In The Defense Of Single Motherhood By Katie Roiphe

Trying to defend something with a bad reputation is hard to support. Not the defending, but the support. That is what “In the Defense of Single Motherhood” by Katie Roiphe from The New York Times, published in 2011, tries to do. Roiphe’s point was to get people to get rid of the bad reputation of single mothers. Katie Roiphe makes a good claim, however her lack of focus, tone, failure to use of ethos, and her questionable statics makes her claim ineffective.
Focus is key in any sense keeps everything in line. Without it everything falls out of place and becomes confusing, and that is what this article is. In the beginning when Roiphe writes about her son Leo and his relationship with his sister’s father, Harry, and how he calls him “my Harry”
Roiphe’s attitude hinted anger. Whether it was meant to use to persuade it did not come out that way. Roiphe rejects the studies by Sara S. McLanahan, a Princeton sociologist. McLanahan has a study saying children with a single mother have a tendency of having trouble with: mental illness, academics and drugs (Roiphe 59). Roiphe goes on to say there is no physical evidence that McLanahan’s study is true and denies her study. Another study that McLanahan made was single mothers are more financially unstable (Roiphe 59). Roiphe also denies it because of the lack of evidence. Roiphe denied them to help get her statement across that single mothers are not horrible, but she lacked to explain herself. The lack of explanation gives her writing a mean outlook and denying the studies of
Roiphe is a single mother of two (Roiphe 58). This gives her credit that she knows what she is talking about. The bad reputation and the stereotypical single mother that she is classified as. She also wrote that she is financially stable and keeps in touch with both fathers of her children (Roiphe 58). This contradicts the “typical single mother” and makes the rest of the article ineffective. Roiphe consisted herself as a reliable source and as she talks about money and being financially unstable does not apply to her though she tries. If she had included someone who is a single mother and struggling with money it would made her essay more effective, but it sounded similar to a rich kid helping for the poor – not including