Single Parent Households Is A Sensitive Topic Essay

Ketteringham, Kristin, . "Single Parent Households - How Does it Affect the Children? ." 6 July 2007: 5. Web. 28 Sep 2009. .

About four in every ten children born in America in 2008 were born outside of marriage, and they are disproportionately minority and poor. “Only about 6 percent of college-educated mothers’ births are nonmarital versus 60 percent of those of high school dropouts” (5). Scholars responded to this by studying single-parent families.

All across the globe, there are children growing up in single-parent households, and through some research

Did you know that more than one fourth of all children in the United States live with only one parent? Single parenting has become more common today than in the 1800s, when it was sometimes frowned upon. As the years have gone by, it has become easier and easier for women to become single parents. In the 1800’s if husbands died or abandoned their families, women had no choice but to work for extremely low and unfair wages. Today, most men and women are treated equal and receive equal wages making it easier for women to be single parents. This concept is shown in Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer through Aunt Polly in the 19th century, single parenting is also common today.

Children born to single or unwed parents causes serious problems and discussions not only within society, but also the welfare system. Becoming a parent seems to be one of the most beautiful things life has to offer to people. The laughter of children warms the heart like nothing else can, and the way their eyes light up when they receive something as small as a piece of candy reminds us all that the little things in life are the most important. However, children require time and money which often gets overlooked by many people. Raising a child with two married parents seems difficult enough, but today many people are having children out-of -wedlock which also seems to create more single parent homes and puts more pressure on that one parent who struggles to support the child. From 1960 to 2000, out-of-wedlock births grew by 600%

In 2002, number of children living with their single parent was 16.5 million (Davidson). The most important thing is that each single-parent family is different from the other. Children who live with a widowed mother will definitely be living a different home life from children with divorced parents or the one whose parents were never married. Children of the parents who were divorced will always have some kind of relationship with parents and parents’ partners. But it is obvious that children from single-parent families face tougher times economically as well as

Within a generation, America has seen radical changes in the home. My mother was raised in an era where the nuclear family was the norm, however, in recent years, its has become increasingly acceptable for children to be born out of wedlock. After learning this, the question on my mind, and probably yours, is “what happened to the American family”. June Carbone and Naomi Cahn believe that changes in marriage dynamics are responsible. In the book, Marriage Markets: How Inequality Is Remaking the American Family, they report that the age in which couples get married is rising, yet the rate of marriage is falling, and it is found that nearly half of all who marry, wind up separating. Additionally, the number of children born out of wedlock is now nearing those of children who are born within wedlock and the percentage of children who grow up in a single parent household is the highest it 's ever been. Using quantitative research methods, Carbone and Cahn were able to assess the changes America has seen in recent years. The changing dynamic of the family reinforces economic inequality and predetermines a child’s income as an adult.

American families have never been as diverse as they are today. There is a constant changing definition of what we call “family”. We as Americans are straying further and further from the idea of a classic nuclear family. One of the biggest reasons is a dramatic rise in kids living with a single parent. In 2014, just 14% of children younger than 18 lived with a stay-at-home mother and a working father who were in their first marriage (Livingston, 2015). This research will address in depth why households are now more diverse than ever, what’s the normal family now, and why aren’t the laws adjusting to how the average American family lives today.

The journal article is talking about the difficulties which the single-parent families facing, such as emotional problems, housing stress and financial stress. It generated different viewpoints from different literature, and suggested an approach to meet the needs of single-parents.

Single parent and divorced, shared-custody families have become more common place in American society over the past fifty years. During the 1940s and 1950s, “85% of children lived in two-parent families, 70% lived in an intact (biological or adoptive) two-parent family, and the remaining 15% lived in two-parent stepfamilies….. however, since the 1970s, there has been a large increase in the proportion of children living with never-married mothers (from 1.1% in 1970 to 6.7% in 1988) or divorced mothers (from 3.5% in 1970 to 7.8% in 1988)” (Shiono and Quinn par. 2). Since there has been an increase in divorced and never-married mothers taking care of families, there have been countless studies done on how different family structures affect the children involved and the family unit as a whole. I believe that the two biological parent family structure is the best for children and society because it provides stability, allows for stable financial income, and also prevents role strain for the parents.

Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing are now epidemic in American society. Both forms of disrupted families are harmful to children and to society. The children of single parents are more likely to do poorly in school, commit crimes, and become single parents themselves. In addition, the increase in single-parent families contributes to such social problems as poverty, crime, and a decline in the quality of public education.

Each and every day a child somewhere in the world is experiencing major changes within their family. One of those major changes is divorce or separation of parents. Divorce is “the action or an instance of legally dissolving a marriage”(Webster, 2011 p1). Today’s reality shows that couples only have one in two odds of remaining together. “ The U.S. Census bureau – involved in research about counseling children of divorce- estimating that approximately 50% of all American children born in 1982 lived in a single-parent homes sometime during their first 18 years. Mostly are due to divorce”(Children of Divorce, 2008 p.1). The rapid increase in divorce rates is a factor that has contributed to the large decline of the typical family. “Over 1

The cause of behavioral and/or emotional problems among our youth could come from being raised in a single parent home. Many children resort to negative acts of behavior because of limited parental supervision within the single parent household. Children are two to three times more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems in single parent homes (Maginnis, 1997).

Even though the Census Bureau shown that single parent families are increase every year I did not want to be a static of not providing for my family but just another public assist person.

The separation takes away a major part of the family and leaves the home feeling incomplete, taking away the security the family once felt. Growing up in America with both parents is becoming scarce; the trend is taking a mind of its own and in total changing the face of our future.” In every state, the portion of families where children have two parents, rather than one, has dropped