Facebook executive exposes career difficulties of single mothers

On Mother’s Day, last Sunday (6), Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg published a text on her account on the social network highlighting the difficulties that single mothers face in managing their careers and raising children. Last year, she lost her husband, Dave Goldberg, who died of head trauma while on a family vacation in southern Mexico. She says that before, she didn’t understand how difficult it was to be successful at work when she was overwhelmed at home.

Sandberg is the author of bestseller ‘Make It Happen: Women, Work and the Will to Lead’, which investigates why women’s professional growth is stagnant and encourages women to pursue their goals. In Sunday’s post, she remembers single mothers who, “every day, make sacrifices, overcome barriers, and form beautiful families, despite the demands on their time and energy.”

“I believe that we should all dedicate Mother’s Day to single mothers, recognizing that the world is not easy for them”, she says. Sandberg argues that public and business policies should be rethought according to the profile of current families, with the community offering much more support to single mothers – which, according to her, these women need and deserve.

The author points out that, in the United States, almost 30% of families with children are not headed by a couple; being 84% of them played only by the mother. In Brazil, according to data from the 2010 IBGE census, female single parenthood corresponds to 17.3% of households, while male is 2%.

Sandberg also mentions that 40% of families with single mothers live in poverty, against 22% of families with single parents and 8% of nuclear families, that is, formed by mother, father and children. She understands that our attitudes and policies do not reflect the changes in family composition and the difficulties that single mothers face.