word. i dig this. it’s interesting because a lot of young girls aspire to be mothers. it’s just that usually that dream also comes with a husband and a home in the country. i can’t relate in general, but i agree that we shouldn’t mythicize single mothers as simply another stereotypical black female caricature.
at the same time, i don’t see how saying they don’t exist is useful. single mothers exist in the same way single fathers exist. single parents exist. and perhaps we don’t mean the word “single” as in solitary, but all language is contextualized.

and like i said/ that counts.
as a woman, growing up with only my mother. believing or playing this super single mother role can trip people into thinking that they don’t even need help. has young girls jumping out like a ’single mother’ is something they should aspire to be/ when they can really just be themselves/ and that’s more than enough. i have too many girlfriends who get pregnant on purpose with the PLAN to be a single mother. like its a walk in the park, or like its a career-
we are losing our agency to create our own superhero capes outside of motherhood. we can do more than have babies. and don’t read that as an attack on women who are raising children on their own.

single mothers/ have really become another archetype like sapphire, like jezebel. because there is not one woman who raises a child by herself. there’s the grandma who babysits and the next door neighbor who made sure aint nobody rob her and the cousin who brought in the furniture and the bus driver who let her on the bus for free to pick up her kids. and the daycare people that let you pay late and the teachers who give ur kid a snack.

i can go on. but u get my point. they might not put “food on the table for 18 years” but, they do SOMETHING and it counts! there’s a loss of community. and the media/books/whoever continues to convince people they are ‘on their own.’ to the point where woman are proud to be ’single mothers’ to the point where ‘they dont need a man, i’ma go head have this baby anyway.’

don’t need man? whatever, good for you.
but feeling/ believing/acting as though you are alone?
problem.

Something else you brought to my mind…the disgusting sexist overtones of the whole patriarchal heteronormative white, middle-class suburbia 2.5 kids utopia that people like Moynihan are convinced is the end-all, be-all to life, the universe, and everything. Why is it that when I lived with my mother during my parents’ divorce, she was considered a failure, but when I lived with my father when she went back to college full time, he was considered a damn hero? WTF? Granted, she was a lousy parent and abusive, but that reflects on her as a person, not as a woman.

Ugh, this stupid patriarchal shit makes me so angry. Which is why I’m so incoherent.

If you feel like taking a gander at it, read “The Fifth Sacred Thing” by Starhawk. It’s a post-apocalyptic type novel set in San Francisco after climate change has killed modern life as we know it. The city’s humanity is a beautiful thing to read about. That vision of all human beings as equal, working hard to live in harmony with each other and the planet, is gorgeous.