The Single Mother's Manifesto (JK Rowling)

"David Cameron says the ‘nasty party’ that castigated people like me has changed. I’m not buying it." -- JK Rowling

I had become a single mother when my first marriage split up in 1993. In one devastating stroke, I became a hate figure to a certain section of the press, and a bogeyman to the Tory Government. Peter Lilley, then Secretary of State at the DSS, had recently entertained the Conservative Party conference with a spoof Gilbert and Sullivan number, in which he decried “young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing list”. The Secretary of State for Wales, John Redwood, castigated single-parent families from St Mellons, Cardiff, as “one of the biggest social problems of our day”. (John Redwood has since divorced the mother of his children.) Women like me (for it is a curious fact that lone male parents are generally portrayed as heroes, whereas women left holding the baby are vilified) were, according to popular myth, a prime cause of social breakdown, and in it for all we could get: free money, state-funded accommodation, an easy life.

An easy life. Between 1993 and 1997 I did the job of two parents, qualified and then worked as a secondary school teacher, wrote one and a half novels and did the planning for a further five. For a while, I was clinically depressed. To be told, over and over again, that I was feckless, lazy — even immoral — did not help.

The new Labour landslide marked a cessation in government hostilities towards families like mine. The change in tone was very welcome, but substance is, of course, more important than style. Labour had great ambitions for eradicating child poverty and while it succeeded, initially, in reversing the downward trend that had continued uninterrupted under Tory rule, it has not reached its own targets. There remains much more to be done.

...

I accept that my friends and I might be atypical. Maybe you know people who would legally bind themselves to another human being, for life, for an extra £150 a year? Perhaps you were contemplating leaving a loveless or abusive marriage, but underwent a change of heart on hearing about a possible £150 tax break? Anything is possible; but somehow, I doubt it. Even Mr Cameron seems to admit that he is offering nothing more than a token gesture when he tells us “it’s not the money, it’s the message”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7096786.ece

and makes me warm to rowling. i thought she might be more right wing, considering the romanticisation of englishness and public schools in her bks. (never read them, actually, but saw the films)

I used to go out with a girl who lived across the street from the flat she lived in when she was a single mother.

in the general sense of the term.

who followed their dicks out of a marriage and abandoned their wives and children to poverty on the dole is. It seems conservatives are absolutely blind to the sins of men, and those sins are many.

and now must live with the consequences of choosing poorly.

:sarcasm:

Which wouldn't include Rowling.

A woman who is unmarried and living with the father of her children is not a single mom.

It's 2010 boys.

That really stuck out - how different we are here - where it would be: below the poverty line and homelessness.

I hate her writing, but she's right to castigate the stereotypers of single mothers.

Dealt an unkind hand in life, she had the will within her to craft stories for her kids. You can't pay to buy movie tickets...so, she made these tales. It's great those stories have made millions, I gladly buy the books and movies for my kids fully aware and quite pleased to know that a portion of that money is going to the Rowling family.

Mrs. Rowling has more than earned herself a place at the table, a voice to be heard, and she has earned every right to use whatever leverage she may have earned to make a point. The fact she has chosen to speak for single mothers and the tribulations they face is, in my mind, simply another crystalline fact to be enjoyed by her admirers, and possibly unearthed as her children grow, mature, and more fully appreciate the gracious lady they know as "mom".

:thumbsup:

In addition, I'm glad she's using that place she's earned at the table, especially since she's speaking for a much maligned segment of society whose voices in their own defense are rarely heard.

"It is a curious fact that lone male parents are generally portrayed as heroes, whereas women left holding the baby are vilified".