What are societal attitudes toward single parents?

Question

What are societal attitudes toward single parents?

Answer 1

MYTHS about Single parents:

They are irresponsible

They depend on their parents/government for financial and emotional support

They are self-centered as their needs come before the needs of their child and others

They are promiscuous

They either spoil their children or disregard them completely

They are unable to effectively relay morality to their children-as they themselves are immoral

They will never "make something of themselves"

and so on.....

Answer 2

Especially for a female they are tagged as sl@ts. Just because a woman can get pregnant doesnt make her a sl@t. A man can sleep around not get pregnant and simply because of that theyre not labeled anything apart from a player which in todays society is accepted as normal.

Im a single mum and i know alot of people have judged me when they dont even know me. I was sexually assaulted hence how i got pregnant. When i told the father he wanted an abortion and i said no because growing up with christian values i didnt believe in abortions. I have no regrets my son saved me and until a person comes to know a single parent they should realise not all of us are how they portray us to be

Answer 3

I think that society still wants to maintain the cookie cutter image of the nuclear family. They want to hold on to the American dream concept. When people encounter single parents, they automatically classify them as irresponsible for bringing children into the world without a proper foundation, of having both parents. If its a woman who is the single parent, they classify her as collecting welfare checks. Or, being a bad mother for leaving her kids while she works all day to provide them with a good life. If a father is a single parent, he has less stigma, somehow they will praise him because they will think, "Wow a man who is taking care of his kids, how responsible of him, poor guy" Although, I think, in the days that we are living, it has become a bit more socially acceptable to be a single parent as more people understand that sometimes that is the better solution that having two parents that hate each other. But, I think that being a single mother or single father does affect how society views each, like I mentioned above.

Answer 4

Well, i'm not sure if this is a social attitude, but when my mother was a single parent people always questioned WHY she didn't have a partner. People also assumed that the father of her child (me) was a s***w up and thats why she wasn't with him. One person thought that my mother got pregnant on accident such as while having a one night stand (that she was a sl*t). I guess that all of these don't apply to all single parents but to some.

I know of other social attitudes that are...

Single parents work a lot, give their kids to nannies or put them in daycare/neglet their kids to make money, struggle financially, live in a small apartment, are stressed out, are on welfare, didn't complete high school.

Answer 5

That they struggle financially and possibly as a parent.