Noted singer Phuong Thanh became a tabloid’s dream in 2005 when she had a baby out of wedlock

There are more single mothers in the Vietnamese entertainment industry than you thought, and they say they don’t need husbands to raise happy families.

She was pointing to a social trend that is now finding a new voice in the famous Vietnamese singers, actresses, models, performers and entertainers who have decided to forgo marriage without missing out on raising children.

Singer Siu Black, who divorced after a 17-year-marriage, is just one of many single entertainment-moms to have gone public about her family status and she says “the single mom trend” is becoming increasingly accepted as normal in modern Vietnamese society.

Once, and at times still, the subject of much scorn and public slander and libel, Black said women nowadays are unafraid.

Echoing Thu, Black told Truyen Hinh that “Many wives have to suffer a lot from their bad husbands. In my opinion, no husband is a better choice.”

Thu agreed, saying that raising a child on one’s own was better than becoming one half of a “fake couple” which she said remained together only to make their children feel safe and comfortable in a normal home. Thu said such couples were commonly unhappy behind closed doors.

Actress and talk show host Thanh Mai said women who raised children without husbands were not as destined for shame as they were in the past.

She said she had been enjoying the single mom life since her divorce. She said it hasn’t been as difficult as she would have thought.

Going against ages of traditional thought, Mai puts it simply: “Happiness can be gained in many ways, not just through a wedding.”

The decision

Noted singer Phuong Thanh became a tabloid’s dream in 2005 when she had a baby out of wedlock.

She said that having a baby was her “calling” and that she wasn’t going to ignore it simply because she wasn’t married. At age 32, she decided to go ahead with it when her doctor told her it would be best to have one sooner rather than later.

“I cried when I thought about the possibility of going barren due to age. So, I decide to have the baby and put public opinion out of my mind.”

She said her resolve was shaken a few times, but she’s glad she made the decision.

“The thing that mattered the most was whether or not I would have enough strength to bring up my child and keep going on my way. Ga, my daughter was born in this crisis of confidence, but now she’s the most treasured thing in the world to me,” Sanh Dieu (Connoisseur) magazine quoted Thanh as saying.

Thanh told Tien Phong that one of the reasons she didn’t get married to her child’s father, who is still in the picture and acts as a father figure, was that he wanted his identity to be secret as he did not like being associated with her fame.

Thanh said all she really needed was someone in the “father” role anyway, not a husband.

“Fortunately, my soul-mate understands me and sympathizes. He just loves to look at me, pick me up when I fall and always listens to me.”

She went on to say that the couple had agreed to be married when they turn 40.

The refusal

Designer Ngo Thai Uyen shocked her friends and family, and the media, after she became pregnant with her boyfriend of one month and then refused his proposal.

Even though she didn’t want to marry, the 30-year-old said she “appreciated” the “late chance” for a child and didn’t want to miss it by “waiting for love to grow.”

She now has two children, with the same father, but said she prefers to be a single mom as she has a big family to help with her kids and she wants to raise them her own way, without being “tied” to a man.

“I felt a little bit worried when expecting my first child, but I calmed down because I knew I had my family’s support. I don’t hesitate to face the media, because I don’t care about that stuff. My family is still happy enough,” she told Sanh Dieu.

Dad’s not around

Recalling her first days of being a mom, singer Hien Thuc is still touched. She said she experienced the full gambit of emotions, from happiness to sadness, as a young 22-year-old mother.

She said she was at first shocked and stressed out when she learned she was pregnant.

But like Uyen, her family helped her through it.

“I really feel grateful for my mom, because she did not hate me but give me many hands to take care of Gia Bao [her daughter].”

Rumor has it that the father was an in-vogue composer who left Thuc once she got pregnant.

“I do not want my daughter Gia Bao to meet her dad again. But if she wants to, I still respect her opinion,” Thuc told Sanh Dieu. “Her name Gia Bao (Family Fortune) came from my pride and love for her.”

Bravery or selfishness?

Singer Doan Trang says mothers without husbands should be given the utmost respect “for her braveness in facing down many social boundaries to raise her children.”

Young singer Mai Khoi, known as “The Vietnamese Lolita” for her innocent face but seductive and scantily-clad body, said each single mother should be judged on a case-by-case basis.

“Sometimes an unwanted pregnancy is an act of fate and we should sympathize to those who are suffering. But some women have babies without fathers as a way to fulfill their desire for motherhood, and that’s a kind of selfishness,” Khoi told Truyen Hinh.

“It’s the children who end up deciding whether or not they need a dad.”

Compiled by Kim