Stereotypes Plaguing the Single Parent Household

In 1995 the United States government passed the Personal Responsibility Act. The aim of this Act was to preserve the "American Family". The Act stated, "The negative consequences of an out-of-wedlock birth on the child, the mother, and the society are well documented."

The Personal Responsibility Act went on to make unsupported claims. It declared that unwed single mothers produced children who were more likely to commit crimes, have difficulty in school, and have emotional and behavioral problems.

One can also deduce from the statement, "Marriage is the foundation of a successful society," that the Act aimed to attack divorced single parents as well as unwed single mothers. This Act served as a direct attack on the rising number of singe parent families in the United States that "threatened" to recreate what the American Family looked like (Dowd 1997: 3-4).

These stereotypes of single parent families are still very present in today's society. Though it was published in 1965, the Moynihan Report, a study of the family, stated, "Fatherless families are at the root of everything from poverty, violence, drug addiction, crime and declining standards in education and civility to teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, narcissism and urban unrest (Dowd 1997: 10)."

This report neglected to realize that poverty causes single parenthood because we see the family as the basic unit of our society. Moreover, this report allowed parents to act as scapegoats for their children's actions when it is apparent that peer groups, schools, culture, and the media affect a child's decisions (Swisher 1997: 73).

Today, single parent families are still seen as "problem families", "underclass", "broken", "deviant", and most importantly, "the death of the real family". These views of the single parent family are created by the negative feelings society has towards the mothers who maintain these homes. Three common women plagued by negative stereotyping are the divorced mother, the unwed teenage mother, and the single mother of color (Dowd 1997: 3-6).

Society often ignores the fact that women do not always make the choice to be single mothers. Very often it is their husband who leaves them to take care of the children (Mulroy 1988: 4). This misconception is at the heart of the prejudice aimed at the divorced mother. Given that the woman has "chosen" to leave and become a single mother, she is then ostracized for not being able to stay home and be a full-time mother because she must now seek full-time work to support her children.

However, in custody battles, mothers are criticized for taking lower paying jobs to spend more time with their children. If the father of the children has remarried to a woman who does not work this creates an immense threat to the single mother because the courts favor a two parent household, whether the family is biological or not (Dowd 1997: 6-7).

When televisions shows such as Murphy Brown (Dowd 1997: 9) aimed to portray the single mother in a positive light they created an optimistic, lesser known version of the divorced mother stereotype: the Supermom. The Supermom was a white, suburban, professional woman who is wealthy enough to afford full-time childcare. She uses her evenings to parent while balancing an active social live.

Unfortunately, the image created by the Supermom is not as prevalent in the media as the Poor Single Mother (Mulroy 1988: 5). Perhaps this image occurs less frequently for the same reason Dan Quayle strongly objected to the Supermom Murphy Brown; when single mothers are portrayed in a positive light one cannot see the consequences of her "immoral" and "irresponsible" choices.

Another stigmatized single mother is the unwed teenage mother. The teen mother is seen as immoral for engaging in sexual intercourse before marriage. She is also seen as having poor judgment because she decided to have a child at such a young age (Dowd 1997: 8). Yet, unwed teenage mothers often find themselves bearing children because of a lack of access to birth control due to poverty or government regulation (Swisher 1997: 75). On the other hand, if a single mother, regardless of age, chooses to parent alone she is "immoral and irresponsible", according to conservatives such as former Republican Vice-President Dan Quayle (Dowd 1997: 9).

Perhaps the roots of the prejudice against unwed teen mothers center on the fact that we view teenagers as too young to make choices for themselves (Dowd 1997: 8). However, the real detriment of youth to the single parent household is the fact that teen mothers lack the skills to gain employment which provides them with enough money to support their children (Swisher 1997: 75). Societies retort to this problem is to assume that poor single mothers remain on welfare because they lack ambition when supported by the government (Mulroy 1988: 4).

Many people believe that these poor single women on welfare are predominantly black. In fact, the majority of welfare recipients are divorced white women. This leads us to the worst of the three stereotypes of single mothers: the single mother of color. She may be unwed or divorced. Nonetheless, this stereotype of the single mother requires her own category because race attaches even more stigma to her position (Dowd 1997: 10).

Single mothers of color are described as having many children whom they can not support because of their indolence and opposition to marriage (Dowd 1997: 10). Like the unwed teenage mother, minority single mothers are too distinguished as unmotivated to pull themselves out of poverty. However, the minority single mother's motivation to stay poor is that she desires to live in deteriorating neighborhoods to be with "her own kind" (Mulroy 1988: 4).

This single mother is thought to leave her children at home alone. Though one version of the stereotype claims she lives off of government subsidies, another version claims that she leaves her children alone at night to work (Mulroy 1988: 5). According to Dan Quayle, an opponent of single parent families, black mothers' inattentiveness to their children led to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. This highlights the same no-win situation we see in the lifestyle of the divorced mother. Single mothers are expected to stay home with their children, but when they do they are seen as a monetary burden on society (Dowd 1997: 6-10).

As seen above in the Personal Responsibility Act, not only American society, but also the United States government supports these stereotypes. They reward marital families with tax breaks, fringe benefit, and cheaper housing. In addition, they support favoritism in the adoption and reproductive technology field for two parent families. However, this does not apply to non-marital families such as homosexual couples who are not recognized by the government as families (Dowd 1997: 4). Furthermore, single parents face discrimination in schools, employment, and credit. For example, until 1988 discriminating against single parents in the rental process was not illegal (Swisher 1997: 74-75).