Going it Alone By Candice Daquin
Hilary Clinton wrote that it takes a village. What happens when you’re a single mom and you can’t find your "village"? Candice Daquin explores the single parent family.
Today anyone can be a "family." "Family" is now more associated with an experience of family, rather than a tightly fitting model. Flexibility rules, but the challenges are multifaceted and not completely understood. Who is a family? What needs do these family structures have? Are those needs of the individual being met by the new family dynamic? Are social institutions meeting the differing faces of family?
| Today anyone can be a "family"; "family" is associated more with an experience of (family) than a tightly fitting model. |
Evolving social and cultural demographic shifts explain the rise of single parents. Yet despite the growth in number, many negative connotations remain associated with single-parent families, and "non-traditional" families, even though this "non-traditional" model has eclipsed the previously normative two-parent, two-gender nuclear family.
Stacy, who grew up in the seventies, was reared by her father. At the time it was a very unusual arrangement. Her mother, a die-hard careerist, had little interest in children. Stacy recalls that when she was six, school social workers assumed there was a risk of sexual abuse, simply because she lived with her father.
Stacy´s father never abused her. Stacy grew up to campaign for the rights of single fathers, who Stacy says, often receive unequal treatment at the hands of biased social institutions who favor a mother´s rights. Hers is a different perspective of what is acceptable child-rearing. "I never felt like a boy just because I didn´t´ grow up with my mother. My father can still sew better than I can. He wanted to parent me, my mother wasn´t interested. To me, an interested parent is far more valuable than a disinterested one, irrespective of gender," says Stacy, now actively involved in the Canadian Equal Parenting Group. Stacy has chosen the alternative route with her own family; Stacy decided not to marry, preferring the enduring "Goldie and Kurt" model of unmarried commitment.
| To me, an interested parent is far more valuable than a disinterested one, irrespective of gender." |
Susanna from Toronto, is a 33 year old single-mother living in Canada. Her mother lives in Vancouver. Her father left her mother when Susanna was borne. She and her father have never met. Her mother remarried and had a daughter.
At 25, and in a stable relationship Susanna became pregnant. Soon after her daughter Emily was born, her partner got a job offer in the US. He left to live with another woman whom he’d been seeing. Devastated financially and emotionally by the loss of her partner, Susanna sank into depression, in a financial quagmire. Her mother and half-sister chose not to help.
"At times it feels as if I have no family," Susanna says, smiling at her daughter who she reports, has lots of friends at school and is doing well. "I fear for Emily´s future because she has no support network, she doesn´t see any of her grandparents, she has no brothers and sisters and if something were to happen to me I really don´t know who would take care of Emily."
| …if something were to happen to me I really don´t know who would take care of Emily." |
Loneliness looms large. "I didn´t think in 2007 anyone would be as isolated as I feel, but then I talk to other single moms and they tell me they´re struggling too. Sometimes I don´t think anyone really considers us, or the impact of our isolation and what effect that has on our kids. I know Emily is getting old enough to notice when I get depressed and be adversely affected by our financial situation. I want to give her so much more but I never feel I have anyone to turn to for help. My social life died as soon as I had Emily because I couldn´t afford a babysitter. I´m only 33 but I don´t remember the last time I had a night out. Sometimes my frustration gets really bad and I lose my patience with Emily. It´s not her fault, but it´s not mine either, I didn´t know I was going to be dumped. I didn´t think my lack of family support would impact me as negatively as it has. I used to have a lot of friends and now I only know other single parents, who like me, struggle to make ends meet. We´re a lonely bunch."
| Loneliness looms large. "I didn´t think in 2007 anyone would be as isolated as I feel, but then I talk to other single moms and they tell me they´re struggling too. |
When Susanna found herself abandoned by her partner, pregnant and unable to hold down a well paying job, she turned to online message boards and found that she was not alone. "I felt like such a failure but began to see that we condemn ourselves the worst and if we can believe we´re capable of doing a good job, maybe society will catch up and not condemn us. I wasn´t a 16 year old ´welfare mom´ as many young moms are called, but even if I had been, I´d like to think I´d have been given a chance, people are quick to judge but who is judging the father´s who leave? Or the social institutions that fail to provide?" In online communities, Susanna found groups of single mothers who networked to provide child care and support, as well as a healthy dose of information about how to get through the sometimes confusing system of healthcare and welfare available for single parents.
| …people are quick to judge but who is judging the father´s who leave? Or the social institutions that fail to provide?" |
Recently Susanna has connected with single-parent camp for Emily. Most camps are private and can be expensive, but the single-parent camp allows reductions based on income. Likewise, the organization Canadian Parents Without Partners (CPWP) offers friendship and support for those parents like Susanna and also those parents who actively chose to become single-parents.
Single Mothers by Choice (SMC), founded in the US is the largest advocate and network for single mothers in North America. SMC stats show that many single-mothers choose to have babies by themselves, for a variety of reasons including a wish to have children outside of a marriage, by oneself, or in a same-sex coupling. Motherhood is likewise no longer restricted to marriage, nor do women have to abide to the old-fashioned concept of having their children in their twenties, ´just to be safe´. Career women are finding, motherhood later in life fulfills their maternal instinct and equips them with greater financial resources to meet the needs of single motherhood (although there may be issues re fertility – see article above).
| Single Mothers by Choice (SMC) founded in the US is the largest advocate and network for single mothers in North America. |
Single moms need that support. Roughly 1 million single-mothers in Canada today are juggling a full-time job and full-time childcare with radically different support networks. The stats are similar elsewhere.
In the US, 5/6 of all single parents are women. 10 million single mothers live with children under 18 years old, up from 3 million in 1970 (US Census Bureau). In the U.S., from 1970 to 1996, the percentage of children under age 18 living with two married parents steadily declined from 85% to 68%. By the late 1990s, the numbers began to stabilize, to 67% in 2006.
| …1 million single-mothers in Canada today, [are] juggling a full-time job and full-time childcare with radically different support networks. In the US, 10 million single mothers live with children under 18 years old |
Wikipedia reports that in 2003, 14% of all Australian households were single-parent families. Since 2001, 31% of babies born in Australia were born to unmarried mothers (although that does not necessarily mean that they are single parents – they may just not have married). The Children, Youth and Women´s Health Service (CYWHS) which promotes the health, well-being and development of children, young people and families across South Australia reported that Single parents are more likely to involve their children in the day to day running of the family. Children may have more responsibility for sharing the chores as well as caring for themselves. Further, single parents often discuss things with their children that adults in a two parent household often share together. For example, talk over with the kids what to buy, or where to go for holidays. Children in single parent households are often more mature because of the extra responsibilities they have.
In 2006, The Sunday Times reported that Britain has highest percentage of single mothers in the European Union. Approximately 1 out of four families with dependent children in the UK are in single-parent families. Of those, 9% are fathers. 47% of these single-parent families live below the government poverty line after housing costs. Further, working women with dependent children were less likely than those without children to be in employment: 68% compared to 73% in the spring of 2005 in the UK.
Some governments are concerned with the trend to falling birthrates and its impact on culture. The French Government recently instituted a program to incentivize women to have more children, paying them more per child and "rewarding" them for having children, as well as making it easier for them to work.
| …the French Government, concerned with falling birth rates, recently instituted a program to incentivize women to have more children, paying them more per child and "rewarding" them for having children, as well as making it easier for them to work. |
Notwithstanding such programs, the economic consequences of single parenting for women are generally negative. In The Divorce Revolution: The Unexpected Social and Economic Consequences for Women and Children in America (1985) by Lenore J. Weitzman, studies confirmed societies’ worst fears. Despite the liberalizing effect of divorce, women were suffering. 14% of female divorcees sought welfare during the first year of divorce while divorced men saw a 42% increase in their standard of living. The average divorced woman saw a 73% drop in living standards. Some ten years later, the same author wrote in the American Sociological Review: The Economic Consequences of Divorce Are Still Unequal (1996).
| …Despite the liberalizing effect of divorce, women were suffering. 14% of female divorcees sought welfare during the first year of divorce while divorced men saw a 42% increase in their standard of living. The average divorced woman saw a 73% drop in living standards… |
In Social Support and Education Groups for Single Mothers, Lipman and Boyle report that 1 in 8 Canadian children live in a family headed by a single mother are "vastly overrepresented by families living below the poverty line." They recommended governmental measure for such households and pointed to the vast improvement in status for those individuals who did receive adequate social support and education.
| «…1 in 8 Canadian children live in a family headed by a single mother are "vastly overrepresented by families living below the poverty line." |
Notwithstanding the economics, ´ideal family´ of married parents and two or more children has given way to choice and circumstance. Kids born in the 1960´s and 70´s have experienced divorce directly or indirectly. The Cleaver family of the 50s or "Father Knows Best" model is obsolete. Before it was legally sanctioned, same-sex couples had children from previous unions or through ingenuity. Canadian laws allow same-sex couples to adopt. What this demonstrates is that law is not a tool of reform, but of recognition. The law cannot dictate what a family is; it can only work to provide safety and support to "families" as they emerge.
| The law cannot dictate what a family is; it can only work to provide safety and support to «families» as they emerge. |
Perhaps the ultimate responsibility for children belongs to communities. Compare our attitudes to single parents with those of the indigenous Maori people of New Zealand, and the Aboriginal tribes of Australia. These ancient societies prize family over the individual. They share a commitment to community. Keeping families intact has a special Maori word, "Kaumatuatanga", meaning keeping families and the Maori community together. "Whakawhanaungatanga" is a word reflecting the Maori belief that family bonds should always precede other matters in life, so as to benefit the whole, rather than the individual.
My Maori friend, Esther, adopted by Anglo New Zealanders but biologically Maori, was taught in the Maori ways. She explained that: "Maoris respect the White man´s ways, but have their own, especially where family is concerned. To Maori, family is history and future, the individual must work to strengthen their future collectively and respect their history, or their individuality has no value. In other words family guides the individual and each individual Maori is made aware, irrespective of adoption or other circumstance of his/her history."
While Esther was adopted, given up by her birth mother who at 16 did not feel she could care for her child, she was embraced by the Maori when she sought them out years later. They taught her the history of her ancestors, the story of their arrival in New Zealand, which had been recorded in minute detail, as part of the Maori tradition and passed on from generation to generation. She learned of her specific tribe, its leader and the name of the boat her tribe took when they embarked for New Zealand from Polynesia, years before Anglo settlers arrived.
| While Esther was adopted, given up by her birth mother who at 16 did not feel she could care for her child, she was embraced by the Maori when she sought them out years later. |
"Having such a rich history, knowing not only where I came from as an individual but as a people, gives me more security than any Anglo child I know, irrespective of my adoption. Even if my birth mother had not embraced me, my people, my extended family, did, and I have always felt accepted and welcomed by my culture. This leaves me feeling less dislocated and unaware of my history than most people and I find it impossible to be insecure with such a rich extended family."
Children will continue to bear witness to ever-new forming families, with step-siblings, step-parents, different cultures, traditions and genders, complex extended families that cannot be measured in neat categories but are perhaps the building blocks of any social structure, the purpose being, for people to come together and support one another. The key is to find extension, if not in our immediate family but those we make, and to avoid isolation, the real cause of depression and loss.
| The key is to find extension, if not in our immediate family but those we make, and to avoid isolation, the real cause of depression and loss. |
Our role is to build a ship and invite others aboard. As Esther my Maori friend said: "My family is all around me, and my adopted family remains in my heart also. I can share my family with everyone because they share my pride in my heritage and where I came from. Everyone should have some pride about where they came from so that they may dream, and have somewhere to place that dream that is safe."
SOME HELPFUL RESOURCES
U.S.
Single Mothers by Choice - http://mattes.home.pipeline.com/; mc-office@pipeline.com
Single Mom.com - http://www.singlemom.com/ABOUTUS.HTM
National Association of Single Mothers, http://www.singlemothers.org/
National Partnership for Women and Families - http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/PageServer
Canada
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ (Health Canada)
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Health/Population_Health/Press/capc.html (Community Action Programme for Children)
www.pwpcanada.com (Canadian Parents Without Partners)
www.familyservicecanada.org (Family Service Canada)
http://www.cfc-efc.ca (Child and Family Canada)
http://www.uwo.ca/pridelib/family/links/cdn.html (Family Pride Canada - Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered)
http://www.equalparenting-bc.ca/index.html (Chapter of Canadian Equal Parenting Group - no main website link as yet)
http://www.canadiantire.ca/jumpstart/ (Jump Start - Canadian charitable program helping children)
Australia
Women’s Information Service- info@wis.sa.gov.au
http://www.wis.sa.gov.au/discuss_topic_display.asp?id=91
28.11.2007
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French by birth, Candice Daquin first trained as a professional dancer and had a career in publishing in the UK before relocating to the US to pursue her Masters. She has worked in crisis centers as a Psychotherapist. Now a resident of Canada, Candice lives in Ontario, writing and editing for publications and websites. She has published two books of her own poetry and is an active campaigner for immigration inequality reform particularly pertaining to women.
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