Men's Rights Agency -
Feminism
The Australian 11/12/97
Stigma of single mum sign of a faulty society
Kathleen Swinbourne Social Scientist
Single mothers should not be targets of social criticism and their children should be supported not patronised.
Australia is creating a new under-class. This is not one that is based on wealth, education or professional standing, but on family structure.
Single mothers are constantly being told that as parents they are not as good as married women, as if by getting a divorce you somehow lose the skill of being a mother. This is a staple of the many conservative commentators who seem to imply that you have not only failed in your relationship, but you also don't care about your kids.
Most people know that this is simply not true. In fact many women become and remain, single mothers because they do care about their kids; because they are concerned about the effects that a bad adult relationship has on their children; because they don't want their kids to grow up thinking that relationships are based on violence, or abuse or hostility. They want their children to know there is another way, and they are prepared to make sacrifices to ensure this. Most women think long and hard about just what they are giving up before making a decision to end a relationship. They consider all the factors, including the effect it will have on their children.
Research conducted in the UK and US shows that behavioural problems experienced by children from divorced families often began before the separation. This suggests that it is not single parenting that is the cause, rather it is bad parenting. Neglect and abuse are far greater influences on whether children experience problems in later life than whether they live with one or two parents.
Evidence also shows that if you tell a child often enough that she or he is going to fail, this is eventually what will happen. It is the power of suggestion: it doesn't even have to be said directly, the way people behave can be just as revealing.
In the compelling documentary Brown Eyes/Blue Eyes, screened recently in Australia, US teacher and researcher Jane Elliot managed to reduce mature adults to tears in a matter of hours after dividing up a group of people on the basis of eye colour and treating those with blue eyes as inferior to the others. These were CEOs of major companies, yet after a mere two hours being told and shown that they were not as good as others, that was exactly how they started to act. If confident adults start behaving this way, how much more powerful is the formative effect it has on young children experiencing it every day, who are unsure of themselves anyway?
When conducting research on single mothers last year as part of my university studies, one of the comments I often came across was that many women felt their children had experienced discrimination at school. It seemed to them that if their child did well, the prevailing attitude was that is was in spite of their circumstances, but if they did badly, it was because of their circumstances. Comments such as "when s/he misbehaves it's the first thing they (the schools authorities) latch on to" were repeated by many women. They also reported a very patronizing attitude if their child had done well, as if it wasn't really expected.
Children are not stupid. They do understand when they are being discriminated against. What they do not understand is why. They do not know that it is other people's own prejudices and fears that underlie their attitudes. All they see is that they are being blamed, and because children are egocentric, they feel it must be their fault. They start to feel worthless. They then blame themselves for everything that happens in their lives, including their parents' separation.
People of course, will deny that they act this way towards children. Some will even say they go out of their way to encourage those from single parent families. Yet this behaviour also lets children know they are different, that they are not expected to perform or behave the same as other kids and must be compensated for somehow. Children want to be treated the same as their friends, they do not want to be singled out and made to feel different, or they do start to feel that something is wrong with them and the way they live.
Statistics show that four out of every 10 marriages will end in divorce. While not all these involve children, about 40 per cent of kids will spend at least some time in a single-parent family. This is a lot of people to be telling they are abnormal and destined to fail, and the numbers are increasing. Single mothers are the fastest growing demographic group in Australia. Rather than isolating them and their children, we should be looking at ways of helping them cope. Society could only benefit by us accepting the diversity of people's lives, rather than marginalising such a large proportion of the population.
Single parenting is tough enough without having outsiders tell you that both you and your children are destined to fail. You can fight it constantly and reassure your kids that they are OK, but it's like water torture. The constant drip will get to you eventually.
Kathleen Swinbourne is a public policy researcher and the Women's Electoral Lobby's spokesperson on family issues. She is also a single parent.
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