Single Mothers and the State’s EmbraceThe first in depth study of xin con (asking for a child) In the mid 1980s, after the Indochina Wars, a shortage of men meant that many single women in Vietnam found themselves without suitable marital prospects. A number of these women chose to pursue single motherhood by asking for a child (xin con)asking men to get them pregnant out of wedlock. Xin con appeared to be a radical departure from traditional Vietnamese kinship values and practices, which