by OUTLINEI. Opening Statement / Introduction.
a. I am notb. Parental experiencec. Keeping up with the JonesII. Evaluation. a.
Statistics; Marriage and Divorce1. percentage of married couples2. non-family households3. median age of marriage for men/women4. woman headed households and those never marriedb.
Evaluation of statistics; no-fault divorcesc. Statistics on SINGLE PARENTHOOD Essay1. of all children under 18 live in a single parent household; estimations for the year 2000. 2. 68% live with biological parents3.
black and white percentagesIII. Miscellaneous knowledge. a. point out my being a single parentb. single fathers vs. single mother statisticsIV.
Life as a Single Parent. a. juggler exampleb. distressing statisticsc. Cosby excerpt to change moodd. no right approach; authorization for leniencye.
child-care responsibilites / tipsV. Resources a. utilization of booksb. useful daily tips from Krueger c.
nation-wide support groupsd. military family support unitsVI. Summary. a. total acceptance of situation, strengths and weaknesses, and the child(ren)b.
no magic formula, just a lot of TLCVII. Opinion. a. commonality of single parenthoodb. closing statement I am not a psychologist or a sociologist. I am a single father in aggressive pursuit of a doctorate in parenting which has so far consumed five years and four months of my life.
Nothing Ive ever done has given me more joys and rewards than being a single parent to my daughter. T he perfect scenario: two people meet, fall in love, have a lovely wedding, a romantic honeymoon, successful careers, a house mortgage, 2. 3 darling children, and live happily ever after. Thats the way its supposed to happen, right? At least for the Jones family it does.
Few situations have ever been more idyllic and unfortunately, reality doesnt always deal from the same deck of cards and it most often doesnt turn out that way. W hat happens next? Divorces happens next; a very common aspect of todays society. For foundation purposes, lets look at a few statistics: – The percentage of households consisting of married couples fell from 79 percent in 1950 to 55 percent in 1991. – Non-family households–mostly people who live alonegrew from 10 percent to 30 percent of households during the same period.
– Between 1956 and 1990, the median age at first marriage rose from 20. 1 to 24 for women and from 22. 5 to 26 for men. – Since 1950, the percentage of American families headed by women has nearly doubled, to 17 percent.
– Thirty-one percent of one parent families are now headed by never-married women, in contrast to 6. 5 percent in 1970 (Parkman, pp. 29-33). H ow can this be? Perhaps the shift to no-fault divorce is a major reason family life has become less attractive to many Americans. Under the no-fault divorce laws of most states, one spouse may unilaterally dissolve a marriage. These laws have reduced the incentives for spouses to commit themselves to their relationship and have caused many other people to either delay or forgo marriage (Parkman, pp.
29-33). Furthermore, no-fault divorces, ushered in 20 years ago was hailed as a quick and easy solution to relationships gone sour (Moody, pp. 70-78). Then there are the children between the two separating parents.
W hile data strongly supports the idea that a two-parent family works out better than a one-parent situation, this has been seemingly over-looked as the decision to separate is eminently alluring. Single parenthood in the United States has exploded in the last decade. Over 14 million children (1/4 of total) under the age of eighteen live with only one parent and predictions estimate that by the year 2000, over one-half of all family units will be headed by a single parent (Krueger, pp. 13).
In addition, only 68 percent live with their biological parents; and yet furthermore, approximately 40 percent of white and 85 percent of black children will live in a single-parent household within their childhoods (Thio, pp. 328). These type of statistics are ever increasing. Why? The answer to that question has been thoroughly researched and is beyond the scope of this report. What is within the scope is how to deal with this new lifestyle of single parenthood and whether or not is it manageable for you and I, not Murphy Brown, but you and I; the average human being.
The trend within the statutes and the .
