Single Mom Mythology from the Huffington Post
April 19th, 2009 by Robert Franklin, Esq.This is another "exploits of the single mom" piece that pretends to deal with single motherhood but doesn't (Huffington Post, 4/13/09). It's an interview with one Christine Coppa, 26, who's the single mother of a son. She says she and the child's father had unprotected sex knowing she wasn't on the pill, and when she turned up pregnant, he left. The interview is short and superficial, so I went to Coppa's blog site to see if there was any depth there. Nope, not much.
Coppa's a writer. When she got pregnant, she landed a gig with Glamour magazine to blog about being pregnant and single. In the middle of that, she got a deal to write a book about being a single mother. So Coppa is that rarest of birds, the single mother who has a well-paying, at-home job that combines employment and childcare in one. How many people can say that? Well, my guess is one - Christine Coppa. So just how applicable are her observations to, you know, regular people?
A significant cottage industry has grown up around single motherhood. This interview, blog and book are part of that. Has there ever been anything written about single mothers that seriously looked at the dads? In Coppa's case, as usual, we have her brief descriptions of uprotected sex and the father's abandonment of her and the baby and that's about it.
Why don't any of these journalists get up on their hind legs and go find one of the dads and interview him? Did he really know she wasn't on the pill or some other contraceptive? What caused him to leave? What does he think about her decision to carry the child to term? Did they discuss that? What did she say? What are his thoughts about fatherhood? Does he plan to return and try to take up his rights and duties?
Is it really as cut and dried as she claims? We'll never know because all the information about their relationship comes from her. For the umpteenth time, the father is voiceless.
To her credit, Coppa says the door is always open to the dad to come back to her and their son.
And to the interviewer's credit, she does ask one tough question. She asks Coppa if, given the fact that women have abortion rights and the morning after pill, should men have the right to opt out of a child's life, i.e. sign away his rights and duties. Coppa's response is telling:
I think that if a baby is born then the people who made that baby should take care of him unless a mutual decision is made that absolves one parent from the picture. There is no mutual decision in my case. In the state of New Jersey, where I live, one cannot abolish their parental rights "just because."
She takes her own abortion rights for granted, as she should, given the state of constitutional law. But she shows no understanding of the fact that those rights are in no way "mutual." One parent does indeed have the right to "absolve" herself" from the picture." When she says "one cannot abolish their parental rights 'just because,'" she's obviously wrong. "One" can do exactly that; the other cannot. She doesn't seem to understand that.
For Coppa, her rights are her rights, and from where I stand, that's as it should be. But when it comes to his rights, that's their decision, a "mutual" one. She says all this with no apparent irony.
The Guttmacher Institute which is the research arm of Planned Parenthood, and the best source of information on abortion in the United States, has data on why women choose abortion. Overwhelmingly, it's for reasons that have to do with the practicalities of childrearing. Read about it here. Women have abortions mostly because they're not ready for a child. They're too young, still in school, not financially ready or don't think their relationship with the father is stable enough. From my point of view, those are all good reasons to not have a child. People should be as ready as they can be before they bring a new person into the world.
But that only applies to women. Men of course have the identical concerns about fathering and raising children. They too want to be ready, to have a good stable job, to have a relationship with the mother that they think will last, to feel like they're mature enough to handle the responsibilities. And, as for women, I think that all makes perfect sense.
Except, as things stand now, men don't get to decide. It's like hide-n-seek; "ready or not, here I come," is the name of the fatherhood game. Again, we don't get to hear his side of it, but maybe that's why Coppa's boyfriend walked out.
Meanwhile, given her unique situation, Coppa makes single motherhood out to be pretty much a walk in the park. And for her it seems to be. She has a mother who helps and a good, stay-at-home job. And the boy is still much too young to start manifesting the behavioral problems that bespeak a fatherless upbringing. So Coppa ignores all those nitty-gritty problems that follow single motherhood wherever it goes.
It makes for a pleasant, upbeat narrative. Now, if only single motherhood were actually like that...
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April 19th, 2009 at 10:41 am
The hypocrisy in that woman's explanation is laughable, until you realize that the courts agree with her: "my body, your wallet" is the law of the land.
I can tell you one thing: if it wasn't for child support payments, she wouldn't even have bothered writing the name of the "sperm donor" on the birth certificate.
Fatherhood has effectively been eliminated from our legal system. Men are de facto sperm donors and wage-slaves. A vasectomy sounds more and more like the way to go..
April 19th, 2009 at 11:01 am
I love the comment at the end of the piece: "Single moms are often the scapegoats for so many of society's ills when really, we're doing the best we can for our children." Which, in my experience is an archetypal distortion of the truth most often trumpeted by single moms playing the "poor me" game. The reality that I see is that they get ladled with sympathy and support from all quarters. I don't think I've ever seen the mainstream press blaming single moms for society's ills as opposed to blowing the horn for more support to protect them from those ills with no analysis as to how they contribute.
My son was 7 years old when I was ejected from his life, he is now 13 and I have not set eyes on him for more than 3 years, and not for want of my trying. I have absolutely no doubt at all that his mother is playing the martyr to single motherhood in public while in private maintaining this emotional torture of myself and my son to the max. Pieces and comments like the above cause me physical pain.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:23 am
"Single Mothers" constitute a real "family." A family is "mother hand HER children." That doesn't include a father... A father is seen as nothing more than a source of oppression or possibly a future threat to the family. Perhaps, a potential child molester, or domestic violence predator, either way the "father" isn't really seen as necessary to the "family" so society doesn't see anything wrong with having this "father/threat" removed from the home at the whim of the mother to protect "HER" family. Of course, this "father" needs to pay child support and other monies to HER family.
So the family unit has been redefined as a "mother and HER children."
April 19th, 2009 at 11:27 am
In reality, single motherhood is probably a major cause of social ills. Take Cairo, the largest city in Africa and the capital of a deeply dysfunctional society with about 70% effective unemployment among the young. You can walk around there, alone, in the dead of night, and be perfectly safe. It is not advisable to try that in Manchester or Hull.
Hmmm... what could possibly account for the difference?
April 19th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Obviously, that man made her pregnant.
She probably wasn't even in the room at the time.
It's his fault and his responsibility.
She is a victim of male lust, obviously.
It's absolutely outrageous what he did to her!
April 19th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
""Single moms are often the scapegoats for so many of society's ills when really, we're doing the best we can for our children.""
It is irrefutable that single mother households are the locus for many social ills. Saying that "we're doing the best we can" is far from a rebuttal.
It is because single moms are "doing the best they can" and still failing that we criticize single motherhood so much.
IG: you forgot to cite that fathers are seen as an income stream, so as to ensure her "independence".
April 19th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Robert, excellent work on unpacking the rights of fathers in abortion. Again another issue important and obvious issue most ignore that you address and position well.
I suspect in the future, when this gets a little press in the popular media, that you will be a formidable opponent to argue.
April 19th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Did the Huffington Post miss the Great Society experiment called "aid to dependent children"? Millions of women experimented with single motherhood without a father present. Three generations of failure were the result.
April 19th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
So the single mom can visit her son in jail and say "I did the best I could" and she should get even more sympathy?
A clear majority of those in jail, with poor grades, with low incomes and level of achieved education and so forth are products of a single mom.
Presently women are incented to ditch the dad. And there is not even a raised eyebrow most of the time.
Kids need lots of time with both Mom and Dad. Ideally in a stable, durable marriage.
For the countless thousands of years that marriage has been in existence, it has proven to be the overall best solution.
April 19th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Anyone know if the Indian male BC injection has entered stage 3 human trials yet?
April 19th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Try asking comment from Christine Coppa, Robert?
Yes excellent explanation fo the deeper implications of "women's choice" that dominates men's.
I fully favor women's choice in abortion. At the same time men deserve choice too, and presumption of shared parenting. If there IS mandated responsibility for a child, it should be inside limits such as Warren Farrell's proposal of several years (only fair when women can abdicate their responsibility by using adoption or even the no-fault abandonment laws). And there should be a strong and FAIR social safety net covering child care, parental leave etc. for the children's interests. People are going to have children no matter what. The best we can do is make sure the people who do are fit parents, and if not, children will have the best opportunity in life. If someone has to pay for them it shouldn't be men without choice, it should be society at large including all tax paying citizens male and female.
A social safety net is important, and when it fails the neglected kids become dysfunctional adults and it only costs everyone more to put them in jail. Usually it's just the boys who end up in jail. The loony right-wingers against "socialism" can put that in their pipe and smoke it.
April 19th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
You forgot the other way women can remove their parental rights. New mothers also have the Safe Haven law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_haven_law) to protect them and not be held financially responsible. I wonder if a new father can do this, or would he be charged with kidnapping?
In a related Annie's Mailbox today (http://www.creators.com/lifestylefeatures/annies-mailbox.html), was the story of a single 40 yo woman seeing a married man, had a baby and now wants help from him, like his families medical history. Annie's answer of course was that he was financially responsible for his child and she needs to hire a lawyer. I really need to stop reading the news.
April 20th, 2009 at 7:52 am
11
it's pat Says:
April 19th, 2009 at 6:46 pm....."I fully favor women's choice in abortion."......."People are going to have children no matter what."
thinking here.......... lets see, "people" have children however "women" have choices? you excluded men when speaking of choices and included men when you switched the discussion to responsibilities. very neat and clean.
April 20th, 2009 at 8:00 am
Single mothers create the prison population of the future.
April 20th, 2009 at 8:52 am
From the article :
Fathers choose to "abort" their kids all the time, even if they pay child support. A check doesn't make you a father. A father is around or there is some sort of open communication. And on that same note, women abandon their kids, too. I have two single dad friends that have full custody because mom didn't want to be a mom after she gave birth.
My follow-up question to the author would be, "Did the father of your child have this choice, to raise the child alone, without your presence?"
I don't think she'd want to answer that, as she's blurred "abort" to the point that whether there's a child or not doesn't make a difference.
April 20th, 2009 at 9:24 am
QUOTE: .....loony right-wingers against "socialism" can put that in their pipe and smoke it.....UNQUOTE
What?
I've found that those with strong liberal or conservative views very easily reach strong agreement as to the mess in our Family Courts.
For example I'm conservative in my views but agree with nearly all of (liberal) Alec Baldwin's views on Family Law. Just read his book "A Promise To Ourselves" to see what I mean.
However it usually takes actually experiencing the horrors, oversights and keystone cops antics of the Court Crowd.
Over the years I had heard that the Family Courts were unfair to men. But I figured you could just make motions and be heard if not right away, fairly soon. And that in that way, things could be sorted out fairly well.
Then I crossed the threshold and entered Family Court. Such places are the stuff of Steven King or Franz Kafka. 2+2 = ? Appointment times mean nothing while the lawyer meter is running (billing). Judges ignore the Constitution and Bill Of Rights many times per hour. Day after day. Week after week.
It was way, way worse than I expected.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:25 am
"I think that if a baby is born then the people who made that baby should take care of him unless a mutual decision is made that absolves one parent from the picture. There is no mutual decision in my case. In the state of New Jersey, where I live, one cannot abolish their parental rights "just because."...
What crack pipe is she smoking from? In NJ, not only can she abort until very late in the preganancy, thanks to former disgraced Governer Jim McGreevy, AFTER birth she can just walk into her local hospital and give the baby away, literally "just because". For Christ's sake, the tag line repeated throughout the commerical was , "No Shame, No Blame, No Names". No SHAME!? So she abandons her kid and there's no shame.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:28 am
And for thosde who don't believe me...
http://www.njsafehaven.org/docs/shmedeng10_07.pdf
There is only one mention of the father in the entire pamphelt... under medical history. Everything else is geared towards the mother.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:39 am
It'sPat says: "The loony right-wingers against "socialism" can put that in their pipe and smoke it."
PK responds: Pat, you don't hesitate to shriek the second someone makes a jab at left wingers here and I have acknowledged that partisan politics can be distracting. Now you just did exactly the same thing. Physician, heal thyself!
Regarding the "safety net", the single mother criminal underclass culture is a PRODUCT of the "safety net" and not something that slipped through. The left is trying to get voting rights restored for criminals and felons because they tend to vote Democrat. In addition, working class men are discriminated against by affirmative action due to leftist racist and gender spoils policies. Yes, the Right is little better with their chivalry but the left clearly regards men as second class citizens to be exploited for the communist class struggle.
In regards to Coppa's response: "There is no mutual decision in my case. In the state of New Jersey, where I live, one cannot abolish their parental rights "just because.""
This is a non-sequitur since it's NOT the proper response to the question the interviewer asked whether the father could RELINQUISH his duties. Anti C4M'ers are trying to disingenuously coin their agenda as a "rights" issue and that they really care about protecting men's rights. That if a few men relinquished their fatherhood rights then NO men would have them. This is clearly rediculous. They want to distract attention away from the fact that single mothers are not putting the best interests of the child first but rather their own needs for child-support. In addition, infant abandonment laws render their disingenuous claim of parental responsibility moot. They wanted to pretend that when they CHOSE to have a child that they were saints for not "abandoning" children they want and get state and men's money for. But even THAT low moral bar was too much for thousands of them each year that abandon babies in trash containers each year.
The position that the woman should do as she pleases (get an abortion) until the baby "exists" and then magically the parents have these "responsibilities" that cannot be voided (which is mainly men paying child-support to the woman) is what I refer to as the theory of When Life Begins and Babies Pop Out of Men's Penises. It begins at conception when the mother wants it and wants child-support and the father is on the hook for child-support (one mother even started child-support proceedings BEFORE birth to make sure she didn't miss a single check and had the unborn child's name in court proceedings) unless the mother doesn't want the kid, then it's just a blob of cells to be sucked out of the womb. It's a reptilian, arbitrary, self-serving definition of human life.
Finally, as Robert points out, we don't have the father's side of the story. She makes it sound like they just had reckless sex but it's highly possible she oppsed him. I highly doubt that she informed him ahead of time she was off the pill and they had sex anyway.
Hmm, suggestion: I'm sure we can find out who this guy is from court documents or the birth certificate from public records and ask him ourselves! Anyone?
April 20th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Stan says: "I've found that those with strong liberal or conservative views very easily reach strong agreement as to the mess in our Family Courts.
For example I'm conservative in my views but agree with nearly all of (liberal) Alec Baldwin's views on Family Law. Just read his book "A Promise To Ourselves" to see what I mean. "
PK responds: Stan, Alec Baldwin's views are not due to his liberal beilefs and caring about the rights of men but rather his own negative experiences in family court. If he was given an easy ride, he would have happily helped shove off working class men down the river at a NOW rally.
There's a great line from the (admittantly liberal) Simpson's show: "Could one of you rich celebrities, just once, support a charity for a cause that didn't directly impact you or your family?"
April 20th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Hey Pat,
Free loading isn't a virtue - so if you really want to help someone - do it with your own two hands. If you need help, ask - no need to rob. But maybe that is simply my loony logic.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Here, check this out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iLsXTRZ7hw
This is why young people endup as criminals.
April 20th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
it's pat says "A social safety net is important, and when it fails the neglected kids become dysfunctional adults and it only costs everyone more to put them in jail. Usually it's just the boys who end up in jail. The loony right-wingers against "socialism" can put that in their pipe and smoke it."
Pat, it should be patently obvious that these problems have gotten worse for much of the time that the social safety net has been expanding (particularly from the 1960s onwards). These problems are not the result of a lack of a social safety net. They are largely the result of the perverse incentives created by the social safety net.
And one doesn't have to be a loony right-winger to realise this. I'm pro-choice, anti-death penalty, anti-intelligent design, slightly pro-gun control, etc.
As a youngster, I believed that more redistribution and the like would solve social problems. But as the old saying goes, when the facts change I change my mind, what do you do? Well, it seems for people like you the answer is that you simply bury your head in the sand and hope to God that the world conforms to your ideology (or idiology, lol).
And it is most unhelpful to the MRM to go out of your way to take cheap partisan shots like that.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:12 am
Women lie to men all the time about being on the pill so they can get pregnant. Not so much because they really want a child but, because it is easy money for them for the next 18 years.
Statistics show that childrewn of single parent homes are much more likely to become involved in drugs and crime and yourng women getting pregant etc.
This country has seen an explosion in gangs because young boys do not have fathers to turn to for the things men need as men.
Those children most likely to succeed in America are those with a mother and a father who have a religius faith in their lives and and are willing to work hard for the pursuit of happiness. Those in most single parent homes will have emotional issues and have a much harder time getting through school and into college.
You can also attribute the growth of the gay community to single parenting and divorce. Kids who grow up in a single parent home, do not have the model of a true family experience. Kids of divorce shun marriage once they have experienced the divorce of their parents. It will be interesting to see if, the married gay couples can seperate and divorce in a civil manner when allowed to marry.. Or, will they be just like most couples and run to the lawyers and courts and have their lives destroyed.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:05 pm
This same nightmare happened to me. When my wife pulled the family apart on a whim I, too, was "granted" a very limited role in my son's life. As soon as I had medical insurance that covered vasectomies I jumped on it. When you have no voice in your own fate (and the fates of your children) you do what you can: self-sterilization. How sad that that's the only viable and legal option for men?
JD -- I truly feel for you. The sad thing is that, barring highly unusual changes in your ex's life, this is a good as it gets. The wise man does not have any children, I have belatedly found.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:30 pm
King of K,
NJ is just as bad as Massachusetts and worse in some areas. It is unbelievable the way a Father can be thrown to the the wolves and nobody cares. Something must be done.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:31 pm
I think it's sad that people talk about Parent's rights these days instead of best interests of children. This is part of the reason why the court system is messed up as it relates to custody.
Some judges still think women should win every time. This is wrong. Some judges think 50/50 should be applied to every situation. This is also wrong.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:39 pm
#11, it's pat said: “I fully favor women's choice in abortion.”
Abortion should not be an individual choice. Birth control is an individual choice. Once that child is conceived it becomes a dual choice.
Here is a situation for you to consider: Woman insists she wants to have his child. He agrees. A few months later she finds out she is PG and freaks out. She has the child (created on purpose) aborted because she changed her mind. He found out from a third party that she was at the clinic. He went there to try to talk her out of it. He still wanted the child even if she didn’t. The clinic personnel wouldn’t even let him in.
So I ask you, pat, how fair was that? Where were HIS rights?
I will add that I once thought as you did, in the freedom of choice. That was until I heard this story and saw the pain he still felt after many years had gone by. That was his child she killed and it will haunt him the rest of his days.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Glenn -
I did a full search of all NJ court records. Coppa has never filed a case (custody, domestic violence, child support).
I know it's hard to believe, but there really are guys who just bail and walk away. I had a couple in here two days ago getting an uncontested divorce. Dad said he wanted every other weekend. Mom said "that's all you want to see your son??" I suggested sharing physical custody ... Dad shrugged it off.
They're not taking the time to visit this website or others like it, but there are (sadly) guys out there who do in fact walk away. They make me kind of sick because the system is geared toward them, not those of us who cherish parenthood.