Originally Posted by Meyou:
I'm not too fond of the way they lump single parents and unmarried parents together. Considering not all couple have the right to marry it's not exactly an accurate or politically correct category IMO.
There are thousands or perhaps millions of people that chose not to get married for religious or financial or political reasons but according to this study they're all single parents and included in their statistics. Meh, that just doesn't sit well with me.
While I agree that the the state of the family unit has declined and that affects children greatly I cannot agree that women or children were better off 50 years ago when 1/3 of all marriages were forced because of an unplanned pregnancy. It seems to me that the "happy family" of 50 years ago was perhaps not so happy as we think but just better at faking it.
I think it
is appropriate to lump them altogether (in a financial way)...many of the services to single moms/single parents are there regardless. If fact, of all the clients i have had using subsidy...every.single.one was in a committed relationship. living together, but didn't get married b/c then they wouldn't get services. They even referred to each other as husband/wife.
My dh worked in far south side chicago...same thing...the majority of his coworkers had a sah "wife"(but not really married), and they worked the same job as dh. But since they were not married, collected heat assistance, free health care for their kids, cash benefits for a couple of years, Sec 8 assistance for housing, free tax prep... We were starting to feel stupid for getting married. I know his coworkers mentioned it a couple of times in jest...
As far as the emotional effects of single parenthood...yes, it is way different when children are in a 2 parent household vs 1 parent household. I haven't seen that too often, mostly in divorce situations. The teen parents I know (2 that I have had in my program, 2 of my cousins' kids)...all have been living with the children's father, and years later still in the same living situation...a 2 parent household, just not married.