Single motherhood: the handicap no one wants to acknowledge

Single motherhood: the handicap nobody wants to see

How much does motherhood penalize women in the dating market? There is no official figure, but the question is a blunt one: some argue that divorced women with children carry a burden they refuse to acknowledge themselves, while others reply that the problem is not the burden, but who is willing to carry it.

The non-amortizable liability

The argument goes that competition for a stable partner plays out at ages where not having children from a previous relationship commands a premium. In that framework, a young single mother starts off with a liability that is hard to write off. And self-perception bias, they say, prevents her from seeing it: denial would be the tool to avoid facing a devaluation that the market does register.

Exceptions that don't make the rule

At the other end, there are documented cases that debunk the catastrophism. Men twelve years younger are cited who take on someone else's children, not always out of desperation, though sometimes it is. The egalitarian proposal, meanwhile, points to seeking a partner in the same age bracket with similar burdens: a technical draw that avoids one-sided devaluation.

And there is the final irony: men who accept another woman's children end up described as textbook simp-doormats, while single mothers come across as strategists who multiply their perceived value. No one has ever quantified the famous handicap. Perhaps because in this market, no one wants to see the real price.