Does Nia Long’s Essence Magazine Cover Glamorize Single Parenting?

 Nia Long graces the double cover of the August 2012 issue of Essence magazine, in one surrounded by her two sons Massai Dorsey Jr. and baby Kez Sunday Udoka and in the second, just holding her baby, Kez.

The veteran actress beams in a yellow strapless gown and a regal top knot with her baby, Kez, seated comfortably in her lap. She poses cheek-to-check with her eldest, Massai Jr. You can almost feel the love radiating from the image, but many have taken issue with the cover.

Not only are critics slamming Long as a cover choice, since she is clearly one of Essence‘s mainstays and has appeared on the cover several times, but they believe the cover line glamorizes single parenting. It reads “Single, Satisfied and Raising Her Boys” and depicts Long as content being a single mother with no desire for a partner (in reality, she is dating Kez’s father, professional basketball player Ime Udoka).

In some corners, the cover champions single parenting and represents an abandonment of the nuclear family model Essence once praised.