Oh please, personal status over qualifications is used every day in determining who gets a job and who doesnt – thin over fat, ethnic over white, liberal over conservative. Doesn’t make it right but SPs are not the only ones losing out unfairly.

That said, good luck in the job hunt. Might want to consider looking into a career change into an industry that’s actually hiring.

“there’s a special place in hell for women who treat other women badly for the path they have chosen to follow.”

So by Liberal Miz Albright’s applause-worthy statement, it’s good to know where her and her ilk will end up after the way they continue to trash Carrie Prejean’s and Sarah Palin’s own beliefs and life choices.

I have two older sons who no longer live with me and I spent a good bit of the day missing them like crazy. (not because I had to do my own lawn work!)

Work can be a challenge. When my daughter is sick, I leave. I used to feel guilty but then I realized one day when my son’s moved away that in the end when I die my co-workers wont miss me like my daughter will. I recently received an award at work, listed in my accomplishments is the fact that I take my leave to go read to my daughters pre-k class on a regular basis. Put your child first and the rest falls into place.

That being said, I’ve known many single mothers who became that way through loose morals rather than through disaster, and by and large they have NOT taken your route to independence. Instead, they have asserted their dependence on others, which is typically what got them into their situation in the first place. For every single mom like you who seeks to make the best of what she already has, there are two more who feel they’re entitled to some kind of support, government or otherwise. Hence the prejudices of many of these commenters. Sad to say, these prejudices are based in fact.

I would hope that your future employers would consider your skills and initiative, but I can also see why they might use single motherhood status as a proxy for lack of initiative. Sad to say, it’s a safer bet than using a college degree as a proxy for problem solving ability.

The assumption that a single mother will be automatically less able to have adequate child-care coverage is offensive and discriminatory.

The simple truth is that there are hosts of reasons/contributing factors which can serve as distractions from one’s professional life, not just one’s status as a parent and/or spouse. External dependencies can take many forms: elderly/ailing parents; ailing spouse/sibling; etc.

This woman is not asking to keep a job that she has been unable to perform: rather, she is asking that personal status not be the exclusive factor in determining a working mother’s qualifications.

Further, citing data garnered in actual research Stephanie has pointed out that roughly a quarter of children in the US are being raised in single-parent households. This is a fait de compli. Complaining that it isn’t fair/moral/right won’t change the facts. Giving employment to the qualified and motivated people in this demographic, however, will help ensure that far fewer people will be forced to turn to social services and government aid to get by.

We are tired of leeches. (Someone 75) That does not make every one of us unsympathetic and judgmental. Maybe it just makes us tired of leeches.

Since Stephanie chose not to frame her dilemma with personal information, she left herself open for the responses. The reason I chose to include some personal info, frankly, was to innoculate my response against the kneejerk response of “well, how do you know? You haven’t been there.”

Oh, well.

I still say any of the dilemmas described by Stephanie are common to the working world (man or woman) and always have been. I don’t admire or respect anyone who feels compelled to give themselves group victim identity which then is supposed to qualify them for everyone’s sympathy and suspension of judgment.

Maybe you can just get in on one of obama’s rallies, stand up and tell your story and he will have someone in the audience prepared to bail you out.

BTW, anytime I see someone throwing around words like “catty” and “sisterhood”, that tells me more about them than it does the people they’re throwing the words at. “Catty” has always been a word used by women against other women to keep the second group of women from saying what they’re thinking. Sorry. It’s never worked with me.