Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share S2:E2 Single Mother Statistics and What Do They Mean?
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
S2:E2 Single Mother Statistics and What Do They Mean?
Let me kick off the episode with a brief recap of my week as a lone parent.
So, three Sundays ago, my daughter was out playing catch with a baseball. In the process of attempting to make a catch, the ball bounced off the top of her glove and hit her hard in the front of her mouth. She lost a baby tooth, dislocated one of her front adult teeth, and had a heck of a swollen lip that required a trip to the ER. That following Monday, we had to make the drive to her dentist for an Emergency consult to make sure we could save her teeth. Good news, it wasn’t as bad as it looked!
That Thursday she spiked a fever and ended up testing positive for strep. It took me a day to get her prescription because of the Amoxicillin shortage. On May 5th, as we are on day 6 of her antibiotics for strep, I got a phone call from her school saying that she was in the nurse’s office with an injured wrist. The nurse failed to mention the horrible looking bloody knees with gravel still impacted, the scrapes on both elbows, and cut up fingers. Yesterday we spent a whole day traveling over a three hour round trip to follow up dentist appointments and a visit to the orthopedic doctor for more x-rays and a cast.
So, that is how things are currently in my world. I can only hope they are going better in yours!
For today’s topic, what does it mean to be a single mother in America? I want to open a discussion on where we stand as a country when it comes to single parent households and what that means for us as women. It’s one thing to see the numbers on paper, but those numbers do not paint the whole picture. To draw attention to the statistics, does not spotlight attention on the very women who are working three jobs to make ends meet. We aren’t seeing the mothers who are putting their children to bed, and then spending two hours doing laundry and cleaning the house.
We are not seeing the mothers who are putting their children on the school bus, working a shift on their feet all day, only to come home and do homework for college courses for a chance to gain a higher paying job.
According to the U.S. Census website, 80% of single parent households are ran by mothers. If you consider the statistic that ¼ of American children are living in single parent homes, that is a bit alarming. Not alarming that children are being raised by one parent, but alarming that 80% of the 37.9 million single parent (guardian) households in America, are in fact female ran. The census report goes on to say that 29% of all US households in America are single-person households, up from 13% in 1960...
U.S. Census:
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/americas-families-and-living-arrangements.html#:~:text=NOV.,were%20 maintained%20by%20a%20mother.
PEW Research Center:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/03/01/gender-pay-gap-facts/#:~:text=The%20gender%20gap%20in%20pay,%2D%20and%20part%2Dtime%20workers.
Smart Assest:
https://smartasset.com/data-studies/where-single-mothers-fare-worse-economically-2022#:~:text=The%20median%20household%20income%20for%20single%20mothers%20is%20%2430%2C436.
https://aspe.hhs.gov/2021-poverty-guidelines
https://www.parents.com/parenting/dynamics/single-parenting/single-moms-vs-single-dads-a-look-at-the-double-standards-of-single-parenthood-how-we-can-do-better/
Books Referenced in Articles:
https://amzn.to/42cDCaN
https://amzn.to/4114KIc
Parents.com
https://www.parents.com/parenting/dynamics/single-parenting/this-is-what-life-is-really-like-for-a-single-mother-by-choice/
Educational Community for Middle/High School Students
www.transcendstudyhalls.mn.co
View all episodes
By Stephanie L PolingLet me kick off the episode with a brief recap of my week as a lone parent.
So, three Sundays ago, my daughter was out playing catch with a baseball. In the process of attempting to make a catch, the ball bounced off the top of her glove and hit her hard in the front of her mouth. She lost a baby tooth, dislocated one of her front adult teeth, and had a heck of a swollen lip that required a trip to the ER. That following Monday, we had to make the drive to her dentist for an Emergency consult to make sure we could save her teeth. Good news, it wasn’t as bad as it looked!
That Thursday she spiked a fever and ended up testing positive for strep. It took me a day to get her prescription because of the Amoxicillin shortage. On May 5th, as we are on day 6 of her antibiotics for strep, I got a phone call from her school saying that she was in the nurse’s office with an injured wrist. The nurse failed to mention the horrible looking bloody knees with gravel still impacted, the scrapes on both elbows, and cut up fingers. Yesterday we spent a whole day traveling over a three hour round trip to follow up dentist appointments and a visit to the orthopedic doctor for more x-rays and a cast.
So, that is how things are currently in my world. I can only hope they are going better in yours!
For today’s topic, what does it mean to be a single mother in America? I want to open a discussion on where we stand as a country when it comes to single parent households and what that means for us as women. It’s one thing to see the numbers on paper, but those numbers do not paint the whole picture. To draw attention to the statistics, does not spotlight attention on the very women who are working three jobs to make ends meet. We aren’t seeing the mothers who are putting their children to bed, and then spending two hours doing laundry and cleaning the house.
We are not seeing the mothers who are putting their children on the school bus, working a shift on their feet all day, only to come home and do homework for college courses for a chance to gain a higher paying job.
According to the U.S. Census website, 80% of single parent households are ran by mothers. If you consider the statistic that ¼ of American children are living in single parent homes, that is a bit alarming. Not alarming that children are being raised by one parent, but alarming that 80% of the 37.9 million single parent (guardian) households in America, are in fact female ran. The census report goes on to say that 29% of all US households in America are single-person households, up from 13% in 1960...
U.S. Census:
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/americas-families-and-living-arrangements.html#:~:text=NOV.,were%20 maintained%20by%20a%20mother.
PEW Research Center:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/03/01/gender-pay-gap-facts/#:~:text=The%20gender%20gap%20in%20pay,%2D%20and%20part%2Dtime%20workers.
Smart Assest:
https://smartasset.com/data-studies/where-single-mothers-fare-worse-economically-2022#:~:text=The%20median%20household%20income%20for%20single%20mothers%20is%20%2430%2C436.
https://aspe.hhs.gov/2021-poverty-guidelines
https://www.parents.com/parenting/dynamics/single-parenting/single-moms-vs-single-dads-a-look-at-the-double-standards-of-single-parenthood-how-we-can-do-better/
Books Referenced in Articles:
https://amzn.to/42cDCaN
https://amzn.to/4114KIc
Parents.com
https://www.parents.com/parenting/dynamics/single-parenting/this-is-what-life-is-really-like-for-a-single-mother-by-choice/
Educational Community for Middle/High School Students
www.transcendstudyhalls.mn.co