It is a well known fact that the instance of single parent households is on the rise, without an end in sight as the divorce rate continues to hold steady at slightly above fifty percent.
However, single parent homes don’t come about solely as a result of a divorce situation. In other words, there are those scenarios where a custodial parent becomes the only one raising a minor child because his or her spouse has recently passed away. Others become single parents because they don’t want to get married at any time in their lives, but they still wish to raise a child for the fulfillment and satisfaction that doing so provides.
Unfortunately for single parents, a majority of those individuals who are married feel they have the freedom to pass judgment on why their single counterparts are living without a spouse.
Opinions such as these translate into the stereotypes that single parents raising children are branded with, such as that it is these folks who apply for food stamps or other public assistance because they are without the benefit of a spouse to help support them or they just don’t want to get a job.
However, as the statistics on single parents has shown, this sector of the population has more similarities than not in common with those adults who are currently married with children.
For instance, contrary to the general belief that parents in the singles category are the ones who are sucking up all the public assistance resources available to the United States at large, single parent information has shown the truth to be otherwise – as approximately seventy-nine percent of single mothers hold employment of some kind, while ninety percent of single fathers are also working for a living.
Meanwhile, according to single mom statistics only twenty-seven percent of custodial maternal figures are using public assistance, while less than twenty percent of custodial single parent fathers ask for government help at some point.
Other false information about this group of parents abounds that is amply proven wrong by the statistics on single parent households.
For example, many point to single parents as the reason the teen pregnancy rate is so high. Though it is true that many teenagers who become parents themselves come from a single parent household, this family situation does not in turn automatically cause a youngster to run out the front door and become promiscuous.
As statistics have shown, minor children raised by a single parent are no more likely to have substance abuse issues or disciplinary problems in school and elsewhere than those children growing up with two parents in the same house.
Yet, falsities that do make their way into the public’s stream of conscious have to originate from somewhere, and those regarding single parenting are no exception. And when considering the circumstances of divorce and single parents from many decades ago, it makes sense that the married half of the public has come to believe what they do about parents without partners.
What are some of the more grim figures which existed years ago that have given people a reason to form the opinions they currently hold about single individuals raising children?
To start, as far back as the year 1995 almost six in ten children living with their mothers only had to endure a lifestyle on or close to the poverty level – thereby causing most of these single mother families to require public assistance.
In this same year, many children were living with a single mother who had never before been married – a phenomena that presented its own challenges to the single mother parenting crowd.
For instance, two-thirds of the children living among this group of mothers found that their parent didn’t finish out her high school years, thus setting a bad example in the educational realm. In addition, these children were forced to suffer the effects that unemployment of a parent brings about, as unmarried single mothers were twice as likely to be unemployed or not even intending to become a member of the labor force at all.
Four million children lived with their grandparents during this mid-nineties decade. But sadly, thirty-seven percent of those four million adolescents did not have either parent also living in the home along with their grandmother and grandfather – making those children have to cope with the idea of an absentee mother or father.
Despite the pitfalls of the past, many single parent families have been able to rise above it as the current statistics show. For example, back in the nineties a majority of prison inhabitants gave single parent households a bad name since much more than fifty percent of inmates came from an environment of this type.
Today, that figure stays right around fifty percent, which means that one out of every two persons sitting in jail comes from a family where the parents are still together in a marital capacity – thus proving the point that in this day and age, growing up in a one-parent environment is not a precursor to a life of crime and whiling away the years behind the walls of a penitentiary.
From the information that has been gathered regarding single parenting, it is easy to conclude that this group has it harder when it comes to raising children and staying financially afloat at the same time. But as the most recent statistics on single parent households have demonstrated, there are more similarities than not to the manner in which each set of children grows up and turns out as an adult.
Sometimes all it takes to get through the divorce process is to know that there is a person who is on your side to help you from start to finish – a person who can answer your questions and even guide you when it comes to filing your marital dissolution documents with the local family law court.