Single Mothers

NBC's Today Show promoted an interview with Maria Shriver the other day. They identified her as a "single mom," which is technically true, but kind of ridiculous. All but one of her children are adults, and the youngest, Christopher, is seventeen.

I take issue with the term itself. The term "single mother" carries the connotation of an injured party, a martyred woman with young children, whose husband left her. Maria Shriver hired a divorce lawyer and filed for divorce in 2011. Filing for divorce attenuates the moral authority she may have had upon learning of Arnold's infidelity.

Also, Shriver is a member of the Kennedy clan, and has a net worth of more than $100 million. To identify her as a "single mother" is to appeal to our emotions, get us to see her as oppressed, and rouse our instincts to rally in her support.

The media usage of the term "single mother" is not new, it's more like a trope. Its prevalence is testimony to the reach of cultural marxism. The woman with her child represents the state of humanity before industrialization. The man is always the oppressor, and represents the fallen state of humanity since capitalization of the economy.

The husband must also resort to patriarchal institutions like the church in order to maintain his hegemony. Therefore, the husband is like the capitalist exploiting the labor of his wife, and when the wife divorces him, she is returning to her natural state.

This is how cultural pathologies like fatherless children are perpetuated. It is not necessary to openly critique the institution of marriage, only to glorify the alternatives to marriage.

A final criticism of the term "single mother" might be found in the American Psychological Association's Guidelines for Nonhandicapping Language in APA Journals. This was source material for University of New Hampshire's Bias-Free Language Guide," which identifies words such as "American," "homosexual," and "poor" as problematic.

The guidelines are intended to get people to identify other people as people first, and any disability is identified secondarily. Thus, the problematic "blind woman" would be changed to "woman who is visually impaired."

The University of New Hampshire then extended the notion of disability to include every unit within the Progressive Stack. For example, the UNH guideliness suggest changing the problematic term "homosexual" to "same gender loving."

In the spirit of these new guidelines, I would suggest identifying Maria Shriver as a woman with gargoylism who divorced the father of her children. Notwithstanding the use of the gendered term "father" this description should replace the outdated and problematic "single mother."