I wish all your articles could be broadcast worldwide…

Isn’t there a Twilight Zone episode where a woman is getting the bandages removed from her face by a team of doctors and nurses.  She’s had plastic surgery, and is hoping for success: her life has been agonizingly painful. 

As they take off the last bandage, her face appears under the light as radiantly beautiful.  However, the medical team sighs disparagingly and mutters, “I’m sorry Miss, we’ve failed miserably.” 

Then the camera reverses angle to show the doctors taking off their surgical masks.  They are all horribly disfigured, with piggish snouts and contorted foreheads. 

I think the technical term for this phenomenon is “lunatics taking over the asylum.”

I love your articles like this one.  Thank you for writing something upbeat, professional, accessible, and sorely needed.

I’m a single mom & widowed.Am I supposed to claim that’s better for my children? You do the best you can & pray for God’s grace to do it, but claiming it’s better for your kids?

I married a child of divorce who will tell you first hand that having a single mother and a dad remarried was no picnic. He turned out okay and he also turned out to be a super-involved dad (his father moved to another state after the divorce) and a firm believer that marriage is one time and forever. All these years later, we are still torn up in this divorce. We means I and our children are now be torn in the wreckage. Holidays, birthdays, any special occasion is a fresh chance for the wound to be ripped open as we have to navigate not just my family and his for attention but two factions of his own family. As his step-mother has said, “He’s the son every mother wants,” for his want to make things whole where they never will or can be again.

A favorite cousin of mine is raising her daughter on her own, and life if very difficult for them. She, like any mom, is worried she’s doing it all “right”—she often questions her choices as a parent. How the hell do articles like this help?! Now single mothers, like married mothers, are going to be told they have no reason to complain, to quit their whining. Great, just what we need: more women held to some ideal that does not exist. Rant over, and thanks for the post.

My parents were divorced for three years when I was a young girl. Although I can value the efforts my mom went through to raise us and to go to school to better herself so to provide for what we needed, there is no way it was better than when my dad was with us. It was stressful, it undermined our self-worth and how we deserved to be treated by men.

To say “oh it’s OK - they will be stronger” I would even argue with. Kids have enough to make them stronger without parents selfishly inserting their own problems. I know plenty of kids who were raised in two parent homes who are far stronger emotionally than I could ever be.

Unless you are being abused, there is no reason to destroy a child just to find your own fulfillment.

I read a lot of good things in the Slate article.The author seems to be doing her best & I can relate to her experiences, but her conclusion reminds me of the “Emperor With No Clothes” tale.Wanting/pretending to believe something’s true doesn’t make it so.We can only do our best in less than fortunate situations & being honest with ourselves in assessing the reality of that situation is crucial.Otherwise we’re just another naked empress or emperor parading through life daring anyone to take notice.

I saw Brad Wilcox speak at a La Leche League International Conference several years ago, and he’s awesome.  Like you say, it’s disheartening that when he presents the results of scientific research, Slate’s claim is that he is simply “insisting”.  He isn’t predicting that more teen girls *might* end up pregnant, he’s reporting that more *have*: 33% to 5%, according to the Arizona study.  (Also, did anyone else catch that the stock photo that Slate used to illustrate Wilcox’s article which was titled “Sad Single Mom” has a wedding ring on?)

I am a single mother, with one 6 year-old son and guardianship of my 14 year-old sister, and was divorced before I came into the Church last Easter. I was pregnant when we got married, which was why we got married, and my son was not yet 2 when I finally agreed to my husband’s multiple demands for a divorce. Although I am the 4th of 13 children who were blessed to have both parents until my father died at age 52, leaving 6 young children at home (I was already grown), I had no real understanding of what the sacrament of marriage really is. Even though my mother battles mental illness and childhood was no picnic, my father stuck it out because he believed it was forever; still, I was blind to his conviction. Since coming into the Church, I have learned so much about what marriage is meant to be. Yes, it is hard being a single mom; no, I can’t fill all the gaps of where a dad should be. I do the best I can and pray every single day for God’s grace and Mary’s help. She became a single mother, too, so I figure she knows. I pray also for the right man someday and after my annulment, look forward to having a real marriage. I have a new appreciation of the defense of life and the traditional family, knowing there is no freedom without life and family is our foundation,  given by God for our good, the salvation of souls. Thank you for a wonderful article, Simcha. God bless you now and always.

My husband’s parents came from a Catholic culture, but one that allowed for a double standard: Men will be men and women will sigh and put up with it.  I don’t blame my mother-in-law from walking away from her adulterous marriage.  What I see as the bomb that blew her family to smithereens was her angry repudiation of the faith.  Sexism and a double standard was so wrapped up with her culture, as was the Catholic faith, that she dumped the baby out with the bath water.  She planted the seeds of destruction however,long before her husband strayed, by thinking she could cherry pick the cultural norms that suited her.  She considered herself a thoroughly modern woman, by taking the pill, getting her sisters to take it, and having an abortion when the pill failed.  She thought pornography was normal enough to keep around, but undignified enough to keep hidden from the neighbors.  One can only wonder why she held her husband to such a high standard, when she put her fourteen year old daughter on the pill, and said “I want her to enjoy her beautiful body as much as she can.” 
My husband was troubled by his parents’ tempestuous marriage, but he was utterly devastated by the break up of his family, his parents’ subsequent relationships and marriages, their cast-off children, and the miserable, amoral people it produced.
I’m sure there are mothers that are utterly victims because they were abandoned to take care of their children, alone.  In my MIL’s case, she had a generous divorce settlement, and ceased to be the head of her household.  It got in the way of dating.
Now she is alone.  She is dying, and even her kids and grandchildren can hardly stand to be around her.
When she mocks God, and the Catholic faith, I realize she exists in the hell that she fully chose for herself.

wife and mother - pardon me, but that hardly seems like a “catholic culture.”  Are you sure you didn’t mean to say a “vulture culture?”

One might read about the unfortunate circumstances of someone else’s family, and be relieved that your own experience wasn’t anything close to that, but consider this:  The children of these broken families will want to date YOUR kids. They will actually seek your children out, because they embody the values they never were able to partake of. While they might be well dressed, well educated, well traveled, polite in conversation and manners, and even willing to tip their hats to cultural “ideals”, they could have very little moral compass.  They never experienced a healthy home life.  They don’t understand what fidelity and self sacrifice truly means.
My son fell in love with a girl who never had a family or siblings.  Her mother was married three or four times.  I don’t doubt that she and my son fell in love.  She was beautiful and intelligent.  Her story was truly sad, and my son wanted nothing more than to save her from it.  She “converted” to the Catholic faith, but refused to accept the teachings of the Faith on contraception.  It wasn’t even a year into their marriage before they hit the rocks.  She wasn’t able to be faithful when the hardship of graduate school, work and temptation crossed her path.
I tell my children now that people *can* be saved, but it has to come from a deep, authentic, PERSONAL, spiritual conversion.  I tell them to take a good, long look at a prospective mate’s family, so they understand what is on that person’s hard drive.  Fuzzy, good intentions just aren’t good enough to face the storms of this world, and come out with an intact family.

BTW, I too have a mother in law, and I can appreciate your sentiments expressed thus:

“...I realize she exists in the hell that she fully chose for herself.”

Unfortunately this sad condition often entails lengthy stays on my living room couch.

My husband cheated on me and we separated. I know he had friends (and certainly the other woman) who told him that our children were better off raised by a single mom than being raised around an ‘unhappy marriage’. This sort of crap doesn’t really help - like we need to give troubled couples one more excuse to salve their consciences when loving each other and fixing things just seems like too much work!

Fortunately my husband wasn’t able to keep lying to himself - there is simply too much evidence that children are better off with their father in their life if he’s even halfway functional. After a year apart, we are moving towards reconciliation (though it is hard!!) He loves me, which is good! but I know it is love for our children that broke through when his heart was most hardened.

What single moms need to hear is that God’s grace can overcome any obstacle, and that statistics are not fate. They don’t need to be told that it is ok that their children have no father. They don’t need to hear that the injustice they live with every day is no injustice at all.

In a culture where feelings now trump facts, what did you expect from Slate? It would be comical if it weren’t so tragic.
“Be of good cheer!” (John 16:33)
www.MerryCatholic.com

Matt, I should have clarified that.  Things have changed drastically in some of these countries.  One might say cultural changes have allowed more people to be honest about what they truly believe. Back in the day, there was a lot of pressure to save face and appear upstanding. Hypocrisy was rife. Catholicism was window dressing for a lot of these cultural catholics.  The practice of the faith had little to do with much, and outward cultural gestures just fed into their duplicitous lives.

“Someone remind me again how it’s religious conservatives who hate science and prey on weak people’s fears and emotions?”  I think this virtually every time I read something on Slate’s DoubleXX blog.  I don’t think I’d even care so much about the scientific cherry picking (because I know people on both/all sides do it; it’s human nature), if the same people weren’t so smug about pretending that only conservatives do it.

I love the foryourmarriage initiative, although the website could stand to be more user-friendly.  But I really think it’s a such great example, along with all the other marriage prep stuff they provide, of the Church walking the walk along with talking the talk.  I forget sometimes that my non-religious friends probably haven’t gone through any kind of marriage prep, and I am almost astounded by it because it was so important to my husband and me.

“that a single good, stable marriage indirectly affects hundreds, even thousands of people.”

I just returned from a funeral of an 88yo Catholic man. He and his wife of 64 years had 9 children. At his death, he had 70+ grandchildren and 60+ great-grand children. The church was packed and communion lines were very long. He was well loved and he and his wife were an inspiration to many beyond their family of the fruits of living as faithful Catholics in love and joy.

anon - yes, it is frightening who our kids could date (I’m not saying my kids are saints). Coming from a stable family is not a guarantee of marital bliss, but it does help tremendously. My parents were married 45 years and my husband’s parents, 50+ and we are both grateful for their example of faithfulness and think it has definitely influenced our 25 years of marriage. Of my siblings’ marriages, the one that has had the most problems is the one where one of the spouses came from a broken home. Marriage is hard enough without bringing baggage from divorce - self esteem and rejection issues, unresolved anger at a parent, poor examples of conflict resolution and communication, commitment phobia, a veritable steamer trunk of issues. I have know couples who were orthodox Catholics, but came from divorced homes. Their marriages have been rough; more of them have ended in divorce than I want to think about. Knowing how challenging a marriage is, I pray my children find spouses not relationship handicapped.

Wow…lots of smug comments from those with intact marriages. I come from a ‘broken’ home and was divorced myself. Luckily my Catholic in-laws didn’t judge me by that and welcomed me with open arms. I’ve been making their son happy for 18 years. You self-righteous ones make it very difficult for those of us that are divorced (even with a decree of nullity) to belong to the Catholic church with your unwelcoming attitude. Luckily I don’t let these sour ways turn me off from the Church.

Don’t be so offended Angela, as a child from a divorced family as well…I am well aquainted with the relationship problems “modeled” by my parents. I saw many children fall into the same pit by habit…but there are also many of us, after witnessing the wreckage, were determined not to fall into it, and VERY CAREFULLY chose spouses who also wanted a marriage that would last a lifetime. If anything, it made me look very soberly at the dating scene at a very young age. One can’t paint us all with the same brush.

“When fruit is a little rotten, it is all the more sweeter.”  Cervantes

Most Eucharistic, thanks.

I was a single mom before I got married later in life, eager to create the intact family I knew my son needed however it was not plain sailing (the severe difficulties of teen rebellion led me back to the faith) and we ended up attending a Retrouvaille weekend to save our fragile relationship from shipwreck. It worked. BUT…
The work doesn’t stop.
The work never stops.
As long as each spouse realizes this and submits to God’s GRACE perfecting nature not diligence in adhering to a self-help program (even the spiritually-minded ones). Prayer and an active sacramental life are absolutely necessary to sustain the labor of love that marriage is (and always has been). That’s why its the icon of the relationship of the Bridegroom to his Bride the Church. And many so-called ‘intact’ marriages would benefit from the soulful, reflective practices taught by peer-to-peer ministries such as Retrouvaille: by aiding in mentoring adult children through their own issues, for example, or better preparing for life changes in retirement (you’d be surprised how many couples split AFTER raising a family!).
 

Ugh, slate.com. It is maddening to watch them smugly decry conservatives for being anti-science while they REFUSE to look at abortion/divorce/homosexuality in the eye.

My husband, who I adore and love and who is the most supportive and loving husband and father, came from a broken family with divorced parents. I do believe that the initial stages of our marriage were extremely hard because my husband lacked the example and resource of good marriage modeling. “Let’s throw in the towel” comments were made during disagreements- something that absolutely horrified and petrified me because I came from a two-parent family myself. Who knew nothing but that marriage is for life- regardless how hard it gets.
So, Angela I understand your anger at comments that say marrying someone from a divorced family is hard, because I bet you work ten times as hard at your own marriage and never take anything for granted. Therefore it’s important we don’t paint the victim of the divorce in a negative light, but rather the problem that has been inflicted on the person who had to endure a broken home, and unwillingly brings those to their own marriages. Because believe me it was hard for me because of the unresolved issues or “baggage” my husband brought to the marriage, through no fault of his own, because he had no good examples, in his own life. And I do believe that although divorce affects children, it’s repercussions do manifest themselves in varying degrees in the lives of the married children and their families in years to come.
I also believe that God is crucial in overcoming all sorts of personal issues, notable those of trust, perseverance and hope, that stem from broken families.
It is rightly so that we, as a society, don’t bury our heads in the sand and pretend that a situation where two parents are not present or involved is an acceptable standard for our children. Because it’s not.

Some of the comments are hard for me to read. Both sets of grandparents were divorced and my parents also divorced for a time, and although back together things are still rocky. Now I watch my siblings making the same mistakes. If I ever fell in love with a guy from an intact family if I would be shunned on the based on family alone? Such a thing hurts more because for years I’ve been trying to learn what it means to be in a relationship, with God and with other people. I’ve been trying to grow and improve, but none of that would matter, they would take one look at my background and declare me a hopeless case.

Doesn’t that matter? I’ve known kids from intact families who never even thought about how to maintain a relationship, who think that sex outside of marriage is just fine, who think they will fall in love and live happily ever after. Wouldn’t that be scarier for a mother-in-law than a practicing Catholic striving to live out the life God has given?

I’m not saying that it doesn’t matter, I’m just saying it should be a factor to guide your questions not the deciding factor. Do they know what went wrong in their parents’ relationship? Do they know what bad habits they’ve learned from their parents? Do they show humility in realizing that they will still need to grow more? Do they show determination and perseverance in other areas of their life?

It just hurts that I’m thought of as damaged goods - “stay away if you want a happily ever after”.

When you have suffered for something, it makes it that much more dear.  When you have been so broken that self help is no remedy, two hearts, stripped bare and submitted to God, with grace, receive ONE, new heart.  It is something of such beauty that one could never even dare dream of it, nor even beg God for it, but he gives it justly, and freely to those who are disposed to receive it.

Christina, my husband came from a broken family, a family that was initially proud and beautiful on the outside, but rotten with sexual abuse on the inside.
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He was worth every tear.  I wouldn’t trade him for a son from the perfect family.
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A heart that has been broken can be refashioned into something even stronger and better, if it decides to make a clean break with everything that was broken in it’s past.
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A good Catholic mother who listens to the Holy Spirit, can intuit this upright love of truth, and living of this truth, in a prospective daughter-in-law.  Words and even “conversions on paper” are cheap.  Actions speak volumes, and are observable.

Christina,
I think comboxes are prone to narrow arguments and points…simply because there really isn’t enough room to explain fully one’s thoughts. One’s background is one facet of a person, not the entirety. Of course, it is something to take into account when one meets a person…but so are…a person’s chosen friends…priorities…pasttimes…their FAITH…their personality…etc. Not to mention,when it comes to background, whether one thinks nothing of it or sees it as something to be avoided. Any man that cares for you will look at all these things, and see what you yourself are made of.

@Christina - I don’t think you would be shunned by anyone.  And if you are, you should take that as a huge red flag regarding your intended’s family and then you’d need pay superclose attention to whose side he takes (hint: if it’s not your side, run, run as fast as you can).

I will say outright that I would be concerned if my child married a child of divorce.  But that’s only one thing that would make me worry.  I’m a mom and I worry.  I’d be far more worried if my child and/or the fiance were young (say, 25 or 26 and under).  I’d also be worried if my child were marrying someone from a rich upbringing, although I can’t honestly say my own kids have ever been deprived.  I’d worry if my child married a non-Catholic.  Another thing that would worry me (at least as much divorce) would be if my child’s intended came from an overly planned background - you know the type: parents had 1.7 children, 20% to put down on a house, carefully saved in a college fund, and drove their 1.7 kids around town in a supersafe Volvo and generally made the wisest, safest, and most recommended choices. 

Now a couple of those issues might seem weird or surprising.  But see, I’d rather my children choose people who have experience handling the curve balls life throws at them.  The ones who know if the window’s broken, you just have to open the car door to pay the toll.  I see those idiots on say yes to the dress and most of them are so immature that they have no business marrying anybody.  Marriage isn’t about conflicts or even conflict resolution - it’s about being on the same team and rooting for each other for life.

What’s tragic to me is, after reading all this personal witness, to realize how easy it is to “become divorced,” and how little static people receive for moving in this direction.  It’s almost foregone in some marriages even before they begin that “the end is coming, and is in fact near.”  I wonder why couples headed down this road don’t receive the message so many of these comments are sending?

wife and mother too, I’ve got to conclude your portrait of the “hypocritical and shallow CINO culture” is just a caricature.  You’re including statistically too many stereotypes for it to be an accurate portrayal of anything.  You’re getting your information from an South American soap opera or cartoon.  I don’t know whether to LOL or cut out my appendix with a butterknife.  My proof for this conclusion is that, while somebody who actually lived this farcical reality might find something/anything therein to sympathize with or care about, all you can manage to conclude is that your mother-in-law is damned to hell forever.  Low hanging fruit.

Mom (@ 3:04 PM), wonderfully put.

On the other hand, it does no good to smugly “stay together for the sake of the kids” when the kid(s) know from age five on that at least one of their parents is doing just that.

Experience talking here.

Lee, my parents divorced when I was nine and remarried when I was 13 “for the sake of the kids”...and at least I knew it. While we were effected by the obvious strain still in their relationship, there was a definite improvement over the divorce. When my dad came back we did start to improve a little socially and academically (or at least stop sliding downhill quite so fast). It would have been better had he tried harder to get involved, but, then again, if both my parents had been perfect it would have been better still.

So based on antidotal experience, unless there is physical abuse present, even “staying together for the sake of the kids, yea the kids know.” is better than divorce. At the very least it teaches the children to do what is right even when it’s uncomfortable.

“We are not real men and women unless we are both lovers and makers, and unless our making is the expression of our love. The primary form of making therefore, is the making of love. For in this, the two things the overcoming of isolation and the joy of making are one. Love making both presupposes the state of living in love and and at the same time perfects it: you cannot overcome your isolation in a day. In the ordinary way, men and women are incomplete without the fulfillment of body, mind and heart, which love of one another brings them. They are incomplete without the fulfillment which transfigures the flesh and gives it a beauty which age cannot destroy. They are incomplete without the fulfillment which comes from the marriage of true minds. The minds of man and woman work normally in different ways so that each is completed in the other. They are incomplete without the fulfillment of the heart and will, for it is only when these are made whole by the shared life of love that the union in flesh and mind becomes a making of love”—The Heart of Man by Gerald Vann O.P. Imprimatur Fr. Benedictus O’Driscoll, 1943. So glad I rescued this wonderful book from the oblivion of the dumpster some months back!

“The book of Tobias gently teaches us that gentleness and worship are the conditions of the life of love: Tobias and Sara first learn to pray together, and only then, when they are sure that their life will be in God, are they ‘in their own wedlock” (p.123 The Heart of Man).

Steve, I agree with your emphasis on preparation in heart, mind and body for the state of matrimony.  But Fr. Benedictus is coming from another age, where people and especially clergymen taught in terms of a romantical mysticism.  This language fails to affect many of todays considering marriage.  The terms have been overused to an obliteration of elasticity.  Father represents an historical artifact, a period piece.

If you have put yourself to the task of interviewing Fr. O’Driscoll, you undoubtedly hold original views on these matters, rendered on the contrary in contemporary language.  I would be eager to hear you weigh in on these weighty considerations, as you have so far shadowed the discussion from a length.

Christina, my point was that kids can tell when their parents are resentful of them for being the reason they’re stuck together. And it’s REALLY not good for the kids.

Matt - Fr O’Driscoll (or rather, I should say Fr. Gerald Vann) seems to have had an appreciation of the sacramental nature of life. The central premise of this delightful book is that man, like God, is forever making things—whether it is art, a family, the world, or Church. The danger, according to Fr. Vann is that man is moving away from a reverential view of the world, which can only be saved through “rebirth”. Reverence and rebirth are in turn, a consequence of the discovery of the meaning of the worship of God. Else man is subjected to “loneliness (which) is the stuff of hell; it is a big price to pay for power and glory”. Fr Vann’s credentials would have spoken for themselves, he being a well known figure in academic and literary circles in Catholic England in the first half of the 20th Century. Forgive the brevity of my response but the hour draws late.

@MattB
Believe what you want.
I made a really nauseating list for you. But then I decided it was too awful to satisfy your doubt or curiosity.
Maybe just pray for a poor old lady that dearly needs your prayers instead.
To bring this all back to the subject of the post,I should like to say that despite that horrible list of offenses against the dignity of the family, my husband believes that there could have been redemption for his family.  Things blew up ten times worse after the divorce, and yes—a combox is in no way an adequate venue to describe the entire story of the rise and fall of a family that was deformed and ultimately torn apart.

I will pray for you, why not?  But it would help me to pray if you were more specific about the spiritual need.  I’m not being callous or flip.  You’ve presented the Buddenbrooks in 100 words and I’m afraid I don’t know where to start.

Yes I do: Lord, a “wife and mother” stands at the door knocking, full of generational sin.  It affects her in her forebears and in her children, so much so that she is overwhelmed with crying and grief.  “What distress is like my distress” says Lamentations. O Lord, please hear her.

Lee - this is why we have to shoot for a higher goal than ‘staying together for the sake of the kids’. Can you imagine how much better it would have been had your experience been that your parents *healed their marriage* out of their deep and shared love of you?

The truth is of course that children frequently feel responsible for their parent’s unhappiness, and this is one of the most common burdens children of both unhappy intact families and children of divorced families bear. Because the truth is of course that, absent abuse, the couples who split because they are unhappy generally remain unhappy in a lot of ways. “Wherever you go, there you are.”

I agree with anon….even when the parents do divorce the children are often used as the “vent” for the parents’ (usually the custodial parent’s) frustruation over their personal unhappiness that was supposed to be solved by the divorce…(never mind the child’s feelings…as if that matters…as long as the adult is “happy” the child will be too farce) My mother’s frequent bouts of depression related to her divorce 40 years prior would always start with…“If you girls would only do this then I wouldn’t be in this state”. Our resemblence to our father was enough to make us responsible. It took until late into adulthood before I finally told her that her happiness is not my responsibility and take it up with a priest or a therapist. Enough.

All your babysitting problems can be solved by purchasing the NRA’s newest family values product! Nope, not their new experimental child-size mini-Glockette with 1000-capacity magazine and matching shoulder holsters in Bullet Blue or Projectile Pink!
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Nothing says Happy Birthday Four-Year-Old like a video game in which aiming virtual guns at coffin-shaped targets makes you a winner! Weeee! Building self-esteem has never been easier!
>

Posted by Anon on Monday, Jan 14, 2013 4:12 PM (EDT):

Because the truth is of course that, absent abuse, the couples who split because they are unhappy generally remain unhappy in a lot of ways. “Wherever you go, there you are.”
************************************************
Very good point.

Wife and mother on Jan 13 @ 2013 11:56 PM:  Heart rending in the extreme. You (indeed I, and every human being on the planet) must now learn how to let God put the pieces back together. Matt B on Jan 14 @ 3:09 AM: Awesome.

In defense of Slate readers, the comments on the article referenced hear were almost unanimously dismissive and/or appalled.  One commenter accused Slate of trolling its readers, and I think that’s about right ...

I agree that working towards bettering a marriage is the ideal, and we shouldn’t celebrate single-motherhood as an unqualified good, like the Slate article does. On the otherhand, we also need to be careful not to (as some commenters here have done) make single motherhood out as an unqualified bad. The truth is that there are a whole lot of environments in which a kid can be raised ranging from loving and stable to abusive and chaotic. Being poor, having to struggle, not knowing a father figure, it stinks, but whether it’s better or worse depends on what you’re comparing it to. We want to uplift marriage, we want to praise it and help it, and promote resources like the one linked above by Simcha. But we do not want to perpetuate such a stigma around single motherhood that women will subject children to abusive fathers, or speed date their way through a string of bare-minimum stand-in dads, or worse think about an abortion when confronted with partner-less pregnancy. So I’m not saying we should ever ‘celebrate’ single motherhood in that “my kids are less spoiled than yours because they know hardships” kind of way. But we SHOULD offer encouragement in the “There are ways to make the best of a tough situation and here are the tools for doing it”