The marriage debate continues…it’s not just about same-sex couples. It’s about whether people, especially women, should even be married in the first place.

Banish the image of the tired, stressed, single mom who’s trying to make ends meet. Now, some are suggesting that they prefer their status as single moms and some married women are saying that it would be easier to be on their own. You can read about it here. Some of the findings of a recent study:

A recent survey by Babytalk Magazine found many married women feel it might sometimes be easier to go the mommy route alone.

Of these women, 76 percent liked the idea of not fighting with a partner over the best way to raise a child. Other pros to being single were not having the chore of keeping up a healthy marriage (69 percent) and not dealing with in-laws (30 percent).

And single moms agree.

Almost two-thirds of the unmarried moms felt it would be harder to be a parent if there were a man in the house. Of the single women, 55 percent said they feel relieved to not have to worry about working on a marriage, too, and 38 percent said they feel freer to follow their own dreams.

In all fairness, comment should be made on this part: I already have a bossy little girl who demands I sing the Tigger song 100 times a day and who regularly bullies me out of my breakfast. The last thing I need is a man who needs … well, anything that takes effort on my part.

As an outsider looking in, I’ve noticed that two parent families do a lot to balance each parent. When one parent gives in too much, like being bullied out of one’s breakfast, the other parent is there as sort of a reality check. Our abortion tolerant culture ironically fixates on small children, making them the center of everything, often to their own detriment. It’s easy enough for a two parent family to be caught up in this, but it seems it could be even more challenging for a single parent family simply because there’s no one to turn to for support. I recall an interview with Madonna after her first child was born. She said that she sometimes wished she had a husband, someone to turn to who could be asked, “What do you think?”

Here’s Helen Alvare’s piece on the increase in single moms. Upwards of 40 percent of all children in the US are now born to single moms. Is this simply a “life style choice” or is it indicative of something greater? I’m inclined to think that it demonstrates the lack of good families. Prof. Alvare refers to a recent study which suggests that most of these women did not get pregnant unexpectedly, but rather at least somewhat intentionally. It makes sense when you think that if a woman is missing the experience of love in her own family or in a relationship with a significant other that she will continue to look for it. To desire love is completely human and natural. The children of single moms are not only an extension of themselves, but sort of a guarantee of someone who will love them. If you’ve read C.S. Lewis’s Four Loves, you might recall his discussion of the most basic form of love – need love. It’s largely one-sided, most evident in the relationship between a parent (especially a mother) and child. The parent gives and the child receives. The child gives affection and love in return for what the parent gives. But it’s hardly an equal relationship. Yet, sometimes this is the only experience that people can hope for: the experience of the love that one receives because one is needed.
Guess what. John Paul II had it right. In his letter on the family, Familiaris Consortio, he emphasized the role and importance of the family. The family is the first church, the first school, the first society, the first everything. The experiences in the family should prepare the child for experiences with people outside of the family and in society at large, ultimately preparing them for their vocation with a natural or supernatural spouse in most cases. The family is the first place where people experience love and are taught how to balance their own needs and interests with those of others. When we eliminate or reduce this first “school”, we leave people unprepared for the real world. How can people be prepared for relations with others, especially intimate relations, when they haven’t experienced it in their own lives? It’s sort of like taking someone to the top of the most difficult ski slope without having given them some time on the bunny slope.

If people can’t find the support they need in marriage, the answer is not to get rid of marriage. We should be focusing on how we can make marriages stronger. Marriage exists for a reason – namely, that we all need it and are better when it works. In many ways, we’re still working through the fallout of the sexual revolution and the dramatic change in women’s lifestyles, especially those who work outside the home. There’s no doubt that we have problems, but we need to focus on fixing them, not abandoning the entire institution of marriage.