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Whether we like it or not, America’s family policy is stuck in the past. We’re still operating under an outdated ideal: the nuclear family — a married, heterosexual couple raising biological children.

You see it everywhere: in our tax code, child care subsidies, paid leave policies, the pronatalist movement, and even TV shows. But the problem isn’t just that this vision is outdated — it’s that it was never the full picture to begin with.

As of 2023, fewer than 18% of U.S. households are made up of married, heterosexual couples raising their biological children — the so-called “traditional” nuclear family. And yet, policy continues to be built for them — and them alone.

This week, we’re focusing on the families left behind by policies that reflect a fantasy, not reality. At the center of that gap? Single moms — especially single moms of color — who are disproportionately shut out of support systems, misrepresented in media, and penalized in policy.

 
If You’re Not a Nuclear Family, You’re Left Out

The diversity of American family structures is something to celebrate, not sideline. More than 20% of Americans live in multigenerational households. Nearly 30% of LGBTQ+ adults are raising children. These are real families, doing real caregiving. But our systems treat them as exceptions rather than the rule.

And then there are the single moms. Nearly a quarter of U.S. children are raised by a single parent — the highest rate in the developed world. The overwhelming majority of those parents are women, and many are women of color, who face overlapping barriers due to gender, race, income, and caregiving status.

Policies often penalize single-parent households:

  • Child care subsidies and housing assistance are built to favor two-parent households (e.g., “the big beautiful bill” will penalize single parents who receive SNAP)
  • Modest income increases can result in steep benefit cliffs
  • And during every tax negotiation, the Head of Household filing status — a lifeline for many single moms — reliably resurfaces as a target for elimination

Source: Pew Research Center

Single Moms Holding Up a System That Won’t Hold Them

We hear from single moms in our community every week. They aren’t looking for praise. They’re looking for fairness and to be seen as whole. A single mom from our Moms First community said it best:

 
“We’re not failed wives or broken homes. We’re full families doing the work of two, in a system built for one. Single moms need policies that respect our labor, not pity that questions our worth.”

 
And yet, the policies we have in place don’t just overlook them — they actively punish them.

A report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) shows that while 21% of all mothers were single mothers in 2023, the number jumps to 47% of Black mothers and 25% of Hispanic mothers. These women are not just carrying the mental and emotional load of parenting alone — they are disproportionately doing so under intense financial strain.

According to the same CAP analysis, the poverty rate for single mothers in 2022 was 28%, more than five times higher than that of married parents. And for Black and Hispanic single mothers, the numbers are even more dire: 31% and 33%, respectively.

This is not because single mothers aren’t working — in fact, their employment rates are higher than average — but they are more likely to be stuck in low-wage jobs, or forced to reduce work hours due to the high cost or unavailability of child care. When single moms can’t find child care, their employment rate drops from 84% to 67%.

The system isn’t broken for single moms. It was never built for them in the first place.

Single motherhood has long been weaponized in American politics. Ronald Reagan infamously popularized the “welfare queen” trope in the 70s as part of a deliberate campaign to roll back policies that kept single moms (and their kids!) afloat. That message has always been a lie, a gross mischaracterization of reality, but it’s still held up as a truism in some political circles to this day.

The truth is we do more judging of single moms than supporting them. And pop culture isn’t really doing anyone any favors. Find me a single mom in the media who isn’t presented as either a cautionary tale or a superhuman martyr. They’re rarely seen as just people trying to parent under impossible pressure.

Remember that growing pronatalist movement?

The pronatalist movement is still making inroads with the current administration and many in Congress. Maybe some of it is well-intentioned. Having babies should be a great thing, right? But we’re seeing the proponents of these pronatalist policies double down on the notion of a “traditional” American family. 

Instead of championing policy that supports all parents, some lawmakers are reinforcing a narrow ideal that goes out of its way to exclude the majority of family structures. Too many of them, alongside way too many lawmakers, are living in a fantasy world — obsessed with recreating a past version of America that never truly existed in the first place. They want families to have more babies, but only if those families look like the ones in their fantasy. Everyone else remains on the outside looking in.

What Real Support Looks Like

Want more families to have kids? It’s not rocket science. Pass policies that make it easier for all parents, in all family structures, to thrive. That means:

Protecting the benefits that Head of Household tax status provides
Expanding paid leave and child care access for all caregivers
Modernizing benefit programs so they meet families where they are, not where politicians wish they were
We don’t need policies rooted in a fantasy. We need laws that reflect the full and beautiful reality of American families — especially those who’ve been left out for too long.

 
P.S. One more thing while I’ve got you…

Update on CDCTC: I want to tell you what just happened in Congress — because it’s a perfect example of why we need more moms in office.

Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee had the chance to include an expansion of the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (CDCTC) in their latest tax package. It had broad, bipartisan support.

And still…it was left out.

Why? Because during the final markup, one Republican member — Rep. Blake Moore — pushed back. He said families shouldn’t be “forced” to use paid care. As if child care were some kind of luxury — not a lifeline.

Here’s what you need to know: it wasn’t that we lacked the votes. We had the numbers. But our side didn’t match the energy or force of the opposition in the room. We didn’t have the champions that moms need and deserve.

Let’s get loud about this. Tell your Senators to put the CDCTC back on the table where it belongs. Use this quick email form that First Five Years Fund put together.

 
Families Come in All Forms — So Why Doesn’t Our Policy?

It’s time to modernize the support structures in place to help moms and families thrive, whether you live in a single parent household, your chosen family, or another arrangement.

 
Check out what people are saying about Moms First in the news:

We can’t build policy on nostalgia. We have to build it on reality — on the families who are doing it all, often alone, and still showing up. Single moms don’t need pity or platitudes. They need paid leave. They need child care. They need to be seen.

Let’s make sure they are.

 
Until next week,
Reshma Saujani