Even the words “child support” seem dark, almost as bad as “baby mama”. The words imply ugly court battles, and tend to lead to even darker words like “dead beat” and “gold digger”. 

But if you think about it, it doesn’t have to be that way.

My cousin had a beautiful son with a woman 7 years ago. To be honest, I’m not totally sure what the relationship between my cousin and this woman was—friendly for sure, but I’m not sure what their commitment level was. Anyway, when his son was born he offered to give her $800 a month. He even gave her his car while he was serving in Iraq for a year. “She is taking care of our son everyday. I’m going to give her whatever I can afford,” he told me. I was shocked.

Why was this so shocking? Because of my own experience, and friends’ experiences, I believed child support had to be court ordered, and frankly, it was a fight between “My child needs/deserves this money in order to have a comfortable life” and “This chick is trying to rob me.”

Unfortunately, for many of us, that’s exactly what it is.

It all boils down to two things:

1) Fathers (or noncustodial mothers) need to understand the costs involved in raising a child, and respect the commitment and sacrifices mothers are making to raise their children. This understanding should lead to a looser grip on the wallet.

2) Mothers (or custodial fathers) need to stop abusing child support. Now, I don’t mean a mother should spend every penny on their child. Part of the cost of raising a child is maintaining yourself/your household (i.e. you need a printer to print your resume for a job). That being said, there are a good number of mothers who use child support for unnecessary purchases that aren’t for their kids. Those women are giving a lot of us a bad name.

While I don’t see these issues ever actually changing, I do wish people would consider the whole circumstance before making “dead beat” and “gold digger” judgements.

When my daughter was an infant, when she would spend most of the day sleeping in my arms or lazily sucking her fist, I thought about all the things I needed to keep away from her. Besides the obvious boys and drugs, as a self-proclaimed ‘real feminist’ I vowed to keep her away from the Disney Princesses, Hanna Montana, and of course, Barbie. 

Now, my daughter is 6. She’s picky about what she wears and worries about her friends’ opinions. She watches Hanna Montana (I’m not sure what my problem was with her anyway), has a Disney Princess scooter and tea set (although I still have issues with those chicks), and she has a bunch of Barbies (I’ve since learned to love this one, oddly enough).

Basically, I realized that I can either put a lot of energy into censoring or explain things to her as they come (and they will, no matter what). She gets gifts from a ton of people, and no matter how much I ask people not to buy her something, they still do. I’ve decided not to buy certain things myself, which I believe my daughter will notice, and I’ve explained to her that the Disney Princesses are not real and their stories are almost the complete opposite of real life.

I believe that this method is working. The other day, as they were showing coverage of the Royal Wedding, my mother turned to my daughter excitedly and said,”Look! Look at the princess and the prince.” To which my daughter replied, “I don’t care. That’s not real life.”

It was this article that made me think of all this. It’s mainly about Barbies, but there’s a bigger issue here. For the record, my explanation of Barbies to my daughter is that they’re also not real, and they’re actually so unreal that they’re funny looking. Then I asked her to name one woman that actually looks like a Barbie. She was stumped. “But these ladies are still beautiful?” I asked. “Yes,” she answered. But she still enjoys playing with Barbies.

I’d like to know what people think about this, though. Is it better to censor things you think may disagree with how you are raising your child?

(via teenmomtodean-deactivated201105)

The problem with baby mamas is that they accept the label, and in turn mess things up for single mothers who have respect for themselves.

I think this is one of those labels like bitch or the n-word that’s only acceptable when it’s coming from someone very close to you and only when it’s clearly being used in a joking manner. But it seems like people use this label freely as if a single mother couldn’t possibly be offended by it.

This is an ongoing discussion but I really feel like this article did a great job of summing up my feelings on the issue.

A rep for January Jones announced to People that she is pregnant, but will not announce who the father of the baby is. And then the mags/blogs/news sites report that a source close to January says, “She’s really looking forward to this new chapter in her life as a single mom.” 
At first this kind of warmed my heart. Either she decided she wanted to have a child on her own or this is what she was dealt, but either way she’s embracing it. But as I read post after post I thought, who exactly is this source? If January were really embracing her single motherhood wouldn’t her rep have made that statement instead of some secret insider?
  What if she’s scared and disappointed about her situation? Her rep would never disclose that. Although maybe that would be nice because I’m sure there are a million single mothers that can relate.
And then I kept thinking…. What if she isn’t going to be a single mother at all? What if people are just making stuff up because they don’t have all the facts? Maybe she feels it’s none of anyone’s business who the father is.
Either way, I hope she’s truly happy.