Stereotypes of Mothers

Stereotypes of Mothers

Single mothers, young mothers, and mothers in general have stereotypes attached to them. When you walk into a store with your child, depending on which of those stereotypes you fall into, people treat you completely different from the way they would if you were without child. I have ventured out without my son and with him to get my own perspective on how sales people and the general public react to me; I have also observed how people react to other single mothers, married mothers and single people. I volunteered two of my friends to go with me each time to observe how other people acted toward me.

From the reactions observed its obvious that people think that mothers, in general, are kind, loving, honest, and modest. If you see someone walking into a store, mid to late 20’s or older with a child people get the “ahh” emotion. They see the child and they’re automatically compelled to smile and think “isn’t that sweet.” In upscale stores, if you’re dressed accordingly, you are not followed around and the sales people are more than willing to assist you. Some will even stand around and talk to you and amongst each other about how cute or sweet the child is, smile at you, and it gives you a feeling of warmth; you feel welcome. As I shopped this past weekend, I watched how people reacted to mothers, married women with their children. The give a lot of smiles and while greeting the women with children on their way in, they would look at the woman’s hand, to see if there was a ring I assume. If the woman had a ring on, she was showered with smiles and compliments, “what a beautiful child,” “she is so sweet,” “your baby is so good,” and they were more than willing to carry the clothes or products for th...

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...s anything we can order for you let me know.” to the other lady who was leaving, she smiled and said ok.

In this country we need to work on realizing that mothers are taking care of the future of our country no matter what their age. We need to respect them as mothers and not assume that they are spending all their money on expensive brand names and not feeding their kids. If a married woman can afford Gucci, so can a single mother, after all its only her and her child, no husband to feed, clothe and take care of. As for the younger generation getting pregnant and having children, I think it is sad, but they are taking on that responsibility and there is no reason that society should look down on them for that. We should look at people for what they are currently doing, not what others have done or what you assume they did to get into the predicament they’re in.