Stacy–I am not advocating that my experience proves anything. I am countering some of the folks (like Ragnarok) who categorize single parents as a group–and me in particular–as “selfish,” and a bunch of other things.

I gotta wonder–how come its the single moms who get the heat? Trust me, I have been doing this for a long time, and there have been no lack of teachers or others who are really angry at me because I am not the parent that they want me to be. I am not available to drop everything and run when I get a phone call. Because I am a professional person, I don’t fit neatly into a properly submissive role when the district wants to bulldoze me into believing some fiction about what it is that they want to do. I would rather donate cash than clip labels to raise money for playground equipment.

Whether we like it or not–the face of parenting has changed dramatically. And having grown up with a stay at home mom who suffered all kinds of depression related ailments as a result of that suburban isolation, I am not sold on the idea that this is altogether a bad thing. Personally, I believe that I have provided a greater level of stability for my kids than others who have spent their time trying to regain a two-parent family after the first loser shoved off.

Obviously, not all fatherless children are born to teen welfare moms but a significant portion are. The question is, at least in my mind, how to convince these young women and men that being a parent is a deeply serious commitment. Welfare reform helped address the financial aspect of it, now we need to talk about the moral/social costs. Previously Bill Cosby, now Juan Williams and Barack Obama, are speaking of it within the black community. To me they seem incredibly timid. I think it’s an area that most white American won’t touch, at least in company. Ah, another 3rd rail in American politics. We knew all this way back when Daniel Patrick Moynehan wrote about in the, was it early 70′s?

Well–actually, my kids are adopted. If you are familiar at all with how adoption works, single parents don’t get “healty white infants,” (unless they are much further up the economic food chain than I am). Some social workers are even able to say with a straight face that kids with multiple problems do better with single parents.

So–there were not a bunch of married couples hanging around that I knocked out of line. In fact, the folks who make policy were originally willing to look at parents like me so that they could move more kids into permanent families. I have never considered myself to be opposed to being married (or being single). But it apparently matters a good deal to other people–so, yes, I say to them, bring on the matchmakers.

“And if someone wants to send a man my way, I am willing to take another stab at riding a bicycle.”

Apparently you chose to have a kid by yourself, to be a single parent, to deny your kid a chance to have a father. Sounds pretty selfish to me.

And now you’re willing to give a man a chance if someone else sends one your way? Very kind of you.

Sorry, but that’s crap. Individual cases say not a damned thing about the issue one way or another. Any issue, as far as that goes. See, cause somebody else had this cousin Jane, and she inherited a million dollars and raised a kid by herself and read “heather has two mommies” to him and he turned out to be a serial killer, but as least he wasn’t judgmental!

And bringing in wages, etc., is nothing more than a strawman. These are separate issues, that bear not at all on the issue in discussion. But that’s always the strawman used, isn’t it? Oh, you want to go back to the fifties when men beat their wives!

What crap.

I don’t know–peruse some of the following:

“And I would NEVER, EVER say that we should stop criticizing single parenthood.”

“And it was filled by someone who respected the sacrifice of the father and made DAMN sure to say how fantastic that father was, and how important it was to respect dad, even if he had died. This is nothing like single women raising children without fathers.”

“Our underclass culture encourages and supports irresponsible procreation.”

“whatever pre 60s feminism was, 60s Feminists were anti man, anti family, and anti anything but communism. They got what they wanted, social breakdown of the family and reliance on govt. We got screwed.”

Seems like there’s an awful lot of painting with broad brushes going on. It’s not really helpful to say “well, I didn’t means you.” What would be helpful would be to really THINK about what people are advocating and who they are mad at–and whether the facts support their point of view. When I point out the exceptions, it is with the hope of spurring some willingness to look at whether the rules are holding true in the light of reality.

That being said, increased divorce rates and women being able to support themselves financially have also caused an increase is single parentage, but I’d say their effects are minor compared to teenage pregnancy and that it is primarily teenage pregnancy that is to blame for a good part of these uncontrollable children.

Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems as if you are taking criticism meant for a whole group of unresponsible single parents as an indictment of your own situation, which is an individual case and, from the sound of it, seems to be a positive environment for children.