Single Mothers: the Single Handed Struggle

Single Mothers: The Single Handed Struggle When thinking of the perfect family, most people think of either a family close to them or what seems to be the generic traditional view of the perfect family; two parents, two or three well-mannered and behaved kids and a dog running through a green backyard behind a house with a white picket fence. For some people this lifestyle is all they have known and grown up with. For the majority of the rest of the country, this picturesque idea is seen through clips of the “Brady Bunch” or a Disney movie. While it is more favorable and ideal to bring children into a stable, two person relationship a common assumption regarding family is the notion that kids raised by two parents are better off in the long run. Don 't children raised by two parents have twice the love, attention, and resources than children who have been raised by just one parent; and isn 't each of the parents in a married couple all the better at parenting for having the love and support of each other? It has to be a coincidence then that 50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce, leaving single mothers to battle the hardships of a breakup on their own and also maintain the responsibility to continue the uphill battle of raising well rounded children (et al, 2012) . The pressure, hardships, and everyday struggle that single mothers have to endure sends a better message about ethics and determination to the children they bring up. A single mother can refer to a number of different women. A teenage mother, an unmarried mother, or the divorced mother. All share the common theme of having the struggle to raise their kids without the comfort of a husband, despite the age gaps. Around 9.9 million was the number of single mothers living with children younger than 18 in 2010. Out of that number, 750,000 teens 15 to 19 (US Census Bureau, 2011). Teenage pregnancy is an ever present, important theme in single motherhood.

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