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Finally—-recognition! According to the U.S. Census Bureau, this week has been proclaimed “Unmarried and Single Americans Week.” But it didn’t always have such a snappy, all-inclusive title:
“National Singles Week” was started by the Buckeye Singles Council in Ohio in the 1980s to celebrate single life and recognize singles and their contributions to society. The week is now widely observed . . . as “Unmarried and Single Americans Week,” an acknowledgment that many unmarried Americans do not identify with the word “single” because they are parents, have partners or are widowed.
Don’t feel too special, singles and unmarrieds: hospitals, childhood injury prevention, substitute teachers, vegetarians—-even newspapers—-all get their own weeks; “Older Americans,” meanwhile, get an entire month. Still, we’ll take what we can get. Thomas Coleman, Executive Director of Unmarried America, explains the importance of marrying the single movement to the third week of September:
During Singles Week we want the general public to know that 92 million unmarried Americans—-and we now head up more than half of the nation’s households—-deserve equal rights and fairness as workers, consumers, and taxpayers. We also want politicians and political parties to pay more attention to us as voters. That is more likely to happen if unmarried Americans speak out and spread this message.