Single Assumptions: No Partner, No Problem?
By: Erin Kirkland
Reality struck hard when my son’s kindergarten teacher called to report misbehavior after only two days of school. Four years into solo-parenting, my little rogue and I were finally living comfortably, and I looked forward to new parental opportunities during the idyllic grade-school years, following the footsteps of my own mother. Instead, I received the first of many teacher-initiated telephone calls that ultimately contributed to my dependency on antacids and ibuprofen.
“I’m concerned that your son is pushing, talking back, hiding under his desk,” this kind but ultimately clueless teacher began. “I have seen this before in children with no male in the house. The other teachers and I think you’ll have to watch him.” Great. It was out. The whole school knew I was a single parent in this tight-knit Catholic community of family-oriented people, and now I had to “watch” my child. Believe me, watch him I did. Stalked, perhaps, is more appropriate. I circled the boy’s every move, correcting, instructing and reinforcing. Everywhere and all the time.
I hadn’t known many single-parent families during my own childhood. A product of parochial schools during the 1970s and 80s, the children I played with came from nuclear, mom-dad households. If a child had no father or mother, it was a big deal, and people talked about these “broken homes” in low voices laced with sadness. Understandably, I viewed single parenthood, and the subsequent products thereof, as an affliction akin to cancer. Until 20 years later when that “affliction” found me.
Times have changed, thankfully, and so has the definition of family. Single parents now nudge 14 million in number, according to a 2007 U.S. Census Bureau statistic, with 200,000 in the Portland area alone. That means single mothers and fathers are raising some 21.2 million children in the toughest job they’ll ever love. Demographics have changed, too. While single moms are still the majority (84%), single fathers are increasing, with 16% of dads managing the home front. In addition, many women are consciously choosing motherhood without a partner, opting instead for adoption, insemination or CWOM (Child Without Marriage). Today our kids’ classrooms are flush with diversity, and nobody gives it a second thought. Or do they? Has anything besides raw data changed for progeny of single-parent households? I wanted to know. I needed to know, and without the stage whispering.
When I began my single-parenting journey, I was young and naïve. Quite simply, it did not occur to me that my son couldn’t thrive in our now-peaceful home minus a father. I read books, set limits and followed through, and yet assumptions, sometimes insensitive and incessant, flew thick and fast. Statements from other parents, teachers and even a Cub Scout leader made me wonder if I was missing something. “Maybe he doesn’t respect your rules without his dad being around,” Leader Mom told me as my child shoved her little Tiger off the swings at a Pack meeting. To be fair, the sociological model of a “deficient family” without both parents residing under the same roof was one most of us were raised to believe, so perhaps our deck was stacked before I ever signed the divorce papers.
Diane Mather, mother of a daughter, 20, and a son, 18, says she too experienced misconception post-divorce. “People assumed something had to be wrong with either my children’s father or me,” she says. “But we had, and still have, joint custody and equal responsibility.” Indeed, the image of a deadbeat dad living in luxury and refusing contact with his children has been reconfigured to fathers and mothers agreeing on partnership as they continue to raise children together-but-separately. “I believe that staying together for the kids’ sake is not true anymore,” Mather firmly states. “I don’t consider myself a single parent,” she reflects. “Just a divorced one.”
Julia Peattie agrees. This Portland mom and teacher says that she and her former husband, Gary, incorporated some unconventional strategies to minimize potential negative impacts on their daughter. Divorced since 2006, Peattie shares custody of their daughter, now a well-adjusted sixth-grader, and maintains that she, too, doesn’t really feel like a single parent due to their cooperative efforts. “I consider myself lucky that Gary and I have continued to co-parent our daughter in spite of living separately.”
Does it really matter, then, if a family is made up of two parents? A May 2004 study by Cornell University researcher Henry Ricciuti found that single-parent status – in this case, mothers – did not have a negative effect on the behavior or educational performance of 12- to 13-year-olds. What did matter, Ricciuti discovered, was the mother’s education and her support system; extended family, peer groups and classes/discussions relating to positive parenting. To a lesser extent, the family’s financial status and quality of environment at home also played a role in future success of kids. In short, it’s the people who matter.
As an educator, Peattie believes the 1960s “family-deficit model” way of thinking still affects her perception of single parenting, and in a very personal way. “My father died when I was five,” she recalls. “My siblings and I always felt like oddballs because our dad was dead. I never want a kid in my class to feel that way because their family isn’t like the one in the picture books. I always make sure to talk about different kinds of families, since I want them to know whatever kind of situation they have, it’s okay.”
Widowed parents, too, face unique challenges. Holly Resnick lost her husband, Scott, in the spring of 2009 and is struggling with defining her parent role to the world. “Before I lost Scott, a private pilot, I would say things like ‘I’m a single-mom this weekend’ when he was away on trips. I had no idea what that was really like.” Resnick, mom to four children ranging in age from 6 to 12, says that perhaps society’s rigidity may be to blame for some of the assumptions placed on parents without a partner. Take the forms she fills out at the doctor’s office or at school, for example. “They almost always ask you to check a box for ‘married’ or ‘single.’ I sometimes add a third option that says ‘widow, not by choice.’”
Who’s to say what “normal” is anymore, when it comes to families. Don’t we all muddle through life on occasion, regardless of our status, marital or otherwise? Peattie sums it up: “There are many different ways of doing this right,” she says. “When we’re doing the best we can, ‘perfectly imperfect,’ as my daughter once described my parenting, it’s nobody’s business, and there’s no need for apology or explanation.”
Single Parent Support
iheartsingleparents.com is an online support community consisting of Portland-area single parents. Read blog posts and discussions. Their sister site, inspiringhappiness.com, provides comprehensive information and resources for single parents, with a link to SingleDad.com, a site dedicated to single fathers.
PortlandSingleParents.com is a Meetup.com group consisting of single parents and children in the Portland area. Scheduled kid-friendly outings and support for all single moms and dads is available through this dynamic cadre of parents.
Erin Kirkland is a writer and mother of two boys, 16 and 5. She lives in Anchorage with her husband. Her oldest son was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome after many difficult educational experiences, most of which were unrelated to her single-parent status.
