No, Single Mothers, Father’s Day Is Not Your Day

The obnoxious narcissism that purports the stupid message that single mothers count on Father’s Day because they have to be both the mother and the father is just asinine gender politics and takes away from the influential role that fathers play.
By Jordan Holbrook: Another day on Twitter and more idiotic tweets, “father’s day shout out to all the mom’s working overtime” and other such garbage. Honestly, the mental gymnastics that take place just to erase men from one of their few days a year is staggering. The majority of these tweets seem to originate from the US, so tell me, on 4^th July will you tweet about all the Brits who helped secure you your independence? I won’t hold my breath.

 I wonder if she’s aware that mothers have their own day.

I’m sure she did a great job.

“Raised”

Exactly. Also, on MLK Day let’s keep recognizing all the white people in the Civil Rights Movement.

Why mothers get a monopoly over celebrating parenthood, I don’t know. These sorts of tweets never seem to happen on Mother’s Day, i.e. “Celebrating all the single fathers out there working overtime raising their kids” etc. Yet seeing these “single mothers” tweets on Father’s Day has become near commonplace, an unironic meme to look out for.

Although I must say I am glad that the “End Father’s Day” nonsense hasn’t reared its ugly head again, even out of irony. Whilst it started as a great piece of bait for the feminist crowd it did catch too much wind, similar to how the free-bleeding movement did. And yes, I do still see the odd mention of that one from time to time.

But something I don’t get is why single mothers are celebrated so much, considering the damage they cause to a child’s upbringing. Yes, you read that right, I’m about to attack single mums.

For a start, they’re not very good at putting food on the table, which is often the father’s job. In the US nearly half (47.4%) of all single mother households are under the poverty line whereas only one quarter (25.9%) of single father households are. The lowest (10.8%) is married-couple housing. The poverty rate for fatherless homes is double that of the national average and quadruple that of married-couple homes. Would you believe that Pops aka “The Provider” is better equipped at providing in single parent households than single mothers!? I’m as shocked as you.

With an ever declining married mother population, this trend is set to increase. (Source)

The effects of fatherless homes continue, this 1998 Department of Justice paper (so stats need updating) said that 64% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes, 90% of all homeless and runaway youths are from  fatherless homes, 85% of children who exhibit behavioural disorders are from fatherless homes, 71% of high school dropouts are from fatherless homes, 70% of youths in State institutions are from fatherless homes, 75% of adolescent patients in substance abuse centres are from fatherless homes and 85% percent of rapists motivated by displaced anger are from fatherless homes. Noticing a trend? Needless to say fathers play a key role in the successful upbringing of children.

Continuing, a child’s safety and well-being must come first however this is not always the case, this 2014 report from the Department of Health and Human Services (Table 3-10) found that fathers alone committed less child abuse (20.5%) than mothers alone (40.7%) and both parents together (21.3%). What can be seen here is that having a father in the home drastically reduces the risk of child abuse occurring, although one could argue that because mothers have greater exposure time to the children hence why child abuse is committed in greater numbers by mothers. Yet, in spite of this, on Father’s day we are celebrating the parenting of single mothers. Weird.

Also, contrary to popular opinion, boys account for the majority of child abuse fatalities in the US. In the same report from above (Exhibit 4-C) we see that boys account for nearly three out of five child abuse fatalities (58.3%)! What is that parents have against little boys?

One thing that caught my eye in researching for this piece was this Everyday Feminism article calling out female child abusers, stating that women who sexually abuse children are criminals and not seductive temptresses. I’m intrigued how this never made it out to those “Father’s Day is for single moms!” people who love to tweet this garbage. Maybe they don’t care for feminism when the message doesn’t agree with their gender vigilantism.

Another influence of fatherlessness noticed is early sexual activity and teen pregnancy. Yep, not having daddy round can make a teenager a parent. This study of both US and New Zealand girls found elevated rates of early sexual activity and teenage pregnancy in fatherless homes. After controlling for covariates, there was stronger and more consistent evidence of effects of father absence on early sexual activity and teenage pregnancy than on other behavioural or mental health problems or academic achievement.

But it would be unfair of me to blame the single mothers who became such out of circumstance rather than by choice. However, considering that women initiate 69% of divorces and around 40% of children born today in the US are born out of wedlock, it’s very hard for me to sympathise with them.

If you want your child to do well then raise them up in cohabiting parental households. I would have included “married” in there as many of the studies on marital status of parents in child-rearing state that marriage works as the single largest positive force in raising a child, yet I have many reservations about the institute of marriage and the legal ramifications of it. That being said, two biological parents raising a child together in the home is the healthiest upbringing the child can receive.

Single-parenting, especially single mothers, have an incredibly detrimental effect on the raising of children. So you can count me out of including single-mothers on Father’s Day. They simply don’t deserve the recognition.

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