There are so many sides to that, and I can see and understand them all.
Having been a single parent, and then a partnered parent - partnered to someone who I did not share parenting responsibilities with- and then a single mom again, I have to say that the biggest part for me is that I have a choice.
When my daughter was an infant I was dating a woman who wanted me to move in with her, she wanted to support us, put us on her health insurance, the full picture. It wasn't in an oppressive way for her, she just wanted family, wanted to take care of us. I didn't want that. She was awesome and I was crazy about her, but I didn't want to be dependent on her, no matter how much easier my life would have been if I had gone with it. Around that same time we were talking with friends and they were feeling badly for me because I was doing it all, working, taking care of a baby, etc. However, I couldn't tell them enough that I was so thankful that I had a choice. I was also able to put extreme emphasis on creative a life where I could take my daughter to work with me and avoid daycare until she was much older.
The evolution may have brought us to a point where work/self support is not an option for single parents, and I hate how social services works with mothers, especially new mothers, and especially when newborns are in daycare and mother's hearts are being torn apart over it. I hate all of that.
But the flip side to is it, is that without the ability to go out and earn a living, women would be forced to remain in unhealthy, abusive, and unfulfilled relationships because they most often wouldn't have another way to support themselves. That's not a power dynamic I'd ever want back and it's not a home I'd want to raise a child in.
|