I was with a group of male friends recently and, as always, we had several heated debates. One of the debates centered around some article we'd read about single mothers and all the work they do on their own. One guy took the article way, way personally because it irks him that the mother of his child gets to say she's a single mother and is handed an automatic sympathy card. In his words, she's not a single mother. She's single, yes. She's a mother, yes. But she's not a single mother on her own struggling to raise their son because he straight up does what he's supposed to do as it relates to his son.
He picks his kid up in the morning on the way to work and drops the kid off at school and on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, his mother picks his son up and stays with him at his house until he gets off work. Then, they do homework and hangout. Every other weekend, his son stays with him but it ends up his son stays more weekends than that because well...he's there on Friday nights anyway, so if he wants to stay, he stays. He has a room, clothes, computer, video games, etc. at his house and always has. He says he doesn't miss a game, a parent/teacher conference or even one of those horrible plays they are in at school when they are little.
No one assumes dude is a single father and when he tells people he has a son but isn't with his son's mother, he can tell the immediate perception is that he's a deadbeat dad. Says he always feels like he needs to defend his actions as a for real, active father in his son's life.
And he says he knows a lot of fathers who feel the same, exact way.
He says that when he made it clear that he didn't want to be in a relationship any longer with his son's mother, she TRIED to be a single mother and keep him away from his child but he took her to court and got it all in writing and now they have a polite, friendly bond because it's only always about their son.
Well now...
I thought about it and I guess in that instance he was correct. The mother of his son is not a single mother in the true sense of what we've come to know single mothers to be.
Interesting huh?
What say YOU?
