http://www.wnyc.org/story/the-once-and-future-liberal-looks-at-shortfalls-of-american-liberalism

The link above leads to a discussion that I heard on National Public Radio and it is a political discussion initially but it involves describing republican and democratic values and the changes that came about in the 1960s and one of the persons talking is author Mark Lilla who briefly mentions that the TV show "Murphy Brown" was the first time that a single mother was ever depicted in a "positive light."

It seems it would mainly take a person who is not yet 30 years of age to think that the only time that a single mother was ever positively depicted on TV was in Murphy Brown (It is a show that I never really watched).

What came to my mind was "Julia" which depicted a single black mother, and though I was very young when that show aired, I know that Julia was not depicted as a prostitute or a drug addict or a neglectful abusive mother to her son. It depicted her as a nurse , an educated woman who has a job which she carries out responsibly and does not take opportunity to steal drugs so as to get high, and at home she properly cares for her son.

Also what about "One Day At A Time"? Ann Romano may have been a bit neurotic at times but she still was not depicted in a negative light for being a single mom.
Furthermore there had been a good number of other positive depictions of single moms. What about the "Doris Say Show"? I know that I saw some episode in which Doris Day had to take her son to the "Father -Son Picnic" because her son did not have a father (or that is what I understood of it back then). Doris Day 's character had to be the quintessentially positively-depicted single mother. Also there was "Mrs Partridge" on "The Partridge Family" Don't forget "Alice."


Or, at the very least, regular single-mother characters on TV shows were not depicted any more negatively than Murphy Brown was. As I said, I never really watched the show but saw some snippets of episodes here and there and it seemed the show depicted the funny adventures of a female TV character just like any other TV show with single-mother characters or women characters for that matter.


Also, what TV show ever really depicted a single mother "negatively"?
Perhaps there have been individual episodes on certain TV shows in which a single mother somehow was in the plot but was not a regular character . I actually cannot think of any except the All In The Family episode in which a former girlfriend of Mike's left her young son at the Bunkers' saying that Mike was the father , and of course later in the episode the woman admits that the child is not really Mike's, but the woman is depicted as a loathsome angry super-neurotic single mother who blames others for her problems .

Furthermore sometime approximately in the late 1990s maybe even the early 2000s I heard it said that a TV Show (It might have been the Oprah Winfrey Show) was originally expected not to succeed because certain TV-industry people were saying that TV viewers were not ready to see a black woman, especially a heavyset black woman, be the star (or at least one of the stars) on a TV show . I best recall it was in reference to a proposed TV show sometime well after the 1970s with a black woman being mainly featured in it.

Well what about Ester Rolle on "Good Times"?
What about Mabel King in "What's Happening"?
What about Isabel Stanford in "The Jeffersons"? (Of course she was slightly chubby).

It seems that sometimes it is just a politically-intended overstatement to say that certain "groups" such as single mothers, or heavyset black women, or Hispanic people , or young men ( etc) have never been depicted in a positive light on TV.

For that matter, haven't single fathers always been depicted in an unrealistically positive light, such as the in "The Courtship Of Eddie's Father"
"Flipper" "Skippy" "The Rifleman" "Bonanza" "Silver Spoons" ?
Well, "Joe And Sons" did not exactly depict a single father in a "negative" light, just not is an absolutely positive light. "Joe" loved his sons but often yelled at them and was not patient with them. Perhaps the same can be said of "Sanford And Son."

Also all but one of these single fathers were white.

Any input?

I think it's a rather complicated subject to discuss here. But I essentially agree with what you said. I was going to mention the series Alice too. Also there was Kate and Allie with two divorced mothers who are also best friends who move into together as roommates to raise their kids and support each other. If I remember Kate and Allie eventually started a business together. I'm sure there are other single mothers who were portrayed positively too I can't think of right now.

The only series I can think of right now that showed a single mother in a negative way is Cheers with the character of Carla, she was a mean and angry woman! And sometimes she was portrayed as not even liking her own children. But then usually it was all played for laughs but there were moments I really didn't like her.

Ed.

The mothers were widows not technically single mothers.

Not many series ever portrayed Christians or church in a positive light. I saw a Mayberry RFD about Andy, Jr.'s Christening a week or so ago and remarked that the episode would never get made today.

The mothers were widows not technically single mothers.

I don't know why it matters what the circumstances are be it divorce or death to me it still makes them a "single" mother.

Ed.

I don't know why it matters what the circumstances are be it divorce or death to me it still makes them a "single" mother.

Ed.
I dislike the term Single mother. Some how seems like a oxymoron term.
As one poster said, the mothers you mentioned were mostly widowed, Julia, Shirley Partridge, Ann Romano, or divorced Vivian Bagley of the Lucy show. In this day and age a woman with a child without marriage is unwed mother. How are you a mother and be single? Isn;t the baby with mother a duo now.

I dislike the term Single mother. Some how seems like a oxymoron term.
As one poster said, the mothers you mentioned were mostly widowed, Julia, Shirley Partridge, Ann Romano, or divorced Vivian Bagley of the Lucy show. In this day and age a woman with a child without marriage is unwed mother. How are you a mother and be single? Isn;t the baby with mother a duo now.A single mother is someone with one or more children who is raising them by herself without the father being around. Likewise a single father is raising the children by himself without the mother being around. It does not become a duo with the child because they are not one of the parents, which is what single parenting refers to. I would say unwed mother is a more offensive term than single mother.

I actually agree, and still the word "single" is meant as "not married." Having any children is besides the point. The word "single" was most originally meant to describe a person who never married and it was automatically supposed to mean that that person never had children or even sex. I am not sure if "single" was also applicable to a person who was widowed or divorced for many years and never re-married. In this context, "single" is an older, mainstream-society concept.
But sometime in the 1970s when the Women's Liberation Movement got underway, there was uproar about describing a woman as "unmarried with children" so the term "Single mother" was thought up because it is meant to describe that she is not married but still a mother, which is supposed to be a good thing to be, someone's birth-giver.
I think it is an oxymoron but it is ironic that there also is truth to the idea that whether a person has children or not, she or her could be "single" as in "never married" or "not married."

But I also think that NOT to use the term "Unwed mother" just because it is "offensive" is also avoiding the facts.

But yes, as far as the topic, most of the "mother" characters on TV are widowed or divorced but not really "single mothers."

I think on the TV drama "Family" Meridith Baxter Birney portrayed a woman with a very young child. The father was occasionally shown on certain episodes but I am not sure if the two parent characters were portrayed as divorced or never married.

I actually agree, and still the word "single" is meant as "not married." Having any children is besides the point. The word "single" was most originally meant to describe a person who never married and it was automatically supposed to mean that that person never had children or even sex. I am not sure if "single" was also applicable to a person who was widowed or divorced for many years and never re-married. In this context, "single" is an older, mainstream-society concept.
But sometime in the 1970s when the Women's Liberation Movement got underway, there was uproar about describing a woman as "unmarried with children" so the term "Single mother" was thought up because it is meant to describe that she is not married but still a mother, which is supposed to be a good thing to be, someone's birth-giver.
I think it is an oxymoron but it is ironic that there also is truth to the idea that whether a person has children or not, she or her could be "single" as in "never married" or "not married."


But I also think that NOT to use the term "Unwed mother" just because it is "offensive" is also avoiding the facts.

But yes, as far as the topic, most of the "mother" characters on TV are widowed or divorced but not really "single mothers."

I think on the TV drama "Family" Meridith Baxter Birney portrayed a woman with a very young child. The father was occasionally shown on certain episodes but I am not sure if the two parent characters were portrayed as divorced or never married.

Well said UM. I really think society is using Single mother for it sounds better than saying unwed mother. Single mother term takes in women who are divorced, widowed, unwed raising a child without strong live in married help from the father.

I think it's a rather complicated subject to discuss here.

Ed.


Well, yes and no.

This is not the first time I was told that the question I am posing is too intense for the particular website or discussion group etc.
I think people should not take it that way.

When I myself post about what may be a controversial or deep-meaning topic, I don't intend for any issue to be resolved for the entire world, or for any thing to be absolutely defined for the legal books etc. I know that for that, I would have to bring the matter up to decision-makers in government , or maybe to certain management teams in big companies and enterprises and organizations, etc etc.

I know that people will have different opinions and those who have opinions that will be as far apart in logic and perspective as they can get.
It is just to discuss the matter and see if anyone else has wondered about the same thing, or perhaps has a different way of looking at it. No one need take it personally and insult someone else who has a different viewpoint or think that it has to be "solved" elsewhere.

We all can learn by discussing things.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/the-once-and-future-liberal-looks-at-shortfalls-of-american-liberalism

The link above leads to a discussion that I heard on National Public Radio and it is a political discussion initially but it involves describing republican and democratic values and the changes that came about in the 1960s and one of the persons talking is author Mark Lilla who briefly mentions that the TV show "Murphy Brown" was the first time that a single mother was ever depicted in a "positive light."

First of all, WNYC (NPR) is an incredibly far left leaning station. They are so strident in their liberalism that they can't possibly imagine that anyone can think differently than they do.

Now on to the issue. I never watched Murphy Brown but with all the hullabaloo regarding the baby issue I am certainly aware of it. What they mean by showing unwed mothers in a positive light is that they consider fathers unnecessary. Women are great and strong and fantastic so why could they possibly need men? The truth is that the breakdown of American society is directly related to the breakdown of the family which is directly related to unwed mothers. Nature is funny. Nature made males and females different for different purposes throughout the animal kingdom. In humans, men and women stay together to raise children together. Men go out and earn a living and women take care of children. It's biology. It's not some evil plot by men to subjugate women. It's women's instinct to be mothers. But some radical feminists aren't happy that this biological instinct lead to men having power so they try to convince the masses that they're somehow being cheated out of their rightful place in society. Then you have this rap/gang culture where poor black women have children by a rotation of different men and stay on welfare. The liberal media will not criticize this so you have them idolizing these rapper thugs, and the rest of American society is brainwashed and begins acting like them. I can't imagine any sane person thinking that these times - where unwed motherhood and absent fathers are better for society than the traditional family. But I don't see much sanity in what liberals think in general.