Single motherhood: between happiness and stigma

41-year-old Mari (name changed) says that she always considered herself a happy person, but only now, after the birth of her son, she understands what happiness really is. Mari was 37 years old when she met the future father of her son. During that time, she managed to buy a house for herself and separate from her parents. The relationship developed quickly, the man claimed that he was serious. He also told about the plans for a joint life with Mari during the meeting with her parents. It seemed that everything was aimed at marriage.

“He was 5 years older than me. I knew that he was divorced, he had student children. Although we were planning a life together, I decided after a very short time that no matter what, I was going to have a child. After that decision, it didn’t matter to me whether we would get married or not. Of course, I would very much like my child to grow up in a complete family, but I did not want the presence of my husband to be decisive in my decision to become a mother,” says Mari.

Despite the decision, Mari admits that she could never have imagined what was waiting for her in the near future. Of course, he had thought about the public stigma against single mothers, but that was not the worst thing.

I consider that I have been a very good daughter for my parents, and I thought that even if the whole world was against me and my decision, my parents and my family would support me. I understood that I was more or less financially independent, but still, deep in my heart, I was sure that both the father of my child and my parents would support me. When it turned out that I was pregnant, the father of my child immediately said that he was not planning to get married. Of course, from that day on, our relationship stopped, but my parents’ reaction was simply fatal for me,” she says.

Mari remembers that after hearing the news about the pregnancy and the cancellation of the expected marriage, her parents simply told her that she no longer existed for them. Psychological and financial problems in the last months of her pregnancy brought Mari to despair.

Mari says that the paperwork and legal issues related to the birth of the child, the problems related to all her medical interventions were solved by her friends, who never left her side.

Psychologist Hayk Baghdyan believes that women who decide to become single mothers continue to face a number of problems. from discrimination to social and psychological difficulties.

According to him, the decision of single motherhood is difficult for women, and if a woman is not sufficiently established and self-sufficient in a professional, economic and also psychological sense, if she is not at peace with her decision, then society can break her.

The psychologist believes that the most important thing for women when making such a decision is social or financial independence. if a woman is not sure that she will be able to take care of her and her child’s social problems, then she will most likely not go for intentional single motherhood.

In the Republic of Armenia, the concept of “single mother” does not have any legal formulation, accordingly, there are no special privileges or support mechanisms for these women.

This formulation is found only in the poverty benefit system, where this group is separated. The benefit calculator is the mechanism by which it is possible to calculate the units needed for the poverty benefit. It, however, states that “the social group child of a single mother is not fixed if the patronymic of more than one child under the care of a single woman (except for the patronymic of all children born as twins or more) is the same.”

There is also an indirect reference to single mothers in the “State Programs for the Improvement of the Demographic Situation” launched in 2020, where the concept of “family” in the state housing security programs is defined as “the citizen of the Republic of Armenia and the child born from her”, which allows single mothers to take advantage of preferential mortgage lending opportunities.

Full text in Armenian