Single Families

Single Parent Families

Michael Annon

Axia College of University of Phoenix

In a perfect world, children would grow up and be raised by both their mother and father who are living together. Recent times have shown that this is not occurring as much as it should, and for a variety of reasons, our children are growing up in single parent homes. This number is ever increasing over the years. Traditionally in the past, the mother has been the main supporter of the children, but studies have showed that the father has become more of the single parent and has taken on more of the parenting role than the mother has. Fathers can be the main parent in a single parent home.

Single Parent

What is a single parent? Single parents come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and genders. A single parent is a parent who cares for one, or more children without the assistance of another parent in his or her, home. The single parent could be the mother, or it could be the father. In some cases, single parents could also be a family member, or a friend of the family. (2)

Reasons

Single parenthood may occur for a variety of reasons. Some parents opt to be single. The parents that chose to be a single parent could be the ways of adoption, artificial insemination, surrogate mother, divorce, and an extramarital affair. In some cases parents become single do to the results of an unexpected occurrence, such as a death in the family, or the abandonment of the other parent. (2)

Statistics

According to the U.S. Census Bureau report, the percentage of households headed by single parents has remained steady between 1994 and 2006 about 9%. That number is up in comparison to the percentage from the 1970’s to the 1990’s, which had been around 5%. Although most of the single parents are female, the past few years have seen more men heading the single parent families. The statistics show that in the United States, 22 million children go home to one parent. Of the...