Single Moms - Why Does Hollywood Celebrate Them?

ABCNews.com ^ | John Stossel

[pocat]

Feb. 22 — Did you hear the happy news? Jodie Foster and Calista Flockhart have new babies!

Camryn Manheim has a new baby, too. And Elizabeth Hurley is expecting! Whether adopting or giving birth, add them and Rosie O'Donnell to the long list of single moms who are celebrated in Hollywood. But as all these new moms are celebrated, do you notice that there's no talk about any need for a father to guide these kids?

Sounds like Manheim's TV show.

"I'm going to be a single mom," Manheim's character on The Practice said, calling the baby's father "basically just a sperm donor."

"I don't believe I need a man in my life to raise a happy, healthy daughter," Manheim's character told millions of viewers.

Hollywood keeps telling us that.

When TV's Murphy Brown gave birth with no father in sight, then-Vice President Dan Quayle complained: "Hollywood thinks it's cute to glamorize illegitimacy. Hollywood doesn't get it."

Quayle was ridiculed for his complaint, while actress Candice Bergen appeared on magazine cover after cover and won an Emmy.

Her producer, Diane English, even said at the 1992 awards ceremony: "As Murphy herself said, 'I couldn't possibly do a worse job raising my kid alone than the Reagans did with theirs.'"

Now Murphy alone, with her good income, might have made a great mom, but I notice that Candice Bergen in real life chose to be a married mom. Bergen also later said that Quayle's point was completely sound, though she thought it was arrogant of him to criticize a program he hadn't seen.

Now I know many single moms do a fine job raising kids. But it's not easy. Parenting is an all-consuming job for two people. And fathers, if not trendy, are useful.

Some studies show that girls with fathers are less likely to be promiscuous, while boys with fathers are less likely to be delinquent. But watching TV, you'd think single women like Elizabeth Hurley having babies is nothing but great news.

"A woman is never more beautiful than when she's pregnant," said the Today show's Matt Lauer, who later talked to a fashion columnist about how Hurley's pregnancy changed her fashion statement.

Role Models for Parenthood?

Celebrating single moms sends a bad message to the little girls who imitate stars. Today, a third of the children born in America are born to single moms. This is not a good thing.

Most won't have it as easy as Elizabeth Hurley or Calista Flockhart.

In Flockhart's case, since she adopted her son, you could say it's great that an unwanted child will now be loved.

But wait a second: 100,000 American couples are waiting to adopt. They'd offer love, too — love from a mother and a father. Yet many never get a child, while stars continue to adopt.

The stars aren't breaking any laws — they just have more money to give to adoption lawyers, and sometimes the stars' fame leads birth mothers to offer them their babies.

The character Flockhart plays on TV, Ally McBeal, often fantasizes about a dancing baby.

"I want a partner, I want sex, I want a house with furniture, I want to have a baby, I want to have all of it," said Ally McBeal.

I hope she gets it. But what will her real-life son get? Flockhart once collapsed during filming, and was then hospitalized for exhaustion. Her spokeswoman blamed workaholism, saying she puts in 17-hour workdays. This is a role model for parenthood?

Flockhart says being a parent, no matter how you do it, is wonderful. Excuse me: It matters how you do it. And doing it without a father is not the best way.

Yet Hollywood keeps gushing. When actress Dyan Cannon heard about Flockhart and her new child, she told Access Hollywood, "She needs something to love when she gets home and on her days off. "

She needs something to love? Get a dog. Give me a break.

[pocat]

John Stossel rocks.

[bandleader]

John Stossel DOES ROCK!!!The only thing that surprises me is that he hasn't been fired by those Disney LIBS!!!!!

[nmh]

Well, Elizabeth Hurley is a spurned woman and Rosie O'Donnell is a lesbian. I suspect that may apply to others there or they wouldn't go out of their way to keep men out of their life or imply that they are only good for sperm donation.

Mind you, study after study dictates that kids need fathers too. It doesn't matter to these selfish imbeciles though. They celebrate being a single mother because they hate men. Why else? The only difference is how they got into this hideous state on mind that they enjoy being it.

[rellimpank]

--yeah. The Hollywood idiots don't point out that the average unwed mother is in a low paying, dead end job, can't pay the bills, has little or no social life, the child has a far greater expectancy of ending up in prison, etc., etc.,---

[Ben Chad]

Not all kids need their dads, especially these.

[Dakota gal in Seattle]

How very sad these girls are.

To be single and adopt, while their children are raised on set, with nannies and tutors.

Have they not seen "Mommy Dearest"?

Let's continue to celebrate these girl's lives by watching their TV shows...which will pay them to employ the nannies, tutors, and handlers.

[velvetrance]

Celebrating single moms sends a bad message to the little girls who imitate stars.

ok ok...i love how people rely on hollywood to raise their children. and now they are insulting single mothers who work themselves to death supporting their children. i don't think the matter here is the idea of a single mother, i think it's how much the parent is putting forth in making sure their children is loved and respected growing up. sometimes there can be two really crappy parents and sometimes one great heroic one.

[Inspectorette]

The Hollywood idiots don't point out that the average unwed mother is in a low paying, dead end job, can't pay the bills, has little or no social life, the child has a far greater expectancy of ending up in prison, etc., etc.,---

Yes, but the silly young girls don't realize this. They only see the "glamourous" part of it. They find out AFTER they have their babies, but then it's too late. A few of them do end up making something of their lives, and these are to be commended, but a lot of them end up on the dole, or dumping their responsibilities on their parents.

[Inspectorette]

now they are insulting single mothers who work themselves to death supporting their children. i don't think the matter here is the idea of a single mother

I don't think the intention was to insult mothers who BECOME single through widowhood or divorce, or even the ones who accidentally become pregnant and choose to keep their babies rather than abort them. I think it's more to point out the women who make a conscious choice to become a single mother, either through adoption or artificial insemination, etc. These women don't WANT a father for their children - hence, the reference to a male as "just a sperm donor".

[pocat]

Trying to start a fight, arent you?

My "escape hatch":

Now I know many single moms do a fine job raising kids. But it's not easy. Parenting is an all-consuming job for two people. And fathers, if not trendy, are useful.

I'm sure all single mothers would agree, unless they're a bubble-headed Hollyweird idiot.

[altura]

Yeah, but did you ever notice that none of the babies we are forced to watch being born on tv (If I have to see another woman moaning and gasping ....) ... anyway, the babies never show up again to interfere in their lives in any way or do all the time-consuming things that real babies do.

Those people live in a dream world, guess they think they are having dream babies.

If you want something to cuddle when you get home, get a dog.

[Atlas Sneezed]

The biggest story emphasized in Goldberg's "Bias" is the cover-up by the news media of the ill effects of working mothers. Most reporters are either such, or would be demonized for pointing out how many of their colleagues are putting their carreers ahead of their children's interests.

This closely parallels the Hollywood glorification of single Moms.

[RecallJeffords]

Exactly. THe major media view fathers as superfluous; because they view most men as nothing more than potential rapists or beaters, it naturally follows that the same people would believe the ideal home is one only of a mother. The funny part of TV single moms is that as soon as the kid is born you rarely see them again-- as if once the birth occurs, a parent simply returns to their life as if nothign happened.

[gcruse]

I realize that there are circumstances that cause women
to become single mothers against there will, but no one is talking about
them. There are women who CHOOSE single motherhood
and they are doing a disservice to their children.

The results are the same in either case.

[gcruse]

Yes, but there is no need to
stir their ire, is there? What is done is done.

Whose ire?  Those who choose single
parenting or those who have it thrust
upon them?   Categorizing
chosen and forced along racial lines
might give us an idea of what problems
are being caused, how, and what the
solutions might be.

[gcruse]

I understand. When the outcome of single parenting is the same whether chosen or not, to cast for blame among only one type seems churlish.

[Dianna]

i don't think the matter here is the idea of a single mother, i think it's how much the parent is putting forth in making sure their children is loved and respected growing up.

Sorry, Mom will never be Dad, no matter how much she loves or respects her child. There is a REASON why it takes two different sexes to produce children.

And it isn't only an example of what men do or what women do which is provided. Children learn about themselves by interacting with their parents. A mother's reaction to flirtatious behavior in a young girl is going to be very different from a father's reaction. Men tend to be better at reining in young male behavior. And the interplay between the mother and father is tremendously important. Children learn how to communicate, they learn compromise.

My aunt lost her husband in an accident when her older daughter was about 4, and her younger daughter was a few months from birth. They lived just around the corner from us and so had male figure in the form of my dad. Neither of these women can sustain ANY type of long term relationship with a man. Their expectations are insane! The older daughter was married for a time (the only man she has ever dated) and nearly pecked her poor husband to death! She wanted to make every decision just like she saw her mama do. The poor guy was not allowed to have an opinion. He got a little tipsy at the wedding reception, and she insisted that he humiliated her and demanded he apologize to us all. We WERE embarassed...for him.