Sufficiency: Single Parenting and Dorothy Day
Single parenting vastly affects women (divorced, widowed, and military spouses, among others). Single parents are caught between contemporary parenting wars (including welfare reform wars) and the need to be self-sufficient. Single parents suffer from never quite living up to parenting ideals, thereby being utterly un-self-sufficient. Christians, especially, emphasize perfect parenting as a means of discipleship. Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, was a single mother because she decided to baptize her daughter, and become a Christian herself. She discusses the importance of Christian community in parenting, and narrates how, for Christians, family means more than biological ties. Day helps all Christians understand the need to be family for each other and to loosen the stranglehold that sufficiency has on parenting in Christian life.