Jennifer Aniston recently went up against Bill O’Reilly after he made some comments on his show about how her movie The Switch glamorized single motherhood and now their debate is being brought up with just about anyone who might have a comment on the subject. Mary Louise Parker did an interview with Vanity Fair to promote the current season of Weeds, but somehow the interview wound up on the topic of the Aniston/O’Relly debate:
Jennifer Aniston got some flack recently from Bill O’Reilly because she said it’s O.K. to be a single mother. O’Reilly went so far as to call her opinions “destructive to society.” I’m pretty sure I know the answer to this already, but as a single mother who plays a single mother on TV, do you disagree?
I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Why is being a single mother destructive?
I’m not sure I follow his argument. Something about the nuclear family and fathers being disrespected.
Give me a break. He sounds like an idiot. Who is he again?
He’s got a show on Fox News.
That’s the right-wing channel? Well, there you go. Maybe he’s right, I don’t know. I don’t think you necessarily have to be part of a traditional nuclear family to be a good mother. A lot of children from traditional nuclear families have really unhappy childhoods, and they have dysfunctional, distant parents who don’t pay attention to them. Also, some people don’t plan on being single parents. It’s not like you’re sitting at home and thinking, “Wow, I’d really like to do this by myself. I’d love to wake up six times a night and change diapers and have nobody to help me. That’d be great!” I certainly didn’t do that.
So you’re not buying O’Reilly’s theory that single mothers are destroying the fabric of society?
I think that opinion is pretty narrow-minded. People like him—and I don’t even know who he is, so this is just a guess—they usually just say shit like that for attention. He probably comes from a nuclear family and didn’t get enough attention as a child.
As someone who grew up in a single parent household and can see the pros and cons of this type of environment, I have to say that I’m appreciative of both MLP and Aniston’s statements. It’s quite obviously not ideal to grow up “missing” a parent, but if a child is nurtured and cared for by their one parent, then that’s really all that matters. Biology doesn’t wait for a sociologically ideal time to kick in, right?
On the flip side, children don’t necessarily need to be raised by their mothers either. Let’s face it; some women have all of the maternal instincts of a block of concrete. Some women may have may desperately wanted kids, but find they can’t parent their way out of a pair of peep-toe stilettos (like Joan Crawford). Children who have been raised exclusively by men turn out to be perfectly well adjusted, happy adults. One man I know, in particular, is raising his son by himself. He and his former wife divorced. She lost custody of the child after his nursery school teacher found imprints of a toy on the kid’s face. The mother was beating and abusing the boy with his own toys. The kid is now in his teens and is a great student and really wonderful person. Dad done good, solo.
In another instance, a very tightly wrapped female acquaintance of mine is trying rather unsuccessfully to raise two teenagers. The girl can’t stand her mother and has moved in with her dad. Her son deals with the dysfunction in his household by retiring to his room and refusing to emerge except to go to school or raid the refrigerator. The mom’s way of dealing with any situation, no matter how large or small is to go batshit and orbit the planet. It’s quite the thing to behold. The girl used to amuse herself by “pressing mom’s buttons” but has tired of the game. The daughter has become one master manipulator, and can’t keep friends.
Women, by and large usually have custody of their kids – and it is not always a good thing. A person’s gender I have come to learn, does not a good, successful parent make.
WONDERFUL interview. Really excellent. And I came from a nuclear family, and my childhood was miserable — in my case, because my father was horrible. Now, when my mother apologizes for having married him, I joke with her, saying “I can always have another childhood,” because there’s no sense in her feeling bad about it at this point. But, in reality, a miserable childhood can never be undone, and you have to relive it for your entire life. It can happen in a single-parent household or a picture-perfect two-parent household, and O’Reilly is full of nonsense — and exactly as Mary Louise Parker describes.
I believe you have come up with “a basic truth.” The nuclear family is only a benefit if it serves to act as a model for conducting successful relationships (husband to wife, parent to child, sibling to sibling, person to world). If a home is dysfunctional it is of no benefit to the kid whatsoever. All the kid learns is how to be dysfunctional. Some of the kids I knew, growing up, found solace and what they needed in their other friend’s households. Where the parents (or parent) in the home had it together. Some kids had absolutely nobody and ended up raising themselves.
I’m pretty sure Bill O’Reilly’s argument was not against single mothers, per say, but women who decide to have children on their own without a man involved whatsoever besides the donation of sperm. Aniston said “Women are realizing more and more that you don’t have to settle, they don’t have to fiddle with a man to have that child.” She was saying that women don’t need men at all to have children. Obviously, single mothers who end up raising children by themselves are not destructive to society, but women who have this attitude that men are dogs and are only needed to impregnate women is pretty destructive in my eyes. I’m a woman and I would never plan on having a child by myself, the way that Aniston thinks is best. Fathers are crucial in children’s development and I think that should be recognized.
I agree. I think people misheard/misread Bill O’reilly. And I absolutely abhor him. It seemed like Jen’s first comment was male-bashing. And that’s just as bad as women-bashing. Now everyone’s jumping on the “single moms can do just fine” bandwagon, well duh, they can do fine (they can do badly too), but that wasn’t Bill’s first point.
He’s still a bigoted idiot though.