Why the assumption that a middle class woman will suddenly end up in a slum if she is a single mother?

I don't understand why the assumption that a woman who single parents her child will automatically become less than how she is raised. If a woman comes from a middle class background, a child will be a hiccup in her road, but not a roadblock. She can still get an education, have a career, own a home. A child is not going to cause her to suddenly become someone that is outside of her already established values. I don't understand why the assumption is that a child will ruin a woman, or that because a woman has a baby she will not accomplish what she could. It seems just the opposite to me. A woman who loses a baby to adoption will grieve and must become convinced of her own inadequacy. I would think that to be more debilitating than a year off!
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Red Elephant. I was a single parent of three after my husband and I divorced. It was hard, but it was doable. No one said easy, and that is your assumption, not what I said. College can be put off a year or so, but a degree can be obtained (I worked at a University that depended largely on Non-traditional students to survive...the campuses are full of them!), career can wait, women do get husbands, all the reasons to surrender are temporary things, but the loss of a child is forever.

kitta

After completing a 4 year (private)university degree, plus masters degree in the fine arts and education, I went to the State University to do graduate work in Fine Art Painting. The school was filled with middle-class single parents...mothers and fathers, both. It was a down-town commuter school, without a live-in student population.

This is the type of higher ed. that works for student parents. It was close to transportation, affordable housing, shopping, entertainment, daycare for kids right on campus,closed-off traffic, play areas, and the hours were flexible. Costs were very reasonable.

The student body was multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-lingual. And the ages of the students ranged from 18 to 80. Most were in their 20s to 30s.

myst1998

Because if they don't force that assumption down everyone's throat adoption would be much harder to promote.

As for the other person who replied first... Single mothers do not "pi$$ and moan" about it. At least they are doing the right thing and taking responsibility for their child which is more than I can say of the 'father' who has taken the loser's approach and abandoned mother and baby as happens in so many cases.

â™¥â™¥Mum To Superkidsâ™¥â™¥

I think it probably has more to do with the projected morality of the situation. Many people feel that a sole parent home is inappropriate or lacking in some way, and it enables them to perpetuate that myth.

Personally I fail to understand how anything short of a damaging or dangerous environment is 'inappropriate'. We all have different ideas on how children should be raised and most people do just fine.

Cindy B

I don't understand why people think that. We are middle class. We are not rich, and we adopted, so i don't know why that is.

tish_part deux

it helps with the dogma. funny thing, with the divorce rate going the way it is, many married adoptive moms will likewise be *gasp* single. so maybe they should place their adopted children with a loving married couple. and when that couple divorces, the adoptee should be placed with another loving married couple....

after all, the WORST thing in the world is for a kid to be raised by a single woman..

Ninnie

my mother is a wonderfull lady i am one of her four children and we have a great life shes on the pension and has help from the goverment and we live in a 2 story 6 bedroom house and we are all well educated not to mension happy.

and so much more but what im saying is its not your background but what you now who you now and love is the main thing if you have love you have everything but thats only from my point of veiw thanks.

Not Adopted

Good question. All of the single mothers I know continued their education and created successful careers as nurses, sales execs, teachers, etc. And they did this while raising a young child.

The myth of the poverty stricken single mother is hard to shake from our culture.

IDK!!

children are permanent. its mire then a hicup. ive know dozens of middle class parents who go on to struggle raising thier children. of the people i know just a few fight the up hill battle to stay omen their feet and get in a better place others recieve any help they can get, and focus on nurturing their little ones. either way it is a struggle and MOST parents choose to accept the struggles, for their children, some see the bumps in the road and run the other way,sometimes leading to adoption, but from what i see most of the time the kids are cared for by one parent while the other runs or by family while the parents get their "yayas" out.

mom

???
I don't think children are ever seen as setbacks. I'm not sure I understand the question. Do you mean if they divorced a woman would end up in a less desirable financial situation? Well it is true, but like you said women can still and are capable of getting all that they need for themselves and their children. I've seen many cases where women stay because of that simple reason; financial. I only know one woman out of all those abusive relationships to leave her husband for good, and she has suffered, but after two years she is better off, her son is happy and even though she doesn't have the two story leave it to beaver home she'd rather be living in her small apt. than to ever have a man give her everything but love.

grapesgum

I will place my bets on the average single mom (or dad) who is a scrapper any day over a most of the spoiled married brats that I work with. Gawd, I feel sorry for the tug of war that their kids (bio and adopted BTW) are exposed to. The majority of the "marrieds" end up divorcing anyway and their poor kids are used as emotional pawns.

The assumption is false. SSHHHH - don't let on to the truth. The baby sellers will go out of business.

red elephants

You are making it out to seem like it will be so easy to be a single mom. That there aren't enormous struggles to make enough money to live on, etc.

Calling it a simple hiccup is very much minimizing the very hard job it is for most women to be single parents, especially if there is no financial support.

For young women who haven't gone to college yet having to balance education, parenthood and most likely a full time job to support themselves is much more than a hiccup.

I don't believe a child will ruin a woman but I do feel it is much more difficult that you are making it out to be.

Edit: Thats wonderful that you were able to pull yourself through it. Unfortunately not all women are as strong and capable. I know some single parents who have gotten through the hard times like you did but I also know a number of them who were never able to get to a point where they were not struggling. I'm not saying that one should automatically choose adoption. Its not something anyone should consider lightly.

Edit 2: Yes and the majority of them have child support and other financial support from their ex husbands.

Tom J

Because single mothers pi$$ & moan like they're disabled or something.

I don't get it, they choose to be mothers. Why do they have to whine about it?

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