“Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that’s the story that we’re not seeing.”
This was Mike Huckabee’s response to seeing a very pregnant and unmarried Natalie Portman winning the Academy Award for best actress. Portman thanked her fiancé, composer Benjamin Millepied, for giving her a ‘most wonderful gift’. Huckabee took exception to this as well. Saying, “He didn’t give her the most wonderful gift, which would have been a wedding ring.”
Well first of all, shame on you Mr. Huckabee for picking on a pregnant woman. I understand that politics is a cutthroat business but you don’t attack a mother to be. Even the mafia has rules about moms.
Second, saying that all single moms are ‘very poor, uneducated’ and ‘can’t get a job’ is the sort of blanket stereotype that Senator Joseph McCarthy would make while searching for Reds in the 50’s. By assigning all those characteristics to single mothers you assume that rich men don’t leave their kids or get divorced. You also imply that an education would have acted as some form of birth control, and that simply having a child is a prohibitive factor in getting a job. Was this meant to help us all identify the single mothers out there? Is your 2012 campaign hinging on some McCarthyist platform of purging society of the dreaded plague that is the single mother?
As of November 2009, there were almost 14 million single parents raising over 21 million children in the United States. 84% percent of those, just under 12 million, since, I am assuming that level of math is beyond Mr. Huckabee, are single mothers. That means that there are over 2 million single fathers out there. Are they poor, uneducated, and unable to get jobs as well? Are their kids starving and unable to receive proper health care? Is a single father more equipped to provide for his children than a single mother?
Mr. Huckabee, does the sight of an unmarried pregnant woman receiving some form of accolade enrage you so badly that you can’t think clearly?
I understand. It’s how I feel when people get on the subway before letting the other passengers off.
There are around 14 million unemployed people in the United states today, that’s 8-9% of the population. Since Mr. Huckabee says that no single mother can get a job, he would have people believe that almost the entirety of the unemployed population are single mothers. This stance reinforces his desire to clean the smudge that single mothers put onto the face of America. It seems Mr. Huckabee believes that rounding up all these single mother sycophants will solve the unemployment problems plaguing this country in one fell swoop.
Can Mr. Huckabee answer any of the questions I have asked here today?
I don’t know.
What I do know is that using your place in the public eye to bully a tiny pregnant woman is wrong. And doing it to further some form of radical political agenda is beyond reprehensible.
People who do not love each other are going to have sex. Occasionally that sex is going to lead to pregnancy. Instead of standing there with your finger in the damn, shouting about what kind of message a pregnant woman thanking her fiancé sends, maybe Mr. Huckabee, you should be trying to find ways to make life easier on these women. Developing mandatory, affordable childcare for all companies perhaps, or making healthcare available for all children, regardless of where their father is.
Our society has enough problems without Mike Huckabee embarking on his own personal crusade to ostracize single mothers. Instead of pointing fingers and criticizing people’s lifestyles, we should be coming together to solve the real problems our country is facing.
Remember Mr Huckabee, it takes a whole village, and whether you like it or not, there are some single mothers in our village. Get over it.
After all, the rest of us have gotten over the presence of ignorant, redneck politicians.
—–Corey cjmalo15@gmail.com——
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