Becoming a Single Parent

Abstract

Using a longitudinal sample of 4,010 mothers and fathers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we examine factors that predict whether children are living with both parents, only their mother, or only their father when the child is 3 years old. We considered parental characteristics and resources and couple\family-level characteristics and found that although many factors increased the odds of parents living together-including the financial resources of each parent, having a supportive relationship, and having a disability-free child-even more factors disproportionately increased the likelihood of either single fatherhood or single motherhood, including parents' multiple-partner fertility and depression, mother's drug use, and mother's greater alcohol use. Our findings suggest that although most children living with a single parent live with their mothers, they are more likely to do so if their fathers exhibit problem behaviors, and more likely to live with their father if their mothers do so.

Single Mothers' Survival Strategies of University Students During COVID-19 Pandemic

“…In OFI's case, she now manages the toy store business. In line with this, previous studies found that single parents' existence raises gender equality and increases women's work participation (Dunifon & Kowaleski-Jones, 2007;Goldscheider et al, 2013;Mather, 2010).…”

“…Layliyah (2013) argued that a single parent is a robust person and plays a dual role in being both father and mother for their children due to balancing those two role models. Thus, single mothers inevitably ought to play dual gender roles in children's presence, tenderness of mothers, and toughness of fathers (Goldscheider et al, 2013;Hasanah & Widuri, 2014;Jones et al, 2002). Mothers had to add masculine traits to replace a father figure for their children on top of their femininity.…”

Gay Fathers on the Margins: Race, Class, Marital Status, and Pathway to Parenthood

“…In part because of strong normative pressure for children to be paired with mothers, single-father families are less common than single-mother families and face distinct challenges (Coles, 2015). For example, men tend to become single fathers in cases when mothers are deemed unfit for parenthood, which is a predictor of negative outcomes for children (Biblarz & Stacey, 2010;Goldscheider, Scott, Lilja, & Bronte-Tinkew, 2015). When tasked with full-time parenthood, fathers have demonstrated themselves capable of parenting competently, challenging the notion that men and women differ in their parenting capacities (Biblarz & Stacey, 2010;Risman, 1986).…”

Experiência Subjetiva no Exercício da Monoparentalidade

“…A expressão "famílias monoparentais" contribuiu para o enfraquecimento dos estigmas sociais associados ao divórcio e à maternidade sem casamento (Biasutti, 2016). Dado que, inicialmente, o crescimento de famílias monoparentais foi, predominantemente, constituído por mães solteiras quase todas as pesquisas focalizavam este grupo (Goldscheider, Scott, Lilja & Bronte-Tinkew, 2015) e muitas delas ressaltavam a ideia de déficit em relação às famílias biparentais, consideradas "normais", capazes de oferecer recursos às crianças (Biasutti, 2016). Sobre esse aspecto, Berenstein (2015), ao propor uma concepção vincular para pensar os relacionamentos humanos, faz uma proposição provocadora: se do ponto de vista biológico, fazem falta dois gametas para dar origem ao embrião, a partir da subjetividade talvez não façam falta dois pais.…”