As a young child, I grew up in a single parent household. My mother who worked hard to make sure I was always in private school and had a good education. My mother never missed a school concert, PTA meetings, back to school night, or chapel presentations. Growing up in a single parent household also had its challenges as well. Some challenges were having limited money for fun activities, or not being able to go on vacations. However, there are some effects it can have on children such as emotionally and academically. Many single parent households are run by females. Most single parent households have lower household incomes as well. This can increase the risk of students performing poorly in school. Studies show that normally there is a lack of financial support from the father which then results in the mother having to work more to provide for her children. One main problem with the mother working more is that the child gets less attention and less help with homework. Knox concluded that “for every $100 of child support mothers receives, their children's standardized test scores increase by 1/8 to 7/10 of a point.” Lastly, children with single mother who have contact with father excel better than students who do not have any connections with their father at all. In a household with only one income earner makes it quite difficult at times. Single parent households are more likely to be at risk for poverty and less fortunate. Living in poverty is stressful
In the United States around 82.2% of custodial parents are mothers; 30.4% of them and their children lived in poverty in the year 2009 (Wolf, 2017). The gender gap in the workplace can keep a single mother from being able to fully get out of poverty. A single mother earns less than a single father does. In the year 2015 it was noted that single mothers earned 70.7% of the income single fathers had earned (Industry Week Staff, 2017). It is harder for a single mother, who may have never been married to begin with, to invest in schooling when she is trying to cover the costs of her children and
Regardless of race, single parent families are more likely to be poor than married-couple families as shown in figure 4. The ratio is six times among Whites, four times among Asians and Blacks and more than twice among Hispanics. In fact, a single parent encounters more hardship for finding jobs, so to have financial resources, whereas, she/he needs more means to meet their needs.
“10 Things a Single Parent Wants You to Know” is an article in Reader’s Digest by Jen Babakhan. This begins by saying that just because you have a spouse that works a lot does not mean you are a single parent. One significant difference is that single parents provide all the income and attention in the household. Next the article discusses that while parenting alone has it’s challenges it’s also very rewarding. I relate this article back to the chapter and class discussions on different family structures and socioeconomic factors.
Children who grow up in a fatherless home have a tendency to lose education. It surveys four groups: white men, white women, black men, and black women. White men lose education and then black men however white women lose more education than black women. Indicating the cause of this is because of the lack of financial resources. Being in a single parent home the parent will have to work hard to take care of the more important things. Some will not be the only child so
Researchers have studied the family structure of intact homes Hill (2011) and homes run by single parents and the findings revealed a difference in the grades and attendance of adolescents. The homes that were intact, their adolescents performed better academically (Hill, 2011). I was amazed to find out that according to Cohen (2015), that “growing up with a single parent makes it more difficult to reach the middle and upper class”. He defines three kinds of scarcity that can make this possible, money, time and social capital (Cohen, 2015). I understand that stress plays a significant role in single mothers bettering themselves and affects their children’s overall health (Hill,
Kids from single-parent homes run the risk of growing up as an "at-risk" child. This is due to the fact that the parent must work to provide food and shelter for the child, and the absence of the other parent contributes to lack of leadership, guidance, and establishing proper morals and ethics. Studies show that over 70% of inner city kids come from single parent homes.
Single parents don’t necessarily raise their children alone; they can have support from family and friends. Single parents also tend to parent better, they are stricter with their decisions and their children respect their choices. When it comes to creating a healthy family, it's not about the number of parents, but the quality of parenting a child receives that is most important. A home is only "broken" when healthy family interactions break down, for example when people stop communicating adequately. In the situation where both parents are raising the child, but the family situation isn’t healthy it can do more harm on the child than good. Certain situations such as a violent household
Parents are typically busy doing what they need to do to provide and take care of their families, rather they're at their jobs or just not around at the moment, this learning program helps the parents because if they're having such a busy day they can come home and turn the learn channel on and let your kids be taught valuable lessons and that benefit them. “The effects on children of the increase in single parents is no longer much debated. They do less well in school, are less likely to graduate, and are more likely to be involved in crime, teen pregnancy, and other behaviors that make it harder to succeed in life. Not every child raised by a single parent will suffer from the experience, but, on average, a lone parent has fewer resources—both time and money—with which to raise a
Single motherhood often leads to child poverty. Each year many children struggle to meet their daily needs, living through poverty and face inequality from the time they are born. Growing up in a single household highly increases your chances of living a poor lifestyle. Children will experience higher drop out rates, have difficulty finding employment, engage into teen pregnancy and face various problems as they grow older. Our society projects a negative image by blaming single mothers for their actions ‘‘In Murray's eyes, the mothers are fully responsible for any children they bear in an age when contraceptives and abortion are freely available’’(McLanahan).
Households headed by single mothers are more likely to live in poverty than those headed by two parents. Accounting (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013), the poverty rate for these households was 39.6%, nearly five times more than the 7.6% for married-couple. More than half (51.9%) of these households live in extreme poverty with incomes below the federal poverty level, which is $9,900 for a family of three. This translates to a weekly family budget of about $200. 39. Poverty rates were for Blacks were 46.3%; Hispanics 46.5%; Whites 31.6% and Asians 24.0%. However among all other ethnic groups, Native Americans female-headed families had the highest poverty rate (52.8%)”.
For instance, Polakow (1993) pointed out that “only 51 percent of single mothers were awarded child support payments, and of that group only 26 percent actually received their full award” (p.59). Having insecure income and the absence of child support are known as the factors why single mother live under poverty and stressful lives. “Without financial aid, single mother students — a total of about 2 million — have little or no means to contribute financially to their educational expenses” (D, 2017, n.p). In addition, some of single mother can’t qualify for the assistance programs because their income has a little bit over limit. Therefore, most of solo mother force themselves to stay home or reduce their working hours to meet the requirement for the application of public assistance. To sum up, being single mothers are very stressful and challenges because most of them live under poverty
The Pew Research Center, an association focusing on societal and demographic statistics, reveals that in 2011 family units in America with children under eighteen maintained an average annual income of $57,100 (Kedro). Divorced, separated, or widowed single mothers earned approximately $29,000 annually, and single mothers, never married, live barely above poverty levels, netting only $17,400 annually (Kedro). In addition, the financial stability of two-parent homes equates to better educational benefits. Single parent households usually struggle to maintain basic necessities of life for the families, thereby providing limited or no resources for educational expenses, and relying solely on financial aid or other state and federal programs to educate their
Parenting styles have had many controversial issues over the decades. The way people raised their children back in the 50’s and 60’s are completely different from today society. Back then they believe in the nuclear family, which is a family with a mom, dad, and children. They believe staying together at all cost. If something was breaking or broken you fixed it. At times you wonder if they stayed for love, money, or just for the sake of the children. Now and days it is not the same. Families are broken up for many reasons. Rather it be by death, the other parent wanting out (such as divorce). But in the end there is always a single parent left to take care of the kids in most situations. When something like this happens a negative connotation is brought to the single parent. This paper would show the effects of being raised by a single parent. Just like everything in life there is a good and bad side to everything. So in this paper you should learn the negative and positive effect of being raised by a single parent. The problem of the matter is that society tends to write off the child of single parents. Stating that they are lead down this road of destruction and grouping the entire single parent raised children without seeing the other side. Not saying that being raised by a single parent does not come with it hardships, but the fact is that there is still hope for those children and they can do very well. By always stating the negative it leaves the
Being raised by a single parent can ultimately lead to less achievement in life. This is because of the lack of parental support in childhood. Events such as divorce, leading to parents no longer living together cause emotional instability and lack of support, usually from the father figure because “about 50% of the approximately one million annual divorces involve couples with children (Anderson et al., 2004).In most cases, the mother has primary custody of the children”. Also, “Parental divorce during childhood or early adolescence deprives children mainly of the opportunity to get a male role model (McLanahan 1988). This large percentage of custody going to the mother and the deprivation of a father figure leaves many kids without a man to look up to and learn from. I know in my experience of having both parents I learned a lot from each one. For example, my father taught me how important it was to get an education and my mother taught me a lot about how to be respectful and helpful around the house. I know that if i was lacking one of
According to Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2007, which is a report released by the U.S. Census Bureau, almost 13.7 million single parents had custody of their 21.8 million children under the age of 21. (2009) 21.8 million children make up over 18% of all the children in the U.S. There are a multitude of effects when single parenting is present. Children that are involved in a single parent situation usually don’t have the same economic or human resources that are available to children that involved in two parent family homes. The children are more likely to be high school dropouts, have teen pregnancy or be the cause of it, and to experience divorce in their own adult lives, when compared to two parent traditional families. Children from single parent families often have a lower self esteem and usually lack financial stability. Not every effect is negative though. Some positive effects include, less parental conflicts and more bonding with one individual parent, faster maturity, and a better sense of responsibility. Why is all of this?