Janice Bartolo, you’re hardly the best example

Super One reporter Janice Bartolo, in one of the ‘tantalising’ photographs she uploaded to full public view on Facebook during the period when she was trying to reel in the married Justice Minister.

Janice Bartolo has said on Facebook that she wishes to stop the stigmatisation of single mothers, by citing herself as an example.

She clearly confuses the definition of ‘unmarried mother’ with ‘single mother’ – something lots of Maltese people do, I have noticed, because unfamiliarity with English causes them to view the adjective ‘single’ as a reference to their marital status rather than to their status as a parent.

An unmarried mother is exactly that, but a single mother is somebody who is raising children alone because the father is nowhere to be found and/or never was in the equation. A single mother is a lone parent and not a woman who is single and yet raising a child.

Miss Bartolo is not married to her son’s father but he remains an involved parent all the same and was that way from the start. So she is most definitely NOT a single mother.

Nor is she single, because she is – notoriously – in a relationship with the Minister of Justice after having broken up his marriage. So I would say, Miss Bartolo, that even if you really were a single parent, which you are not, you are hardly doing single mothers any favours by holding yourself up as an example of how excellent single mothers can be.

It’s not all about earning a living, you know – most married mothers don’t earn a living, after all. Mrs Owen Bonnici is an exception in that respect, working hard on shifts as a staff nurse at the state general hospital while her husband cheated on her with you. So by your own definition, now that he has left his wife and child, that makes Mrs Owen Bonnici a single parent too.