Eight Aspect Chart

Eight Aspect Chart

Eight aspects which are causes of being a single mother are came through healthy discussion & arguments between the three persons Sunil, Dinesh & Raj.

It was fantastic & interesting way to come across these aspects which are shown in diagram. Sunil gave us task to write twenty five questions related to the single parent mothers. We wrote those questions which came in our mind at that time. Again I & Dinesh shares each of our questions in which some were common & some were very genuine & important. Then from those questions we underlined the words which are meaningful & necessary. Then again we discussed on those words which we filtered out of the forty questions.

Finally we designed a lovely & excellent chat which can describe the whole issue of single mothers. then we interlinked some of hose words through which the topic is getting more clearer. Now further we are writing on those aspects by interlinking them with single mothers.

Debates on Single Parent

Public Policy Debate

Single parents have often been the focus of public policy debate. The debate has included both practical considerations around the role of government in their support, and moral ones in response to the decline of the traditional family. The moral debate tends to divide between liberal and conservative positions with liberals welcoming or accepting the changes in family structures, while conservatives decry the declines in marriage and the rises in divorce and cohabitation.
The major issue facing single mothers and their children in the United States today is Poverty. Female-headed single parent families comprise 50% of all families in poverty (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1979). Statistics show in the U.S. Census Bureau that children raised by both parents grow up with more financial and educational advantages.
Hence, a policy debate tends to split along similar lines with fiscal conservatives emphasizing a minimal role for government and an employment focus, while liberals tend to support more government involvement in an attempt to minimize poverty through things like social programs such as welfare and insufficient child support.
Children from all family types are at risk when they are experiencing parenting that is inadequate in the terms of attention, being there to nurture and monitor. This can happen in families that are experiencing economic stress and may need to work more than others. (http://social.jrank.org)

Other Debates

Other debates consist of whether or not children from single family homes encounter and engage in violence, which can affect their adult lives.
Also, the debate about whether or not the fact that children from single family homes can become emotionally distracted or upset and preoccupied by the exposure of their family lives, which affects their education in a dire way. One side thinks that adolescences education might be deferred or they can drop out completely due to parental efficacy. Their attitudes toward the importance of an education and the investment and time the put in their children’s education can determine whether the child will enroll in higher education as an adult while the other side believes that it is other factors that contribute to this dire affect in their education.

Choice Parent

A choice parent is a parent who voluntarily becomes a single parent to a biologic or adoptive child from the very beginning, rather than by a later separation from a partner.
A woman may voluntarily become a choice parent by artificial insemination, use of a cervical cap conception device with donor sperm, or simply by intercourse. Women who choose insemination or adoption to become parents are also referred to as "choice mums" or "choice mothers". These women, many of whom are over 35, tend to be educated, career women. Children of this group of single moms are less likely to be at risk of poverty.

In History and Fiction

There have been several famous single parents who were also actors, vocalists, and politicians. Murphy Brown, one famous fictional character in the sitcom of the same name, was a career woman working in a TV news firm. She became pregnant and had a baby in the comedy series' fourth season. The character's decisions became a nation-wide interest when she was referred to by several US family values-oriented politicians, including then-vice president, Dan Quayle, who openly criticized the show during a 1992 speech in San Francisco.
Other examples include:
• Shmi Skywalker in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
• Porter Ricks in Flipper
• Robby Ray Stewart in Hannah Montana
• Frank DeFazio in Laverne and Shirley
• Florida Evans in Good Times after James (John Amos) has been killed off
• Ellen Miller in Lassie
• Andy Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show
• Dr. Beverly Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Captain Benjamin Sisko in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter
• Danny Tanner in Full House
• Lorelai Gilmore in Gilmore Girls
• Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird
• Dan Burns in Dan in Real Life
• Michael Bluth in "Arrested Development" (Widower)
• Julia Baker in "Julia" (Widow)

Assistance and Help

A common way for single parents to seek and receive help is over the Internet by conversing with other single parents in similar situations. There are various websites available, for support, information, and sharing the single parenting experience through offering discussion forums, blogs and professional advice to those parents who find themselves having a difficult time parenting alone. Many single parent communities offer chat boards for pregnant mothers and single parents through each stage of child development. http://www.SingleWithKids.co.uk, http://www.onlydads.org and http://www.onlymums.org are such websites and as well as the online support, they also provide mutual support through meet ups and breaks, proving to single parents that life really can continue after divorce or bereavement.
In the UK Gingerbread - the National charity for single parents - has a facebook page , a twitter account and a discussion forum for members

Effects of Single Parenting

Single parent families are at a higher risk of poverty than couple families, and on average single mothers have poorer health than couple mothers.
Most children from single parent families do well. Many factors influence how children develop in single-parent families: the parent's age, education level, and occupation; the family's income, and the family's support network of friends and extended family members (including the non-resident parent, if available). Disadvantages in these factors that often accompany single parenting appear to cause most of this association rather than single parenting itself.
Shocking headlines do get published; for example a 2003 Swedish study, stated that those living with a single parent were about three times more likely to kill themselves or end up in the hospital after an attempted suicide by the age of 26 than children living with two parents, however this only happened to 2.2 percent of girls and 1 percent of boys.
A variety of viewpoints do exist, with different readings of the research possible. The Institute for the Study of Civil Society reports that children of single parents, after controlling for other variables like family income, are more likely to have problems. There are impacts of sole parenting on children, however the weight of the evidence it is suggested, do not appear to support a view that sole parents are a major cause of societal ills and are doing irreparable damage to their children..