There was a recent poll taken by the Pew Center for Research recently which dealt with changing trends in American families. The questions asked to over 2,500 Americans had to do with trends in American families and whether the individuals who were polled considered various things to be good, bad, or of no consequence to society. People were asked about a variety of different family arrangements: more mothers of young children working outside the home, more people of different races marrying, more gay and lesbian couples raising children, and more single women having children without a male partner to help raise them,…..
The researchers called about a third of the respondents (31%) “accepters”–About half to two-thirds of this group say that these trends make either no difference to society or are good for society.
A similar percentage of the respondents, the “rejecters” did just that–they responded that almost every trend mentioned was bad for American society.
The third (and largest group, at 37% of the respondents) were called “skeptics.” While they generally shared the views of the accepters, in one area they had a stark difference–and that trend was single motherhood. “Virtually all Skeptics say mothers having children without male partners to help raise them is bad for society. Among Accepters, just 2% say this.”
So it appears that over 67% of the American population believes that single women raising children on their own, is bad for American society. This isn’t something that I wasn’t aware of, I am a single mother–my husband died one year after we adopted our two daughters–and I have felt some of that bias. I remember one of my friends complaining about her teenage son’s friendship with another boy who was turning out not to be a good influence. “Well, he lives with his mom and she’s not married,” she told me one day–as if that explained everything. (I guess she forgot I too was a single mother.)
You might think it strange that I bring up this bias on an adoption blog, but singles can and do adopt children. I am also bringing it up because one of the only ways we can get over our biases is to bring issues out into the open. So bear with me for my next three posts because I want to delve into the topic of single mothers.
It’s interesting that you bring up the topic of single parenthood today. We were just talking about single parents adopting children, because of the Arizona bill that was recently passed giving preference to two-parent married families in the adoption process. We feel that the most important factor should be placing the child with a loving and responsible family, and not how many parents will be raising them. Would be interesting to hear your take on the new Arizona bill.
I just read a statistic which says that in Arizona 1/3 of the qualified adults adopting from foster care are single parents. It would truly be awful if this legislation kept loving families from adopting children who needed homes. I wish that the legislators who voted for this legislation had first-hand experience with the foster care system because something tells me that they would have a different perspective on this issue if they did.
thats a good story i am a single man planing to adopt hearing this gives me hope for myself
Margie C
I adopted my son as a single parent 5 years ago. I have to admit, not adopting because I was single never really occurred to me. Recently, my 5 year old has been asking about a Dad–I always thought I would only need to explain the adoption part–I am finding the Dad question hard and I am not finding resources to help me talk to him about it. But I have all the confidence that I will figure it out. And nothing on earth could make me believe that single parent adoption isn’t…perfect. Like I said, I’ll figure it out and I am certain this won’t be the only challenge my son and I will face–adoption related or otherwise.
Also, this is the first blog of any kind that I have ever looked at. Is it innapropriate to ask questions about finding resource, etc.?
I am a single, never married woman who chose to adopt nearly 20 years ago. My daughter arrived home from India in November of 1991 at the age of 12 months. I would not change the last 20 years for all the money in the world. My daughter still to this day lights up my life. There were rough times during her early teenage years but now she is a successful junior in college looking forward to someday being a graphic artist. Yes she questioned “where is dad” but she has enough male roll models in her life. She will tell you that a large number of her real friends are males. They don’t get caught up in the drama like girls do. Had I chosen to adopt ten years earlier I might have two at this point. However I am approaching retirement and I look forward to the day when I have grandchildren to care for. I say to anyone out there who is single … if you want to build a family … go for it, there is nothing, nothing like it!