Single-Parenting: A Growing Phenomenon - Research Paper

Introduction

Single parenting has been a growing phenomenon across the whole world over the last 20 years. Most of the communities have had the existence of such families whereby children are brought up by only one parent, who in this case is probably the mother to the children in question. In definition, single-parenting occurs in a situation whereby children who are at the age of below 19 years, are being raised by one parent without a partner. It can be a mother or father whom due to several reasons such as divorce, failure to get married, or death of the other partner raises her/his children alone without the assistance of any other person. However, in most cases, women are most probably known to have had and already been profoundly affected by the issue of single parenting. The numbers have been hence having an upward trend with the current approximation reaching up to more than 10 million families across the entire world. This easy shall therefore major it's focused on the various causes of single parenting, besides several factors that would seem to affect the whole issue of single parenting.

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Historically, death of a partner acted as the common cause of single parenting. However, due to the improvement in maternal care, this cause has significantly reduced and become less common in recent years. Besides, other purposes of such as divorce have increased tremendously and become significant threats towards leading to a family left to the sole care of a single parent.

Causes of Single Parenting

By statistical figures regarding divorce, in every 1000 families in the United States, 9 of the families were being led by a single parent in the year 2009. Besides, statistics also show that in the newly married families, there exists a chance of 40% that divorce may occur especially if it is their first marriages. However, the chances of divorce also increase after the first divorce form 40% to 69%. Thus, divorce has been one of the serious contributors to the issue of single parenting, thus leaving several families having one parent to take care of the children.

In most cases, the general trend that happens after the divorce is that mothers are the ones who end up being single parents. The scenario remains so because children would in most cases leave with their mother and hence depend on her for the rest of their lives especially if the divorce happens at a time when they are under 19 years. For example, in the United States, in every six single-households, five of them are headed by mothers. However, fathers would become single parents in the case they are widowed, and the whole responsibility of bringing up children is left under their sole care. On the other hand, single mothers would give custody for the fathers to their children mainly due to the factor of financial instability which has an effect of improper control and satisfaction of the children's primary needs. Besides, some of the children would choose to stay with their father under various circumstances.

As a result of the demise of one partner, the later becomes a widowed parent to whom the responsibility of bringing up children would solely be left to him or her. The impact of the death of a partner would hence lead to great difficulties when it comes to both psychological and emotional adjustments. This form of single parent paring is therefore not a voluntarily one thus posing a great challenge for the parent who remains to take care of the children under tough times.

Single parenting can also happen as a result of early pregnancy. In most cases when teens become pregnant untimely, they find themselves with a responsibility to parent their child or children at an age whereby they had not yet prepared for. The impact of such form of parenting would then lead the parent to undergo different types of stress while picturing on how the whole issue of parenting would sound to her since it was fully untimely. There are however various side effects of such parents who bear children an early age. One of such challenges is the fact that children born of such parents would end up turning rebellious and having intolerable behaviors.

Adoption of children has emerged as yet another way to have an existence of single parenting roles. The whole idea happens to be so just because there are single parents to whom life feels incompatible and due to loneliness, they hence find a way of compensating that gap by adopting children to whom they would live together with. This phenomenon has been growing at a fast rate across the globe, and especially in the United States whereby the growth is the fastest.

Additionally, there exists one more form or cause of single parenting known as donor insemination single parenting. Parenting will become single in this way if they opt to receive sperm from a male donor, which is hence inserted into her reproductive tract for her to conceive. In most cases, such parents are lesbians who do not prefer having a male figure in their life hence opting for the option as the best option for them.

Challenges That Single Parents Go Through, and Their Possible Solutions

In most cases, people don't just choose to become single parents. It happens as a result of maybe quite traumatic occurrences such as divorce or death of a partner. Therefore, single parenting poses a huge challenge to the parent who is left with the responsibility of raising children. Just like it was discussed earlier, mothers are the most affected by the burden of single parenting. It follows that single parents would suffer a range of challenges that are associated with raising of their children such as the financial constraints for supporting up their children in so many ways.

One of the significant challenges that single parents go through state loneliness. In most cases, single parents would lack someone who could offer a shoulder to lean and aid in the current challenges the parent might be going through. There is always a gap that calls for emotional fulfillment for the parent. In the case of divorce or demise of a partner, there always come moments of grief or loneliness which may trigger off emotional hollowness, a situation which if not well controlled would lead to depression.

When it comes to the responsibility of instilling discipline into the children, single parents face a lot of challenges. The situation would be so because some of the children would choose to engage in quite unpleasant activities such as truant activities which are as a result of emotional stress that some of the children chose to go through.

Being a single mother will leave you curious the way to navigate the unknown avenues of single parenting. One of the issues long-faced by single mothers may be a lack of discipline. The struggles of single parenting like these usually drop the parent of all energy to pursue their interests. Children can also provide a solo parent associate degree showing important emotion time particularly once they notice that you don't communicate along with your partner. Also, they may offer a parallel data for his or her stingy interests. One would like to brace yourself for these single mother struggles and not let single parent stress crush your spirit.

One drawback of single parenting is financial responsibility. The additional money burden can also limit some time with them; youngsters left on their own with no correct steerage may develop noncompliant behavior that inhibits disciplinary measures from one parent.

Low self-esteem is one very unique challenge that faces most of the single parents especially the mothers. This happens to be so due to the societal branding which would turn as a harsh judgment. Instead of giving support to them, society would turn into a judgmental face to persecute separated spouses. Moreover, it becomes more challenging to handle the responsibilities that are left for the single parent especially when the immediate family members and friends turn to be the very first people to fail to offer support to them, and hence chose to give them a hard time while razing up their children. Such unmerciful events would thus lead to single mothers developing an aspect of low self-esteem since they would perceive themselves as if they were of no importance to the family and society at large.

In the case whereby the involved single parent is a young girl living under the control of her parents, making decisions on the children might be very challenging. Thus, not having the ability to form important choices regarding kids becomes one of the major challenges that several single parents face, particularly once the daddy desires to allow the mother of his kids a tough time. In case they need to require their kids out of the country for a visit abroad - they need to fight their baby fathers for permission.

Conclusion

Precisely, single parenting poses various challenges to single parents when it comes to the responsibility of raising children. Financial constraints become one the major challenge since there require so many activities to be accomplished by the use of finances which are not available especially to the single mothers. Emotional stress and loneliness is yet another challenge since a parent has to cope with a new form of life without the other partner, either due to divorce or demise.

References

Seccombe, K. (2000). Families in poverty in the 1990s: Trends, causes, consequences, and lessons learned. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(4), 1094-1113.

Ludlow, A., Skelly, C., & Rohleder, P. (2012). Challenges faced by parents of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of health psychology, 17(5), 702-711.

Dallaire, D. H. (2007). Children with incarcerated mothers: Developmental outcomes, special challenges and recommendations. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 28(1), 15-24.