Letters to the Editor
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The problem with Yoffe's essay
is the same problem with essay's and polemics about single mothers that come down hard on the mother: it ignores the equation of men leaving the children. Yes, single mothers make mistakes. yes women choose bad partners. People are failble and have been so since the dawn of time. But it is the men who arent there.
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Moral Judgments
Without passing moral judgments on anyone, I truly believe that having a baby outside of marriage is a bad choice. My (step)daughter wanted a baby more than anything else, more than an education, more than a career, more, even, than a marriage.
And so, at the age of 18, she managed to get pregnant and had her baby. Later, she even married the baby's father, a marriage that only lasted a short time.
After the end of that marriage, she married another man, who sired four more children for her. I say "sired" because he didn't stick around to be their father.
Eventually, she told me she didn't want her children to do what she had done.
Now, her third son has sired a child, not yet born. When I heard about this unborn child, I asked him if he and the baby's mother were going to get married. He said, "Yeah, some day."
He thought his mother would be happy about his future child. I told him that wasn't what she told me. (Unfortunately, she died more than a year ago.) I hope I wasn't too harsh on him, but I doubt he'll ever marry his baby's mother. And so it goes on unto another generation.
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The problem with shame
is that it doesn't help the single mother or her child. At best, it discourages other women making the same decision (or through not making decisions ending up in the same boat).
But, supposing shame has a deterrent effect, you're adding a burden to the single mothers, who have enough stress and problems without it. And the shame always got laid on the innocent bastard, too. (Isn't bastard a wonderfully shaming word?)
Shaming fathers who walk away from their kids might be worth it.
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Shame? At least spread it around
Someone upthread wrote:
There's no community or moral outrage against these girls
And there are so many people who use terms like, "she got herself pregnant," (an amazing feat of asexual reproduction in humans that really should be studied by medical science.)
If you feel shame is good for preventing out-of-wedlock babies, keep in mind that it always takes two. The father shares equal "blame" and therefore should be handed equal shame.
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Shame Cannot Work Today
The key is found in why so many poorer young women decide to have children when the men are already dtsancing themselves or absent. Partly, it's ignorance and irresponsibility around birth control. But there's another reality that the author misses. For many poor young women, motherhood is a mark of status in a society where there are perceived as having little or none.
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A Swing And A Miss
Hey Tracy, I get the feeling that in your knee-jerk reaction to "Dear Prudence", you've totally lost sight of what happens to so many of the kids of these single mothers (and unmarried/absent fathers). Single mothers either end up 1)working full time plus and barely see their kids; 2)end up trapped on AFDC, with the usual demoralizing effects; 3)end up moving to a poorer, higher risk neighborhood because of financial limitations, and/or (if they're lucky) 4)moving in with their own parents, who then raise their grandchildren. So while you're blathering on about the dignity of single mother independence, and how it proudly reflects our changing cultural norms, these less-than-lucky kids often end up dead-broke, short on food and diapers, and raised by minimum wage day care workers. Plus both girls and boys end up thinking of guys as occasional visitors, rather than fathers and husbands. With respect (I like Broadsheet), please pull your head out of your hindquarters on this issue--the epidemic of out of wedlock births IS devastating to our schools and families, particularly in the black community. And this creeping new "norm" that says that out of wedlock births are OK (and marriage is outdated) is perpetuating this cycle of poverty. It's not "creating shame" to say this is wrong--it's just common sense. Kudos to "Dear Prudence" for pointing this out, and to Slate for putting it on the front page.
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Nuclear fallout
In my experience most (not all) children in need of mental health and social services would have been better off without a male partner of the mother around. That’s because the most damaging types of adverse childhood events – like witnessing DV, being the victim of childhood abuse, experiencing the direct and collateral effects of substance abuse – tend to be highly correlated with behaviors of the male partners or arise with the wrong kind of male partner around. The acute and long-term effects for the child of these stressors are generally more harmful than differences in material support, inadequacies in social service supports notwithstanding.
That changes of course, if she’s able to find and select a behaviorally healthy male who is invested in and capable of providing contributing care. But shaming, pressuring, and coercing her into getting with “a dad” for the child would likely only increase the chances of the types of poorly-chosen associations that kids would be better off without.
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Equal Involvement & Accountability
First, let me say that, contrary to the whole Sex and City "women can have sex like men" attitude, I think that women do need to be more careful about their choice of partners and choice of behavior, simply because we will carry the burden of pregnancy and/or abortion, and a lot of STDs and STIs (even those easily curable) can cause greater havoc on our bodies than on men's.
But, I was also offended by MeganC's comment -- "There's no community or moral outrage against these girls" -- which implies that girls just sprinkle fairy dust on themselves and get knocked up.
This echoes the crux of the Slate article's argument: It sucks if the guy won't stand by the woman he impregnated, but ultimately, it's her fault for sleeping with him in the first place. I would say that both parties should "share the shame" but shame after the fact doesn't really prevent or solve anything.