Fathers & Families Board Member Robert Franklin, Esq. recently participated in a public forum on “choice motherhood” by the website PublicSquare.net.
The format is “point/counterpoint” in which one person writes on one side of a particular topic and another person takes the other side. Then the first person answers the second, and the second responds again for a total of four articles.
The person taking the position in favor of “choice motherhood” was Mikki Morrissette, author of Choosing Single Motherhood: The Thinking Woman”s Guide. Morrissette also runs a website for women who have decided to have, or are considering having a child without a father.
Franklin opposed her point of view that that’s “just another lifestyle choice.” The four-part debate has been published by PublicSquare.net–feel free to visit the site and comment by clicking here.
Concerning the debate, Franklin writes:
Morrissette is doubtless a nice person and probably well-meaning. But certain things are apparent from the exchange. The first is that she’s never really dealt with anyone who’s opposed to her sunny view of mothers who decide to have children without fathers. She’s clearly used to communicating with those who already agree with her, but not with those who point out the uncomfortable facts about “choice motherhood.”
Second, her grasp of the social science regarding family structure and child wellbeing is poor. Her few citations to actual studies of the matter ran the gamut from irrelevant to actually contradictory to her claims.
Third, despite being an advocate for single motherhood, she shows little knowledge of how that comes about, i.e. the various methods by which a woman contrives to bear a child and at the same time keep the father out of its life. Some of those methods, like adoption or using the services of a sperm bank, can be perfectly above board. Others, like paternity fraud, aren’t. For someone with her focus on single motherhood, she seems naive about the darker side of that phenomenon.
To learn more, click here.