‘Single Mothers by Choice’ Behaving Badly (Part I)

A few weeks ago I debated the issue of “Single Motherhood by Choice” on the BBC. The producer emailed the guests the 2006 London Times article Focus: Going solo (6/4/06), and among those I was debating was Viki Matten, who is discussed in the piece as an early pioneer in the “Single Motherhood by Choice” movement. The article unintentionally reads like a laundry list of bad behavior by “single mothers by choice.” A couple examples: 1) “[Former Spice Girl] Geri Halliwell (pictured) last month gave birth to a daughter, Bluebell Madonna, conceived during a six-week fling with the screenwriter Sacha Gervasi.
Early on in the pregnancy Halliwell fell out with Gervasi — apparently when he questioned whether the hasty conception had been an accident. The hapless 40-year-old was then reportedly reduced to hanging around London”s exclusive Portland hospital hoping to catch a glimpse of his baby, having found himself superfluous to Halliwell”s requirements.” 2) “Some women, of course, don”t want to stop at one child. Clare, a 35-year-old criminal law paralegal from Berkshire, has done a ‘double Geri’, resulting in Charlie and Mia. She got pregnant by her then lover in 2003. Shortly after the baby was born, the relationship fell apart. She then plotted with her best friend to set up her unsuspecting ex a second time. “I seduced him in a pub car park when I knew I was at my most fertile,’ she says. ‘I put on a little floral dress and a bit of makeup. I had a lucky shot, and that was it.'”