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| Hooray for single mothers – and Gillian Wearing’s celebration of them | Hooray for single mothers – and Gillian Wearing’s celebration of them |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| On Wednesday, the Turner Prize-winning artist Gillian Wearing invited Birmingham’s citizens to celebrate A Real Birmingham Family. The bronze sculpture, situated outside the city’s library, honours what curator Stuart Tulloch calls the “everyday and unsung”. The image of the prosaic-sounding Joneses doesn’t take us nostalgically back to the 1950s. Thankfully, it isn’t a white picket fence rendition of family as singularly nuclear. Instead, we are yanked forward into the 21st century. Wearing presents a family that is, shock horror, two single mothers, one heavily pregnant, proudly striding forward, holding on to their sons. It is an emotive and commanding work of art. But apparently, that’s the rabid feminist in me speaking because for many commenting on the sculpture, it typifies all that is wrong with our society. | On Wednesday, the Turner Prize-winning artist Gillian Wearing invited Birmingham’s citizens to celebrate A Real Birmingham Family. The bronze sculpture, situated outside the city’s library, honours what curator Stuart Tulloch calls the “everyday and unsung”. The image of the prosaic-sounding Joneses doesn’t take us nostalgically back to the 1950s. Thankfully, it isn’t a white picket fence rendition of family as singularly nuclear. Instead, we are yanked forward into the 21st century. Wearing presents a family that is, shock horror, two single mothers, one heavily pregnant, proudly striding forward, holding on to their sons. It is an emotive and commanding work of art. But apparently, that’s the rabid feminist in me speaking because for many commenting on the sculpture, it typifies all that is wrong with our society. |
| While Wearing herself stated that she “really liked how Roma and Emma Jones spoke of their closeness as sisters and how they supported each other”, that they seemed to have a “very strong bond, of friendship and family”, others took it as an irresponsible validation of female promiscuity and benefit Britain. Apparently, that is really all single mothers represent now: a fecklessness, spawning, moral and social disorder. Never mind that parenting when there are two of you is difficult enough. | |
| The discourse around single parents, 90% of whom are women, is that they have shamelessly chosen their predicament. It seems that people don’t break up because their relationships are no longer working or one partner is harming the other. No. Women, usually teenagers, the story goes, pick lone parenting and all the hardships it entails because they’re guaranteed £72.40 a week and a council flat. | The discourse around single parents, 90% of whom are women, is that they have shamelessly chosen their predicament. It seems that people don’t break up because their relationships are no longer working or one partner is harming the other. No. Women, usually teenagers, the story goes, pick lone parenting and all the hardships it entails because they’re guaranteed £72.40 a week and a council flat. |
| The facts are that only 2% of single mums are teenagers, over half having been married but now divorced, separated or widowed. In total a quarter of our families are single-parent households, a figure that has tripled since the 1970s. (Hooray that societal norms aren’t forcing couples to remain locked in loveless unions.) This significant detail explains much of the anger directed towards single mothers. They embody the sexual revolution and a female sexuality no longer under male control. Single mothers are carted out as the arch destroyers of the family, when we are actually talking about the traditional family. And society makes them pay; 60% will live in poverty despite the fact that nearly the same amount are working. It doesn’t much matter. They, along with immigrants, are the reasons why it’s all gone to pot – both are draining the system. | The facts are that only 2% of single mums are teenagers, over half having been married but now divorced, separated or widowed. In total a quarter of our families are single-parent households, a figure that has tripled since the 1970s. (Hooray that societal norms aren’t forcing couples to remain locked in loveless unions.) This significant detail explains much of the anger directed towards single mothers. They embody the sexual revolution and a female sexuality no longer under male control. Single mothers are carted out as the arch destroyers of the family, when we are actually talking about the traditional family. And society makes them pay; 60% will live in poverty despite the fact that nearly the same amount are working. It doesn’t much matter. They, along with immigrants, are the reasons why it’s all gone to pot – both are draining the system. |
| Those who choose to view Wearing’s sculpture as championing the erasure of fathers and broken Britain miss the point. We now have gay marriage, single people can adopt, 30% of primary school pupils are from ethnic minorities and one in 10 of us are in interracial relationships. For many of us, the nuclear family, with all its race, sexuality and class implications isn’t something we can identify with. | Those who choose to view Wearing’s sculpture as championing the erasure of fathers and broken Britain miss the point. We now have gay marriage, single people can adopt, 30% of primary school pupils are from ethnic minorities and one in 10 of us are in interracial relationships. For many of us, the nuclear family, with all its race, sexuality and class implications isn’t something we can identify with. |
| Those for whom family isn’t mum and dad, but just mum or dad, nan and granddad, brother or sister, two mums or two dads, parents from differing ethnicities … can now see a little of themselves reflected back in Wearing’s celebratory sculpture. The picture of an ordinary family doesn’t have to be another jarring moment proclaiming an apparent deviancy. | Those for whom family isn’t mum and dad, but just mum or dad, nan and granddad, brother or sister, two mums or two dads, parents from differing ethnicities … can now see a little of themselves reflected back in Wearing’s celebratory sculpture. The picture of an ordinary family doesn’t have to be another jarring moment proclaiming an apparent deviancy. |
| The artist bravely offers us a more inclusive idea of who and what constitutes kin. In 2014, our image of family is no longer set in stone, and about time too. I for one am grateful. | The artist bravely offers us a more inclusive idea of who and what constitutes kin. In 2014, our image of family is no longer set in stone, and about time too. I for one am grateful. |