To me, single mother/father isn't negative. It's simply a way to explain their situation; that they are raising a child by themselves and for whatever reason they don't have a partner.
Honestly the first time I've heard someone think of it in a negative way. Mostly I hear people say single mother/father with sincere respect as they know raising a kid is difficult, and can't imagine doing it by themselves.
*Quick edit to affirm the fact that single fathers are relatively rare as we live in a patriarchy.
one of my mother's more unhinged rant topics was women intentionally keeping children away from their fathers as revenge for him breaking up with her and that if they don't have the maturity to get married and stay married then they shouldn't have children etc etc. She also talked mad shit about people who take government assistance to care for their children when my disabled sister has always been on as many benefits as my mother could get approved (she had good reasons though, unlike those lazy "other" people... 🤔)
ime I have seen mothers use their child coercively but it's not usually by keeping them from the father, at least not successfully. It turns out family court actually favors fathers if they bother to pursue custody, which few do without a strong reason, either good or bad. It's usually been women using the children to coerce family, friends, or a new partner into staying by getting them to bond with the child then being able to actually remove the child from them since they have no legal rights to the child. And I think the only reason I haven't seen fathers do it more is because, as stated previously, many don't pursue custody due to either internal or external expectations that childcare is the mother's job.
I was raised by a single father. He definitely "took us" from my mother with spite in his heart. Pretty rare yes. I think I was 8 years old when I heard him call her a whore the first time.
He got arrested when I was a teen for, being a shitty parent. Such a shitty parent, he got a ten year sentence, served 8. Should have been longer.
He fought "so hard for his kids" and then just completely dropped the ball. We had like 3 good years before it all turned to shit.
My mom's dying this week. I .. don't know what I feel about it, but the wrong parent is suffering. I hated my mom for a long time in my youth because to me at the time, I couldn't understand why she couldn't be the superhero single mom you'd hear about all the time. She knew the bad stuff that was happening to us with our father, and yet claimed, she was powerless to help us.
Anyhoo, men who fight for custody usually get it, and it was very easy for my father (adopted step father technically) to spin my mother as crazy and unfit. Divorced 1993.
Damn, I'm sorry you have such a negative experience on the topic. It's really awful to have a batshit insane mother, isn't it? My parents were also a bit fucky, and it's something I think I'll have to deal with for a long time still.
I suppose the mother coercing people is perhaps more of a stress response and navigating the fear of raising a child by themselves. Like indirectly asking for help.
I certainly agree that the courts favour the fathers, as they are basically the hub of anything patriarchal.
oh, no. The women I'm remembering were straight up abusive. One of them was too high to properly bond with the older male child when he was born so she really only wanted the younger girl but she refused to give up custody of him because she could get money out of the grandmother in exchange for being allowed to see him. Kid was like ten showing up to my friend's mom's house with handprint bruises talking about beating hookers and they couldn't get CPS to remove the kid. Fucking sad. I don't talk to that friend anymore for unrelated reasons but last I heard her sister had at least gotten back with the kid's dad and was at least treating my friend's nephew better in front of his biodad.
also idgaf if it is a stress response. It really damages the kids to not have consistent caregivers and to be constantly told that people who were positive influences in their life were actually bad. It's gonna fuck up their ability to set healthy boundaries for the rest of their life. If they can't "ask for help" without fucking a kid up for life then they are an unfit parent. Those women were just uniquely awful people whose kids might have had a better life if mom taking the kids in the break up wasn't the societal default.
It's because of fucking Reagan. He's the dipshit who coined the term welfare Queen. Which painted a picture of single mothers that both Republicans and Democrats have held in their minds for the last 40 fucking years.
My first thought too. I mean it is true society has a fucked up stigma about single mothers, but the blame lies with society not the term single mother.
On the flip side you hear single father, and society's immediate response is "aww, that brave man!" That is not to say being a single dad doesn't actually come with its own set of weird societal day to day problems and prejudices, but the broad surface level response to the terms "single dad" vs "single mom" certainly seems to trend towards "what an upstanding man" vs "what an irresponsible ho."
Society is so fucking weird about present fathers! Taking the kids to the park "oh where's mommy right now?" Handling a tantrum from the youngest while the oldest is asking for something "oh I see daddy's on parent duty!"
I just want to parent my kids man, you don't have to make it weird! Of course that's also not addressing the subset of people who are convinced that the only men who want anything to do with kids must be pedophiles and couldn't possibly just be present fathers
Baring psycho religious idiots, do people really use "single parent" as a pejorative? I've only ever considered it an indication of the unique struggles the description entails, not as a judgment on them.
Politics. That's when. Like I'm happy for you you've never heard it used that way but in politics it is almost always comes with blame attached to it. Particularly the last 40 years.
I like that you post a lot, but I feel like there are some stinkers in there that don't pass the smell test. There's a plenty of single parents that actively keep past partners from their children. Often enough this is against their child's and former partners wishes. Some even want to hurt their exes by removing their child.
That being said the stereotype does certainly exist, but reality to me is more complex with less gender related lines. And pushing conservative gender roles is a yikes.
It's also sadly the case that many "absentee" fathers are in jail for victimless crimes and/or serving disproportionately long sentences, especially as the targets of racism.
I feel like it would be about 5 minutes before someone decides that emphasizing the father's role in the family (ie, absent) and ignoring the mother's role is just another way for the patriarchy to erase women.
Being an anecdotal case with extenuating circumstances does not invalidate the criticism of an overall societal trend.
You are not being an absentee father. You are actively trying to be a part of your children's lives. This trend does not describe you.
It is best not to borrow offense when it isn't aimed in your direction. It's better overall for your mental health and allows you to understand better other points of veiw without unnecessarily feeling attacked.
The irony of this is, “single mother” aims no offense at anyone, and you’re advocating for an objectively offensive term take its place.
Let’s go over what constitutes a “child of an absentee father”:
dead father
deported father
incarcerated father
abused father
And that’s just the generalized ones.
Gee, I wonder why we simply use “single parent/mother/father”… maybe because it describes the situation most succinctly, and with as little offensiveness as possible? Couldn’t be! It must be the patriarchy!
In addition to what everyone else said, the terms just refer to completely different people. "single mother" obviously refers to the mother, while "children of absentee fathers" refers to... the children.
And it's a strawman anyways - nobody's out there using "single mother" as a pejorative. I've heard it used far more often in a good sense.
In my very specific case, my mother kidnapped me, she moved, she hid, she kept my location and presence a mystery from my father's side of the family for like eight, seven years of my life, and the only reason that that got broken was because I, as a teenager, hunted down my father, after which he was a part of my life again, and my mother resented him for that and still made it difficult for him.
I always thought this was more for the child's benefit. Rather than addressing them by what they are lacking addressing them by what they have might be gentler.
"children of absentee fathers"... instead of "single mothers"? or instead of "children of single mothers"? i don't disagree with the point, but the lack of clarity in the phrasing is really bugging me... it's probably just pedantry, it's not a big deal
well, i guess i would agree that it's usually not derogatory. i think it's probably a little nicer in reference to the child as well, since it doesn't as strongly imply they're totally fucked for life like saying "children of absentee fathers", cause at least they have a mom, you know?
sorry to change the topic. but what are those pants and accessories (besides the belt buckle). they look cool and I don't recognise them.
I always interpreted the concept of single mother to be made to highlight the "she's is doing it alone girlboss" rather than "she chose that". either way it's not ideal though
Looks like an ostomy bag, oddly enough. Seems oddly specific (a win for diversity?) but that does make me wonder if this is some specific public figure / personality being depicted.
Just a bit of a mouthful, isn't it? If you're going to give notes on the English language, you gotta bring your A-game. Off the top of my head, "mom solo". I'm sure there are better ideas, just don't ask us to replace handy phrases with boring full sentences.
I think this post is the one that will make me finally unsubscribe and leave this commmunity. It's so many brigaders here now and it's not fun or productive anymore. I might return some time in the future, but I fought the good fight and I'm ready to be done.
Open discourse is fine, but you can really only have a community like this work if enough people accept the core premise. I'm not sure Lemmy can support that kind of userbase.
You mean that we can only have a discussion with you if everyone agrees with you?
Because yeah, that's going to be a very short discussion and people like that are better off gone.
If you don't mean that, then what do you mean? If you call anyone with a differing opinion a brigader then you're literally no different (on that subject) than trump and his cronies who do the exact fucking same all day long
I'm just amazed reading comments down here saying that this indeed is a "good cause"..... WHAT CAUSE?! There is no problem here, except for the one you're trying to create. Its the same with homeless, which now we need to call "unhoused" because reasons? I fucking guarantee you that 10-20 years from now, "unhoused" will suddenly be deemed insulting, and we'll again make up new words for it because again, reasons. Can we just keep the words and actually focus on resolving the problem instead of finding prettier words to describe it?
Interesting!
I've never heard the male form used except specifically when talking about a male person. I'd guess it's a regional thing again (die/das Nutella anyone?).
But for the single mom/dad I've not heard that as a derogative in daily speech.
For me it makes sense to talk about a situation from the perspective of the people in the situation and not some circumstance.
“Single Mom” has become some kind of slur, understanding that correct?
Honestly it entirely depends on the context. Some see single parents as incredible superheros for how much they manage to balance everything and keep it all stable for their kids who are too young to be left alone. But also some use it as a put down, whether as slut-shaming, part of anti-poor rhetoric or there's the infamous "but where are the fathers?!" racial dogwhistle. Basically single parents are a convenient block of people to paint all sorts of different pictures of to push whatever narrative one might be trying to push
To me, single mother/father isn't negative. It's simply a way to explain their situation; that they are raising a child by themselves and for whatever reason they don't have a partner.
Honestly the first time I've heard someone think of it in a negative way. Mostly I hear people say single mother/father with sincere respect as they know raising a kid is difficult, and can't imagine doing it by themselves.
*Quick edit to affirm the fact that single fathers are relatively rare as we live in a patriarchy.
one of my mother's more unhinged rant topics was women intentionally keeping children away from their fathers as revenge for him breaking up with her and that if they don't have the maturity to get married and stay married then they shouldn't have children etc etc. She also talked mad shit about people who take government assistance to care for their children when my disabled sister has always been on as many benefits as my mother could get approved (she had good reasons though, unlike those lazy "other" people... 🤔)
ime I have seen mothers use their child coercively but it's not usually by keeping them from the father, at least not successfully. It turns out family court actually favors fathers if they bother to pursue custody, which few do without a strong reason, either good or bad. It's usually been women using the children to coerce family, friends, or a new partner into staying by getting them to bond with the child then being able to actually remove the child from them since they have no legal rights to the child. And I think the only reason I haven't seen fathers do it more is because, as stated previously, many don't pursue custody due to either internal or external expectations that childcare is the mother's job.
I was raised by a single father. He definitely "took us" from my mother with spite in his heart. Pretty rare yes. I think I was 8 years old when I heard him call her a whore the first time.
He got arrested when I was a teen for, being a shitty parent. Such a shitty parent, he got a ten year sentence, served 8. Should have been longer.
He fought "so hard for his kids" and then just completely dropped the ball. We had like 3 good years before it all turned to shit.
My mom's dying this week. I .. don't know what I feel about it, but the wrong parent is suffering. I hated my mom for a long time in my youth because to me at the time, I couldn't understand why she couldn't be the superhero single mom you'd hear about all the time. She knew the bad stuff that was happening to us with our father, and yet claimed, she was powerless to help us.
Anyhoo, men who fight for custody usually get it, and it was very easy for my father (adopted step father technically) to spin my mother as crazy and unfit. Divorced 1993.
Damn, I'm sorry you have such a negative experience on the topic. It's really awful to have a batshit insane mother, isn't it? My parents were also a bit fucky, and it's something I think I'll have to deal with for a long time still.
I suppose the mother coercing people is perhaps more of a stress response and navigating the fear of raising a child by themselves. Like indirectly asking for help.
I certainly agree that the courts favour the fathers, as they are basically the hub of anything patriarchal.
oh, no. The women I'm remembering were straight up abusive. One of them was too high to properly bond with the older male child when he was born so she really only wanted the younger girl but she refused to give up custody of him because she could get money out of the grandmother in exchange for being allowed to see him. Kid was like ten showing up to my friend's mom's house with handprint bruises talking about beating hookers and they couldn't get CPS to remove the kid. Fucking sad. I don't talk to that friend anymore for unrelated reasons but last I heard her sister had at least gotten back with the kid's dad and was at least treating my friend's nephew better in front of his biodad.
also idgaf if it is a stress response. It really damages the kids to not have consistent caregivers and to be constantly told that people who were positive influences in their life were actually bad. It's gonna fuck up their ability to set healthy boundaries for the rest of their life. If they can't "ask for help" without fucking a kid up for life then they are an unfit parent. Those women were just uniquely awful people whose kids might have had a better life if mom taking the kids in the break up wasn't the societal default.
Even the idea of "raising a child by themselves" is variable. Separated parents often collaborate very well in raising children "together".
The term "single mother" (or single father) doesn't even really indicate custody. It's a hangup on not being in committed a relationship.
I've seen single mother used in negative ways, mostly in conjunction with welfare.
Why are you assuming that "single mother" is a bad thing? Thats pretty fucking weird.
It's because of fucking Reagan. He's the dipshit who coined the term welfare Queen. Which painted a picture of single mothers that both Republicans and Democrats have held in their minds for the last 40 fucking years.
So? When I hear "Single mother" I imagine a famliy with only a mother. thats it.
You also can't assume why the father is out of the picture. Sometimes, the father could be falsely imprisoned or even passed away.
Also also, why focus on the absentee instead of the person with the potential problem? Help first, blame later if necessary.
My first thought too. I mean it is true society has a fucked up stigma about single mothers, but the blame lies with society not the term single mother.
On the flip side you hear single father, and society's immediate response is "aww, that brave man!" That is not to say being a single dad doesn't actually come with its own set of weird societal day to day problems and prejudices, but the broad surface level response to the terms "single dad" vs "single mom" certainly seems to trend towards "what an upstanding man" vs "what an irresponsible ho."
Society is so fucking weird about present fathers! Taking the kids to the park "oh where's mommy right now?" Handling a tantrum from the youngest while the oldest is asking for something "oh I see daddy's on parent duty!"
I just want to parent my kids man, you don't have to make it weird! Of course that's also not addressing the subset of people who are convinced that the only men who want anything to do with kids must be pedophiles and couldn't possibly just be present fathers
Thank you! Glad to see I'm not the only one in between all these comments praising this nonsense.
Why is she wearing a belt buckle of people 69ing?
That's AI.
Thank you
You wouldn't?
Oh, I thought it was someone making out with an anthropomorphic frog.
Baring psycho religious idiots, do people really use "single parent" as a pejorative? I've only ever considered it an indication of the unique struggles the description entails, not as a judgment on them.
I have heard it. Some people feel better about themselves by looking down on others.
I genuinely don't know anyone that uses it as a pejorative.
I've only seen it used in the pejorative sense when there was also a racial factor. So by people who were racist.
I feel like a widowed mother might not appreciate this
Since when is calling someone a single mother “blaming” them?
Politics. That's when. Like I'm happy for you you've never heard it used that way but in politics it is almost always comes with blame attached to it. Particularly the last 40 years.
Since never.
This is not an issue, never has been. This is just people virtue signalling.
I like that you post a lot, but I feel like there are some stinkers in there that don't pass the smell test. There's a plenty of single parents that actively keep past partners from their children. Often enough this is against their child's and former partners wishes. Some even want to hurt their exes by removing their child.
That being said the stereotype does certainly exist, but reality to me is more complex with less gender related lines. And pushing conservative gender roles is a yikes.
It's also sadly the case that many "absentee" fathers are in jail for victimless crimes and/or serving disproportionately long sentences, especially as the targets of racism.
Pizzey is sus, cursory review of her own words immediately reveals this.
Why does she have a colostomy bag?
It’s AI slop. Look at the belt buckle.
Looks like a dude 69ing with a frog
Hey, I’m not here to kink shame anyone.
ah, so it is.
fucking ai slop bullshit
I was trying to figure out the fuck her pants were doing and figured "ehhh it makes little enough sense it's probably some lazy AI generated bs"
I thought it was a 69 belt for a second, but couldn't find the other person's head. AI is getting better with fingers, at least.
Isn't this a very old and irrelevant way of thinking, but placed on a modern styled meme format, in order to maybe state a different problem?
Being single parents is not more derogatory that being a cat owner or having bangs
I feel like it would be about 5 minutes before someone decides that emphasizing the father's role in the family (ie, absent) and ignoring the mother's role is just another way for the patriarchy to erase women.
To me, it seems like the complete oppositeis the case.
A single father is more rare, exactly because of the concerns of the effect that the lack of a mother might have.
Single mothers is way more accepted than single fathers, but all in all I don't see this as an issue or at least not any more.
You’d think so, but a lot of women are still looked down on for it.
Its one of those weird things that can be used as both a thing people look down on but also something people look up to.
The single parent is the focus of importance to the discussion. Simply mentioning a thing isn't dissing it.
Well, he could have died. Just sayin.
That's entirely his fault though.
/S
Fuck all that. I spent thousands on a lawyer just to get my kids 3-months a year. I've spent 10's of thousands on child support. And I'm the problem?
Ikr? I had to fight tooth and just so I didn't have to see my son in front of a government official.
Why? Because she was pissed at me for going to my exam during university.
Being an anecdotal case with extenuating circumstances does not invalidate the criticism of an overall societal trend.
You are not being an absentee father. You are actively trying to be a part of your children's lives. This trend does not describe you.
It is best not to borrow offense when it isn't aimed in your direction. It's better overall for your mental health and allows you to understand better other points of veiw without unnecessarily feeling attacked.
The irony of this is, “single mother” aims no offense at anyone, and you’re advocating for an objectively offensive term take its place.
Let’s go over what constitutes a “child of an absentee father”:
And that’s just the generalized ones.
Gee, I wonder why we simply use “single parent/mother/father”… maybe because it describes the situation most succinctly, and with as little offensiveness as possible? Couldn’t be! It must be the patriarchy!
"Unnecessarily"? The post attacks them by conflating single mothers with absentee fathers and actively blames the fathers
In addition to what everyone else said, the terms just refer to completely different people. "single mother" obviously refers to the mother, while "children of absentee fathers" refers to... the children.
And it's a strawman anyways - nobody's out there using "single mother" as a pejorative. I've heard it used far more often in a good sense.
In my very specific case, my mother kidnapped me, she moved, she hid, she kept my location and presence a mystery from my father's side of the family for like eight, seven years of my life, and the only reason that that got broken was because I, as a teenager, hunted down my father, after which he was a part of my life again, and my mother resented him for that and still made it difficult for him.
Just like most men, most women are actually good.
But the bad ones are really bad.
I've never thought that term carried any stigma other than "this person is working harder than most do to survive"
Me too
That doesn't even make sense.
The first is talking about the child, the second about the mother.
I always thought this was more for the child's benefit. Rather than addressing them by what they are lacking addressing them by what they have might be gentler.
yeah I thought "single mother" was already a supposedly better replacement for "fatherless", for exactly the reason you stated
Deadbeat Dads
Dead
beatDads"children of absentee fathers"... instead of "single mothers"? or instead of "children of single mothers"? i don't disagree with the point, but the lack of clarity in the phrasing is really bugging me... it's probably just pedantry, it's not a big deal
well, i guess i would agree that it's usually not derogatory. i think it's probably a little nicer in reference to the child as well, since it doesn't as strongly imply they're totally fucked for life like saying "children of absentee fathers", cause at least they have a mom, you know?
"mothers of children of absentee fathers"
sorry to change the topic. but what are those pants and accessories (besides the belt buckle). they look cool and I don't recognise them.
I always interpreted the concept of single mother to be made to highlight the "she's is doing it alone girlboss" rather than "she chose that". either way it's not ideal though
Looks like an ostomy bag, oddly enough. Seems oddly specific (a win for diversity?) but that does make me wonder if this is some specific public figure / personality being depicted.
I am betting it's ai slop. The way the bracelet is aligned with her doesn't look like how a human would draw it
also whatever that absolute mess of a belt buckle is.
that's what it is
thought it was like a strange belt worn purse, which I'm obsessed with.
now it's obviously an ostomy bag
Also the bracelet and rings. There's a lot of fashion happening here.
she's serving
They aren’t the problem, they’re the one getting the recognition.
That absentee father outline is 100% Will Smith.
That's not the only odd choice. This woman dressed as if from an 80s sci fi movie where robots kill anyone over 25.
I'm pretty sure it's Billi Eilish too.
That belt buckle skirt situation is intense.
Cool slop bro
Why dont you contact the artist and discussing your your concerns with her?
The belt buckle is egregious. Either made by AI or the artist is trying to replicate slop
I’ve got a better idea. No. Take responsibility for the shit you post.
Just a bit of a mouthful, isn't it? If you're going to give notes on the English language, you gotta bring your A-game. Off the top of my head, "mom solo". I'm sure there are better ideas, just don't ask us to replace handy phrases with boring full sentences.
It’s an extra syllable. Sorry if we’re wasting all your precious time with a single mouth sound.
Do you know what a real waste of time is? Helping angry people on the internet count to eight - but here we go captain pisstake.
Chil dren of ab sen tee fa thers eight.
Chil - dren - of - sin - gle - mo - thers. Seven. I can do it too. My point still stands.
Does it though, if you're having this much fun wasting my time?
I think this post is the one that will make me finally unsubscribe and leave this commmunity. It's so many brigaders here now and it's not fun or productive anymore. I might return some time in the future, but I fought the good fight and I'm ready to be done.
Open discourse is fine, but you can really only have a community like this work if enough people accept the core premise. I'm not sure Lemmy can support that kind of userbase.
Best of luck, everyone.
You mean that we can only have a discussion with you if everyone agrees with you?
Because yeah, that's going to be a very short discussion and people like that are better off gone.
If you don't mean that, then what do you mean? If you call anyone with a differing opinion a brigader then you're literally no different (on that subject) than trump and his cronies who do the exact fucking same all day long
I'm just amazed reading comments down here saying that this indeed is a "good cause"..... WHAT CAUSE?! There is no problem here, except for the one you're trying to create. Its the same with homeless, which now we need to call "unhoused" because reasons? I fucking guarantee you that 10-20 years from now, "unhoused" will suddenly be deemed insulting, and we'll again make up new words for it because again, reasons. Can we just keep the words and actually focus on resolving the problem instead of finding prettier words to describe it?
I get that totally, I've been thinking about doing the same thing. I don't want to desert the cause though!
Notice the posts about witch stuff are largely ignored...
... What cause? Where is a cause here? There is no cause.
My language did that better, term is "Alleinerziehender", literally translating to:
"alone nursing (person)".
Also, it incidentally is in the male grammatical form, although that is used as a neutral gender here.
"Single Mom" has become some kind of slur, understanding that correct?
Interesting! I've never heard the male form used except specifically when talking about a male person. I'd guess it's a regional thing again (die/das Nutella anyone?).
But for the single mom/dad I've not heard that as a derogative in daily speech.
For me it makes sense to talk about a situation from the perspective of the people in the situation and not some circumstance.
Typically you would not use the noun at all, but the adjective "alleinerziehend".
Honestly it entirely depends on the context. Some see single parents as incredible superheros for how much they manage to balance everything and keep it all stable for their kids who are too young to be left alone. But also some use it as a put down, whether as slut-shaming, part of anti-poor rhetoric or there's the infamous "but where are the fathers?!" racial dogwhistle. Basically single parents are a convenient block of people to paint all sorts of different pictures of to push whatever narrative one might be trying to push
Fucking puritans.
We're still paying the price for their insane zealotry and terrible fashion choices.
Really has a ring to it...