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Single Parents Essay

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I grew up in what I would consider. I had two parents who loved me and a sister I got along with most of the time. I never really thought about single-parent families; I cannot recall any of my close friends having only one parent. Growing up with two parents may be normal for me, but for some, it is not. In this day and age, divorce is more common, and growing up with one parent is not out of the ordinary. According to Mary Parke; Policy Analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, “An increase in the numbers and proportion of children born outside of marriage and a rise in divorce rates have contributed to a three-fold increase in the proportion of children growing up in single-parent families since 1960.” Mary Parke also highlights …show more content…

Parents’ provision of social capital, in turn, is positively associated with children’s school success.” Social capital meaning the networks of relationships among people which helps a society function. This helps to show how if a child has both parents, they are more likely to live in a financially stable household and receive more attention, this in turn makes the child stronger academically. Emily Badger, an urban policy journalist reiterates the point that: “two-parent households don't just tend to have more money (which they might spend on tutors, museums, books or simply better health care and groceries). They also have more time (which they might spend on homework help, library visits and bedtime reading). Add the time factor to the parenting qualities I mentioned earlier (patience, commitment), and it's possible that part of the marriage effect is really a ‘parenting effect’: Children with married parents also have more engaged parents, and it's the engagement that really matters.”
This is significant because having two parents means the child is more likely to be acknowledged and the parents will be more likely to have time for them. The family is more likely to have money to pay for schooling and the patience to deal with children. This engagement is not as common, however, in single-parent families. Single-parents are less able to interact with their kids. Yuko

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