ISBN: 091517990-0
Summary: 65 mothers who decided to start out raising their children alone were interviewed in 1999, and then followed up with five years later. Very few followed the expected social pattern of regretting becoming single mothers; most had actually gone on to have second or third children, still without partners in the picture.
From the first paragraph, this book hooked me in. It sounds like this author understood where I was coming from (seriously; the first anecdote was about a health care worker my age having the same concerns).
Rosanna decided to interview and talk about a very specific slice of single parents in her book -- low-middle to high middle class mothers who made the choice to either adopt or have a child alone. This includes raising accidental pregnancies after the biological father has opted out of participation in raising the child. Average income was again around 55-60k yearly, and she went to the trouble of posting each individual ladies financial situation/sources in the back of the book, along with other resources such as whose parents did free babysitting, who owned versus rented etc, to give a better picture of how people had actually pulled things off. For someone who likes taking apart budgets, and having real concrete numbers for planning rather than "Oh, you'll make it work", this was fantastic.
I also note that this author's style is much more data presentation than conversational; she's done a lot of legwork, and it shows with the high amount of info she attempts to get across in this one book.
She noted that:
"Most women think five to eight years before acting [on their wishes for children]" - pg 26
This jives with my personal situation, so I'm with her so far. She also found the commonality of
"[SMCs] distance themselves from the stereotype of welfare dependent women with children and make their claims to motherhood on the demonstrated self-sufficiency, the cornerstone of middle class" - Page 27
What I found especially interesting were her voicing of the trends she saw in dating over a twenty year period, as income power dynamics shift and spawn a new choice set on a generation. Now, instead of women looking for a husband, who would then make the decision on whether or not the couple would have children, women are much more aware of their ability to make that decision themselves. This change in decision making power has women looking for both traits that would make good partners, and good fathers; being able to make the choice themselves on whether to procreate or not has actually let some women to separate the jobs- lover on one side, and non-sexual co-parent on the other.
Another shift over time has been on what is valued in male contribution, to make those "good fathers", in situations where father does not equal husband. Fifty years ago, it was solely the financial contribution valued. As earning power has changed....
"..It's the man's affection for their children that is emotionally priceless, rather than the financial support. Many divorced moms don't make waves about financial support coming in(or not coming in) to encourage affection towards their children. Financial aid is seen as an act of kindness, not an expectation, while the lack of affection is much more stringently decried."
"Men are a luxury item -- yes, you would love for you and your child to have one, but they are more and more out of reach. You deal."
"Men are no longer necessary[to have children]. Consequently, men need to rethink their place in the family because it is no longer implicit[as sole financial supporter]. Without automatic membership, men must find a different basis for connection to families. What will they choose to offer for admission?"
These are very dangerous thoughts to many people.
She goes on to pitch several revolutionary community design ideas, such as groups of women all using the same sperm donor and raising the children in a community to create a web of instant extended family and siblings.
Socially subversive book, with interesting statements.
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