Pallavi Gogoi

I think increasingly the picture of families in America is completely shifting and it really is time to hit reset on the narrative of single motherhood because it is shifting in a way that is pretty dramatic.

It's not the old narrative anymore.

Women over 30 are better educated.

I know that they have more full-time jobs.

They have more agency.

And that basically puts them in a completely different starting point compared to single mothers of the past.

40% of babies that are born in America is to unmarried women.

What it says is that 4 in 10 women around you might be single mothers.

Some of the unmarried women might not be single mothers, but a lot of them are.

I think especially when it comes to black single mothers, that is the stereotype that I think a lot of the black single moms that I have talked to, they bring it up themselves.

They talk about the stigma.

They all push back.

It is so interesting.

I talked to a single mom in her mid-30s in Philadelphia, Danielle Townsend.

She talks about how difficult it was, her first few sort of years of having her child.

She felt like she was in survival mode.

You know, her realization that she is going to now have to take care of her child by herself, she just brings herself together.

She goes and gets a master's degree.

She, you know, pursues a career that she really wants, which is librarianship.

She pushes back against that narrative of, like, you know, that you have to have a father at home for your child to turn out okay.