Talk:Single parent

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Impact on children
This sentence "The United Kingdom Office for National Statistics has reported that children of single parents, after controlling for other variables like family income, are more likely to have problems, including being twice as likely to suffer from mental illness." is followed by a link to a Guardian article that does not appear to include any information about controlling any variables. Without a link to the actual research the claim about controlling for variables is unsubstantiated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 102.65.54.41 (talk) 13:26, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

2010 Request a link
A Request for a link to Single Parents Network - Resources for Parents that are single. Online free 24/7 sharing support, advice and information on a range of resources for single parents. We have been online since 1997 and have grown to a discussion board of 23,000 plus members at Single Family Voices The site has been up and running as a non commercial site for over a decade. It has changed so many live and legal writings, and many a thesis has used our site. It is a hub of single parent information and support like the wiki but was started long before, but with the same spirit as. Single Parents Network is a collection of what other single parents have added over the decade plus years. I feel after so long, and with out monetary gain, that the site has established itself as a hub for the diverse needs of single parents, and should be noted. SoloParent (talk) 18:05, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Statistics
For the united kingdom and america, they should provide a percentage, like australia. it's no good saying how many millions are single without saying what the population of the country is —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.224.3.243 (talk) 20:16, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I find some of the stats confusing e.g. - If 80.6% of single parents are mothers and 16% are fathers then I assume there is also a third category? I assume this is grandparents or legal guardians but they are not single parents? Maybe the article should be renamed Phileadie (talk) 10:44, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Edit Revert
I reverted the edit of 71.163.174.31, which disrupted the layout. It was unreferenced, but for anyone who wants to do some research and improve the article, it might be a hint:


 * 1.) Quality of life: 6 of 10 children raised by single mothers are near or below the poverty line
 * 2.) Women who are in poverty have trouble getting out of poverty because earnings are low; sometimes there is no support from outside sources being other family members or the resources to make their situation better. Some are dependent totally on welfare.
 * 3.) Single-parents having poor employment opportunities

Se&#39;taan (talk) 20:14, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

More information
There needs to be more information using an unbiased view. There is a great deal of negative information about this topic, but there is a little bit of positive. Mlandi11 (talk) 15:31, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that the first sentence of this pageis supported by the evidence. The link supporting it does not actually point to a specific reference, but to the home page of an advocacy group in support of single parenting. I think that's problematic according to Wikipedia's policies? I find the 'in general in Western society' line to be very problematic. It may be true for the country where that website is based (UK) in which case a reference supporting that needs to be included. For example in Canada equal parenting is not uncommon, and 'since January 1, 1998 joint legal parental custody after divorce is usually between both parents in the Netherlands. In over 90 percent of the divorces after 1998, shared parental custody continues to exist.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by Playethic (talk • contribs) 01:38, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

'In general in Western society' claims - including in first sentence - not verifiable (and evidence points to inaccurate?)
I don't think that the first sentence of this page is supported by the evidence. The link supporting it does not point to a specific source reference, but to the home page of an advocacy group in support of single parenting. I think that's problematic according to Wikipedia's policies? I find the 'in general in Western society' line (and references to its premise elsewhere on the page) to be very problematic. It may be true for the country where that website is based (UK) in which case a reference supporting that needs to be included. For example in Canada equal parenting is not uncommon (1), and 'since January 1, 1998 joint legal parental custody after divorce is usually between both parents in the Netherlands. In over 90 percent of the divorces after 1998, shared parental custody continues to exist.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by Playethic (talk • contribs) 01:38, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

The laws of Germany, as another example, seem to shift more in that direction, eg.: Zaunegger v. Germany, Appl. No. 22028/04, 3 December 2009: The application by the father for joint parental authority cannot be denied solely because of mother‟s refusal if her consent cannot be substituted by a court‟s decision http://www.haps.bham.ac.uk/primarycare/cbme/documents/AHRC_WS1/Nikolina_international_legal_framework_for_co-parenting.pdf

I think 'in general in Western society', with no attribution, is not supported enough with the current links supplied.

(1) In Canada, 'the 1990s saw a rapid rise in the popularity of joint custody; by the year 2000, well over one-third of children (37%) were placed in the custody of both divorcing parents' http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/fcy-fea/lib-bib/rep-rap/2005/2004_6/p3.html

(2) http://folk.uio.no/torkildl/divnet/Papers/Spruijt.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Playethic (talk • contribs) 06:39, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

This article was awful.
Aside from being confusing, this article covering singe parenting is unclear, one-sided, and poorly written. I suggest a complete re-write. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.21.216.28 (talk) 10:02, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Some sentences are flat wrong. I have zero perspective on non-U.S. uses of the phrase, but in my part of America, a single mother is unmarried, not merely a primary caregiver.OptimistInChief (talk) 00:50, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The article seemed pretty sexually biased. A Single Parent is a parent who is not residing in the same home as the other parent of the child. Primary caregiver or not is irrelevant to the term. Both parents are single parents if they are not residing together. Most women are given the role of primary caregiver by the courts simply because they are women. Most children today have spent time in some form of Daycare/Preschool as a result of the need to work by the parents even in 2 parent homes. The need to learn and to socially interact is another reason that children are placed in Daycare/Preschool. Making the statement that this is a reason to deny custody to a father is inaccurate and a sexually biased view. Time spent with the parent who has less time with the child is also not visitation time, it is parenting time. Both parents have the same financial responsibilities to the child and both should be working to fufill that obligation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 52.129.8.49 (talk) 14:39, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

So a parent whose husband/wife works abroad in order to provide support is a single parent?Themistoclides (talk) 03:33, 18 February 2019 (UTC)


 * They are parenting alone then. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 102.65.54.41 (talk) 13:18, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

REWRITE
This article is terribly confusing and needs attention from an expert Lotje ツ (talk) 15:37, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

To do list... Mother as Primary Caregiver
The information that I plan to add to this site to enhance its content is a section pertaining to the mother as a primary caregiver. This section will address the following topics:


 * Gender role/changes for newly single mothers
 * Different types of single mothers in the world: Single by divorce, death, incarceration, abandonment, choice (women who want children and adopt but aren't married).
 * description of responsibilities
 * stats pertaining to single mothers found through research (which I am currently still looking through sources as to what specifically).
 * Why we typically see more single mothers as primary caregivers as opposed to fathers.
 * outcome of child due to single mother parenting as opposed to the "traditional" family setting.
 * How to teach children not to have negative perceptions towards male figures in their lives as a result of an absent male figure in their life

Any other suggestions are welcome and I will update this discussion topic as new ideas spark up.

Resources that I have found regarding this topic:

Mjc112 (talk) 20:53, 1 October 2011 (UTC) Mjc112 (talk) Mjc112 (talk) 21:52, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/uom-tsw112508.php
 * http://www.jstor.org/stable/2085047?seq=8
 * http://www.natefacs.org/JFCSE/v21no1/v21no1Robbins.pdf
 * Single-Parent Families - Mother-only And Father-only Families
 * Children of Incarcerated Parents
 * http://www.parentsinaction.net/english/Prison/Children%20of%20Incarcerated%20Parents.htm
 * Single Mothers Raising Children with “Male-Positive” Attitudes
 * Women and employment: changing lives and new challenges
 * http://www.all-about-motherhood.com/
 * Role Conflict of the Single Parent
 * The Effects of the Mother's Employment on the Family and the Child
 * Working Mothers
 * http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SkkU480ttLgC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=single+parents+fulfilling+dual+gender+roles&ots=DUq3Ix3Wnl&sig=eAIsuV7jvXlVt2XcXcjVmIN9Dus#v=onepage&q&f=false — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjc112 (talk • contribs) 18:13, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ejzK-DLpz9gC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=Demographics+of+Single+Parent&ots=A3wFHfNuKV&sig=-a6hMAxwjMcwMYqf86T2RtnO_Ec#v=onepage&q&f=false
 * http://www.prb.org/Articles/2001/TheRiseandFallofSingleParentFamilies.aspx

additions/revisions to the article
I plan to add a section to this article discussing children and divorce. It will be mainly focused on how divorce affects children and what parents can do to help. Here's a short list of a few things I plan to include: •psychological effects on children •ways to discuss the issue of divorce with children •how children are affected by which parent they live with, and how much time they spend with them •ways that divorce can effect kids in academics •co-parenting after divorce ... and many more topics as well. I will probably organize it by first going over the ways to talk to kids, then psychological effects, then what happens after divorce has occurred.

Here are a few resources I have found to help me with this so far.

Helping Your Child Through a Divorce: http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/talk/help_child_divorce.html Children Coping with Divorce: http://children.webmd.com/kids-coping-divorce Single Parenting: Co-Parenting After Divorce: http://extension.unh.edu/family/documents/s_share.pdf Divorce: A Parent's Guide for Supporting Children: http://nasponline.org/resources/parenting/divorce_ho.aspx Long-Term Effects of Divorce on Children: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/fcs/pdfs/fcs482.pdf Just Whom Is This Divorce 'Good' For?: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/04/AR2005110402304.html How Much Does Divorce Affect Kids?: http://abcnews.go.com/us/story?id=89992|newspaper=ABC News

Nll27 (talk) 22:02, 25 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Please reformat the above citations, you should not use the ref tag on the talk page, as it just gives us not so useful footnoes here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 17:10, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Single Parenting: Father
I plan to add a greater amount of information pertaining to the ever-growing single-father population. This type of parenting is no longer unheard of and must be taken seriously. Though men may have a slight stigma of not always being around for their children or give the mother the right to the children after divorce, this is not the case. Information provided in the sites below will help to back-up my stance on this matter.

Sites:

http://www.singlefather.org/

http://singleparents.about.com/od/legalissues/p/portrait.htm

http://www.fathers.com/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=220&Itemid=56

http://www.singleparentmagazine.net/single-parent-statistics/

http://www.census.gov/prod/3/97pubs/cb-9701.pdf

http://deltabravo.net/custody/stats.php

http://family.jrank.org/pages/1575/Single-Parent-Families-Mother-Only-Father-Only-Families.html

www.apa.org/pi/families/resources/changing-father.aspx

http://www.singleparentsuccess.org/stats.html

http://www.fatherhood.org/media/consequences-of-father-absence-statistics

http://www.clasp.org/admin/site/publications_states/files/0086.pdf

http://www.singlefather.org/forums/forum.php

http://www.catalyst.org/publication/252/working-parents

http://www.fathersforgood.org/ffg/en/fathers_essential/count.html

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/single-parents-around-the-world/

http://www.familyimpactseminars.org/s_wifis02c02.pdf

http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/usermanuals/fatherhood/chaptertwo.cfm

http://www.ecdip.org/docs/pdf/IF%20Father%20Res%20Summary%20(KD).pdf

http://apps.olin.wustl.edu/macarthur/working%20papers/wp-mclanahan2.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gab102091 (talk • contribs) 02:38, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Important to note that a great many children are born to single parents, about half of all children born in the U.S. (don't have source offhand). So please don't assume that all single parents are due to divorce. OptimistInChief (talk) 00:53, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Single Parenting Adoption To Do List
I will be adding a section on Single Parenting Adoption. This form of adoption is hard enough, and I will be explaining the whole process a single parent will go through, including a real-life experience journalized by a person who travelled oversees to adopt.

http://www.adopting.org/adoptions/single-parent-adoption.html http://www.adoptionservices.org/adoption_special/adoption_single.htm http://www.adopt.org/assembled/single_parents.html http://www.holtinternational.org/philippines/faq.shtml http://www.adoptvietnam.org/adoption/single-parent-adoption.htm http://www.adoptionstogether.org/ResourcesandSupport/SingleParentAdoption.aspx http://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/topics/singleparentadoptions.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stboser (talk • contribs) 03:38, 26 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Please don't forget to sign your posts. Overall, I think your planning is a good start, but a lot of links you've above seem to have potential reliablity problems. What makes them reliable? Who is the author and the publisher? You should list that information here (compare what other groups have done in their outline, for example see this. Please list such information besides pure URLs, and we can discuss it further. I'd suggest you try to look for book sources (on Google Books) and academic papers, rater than websites you can find through Google. Also, remember that self-published sources are not reliable, that includes blogs and forums (and I see at least one obvious forum above: http://www.singlefather.org/forums/forum.php). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 17:10, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Review~Megan Callahan
So after looking at the different articles that have been developed by our classmates and the different things they've been able to incorporate into their articles, I'd say we should try to find a way to work illustrations or pictures into our revisions of this article. It would really add to our article's appearance.

Also, I want to suggest us collectively going over the information previously posted in this article and maybe fine tuning it to be more clear in communicating information of each section and getting rid of "fluff" information that isn't really needed in the article.

Using inline references to other pages is also a good tool to use when writing our sections so we don't have to go off on tangents explaining a concept that has its very own wikipedia page, so keep that in mind when writing about your topics!!

Mjc112 (talk) 21:16, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Review~Natalie LaBarbera
I agree with everything that Megan said. I really think what we mostly need to do is to get rid of all the extra stuff that is on there now that we don't want to be. Also, along the lines of illustrations maybe we could find some sort of charts showing just how many single parents are out there and what kind. Also, maybe for the adoption studies we could provide links to websites about them like some other people have done. That way if anyone wants to find out more information about adoption they will be able to do so quickly. Nll27 (talk) 23:45, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Review~Brian Bitner
I do agree with the other reviews. In the Demographics Section of the article, I found the facts to be a bit unorganized. Perhaps, creating paragraphs of similar countries or something to that extent would make it easier to understand. This article just needs some re-organizing or editing to make the information flow and easier to comprehend. Also, the article needs more citations as some paragraphs are cited well, others are not cited at all.

Brb94 (talk) 03:47, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Review_Nelson
Your article is a very good start. The topics into which you break the topic of single parent down are all important, as well as the order in which they appear -- I would suggest no alternative. Furthermore, your links to other wikipedia entries is helpful. All the 'problems' are small problems -- not structural, but sentence-level suggestions. In the opening paragraph, the following sentence has a comma splice and could use a reference (since it is controversial): "In the UK and U.S.A., for example .... parent that carries the most responsibility when parents separate." Also, the following sentence in the Public Policy Debate section could be made clearer through rewording: "Children from any family structural .... ability to nurture, safeguard and monitor." Overall, however, very good start. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pittsoc25 (talk • contribs) 03:56, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Pittsoc25 (talk) 04:00, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Review - Eser Y.
Your group has a nice start, I will suggest a few things that hopefully will be helpful. First of all, the article is still confusing, especially in the demographics section, which includes brief and disorganized stats from various countries. Maybe you can divide up this section into two; 1)demographics (discuss US demographics in more detail and with better organization) and 2) single parenthood around the world (expand to more countries etc.). Second, your proposed outline seems nice but is not clear what section will follow which one. Currently it seems as if the entry will cover single mothers (and all of its subsections) first, effect of single-parenting on children second (even though it says divorce and children, i think it is more appropriate to focus on single parenthood and children, the divorce and children was somewhat covered in Implications of divorce already), and finally single fathers. It could be better to cover single mothers (since it seems to be more common), then single fathers, then the children raised in these households. One last comment; doesn't the "outcome of child due to single mother parenting as opposed to the traditional family setting" point in single mother section overlap with the other person's covering "children and divorce"? Good luck! Esery (talk) 16:04, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Review~Steve Boser
I agree with both Megan and Natalie. I think the "fluff," as Natalie puts it needs to be taken off of this page immediately. If you read the comments above ours, the ones about the article before we added onto it, they are comments that talk poorly on this article. I think a complete revamp is on its way... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stboser (talk • contribs) 19:25, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

References review
I've added a number of requests for missing date (page numbers and such). Some works need links to their respective websites. Several websites don't seem reliable, if you want to use them, please explain how they are reliable: children.webmd.com, kidshealth.org , jrank.org , adoptionstogether.org , adoptionservices.org , adopting.org , gingerbread.org.uk. The Lancet reference should be quoted and linked directly. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 17:52, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

In response to the children.webmd.com and kidshealth.org references, I used these two in my part of the article and I do believe they are reliable. WebMD is a very widely used website, that even doctors use. (I know this because my dad is one and he uses it) As for the kidshealth.org, I'm not positive about it's reliability, but it seemed okay to me because it was and organization (.org, not just .com) If necessary, I will make changes to my section, but I thought they were good sources. Nll27 (talk) 17:12, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick reply. It is a good start; how about you ask other editors at Reliable sources/Noticeboard and see what they say? If they agree with you, we can keep them and tell the Good Article reviewer that they are reliable if he asks. If other editors disagree, we will know we have to revise them. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 18:58, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

ok, I'll do that. Thanks! Nll27 (talk) 19:34, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Helpful tips
Hey, I though I would point out a few things I noticed when fixing a few minor tipos.


 * "We also need to keep in mind that divorce will bring about a change for everyone involved. Parents really need to consider who will make which decisions, and how much they need to discuss things with each other. There are things such as food, clothing, school, friends, dating, extracurricular activities, doctor visits, and religion, that will need to be talked about. Parents need to make sure they communicate with each other, and the children involved, about all of these things listed and who to talk to about them. What about when parents don't agree on these topics? Well, first, they should try to have a civilized conversation with each other. However, if this isn't working, then they could consider revising the custody over the children, and coming up with some new ground rules. "

This is just one example of a paragraph that needs to be reworded to eliminate words such as "should," and preferably questions should not be present either. My group had some issues with this while working on advantages/disadvantages of Joint custody (United States) as we had some similar language present in those sections, which ends up being difficult to eliminate much of the time as you almost lose some of what the author is trying to say if you are not careful in altering it. Also, this is much more minor, but there should only be one period after the end of a sentence in wiki (I fixed most instances of this haha).

Also, even if every sentence is sourced by the same source, make sure to source sentence by sentence. Though this may seem tedious, if you end up splitting up a paragraph at some point, if the whole thing is not sourced, then the top half will be unsourced.

Hope this helps :)

Kgw2 (talk) 19:41, 7 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Your tips are much appreciated, and I fully agree with the suggestions here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 19:41, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

things we still need to do
Nll27 (talk) 23:31, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * divorce statistics
 * other debates (sources)
 * choice parent
 * check over all sections for grammar and other things
 * if we find more about demographics
 * make sure everything's organized
 * check over introductory section

Suggestions for further development of Mother as primary caregiver?
After editing Mother as a primary caregiver, I am curious to see what others think needs to be included in this section. Any suggestions for topics to be discussed pertaining to this section are welcome to further develop this topic of Single parenting.

Mjc112 (talk) 03:58, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Preeeliminary review
Since I see a lot of work has been done over the past few days, here are few issues from a quick overview about issues that need to be addressed before GA (a more detailed review will follow within a few days).
 * per Manual of Style/Lead section, lead should be a comprehensive summary (abstract) of the rest of the article, and should not contain new information. It does not seem to me like your lead is either.

--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 17:57, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
 * the titles of some sections are improperly capitalized, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization)
 * existing footnotes are terribly formatted; please provide missing information

Further comments:
 * "Single parent adoption" sections seems US-centric
 * "Adoption process" seems very much like a how-to guide, and bullet form is frowned upon on Wikipedia. Needs to be rewritten into prose.
 * "Single parents in the Media" needs similar treatment. Is it comprehensive? And perhaps even more importantly, is it non-trivial? See Trivia. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 06:06, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Single Parent To Do List
I will be adding a section to the Single Parent Adoption section on which opportunities are available overseas. Stboser (talk) 22:20, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

xin con
I recommend for this section to be deleted because it has nothing to do with single parents.Spulliam91 (talk) 21:42, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

"refers to"
The lead has a problem with the use-mention distinction. "A single parent usually refers to a parent..."

If you use the word refers, then the article is about the term single parent rather than the concept of a single parent (and so it should be in italics). But this article is really about the concept, not the term. So the lead, ideally, should start with "A single parent is a..."

and avoid the word "refers". —Designate (talk) 06:55, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Problems with language and comprehension
"The spike was caused by an increase in unmarried pregnancies, which 36% of all births by unmarried women, and to the increasing prevalence of divorces among couples. "


 * The proportion of children living in single parent households has had a steady and relentless increase since 1960 or so. This is not a "spike" in 2000,  it is a long term trend.  A "spike" exists when some measured quantity jumps abruptly,  not when it creeps upwards over a 50 year period.Eregli bob (talk) 07:36, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

"The results of the 2010 United States Census showed that 27% of children live with one parent, consistent with the emerging trend noted in 2000."


 * This trend was demonstrably "emerging" in 1970. Its not an "emerging" trend any more,  it is an established trend.  If you didn't "note" this trend until 2000,  you weren't paying attention !.  I don't know if this is some kind of "blame Clinton" POV or just sloppy language. Eregli bob (talk) 07:36, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

"Since 2001, 31% of babies born in Australia have been born to unmarried mothers."


 * This statistic, if true, has nothing to do with single-parent households. There is a long-standing increase in most developed countries in the proportion of people who are in long-standing "de facto" relationships who are not religiously or civilly married,  and this trend is somewhat more advanced in Australia than the USA.   It is not a valid demographic conclusion to state that, since 31% of babies are born to unmarried mothers,   that they are therefore living in single-parent households.Eregli bob (talk) 07:36, 15 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Not clearly nothing to do with single-parent households. Probably partly depends on what mean by single-parent (the article is not clear on the single part, in fact single was hardly mentioned in the beginning of the lead until I just put something in).  I expect some might consider not married as "single" (no matter how many partners of whatever sex they were living with).
 * How stable are such non-marital relationships? Are they actually long standing?  How long?  (Same questions one would ask of trends in marriage/divorce, just may be harder to pin down since don't have such official beginning/ending points.) Fragile families is term I have seen used to refer to such couples in some literature (e.g. Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study).
 * Of course the whole unmarried couples vs single parent thing is probably worth a mention in the article. Zodon (talk) 08:30, 15 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Also worth noting that Unmarried mother redirects to this article. So this article is de facto about unmarried mothers (whether one considers them "single" or not).
 * Currently unmarried parent, unmarried father and fragile family do not exist. Zodon (talk) 08:46, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

The first sentence in the article says "A single parent is a parent, not living without a spouse or partner..." Not living without is the same thing as living with, in which case the parent is not single at all.24.115.66.190 (talk) 01:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

what about age stats?!
It makes a lot of sense then that single mothers are more likely to be young and unmarried — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.67.223.26 (talk) 18:51, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Single parents in media
I suggest this section be removed. It's unencyclopedic trivia. If we are to have a section called "Single parents in media", it should actually talk about single parents in media (how they are portrayed, globally and throughout history, and what cultural impact this has had, etc.). Simply listing character names is for Wikia or TVTropes, not Wikipedia. —Designate (talk) 18:28, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Not neutral
The article in many section refers to the USA only, that is just one among many English-speaking countries in the World. Not only that, English being an international language, many people from non-English-speaking countries refer to the Wikipedia in English because it is generally more complete. It is true that the USA are one of the countries with the top divorce rate in the world (I won't say more about my non-neutral opinions about the USA), but still writing about an universal problem like single parenting with reference to one country only is, in my opinion, lack of neutrality. --Abacos (talk) 00:42, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Voluntary single parent
Should some mention be made of the growing "trend" (if that's the right word) where a mother raises a child voluntarily in the absence of the father, sometimes even certifying the birth with "father unknown"? Tony Holkham (talk) 14:12, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Solo Parent - DONE
The term "Solo parent" seems synonymous with "single parent". Solo parent article also seems to contain much opinion about use of the term. 331dot (talk) 18:38, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * 331dot makes statements without providing facts. She uses a word "seems" which is another word for "deceives". Instead of providing specific evidence of what she says is opinion instead of fact, she "seems" to dislike facts and calls facts as opinions.  So much more could be said about 'solo parent' and ESPECIALLY WHY they have taken control as solo parents.  Everything on the page is factual and reasonable and is the most accurate title Solo Parent.   Single Parent is propaganda of making labels that make evil things "seem" to be good (read the book - The Marketing of Evil) - just like 'choice' is the appealing label to make murder of a child "seem" good, 'best interest' for profits of court workers and "gay" for homosexual.  It's still homosexual in other languages, but Americans must go into shock when they hear this word which has been used for thousands of years and still today.  The world needs facts, not DECEPTIVE LABELS that market evil things to "seem" to be good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Humane4kids (talk • contribs) 9:47 pm, Yesterday (UTC+1)
 * This is not a forum to promote the social agenda you seem to have; it is also irrelevant to the issue of the best way to present the information to readers, which is on one page. The terms are synonomous. 331dot (talk) 00:16, 23 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Support merge here; or rather redirect - nothing to merge, really; this seems like a poorly referenced content fork. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 16:58, 23 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete and redirect, the only thing that seems worth keeping is that in the Philippines the term Solo Parent is more common. Solo Parent barely even makes an assertion of notability. Vectro (talk) 01:08, 24 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The term is slightly different from single parent, I think. And following the merge, it was only mentioned once, in the lead, without explanation or citation, so I removed it altogether. Melty girl 18:27, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Addition to Single Parent Page
I would like to add a section to this page discussing the unique economic impact of single parent households. Being a single parent not only changes the economic dynamic of that household, but also has broader implications for the economy at large. In this page I would like to highlight the unique nature of single-income, single parent households on society. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbarczak (talk • contribs) 05:46, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Worldwide View tag
I feel that we should edit the title of the single parent page to include something about being specific to the United States. Sure, we could include additional areas to the page but the majority of it is based off of things from the United States. I think that social norms, expectations, and statistics regarding parenting, parenthood, and especially single parents vary a lot by country. This would make it extremely important to make it specific and get the alert removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jseidlitz (talk • contribs) 21:29, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

A non-Wikipedia-style reference
In the third pargraph, there is this sentence, which probably is meant to be a reference "(National Women's Law Center, Poverty & Income Among Women & Families, 2000-2013)" Should it be removed or made into a proper reference?--Adûnâi (talk) 03:58, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Single Parents (TV series) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 04:15, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

edits
The children's education section is very small. I found information on how children's cognitive abilities are affected by only having a mother in the household. I believe that this information would expand this section of the article to explain actual case studies and statistics on children's cognitive abilities without a father. I also believe that additional, specific information about fatherless (single-mother) households would be beneficial to this page. There is specific, extra information about single mothers; however, a lacking amount of extra information about fathers. Lastly, most of the page is about the United States. There is a section about Australian mothers; therefore, if more countries are added it would expand the spectrum of cultures being identified. There is data on Norway single-mothers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Katdog1022 (talk • contribs) 15:15, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Single parents
Are the childrens going through a though time? 41.114.215.109 (talk) 15:51, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Section "impact on children" heavily biased towards treating all cases as "unintentional"
Starting with even the direct association with divorce by the "see also: implications of diverse".

The word "intact" in "intact families" also is biased to imply "that a family is not intact if there is one intentional parent".

The entire section mentions only negative "(alleged) effects of single parenting", but the statistics presented are so meaninglessly general that they mean pretty much nothing at all. As it is said that "poverty" is associated with single parenting, which seems to me that this section fails to distinguish between unintentional single parents and intentional single parents.

The current tone of this section is overwhelmingly condemning, where the assumed conclusion seems to be "single parenting harms children".

I, however, don't see any evidence that backs that tone up. There are many reasons as to how poverty leads to unintentional single parenting that can be tragic, but this is vastly different from a single woman or single man who chooses surrogacy to become a single mother/father, as in the latter case there isn't such tragedy. Whether the research contains any information about this distinction, this section does not, which does not justify this biased tone.

I think Template:POV section would be fitting for this section, but am not sure whether this can be backed up using impartial sources. Ybllaw (talk) 17:09, 6 April 2024 (UTC)