What people think single mothers’ past relationships were like (especially when marriage came up):
In actuality, we’ve had a few different experiences. Like the majority of adults who’ve ever attempted to navigate a relationship.
And unless you’re interested in treating single mothers with respect and humanizing your perceptions of single motherhood by listening to women experiencing it…
After all, single-mom shaming is clearly helpful in decreasing the national average of unmarried parenthood, yes?
And when trend pieces on single motherhood are published, the commenters are really interested in fair, open-minded discourse, right?
This discourse is also helpful for policymakers. It helps serve modern families really well.
We totally expect to be stereotyped and under-engaged in “mainstream discourse.”
But it stings a bit more when it comes from other people of color.
And when we try to politely request that people hear us out, resist assumptions, and/or let us go about the difficult work of childrearing without finger-pointing, we get pushback.
At times, it seems there are as many instigators as allies.
Still, we’re really grateful that we’re on everyone’s problem-solving agenda. And we’re totally open to engaging concern-trolls at each and every turn. For real.
But there’s just one suggestion we’d like to lodge, with those interested in taking single moms to task for our “troublesome condition” and suggesting that we solve our problems with marriage.
And don’t take offense if we don’t show up for lengthy comment section debates about the lives we lead. We’re kind of busy.
Happy Friday, y’all!
