Are Single Moms Better Off Than Married Moms?

It’s time to rewrite the story of single motherhood

Photo by eberhartmark/pixabay

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I recently received a pitch that began:

Single moms are superheroes—twice the work, twice the stress, twice the tears.

I experienced the same cringey reaction that I experience whenever anyone refers to mothers as “super” anything. Not because we’re not super, but because the idea that mothers need superpowers to raise small humans drives me nuts.

None of us became mothers, single or otherwise, because we wanted to be superheroes. And we don’t even get cool costumes; we just get mom jeans.¹

But the opening line of the aforementioned pitch failed to resonate for other reasons, too. I’ve been a single mom for nearly a year now, and my own experience has undeniably involved less work, less stress, and fewer tears. This is a story of single motherhood that I know many others experience, but one that hardly ever gets told.

These are the stories we’re used to hearing:

Single mother as sacrificial superhero

This single mother doesn’t get to be a showy superhero, like the Batmans and Iron Mans that dominate our cultural landscape. She’s no Wonder Woman, either. But she’s strong and can handle anything; therefore, we don’t need to worry too much about her.

One of her superpowers, in addition to her fortitude, is her invisibility. We pay very little attention to the superhero single mom until after-the-fact, only when her child or children go on to be “successful” in life. Sometimes it’s the children themselves who tell this story — that they owe everything to their single mom, who toiled long hours to put food on the table and still had the energy to help them with their homework.

It’s not that this is a “bad” story, per se, but it’s one that often fails to capture the depth and the humanity of the mother herself. She’s the one who labored in the background so her children could shine, and (whew!) all those sacrifices ended up being worth it. Her children, unlike so many other children of single mothers, bucked the trend and didn’t end up becoming drug addicts or delinquents. But we know virtually nothing of these mothers except that they worked hard and raised upstanding citizens.

We’re not really interested in the details. If these single moms cried sometimes, or yelled at their kids, or smoked weed before bed, or had their own aspirations, we don’t want to know. We’re much more comfortable with the martyr mother than we are with the messy human mother, no matter her relationship status.

Single mother as object of pity

Oh, that poor single mom. Abandoned and alone. Struggling to feed her children. This is the single-mom-as-victim narrative, about the woman (or teenager) who became a single mother due to unforeseen circumstances, whether that was an unplanned pregnancy, an unplanned departure of the father, or both.

This single mother has no agency. She’s just reacting to her life’s unfortunate turn and doing her best to stay afloat. Sometimes the victim mom can become the superhero mom if her kids end up with “impressive” jobs or are otherwise deemed successful in life. But if her kids flounder, that’s more or less to be expected. After all, there wasn’t a man around to catapult them to lifelong happiness and prosperity.

The widowed single mom is the most deserving of our heart-clutching pity because she was trying to do everything “right.” She didn’t go and get pregnant unexpectedly, or choose the wrong man to procreate with, or drive her husband away. The widow is the ultimate victim. The other single moms? They made some bad choices, clearly, but they’re doing what they can. When we want to feel virtuous, we can throw them a pity bone, too.

Single mother as object of contempt

If we’re not busy pitying or praising single mothers, we’re talking mad shit about them. Our contempt has strong racist and classist overtones. There’s the welfare queen, the trailer park trash.

These single moms are drains on society. They can’t keep it in their pants and they just leech off our hard-earned money because they’re too lazy or drug-addled to find a real job. Caring for children is honorable labor when a middle-class married woman devotes her life to it, but that’s because her husband is paying the bills, not us hardworking taxpayers.

Can’t find childcare? Can’t make enough money to afford childcare? Tough shit. These single moms should have thought of that before having children out of wedlock. They’re selfish and wildly irresponsible. And not only that, their kids are nightmares. Delinquents and addicts, all of them. That’s what happens when there’s not a man around to lay down the law.

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Like all stereotypes, each of these narratives holds some grains of truth. In a culture that socializes women to be dependent on men, many single mothers nurture an inner strength and resilience that partnered women are less motivated or encouraged to tap into.

And yes, there are a lot of single mothers who do feel like they’re flailing. Supporting children on one income is obviously more difficult than supporting children on two incomes, or supporting children on one income with the benefit of a full-time care provider. The challenges of keeping a family afloat become that much more formidable when a single mother is at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, which is all the more likely for teens and other young women who didn’t have time to gain a financial foothold before becoming mothers.

But like all stereotypes, the stories we tell ourselves about single motherhood are both dehumanizing and woefully incomplete. For one, the onus is placed squarely on the single mother’s shoulders, whether it’s the responsibility to stay strong (we have to, for the kids!), the duty to just figure it out/hack it when we flail (no one is coming to save us), and/or the resigned acceptance of the shame and blame that gets heaped on our shoulders (we did this to ourselves).

Blaming the individual is, of course, a time-honored American tradition. But rewriting the story of single motherhood isn’t just about transferring the blame for our woes to the shoulders of society. It’s also about telling an entirely different story. For instance:

Single mother as liberated

A well-known 2018 study, which drew from a nationally representative sample of more than 23,000 mothers found that “married mothers did more housework and slept less than never-married and divorced mothers” and also reported less “sedentary leisure time.”

I was still married when I learned about this study, and it kind of blew my mind. First, because it contradicted the ubiquitous perceptions of the harried, time-starved single mom, and second, because it confirmed something I’d long felt but never had the courage to say out loud. As someone married to a man who felt entitled to my care in ways that were not reciprocated, I often wondered if it would be easier to “just” take care of my kids, without the added burden of tending to a grown adult while also attempting to delegate and negotiate household labor.

In the year since my separation, I can confidently affirm that the results of this study track. Single parenting has manifested in less caretaking and more sleep. While my chore list has gotten a bit longer, it is so much easier to blow through it when I am not also worrying about delegation and negotiation. Plus, I’m more proactive about enlisting my kids. At nine and 13, they fold their own laundry, cook their own breakfasts², pack their own lunches, and often mop floors and do yard work on the weekends for some extra spending money. This isn’t just good for me; it’s good for my kids, too.

Single mother as empowered

An empowered single mother is not a mother with superhuman resilience and strength; rather, she is simply a mother who can set her own boundaries and advocate for her own needs. In short, a mother who can do the things the patriarchy insists we can’t or shouldn’t do.

And believe me, it is much, much easier to challenge the patriarchy when it is not sitting across from you at the dinner table.

Forgive my imperfect metaphor — I know that “man” is not synonymous with “patriarchy” — but one of the thorniest challenges of modern heterosexual marriages is battling the patriarchy in our own homes. So many of us desperately want to model gender equality for our children, and yet we find ourselves falling into the roles of either The Martyr, if we concede ground and end up doing things ourselves, or The Nag, if we refuse to concede ground and end up frequently reminding our charmingly clueless husbands to do them. I can tell you from experience that both of these roles suck.

Yes, it’s highly problematic that my kids have only seen their father for 15 of the last 365 days, just as it’s highly problematic that four of five single parents are mothers. Gender equity depends on a more equitable distribution of caregiving responsibilities across genders. In my case, it makes me furious that my request for a marital separation was interpreted by my spouse as an invitation to abandon his parental obligations.

At the same time, my kids are seeing a much better version of me on a day-to-day basis. They are seeing a mother who is not constantly second-guessing herself. A mother who took the initiative to break out of the confines of a relationship that was not serving her — or, perhaps more importantly, them. A mother who is a reliable advocate for their needs, not an anxious mediator trying to keep the peace. A mother who is living life on her own terms.

I feel so much more empowered fighting the patriarchy Out There, then retreating to my home as a place of refuge, safety, and joy. I didn’t have that luxury as a married woman. The patriarchy lurked in the shadows and skulked in the corners, forcing me to bite my tongue, conceal my rage, and downplay my needs. I no longer have to shrink myself to fit in my own home.

Single mother as connected

The very term “single mother” implies that we are on our own, but as a single mother, I feel more connected and supported than I did during my marriage. I’m quite sure I’m not the only married or formerly married woman that can attest to the strange sense of isolation endemic to the “traditional” nuclear family.

We expend so much energy not just raising our children, but also working on our marriages, that we have very little left over for other adult relationships in our lives. Single childfree people often complain about their married female friends disappearing on them, particularly after having children, and this is why. We get sucked into the vortex of nuclear family life.

As a young mom, I remember feeling strangely jealous of my stepson’s mother, who by all accounts was more deserving of society’s pity than I was. She had gotten pregnant young and tried to do the “right” thing. But she and the man who would become my husband had rushed into things and couldn’t make it work.

I was the one who had done things the “right” way, the one who should have been thriving. I had gotten married in my late 20s and had waited until my career was on track before having children. I was proving my independence and work ethic by living 3,000 miles away from my parents. By all accounts, I was the picture of success.

Meanwhile, my stepson’s mother lived a stone’s throw from her two sisters and her parents. She also seemed to have a close-knit network of friends, some of whom she’d known since high school. For years, her parents took care of my stepson Friday through Sunday every weekend; she rarely paid for childcare. Not only that, she got a multi-week break in the summer when she sent her son across state lines to spend time with us. I was the one desperately seeking summer camp options for him and trying to figure out how to afford them. I was the one with only a loose collection of happy hour friends who had all but disappeared when I’d had my first child. I was the one who could barely find the time or money for a date night every few months, let alone a scrap of spare time for myself.

By all accounts, the “pitiable single mom” in this scenario had access to a much more reliable support network and had much more time to herself. Single mothers prioritize extended support networks out of necessity. We also expend more energy building them because — somewhat paradoxically — many of us have more emotional energy to expend.

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It’s impossible to answer the question posed in the title of this story with a simple yes or no. Economically speaking, the answer is unequivocally “no.” Single mothers have a 28 percent poverty rate, compared to 4.7 percent poverty rate for married mothers.

Conservatives love to bandy about statistics like these to prove that marriage is “good” for women, and that’s the real narrative I’m challenging here. I am not necessarily advocating for single motherhood. I’m not arguing that it is “better” for children to be raised only by their mothers. In fact, we can’t successfully dismantle the patriarchy until men assume more proactive caregiving roles and show our children that care work is not an exclusively female domain.

What I am advocating for is motherhood as a journey of liberation, empowerment, and connection. And the reality is that motherhood within the context of modern heterosexual marriage is often anything but. If mothers are financially independent — and yes, I know, that’s a big if — they will probably feel more empowered raising kids in a communal setting, in whatever form that takes, than within the confines of a traditional nuclear family.

Throughout human history, communal child rearing has been the norm, with the idealized nuclear family of the 19th and 20th centuries a patriarchal aberration that increasingly isolates women and was certainly never designed to empower or liberate us.

Let’s rewrite the story of single motherhood as a story of communal caretaking, a story of parenthood outside an institution that is actively failing us. It doesn’t have to be a story of twice the work, twice the stress, twice the tears. In practice, it’s often not. It can be a story of sharing the load — amongst men and women alike. A story of more leisure and more laughter. A story of reclaiming our joy.

1. No shade to mom jeans. I rock them regularly.

2. My nine-year-old son has recently taken to cooking himself eggs, bacon, and toast before school. He sits at the table and reads Dogman while he eats his breakfast. Now I just need to teach him how to properly wash scrambled egg residue out of a frying pan.