Haiyun Zhao

Anne-Marie Slaughter came to speak at Yale Law School last week. The lecture room was filled with law students and guests, women and men, all eager to hear her discuss her position on work-life balance. She made a great case – we need more flexibility in the workplace, we need more men in the conversation, we need to make decisions based on family and not based on gender. She emphasized the need for equal partnership; for equal parenting; for government and employers to support, instead of punish, the family.

The conversation was enlightening – honest and insightful – and yet, I left feeling somewhat dissatisfied. It took me a little while to gather my thoughts and identify why. Then it hit me. The assumption was there was going to be someone there who was available to take on a chunk of the work. The recent work-life balance debate – the question of whether women could or could not have it all – had been largely operating on the assumption that the choice of family or career was a choice. What about single mothers? Where do they fit into this debate? For them, family or career isn’t – can’t be – a choice. Their kids are there, and they have to find a way to feed them. What good is all this debate about breaking through conventional gender roles doing them?

Single parents, and single mothers in particular, bear a special burden in America. Around ...