At 41, the actress Halle Berry is finally having the baby she's always wanted. Despite the fact that she's unmarried, she is ecstatic about being a mother. But not everyone is happy about her choice. There are some who see Ms. Berry's choice to have a baby out of wedlock and Oprah's willingness to celebrate it, a further assault on the already deteriorating "traditional family". Protesters go on and on about how she is setting a bad example for young girls by suggesting that it's okay for them to have children without a husband.

I am so tired of single mothers getting blamed for all of our social ills. Yes, I've seen the statistics that correlate juvenile delinquency, drug use and other ailments with being raised by a single mother. But the same statistics also show that it is not necessarily the absence of a male that is the problem. The primary problem facing single mothers and their children is poverty, a problem Ms. Berry doesn't have.

In 2007 women, who are most likely to head single parent households, are still earning 77 cents on the male dollar for equivalent work. And for black women like me it's only 68 cents. They are also more likely to hold lower paying jobs in female dominated fields. And less money means fewer options in quality childcare, educational opportunities, housing and other essentials to raising healthy children. A national study concludes that "If single working mothers earned as much as comparable men, their family incomes would increase by nearly 17 percent, and their poverty rates would be cut in half."

The cookie cutter family model of mother, father and 2.25 kids is a figment of our American imagination. Families have ALWAYS come in different shapes and sizes. Women have the right to give life when and how they choose. That is between them and their God (if they have one).

People who care about children should stop bastardizing their families and work for the equality of the women who have them and raise them. It is a communistic society that would socially and politically require women to marry in order to obtain the financial security it takes to raise their children.