Single Parent Family Causes

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Kamla Raj (2009), vividly states that Single parent family is “A family comprising of a single mother or father having their own dependent children.” Some of the causes of single parent family are as follows: death of one parent, divorce, separation, teenage pregnancy, desertion and sometimes one’s choice. According to the ‘Marriage and Family Encyclopedia, a single parent is a parent, not living with a spouse or partner, who has most of the day-to-day responsibilities in raising the child or children. A single parent is usually considered the primary caregiver, meaning the parent the children have residency with the majority of the time. If the parents are separated or divorced, children live with their custodial parent and have visitation …show more content…

(2000) stated that single mothers have higher incidence of major depression.
MCLoyd (1994) in his study emphasized that financial (economic) strain led to depression Ann-Marie Ambert (2005) endorsed the merits of marriage, especially for the welfare of children, but also emphasized that a good and stable single parent is far better than a divorce-prone, conflicted two parent family whether married or co- habitation.
Antonia M. Essien and Agapetus A. Bassey (2012) emphasized that the value of the traditional nuclear family structure of men, women and children is fast eroding, resulting in alternative family forms such as a single motherhood among others. In their opinion, single motherhood is a universal phenomenon and the reasons for single motherhood vary greatly across the nation, ranging from personal choices to involuntary circumstances. They further advocated that there is need for the entire society to focus more on the attitudinal change and social orientation towards single mothers.
Furthermore, Marcionis (1997) stated that in recent times, there is a proliferation of “alternative family forms such as one parent families, cohabitation, gay and lesbian couples and also

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