Tia Mowry has a query for the web: “Why do I get backlash for calling myself a single mother?”
Just lately, the actress obtained criticism from social media customers for describing herself as a single mom. Mowry is the mom of her son, Cree, 14, and daughter, Cairo, 7, whom she shares along with her ex-husband, Cory Hardrict. Nonetheless, for the reason that couple’s divorce in 2022, the “Sister, Sister” star has needed to regulate to a brand new household dynamic.
“Household can look totally different than what we imagined and nonetheless be full of affection, stability, and pleasure,” she wrote in an Instagram submit. “That is my fact, and I wish to share it. Being a ‘single mother’ doesn’t all the time imply a mother doing it on their lonesome with out the daddy current of their youngsters’ lives in any respect. I acknowledge that archetype is extraordinarily tough, and I actually empathize.”
“For me, in my family, I’m SINGLE. I don’t have a companion, so I’m holding it down for everybody at house. I’m the one mum or dad current each day,” she continued.
The mom of two went on to focus on the significance of a wholesome co-parenting relationship for the sake of the youngsters. Regardless of her and Hardrict’s divorce, Mowry says she and her ex-husband actively work to guard their youngsters from feeling the divide by conserving traditions alive and celebrating holidays and birthdays collectively.
“It’s not even about being a ‘single mother.’ It’s about recognizing we have to normalize totally different household dynamics,” Mowry defined. “Simply because dad and mom aren’t collectively doesn’t imply the household is ‘damaged.’ It simply appears to be like totally different. Dad and mom should put aside their feelings and emotions for one another. They should be there for his or her youngsters. It doesn’t matter what.”
Regardless of Mowry emphasizing that she has no romantic companions and is “the one mum or dad current each day” social media customers are calling out the everyday connotation of the time period “single mother,” particularly in Black communities.
“Single mother has usually meant a girl elevating youngsters and not using a companion,” one person commented below her submit.
One other added: “Single mother and a mother who’s single is totally different.”
“Technically, she’s proper. She’s actually a mother who’s single. The issue is folks are likely to create their very own definitions and everybody else runs with it,” an Instagram person wrote.
In the end, Mowry says she created the submit to focus on the “many nuances” of household dynamics.
“Let’s make clear these totally different household tales. Don’t really feel responsible or pressured by what society says a household needs to be,” she wrote. “Blissful, wholesome households are available in many kinds. Totally different doesn’t imply damaged. We’re household, regardless.”
