How Single-Parenting Effects Children

1490 Words6 Pages
How Single-Parenting Effects Children Imagine receiving a text message that says: “I’m going to ask my friend if he has a shotgun. If he does, I’m going to have him point it at my chest and I’m going to pull the trigger.” Receiving a message like this is terrifying in itself; however, when a single parent receives a message like that they have nowhere to turn. Having raised my son by myself since he was three years old, I would have never thought about receiving a message like that, but I did. The message came while my son was attending his freshman year at college. Questions started racing through my mind as to what I did wrong: should I have stayed married, gotten remarried so my son could live in a two-parent household, along with many other questions. This resulted in a very scary and trying time for me. I feel there are things that need to be offered to single parents. Starting with several important elements: first being the different ways one becomes a single parent and a brief definition, second being a list of effects single-parenting has on children, functioning in a single-parent family, and lastly what truly matters to children when being raised by a single-parent. After researching the ways one becomes a single-parent it became very clear this is common knowledge; however, it needs to be expressed in order for those to understand the effects of single-parenting on children. There are four different ways a person can become a single-parent. They consist of the following: through divorce or separation, being widowed, never marrying the child’s father, or being a single-parent from the very beginning by choice. In addition to knowing the different ways a person becomes a single-parent, a brief definition of single-parenting according to the Free Online Dictionary is “a person who has a dependent child or dependent children and who is widowed,

More about How Single-Parenting Effects Children

Open Document