Comment Exchange: Single Parents

One of my friends posted a facebook status challenging childbirth and marriage and I left a comment in agreement more or less with her. I stated that marriage can often hold women back or keep them down, but not always. I suggested, of course, throwing away the traditional idea of marriage all together. After a few minutes, a man from where I grew up came on and spouted the most ridiculous, narrow-minded crap I had read in a while:

Hah. Yep, all we need are more single moms who can't even support themselves. Just live off the system. Great. At least a guy has to go through paperwork if he wants to leave the girl when there is a certificate. Don't be silly. Traditional marriage is a good systematic tool and a key to keeping structure without chaos.

Don’t be silly, you dumb broad! GOD, I must be so stupid to speak with such a sharp and honest tongue! Are you serious? I mean, so many women will see this status and likely have a good chuckle at this nimrod’s comment. After this fail of a comment, I responded:

“Marriage is an instution, it's one based on religious superstition and white male supremacy. So single mums are all poor and lazy hey? Really nice. "Live off the system", what system? We live in a greedy capitalist society that doesn't give a fuck about women and their economic issues anyway.” This whole idea that a man and a woman need to raise a child is what is causing so much hatred, ignorance and blatant bigotry in the world. This is why there is stigma with mixed households, homosexual/lesbian parenting, single mothers or fathers and various other types of families...because of blatant bigotry like this.

He then told me this:

A man and a woman are not necessary for the development of a child but two parental figures can create a true sense of love and togetherness and well as providing more stability of income and time together with the child. I do not need to read any books on marriage [he's referring to the second sex, which I told him to look at] to know my true feelings towards the idea. If you lived in ____ you would understand just how many single moms there are and almost all I know of require some assistance from the system. I wish for true equality but know that marriage is not to blame. One cannot blame an idea for the acts of humanity, or lack thereof.

Oh my god, the system! REALLY? The system! Oh they are just using a flawed and already fucked up system that doesn’t care anyway! Boohoo for the POOR government. Give me a break! This isn’t an argument.

I responded:

What's wrong with requiring help from a system that has kept you down for centuries...Kids are beyond expensive as it is, you shouldn't have to settle in with someone and be partnered up just to be able to raise your child. You’re against welfare, too? I'm assuming. You sound like a libertarian laissez faire enthusiast.

I mean, this jack hole sounds like Bill O’Reilly as of late when he remarked about single-motherhood to Jennifer Aniston. Luckily she handed him his ass on a nice platter. For those who didn’t see or hear about this, here’s what happened.

O’Reilly believes the father figure is incredibly important and he’s most likely talking about father and son relationships. Of course, someone to take kid into the world of manliness is vital! All little boys need to grow up knowing how to shoot a gun, beat up more feminine males, bottle up emotions and pretend to be superior to every female they encounter. I know that sounds a bit extreme, but O’Reilly is a bit extreme. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no qualms with happy heterosexual parents as I have no qualms with happy single, mixed, homosexual parents and any other types of families you can name. I know, however, that O’Reilly wasn’t trying to talk about fatherly love as much as he’s talking about masculinizes children – that’s what fathers do, right?

Wrong.

What is also incredibly incorrect is both the facebook dude’s comments and O’Reilly’s rant. Why? Because it is suggesting that TWO people NEED to raise a child – if there isn’t two parents then the child will not have the best life. Of course, they say this without any proof, they base it on popular right wing opinion…and well…that’s not evidence of fact. Why would anyone tell a mother or father who is a single parent to just buddy up with someone they don’t really love or someone who treats them poorly? You think having two parents fighting all the time is better than having one single parent that devotes time and love to their child? Come on, now.

Also, this idea that it’s wrong to ask for assistance from the government is absolutely ridiculous. Take this, for example…A woman is raising a child by herself, she has to work to put food on the table so she needs to hire someone to take care of the child for a few hours a day. Of course, if you live in America or Canada this won’t be paid for by the government, so you’re expected to pay for the care during the day, while working a full time job to pay for food, rent and other living expenses. Now, if one says “Gee, I wish I was living in France where I could have some government assistance with hiring a nanny” They must be totally diluted. I mean, is it so crazy to need a little bit of help? It wouldn’t be so crazy if North America would get over this idea of the nuclear family being the only way to raise a child.

The government and economy seems to be built around this idea of two parents and children, why? Well because marriage became pretty popular with the rise of private property. Why? Well because property could be bought and sold and so could women – buy a house, get a wife. Men could own women and own property – thus marriage was kind of expected, the whole legal bindings and dowries from way back when. So the economy has established itself around this idea, and so people choose to blame the single mothers instead of blaming the system. It’s so much easier to blame women isn’t it? I mean, we live in a culture that does nothing but blame women, so why not blame single parents, too?