By: Bettany Valsin

Single-parenting is something that has been a very debatable aspect in society as to whether or not it served as being “socially healthy”. Being that the standard and traditional family is seen as having both a mother and father, single-parenting has caused many to fear that the outcome and structure could potentially be destroyed by embracing single-parenthood. Historically, single-parenting was something that society really looked down upon and didn’t embrace at all. On the contrary, now it seems as if single-parenting has become more socially acceptable, because we live in an era in which the independence of women is rejoiced, and encouraged. Therefore, instead of single-parenting being viewed as a pity case, society is bound to make that man/woman feel as if they are some sort of warrior. A downfall to this is that now single-parents are suffering more and more economically, because in my research it states that a lot of single parents have an income below the established national poverty level (Journal of Extension, pg. 1) .So now the problem with single-parenting has shifted from just being socially unusual, to  being an economic threat as well. In addition to that, single parents are also said to lack all of the skills to provide the necessary emotional needs and some physical needs as well. Why is that our society is more accepting to single=parenting nowadays if they only seem to produced undesired results? Well, if we take on this situation with a sociological perspective, we discover that because our society has grown to support the independence of women, single-parenting then serves as a way to embrace the independency and strength of a woman. Society wants to support the fact that women feel as if they can take on the role of both the man and the woman in the household as opposed to the mindsets historically. Historically, this was deemed unacceptable, because the majority of society back then always placed women under men, and no one truly respected a woman taking on major roles. Therefore, present-day single-parenting does not seem so uncommon, but instead two parent households are beginning to seem less likely to discover.

Link to website: http://www.joe.org/joe/1984september/a2.php