The Single Mother Stigma: 4 Common Misconceptions That Need To Go Away Now

The single mother stigma is damaging to those it pretends to encompass. Being unprepared for single-motherhood does not mean you’re failing at life. It does not mean you will leach off the welfare system. And it does not mean you will raise your children to be criminals. It’s time to put these distorted perceptions to rest.

Single moms are an accident.

This belief is a multidimensional failure and another perfect example of a larger problem being blamed on women. Statistics certainly don’t help the case. According to the the most recent data, about half of the nation’s population of single mothers have never been married. A little more than half of the women who make up the nation’s single mothers are under the age of 24, and 15% percent are under the age of 20. One could examine these numbers and make assumptions that fit their shallow agendas. But what isn’t being recognized is that more than half of the single mothers in the U.S. are widowed, divorced, or separated.

Single moms raise criminals.

Blaming crime on single mothers is like looking at a whale through a pinhole. There are so many factors at play when you take a magnifying glass to the rise and fall of crime in the U.S. — access to thriving schools, household income, drug abuse, sexual abuse, to name a few. 

To rest the entirety of the country’s crime on the shoulders of single mothers is spineless and completely incorrect. Some of the most prominent figures in history have single mothers to thank for their upbringing — including our former president, Barack Obama. Crime is almost exclusively linked to poverty, not household structure.

Single moms are loose women.

Oh, yes, this one is about our vaginas. Whether it’s tongue-in-cheek sarcasm or a think piece rant about how single mothers are ruining an entire generation of men, the bottom line is that single moms are having too much sex. We ended up pregnant because we weren’t thinking ahead, didn’t care about consequences, and just wanted to get laid, or worse, trap a man. Regardless of the reason for wanting to have intercourse, until further notice, the act requires two willing parties of the opposite sex to create a baby.

There are real and valid reasons why some men are absent from their children’s lives such as active duty military and parents (mostly fathers) who are incarcerated. However, the main culprit for single mothers is not sex — it’s missing fathers. Somehow, the men seem to be left out of these conversations most of the time. It’s women who are the sex-crazed, baby-hungry offenders, absent fathers are just a byproduct.

Single moms need to get it together

The world seems to forget that it is possible to plan a family and then, because life is a journey, also lose a spouse or partner. It’s possible to be a woman who has chosen to have children without partners, through adoption or IVF. A single mother is not an accident. She’s a woman who chose to keep her child despite other options. She is a woman who is rebalancing her newly structured family.  She may be mourning. She may be completely unbothered. She may be struggling to get from day to day. But she is not simply a societal mishap.