It's a curious anomaly in the USA. Hidden behind years of hardship, struggle and public indifference and judgementalism are a population of American single Moms. The attempt at stereotyping these women had a significant pyschological purpose: to insure these women would not destroy the sanctity of marriage. Look deeper. To whom is the "sanctity of marriage" most important? Women? Or, Men? Since most religious denominations are predominately dominated by men, the answer is obvious. The sanctity of marriage is more important to men than women only as a means of controlling the gender most capable of managing the household and raising children.
Until the 1960s, there was a deeply embedded belief that women should remain at home, become domestic engineers and chief among their duties was child-rearing. Only the wealthiest women in the US avoided this. The poorest women lived patchwork quilt lives. Single Moms before the 1950s had best become single Moms through widowhood exclusively. All other was tantamount to becoming Hester Prine and wearing a large letter on her chest.
Then, the rebellious young women of the 1960s came into their young adult years with ideas that set most male dominated households on their ears. These women were more educated than their mothers. That education should have value. It should mean equality on all levels. How foolish was this novel idea? The word "feminist" began to be whispered on college campuses. Oh sure, a few male students appeared to support the idea that women, all women, married, single or God forbid, divorced, have equal rights. And thus, the war between the sexes began to where today, it is at fever pitch.
Many of those 1960s single moms rationalized their life situations. They were determined to raise their children, manage their household and also be the head of the household. Enter the new label for these women: Super Mom. Was she really Super Mom? Or was she really Mommy Poorest?
Using their educations as the basis of earning their incomes, many of these women found the dirty truth about employment: It was a gender biased and male dominated as the religions they were faithful to. An entire generation of single moms learned just how the corporate games were stacked against women to benefit male employees viewed as the only valid "head of the house." Still, these single moms trudge forward and onward, aware that a gender war was festering just below the surface. After all, war was a man's domain, right? Only men were capable of battle strategies, yes?
Oddly, as men were breaking the barriers in formerly all female jobs like nursing and administration and reducing the number of these jobs for women, single moms were lucky to find work cleaning offices, as file clerks and librarians. Double standard much?
And so these women fought a no-win battle with life with little advancement or hope for equality in gains in employment. Finance was still the domain of men. Single, divorced moms were particularly onerous to society. For women with their MRS degrees, they represented a clear threat to their marriages. For men, married or not, women in the workplace meant having to make changes viewed as too costly. Now, two bathrooms had to be installed. They could no longer hang pinup calendars with cuties sexually exploited on their office walls and worst of all? They had to act like gentlemen and watch their foul spoken language and their sexually implicit body language. Not fun. Big time inconvenience. Who needs it? Just hire men.
Along comes EEO/AAF and laws that reined in gender bias. The shuddering among male business owners was felt from sea to shining sea. Worse, now they had to consider equal pay for equal work without pandering to gender. Still worse, they could no longer bar single moms from jobs just because they chose single life and parenthood. What would become of American society?
What became of American society was a footprint in a typical female shoe size. A shoe that often kicked many of the old mores and ideals to the curb with strong footpounds of pressure on all sides of the female ranks.
Meanwhile, single moms kept hammering away at their jobs, assuming the responsibilities usually accorded to two adults in households with children and succeeding against all odds with aplomb. Some even spent what little free time they had finishing their educations at the same time providing childcare, often without financial help from the paternal side of the aisle. Others created support groups which for the first time in US history addressed the huge number of physically and mentally abused women and children. The tide of gender strength was finally turning. A few of the most educated and savvy women realized their excellent managerial skills were perfect for entrepreneurial advancement. Many started their own businesses on their kitchen tables while cooking supper or feeding the kids. Some of these pioneers realized they had to adopt some of the same strategies men used to get ahead. The women who did this were called "Tight Butts" or worse for their efforts.
Suddenly, these neophyte soldiers saw the blatant defiance of their male counterparts in those double standards and refusal to comply with laws regarding gender bias. Like a house of cards crumbling card by card, women began to invade those male bastions of long held dominance. Now, men didn't just shudder, they began to fight back in courts of law. As if, there ever was a law that would determine one gender to be inferior to another.
Single moms persisted in their efforts. They learned not to focus on the negatives and instead make their children their entire lives, often at the expense of their own. If single moms learned nothing, they learned the finely honed art of sacrifice. Many denied themselves vacations, luxuries, new cars and all of the trappings those MRS degrees insured when households had a well established income. Ironically, these married women began to realize how limiting marriage could be. They had no money of their own. They had no life other than keeping house, raising children and playing canasta with other married women. The insipidity of their lives created a green-eyed monster between married women and single moms who appeared to "have it all"---unparalleled freedom, children and their own money. Financial independence was where it was at. Married women exited their domiciles in droves by 1975. Most chanced only part-time jobs. But, their interface with the single moms who worked to keep a roof over their kids heads began to grow the root of unrest among married women taking a more acute view of the marital state.
While respect was in abundance for married women, disrespect for financially independent married women was not. Hence, the rise in the US divorce rate as a result of women's demand for less biased divorce laws.
By now, single moms were raising teens. All of whom were slated by the married set to have no future other than juvenile delinquency. After all, a household without a man is the breeding ground for crime, right? With the growing number of households headed by single moms, the crime rate between 1960 and the present should have been enough of a problem to have a prison on every local street. Yet, more of the most publicized children who grew attracted to theft, burglaries and violent crimes were from two-parent households. The stigmatization against single motherhood remained all while single moms ignored it and kept their sights on their children's lives. They encouraged their children to explore the world of sports, music and education with every fiber of their children's beings. These were women who understood extreme sacrifice and the enormous pressure to prove that single motherhood was anything but a breeding ground for crime as the media would emphasize.
Being a single mom to the married, male dominated world was tantamount to be a welfare leech. Yet, the government numbers tell a far different story. Men in business simply never made the connection to the fact that paying women less meant forcing them onto welfare rolls. Nor, did they ever admit that women with children had special needs. No specializations allowed for working women no matter what their circumstances. These business men never made the connection that women had full and entire responsibility for raising their children alone. True, it was their decision in some case. Not in all. Many women determined that living with an alcoholic, drug addict, gambler or adulterer for the rest of their lives was too much a sacrifice for them AND their children. They chose to exit the marriage proving their acute understanding of sacrifice.
Living with daily routine and schedules only Super Moms could manage, these women sacrificed so they children could go to college, often without child support or any help from the fathers of these kids. By the time these children were college age, their fathers already had "second" families with second wives who facilitated the banishment of their "husband's" first children. First children simply didn't fit into Daddy's new family.
So, most of these abandoned children learned to get on with their lives following the examples of the only parent role model available to them: Super Mom. To these children, Mom wasn't just the heart and soul of their homes. She was the breadwinner, the role model for civilized behavior and the tough disciplinarian determined her children would show the world they had equality with children from two-parent households.
Meanwhile, back in Marriage Patch, men began resenting the intrusion of so many women in the workplace, in sports, in the military and worst of all, in government. Not beneath pulling out the lowest stop to insure this strange episode in American life didn't become permanent, their attack was always based upon making the offending women appear to be without morals, even if that meant lies, slander and libel. What did it matter? The goal was to scandalize the woman, get rid of her and replace her with a man.
The greatest growing danger was a population of single moms whose children were now young adults and independent. Now, these single moms had time and freedom to tackle those issues that dogged them all their lives. Their first line of attack was to clean up businesses who bilked their female employees by refusing to offer equal opportunity. Blowback was coming.
Ironically, these effective single moms were able to do the impossible with the least. So, the response by men in business was to make these public advocate females appear to be "whistle blowers" or in the male vernacular..."cheese eating rats." Men simply don't rat out other men no matter how low the deal is.
Asking women to adopt this masculine peculiarity was too much. These were single moms who tried against all odds to raise decent, honest children. The growing tide of unity among American women, married and single, was world shaking for some men. When the first female political candidate was chosen for Vice President of the US, the digging of all manner of scandalous dirt by those most opposed to women in power was clear. All that did was encourage more women to enter politics.
Perhaps, the worst slap in the face to dominant males is that not one, but two US presidents were raised by single moms. Both are college educated and understand the hardships single mothers live through in decades of self-sacrifice.
Mommy Poorest is the truth about single moms. They do without, fight to keep off welfare and make do with salaries most men wouldn't consider accepting. These are the women who have no free time of their own, can never afford vacations for themselves or their kids and have to watch every penny they spend for fear of ending up bag ladies. Yet, they exist on the dream of seeing their children succeed. The typical male response is: "You made all the wrong decisions."
Did she? Or was it that the men they thought were responsible, accountable, decent, honest men were reading from a script for some bizarre hidden agenda? You have to be a mind reader to know the future.
Employers knew by dropping healthcare plans and employee pensions, women, particularly single moms, would find the struggle unbearable. Worse, these employers knew it was a way of controlling women's futures. Women know you can be young and poor. Old and poor is a death sentence.
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