Katie Roiphe’s piece “In Defense of Single Motherhood” uses personal anecdotes and excerpts from research findings to support her view that single motherhood in and of itself is not a cause of strain in families. As a single mother herself, Roiphe offers a valuable perspective to the politically-charged controversy of single motherhood. Roiphe starts off her article by criticizing the liberal and conservative views of single motherhood, characterizing both as having an antiquated idea of what “family” means. The idea that children raised by single mothers are inherently doomed, Roiphe asserts, is a result of misinterpreting correlation as causation. She herself has two children born to different fathers, and claims that they are both happy
