Single Mothers Trashed For Not "Choosing" to Marry

Single mothers getting state benefits are "parasitic on the rest of society with more conventional families" and "taking support and services from other sectors without contributing very much in return," according to Geoffrey Dench, a Young Foundation research group fellow.

According to his study, 57 percent of British single mothers are "choosing" to raise their children on their own, without the help of a spouse -- but with help from the state. This has both Dench and the esteemed Daily Mail all in a dither. The women are getting big handouts for little work! Multigenerational menless families are spreading like tentacles! But Dench is deluded and the Daily Mail is just trying to snag readership.

The Daily Mail describes these women as "relying on state handouts" instead of "relying on state benefits," because "handouts" sounds polarizing and disparaging and therefore more reader-grabbing. It's also inaccurate. Would anyone ever say of a married woman that she and her husband were getting "handouts" from the state, when they received their lower tax rates? No, because that's a "benefit" of being married, even a "right."

In the U.S. married people receive each others' social security benefits when one spouse dies, pay less capital gains tax, and benefit from over a thousand other "handouts" that single people don't get. The U.S. government allows private companies to charge single people more for health insurance, club memberships, travel, and numerous other services, so that married couples are effectively subsidized by single people and the government.

Yet no one accuses these married couples of being linked to "benefit dependency, poverty, and crime," which according to the Daily Mail is how the conservative Centre for Policy Studies portrayed the growing number of single mothers.

No one accuses these handout-receiving married couples of being a "problem," no one trashes their children by manipulating study data, and no one tries to bribe them away from marriage by promising them tax breaks if they'll become single -- which is exactly what the Conservatives are doing to single mothers by promising to establish a tax break for married couples.

Most disturbing is that these people are framing the single women's status as a "choice." To say that they are "choosing" to stay single is like saying that they also have the option to "choose" to get married. Okay, suppose I choose to get married? Sounds great -- instead of mooching off the state, I can mooch off my husband and the state. But supposing I look around and don't see a safe and eligible man? Am I supposed to "choose" marriage anyway by snagging any old schmoe who happens to be walking along the street? Yeah, that sounds like a great environment for raising a child.

Photo credit: Cliff1066