Single Parents By Isabel Martinez

            Single parent homes are a growing epidemic that is affecting more and more people in the U.S. Single parent homes often consist of one parent that has either lost their significant other as a result of them leaving, death, or legal troubles. Everybody knows a single mom or dad raising their child alone and it is an issue that we need to prevent from happening. This issue is affecting the generation being raised negatively and could lead to children being forever scarred and to them resorting to terrible habits that could eventually ruin or end their life. It leads to children having lacking direction, authority and affection in their lives. In order to help this issue we need to recognize how much this issue affects society and find ways to encourage people to become responsible of their children, encourage criminals to become better parents for their children, or even just helping avoid death in our society through cheaper medical care, more effective medical solutions or through stricter enforcement of the law. This is an epidemic that is going to keep growing if we don't take action as soon as we can.

            Although this issue has been around for centuries, this has become a rapidly growing issue in the past few decades. History: In 2016, the United States Census Bureau came out with statistics on family arrangements at that time. The statistics concluded that most children under age 18 lived with two parents, roughly around 69 percent. It found that 23 percent of children live with a single mother. According to the Bureau, from 1960 to 2016 the percentage of children living with two parents decreased from 88 to 69 percent while single mother families nearly tripled from 8 to 23 percent. While not very prevalent in our societies, single fathers are also becoming an increasing trend. In the same timeframe, single father households increased from 1 to 4 percent. Another problem that might emerge along with the single parent trend might be children living with no parents. As grandparents, aunts, uncles and other family members step in, the number of children living with no parents has increased from 3 to 4 percent. Part of the reason why single parent households are increasing might be the rise of unmarried couples living together and becoming parents. When these statistics came out, there were more than 8 million couples lived together without being married. These statistics also stated that 38 percent of unmarried couples were raising a child under the age of 18. Another report from the Center for Children and Families also states that 40% of all live births in the U.S. are to single mothers. This growing epidemic is being partly caused by the increasing amount of people waiting to get married or not getting married at all.

Social Effects: According to post, 90% of welfare recipients are single mothers. 70% of gang members, high school dropouts, teen suicides, teen pregnancies, and teen substance abusers come from single mother homes. A child in a single parent household is far more likely to experience violence, commit suicide, continue a cycle of poverty, become a drug addict, commit a crime or perform below his peers in education. 63% of suicides nationwide are of individuals from single parent homes. 75% of children addiction hospitals are from single parent homes. More than half of all youths incarcerated in the U.S. lived in a single parent family as a child. In 2009, 37% of single mother families lived in poverty compared to 6.8% of married parent homes. According to a 2012 U.S. Census Bureau study, 63% of youth suicides, 90% of homeless and runaway children, 85% of children with behavioral disorders, 80% of angered rapists, 71% of highschool dropouts, 75% of teens in chemical abuse centers, 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions, 85% of imprisoned children come from single parent homes.

Example 1: In the article Are Children Raised With Absent Fathers Worse Off? It explains some of the reasons why children in single parent households have the negative effects that they do and why single parenting might not be that bad. It explains how children raised by single mothers do worse when it comes to academic achievement, their social and emotional development, their health, and their ability to get a job later on. The rates of abuse and neglect among children raised by a single parent are higher while graduation rates among them are lower. It states that one of the reasons children from single parent households are at a disadvantage is because two parent families have increased resources available to them. The have to spend more money on child care and have less time to spend with the child. They also have a lower income and usually less education than two parent households. They are also more unstable than two parent households. Finally, it explains that a single parent’s personal traits could also be a factor in the disadvantage of coming from a single parent household. There could be a higher risk of mental issues in single parents. This article briefly explains about single parenthood as a result of death. It explains how the death of a parent does not have as many negative effects that a single parent household would.

Example 2: In 1982, The Washington Post published a report on the rise of single-parent families. It stated that there was a dramatic rise in single parent homes from the 1960s to the 1980s. It utilized data from these times to give an important perspective on single parents, race, the labor force and to provide some history about the issue. Something that could be a factor in the rise of single parent households could be a rise in divorce rates, child births to unmarried parents, teen pregnancy, and the rise of women in the workforce. It states that in black families, low income, unstableness, and high unemployment rates are factors in males leaving, causing a rise in single mothers and the highest rate among races.

Example 3: In 2015, Olivet Nazarene University’s Nicole Howell published a study on the link between single parent homes and crime. The study included information about positive adult role models, mentoring programs, and intervention techniques. It speaks on the importance of mentors and role models for children from single parent families in order to fill the void of a missing parent. It also explains how these services can be positive for both the single parents and the children.

Avoiding single parenthood is important because it causes increases in poverty and crime if not done correctly. It is important to be aware of the negative consequences the rise of single parent families have on our society. The trauma, crime, poverty, drug use, and everything else that it brings shapes our society everyday. This is a problem that affects our society through a decline in the economy and education, and increase in crime in our everyday lives. Our society needs to make a change and be responsible over our actions and take care of the children we produce in order to raise healthy intelligent children that are able to take care of themselves later on.

The Solutions: While single parenthood cannot be completely obliterated, there are ways to help the epidemic. One solution given by healthfully.com to reduce the effects of single parenthood, is for parents to reach out for community resources. There are many agencies that could provide child support or child care in order to ease the financial constraint on single parents. Strong communication, love, and support could ease the negative emotional effects caused by single parenthood. In order to avoid single parents from being consumed by the stress caused by parenting, single parents should keep their health a priority. They also need to express their emotions fully to release the stress. In order to avoid single parenting as a whole, teen pregnancy, divorce rates, and poverty rates need to go down. Education is also an important factor in single parenthood and should become a priority in order to reduce single parenthood and its negative effects.

            One solution for the single parenthood epidemic could be avoiding divorce in American society. Divorced parents are a big contributor to the problem of single parent homes. The higher the divorce rate increases in the U.S., the more likely that single parents will be a big part of our society. Currently the divorce rate is said to be 39 percent. And while the divorce rate may be dropping currently, divorced parents are very prominent in our society.

            Enabling more parents to be able to receive a higher education could also be a factor in helping the single parent epidemic. Having a higher education contributes to having a higher income and better health, which then in turn is especially helpful for single parents, who tend to have higher poverty rates and worse health. Having more educated members of society is beneficial to everyone in society. According to research by UC Davis, the poverty rate is 5% for people with a bachelor’s degree or higher, 10% for people with some college but no degree, 14% for people with a high school diploma and no college, and 29% for people with no high school diploma in the U.S.

            Providing better child support services including mentors could help lessen the negative effects that single parenthood has on children. One of the main issues when it comes to single parent households is the fact that children are far more likely to be less educated, more likely to become criminals or have mental issues. Something that could help with those issues would be to provide children the support they need that their single parent might not be able to provide but also to provide these children with positive role models that they can look up to in the course of their life.

            Better health care could help the issue of single parents as well. One way a child could have a single parent is if their other parent dies or is too ill to provide for that child. Better health care could help with that issue. If families have better insurance and better doctors to treat them, their life could be less at risk and it would be likely that they would be able to provide more for their child. “According to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, employed single mothers are 40% more likely to have cardiovascular health problems and 74% more likely to have a stroke compared to married moms who worked. They are also 77% more likely to smoke.”

            Increasing the minimum wage could also better the lives of single parents. Many single parents do not have a high education therefore they work minimum wage jobs. They have to resort to work a low paying job in order to provide for their children and get by. Raising the minimum wage could help with this by providing single parents with a higher income in order to better provide for their families. Statistics from the U.S Census show that nearly 30% of single parent families live under the poverty line compared to 62% of families with married parents.

            Reducing the death rate could also help reduce the rise of single parent families. A decline in the crime rate would result in less parents being killed and could reduce the amount of single parent families. Historically, the death of a partner has been a main cause of single parenting. There are many children that lose their parents due to crimes, war, disease, and accidents that happen to them. There are 2,744,248 deaths that happen every year. The average amount of deaths is 849.3 in every 100,000 people. The less people that die in the world, the more parents there are for our children.

The Absurdity: The stigma that is associated with single parents is a form of absurdity. The idea that single parent households only bring harm for the children being raised is a form of absurdity. There are single parents that are able to provide a good and fulfilling life for their children although it is harder for them. If the single parent is well educated, earns a income that could be lived off of, and has time and attention to provide towards the child, the child should turn out to be just like any other child raised by a family in the U.S. It is only a matter of the quality of life that the parent can provide, not the amount of people providing it that matters for the child to be able to live fully.

Works Cited

Howell, Nicole, "A Link Between Single Parent Families and Crime" (2015). Ed.D. Dissertations. Paper 79.

Admin. “The Rise of Single Parent Households.” Aurora Online, 1 May 2018, online.aurora.edu/single-parent-households/.

Amato, Paul R, et al. “Single-Parent Households and Children's Educational Achievement: A State-Level Analysis.” Social Science Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Sept. 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4508674/.

Rich, Spencer. “Single-Parent Families Rise Dramatically.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 3 May 1982, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1982/05/03/single-parent-families-rise-dramatically/cc4afac4-2764-419e-8bda-66f14bad3dd0/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.21b58f207f6d.

US Census Bureau. “The Majority of Children Live With Two Parents, Census Bureau Reports.” The United States Census Bureau, 10 Apr. 2018, www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-192.html.

Luscombe, Belinda. “The Divorce Rate Is Dropping. But That May Not Be Good News.” Time, Time, 26 Nov. 2018, time.com/5434949/divorce-rate-children-marriage-benefits/.

Mehta, Saznin. “The Health Toll of Single Motherhood.” Healthify, www.healthify.us/healthify-insights/the-health-toll-of-single-motherhood.

628449873921891. “Causes of Single Parenting.” Broken Promises Helps Struggling Single Parent Families and Their Children., 28 Dec. 2014, broken-promises.org/blog/2014/12/28/cause-of-single-parenting/.

“FastStats - Deaths and Mortality.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm.

“How Does Level of Education Relate to Poverty?” UC Davis Center for Poverty Research, poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/how-does-level-education-relate-poverty.