that she didn't go on welfare after my father deserted, and a few months later she lost her job at the hosiery mill, because she didn't want anyone to tell her what she could and could not buy.
Instead of letting the government support her and her children, my mother left Henderson, Kentucky, and moved to Highland Park, Illinois, where she took a job as a live-in maid. But children are not usually welcome in homes where maids work, so my brother and I stayed with relatives. Initially, he stayed with our paternal uncle while I stayed with our paternal aunt and grandmother (who lived with her daughter). After trying to live in Evanston, Illinois, with a maternal second cousin, my brother and I moved back to Henderson and continued living with relatives. For the next two years (until my mother remarried), my brother lived with our paternal aunt and grandmother while I lived with our widowed maternal grandmother.
Until I became an involuntary (since neither of us expected her to live long enough to need the kind of care she now needs) caretaker for my mother, I always believed that she had financially supported my brother and me during those years when we lived with relatives. After all, she sent money to our temporary guardians every week. However, now that I am her sole financial support, I realize that she had financial help. While she sent me enough money to buy my food, pay for the beautician, church dues, etc., I didn't give my grandmother any of that money. I didn't help her pay utilities, nor did I pay for the food--her food--that she occasionally cooked for me. And while my grandmother's rundown home was paid for, she still had to pay property taxes, and I didn't use my mother's money to help with those. So my involuntary single mother not only received free child care from our relatives, but they also provided her children with free shelter.
Of course, single mothers (voluntary or involuntary) are not the only parents who need help. As another more qualified 2016 Presidential candidate once said, it takes a village to raise children. So even mothers who live with their babies' daddies need their parents, siblings, neighbors, their children's teachers, ministers, doctors, and various entertainment, political, and athletic role models to help them raise their children. However, two-parent households are less likely to need financial support from the government, relatives, friends, or charities.
The problem with single mothers (voluntary or involuntary) is illustrated by two sisters in my family. The older sister graduated from high school but did not attend college. At nineteen she had her first child, and before she finally "had her tubes tied," as we Southerners describe the sterilization process, she'd had two more living children, one miscarriage, and one stillborn with two different men. This woman, who will be 39 this year, has lived, to quote another Southern expression, "from pillar to post," and she (to quote still another one) "doesn't have a pot to piss in." She and her three children have stayed with one baby daddy and often with her parents. She's now living with her fiancé, who is not the father of any of her children and has his own children (I'm not sure if he was married to their mother(s)). She is so broke that she can't afford to come to California to see her relatives.
The younger sister completed college with a double major in criminology and Spanish. She found a job in criminology and worked several years before marrying a Marine. She and her husband bought a home before they were married. After the marriage, they had two children. The younger sister is now doing well enough financially to pay for her parents to visit her and her family in California.
Usually, I prefer the hard-working or even non-working poor to the entitled, pampered rich, but when it comes to single mothers, I prefer that they be rich or at least middle class. I appreciate celebrities like Diane Keaton, Charlize Theron, and Angelina Jolie (she was single when she adopted the first two children) who adopt children and give them a wealthy, pampered lifestyle. I don't appreciate single mothers like my relative who have to depend on the government or family members to help them financially support their children.
In fact, on this Mother's Day, I not only salute the voluntary wealthy single mothers but the women who gave up the children adopted by the wealthy celebrities so that their babies could have a chance at a better life than they would have living with mothers who couldn't support them without help from taxpayers and taxed relatives.
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