A single Parent?

[Navy]

I'm starting this thread to see how many people have experienced being raised by 1 Parent. As in, 1 Single Mother. Or 1 Single Dad.


Reasons why. My mother has practically been my father and mother through out my whole life. I never met my father, ive heard alot about him and who he really is. And i always wondered, how that Father love feels?. Would it have made a bigger difference through out my life, if he was their for me?!


I'm not saying is just a person who hasn't met their Father. I got a few of my friends who never met their Mother. Some actually did meet their mother. But they don't live with them. Mostly by personal reasons. So their father has been their Mom and Dad through out their life.


How bout some of you guys?!?

 

[MrIndigo]

I'm starting this thread to see how many people have experienced being raised by 1 Parent. As in, 1 Single Mother. Or 1 Single Dad.


Reasons why. My mother has practically been my father and mother through out my whole life. I never met my father, ive heard alot about him and who he really is. And i always wondered, how that Father love feels?. Would it have made a bigger difference through out my life, if he was their for me?!


I'm not saying is just a person who hasn't met their Father. I got a few of my friends who never met their Mother. Some actually did meet their mother. But they don't live with them. Mostly by personal reasons. So their father has been their Mom and Dad through out their life.


How bout some of you guys?!?

I think this is a common thing to think for people coming from an atypical parental situation, but I think also in a lot of cases, it won't make that much difference to the upbringing.

Generally, for a child to be raised effectively, you need both parent roles of father and mother. However, there's nothing that prevents one parent having both of these roles. They're not gender exclusive.

Having a single parent, however, I think is more likely to lead to an actual loss of some aspect of family life than other atypical parenting arrangements. I think adopted children or children with step-parents are being a bit silly when they think that their biological parents are more important to who they are. The value of parents is how they raise you.

 

[AJers]

Hmm, my parental situation was/is a little complicated... but I actually have the great luck to have 3 parents in my life, all of whom (to their own degrees) provided different roles in raising me.

My Dad has been the constant throughout my life, my biological mom left when I had just turned 5, and he raised me and my two little sisters by himself until I was 6, when he met the "babysitter", who later became my step-mom. Yes, there's a lot of backstory involved in everything, but I really don't want to get into it. :) The basics work to lay the framework:

Yes, I did spend parts of my childhood (mostly when I was mad at my dad/step-mom or at a situation) to make believe fantasies of my parents getting back together, and stupid things like that.

I was never really angry at any of the parties, that I remember, I was old enough (around 4-5) to remember what had happened and why they split and how we ended up with our dad. My sister Heather (3-4) was super angry at our biological mom and wouldn't even talk to her on the phone; my sister Karen (1-2) didn't even remember her.

My biological mom didn't make it easy for me and my sisters to adjust to life, though. She would pop in every once in a great while (about once every 1-2years) and bring us game systems or computers or birthday presents or stupid shit (she had money, we were dirt poor); or she would take us for a couple of weeks for a vacation that our dad would force us to go on (disneyland, Montana, stuff our dad couldn't do), etc. She was extremely inconsistent in that she would pop into our lives for a brief time, then we wouldn't hear from her again until we pretty much forgot about her... only to have her show up again.

To make it even more confusing: once I turned 16 I moved away from my dad/step-mom to get to know my biological mom and her kids better, and lived with her for 2 years. I got close to her, but we definitely have more of a "weird-close-friendship-but-we-probably-wouldn't-be-friends-if-we-randomly-met-on-the-street" role in each others life, lol.

Anyways, yeah. I really do love all my parents, and I had the most idyllic childhood that my parents could provide, considering the circumstances. I'm definitely not complaining. :)

 

[Jimbo]

I grew up with a single parent (Mom) since I was six. I don't think it's been that different but that might be because I don't really remember anything else. I'm also an only child if that matters. I think my mom is a little more attentive to me than she would be if I had a sibling or another parent. Having a single parent, at least for me, makes you a little more resilient. I've had to hear about more problems than other kids usually do, but I don't really mind. My mom and I have a good relationship, most of the time, which is good I guess.

I don't usually wonder what having another parent would be like, I'm not really sure why!

Most of my friends have both of their parents around 100% of the time (which I just noticed, I guess that is rare nowadays!). It seems like they actually have a much worse relationship with their parents than I have with my mom which is interesting.

 

[cim]

Generally, for a child to be raised effectively, you need both parent roles of father and mother. However, there's nothing that prevents one parent having both of these roles. They're not gender exclusive.

What leads you to that conclusion?

What defines these "roles"?

Is there any non anecdotal evidence that says "father figure" and "mother figure" = "good kid"?

 

[MrIndigo]

What leads you to that conclusion?

What defines these "roles"?

Is there any non anecdotal evidence that says "father figure" and "mother figure" = "good kid"?

Not in terms of good kid and bad kid; in terms of normalised behaviour. Phrases like "mother issues" and "father issues" are commonplace, to describe unusual behaviour due to unusual parental situations.

I read an article related to family law when I was doing Foundations in first year (specifically, custody and adoption rights) which said that the legal biases towards parental custody going towards the mother and the unwillingness to allow various groups to adopt (notably same-sex couples) arose because the prevalent psychological understanding at the time most of the Family courts were set up was that a mother figure is singularly important in a child's upbringing, and conventional psychology does not believe this is the case; the legal system has just been slow to adapt. (On the other hand, early education in Australia has started to react, with specialised recruitment schemes for male primary school teachers).

I don't know what defines the particular parental roles (I don't remember the article going into it in detail, it has been four years since I read it and it wasn't directly related to what I was doing, I only read it as an aside) but the modern understanding of gender is, as far as I'm aware, that gender roles are not tied to parental roles and vice-versa.

EDIT: I should add, as I neglected to say before, that I grew up with both my parents, so my comments about people with adoptive/step- parents was conjecture and not experience.

 

[TEA_DEMON]

I was brought up by only my mother for a while, with a couple of her boyfriends for a majority of the years without my dad. I got over not having a dad a few years ago (he left when I was around 7), and don't really miss him at all tbh. I don't know where he is or anything, but it's not a bad thing.

 

[Zuki]

Been living with my Dad since I was ~2 and my brother was 1, don't remember the divorce or details. I see my mom usually at least twice a month though (weekends), and she has some say in my life so I guess she's not totally gone. My dad recently found another girl that he likes, and she's not a bad person.

 

[Megan_Fox]

Although ive had both parents, my dad didnt. his dad died when he was like 10. Because of this he was motivated to do good in school and stuff, stuff he would have wanted

 

[Champagne]

Be happy you have at least one parent who loves you. Many people don't.

 

[Boondocker]

I was raised by a single parent (or other family members) since i was about 3. My parents divorced so my mom took me and my sister and moved in with her new boyfriend. I didnt know my dad at the time, but no one said good things about him. My mom turned to drugs, and was a horrible parrent so the state came and took us away. I lived with my aunt and uncle from the ages of 10-12, but then my dad came back in my life. Hes the biggest asshole in the world but at least he was a decent parent. I dont think being raised by a single parent is a horrible experience, whats horrible is when that one parrent isnt a good role model.