Maggie Gallagher: Maggie Gallagher: Kids just want a two-parent family
The most telling paragraph for me?
Laura Kipnis, the new "Down-With-Love" girl on the Times op-ed page, snatched the chance to prove that millions of single mothers are marching away from marriage in ideological unity with herself. "The administration may think that low-income Americans need to be taught better communication and listening skills, but actually they're communicating just fine. Conservatives just don't like the message being communicated, which is this: We don't want to get married."
No, they don't want to get married, but they sure want to lobby for government help when that decision to be all alone doesn't work out.
Look, I'm not insensitive to the needs of single mothers. I keep the McBaby every day for a single mother. But there is a difference, to me, between a woman who makes a mistake, owns up to it, does the right thing by not aborting the baby, and works her way through the world. This is manifestly NOT what Ms. Kipnis is talking about.
The most infuriating thing to me is the advocacy of unwed motherhood by women who are either highly educated and employed (doctors, lawyers, NY Times op-ed writers) or highly fortunate and employed (movie stars and TV celebrities). Of course those women can raise children alone. They've got the bucks to make anytime all the time childcare materialize. (And even then, they are not providing the OPTIMUM milieu for a child--one that includes 2 parents! But that's another rant.)
But they have not one clue what a lower income working woman faces as a single mother. What they want is approval for their choices, whatever it costs anybody else.
Because you're a single mother you need good daycare? Make everybody else pay! It's your RIGHT!
Need for your employer to give you lots of time off because you're a single mother? Make it a law! It's your RIGHT!
Look, I'm not saying that some of those issues don't need to be discussed. We can discuss a living wage for ALL EMPLOYEES. We can discuss leave policies for ALL EMPLOYEES.
What frosts me is the assumption "I get to make my decisions. I get to do what I want. I get it my way. Well, until it doesn't work out somehow. Then ALL YOU GUYS get to make it right for me."
ROCK ON, MamaT!
Why, Terry, you're a conservative!
The mind of the "liberated modern woman:
Demanding my Rights: I am strong! I am empowered! Stop repressing me!
Faced with Responsibilities: I am fwagile widdle girl.
Sorry babe, your "rights" stop where someone else's life begins.
The great thing about Maggie is that she has been a single mother (became pregnant her last term senior year; you could have knocked me over with a toothpick when we got the birth announcement) and so she knows what she's talking about and has standing to speak with authority about it. Read her Enemies of Eros, but not while you're sitting at Grandmother's prized walnut table - you'll be spraying coffee and shouting "Yes! Exactly!" about twice a page.