Mainstream music, like society, is obsessed with singing about dating, heartbreak from breakups, and becoming coupled. Those are the three main subjects covered by popular music artists. It is nearly impossible to find a musician singing about the joys and trials of being single, but the band Clean Bandit wrote a song about what it is like to be a single mom. It is a difficult job being a single mother and the Clean Bandit song “Rockabye” acknowledges this reality.
Society still believes in the traditional two parent model despite the changing dynamics and realities of modern society. Two parent households are on the decline. Single parent households are on the rise. Single parents become single mother and fathers by circumstance or choice. In the first instance; it happens when a partner leaves, a couple divorces, or has a baby while in high school or college. All three of these circumstances are unfortunate, but the realities for how women become single mothers. The other option is that people become single parents now by choice using surrogacy. But the song “Rockabye” talks about single mothers who became a single parent by circumstance and who are trying to deal with all the problems that it brings as best as they can.
According to the United States Census Bureau, 80% of all single-parent households are headed by single mothers (Table FG10). And when the data is studied closer, 49% of single mothers never married while 51% of single mothers were either divorced, widowed, or separated (FG6). These statistics by the Census Bureau shows that single mothers are more common than society wants to believe. Single mothers normally face a variety of hardships that include low incomes, poverty, and not having access to healthcare or education. While the song “Rockabye” does not acknowledge any of these problems that single mothers face specifically, it does recognize that a single mother is working hard to provide for her son to give him the best life that she can.
