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Go ahead. Call me old-fashioned. I can take it. I just might be proud of it. And, for the record, I always knew it would come to this.
A writer named Louise Sloan has come out with a book, part confession, part instruction: "Knock Yourself Up: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom."
Single moms are a good thing now?
Yes, I remember Murphy Brown and Dan Quayle. Much smarter than anyone gave him credit for, I thought our good old veep was right when he said we shouldn't be glamorizing single parenthood. Parenthood is just about the hardest job in the world. No one should take it on alone. And, no, not even if you have enough money.
Why not?
A scientist might tell you how the human race has been so successful because we're good at mixing of the genes of unrelated adults. A woman who "knocks herself up" (as Sloan puts it) with the sperm of an anonymous donor is, yes, likely mixing her genes with those of an unrelated adult. But is she mixing in anything else? Point of view? Style of parenting? The comfort of a second person to look at and say, "That's where I come from"? I'm thinking now of kids I knew growing up whose fathers had died in the war, before they ever got to know them. I remember that longing of theirs for that second part of their story – the way they'd say to their moms, their aunts and uncles: "Tell me again about my father."
Single moms by choice: What are you going to say when your kids say that?
