Parents these days are open to criticism from all sides. Helicopter parents deprive their children of initiative. Tiger moms are too strict. And now single and unmarried parents, mostly women, are being blamed for child abuse and neglect.
A Wisconsin state senator is only the latest public official to attack single mothers. (Remember former Vice President Dan Quayle’s attack on the fictional television character Murphy Brown for being a single mother, thus contributing to a “poverty of values”?) Glenn Grothman sought to pass legislation emphasizing “nonmarital parenthood” as a cause of abuse and neglect. His proposed bill would have required public education about this point and highlight the role of fathers in preventing abuse. (The bill failed to pass this legislative session, but the state senator remains committed to getting his message out.) Grothman, himself unmarried and childless, sees this measure as necessary because people “make fun of old-fashioned families.”
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