As Christy Everson was nearing age 40, she made a decision: She wanted to have a child, even though she was single and it meant doing it all alone.
Her daughter, conceived via a sperm donor, is now 21/2 years old, and Everson hopes to have a second child.
“Was it worthwhile? Well, I’m thinking of doing it again, aren’t I?” she said.
Everson and women like her are part of a shift in American society. An Associated Press-WE TV poll of people under 50 found that more than two in five unmarried women without children — or 42 per cent — would consider having a child on their own without a partner, including more than a third, or 37 per cent, who would consider adopting solo.
ON THE RISE
The poll, which addressed a broad range of issues on America’s changing family structures, dovetails with a recent report by the U.S. Census Bureau that single motherhood is on the rise: It found that of 4.1 million women who’d given birth in 2011, 36 per cent were unmarried at the time of the survey, an increase from 31 per cent in 2005. And among mothers aged 20 to 24, the percentage was 62 per cent, or six in 10 mothers.
The AP-WE poll also found that few Americans think the growing variety of family arrangements is bad for society.
QUALMS ABUNDANT
However, many have some qualms about single mothers, with nearly two-thirds — 64 per cent — saying single women having children without a partner is a bad thing for society. More men — 68 per cent — felt that way, compared to 59 per cent of women.
The survey found broad gender gaps in opinion on many issues related to how and when to have children.
One example: At a time when the can-you-have-it-all debate rages for working mothers, women were more apt than men to say having children has negatively impacted their career.
And this was true especially among mothers who waited until age 30 or older to have children. Fully 47 per cent of those mothers said having a child had a negative impact on their careers.
Of women overall, 32 per cent of mothers reported a negative effect, compared with 10 per cent of men.
‘HARD TO BE A ROCK STAR’
For Everson, who lives in a suburb of Minneapolis and now is 44, being the only parent means daily responsibilities that naturally suck up some of the time she used to spend on her career as a financial consultant.
“To be honest about it, it’s hard to be a rock star” when parenting a baby, she said.
But she sees it as more of a temporary career setback, and feels she’s already getting back on track with her toddler now over age 2. Soon, she says, “I’ll be getting back on my A-game.”
For Joyce Chen, a hospital occupational therapist in San Francisco, it’s a question of what kind of career she wants to have.
Chen, 41 and also a single mother, is happy to have work that she not only enjoys, but that she can balance easily with caring for her 10-year-old daughter.
SHE FEELS BLESSED
“I’ve been blessed,” she said. “I have a decent income. I don’t feel like I need to climb the ladder. I enjoy what I do, but I can leave it at the end of the day and not think about it.”
Chen also credits a strong community of friends from church for helping make her family work.
“That community has helped me raise my daughter,” she said. She hopes to get married one day if the right situation comes along.
But Chen feels that a single mom can do just as good a job of raising a child as two parents can.
Overall, the poll found decidedly mixed results on that question: Thirty per cent of respondents said yes, 27 per cent said no, and 43 per cent said “it depends.”