Single Parent Families

Half of all parents, yes 50%, will experience divorce and therefore be a single parent for some period of time before remarrying or forever which ever comes first. Families maintained by women with no husband present increased three times as fast as married-couple families in the past 10 years. Due to divorce or death, mothers and fathers who end up going it alone have gotten there through the end of a marriage.

in typical cases, a parent may be left alone after divorce, after abandonment by the other parent, separation from the other parent, by the jailing of the other parent or after the other parent has died. A single parent not need be the natural mother or father of the child (children) as some individuals choose to become single parents through natural or artificial insemination, adoption or they may have taken on the role of parent as neither the child's mother or father are able to care for it. In some countries, teenage single parents have become a serious social issue.

In most cases the mother retains custody of her child or children, although the father usually obtains custody in Islamic republics. Among divorced single parents in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 15% of custodial parents in 2002 were men.

While many view single parents as being a modern phenomenon the percentage of single parents has remained relatively constant. For instance in 1900 13% of Canadian families were single parent ones; in 1996 the number was 14%. The major change is in cause. In 1900 most single parent families were the result of the death of a parent, while in 1996 they were usually caused by divorce.

Today in the United States, being raised by a single parent is not uncommon. About three in ten children live in a single parent home. The most common type of single parent home is one with only a mother. However, single father homes are the fastest growing type of family situation. The amount of single fathers has grown by 60% in the last ten years alone. This is mainly due to some sort of disaster that has happened to the mother. This causes the single parent to be financially burdened due to the fact that one of the "breadwinners" has just been lost.

Statistically, children in single parent homes fare worse than those with two parents. In the United States, family structure contributes to five characteristics of a child's well being. These include lower birthrates and higher death rates among infants when there is just one parent. Also, the number of children ages 15-17 in school and in good health is much lower, and the number of children becoming pregnant at these ages is increasing. However, children raised in single parent homes do worse than those with caregivers who can give the child attention in all areas, including academic, emotional, and health.

There are also signs that children who have gone through a divorce have problems with depression (mood), emotional stress, and difficulties in school. Problems like this however may not be because of the parent who raised them, but can be linked to other things that are also related to single parenting. When there is only one parent, the family is often less well off financially and this is the main reason for so many family problems. The effects of coming from a low-income family can be things like lower education levels, lower economic achievement and even leave the child isolated and lonely. Being a single parent and struggling for money often coincide, the consensus of research now suggests that family structure itself is the more significant variable.

Single parent homes are also associated with criminal activity in the U.S.A. Children from a single-parent household account for 72% of teenage murderers, 60% percent of people who commit rape crimes and are eleven times more likely to exhibit violent behavior. Reasons for this have to do with the fact that these children are generally less supervised, their actions are less monitored and there is usually less communication between the child and parent, and that most likely they come from poor families.

The problems that single mothers face are that they have a harder time providing for their families because feminist studies conclude that women generally have lower paying jobs, though this is disputed and newer studies reveal that the wage-gap (also known as Income disparity) is largely down to choice, not discrimination. So, they have all the problems that lower income families have, but