A single parent as per Hetherington (2014), is an uncoupled person who spends most of the days’ responsibilities raising a child or children. The term can also be used to refer to a person who is unmarried, widowed or divorced but has a dependent child or children. The primary caregiver of a single family structure is the mother. Single parent structures are as a result of calamities such as death of the partner, divorce, or unplanned pregnancy. Currently in the United states single dads make approximately of 6% of the entire households while single mums make up approximately a quarter of the households.
Historically, single parent family has been common due to high parental death rate brought about by maternal mortality, wars and diseases. Since 1960, there has been a significant increase in the number of children that live with a single parent in the United States. In other words, it is arguably significant to note that there has been an increase in female earners and this has become a powerful trend (Wojtkiewicz & Holtzman 2011). This paper looks at the history, the misconceptions, the current economic and social standing of single parent family as well as how this type of family raises kids and is presented in the American media.
According to (Wojtkiewicz & Holtzman 2011), at least 30% of children lost their parents in English and French villages between 17th and 18th century. Similarly, in China, 30% of the boys had one parent by age 15. This examples show that divorce was a rare concept in history. Sarsour et al. (2011) state that after the fall of the Roman Empire, divorce became very difficult to obtain.
In United States, there has been increase in single parent since 1960s. A 29.5% increase in single parent family has been recorded from 1980 to 2008. This was caused by increase in children born to unmarried women and due to prevalence of divorce among couples. Births to unmarried women in US was recorded at 40.7% in 2010. In the same year, 15.6% of kids were living with a divorced parent, 11% with parents who have never been married and about 1.5% with a widowed parent.
Moreover, the findings of the census done in 2010 shows that 30% of families had a single parent (Hetherington 2014). A recent poll in 2014 showed that Mississippi recorded the highest number, 54% of births to unmarried mothers. An estimated 16% of children globally come from single parent family. In New Zealand 2013 census, 17.8% of families were from single parent family (Turner et al 2014).
Additionally, 14% of Australian families in 2003 were single-parent households. In United Kingdom, more than 1 in every 4 parents are single parents with children and 80% of this single parents are males. A report by New York Times also showed that single parents are defined differently in relation to each country’s culture and that countries in Middle East and Asia are the least likely to have children raised by single parents. It is important to note that the single mums are on a lower on the income ladder as compared to married women.
Booth & Dunn (2013) assert that there are different types or cause of single parenting since history. They include widowed parents, divorced parents, own choice and unintended pregnancy (Hetherington 2014). Historically, single parenting was as a result of death of the parent. Historical wars also deprived significant numbers of families of a parent. However, in the modern society, improvements in maternal care and sanitation have reduced death rate in reproductive age, making mortality a less common cause of single parent family.
The increasing divorce rates also result in single parent family structures. Wojtkiewicz & Holtzman (2011) contends that recently, it has been found that first marriages have a 40% chance of divorce and this makes it easier for another divorce to occur in the second marriage. Unintended pregnancy is the other cause of single parenting and involves unintended wedlock births (Booth & Dunn, 2013). Children born out of wedlock are not accepted by the society and this leads to single parenting.
Some people choose to be single parents by becoming pregnant and being parents on their own. This may be as a result of not finding the right person to settle with or they may just choose to adopt a child (Turner et al 2014). The current social and economic standing of single parent family in United States shows that they struggle a lot to make ends meet. The major effect of divorce is economic deprivation for single parent mothers.
In US, the non-custodian’s father standard of living increases by 15% while that of the mother who has been granted custody reduces by 30%. The most observed pattern for single parents especially mothers in US shows that they shift to small apartments in undesirable neighborhoods. This phenomenon is as a result of lack of adequate affordable houses that can accommodate children (Hetherington 2014).
At the end of the day, they are forced to leave social networks and other sources of supporting and this forces them to look for jobs and increase their hours of working. To most of them, an affordable house that is quite close to their job places is what they need to generate income. Teenage single mothers are also faced with economic adversities because catering for a child deprives them from continuing with their studies.
Duncan, et al (2013) discovered that as teen single mothers grow into adulthood, they tend to remain unemployable, unemployed and unskilled. Despite the availability of child support money from the noncustodial parent, single parents are still faced with economic deprivation. In most cases, mothers are the ones who retain custody and the custody paid by fathers in such cases only accounts for 10% of the general expenses of the mother.
Majority of fathers do not pay the custody amount ordered by court, a study by Troxel et al (2014) in United States showed that 30% of custodian mothers do not receive the custody money from fathers as requested by court. As if that is not enough, women below poverty level, Hispanic and Black mothers rarely get awarded for custody payments. Single parents who are mothers are not proportionally represented among the poor (Wojtkiewicz & Holtzman 2011).
In most US families, 30% of single mothers live below poverty line while only 12% of single fathers are poor. In general, single parent mothers living below poverty line account for 66% of the population and have been mostly referred to as ‘feminization of poverty.’ This may be attributed to the fact that the roles of women are mostly domestic that is, undervalued, homemaker and unpaid.
The current economic standing of single parents in United States can also be viewed from the point of paid annual leaves. America is not famous for supporting caregiving and job holdings as compared to other countries. The country lacks an entitlement to ‘paid annual leave’ and this yet another economic blow to single parents. Moreover, unlike other countries, US does not provide paid sick leave.
Therefore, a lack of paid leave makes it difficult for a single parent to leave work so as to care for the kids. They are therefore forced to stay at work to avoid being fired keeping in mind that lack of affordable childcare and elementary education are major barriers to finding and maintaining a job (Hetherington 2014). The current social standing of single parent family has been expressed in social agendas and policies.
The US policies of family support, childcare and welfare show disapproval of families that require support from the public and specifically single parent families. Divorced families are mostly seen as a thread to order in society (Wojtkiewicz & Holtzman, 2011). Despite the fact that Western countries such as US value the wellbeing of children, parenting benefits and childcare, most favor complete families as opposed to single-parent households.
Single parents are also perceived to be socially ostracized and regarded to be of inferior status. Moreover, woman who have lost their husbands are not allowed to inherit property in most societies and are thus unable to support their children. In history, unmarried people were taken care of by traditional system but today’s society has been weakened by growth of cities. The modern society is a patriarchal systems and male and female are not allowed to equally share the available resources to families.
Research also shows that children living with poor single parents tend to be psychologically disturbed and stressed due to family interaction patterns. Single parent homes are mostly faced with food insecurity and most have no health insurance coverage in the society. Despite this aforementioned problem, majority of single parents still do not benefit from social for example social welfare groups like TANF. Single parent families are prone to hygiene related diseases because they live in undesired neighborhood due to lack of money.
Another social problem that single parent families face is the lack of stability. In a single parent setting, parents meet and break up with new partners and at the end of the day each child may be fathered by a different man thus creating social problems as the society views this as an undesirable behavior. As a result, these kids experience more problem behavior and mostly drop out of school Wojtkiewicz & Holtzman (2011). Therefore, single parent families struggle a lot while raising their kids. This is because the employment rate for single parents is low compared to couple parents.
Most companies will not employ a single parent with a young baby. Moreover single parent teenagers lack the necessary educational qualification to enter the job market and therefore raise their kids with difficulty. As mentioned earlier, such types of families lack social welfare assistance and have to struggle hard to survive (Booth & Dunn, 2013). Their struggle is evident from the way they rent cheap houses in undesirable neighborhood and work for longer hours to make ends meet.
As documented, most single parents live below poverty line because they lack the financial security that comes with a coupled relationship and this also emphasizes more on how they struggle to raise their kids. Research shows that children with coupled parents do better in their romantic relationships and in schools compared to those with a single parent. (Wojtkiewicz & Holtzman 2011), noted that this can be blamed to the lower educational attainment levels of the single moms compared to married women.
In households with many children, the older ones are usually forced to watch over the younger ones while the single parent is at work (Booth & Dunn, 2013). This at times limits the children from childhood experiences because they are forced to assume parental role at an early age. With the parent not always being there, the children are faced with challenges including less adult supervision, low levels of educational attainment, high risk of sexual behavior, more likely to join a gang and participate in violent crimes and mostly experience behavioral and emotional problems.
There are certain stereotypes that have been viewed concerning single parent family. This basically entail thoughts that can be adopted about single parents. These beliefs may however not accurately reflect reality (Wojtkiewicz & Holtzman 2011). There is a cultural belief concerning single parents that they are incomplete, their households are less and that children suffers due to this. Moreover, there is another stereotype in United States that black mothers specifically neglect their parental duties and that black fathers desert their families (Troxel, et al 2014).
Certainly this is a misconception because single parenting is as a result of unwanted pregnancy, choice, divorce and death and is not determined by a person’s ethnicity be it black, American or Caribbean (Booth & Dunn, 2013). Majority of people also believe that it is not desirable to be a single mother because mothers are unable to build a good life, follow their own dreams and became successful.
It is not deniable that single parenting is challenging but it is sad that we live in a community where majority of the people do not support and encourage strong independent working moms. There is also a misconception that single mothers are reckless teenagers but this is not true because in reality, only 2% of single mothers are teenagers. Moreover, 51% of single mothers have been married before, are separated, widowed or divorced.
It is also believed that 60% of single parent families are poor. Despite the fact that most lone parent s in America are living in poverty, it does not mean that they prefer to live out of benefits (Sarsour et al. 2011). All single mothers want to provide for their family but it may be hard to do so without financial support that comes from marriage or long term relationship (Wojtkiewicz & Holtzman 2011).
A 2015 poll in United States also showed that about 527.2% of single parents are employed. There is also a stereotype that children form ‘broken homes’ are engaged in substance abuse but this is not true because parental separation is not a major factor when investigating poor outcomes in children. Other stereotypes include single parent families are ‘broken home,’ children from such homes have low self-esteem and resent their mothers and that children are highly abused in single mother parent setting compared to single father setting (Haller et al 2011).
Overall, being a single parent can be lonely and hard because of lack of an adult with whom to share finances and decision making. A single individual is faced with the responsibility of earning a living, childcare and parenting. As seen earlier single parenting began long time ago in history and was mainly due to death of one parent (Booth & Dunn 2013).
However, in modern society, single parenting is as a result of unwanted pregnancy, divorce, widowhood and one’s own choice. The current social and economic setting of single parents in America is characterized by poverty, low income, lack of employment, poor housing facilities, lack of social welfare and criticism from the society. It is also evident that due to the aforementioned problems, single parents struggle a lot to raise their kids.
Despite this, most kids suffer from psychological problems, engage in substance abused and some drop out of school (Wojtkiewicz & Holtzman 2011). Lastly, single parents are believed to be irresponsible and their homes characterized as being ‘broken.’ (Duncan, et al 2013). It is crucial for America to establish social welfare programs that can help single parents in raising their children. In relation to this, the structural functional theory emphasizes on the need of a society to promote stability and solidarity.
References
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Duncan, S., Edwards, R., & Edwards, R. (2013). “Single Mothers in International Context: Mothers or Workers?” New York, NY: Routledge.
Haller, W., Portes, A., & Lynch, S. M. (2011). “Dreams fulfilled, dreams shattered: Determinants of segmented assimilation in the second generation.” Social Forces, 89(3), 733-762.
Hetherington, E. M. (Ed.). (2014). “Coping with divorce, single parenting, and remarriage: A risk and resiliency perspective.” Psychology Press.
Sarsour, K., Sheridan, M., Jutte, D., Nuru-Jeter, A., Hinshaw, S., & Boyce, W. T. (2011). “Family socioeconomic status and child executive functions: the roles of language, home environment, and single parenthood.” Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 17(01), 120-132.
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Troxel, W. M., Lee, L., Hall, M., & Matthews, K. A. (2014). “Single-parent family structure and sleep problems in black and white adolescents.” Sleep medicine, 15(2), 255-261.
Wojtkiewicz, R. A., & Holtzman, M. (2011). “Family structure and college graduation: Is the stepparent effect more negative than the single parent effect?” Sociological Spectrum, 31(4), 498-521.
