Single Parents

Nationwide the rate of single parent families has increased significantly. Single parent families in history formally use to consist of the death of a parent or by separation, but in the recent years more families are single parent families by choice. In the year 2000, 12 million families, which are about 28 percent of families, were single parent families. Most of these families were single parent families mainly due to separation, death, and divorced intentionally.

Traditionally single mothers are the head of single parent households. Out of the 12 million in the year 2000, 10 million were single mother headed single parent family homes. The 2 million were father headed single headed parent family homes. Most often fathers are not given custody of their children. When a father is given custody, usually it is because the mother of the child is not interested in having custody or the mother has been deemed an unfit mother.

Another trend that has created single-family homes are never married partners or woman that choose to have children without a partner. In 2000, 30 percent of White, non-Hispanic single mother -headed house- holds have never been married and 50 % are single due to divorce.

These single parent families have all high rates of poverty. Poverty is the most stressful challenge to deal with as a single parent. They are faced with many roles to cover such as raising their family, home responsibilities, performing job task and managing finances. Thirty-four percent of single mother households are below poverty level and 16 percent are single father-headed households.