Single mom versus married mom

So I read the news with a fare amount of regularity and I can't help but pay attention to certain topics more than others. Mothers and stories about them catch my eye, because I'm a mom. And Stories about the military get to me, because I have so many relatives that served or are serving in the military.

So, last Feb there was this story about a woman who was called back to duty and showed up with her two children with her. She had been discharged, married, and had two small kids before being recalled, they can do that for up to six years after discharge. She argued that her husband's job required that he travel for work, that she was a stay at home mom and her husband having to find another job or her children being placed in daycare was unacceptable to the family. She was quietly discharged and that was the end of it.

Last November a single mother did not arrive for deployment because she had no one to watch her child while she was out of the country for a year. She had planned to have the child stay with her mother, but the mother (child's gramma) decided she couldn't handle the baby two days before the deployment. The mother called her post and commanders and was told that if she arrived on base with her child, she would be forced to place the child in foster care and be deployed anyway. She choose (rightfully as far as I am concerned) to not show up, and maintain the safety of her child.

Well, she wasn't quietly discharged and told to go home to her baby, she was placed on confinement on the base. Now she is being formally charged and could face several years in prison.

So, what is the difference between these two mothers? They both were aware that they could be deployed and needed to have plans in place for that possibility. They both were given plenty of warning about the deployment. One had a plan in place that fell through at the last moment. The other one refused to make a plan and showed up with her children. One is a married house wife. The other is a single mother who has no help from the child's father. One is white, the other is African American.

I'm not one who is quick to accuse someone of bigotry. But I see some pretty obvious similaties in the cases, and very glaring differences in how the cases were handled.

So, are single moms discriminated against in today's society? I think so. I think that when a single mom is struggling to balance personal needs, her children's needs, and keeping up a home, and something slips a little, people are very quick to tisk tisk and point out how poorly children on single parents are likely to end up. When a married mom is working and trying to get her kids to activities and schools and events and to spend time with her husband and keep a home clean, we say, wow, she's super woman, look at all she puts up with.

Our society as a whole is stacked against the single mom. We have to get a babysitter just to go to the gym, its hard to feel comfortable in church. Every form we are handed to fill out asks about a spouse that isn't there. Teachers wonder why we show up to conferences with younger siblings in tow. Dates or dating interests look at those kids and most of them walk away. The ones that are left are the ones I wouldn't allow near my offspring. Employers want us to assure them that there will be no more appointments or illnesses or emergencies, when there is no way we can give that.

How can we change things? I don't know. I don't want to tell people that I shouldn't be held to the same standards as others. But I do wish that people who have things easier wouldn't look at single moms with such disdain. I wish that more businesses would offer free child care, I go to a gym that has a sitter, monday to thursday evenings. It would be awesome if there was a hair cut place that had that. It would be nice that a young single mother whose plans fall through would be held to the same legal consequences as the married stay at home mother who just plain refused to rearrange her life when the army came calling.