May 11, 2014, - 4:51 pm
Mother’s Day: Hype Over Kevin Durant’s Irresponsible Single Mom is Absurd, Undeserved
Is it just me . . . or are you also sick and tired of the gushing over Kevin Durant’s mother?
So, it’s Mother’s Day (or is that Mothers Day or Mothers’ Day?–I can never figure out for certain which one is right, though I believe it’s the first one I used). And for the last several days, the mainstream media have been gushing and drooling over NBA player Kevin Durant’s tearful speech thanking his mom when he won the NBA’s MVP Award (see the video below). The opportunistic, grandstanding NBA already took part of his speech and turned it into a “Happy Mother’s Day” ad. While Durant clearly loves his mother and calls her “the real MVP,” there’s a lot wrong with the undeserved congratulations for Wanda Pratt, Durant’s mom. Her behavior as a single mother risked his future, rather than guaranteeing it. It should be chastised, not cheered.
Being a good mother begins before conception. It begins with making good choices, like not choosing to become a babymama and have kids out of wedlock. But Kevin Durant’s mother made the wrong choice–not once, but TWICE. She had her first out of wedlock kid by age 18, and then she had another kid with the same man (thank Heavens for small favors) by the age of 21. Still not married. Not surprisingly, the man–Kevin Durant’s father, Wayne Pratt–walked out of their lives and didn’t return until Durant (he took his mother’s maiden name) was 13.
Here’s a tip: having kids out of wedlock is the best predictor that those kids will live in poverty and have it tough on a number of fronts–educationally, with illegal drugs, with premarital sex, crime, and so on. But Kevin Durant’s mother didn’t care. She went and had sex and two kids out of wedlock anyway. And for that, she’s being thanked and gushed over? For being a babymama and putting her kids into bad situations and poverty? Why should she be thanked for that? That’s behavior that shouldn’t be glorified. It should be condemned. But I’m the “backwards,” “old-fashioned,” “anachronistic,” “stuck in the ’50s” person for saying so.
NBA Ad . . .
Durant talked about how poor they were, how they kept moving from apartment to apartment, and that when they finally had an apartment of their own, they had no furniture. And everything else was a struggle. Well, you know why it was such a struggle? Because Kevin Durant’s mom chose to become a single mom. She chose that life. Why should we applaud her for that? She’s lucky that all three of her kids had athletic talent and that one of them became a multi-millionaire who could finance the rest of them for life if he wanted to. Without that, her kids would likely become just three more negative statistics resulting from illegitimate births, especially in Black America, where this is now the norm. And yet the NBA and the media think this is to be applauded and gushed over.
Kevin Durant’s mother is being applauded by himself and others for clothing and feeding and housing her kids. Um, isn’t that the basic expectation for someone who chooses to have kids? Wasn’t that her job? And didn’t she make it more difficult upon herself by choosing it this way–as a single mother and a teen? Yes. She did. The tough circumstances she put all of them through were circumstances of her making. That she overcame that isn’t cause for kudos. It’s cause for saying, well, she’s one of the lucky ones because she put herself and her kids in this situation through bad choices. And now we are supposed to applaud her for making things right and having the equivalent of Powerball-winning odds with one of her sons making it to multimillionaire NBA-dom.
Uh, sorry, no applause from me.
Kevin Durant and the NBA should be telling inner city America and the rest of American babymamahood that this isn’t to be applauded and gushed over, that these women are creating these crises for their kids. But that will never happen because the NBA won’t dare offend single mothers–who are fast becoming the majority in America and are already the vast majority in Black America, where it has its most loyal customer base. That also goes for the current roster of NBA players, the vast majority of whom were born to baby mamas and have never had fathers in their lives.
Political correctness has overtaken the idea of what is a good mother in America. And that’s why the media and the NBA and Kevin Durant are gushing over someone who really wasn’t a good mother after all.
Choosing to have kids on your own and putting them into poverty isn’t being a good mother.
Yes, I’ll say it. It’s the very opposite of good parenting and good mothering. When you choose to have kids out of wedlock, you aren’t a good mom. You’re just another contributor to America’s downfall.
So, sorry, but I won’t be wishing you or any of the millions of others like Kevin Durant’s mother a Happy Mother’s Day. You don’t deserve it, no matter what Hallmark and American Greetings and the NBA and Kevin Durant tell me.
To the dwindling number of women out there (including, fortunately, my own mom) who chose to do the right thing, the responsible thing, the now out-of-vogue and sadly unfashionable thing, and actually got married before they had children, you are the ones to whom I wish a Happy Mother’s Day. You are the ones who deserve it. Happy Mother’s Day especially to the women who actually choose to be mothers, rather than womb-and-egg-donor working women who see their kids once in a while, though the nanny or the daycare operator or the Xbox sees them far more. In fact, more and more in America, we should probably be wishing a “Happy Mother’s Day” to the growing number of castrated men who’ve surrendered their cojones at the door and become Mr. Moms like Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” instructed the women to force them to become. That’s America’s future, as women dominate college and grad school student bodies and graduate pools, and as they dominate and make more than men entering the work force.
And to the kids of those women who did not make that choice–to marry the father of their kids before having those kids–I feel for your kids who had the odds stacked against them from the get-go. I feel for them especially on this day when some of them might be rightfully confused about whom they are wishing a happy day to and why.
***
In case you are wondering, Kevin Durant’s mother, Wanda Pratt, eventually married Wayne Pratt after Kevin Durant was born, but he left by the time Kevin Durant was one year old. He returned when Durant was thirteen and was in and out of his life. The Pratts eventually divorced.
Regardless of Mr. Pratt’s bad behavior, Mrs. Pratt slept with and had two kids with him without a ring on her finger. And that’s the most obvious hint that any woman can have of what’s to follow.
If you choose to bring kids into this world without a husband, you bear the responsibility of what happens to those kids. And, generally, what happens isn’t good.
And you don’t deserve America’s–or your kids’–thanks. You deserve their wrath.
You don’t make America better. You make it weaker.
Tags: baby mamas, babymamas, Happy Mothers Day, illegitimate kids, Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant Wanda Pratt, Kevin Durant's single mother, Mother's Day, NBA, NBA applauds single mothers, out of wedlock, out-of-wedlock births, single moms, single mothers, Wanda Pratt, Wayne Pratt
Did she really raise these kids by herself, or did the American taxpayer help by providing food stamps, housing assistance, welfare, Aid to Dependent Children, etc?
Let’s not give her a mother of the year award for bilking the taxpayer of their money to raise her bastards.
Jonathan E. Grant on May 11, 2014 at 5:20 pm