Single Parent Facts

Accrding to information from the U. S. census website, there are 12,687,000 female single-parent households, and 4,028,000 male single parent households (or over 16,715,000 single parent families in the U.S.).

While single parenting is not a choice many people would intentionally make, it can have its rewards. Many times single parents discover they are capable of doing more than they ever thought possible and that they have skills they did not know they had. They become more self-reliant and less co-dependent upon others for their existence. And hopefully they learn that true happiness must come from within, not from other people. Single parenting is very challenging, but it can also reap benefits if you accept the challenge and grow through it.

Children in single-parent homes can learn to help with household chores and care for younger siblings, which helps them develop maturity quicker than those families that have two parents who do everything for them. Children can learn more quickly to be self-reliant, solve problems, and accept responsibility for their actions. They also can learn that life is not fair and to make the best of the situation. Children can also benefit by sometimes having the best of both worlds—quality time with each of their parents individually, which is something they may not get in a traditional two-parent family where the parents may get so caught up with making a living that they forget to make a family life.

One of the most difficult things a single parent can struggle with is having to do everything by themselves with no one else to blame if it does not get done. They quickly learn that if something has to be done, they are the one that has to do it.  Accepting and learning from challenges is part of a growing and developing process that we never outgrow. The day we stop learning is the day we begin to die.