Who Gives a Damn About Single Moms Anyway?

Copyright 2013        Aleasa M. Word        All Rights Reserved

For every 9 ½ times out of 10 I hear a story about a single mom it’s negative.  We are  called baby mama’s, drama queens, bitter, chicks with attitude and even blamed for every child who has gone wrong when they don’t have a father present.  Studies are done professionally and unprofessionally. Everybody is  
critic!  We are blamed for welfare  and food stamp burdens and often for ruining the lives of men who would have been fine had we not gotten pregnant. We are stupid for trying to help men we  love if they’re down on their luck and too independent when we set high standards because we want more for our children and ourselves. And in addition to all of that we are supposed to be psychics because EVERYONE knew the guy we had a kid by was no good but we should have seen that right?  People are taken advantage of by scams every single day but they're not blamed for not being smart enough in most cases yet single moms are! 
 
With all of that how on earth is a woman supposed to have even a shred of positive self esteem?  Additionally with all of these negative stereotypes has anyone bothered to think what impact all of that would have on our abilities to mother our children effectively.  Oh that’s right, because they’re in a one parent home they automatically qualify for the school of “guaranteed screwed up kid” right? 
 
Here are some facts the official and unofficial media does not present when discussing these horrible, useless single moms we are supposed to be:
 
· Many of us are DIVORCED due to marriages that ended when things just didn't go right 
· There are plenty of successful people who were products of a single parent home
· Not all kids who are in single parent homes are drug addicts and criminals
·Single moms have feelings and needs too (imagine that)
·Most single moms work, holding down where they live by themselves and many without any child support
  while BUYING homes
·Not all single moms bring a bunch of guys around their kids & to the contrary many of us refuse to for while
·And yes, it is possible for a man to pretend to be something he is not just like a woman can and when we  
  realize it, it’s too late (it’s called acting)
 
Raising kids is hard even if you have a two parent home; but, when you have a society so self-absorbed they refuse to take a collective  approach to accepting responsibility for failing all of our children someone
becomes the scapegoat. In America single moms get a horrible rap but here are is our reality:
 
·We work full time jobs, run companies, go to school and use both sick and vacation to take care of kids we  
  did not have by ourselves
· We must manage our budgets, childcare, health care and still show up to work without letting on that we
  are having  issues
· We are still expected to perform at the same level as our married counterparts even if we were up all night
  at the hospital by ourselves with a sick kid
· We DO care about our kids and work  hard to help them get a quality education
· We cannot complain about our jobs as mothers because most  don’t want to hear it and will throw in our
  faces we got our own selves in this predicament
· We hurt inside when we see other kids having benefits of  two parent families, additional income and a solid
  support system but we must  pretend we are fine
· We are chronically tired and would love to date but finding time to investigate the new guy before bringing 
  him around our kids is sometimes too hard
· Many of us hate having to carry the entire load and the  fact that we do is looked at as if we don’t need
  anyone when in fact we haven’t  found anyone who doesn’t NEED us to do it  all
 
Single mothers are the strongest people in the world if  you ask me.  We are also  undervalued, misunderstood and damn tired! Even those of us who are at home don’t just sit there. Gone are the days of welfare recipients just sitting around doing nothing. The US has made sure these young ladies either go to
school or work. If they don’t, there are no  benefits but we still get blamed for collecting more welfare than anyone else and not deserving it while the facts often prove that wrong.  I’ve been fortunate to never have been on public assistance but know many who have and they don’t love it!!! They hate it and wish they could do better but every time they try there’s a sick kid or worse their own sickness from stress that gets in
the way.
 
Please stop giving single mothers a bad name. We are stressed women who are over worked, underpaid and our homes are understaffed! We rob Peter to pay Paul, wait for child support checks to come that often don’t or  aren’t enough and find ways to feed kids who can’t wait until next payday to eat. And yes many are angry but if you had to do all of this and were blamed  for the downfall of the entire country because of your supposedly unruly, unfortunate children you would be too!  But who gives a damn about single  mothers anyway right?