I devoted my life to being his mom. Brad Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, is a senior fellow of the Institute for Family Studies and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. MORAN: Exactly right. The biggest factor? Some couples don't have children at all. Tell us your story. No one could doubt that President Obama understood how much fathers mattered for their kids. Her book is "Accidentally On Purpose: The True Tale of a Happy Single Mom." Copyright 2011 NPR. PAIGE (Caller): Hi, thank you for taking my call. And he said to me: So did you consider having an abortion? ALAN: Well, single fathers run into some of the same things that I've been hearing on the show, that, you know, just the way that you can actually do that by yourself, you know, without a woman around, in your case with a single mom, without a man around and so forth. So I had a very strong, established network. This Harvard research is part and parcel of a larger effort to call into question the idea that married, two-parent families matter not just for Black children but, indeed, all children. Some women choose to raise children by themselves. I wish I were able to count on someone else to make dinner, brush the kids' teeth, put them to bed, et cetera. In the public square, the consensus view about the importance of fathers was best articulated by Barack Obama, in speeches at churches and colleges across the country. We all come to single parenthood in different ways: some through divorce; some through the death of a spouse, and others, like myself, increasingly through personal choice. The culture wars over family structure that raged in the 20th century wars over single parenthood, marriage, and the importance of fathers seemed to have ended in the early 21st century. Absolutely NOT! Mary Pols, thanks very much. CONAN: I think that's what the survey was trying to find out. Ms. McWilliams begins the film with her own pregnancy and fearlessly records her. Reprinted by arrangement with Riverhead, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. First Family Fabrics: Batiks From Obama's Mother, Indonesia And Obama's Personal Path To Democracy, President's Sister Pays Homage To Mother In Children's Book, Obama's Sister: U.S. To See A Family Tapestry. He summed up the proposed problem: income inequality has soared, stretching the gap between rich and poor, and a smaller share of Americans are making the climb. George Washington's mother, Mary, became a widow when he was 11. It starts with personal experience, as Biden has shown, and that leads outward to a broader focus on purpose and service. It was impossible not to be struck forcefully by the similarities, and the dissimilarities, between them. Fathers who are living in a household headed by someone else are excluded from the analysis, as are fathers whose children are not living with them. WATCH LIVE: Merrick Garland testifies before Senate Judiciary Committee, The Left's utopian open border policies are unsustainable, No bail and no brains: Seattle judge releases accused mass shooter. One thing that we don't want to do is attempt to demonize single mothers or necessarily demonize the American public. Median household income is adjusted using an equivalence scale that corrects for economies of scale, and is then standardized to represent a three-person household. CONAN: Would you explain that - I'm sorry, Mary Pols, go ahead. At the same time, the role of fathers has evolved, and the public now acknowledges their importance not only as breadwinners, but also as caregivers. And when I - you know, when I heard the Pew Institute study that single motherhood is bad for society, I found that statement really problematic as though it's the mother's fault. More than two in five (43%) lived in poverty. In my 22 years of leading therapy groups, Ive discovered that men and teenage boys raised by single mothers are frequently more sensitive to the feelings and needs of others, and more mindful in relationships with women. Wayward Sons, a report on the emerging gender gap in labor markets and education, from Third Way, When President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty in 1963, 93 percent of American children were born to married parents. ", On her thoughts about articles written about Obama after he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, " 'His mother is a white woman from Kansas,' [or] 'His mother is an anthropologist,' or 'His mother is an anthropologist working in international development,' and that would be about it. Single parents should be respected for how they meet a greater challenge. And it seemed to me, as I looked at the survey, the most interesting result was that a great majority of the skeptics were very tolerant of all those other things - interracial marriage, gay couples raising parents, that sort of thing - but they were among those who found problems with single motherhood. It's the very definition of a vicious cycle, and anecdotes about personal experience or presidents raised by single mothers can't change the numbers or explain them. And so my whole life, Ive tried to be for Michelle and my girls what my father was not for my mother and me, he told the graduates of Morehouse College in 2013. And Andrew Jackson's father, like Bill Clinton's, died before he was born. 2 Today 1 in 4 children under the age of 18 a total of about 13 million are being raised without a father. So his father's not attending? There is this sense, which I think kind of reminds me a little bit of the way my parents, who were, you know, children of the Depression, they used to discourage me from playing with the children of divorced parents, as if, you know, I would just go over there and immediately start dropping acid because they were divorced parents, you know Ms. POLS: Yeah. More likely to drop out of school, more likely to develop drug or alcohol problems, more likely to be incarcerated; the bad news goes on and on. Ms. McWilliams brothers, interviewed at her sons soccer game, gladly stepped into the father role for their nephew. She returned to Indonesia to do anthropological field work shortly after he entered high school. And I loved the subtlety of the way that, you know, obviously Andy, I know he's an animated character, but he's a great kid, right. Im Neal Conan. There are significant differences in the profiles of each of the single father groups. The statistical impacts of being raised by a single parent (like lower average scores on standardized tests, poorer grades and an increased likelihood of dropping out of high school or failing to attend college) may be stronger for sons, but they affect daughters too. We can feel left out of social events. We're talking about a Pew survey that found attitudes towards single motherhood to be, well, about seven and 10 of Americans thought it was bad for society. When articles about the book started coming out, they referred to his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, as simply "a white anthropologist from Kansas.". Study of Mens Falling Income Cites Single Parents, statistical impacts of being raised by a single parent, Parents of the Touch-Screen Generation, Dont Free Your iPad Yet, Well Family: A New Name and New Home for Motherlode, A Family Adds Five Children, Special Needs and All, Stop Asking if My 4-Year-Old Has a Girlfriend, Whether Our Foster Child Stays or Goes, He Is Loved, When Another Child Wants to Be Friends and Yours Does Not. Peggy Drexler will discuss her book "Raising Boys Without Men" this Thursday. Age differences also contribute to the differences in financial well-being between the two groups. " It's hard. If you're looking for a particular successful celebrity who grew up with no dad, this list is for you. In 1972, Scott says, Dunham rejoined her son in Hawaii and stayed there during his middle school years. In some cases, a non-marital partner may also be a biological or adoptive parent of the minor child in the household. In fact, it dates back our first president, George Washington to President Obama. Across all income levels, single mothers are the group more likely to lack health insurance but the uninsured rates among single mothers have fallen in recent years thanks to Obamacare. You know, informed speculation would suggest probably the number was larger in the past than it is now, but still, when you have 69 percent saying it's bad for society, that's a large number and a fairly clear judgment. And we asked people did they think this was a good thing for society, a bad thing for society, or it really didn't make one difference one way or another. There was a period in 1979 where she was working in what her boss described to me as 'community development in Java.' 79.5%. Yet, they were quick to identify men in their lives that stepped in as father figures. At any one time, about two thirds of single mothers are working outside the home, a slightly greater share than the share of married mothers who are also working outside the home. 3 Myths of Children Raised by Single Mothers. But when seven in 10 believe this is bad for society, it makes you wonder. Mr. MORAN: Basically, we surveyed nearly 3,000 Americans, and we wanted to test what people really thought the consequences of some of the bigger demographic trends that have reshaped the American family in the last 30 or 40 years are. I'm a single mother because my husband died. In 1985, she wrote a list of her long-range goals, which included "finish[ing] her dissertation, making a salary of 60K, los[ing] weight and having constructive dialogue with Barry" a nickname used for the junior Barack Obama. of the news media for weeks comes down to this same problem: Its difficult to raise children in a society that assumes theres a parent at home, and one in which the guiding philosophy for supporting Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World, a marked increase in the share of non-marital births, The Rising Age Gap in Economic Well-Being, Single Fathers are Younger, Less Educated, A majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression, As Millennials Near 40, Theyre Approaching Family Life Differently Than Previous Generations, As family structures change in U.S., a growing share of Americans say it makes no difference. than its high-income peers to help single parents balance jobholding and caregiving. His research (with his co-author, Laurie Maldonado) compared American single-parent families with single-parent families in 16 other high-income countries, and found that American single-parent families are worst 1 Nearly two-thirds were born to mothers under the age of 30. Only one third of single mothers received any child support, and the average amount these mothers received was only about $286 a month. Fatherless boys inevitably suffer delinquent tendencies. The biggest problem with the fatherlessness label is that it oversimplified. The president's mother has served as any of a number of useful oversimplifications. A Complete Timeline Of Kate Beckinsale And Pete Davidson's Relationship, The Greatest Actresses Who Have Never Won an Oscar (for Acting), American Public Figures Who Are National Treasures, The Greatest Actors & Actresses in Entertainment History, Actors Who Somehow Looked Older In The '90s Than They Do Now, Jon Stewart's Most Entertaining Feuds Ever, The Most Influential Contemporary Americans. Theres only one problem with this revisionist effort that relies on cherry picking a few findings to fit its narrative: it obscures the full truth from the sciences about the importance of two-parent families for kids. A voter profile compiled by the Voter Participation Center in 2019 found thata majority of voting-eligible women were unmarried in 2018. And I just thought: Wow, that's a really huge burden. I can't come, you know, have his dad do something about it. The educational attainment of single father householders is markedly lower than that of married father householders. Among fathers living without a spouse or partner, the comparable median household income is a bit higher at $43,000. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. How do people treat you? Biden and Harris have shown the many positive qualities that being a single parent or being raised by one inspires. The racial makeup of single-mother families has not changed very much over time. Single fathers are younger than married fathers, but older than single mothers. Does this conversation about women raising children alone resonate with you? You know, to me, I think a lot about the sort of lack of single-mother role models we have in our culture, and maybe because I'm a movie critic, I really latched on to the mother in "Toy Story.". I interviewed nearly two hundred colleagues, friends, professors, employers, acquaintances, and relatives, including her two children. I certainly do feel different, you know, a little bit out of the norm at school when I'm dropping him off or, you know, just among parents at play dates and things like that. I wonder: Did you get that kind of reaction when you were pregnant, Mary Pols? And I don't feel that way. Tell us your story, 800-989(ph) is the phone number. A record 8% of households with minor children in the United States are headed by a single father, up from just over 1% in 1960, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of Decennial Census and American Community Survey data. And there was part of me that thought: Well, this is an extraordinarily improper conversation. So today, we want to hear from single mothers. Only 11% received cash benefits from TANF. And they read about single motherhood, and they see the consequences of it. And comments like that, you know. They must wait longer than single parents in comparison countries for early childhood education to begin. In an Atlantic article celebrating family diversity, the sociologist Pamela Braboy Jackson said, All of our research points to the fact that its the quality of the relationship that matters, and the handling of communication and conflict, and the number of people in the household is not really the key for the welfare of our kids. I got to spend a year there studying film. In 1970, 31 percent of single-mother families were black, 68 percent were white, and 1 percent were "other race." In 2013, the figures were 30 percent black, 62 percent white, and 8 percent "other." Readers should bear in mind that the terms "unmarried . And on most of these issues, in fact all but single motherhood, they're very accepting, very tolerant of changes. Im Neal Conan in Washington. But as a single woman, I was already sort of left out of the family events, you know, the camping trips that people went on in the summer and - or, you know, dinner parties where everybody was a couple. Others find themselves without a partner through divorce or abandonment. It was truly a blessing to have been in the room with each of them, they spoke and I listened. 1. On average, 6.8% of children around the world under the age of 18 live in a single parent household. Single father householders are more likely to be white than single mother householders, but less likely to be white than married father householders. But I'm single in a category that rarely gets acknowledged. One important message I would like to get out to all the single parents reading this article: It is extremely important that you find nurturing things for you! Recently, Ms. McWilliams and I screened the film for teenagers at Williamsburg Charter High School in Brooklyn. Jon Stewart's parents, Marian and Donald Leibowitz, divorced when theDaily Showhost was 9 years old, at which point he was raised by his mother. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. You know, boy, you were really lucky. 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