Single parents.
Why is an unmarried mother the lowest of the low council/chav scum, whereas an unmarried father is almost godlike in their self-sacrifice and devotion to their children?

Not really answering the question I guess, but Ive never understood the difference.
(Freakmandu, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 0:19, 10 replies)

'cos usually
the unmarried single mum is a chav.

Except for my mum. She may have been council scum but she was ace.

And single fathers.......seeing as most of them walk away from the chavvy mothers, the ones that take on the responsibility of raising their child alone deserve the accolade.

waits to get flamed
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 0:21, closed)

*sigh*
(Freakmandu, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 0:24, closed)

Here's your flaming. You're a cunt.
"This is the best
QOTW ever. I'm fucking loving it!"

"Single mums are chavs, except for my mum"

Cunt.

Happy now?
(posthumous mince is tiptoeing through the tulips, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 10:52, closed)

Thank you
Basks in undeserved glory ;)
(Obi wanker nobi Its not a bug, its an unexpected feature, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 19:07, closed)

Not undeserved at all - bloody hard job bringing up kids on yer own, I should know! Just sometimes I wish I could get some :\
(Freakmandu, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 19:55, closed)

What BSM said.
Except in my case, replace her mum with my stepdad, who singlehandedly raised 4 kids by himself after their mother walked out on them for another man, until he met my mum.

Plus we're generalising here. There are some ace single mums out there, and some horrific single dads who should never have been left in charge of their kids.
(Ghost Atreides enjoying incontestable health benefits on, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 0:31, closed)

Oh I know its generalisation, but thats the point. Its not my generalisation, its the one I experience every day, since I am one of those single mothers.
(Freakmandu, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 0:33, closed)

Really?
Part of it is pure moronic sexism. Another part is genetics, evolution and economic efficiency.

Genetically, it is more efficient for men to sleep with as many women as possible, have as many children as possible and spend as little energy on the children as possible.

For women, who can only spread their genes every nine months, it is more efficient to devote their energy to preserving the genetic material that already exists.

Essentially, a mother who stays with her kids is doing the thing that most benefits her in evolutionary terms, whereas a father is not - he is sacrificing time and energy that could be better spent spreading his genes.

In those terms, it makes sense. But believing, as I do, that the human race should be able to rise above evolutionary imperative due to what I like to call "brains", it is still no excuse. I hope people think better of you in the future. If it helps, I respect you for doing what you do in a society where you get far less help than previous generations of parents ever did, despite the beliefs of the OMG BENEFIT SCUM cult.
(cypherspace is not a toaster, Mon 28 Dec 2009, 1:08, closed)

I think in reality
a lot of it has to do with how well the kids turn out. If the kids turn out alright then there's less hate.

But I think there's another thing...

Generally I think people assume that it's easier for a mother to keep children than the father in an unmarried/divorce situation (based on all this Fathers4Justice stigma). So if you have a single mother, people will assume that she split from the father and "took the kids from him". Whereas if you have a single father, people assume that he actually fought to get the kids from a mother who didn't treat them/him well.

Please don't hit me! This is wild speculation, but I think because single fathers are a fair bit rarer than single mothers, it's easier to see them in a heroic light. Even if it really is not the case.

Unfortunately, my first line of prejudice is usually based on appearance and voice...it's bad I know...
( Extinct Jesus Dossier "...I think it counteracts Hitler's magic...", Mon 28 Dec 2009, 1:17, closed)

Don't know where the marriage part comes in
But generally kids go with their mum's if it's a split, so statistically more single-fathers are going to be widowed. If the mum is in too bad a state to look after the kids, then Social Services will certainly be looking into his lifestyle and it's likely that he'd have battled to get custody.

It's simply a numbers game. Certainly though, I think the single-parent shacked up with loser is generally far worse then the dedicated single-parent... irregardless of gender.
( @><|= w0nu!) or cunt to my friends, Wed 30 Dec 2009, 0:12, closed)