I'm struck by what seems to be the notion so far in this thread that all single-parent families are single-parent by choice. And that such a choice is "irresponsible".
I suspect
most single-parent families are a result of circumstance rather than choice.
I was raised by a single parent (my mother) when my father left us. He never paid the child support they had agreed upon, despite the fact that his salary was vastly greater than my mother's. My mother never remarried. While I spent summers with my father, I do not consider him, or his marriage to my stepmother, or how her 6 children were raised in that marriage to resemble anything LIKE a role model. My mother never remarried, but raised me on her own, without government assistance.
Without exception, all of the other single-parent friends I had (not many, this was the 60's) were being raised by their mothers, because their fathers had left them.
I was married young. My first husband and I divorced when my daughter was a year old, and I became a single parent at 22. My husband never sent the child support (because he wouldn't have been able to make his Harley payment, poor dear) we had agreed on, despite the fact that it was not enough to cover one week's worth of child care per month, and I had to work 2 jobs to pay for it, in the crappy apartment in the crappy city which was the only place I could afford. I qualified for government assistance, but I never applied for it.
I am hugely grateful to be living in a stable, loving marriage and grateful that my son will have the benefits of it because I do think it's the ideal situation. Like most "ideals" however, I believe it to be the exception rather than the rule.
I also firmly believe that being raised by a committed loving single parent is preferable to being raised within a toxic marriage, and absolutely does not guarantee an upbringing failure. I know just as many people who are deeply damaged by having grown up in abusive, unhappy families as I do those who were damaged by the absence of an active father in their lives.
I think it would be enlightening to conduct a study on why so many fathers abandon their children, but I've never had to objectivity to look into it in any depth. Even if a marriage ends, I wish more fathers would maintain a commitment to their children. Oh, and I really wish the moral conflict over birth control didn't exist.
If every man wore a condom every time he had sex with a woman he is not prepared to raise children with, these statistics would fall through the floorboards. So would the incidence of many sexually transmitted diseases.
One out of every two children in the United States will live in a single-parent
family at some time before they reach age 18. According the United States Census Bureau, in 2002 about 20 million children lived in a household with only their mother or their father. This is more than one-fourth of all children in the United States.
The most common type of single-parent family is one that consists of a mother and her biological children. In 2002, 16.5 million or 23 percent of all children were living with their single mother. This group included 48 percent of all African-American children, 16 percent of all non-Hispanic white children, 13 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander children, and 25 percent of children of Hispanic origin. However, these numbers do not give a true picture of household organization, because 11 percent of all children were actually living in homes where their mother was sharing a home with an adult to whom she was not married. This group includes 14 percent of white children, 6 percent of African-American children, 11 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander, and 12 percent of Hispanic children.
