The Challenges of Single Parent Families
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The Challenges of Single Parent Families
People have always had different perceptions on children brought up in a single parent family. Although deemed as impossible, single parenthood is increasingly becoming. Numerous children have grown successfully, exhibiting both emotional stability and mental strength irrespective of whether they were brought up by one or both parents. The thorny issue, however, is whether there are any differences between children raised by both a mother and a father and those raised by either of the parents. This brings to the fore debates as to whether a child needs both parents, the role of a man as a father figure, the role of step-parents and if the government renders any support to single parents. As the debate heats up, it may be noble to consider that raising children may be anchored on the values instilled in them and not the family structure (Jeynes, 2002)
Proponents of a child having both parents benchmark their arguments on the potential behavioral and emotional gains that a child gets. What they fail to understand is that not all problems children have are directly linked to single parenthood. Robert L. Maginnis, in his article “Single-parent families cause juvenile crime”, asserts that “Children from single-parent families are more likely to have behavior problems because they tend to lack economic security and adequate time with parents”. This argument does not consider the varied reasons on the difficulty of raising a child as a single parent. A single parent works hard to meet both his/her needs and that of the children, while at the same time sparing time to ensure the emotional well-being of the children. It is a difficult but a possible task.
Statistics show that single parenthood is increasingly becoming common, with fifty eight