[Bella’s intro: Writings on single people focus overwhelmingly on singles in the U.S. and a few other countries. I’m always hungry for more. I am so grateful to the Romanian scholar Adriana Savu for writing this important article about single people in her country – and why so they have so often been ignored.]
One of the longstanding sources of frustration and disappointment among advocacy-oriented unmarried Americans is that political candidates rarely address us or promise to fight for us, the way they so often vow to stand up for married couples and traditional families. In their campaign materials, candidates who are married with children like to boast about that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a candidate brag about not being married or not having kids, or even acknowledge their marital or parental status in their biographies, except perhaps for single mothers.
Who counts as single? There is more than one possible answer. Who counts as family if you are single and have no kids? What should we call adults who have no kids? Here are some discussions.
Speaking to the Republican National Convention last night, Ann Romney exclaimed that she loved women. (Well, not that way.) I don’t think she realizes, though, that not all women are mothers. Either that or she thinks that the only women who count are the mothers.
“It’s the moms who always have to work a little harder, to make everything right,” she said.
“It’s the moms of this nation,” she added, “single, married, widowed – who really hold this country together.”
Mary Edwards says: The women in my family are independent, successful and strong. Every single one of us has a very sarcastic humor and easy going look on life. My sisters and aunts are all married but living a very even partnered marriage. If any of them were to be left by their husbands, I believe they would bounce back into singledom just fine. So naturally, I was shocked when I learned how much my family was concerned about my single status recently. My jaw literally dropped when my aunt told me, ‘You aren’t getting any younger.’
