Language Fucking Matters (free version)
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And here we go - Language. Fucking. Matters.
The parenting content mill needs constant feeding, and hence, editors scour reddit pages and tiktoks searching for something new to feast upon, or a potential comeback to make. In the parenting landscape, the newest trending term is that of the “married single mom.” Plenty of parenting outlets have weighed in, making this named (and unspokenly heterosexual) trend even more of - a thing.
Many of these outlets based their content around the origins of this tiktok. Devoid of any knowledge or greater context of the family in the video, it appears that a mom is doing too much, holding multiple bags and getting kids out of the car. Dad is walking behind the car as though he had come from the passenger side. Mom, in doing all of it, ends up tripping on the toddler behind her, and falling with one babe in hand and knocking said toddler out.
After the video plays, #singlemariedmomlife pops up, and I allow myself to watch one more - “Being a single mom is soooooo much easier than being a singlemarriedmom.”
Why, I ask myself, in a country swept in rampant gun violence and a host of existential threats, do I manage to get fired the fuck up from this term “married single mom?” Why!? Well, if I am being honest - my rage is limitless. But beyond that - it is because Language. Fucking. Matters.
It does! So let’s get into it. First off - I totally understand what it is like to be in a partnership where you do not have an actual partner. There is a legit reason I chose not to stay in such an arrangement and chose single parenthood when my son was 2. However, I would never say I was a “single married mom.” For starters, I have never been married. But - I was in a relationship where the brunt of the childrearing, housekeeping, care taking, emotional and mental labor, and financial burdens were all on my shoulders. I carried it all until the day I decided to not be complicit to that any longer. And so I left.
Back to language. I asked our dear Overlord-to-be, AI, to weigh in on the etymology of “married single mom.” Ol’ chatbot said: I'm sorry, but there is no clear etymology for the term "married single mom" as it is a contradictory term. A "single mom" refers to a mother who raises a child or children alone, without a partner. A married mother, by definition, is not a single mother. Therefore, the term "married single mom" is confusing and not commonly used. I do like how ChattyMcgee felt an apology was called for!
So what is a “single mom?” Partial breakdown from Wikipedia, emphasis mine: A single mother is an unmarried female who has little to no support from the child/children’s father. In most cases the father is completely removed from her and the child’s life by choice or necessity and he provides minimal financial support by choice. A single mom typically provides over 50% of the costs to raise and care for the dependent and can typically be considered head of household on taxes and can claim the child when filing.
Let’s break it down:
single mom = mother providing over 50% of costs and care for dependents
single dad = father providing over 50% of costs and care for dependents
co-parent = a parent sharing roughly equal costs and care, so in this gendered understanding, if you are a woman and co-parenting, you are a single woman and co-parent, and if you are a father and co-parenting, you would be a single man and a co-parent
Being in a relationship does not necessarily mean you are not a single parent. I am in a monogamous partnership, but my partner and I do not live together, and I do not have support in costs and care for dependents. Therefore I am not single, but I am a single mom. Wild, I know.
My friends who co-parent do not identify themselves as single moms. They are co-parents. They have “off” time and a sharing of child expenses, that I, and actual single parents devoid of larger family or communal assistance, do not have.
A married person, is a person who is legally and socially sanctioned in a union regulated by laws, rules, costumes, beliefs and attitudes that prescribe the rights and duties of the partners and accords status to their offspring (if any.)
A marriedsinglemom is not a damn definable thing.
Let’s get legal:
Would you like to guess if there is a tax filing status option for “married single mom”? Let’s review.
Holy fuck. There is no option for that! Almost like it doesn’t actually exist!
Look - perhaps I get so heated because in my decade of single parenting in Seattle, I have heard one too many times a heterosexual married woman say something along the lines of “My husband is in Japan for a conference this weekend, so - I’m just singlemomming it!”
(No Nancy, you will not be single momming it unless Brad falls into Lake Biwa never to return again. But still - even then - you wouldn’t be running amuck on tiktok calling yourself a single mom - you would be a widow. You would call yourself a widow, because you would legally be a widow, and so you would file your taxes as a widow. You would take in the higher standard deductions and lower tax rates that only a widow gets. You would receive a range of financial benefits depending upon your age, your dead husband's age, work history, insurance and all of that stuff. I’m not suggesting you would be happy or rolling in bills if Brad bit it, but you would still not be singlemomming it with those benefits.)
But am I really mad at Brenda, or something else entirely?
In early colonial America, the very existence of a woman was subsumed into her husband upon marriage. This was if you were white. Enslaved and Indigenous people were “forbidden” from marrying one another, or a white person. If you tried - you would be banished (deaded). Marriage enforced colonial control, patriarchy and white supremacy.
Years would continue to pass, and over time, the US Constitution was signed. Some things changed, - wherein, and variable by state, white women were allowed to do certain things with their husbands permission. But if you were Black you had no right to protect yourself from being raped from an enslaver, if you tried to marry a white person you would face life imprisonment, and it took another almost 80 fucking years for the 13th Amendment to pass wherein Black people could legally marry one another. (Shout out to June 12, 1967 and Loving Day, 102 years after the 13th Amendment, and not that motherfucking long ago, when SCOTUS struck down state laws against interracial marriage.)
Marriage has continued to evolve over the generations with a massive incentive structure in place to fortify it, and to make marriage seemingly a benefit and a privilege to people (and which people has ranged) and not so blatantly a scheme to support capital and little home nation-states of control. These are some of the very big reasons people have fought and continue to fight for the right to marry! There are literally thousands of benefits that come from opting into marriage. We are talking tax benefits, estate planning, spousal benefits, medical benefits and healthcare, death benefits, survivorship rights, family, housing, consumer, immigration, parental rights, legal-the list is freaking long. These benefits ensured over the continuation of this colonial bureaucracy, that couples would marry and control would be had.
So, no matter how little Chad contributes to the daily washing of dishes, homework help or cleaning of the bathroom, if you are married, you are not #singlemarriedmomlife. No matter how little Craig seems to like you, or love you, or listen to your fears, you are still living in a marriage, albeit a shitty one! No matter how rarely Greg gets the kids out of the car, braids the kids hair or makes the evening meal, you are still literally, legally just a married person. (Again I will point out, a heterosexual one at that, because you sure as fuck don’t see this trend coming from lesbians.) You are not the sole financial provider and head of household. You are not covering a family's cost of living with one adult's pay. You might know the dreary loneliness of being in a fuck-all relationship, but you do not, fundamentally, know the loneliness or the deep social stigmatization of single parenting, of living outside the approved state supported model of the hetero/mononormative nuclear married family unit. You do not live outside of those thousands of legal benefits.
Call things what they are because language fucking matters. I really don’t care what you choose as long as it’s intentional and specific. What about, “I’m married to a deadbeat and I’m apparently staying, because for me, the benefits and privileges still outweigh the expense of being a single parent.” Something a little more truthful at the very least.