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Conventional wisdom holds that the single mother has a tough time making ends meet. (There are some single fathers, of course, but the overwhelming majority of custodial single parents are women, so we begin this discussion with them; we will return to the fathers later in this chapter.) Generations before America had even dreamed of a government-sponsored welfare program, charitable foundations offered their assistance to “Widows and Orphans,” based on the widespread understanding that a woman with children would have a tough time getting by on her own. During the divorce explosion of the 1970s, the spotlight turned from the widow to the divorced mother, but the concept was basically the same: Without a man around, a woman with children was in big trouble. In the 1980s, sociologist Lenore Weitzman made headlines with her claim that in the immediate wake of divorce, a woman’s standard of living drops by 73 percent from her married state.1 Several scholars later showed that Weitzman overstated the extent of the decline, but there is widespread agreement about her basic conclusion: Most mothers tumble down the economic ladder after they divorce.2 Nor is the postdivorce financial tumble a phenomenon confined solely to poor women. In fact, the drop is hardest for women in the middle and upper classes, since they have farther to fall.3

A generation ago, flush with the emerging power of the feminist movement, women’s groups began to push what seemed like an obvious solution to the economic woes facing divorced mothers: Help women get more money. According to this logic, single mothers would be safe only if they earned more money in the workplace and if the laws were changed to squeeze more out of their ex-husbands. The first item on the agenda fit neatly with advancing the cause for all women, regardless of marital status. Women should get more job training, better educations, and stronger legal protection in the workplace, which should all translate into one thing—bigger paychecks for all women, single and married alike. The second objective focused directly on the rules of divorce. Women’s paychecks should be supplemented by generous child support awards from their ex-husbands, which should be rigorously enforced by every sheriff’s department in the country. The double prescription—make more and collect more—promised to lift the single mother from a precarious state of dependence and bring her the financial security she so desperately needed.

Was the women’s movement right? This is one of those rare social theories that we don’t have to debate in the abstract. The past generation has been a giant laboratory for testing exactly the get-a-job-get-child-support-and-be-safe prescription; all we have to do is look at the evidence.

Over the past generation, millions of married women have embraced the protect-yourself strategy. Going to college, getting a good job, and staying in the workforce have come to be seen as the only sensible way for a married mother to protect herself in this age of rampant divorce. Conservative social critic Danielle Crittenden observes:

I don’t believe placing a baby in day care is either easily or thoughtlessly done by most mothers. No, the fundamental reason why mothers of small children feel they cannot afford to stay home today, when a generation ago they didn’t, is the greater prospect of divorce. The modern woman expects to support herself, and knows the danger of being unable to do so. The fear a woman has of having to fend for herself and her children at some point underlies why even happily married women often feel obliged to work when there’s no immediate financial reason for them to do so.4

This attitude reflects our collective common sense. If a woman stays in the workforce, she will gain experience and make more money. And, if she makes more money, she will be better off if her husband leaves her—or so the argument goes.

Once again, we focus on the circumstances of the middle-class family. There has