On the stigma of single motherhood

There are men who trash single moms online for sport

We live in an anti-stigma culture. We are inundated with messages from governments and corporations to tackle and dismantle stigma: the stigma of mental illness, of drug addiction, and of poverty. End it. It’s wrong, we are told.

But there’s one stigma that generally goes unquestioned in our culture: that of single motherhood. I know this because I was a single mother and experienced it first-hand.

Stigma serves an evolutionary purpose and is not, in-and-of-itself, bad or wrong. We are driven by instinct to survive, as individuals and as a collective. And when people in our communities behave in ways that thwart the collective’s likelihood of long-term survival, we can sometimes feel a certain way towards them. I get it. A mother that has children all on her own triggers something deep in us; it might make us feel that perhaps she doesn’t properly care for her children, or that she is reckless, possibly promiscuous (and exposing her children to potential predators), or maybe just incapable of selecting and keeping a decent partner. Of course—according to what I’ve heard more than one man say—there’s a small chance that she is a widow or was blindsided by an abusive husband and had to leave, but that is (they say) rare.

Historically, women faced immense hardship leaving marriages and being single mothers. At times, and in certain places, unwed mothers had their infants stolen and adopted out. In the 1960s, my own grandmother left an alcoholic husband and was shunned by her family and mistreated while giving birth in hospital. She experienced a degree of stigma that is incomprehensible and, I believe, an inverse measure of her strength.

I had no idea how single mothers were treated in today’s culture until I became one myself. I left a marriage with two young sons, aged one and three, because I knew it would be best for them. I was right. I assumed that this would be obvious to everyone else. It was not.

It has been a few years since I left my marriage, and I did end up meeting someone wonderful. In the time between, I realized that single motherhood is the largest unquestioned stigma of my era. It can be achingly lonely and—if you let it get to you—it can crush your self-esteem.

There are men who trash single moms on the internet for sport. (Google “single mom memes” at your own risk.) And then there are the online groups dedicated to disparaging single mothers, like “Single moms overestimate their market value,” which has more than 100 thousand members.

The underlying sentiments about single mothers are typically as follows: single mothers are desperate for male validation and attention; and single mothers are economic parasites. It goes without saying that these sentiments are rooted in misogyny: once a woman has had children with another man, her only (potential) remaining “worth” is sexual.

The social exclusion of single mothers is prevalent and not limited to the dating world—nor is it always intentional or mean-spirited. For instance, I’ve organized large events where we’ve wanted to have dedicated child-minding space so that mothers can show up and focus on the event. However, the insurance requirements are so intensive as to make it impossible, both practically and financially. Who knows how many single mothers had to stay home. It wasn’t my intent.

Even within my lifetime, it hasn’t always been this difficult to be inclusive towards mothers and children. A friend shared how his single mother brought him into the Zellers she worked at while he was growing up in the 1990s. He would hang out in the store restaurant when school got out; he said the staff would keep tabs on him and even keep him entertained. Similarly, a nurse I used to work with shared how she had a childcare emergency and once took her infant daughter into the hospital on a night shift, letting the baby sleep in a car seat in the nursing station between breastfeeding sessions. Both examples would be unheard of today.

Should we try to “end” the stigma of single motherhood entirely? No, I don’t think we should. We know that children—on average—fare better in homes with two parents (and two incomes). But we could be a hell of a lot more accommodating to the women who literally grow the next generation using their bodies. And we could certainly dispense with the moral indignation towards women whose stories we know nothing about. Are all single mothers perfect angels? Of course not. But nor are they all morally depraved burdens on the rest of us.

We are apes with basic instincts, including an instinct towards social ostracization. But we are also human, with the capacity to reason and behave in a manner that elevates us above ugly or rudimentary impulses. And it is indeed an ugly impulse to want to disrespect single mothers.