Social Acceptibility of Single Parenting Dependent on Socioeconomic Status?

By: Kayla Hemingway

For the past several decades, as people become less dependent on economic partnerships, the family unit has been changing its shape.  While people still claim to “value” marriage, it is more of a personal choice based on love and emotion, no longer a multi-functional, economic necessity.  Thus, it seems as though divorce, and consequently, single parenting, are becoming not just more common, but more socially acceptable in general.  However, depending on who you ask, single parenting isn’t perceived quite so positively in some certain social milieux.  My own experiences as a single parent have really given me a lot of insight on how a person’s socioeconomic status influences the likelihood that they will become a single parent.  As a member of an upper middle class family, becoming a single parent was quite the scandal in my community.  My parents were ashamed and hid it from other family members.  Contrarily, when a girlfriend of mine found out she was expecting out-of-wedlock, her family threw her a huge baby shower and they were over-the-moon happy for her.  I know a lot of it had to do with the fact that she came from a one-parent home and was of a lower socioeconomic status.  Becoming a single parent was “the norm” for her and her family.  As recently as 1995, 45% of children raised by divorced mothers and 69% of never married mothers are impoverished or near so. (http://www.census.gov/prod/3/97pubs/cb-9701.pdf)  So we know that single parenting has to be more widely accepted by those of lower economic statuses.  

But why is this?  Especially when considering that historically single parenting was rejected by all socioeconomic groups.  Maybe it is media driven?  After all, a single mother is likely to spend a lot of time outside of the household, working.  This gives a child a lot of time focused on things such as TV. (media).  You flip on the TV. these days and half of the shows and movies playing are glamorizing single parenting.  Take MTV’s “Teen Mom” for example.  Granted, “Teen Mom” focuses more on the aspect of teen parenting and that is an issue all in itself, but it also embellishes single parenting by making these young single girls look like heroes.  There are tons of blogs with dedicated fan bases to these young single, mothers.  Check out one that I found with extra enthusiastic fans, here:

Teen Mom Junkies

Citizens of lower socioeconomic statuses are already more likely to deviate, and when you flip on the TV and see single parenting plastered in a positive light everywhere, it has an effect on the adolescents watching it.  It has an amplified effect on the adolescent watching it that have an absent parent.  No matter the reason, it is clear that the social acceptance of single parenting widely varies among the audience.  

http://crcw.princeton.edu/workingpapers/WP03-04-Usdansky.pdf
http://www.census.gov/prod/3/97pubs/cb-9701.pdf