Never underestimate the power of race or sexism to flip a story. Now that it has emerged that the mother of the octuplets is unwed (and has six other kids), there isn’t much gushing. The headline in my local paper reads, “Winning Sympathy the Hardest Task.” In the article, a call-out headed “Cost of 14 Kids” reads “for a single mother, the cost of raising 14 children through age 17 ranges from $1.3 million to $2.7.”
Excuse me?
Last I checked, children cost the same to raise whether by a single mom, a single dad, two moms, two dads, or a mother and a father. Suggesting children cost more if raised by single mothers vilifies single mothers, implying they’re parasites on society. The birth of the octuplets already burdens society, in the form of the millions of dollars their birth cost our medical system, but that would be true even if Ozzie and Harriet were their parents.
This woman is surely crazy, but then so are the McCaugheys and the Gosselins (of the TLC reality show). It’s just that certain forms of insanity—such as having sextuplets in God’s name or putting your children on a reality show—are socially acceptable and others aren’t.
Lynn Paltrow of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (so glad to learn about them!), put it best (courtesy Salon’s Broadsheet):
"When the pregnant woman is not brown or black and the drugs/technologies are provided by big pharma, the discussion focuses on questions of ethics. But if the issue is childbearing by low-income women of color, and the drug is homegrown/ illegal then the debate is a question of punishment through the criminal justice or civil child welfare system." Paltrow also cited a study showing that, while we often talk about the effects illegal drugs can have on pregnancy, "women who take fertility drugs and choose to carry three or more embryos to term often experience pregnancy loss and risk severe, lifelong harm to the children who survive."
No comments:
Post a Comment