Uncommon

Have To Look

Banksy

In Real Life

A childhood is made up

of only 940 Saturdays.

-Jezebel

The Grandmother Theory

The Grandmother Hypothesis says

our mothers' mothers are why we live so long.

-The Atlantic

Good Morning Angels

Charlie's Angels Trading Cards
My sister and I had these.

A Wave Of Scorn

Tracing the Link Between Single Moms and Gun Violence -Time

Fill Yourself Up

The Jealous Curator on "The Art of Balance" interviews

busy mother and collage artist Hollie Chastain.

Baby Lapin

Lapin & Me Baby Rabbit Nightlight via Il Mondo di Ingrid

Anything For You

Cauldron Bubble

Princess Past

DesignSponge.com

Babynaming

"Uma Thurman had a baby and named it Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence Thurman-Busson. Here's hoping it never falls in a well."

-Jezebel.com

Three Winters

Anonymous Was A Woman

Irish Politician To Swap Lives With Single Mother For A Week

Like an episode of “Wife Swap” with feminist underpinnings and adorable accents,  an Irish politician plans to swap lives for a week with a single mother of three.

Senator John Gilroy from County Cork in Ireland will live trade lives with Andrea Gagley, an activist with Single Parents Acting For The Rights Of Kids. Gagley works a part-time job and takes a college course while raising her three sons on her own. She issued the challenge to politicians on the Facebook page for Ireland’s Labour Party and Gilroy, a married father of two, took her up on it.  He will live on her salary for a week while working at her part-time job and collecting her Lone Parent Allowance and Child Benefit Allowance (which I assume are Irish versions of welfare).  ”He is in for a very harsh landing. He may work long hours but he has back-up at home to facilitate that, whereas I have to do everything myself,” Gagley said. The Irish Herald reports that several production companies are seeking to make a documentary about Gilroy and Gagley’s “life swap."

On one hand I cheer for social experiments like this because single parents, but especially single mothers, get shat on in society. (Particularly I am referring to American society; I don’t know how Irish society treats its single moms.) People seem to think that stigmatizing single moms will punish them or scare young women from becoming single moms … as if single parenthood is a lifestyle choice every single person who goes into it has planned in advance. And yes, it’s single moms who bear the brunt of the single-parent stigma, not the absentee or abusive dads who are not in the picture.  I’m thinking, for example, RickSantorum’s helpful suggestion that single mothers needed, quote, a swift “kick in the butt.” That’ll show ‘em!

Of course, it’s a certain subset of single moms in particular that get shat on: low-income single moms and single moms of color are seen as problems in society, but being a financially well-off  woman who adopts or has her own kid(s) on her own can be seen as strong and independent, even noble. Instead we should be focusing on creating scenarios that help all women create families when it is financially prudent for them to do so through comprehensive sex education, access to contraception and abortion services.

Jessica Wakeman | The Frisky

Solid Gold

Two women will host the Golden Globe awards
and one of them is a newly single mother.
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler

Trick Or Treat

A Farmer's Friend

2012 Clallam County Farm Tour

Lazy J

Freedom Farm

Dungeness Valley Creamery

Kick It Up

I tried to snap a photo of Imogen swinging at the Dream Playground.

She accidentally kicked my phone and sent it flying.

This is the result.

A Stir Is In The Air

A Second Wind

Aboard the MV Coho

Soft Place To Land

After a long day on foot

we ran into one fuzzy sentinel

after another.

A New Course

September 1

Philosophy and Heroism

Ethel Kennedy was a single mother. . .

of 11.

Ethel Kennedy with 10 of her children.
She was widowed at the age of 40 while pregnant.

Most Valuable Resource

Washington State Demographics of Young, Low-Income Children
-41% of children live in low-income families.
-45% of these children have at least one parent who works full-time.
-57% of young children in rural areas live in low-income families.
-38% of young children in urban areas live in low-income families.
-31% of children in low-income families moved last year.
-29% of low-income children live in owner-occupied housing.

Source: National Center for Children in Poverty

Singled Out

10 Things No One Ever Tells You About the Children of Single Parents