Love, Family

4 Surprising Facts About Single Mothers

mother daughter

Time to dress up those spa gift certificates with pretty envelopes and order those floral bouquets — Mother's Day is this Sunday. 

In an effort to tug at your heart strings (and your wallet, hello!) greeting card and jewelry companies have been spewing out Mother's Day commercials that depict the perfect family — the mother, the loving husband and the sweet little child. 10 Best Mother's Day Gifts, According To Mom

But this is 2012, and there is no perfect family. Where is all of the love for the single moms of the world? (We're looking right at you, Rick Santorum.) Luckily, Match.com has a ton of respect for the single ladies of the world, including those who have birthed a child or two. To celebrate Mother's Day, Match took a look at the profiles of its single-mom users. After all, over one-third (38.7 percent) of the 107 million singles living in the United States are parents, and for this group, finding romance is still super-important, as evident in the fact that over 45 percent of Match.com members have kids.

Here's what Match found:

1. Single doesn't mean sad. Some people think being without a partner is depressing, but 78 percent of single moms are happy with their lives, according to Match's Singles in America study. Even better, they're happier than single women without children. Obviously this is because their children are the sunshines of their lives! My own mother (who is single) has often told me that she doesn't need a man when her children make her so happy. What's more, 42 percent of these single moms( would only remarry if their kids had "built a strong, positive relationship with their partner." And a full one-fifth would not remarry under any circumstances!

2. Kids can play Cupid. One-third of single moms would let their children set them up on a blind date. Of course, those sampled were already using an online dating website, so that stat may be a bit skewed, but it still says something about how much they trust their kids. In fact, one-fifth of single moms met their most recent date through an online dating site (also a skewed statistic, but cool nevertheless). 

3. Single moms have standards. Just because mom is single, doesn't mean she can't be picky. Single mothers cite an unclean appearance (78.6 percent), laziness (77.8 percent) and neediness (72.9 percent) as their major dating dealbreakers.  

4. Single moms are liberal. A majority (43.4 percent) of single moms identify as Democrats, while only 24.2 percent identify as Republican, less than the 29.9 percent who responded as Independents. Hmm ... they better be considering how some Republicans feel about them. Let's end on an uplifting Rick Santorum quote: "Single mothers breed criminals." 'Nuff said.

Are you a single mom? Can you relate to these findings?

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