being raised by a single parent essay

What I Learned From Growing Up With A Single Parent

Growing up with a single parent is special, but it's not easy. If I've learned anything throughout my 23 years on this planet, it's that a single parent will do anything it takes to make you happy and give you the best possible life they can. But doing any major task alone is stressful and difficult; you'll have your rough patches that are unique to a single parent household. However, that doesn't mean growing up with a single parent is any worse than growing up with any other type of family. In fact, from my experience, it may even be better.

A single parent is often not home

To a person who grew up in a two-parent household with a bunch of siblings, this may seem pretty sad. And I'm not going to lie, parts of it did make me sad, especially when I compared my home life to other kids'. But not getting to see my mom all the time was also my "normal." Every family is different and has a different daily routine. When you're the child of a single parent, you get used to the fact that they can't always be there. But the best part of my day was always when she came home from work at seven o'clock and I could finally see her and hug her and jump on her. It made me deeply appreciate the moments we did have together, and it made them more precious to me.

Other people play a huge part in raising you

A single parent just has to work, work, work — there's no way around it. So while you sometimes miss out on spending time with your parent, you also get to grow up with a network of people around you who chip in and care about you. It wasn't only my grandfather and aunt who watched me and raised me; it was babysitters, too. To this day, I'm still good family friends with my favorite babysitter, who now has a husband and two kids. As an only child of a single parent, I got to branch out and keep lasting relationships with others, even if I didn't have the luxury of spending more time with my mom.

You sometimes doubt how much your parent cares

As an adult, I know now that she was far from apathetic as she worked relentlessly to provide me with anything I wanted. No family, no matter how many people it is composed of, is ever 100 percent happy 100 percent of the time. The kind of unhappiness I dealt with was particular to a single parent home, but other kids have their own kind of unhappiness with their home life, too. It's just different.

It's stressful for the both of you

Since a young age, I've always struggled with depression and anxiety — it's just part of who I am. My mother knew this, too, as I had been in child therapy as early as eight years old. So one day when I was about 14 and I refused to answer any of her phone calls — for whatever stupid teenage reason — she absolutely lost it on me when she came home. She bolted upstairs to my room, busted through the door and was visibly freaked out. I had never seen her so upset and scared before. She had thought the worst, that something had happened to me, and it was then that I realized how hard it is for her to be a parent all on her own. I learned it wasn't just about me. I learned my mother had feelings, pressures, and stresses too, which is something you don't think about when you're young and your parents seem invincible to you.

You learn independence at a young age

The negative side of growing up with a single parent is feeling a sense of neglect at times. The positive side of that same issue, though, is that you learn independence at a very young age. Since your parent is often away from home and working, you have to grow up a little bit faster than your peers. You have to be the adult in the house when your parent isn't around. Because my mom was frequently absent, I had to learn how to be strong on my own. I had to learn how to be responsible for myself and for others. When my mom couldn't field an electrician's visit because she was at work, I had to do it. I also had to make sure the dogs were fed and properly taken care of. Simultaneously, it was about adopting a lot of self-discipline, because I needed to be the one who made sure all my work was done. My mom didn't pester me about my responsibilities because she had her own. As a result, I became more mature more quickly and learned things about the world and about growing up that my peers didn't learn until much later. Thick skin and independence is absolutely invaluable as you become an adult.

You realize exactly how hard they work for you

When I was little, I often asked the question, "Why isn't she here for me?" Now that I'm grown, I look at my mother in awe and ask the question, "How the hell does she do it all?" Not only is it impressive from on objective standpoint, but it is the best model for hard work that I've ever seen. Watching her work so hard ceaselessly has pushed me to do my absolute best. I'm always looking for more work to do and I never think that anything is impossible so long as you keep grinding away at it. I always want to give as much of myself as I possibly can to my work, and even still, I feel like I pale in comparison to the effort my mother has put in over the years. She's taught me that nothing worth having in life comes easily, and it's one of the most valuable lessons I've ever learned.

A two-parent household isn't automatically better

Growing up with a single parent came with its challenges, but I also grew up seeing what other kids' family lives were like. If I'm being frank, a lot of two-parent households I knew of were way worse than my own situation. Parents would fight or be estranged from each other, causing problems for their children. I've seen two-parent households with much less income than my single parent household had (not that we're rich, though), simply because they lacked motivation to do better in life. So no, just because a person has two parents doesn't mean they're better off than someone with a single parent. I've seen parents who are absolutely lazy and dysfunctional, and I've seen my mom who is a go-getter and a highly moral, kind person. You tell me what's better.

They're always going to be your superhero

My mom and I don't have a perfect relationship, but there's not one day that goes by that I don't see her as my superhero. I still deal with lingering feelings of neglect sometimes, but I also have a friend — not just a mother — that I can always go to. She doesn't know all the answers, but to me she is infinitely wise. She can't be everywhere at once, but she can do anything. If I've learned anything from growing up with a single mom, it's how to be a strong woman, a woman who is not afraid to strive and persevere when life gets tough, and a woman who will never back down even on her weakest day.

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Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Growing up with a single mother and life satisfaction in adulthood: A test of mediating and moderating factors

Affiliation German Institute for Economic Research, Berlin, Germany

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom

• David Richter, 
• Sakari Lemola

• Published: June 15, 2017
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179639
• Reader Comments

Single parenthood is increasingly common in Western societies but only little is known about its long-term effects. We therefore studied life satisfaction among 641 individuals (ages 18–66 years) who spent their entire childhood with a single mother, 1539 individuals who spent part of their childhood with both parents but then experienced parental separation, and 21,943 individuals who grew up with both parents. Individuals who grew up with a single mother for their entire childhood and to a lesser degree also individuals who experienced parental separation showed a small but persistent decrease in life satisfaction into old age controlling childhood socio-economic status. This decrease was partly mediated by worse adulthood living conditions related to socio-economic and educational success, physical health, social integration, and romantic relationship outcomes. No moderation by age, gender, and societal system where the childhood was spent (i.e. western oriented FRG or socialist GDR) was found.

Citation: Richter D, Lemola S (2017) Growing up with a single mother and life satisfaction in adulthood: A test of mediating and moderating factors. PLoS ONE 12(6): e0179639. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179639

Editor: Jacobus P. van Wouwe, TNO, NETHERLANDS

Received: November 15, 2016; Accepted: June 1, 2017; Published: June 15, 2017

Copyright: © 2017 Richter, Lemola. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: Data are available from the German Socio-economic Panel Study (SOEP) due to third party restrictions (for requests, please contact [email protected] ). The scientific use file of the SOEP with anonymous microdata is made available free of charge to universities and research institutes for research and teaching purposes. The direct use of SOEP data is subject to the strict provisions of German data protection law. Therefore, signing a data distribution contract is a precondition for working with SOEP data. The data distribution contract can be requested with a form. The form is provided here: http://www.diw.de/documents/dokumentenarchiv/17/diw_01.c.88926.de/soep_application_contract.pdf . For further information the SOEPhotline at either [email protected] or +49 30 89789- 292 can be contacted.

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Single parenthood is increasingly common in Western societies, with 27.5% of children in the US currently being raised in single-parent households—more than 80% of them in households headed by single mothers [ 1 ]. Although the importance of studying the long-term consequences of single parenthood on children is clear, there is still a dearth of knowledge on the relative strength of long-term effects of single parenthood on children’s well-being at different stages of the adult life-span as well as on the involved mechanisms. Therefore, we study differences in life-satisfaction across adulthood related to differences in childhood family structure in a large representative German panel study. We focus on life-satisfaction in adulthood as a highly desirable characteristic which is assumed to play a crucial role for the populations' health, longevity, and citizenship [ 2 , 3 ].

There are three main pathways by which being raised by a single mother may produce a long-lasting impact on well-being in adulthood. First, children in single-mother households are more likely to suffer from less effective guardianship and a higher likelihood of family distress and conflicts (e.g., [ 4 ]). It is well established that two-parent families generally provide more emotional resources to children than single-parent families (e.g., [ 5 , 6 ]). In a related vein, children, whose parents divorce, exhibit slightly lower psychological well-being and social adjustment than children from stable two-parent families (e.g., [ 5 , 7 , 8 – 10 ]). The experience of parental divorce may cause further emotional distress to the child [ 5 , 11 ] and may eventually lead to an insecure attachment representation [ 5 , 12 ]. Prolonged family distress and insecure attachment representation may in turn complicate the development of social skills and make it more difficult to engage in satisfying intimate relationships which may eventually also hamper life-satisfaction during adulthood [ 12 ].

A second pathway of impact is related to the generally lower socio-economic status and increased risk of economic deprivation among children in single-mother households (e.g., [ 4 ]). Economic deprivation affects children's adjustment and well-being in multiple ways. Children from poor households are at increased risk to live in a low quality home environment and poor neighborhood conditions. They are more often exposed to harsh parental rearing practices and poor parental mental health, and they more often receive suboptimal nutrition and suffer from poor physical health [ 13 ]. Finally, economic deprivation also increases the likelihood of these children to enter careers with poor socio-economic prospects and to show poor social integration when they reach early adulthood [ 5 ].

A third pathway can be summarized as the ‘missing-father hypothesis.’ In popular science, it has been discussed that children need both a mother and a father, presuming that fathering involves distinct and necessary qualities which are particularly important for gender identity formation in boys (e.g., [ 14 , 15 ]). There is also evidence that the absence of a father is associated with an increase in antisocial behaviors in boys, including violence, criminality, and substance abuse [ 16 ] and a decrease in social adjustment in general [ 5 ].

The present study

In the present study, we examine whether general life satisfaction is lower among adults raised by a single mother than for adults raised in two-parent families. To do so, we compare the general life satisfaction of adults reared by their single mothers with respondents who grew up with both parents. As single parenthood and parental divorce are associated with parental socio-economic background and education, we statistically control for parents’ education and occupational prestige along with the respondents’ age and sex.

We expect to find a dose-response relationship, that is, that adults who spent at least part of their childhood in a two-parent family are affected less—despite the significant stresses associated with the experience of parental separation [ 5 ]. We expect a smaller decrease in general life satisfaction in this group, as the parent who left the family may still provide resources to support children when they enter adulthood—which is less likely when the parent has never lived together with the child.

Second, we test mediation models namely whether the association between childhood family structure and general adulthood life satisfaction is mediated by life outcomes that may be summarized as adulthood life success, including educational attainment, employment status, occupational prestige, net income, physical health, integration into social networks, and success in romantic relationships as there is evidence that these life-circumstances are affected in a negative way by growing up in a single parent household and/or by having experienced parental divorce [ 5 ]. We hypothesize that differences in these life circumstances during adulthood partly explain the difference in general adulthood life satisfaction between individuals who have been raised by single mothers and their counterparts who grew up with both parents.

Third, we test moderation of the effects by three possible moderating variables, age, gender, and societal system where the children grew up. Regarding age differences one might assume that the effects of single parenthood wane across the adult life-span following the general psychological principle that the longer ago a negative experience the smaller the imposed impact (e.g., [ 17 ]). Regarding gender differences we test the idea frequently echoed in popular science, namely that men who were raised by single mothers are more disadvantaged in adulthood than their female counterparts. Finally, regarding the question if different societal systems differentially affect the role of childhood family settings for adulthood life satisfaction we compare individuals who grew up in the Federal Republic of Germany and in the German Democratic Republic. The western oriented Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR), which existed between 1949 and 1990, differed sharply in terms of several variables that may possibly be relevant for single parent families namely divorce rate, female participation in the labor market, and child day-care infrastructure. The divorce rate in the socialist GDR was nearly twice as high as in the FRG and female participation in the labor market was at 89% compared to 55% in the FRG in 1990 [ 18 ]. Even more drastic difference existed with regard to the child day-care infrastructure; more than half of the children who grew up in the socialist GDR were in regular day-care, which was free of charge, while less than 2% were in day-care in the FRG at the end of the 1980s [ 19 ]. Due to these differences we expect that children who grew up with single mothers in the socialist GDR were less disadvantaged compared to their counterparts who grew up with both parents than children who grew up with single mothers in the FRG; we expect this, as the higher divorce-rate may have reduced the stigma associated with single parenthood in the GDR, moreover, single motherhood was possibly related with relatively less economic burden in the GDR compared to the FRG.

The data are from the SOEP (Version 30), which is an ongoing, nationally representative longitudinal study of private households in Germany running since 1984. Comprehensive information about the data collection, design, respondents, variables, and assessment procedures is reported in Wagner, Frick, and Schupp [ 20 ].

The sample comprised of 26,936 adults born after 1946, of whom 24,123 adults between the ages of 17 and 66 years ( M = 37.86 years, SD = 13.50 years; 52.1% female) were analyzed in the present paper. Given the present study’s focus on the effect of single parenthood vs. growing up with both parents, we categorized the participants into three subgroups: individuals who lived with both parents up to the age of 15 ( n = 21,943), those whose parents separated and who lived with their mothers for between one and fourteen years ( n = 1539), and those who lived with a single mother up to the age of 15 ( n = 641). Data from 2813 respondents were excluded who had spent part of their childhood in different family settings (e.g., raised by the mother and a new partner, by a single father with or without a new partner, or by other relatives; among the excluded respondents there were 207 individuals who grew up with a single father for 1–14 years and 21 individuals who grew up with a single father for 15 years, respectively).

Regarding the societal system where the children grew up, in the FRG, 18,186 respondents grew up with both parents up to the age of fifteen, 1234 lived with their mothers for between one and fourteen years, and 483 lived with a single mother up to the age of fifteen. In the former GDR, 3757 respondents grew up with both parents up to the age of fifteen, 305 lived with their mothers for between one and fourteen years, and 158 lived with a single mother up to the age of fifteen.

Although life satisfaction has been measured since the very beginning of the SOEP study in 1984, the information on where respondents had spent the first fifteen years of their lives was only available for respondents who entered the panel after the year 2000. During the fourteen years of data collection, respondents reported their general life satisfaction (‘All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life in general?’) at the end of each yearly interview using an 11-point scale ranging from 0 ( completely dissatisfied ) to 10 ( completely satisfied ), a measure with high reported reliability and validity [ 21 ]. To minimize error variance and to get a global indicator of adult well-being, general life satisfaction was estimated by aggregating all data available to build a mean-score ( M = 7.33, SD = 1.49). On average, respondents provided 4.71 ( SD = 4.29; range = 1–14) data points of general life satisfaction.

When entering the panel study, respondents reported where they had grown up in the first fifteen years of their life (“How many years of your childhood (up until age fifteen) did you live with the following persons? Please round off to the nearest year”). For our analyses, we used data from the response options “with both your father and mother (biological or adoptive)” and “with your mother without a new husband or partner”.

The participants also reported their socio-economic status (SES) in childhood (i.e., their parents’ education and occupational prestige), their own SES in adulthood (i.e., employment status, occupational prestige, education, and net income), their physical health status during adulthood (the number of visits to the doctor, reverse-coded), their social integration in adulthood (number of friends, number of visits to/from friends, and number of visits to/from family members), and success in romantic relationships (their relationship status and if they were divorced). Descriptive statistics of the study variables for the three subgroups are presented in Table 1 .

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179639.t001

Occupational prestige was scored from 13 to 78 using the Standard International Occupation Prestige Score index (SIOPS; [ 22 ]). Occupational prestige was not available for 5377 (22.3%) of the respondents and for 12,331 (51.1%) mothers and 7097 (29.4%) fathers of respondents. In most cases these individuals had no occupational prestige due to being homemakers or being unemployed. In rare cases, however, participants also did not know their parents’ occupation. Missing occupational prestige was scored with the lowest value possible following the rationale that being unemployed or homemaker is regarded as lower in prestige than all other paid work. Respondents’ general occupational prestige was estimated by calculating the mean of all yearly data available.

Education of parents measured when respondents entered the panel and scored from 1 to 3 (no education [ 1 ]: no school attendance, no degree obtained, other degree obtained, or respondent did not know; low education [ 2 ]: lower-track secondary school; and high education [ 3 ]: intermediate-track or upper-track secondary school). Education of respondents was scored using the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED-1997; [ 23 ]. Prior to the analyses respondents’ ISCED-Scores were collapsed into three categories (low education [ 1 ]: ISCED-Scores 0, 1, and 2; medium education [ 2 ]: ISCED-Scores 3 and 4; and high education [ 3 ]: ISCED-Scores 5 and 6). Missing information on education ( n = 138, 0.6%) was scored as the lowest category.

Yearly data on the employment status of respondents were coded to generate a continuous index (full-time employment was coded 1.0, regular part-time employment or vocational training were coded 0.5, marginal, irregular part-time employment was coded 0.25, and not employed was coded 0.0) and collapsed into a mean score to represent the general employments status of respondents across the years they reported their life satisfaction.

The number of doctor visits as well as their generalized monthly net income in EUR were estimated by calculating the mean of all yearly data available.

Social network status was measured in the years 2003, 2008, and 2013. Respondents reported how often they “visited or were visited by neighbors, friends, or acquaintances” and how often they “visited or were visited by family members or relatives” on a 1 ( daily ) to 5 ( never ) scale. In the analysis, the scales of these variables were reversed. In addition, respondents answered the question “how many close friends would you say that you have?”. Respondents’ general social network status was estimated by calculating the mean of all data available.

Respondents’ partnership status was coded (with partner was coded 1.0, no partner was coded 0.0) and collapsed into a mean score to represent the respondent’s general relationship status across the years they reported their life satisfaction. Similarly, we coded whether respondents’ marital status was “divorced” (divorced was coded 1.0, all other marital statuses were coded 0.0) for the years they reported their life satisfaction and collapsed the data into a mean score.

Intercorrelations of all study variables are depicted in S1 Table .

In a first step, respondents’ z-standardized general life satisfaction served as the dependent variable in hierarchical multiple regression analyses. In this analysis, dummy-coded variables were used to represent the childhood family settings of the subgroups. These analyses controlled respondents’ age, age 2 , age 3 , and sex as well as parents’ education (dummy coded) and parents’ occupational prestige (standardized). Age was centered before age 2 and age 3 were calculated.

In a second step, analyses of variance were conducted to test whether indicators of adulthood life outcomes including adulthood SES, physical health, social integration, and success in romantic relationships varied significantly in the three aforementioned subgroups. Again, respondents’ age, age 2 , age 3 , and sex as well as parents’ education (dummy coded) and occupational prestige (standardized) were entered into the equations to control for these background variables.

In a third step, mediation analyses were conducted to test whether differences in adulthood life satisfaction related to childhood family structure were mediated by indicators of adulthood life outcomes including adulthood SES, physical health, social integration, and success in romantic relationships in adulthood. These possible mediators of the effect of childhood family settings on general life satisfaction were entered in three blocks. In model 1 (baseline model), parents’ education (dummy coded) and occupational prestige (standardized) were included into the equation to control for childhood SES. In model 2, respondents’ own education (dummy coded), occupational prestige (standardized), employment status (centered), and net income (standardized) were entered as one block representing adulthood SES. In model 3, respondents’ adulthood physical health (number of doctor visits, reverse coded, and centered) was entered to the equation. Finally, in model 4 respondents’ number of friends (centered), visits to/from friends (centered), visits to/from family members (centered), partnership status (centered), and having been divorced (centered) were entered as one block representing adulthood social integration and success in romantic relationships.

First, we compared the variance explained by childhood family settings (only controlling age, age 2 , age 3 , and sex) with the variance that childhood family settings explained after the control variables of model 1 (childhood SES) had been entered to the regression model. Second, we compared the variance explained by childhood family settings in model 1 (only controlling childhood SES) with the variance that childhood family settings explained after the mediators of model 2 (adulthood SES) had been entered to the regression model. Third, we compared the variance explained by the childhood family settings in model 2 with the variance that childhood family settings explained after the mediators of model 3 (model 2 mediators plus physical health) had been entered to the regression model. Finally, we compared the variance explained by the childhood family settings in model 3 with the variance that childhood family settings explained after the mediators of model 4 (model 3 mediators plus adulthood social integration and success in romantic relationships) had been entered to the regression model.

Additionally, we also evaluated indirect paths of childhood family settings on adulthood general life satisfaction via these mediators employing the Structural Equation Modeling module of stata 13. Here, all possible indirect paths were tested in individual models controlling age, age 2 , age 3 , sex, and childhood SES.

In a fourth step, we included interaction terms into the regression analyses to analyze if the effects of the childhood family structure on adulthood life satisfaction varied depending on respondents’ sex and age when completing the questionnaire following the procedure proposed by Aiken and West [ 24 ]. In addition, we tested whether associations of the different childhood family settings with general life satisfaction in adulthood differed for individuals who grew up in the FRG or the GDR.

The analyses were conducted with SPSS 20 and stata 13.

Childhood family settings and adulthood life satisfaction

The main analyses showed a significant association of the different childhood family settings with general life satisfaction. Compared to people raised by both parents, respondents reared by a single mother for between 1 and 14 years or for the entire first 15 years of their lives reported significantly lower general life satisfaction than the group reared by both parents. The effect sizes for the difference in life satisfaction between the two groups reared by a single mother and the group reared by both parents were in the small range (1–14 years: d = 0.10 p < .001, entire first 15 years: d = 0.19, p < .001). Fig 1A depicts the association between childhood family settings and adulthood life satisfaction across the adult life-span controlling for childhood SES. The values underlying Fig 1A are reported in Table 2 , Model 1. The association between childhood family settings and adulthood life satisfaction was not moderated by respondents’ age or respondents’ sex (for further details see below).

A. Association of general life satisfaction with childhood family settings across the adult life-span controlling for respondents’ sex and childhood SES. 1B. Association of adulthood life outcomes (adulthood SES, physical health, social integration, and romantic relationship success) with childhood family settings controlling for respondents’ sex, age, and childhood SES.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179639.g001

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179639.t002

Childhood family settings and adulthood life circumstances

Fig 1B depicts the various domains of adult life outcomes including adulthood SES, physical health, adulthood social integration, and romantic relationship success separately for individuals who grew up with both parents, who lived with a single mother for between one and 14 years (i.e., individuals whose parents separated at some point in childhood), or who spent their first 15 years living with a single mother, controlling for childhood SES. Growing up with a single mother was associated with lower SES in childhood including lower parental education and occupational prestige (mother’s education p < .01, all other p s < .001). Growing up with a single mother was further related to the participants’ own SES in adulthood including employment status, occupational prestige, and net income. This association exhibited evidence of a dose-response relationship: individuals who spent their first 15 years living with a single mother reported lower SES in adulthood than individuals who spent between 1 and 14 years living with a single mother, who again were lower than their counterparts who lived with both parents throughout childhood, controlling for their childhood SES (all linear trends p < 0.05).

Participants who spent their first 15 years with a single mother further showed a lower degree of social integration during adulthood, including a smaller number of friends and fewer visits to/from family as well as less success in romantic relationships, including a lower probability of living with a partner and a higher probability of having been divorced, controlling for childhood SES (linear trends p < 0.05). Again the effect was somewhat stronger for participants who lived with a single mother for their first 15 years compared to their counterparts whose parents separated at some point during childhood. Generally, the effect sizes were in the modest range, and no significant association between childhood family settings and physical health (number of doctor visits, reverse-coded) and number of visits to/from friends was revealed after controlling childhood SES (see also S2 Table ).

Mediation of the effect on life satisfaction by adulthood life circumstances

Mediation analyses revealed that a large part of the variance in life satisfaction between different childhood family settings was explained by childhood SES, including differences in the education and occupational prestige of the respondents’ parents (i.e., 29% of the variance; see Table 2 , Model 1). Inclusion of respondents’ own education, occupational prestige, employment status, and net income during adulthood into the model attenuated the association of the different childhood family settings with general life satisfaction by a further 20% (Model 2). Inclusion of physical health (Model 3) attenuated the association of the different childhood family settings with life satisfaction by a further 6%. Finally, inclusion of respondents’ social integration and success in romantic relationships attenuated the association of the different childhood family settings with life satisfaction by a further 16% (Model 4). However, the differences in general life satisfaction between respondents who lived with both parents for their first 15 years of life and either group of respondents reared by a single mother remained significant in all models, even when all adulthood life circumstances were controlled for.

Evaluation of the indirect paths between ‘growing up with a single mother for 1–14 years vs. with both parents’ and general life satisfaction revealed that paths mediated by respondents’ education, employment status, physical health, and number of friends were significant (p < 0.05, see Fig 2 ). Regarding indirect paths between ‘growing up with a single mother for the entire childhood vs. with both parents’ and general life satisfaction, paths mediated by respondents’ education, employment status, occupational prestige, net income, number of friends, visits to/from family, partnership status, and experience of divorce in adulthood were significant (p < 0.05, see Fig 2 ).

Indirect paths were estimated separately in individual models but illustrated here together in one model for presentational parsimony. All models controlled age, age2, age3, sex, and childhood SES. Values are unstandardized path coefficients with 95% confidence limits. Life satisfaction, occupational prestige and net income were standardized; employment status, physical health (number of doctor visits, reverse coded), number of friends, visits to/from family, partnership status, and having been divorced were centered.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179639.g002

Moderation of the effect of life circumstances on life satisfaction by sex

Testing sex differences regarding the role of these adulthood life circumstances for life satisfaction revealed that physical health (i.e., the reverse-coded number of doctor visits; men: β = .09, t = 2.46, p > .05, women: β = .20, t = 5.80, p < .001, sex × physical health interaction: t = 2.66, p < .01) and number of friends (men: β = .05, t = 1.17, p = .241, women: β = .16, t = 4.61, p < .001, sex × number of friends interaction: t = 2.54, p < .01) were more strongly associated with life satisfaction among women who spent between 1 and 14 years of their childhood living with a single mother when compared to their male counterparts. No respective interactions with sex were found for those who spent 15 years living with a single mother.

Moderation of the effect of childhood family settings on life satisfaction by age, sex, and societal system (FGR vs. GDR)

Moderation effects of the association between childhood family settings and adulthood life satisfaction by respondents’ age and respondents’ sex were non-significant when controlling for respondents’ childhood SES (age: F (6, 24104) = 0.807, p = .564, all age × years with single mother interactions: t < 0.45, p > .656; sex: F (2, 24108) = 2.554, p = .078, sex × 1–14 years with single mother interaction: t = 1.74, p = .081, sex × 15 years with single mother interaction: t = 1.51, p = .131), indicating that the effect does not change with age and does not differ between men and women. In addition, the association between childhood family settings and adulthood life satisfaction did not differ significantly between individuals who grew up in the FGR or the GDR ( F (2, 24107) = 0.734, p = .480, Societal System × 1–14 years with single mother interaction: t = 1.14, p = .253, Societal System × 15 years with single mother interaction: t = 0.34, p = .731). This effect remained non-significant ( F (2, 13687) = 0.834, p = .453) when the sample was restricted to individuals born between 1946 and 1974 who lived for their whole childhood until the age of fifteen in the FRG or GDR, respectively.

This is the first study to show that growing up with a single mother is related to a stable although modest reduction in general life satisfaction across the adult life-span until old age when adjusting for poor childhood SES. Individuals who spent their entire first 15 years of life living with a single mother showed on average approximately twice the reduction in life satisfaction compared to individuals who spent only part of their first 15 years with a single mother, which is consistent with a dose-response relationship. This suggests that growing up with a single mother throughout all of childhood and early adolescence and the related lack of resources from the father more than outweighs the well-described negative effects related to parental separation [ 5 , 7 – 9 ].

The reduction in adulthood life satisfaction was partially mediated by the individuals’ living conditions, including their lower socio-economic status and educational level, lower physical health status, and poor social integration and romantic success in adulthood. This finding is consistent with studies on adult well-being after parental divorce [ 5 , 25 ]. The decrease in adulthood life satisfaction was not moderated by age, thus we could not find waning of the effect of single parenthood with increasing distance to childhood. This is in contrast to evidence on negative life events during adulthood including divorce, bereavement, and unemployment for which the general principle of adaptation holds positing that the impact of an negative event decreases with increasing time since the event has happened (e.g., [ 17 , 26 ]). However, and in contrast to studies on effects of negative life events during adulthood we here studied long-term effects of enduring childhood family settings which are possibly more likely to lead to long-term changes to the set-point of general life-satisfaction during adulthood. Moreover, we could not find evidence supporting the widely held notion from popular science that boys are more affected than girls by the absence of their fathers. However, we did find that in females who experienced parental separation during childhood, the effect was more strongly mediated by poor physical health and a smaller number of friends than in their male counterparts.

Finally, we did not find evidence for differential associations between growing up with a single mother in the western oriented FRG compared to the socialist GDR––this although one might expect that the higher divorce rate in the GDR could have reduced the stigma associated with single parenthood in the GDR. Moreover, one might expect that the higher rate of female participation in the work force as well as the higher number of children in day-care in the socialist GDR might have mitigated inequalities between children raised in single parent households compared to children from two-parent households in the GDR.

However, our finding of a non-significant difference between the FRG and the GDR is consistent with comparisons between children raised by single parents in states with well-established welfare systems such as Norway as compared to children from single parents from states with less well-established welfare systems such as the US who neither found any differences [ 27 ]. One explanation for the lack of differences in such comparisons can be summarized by a relative deprivation perspective which holds that existing small economic differences may still matter a lot in societies with a more even distribution of goods and which is in contrast to an absolute economic deprivation perspective [ 26 ]. A second explanation for finding no differences between the FRG and the GDR is that our respondents who grew up in the GDR responded to the study many years after the breakdown of the socialist state of the GDR in 1990. The breakdown of the socialist system has lead to many changes and new economic hardships to a part of the population [ 28 ]. It remains possible that such economic hardships might have stroke adults who grew up with a single mother more strongly than their counterparts who grew up in two-parent families as they possibly also received less support from their father while they were already adults. A third explanation for finding no differences between the FRG and the GDR is that the socio-emotional resources provided by the father were also lacking in single-parent households in the GDR. The deprivation from the father's socio-emotional resources may have outbalanced the effects of some possibly more favorable societal circumstances for single-parents in the GDR.

As a limitation of the study, it remains impossible to derive causality as growing up in a single-mother household and adulthood life satisfaction might both be influenced by a third variable such as genetic factors. In this respect, there is evidence that the risk of divorce is up to 30–40% hereditary which is mediated by personality traits such as negative affectivity [ 29 ]. In a similar vein, it is possible that the direction of the causal influence between the factors that we tested as mediators and life satisfaction are different than we have specified them. For instance it is possible that the relationship between physical health and life satisfaction is reverse involving an impact of life satisfaction on physical health.

A further limitation lies in the measurement of the childhood family settings which were reported retrospectively during adulthood. While it may be assumed that adults are able to reliably report whether they spent the entire childhood vs. only a part of their childhood with a single mother, this variable may still be subject to memory distortions. Furthermore, regarding the possible mediating factors of the effect of childhood family settings on adulthood life satisfaction, physical health could have been measured in a more sophisticated fashion. In the present study it was assessed by the number of visits to the doctor, while more objective measures of physical health such as a doctor’s examinations or physical fitness tests might have revealed different findings.

In conclusion, the present study shows that growing up with a single mother—in particular if the father is absent for the entire childhood—predicts a small but stable decrease in life satisfaction across adulthood that is partly explained by lower socio-economic status and educational achievement, inferior physical health, poor social integration, and lower likelihood of romantic relationship success in adulthood. Contrary to expectations this effect was not moderated by sex, age, or the societal system in which the childhood was spent. Thus, the differences in life satisfaction were similar for younger and older, male and female, as well as participants who spent their childhood in the western oriented FRG or in the socialistic GDR.

Future cross-cultural research comparing effects of family settings on adulthood life-outcomes in several studies from different cultures may identify macro-level protective factors that could be targeted to improve the prospects of single parents and their children.

Supporting information

S1 table. intercorrelations of study variables..

* p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179639.s001

S2 Table. Estimated marginal means of adulthood life circumstances by childhood family settings controlling participants' sex, age, and childhood SES (z-standardized on full sample; M , SE in brackets) .

Values with different superscripts vary significantly ( p < 0.05; Bonferroni-corrected).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179639.s002

S1 File. SPSS-Syntax of the main analyses. Stata-syntax of the mediation analyses.

Those not using SPSS or stata may check the included output-file.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179639.s003

Author Contributions

• Conceptualization: SL DR.
• Data curation: DR.
• Formal analysis: DR.
• Methodology: SL DR.
• Validation: SL DR.
• Visualization: SL DR.
• Writing – original draft: SL DR.
• Writing – review & editing: SL DR.
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6 Valuable Lessons Learned From Growing Up With A Single Parent

Editorial Fellow, The Huffington Post

Single parents often don't realize how closely their kids are watching and learning from their positive examples.

Below, six writers share the most valuable lessons they learned from being raised by single parents.

1. I learned to do it all, but not necessarily at the same time.

"Though my dad has always been very much a part of my life, my mom had sole custody of me since they divorced when I was three years old. I'm an only child, so it was basically just me and my mom on our own throughout my childhood, which means my mom is my best friend -- and my biggest role model. My very own Superwoman, my mom was able to raise an elementary-aged kid on her own while writing her dissertation and getting her Ph.D. She killed all the spiders, did all the housework and was still the best mom I could have ever imagined. She taught me that it's possible to do it all, but that it's also OK to do it all at different times. I've learned so much from her and she's left huge shoes for me to fill when I become a mother someday. She taught me so much about independence, feminism and motherhood that I feel equipped to one day raise children that (hopefully) admire me in the way I admire her." -- Nile Cappello

2. I learned to be fearless and resilient.

"While raising the four of us, my single mother started her first business. We all learned how to be financially independent from her example. With pasted smiles, we distributed flyers under the sun, worked as backup staff members, dried her tears when business was slow and begged for celebratory ice cream when it flourished. I idolized my mom and learned how to become an entrepreneur through her. Watching her, I learned acceptance, multitasking skills, independence, how to forgive my absent parent and the complex realities of a relationship . I matured and learned responsibility at a young age. Growing up with a single parent made me the fearless, resilient woman I am today." -- Phoebe J. Mikneah

3. I learned that there's no use in complaining.

"My dad died when I was four years old and that left my mom in a real situation. She was left with three teenagers, a toddler and a mortgage payment she couldn't afford. What struck me most about our story was that she never griped or grumbled -- at least not to me or my siblings. What did she do? She took the bull by the horns, got to work and made things happen for her family. She sold our house and moved us into something affordable, got her real estate license and became quite successful. She was flipping houses long before it became a popular genre on TV! I learned that no matter what comes your way, there is no use in complaining. Instead, when tough circumstances arrive, you figure out a way to conquer the circumstances." -- Chris Widener

4. I learned that gender doesn't dictate your parental role.

"I grew up with a single dad. All throughout my childhood, he taught me that gender roles are a myth. He was strong for me when I wanted guidance and sensitive when I needed a shoulder to cry on. He did all the cooking and cleaning in our home while also supporting us through his work. Growing up, I came to understand that men and women have equal capacities for nurturing and sensitivity as they do for strength and leadership. My dad and I often talk about how his experience raising me helped him to learn and grow himself, so I guess we both learned a lot from the experience. Sometimes we joke about how he's both my mom and my dad wrapped up in one parent. I am grateful he raised me to have confidence in who I am not only as a woman, but also as a person." -- Kate Fisher

5. I learned to love the imperfections.

"Growing up with a single mom, I learned to adapt to imperfections. Actually, I learned to love them. The only male in our home was a sock-stealing dog and instead of correcting his antics, we were amused. When the faucet in the bathroom broke, we used a pair of pliers to turn on the cold water. Hey, it was a cheap solution that worked just fine. And some of my favorite memories involve me, my mom and my sister standing in the kitchen, eating cold spaghetti with our fingers. Who needs an exquisitely set table and utensils? Perhaps we lived a bit like savages, but we knew what was most important . The end of my parents’ marriage meant we gave up the vision of what a family is supposed to look like. We embraced our own uniqueness." -- Tara Eisenhard

6. I learned that hard work pays off.

"I observed my mother survive as a single parent largely because she was motivated to make a better life for her children. I inherited determination from my mother and this helped me to be a successful professional and to weather the storms of life. Being raised by a single parent can give children an appreciation for the sacredness of love and commitment and a perspective that hard work and determination pay off. " -- Terry Gaspard

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Before You Go

This Is Single Parenting

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My Partner Isn’t Just “Out of Town”

How to understand single parents when you’re not one..

A couple of years ago at Christmastime, my now-5-year-old daughter started crying on the way home from school. “I only got to make ONE Christmas gift at school and I gave it to Daddy! Now I don’t have one for you!” My eyes teared up as well. I hated that my daughter felt different for being the child of divorce. She was the only child in her church-based preschool whose parents weren’t married. In the school directory we were the only set of parents with different last names. And, as I’ve become accustomed to, she was the only child who would need to make two gifts for her parents at Christmas.

I think of this situation often when I’m hanging out with a married mom and they describe their spouse’s temporary absence as leaving them a solo parent:

“Kevin worked so much when we were first married; I was basically a married single mom.”

“Well, Kristin’s out of town. I’m a married single mom this weekend!”

“Damien is so busy studying for his boards that I’m pretty much a married single mom!”

As a single mom who studies communication in families, these statements strike me as both oxymoronic and pretty insensitive. These moms don’t feel different because of their lack of a partner. Their kids don’t question why the families in the books they read don’t look like their family. These moms experience stress because the person they are used to having alongside them is temporarily out of commission.

I’ve been a single mom since my daughter was weeks old; single parenting is a lifestyle, not a situation to weather until my spouse comes home or passes the bar exam. Unless we marry someone who wants to co-parent (and the research shows that many do not ), single moms live each day knowing that we will parent for the next 24 hours on our own. And the next week on our own. And the next year.

And while single parenting is challenging in obvious ways—there’s no one to pass your kid off to when you’ve just had too much, you do all of the transportation and logistics yourself, there’s no divide-and-conquer at bedtime—legit single parenting differs in ways most temporary solo parents might not recognize.

As single moms, we are bombarded by (often inaccurate) messaging that our kids will have poorer outcomes than their friends with married parents. I’m a researcher who studies families, and when I take a quick dive into the family communication, psychology, or sociology literature, I see an endless list of disadvantages associated with having a single mom. Research shows that kids of single moms can have poorer academic outcomes. Some have trouble with romantic relationships, starting in adolescence. These outcomes can result from father absence: Kids whose fathers aren’t significantly involved might experience threats to their well-being as a young adult. Other negative outcomes are tied specifically to divorce. Some research shows that parental divorce among minor children has consequences for both parent–child relationships and health across the life course, a primary reason why divorce is considered an adverse childhood experience ( ACE ) when predicting lifelong health and opportunity. The messaging around these findings is especially pointed if single moms are Black. Media, especially conservative media, exploits this research and uses it to argue for the inferiority of Black parenting. Much of this inaccurate messaging has origins in late-20 th -century “welfare queen” imagery and carries forward into current media.

As a mom of a 5-year-old who seems well-adjusted, this constant messaging weighs on me. As a scientist, I know that these studies show association, not causation. But decades of internalizing negative messaging about single parenting still causes me to fear for my child’s health and well-being. As a result, I overcompensate so that she doesn’t become a statistic. I don’t hire babysitters and go out at night. I don’t date during my parenting time. She will enter kindergarten this year never having been enrolled in full-time daycare, a choice I might have weighed differently if I were still married to her father.

But while my fears aren’t completely unfounded, more recent research suggests that children of all racial and ethnic groups who have experienced divorce do just as well as children from intact families, achieving similar scores on measures of academic success and subjective well-being . In other words, kids who live with their divorced single mom do just as well in school and are just as happy as kids whose parents are married. Single parenthood does not appear to affect kids’ educational achievement , and a childhood with a supportive parent (mom or dad) who maintains a controlled environment at home can lead to happier kids.

This uncertainty is something “married single moms” don’t experience. They might have other fears about their children’s development, but those fears don’t revolve around their family composition. They might even be more likely to work hard at their marriage for fear that their kids will face similar challenges. But as married parents, they don’t have to confront the reality that their kids are perceived as already disadvantaged.

Single moms and our kids also encounter stigma and stereotyping in media. It’s rare to read a children’s book to my daughter that doesn’t include a family with both a mom and a dad (this is also frustrating for queer parents). When my daughter was a baby, I gravitated toward Anna Dewdney’s Llama Llama series because Llama Llama lives with only his mom. In the Llama Llama Valentine’s Day book, the UPS buffalo arrives with flowers for Mama Llama, at which point I (still) exclaim “WHO DO YOU THINK THE FLOWERS ARE FROM?! MAYBE MAMA’S BOYFRIEND OR GIRLFRIEND?!” (Or maybe the hot UPS buffalo?) Sure, I overdo it, but I always choose to capitalize on the rare occasion that there is a single mom in a book.

Much of the stigma and stereotyping in media comes from the (often substantiated) belief that single moms are more likely to be poor (and Black) than married moms. Research shows that perceptions of single parents are most strongly shaped by beliefs about economic resources. In short, single moms are seen as less-than because people perceive them as struggling financially. In fact, in one experiment , participants in a phone survey described single parents as less likely to be able to provide for their children’s basic needs than other types of “different” parents (adoptive or gay/lesbian couples). And other studies show that research participants blame single moms for their circumstances because their kids are perceived as being born out of wedlock or raised without a father figure.

This stigma perpetuates with media rated well beyond PG. I turned on Tyler Perry’s movie The Single Moms Club the other day, only to encounter yet another story about single moms who can’t handle their kids. Of the five moms, two are Black: one lives in the projects, has an older child in jail, and struggles to make ends meet. The other Black mom’s ex-husband has a drug problem and is an absent father. Of the two white women, one is a lawyer who is a single mother by choice, and the other white mother struggles to cope with the “rough” consequences of divorce: She can no longer employ the nanny. The remaining Latina mom is afraid to tell her ex-husband about her new boyfriend; her main conflict in the movie stereotypically revolves around her divorce-imposed sexual repression. The moms spend the movie trying to redeem themselves in the eyes of the school for their kids’ poor behavior, finally becoming closer to their kids in the process.

The problematic trope of the single mom with an unruly child seems even more trite when framed by the tired racial tropes Perry employs in the movie. These are not messages that moms whose partners are out of town for the weekend or enrolled in an evening MBA program internalize. Media doesn’t root their kids’ behavior problems in their romantic relationships. And when their kids do exhibit problematic behavior, they don’t fear that this behavior will be attributed to their “broken home.”

Finally, as a single mom, I don’t have the joy of experiencing my child’s growth alongside another adult. This is perhaps the starkest difference between my permanent single motherhood and my friends’ temporary lack of a co-parent. My daughter’s first step, her first words, the first time she wrote her name—these types of milestones are often witnessed only by me. Similarly, when it comes to concerns I have about her social, physical, or emotional development, there’s no one to share with. Sure, I have loads of friends and family, and I do share with them, probably a little too much. But this is not a substitute for the feedback loop provided by co-parenting.

Even when married moms are left alone to parent for a weekend or longer, another person exists who is inextricably linked to both the mom and her child. That person is not going to be annoyed or inconvenienced by a text or a call with a funny or concerning anecdote. Married moms became parents alongside their partner and there is someone else who has a similar experience of their kid in real time.

To be sure, there are degrees of single parenthood. I have it easier than many of my single-mom peers. I live close to my child’s father, and although he has much less parenting time than me, he’s consistently involved. Me having a good job provides my daughter an advantage, because research shows that for middle-class single moms, it is less important that my ex is involved in my daughter’s life and her schooling than it would be if we were poor. And as a white woman, my child’s behavior may be attributed to our family arrangement, but it will never be attributed to my race and our family arrangement.

And married-parent involvement varies. Moms married to first responders, long-haul truckers, or spouses struggling with addiction may not feel that they are in a partnership. Some spouses just aren’t attentive or helpful regardless of their occupation. And sadly, married women with children and a husband actually perform more housework than single moms.

The following Christmas, my daughter came home from her new, more diverse preschool with two gifts, one for me and one for her dad. As I effusively thanked her teachers for this very important act, they downplayed my gratitude. For them, our family composition did not make my daughter an outlier. Uncoincidentally, they are both single mothers. And they are both women of color. I will never know what it’s like to have my status as a single mom scrutinized alongside my race. But I realized then that while I can’t choose what the news or children’s books suggest about our family, I can choose schools and organizations that acknowledge the strength that comes from single parenting, and the blessing of our small but loving family.

I Was Raised By A Strong Single Mom, And This Is What I Learned

My mom was the kind of parent who literally kept everything.

Every footprint Christmas ornament, every handmade Mother’s Day card — everything . I didn’t realize this until I got married and inherited a ginormous chest full of those nostalgic little treasures. It weighed a ton, and was chock-full of memories from every phase of my life.

One such treasure I discovered was a picture drawn in 1990. I would’ve been six at the time. It was captioned “MK’s Future Family” at the top, followed by a drawing of a mother, 4 children, a dog, and two horses. Completely absent from the family setup? A dad.

Back then, the school counselors used to worry about my art work. They believed that, because I was a child of divorce , the lack of father figures in my art work was indicative of deeply-rooted relationship insecurity.

It’s kind of funny to me now, because the truth was quite the contrary . I didn’t draw a picture of a husband in my future for the same reason I didn’t add a whale or a cat. I just figured I wouldn’t need one .

I’m a mom now, and although I decided against whales and cats, I do have a husband who is very much the love of my life. But I also know that if I had to make our home without him, God forbid, I could. You see, I inherited far more from my strong, single mother than I could ever cram into that clunky ass trunk. And the life lessons she imparted in me are just as treasured.

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it does matter.

They say the best things in life are free, but really, shelter and food are pretty awesome and those things cost money. Growing up in my household, things were pretty tight. Only money could have relieved the pressure my mother was shouldering at the time. There is no stress quite like financial insecurity. My strong, single mother taught me that while money doesn’t buy happiness, it does matter . And remembering that truth has compelled me to work my tail off and make certain I could provide for my kids independently if it ever became necessary.

Gender roles are a joke.

Believe me when I say, I am grateful for the man that is in my house. I get stumped by the occasional pickle jar, and he’s happy to step up and handle the more physically demanding tasks in our home. (Also, I love him. So there’s that.) But, my mother didn’t have the luxury of a live-in handy man. And yet, I still remember eating pickles. The grass got mowed, the oil in our minivan was changed, and more than once I remember seeing my mother with a hammer in one hand, a nail between her teeth, and determination painted on her face. My mother got shit done, and she managed to do it without a husband. She was a walking middle finger to societal gender roles, and her example is one I intend to follow.

Parenting requires sacrifice.

Parenting is hard as hell. My husband and I often feel we are near a breaking point, and that’s in a two-parent household. My mother managed that load by herself. The amount of self-sacrifice that it required for her to bring us up in a loving home, while simultaneously providing for our care still blows my mind. Single mothers are deserving of all the applause (and absolutely zero of the stigma) .

I can be enough.

I imagine my mother was pretty damn terrified when she realized the burden of raising three children fell squarely on her shoulders. But she rose to the occasion without hesitating. Watching my mother work full time, finish her degree, and put food on our table taught me that, if it ever became necessary, I could be enough for my children. It might be hard as hell, and I might sacrifice some years of my life, but I could do it. The truth is, our little family struggled a great deal, financially. But even in those hard times, we knew we had one another — and as we discovered, that was enough.

My mother taught me all of these things and more. Being raised by a strong mama made me who I am today, and I will forever be grateful.

This article was originally published on Feb. 18, 2018

The Single-Parent Family

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

A single parent is someone who is unmarried, widowed, or divorced and not remarried. The single-parent household can be headed by a mother, a father, a grandparent, an uncle, or aunt. According to the Pew Research Center, between 25 to 30 percent of children under age 18 in the U.S. live in a single-parent household. The U.S. Census reports that roughly 22 million children live with a single parent. And three times as many women, when compared with men, head these households .

On This Page

• The Well-Being of Children in a Single-Parent Household
• The Challenges of Single-Parent Families
• Raising Kids as a Single Parent

Single parents should be reassured by the fact that a large number of studies find no differences between the children of single mothers and children from other types of households. One study looked into the lives of children from different kinds of households—two-parent biological, adoptive, step-father, step-mother, single-parent—and the type of household did not matter. Children’s grades, and their relationships with their siblings and their friends, were about the same across all households. In a survey of adolescents living in nine types of households, those who lived with parents who had always been single and who were being raised in multi-generational households reported the highest sense of well-being of all those surveyed.

In studies as well as many reports from children themselves, children are better off raised by a single parent as opposed to living with married parents who engage in constant conflict. Children raised by one divorced parent sometimes have better outcomes than children raised by a parent who is remarried. It is impossible to predict a child's outcome based on this one factor alone. 

Yes. Every situation involves trade-offs, and they often go unrecognized at the time. In a common refrain, the grown child of a single, working mom reported that he was glad that his mom was busy all the time. His friends, by contrast, had moms who stayed at home. These parents were hyper-involved in their lives, including their schoolwork and schedules. This overbearing participation produced problems between parent and child.

Yes, but this is a risk for married parents as well. Some parents rely too heavily on a child for emotional support. These individuals become enmeshed with their child because of their own low self-esteem, loneliness, neediness, insecurity, or other similar reasons. These parents lack boundaries, preferring to be a best friend rather than a parent.

The vast majority of the children of single parents flourish at home and in later life. In a national survey of substance abuse among more than 22,000 adolescents from different kinds of households, the rate of substance abuse among the children of single parents was 5.7 percent, and the rate for the children of married parents was 4.5%. 

Not at all. More often, the children of single parents defy all stereotypes . If problems arise, they likely already existed when a child's parents were married or arise independent of the household configuration. These children were struggling in their nuclear family. Researchers who followed children of married parents for more than a decade, not knowing in advance whether the parents would stay married or divorce, found that among the children whose parents did divorce and who had problems, their difficulties began at a young age.

Children need a safe and reliable household to flourish. Of course, it is much harder for single-parents who live with financial hardship. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that nearly 11 million people are considered working poor. The definition of working poor is an individual who spends 27 weeks or more in the workforce, this person is working or looking for work, yet their income is below the poverty level. And according to the U.S. Census, single moms are one of the most disadvantaged groups—with nearly 30 percent living in poverty. Many of these single moms cannot provide for their families as they often have lower-paying jobs.

Being the sole parent of a household may mean you are the boss, free of quarrels over money and finance. That’s great, but according to research, it costs $234,000 to raise a child . This price tag impacts the high risk of financial hardship.

This should not be a source of concern or guilt, even though it often is. Children of mothers who return to work while the children are infants and toddlers, fare the same behaviorally and academically compared with children whose mothers stay home. In one study, kids from single-parent families , whose mothers worked, had better academic scores and fewer behavioral problems than did children whose mothers did not work.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that at two years after the breakup of their family, nearly 50 percent of children who live with their mother do not see their father regularly. Many fathers are often shortchanged by custody arrangements. However, a father showing interest and being involved with his children is a huge plus for all. One way to help this along: Help your ex. Pick up the children from school, attend their functions, and cheer them on at games--this involvement can make a difference. Helping your ex will help you. By being an involved father, you and your kids will find ways to spend more time together.

To raise successful children in any family configuration, stability and security matter. Single parents can help ensure such an environment by developing a supportive network of friends, relatives, and neighbors. People who care. For those with extreme financial hardship, there are resources in your community including assistance for housing, food, and healthcare for children, depending on income and other criteria. 

To raise thriving children, a single parent must juggle many aspects of life, the household, work demands, finances, among many other concerns. All parents face similar obstacles, but the challenge for a single-parent is greater.

Set house rules with your kids.

Give undivided attention to each child, even a daily 10-minute one-one conversation will help.

Set boundaries, boundaries, boundaries.

Be consistent and fair, always.

Kids need schedules and routines (sounds boring, but it works).

Lower your expectations, and do away with any ideas of perfection.

Lose your sense of guilt, victimhood, and martyrdom.

Ignore judgmental people.

You need support through good childcare, friends, family, neighbors.

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Apply self-care daily, eat right, exercise, sleep, meditate. (If you do not have time, make the time.)

If you need therapy, a good family therapist will help.

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The Struggles of Being a Single Parent

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13 Ways Being Raised By A Single Parent Makes You A Better Adult

Posted: January 12, 2024 | Last updated: January 12, 2024

1. You’re a Budgeting Expert.

2. You’re Good At Juggling Responsibility.

3. You Develop Strong Emotional Intelligence.

4. You’re Great At Problem-Solving.

5. You Learn the Importance of Self-Care.

6. You Appreciate the Value of Strong Relationships.

7. You’re a Whiz at Time Management.

8. You Gain Great Perspective.

10. You Express Yourself Well.

11. You Appreciate The Small Things.

12. You Become Resourceful in Everyday Situations.

13. You Appreciate the Importance of Personal Space.

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I'm Gen Z, and my parents are baby boomers. We didn't have much in common, but I'm grateful for what they taught me.

• My parents were older than the parents of most of my peers. 
• As members of the baby boomer generation, there were differences in how they parented.
• They taught me independence, good manners, and to be well-rounded. 

Generation Z has been primarily raised by Generation X . But not me. My parents were born toward the end of the baby boomer years and had me, a Gen Zer, when they were both 43. It wasn't until I was older that I truly understood the age difference between my parents and those of my classmates. I have faint memories of celebrating my parents' 50th birthdays when I was turning seven, and I'm still the youngest at every family gathering by a pretty big margin.

While these particular experiences reflect being the child of older parents of any generation, I've recently thought about how my parents might have raised me differently specifically because they're part of the boomer generation. Now, as a young adult, I appreciate what they taught me that might differ from what their younger Gen X counterparts taught their kids, from small to large lessons.

They fostered a sense of early independence

My parents pushed me to embrace independence, even at a young age. Growing up an only child with two parents working full-time, I had to get comfortable finding ways to occupy myself.

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My mother loves telling a story about when I was around three or four years old and poured myself a glass of orange juice for myself while she was busy on a phone call. I just got a glass, went to the fridge, and poured the juice. It overflowed onto the counter and the floor, so naturally, I got a dish towel and wiped everything up. My mom, who was watching me the whole time, was amazed. She recognized I was safe and let me learn to be responsible and do things on my own. Of course, she later had to go in and redo my cleaning job.

Throughout my childhood, while many of my peers weren't allowed to ride their bikes down other streets, they let me go sledding without an adult accompanying me. I was also allowed to walk home from school and stay home alone at a young age. This time to explore and handle daily life without adult supervision showed me how important early independence is for positive personal development and confidence.

They wanted me to be well-rounded and work hard

My parents put me in a little bit of everything growing up. Where other kids did on a sport or two and maybe music lessons, I got to test out a lot of different extracurriculars . This is a privilege I recognize not everybody has and it was made easier by the fact I am an only child. I played soccer, learned how to ski and swim, and took figure skating, diving, piano, and gymnastic lessons.

Not everything was to my liking (I cried before a few ballet classes), but my parents wanted me to learn skills like swimming or skating that they were never taught growing up. Even the things that I didn't enjoy taught me adaptability in new situations.

I was also encouraged to read a lot and do my best in school, which was highly important for my baby boomer parents. The emphasis on academics and being well-rounded encouraged me to be active, hard-working, open-minded, and collaborate well with others.

And while most parents try to teach their kids to say "please" and "thank you," so this isn't necessarily a boomer thing, I'm glad my parents put a strong emphasis on good manners and respect for others. I have distinct memories of my mother always emphasizing before I went to a friend's house to say, "Thank you for having me," or always reminding me to say, "Please," whenever I asked for anything. Impressing the importance of manners on me led me to be a respectful and appreciative person.

They treated me like an adult

Constantly being surrounded by older adults like my parents, their friends, and family members, made me mature well beyond my years as a child, and so did some decisions my parents made. My parents always spoke to me as an adult instead of using "kid talk" or "baby talk."

My parents never planned trips around me ; they planned vacations they wanted to take, and happened to take me along with them. When other kids were at Disneyland at the age of 10, I was touring Pompeii in Italy with my family. Though secretly I'd still love to go to Disneyland, I had plenty of fun as a child. My maturity has helped me get to where I am today, and much of it can only be attributed to being raised by baby boomer parents.

While my parents were older than those of my peers and sometimes I felt like I didn't have a lot in common with my parents because of this generational gap, I'm grateful for how they raised me, and I know I'll bring a lot of their parenting decisions into how I raise my kids.

Watch: Here's what descendants of 5 former presidents say about the role age plays in politics

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