Family is the first and probably the closest connection we all have since we were born. Forming a complete family requires both parents and children to help each other in finances and to be there for each other whenever they are in need. Unfortunately, not every family can stay together as one. Some children are living comfortably with their parents while others are struggling to grow up with a single parent. The latter type of family is believed to cause several exigent negative impacts on the children.
Initially, growing up with a single parent results in a lack of warmth and care. Even though both mother and father love their children equally, the absence of either one would make them feel incomplete. No matter how hard the single parent tries to do their best in parenting, the pressure from work and house chores will tire him or her leading to low parenting quality. (REBECCA, 2017) While the single parent is busy with his or her work, no one else is in charge of the children. As a result, they may spend most of their time alone at home or hang out with friends, but it does not mean that they prefer it that way. Whenever a problem occurs, family is still their main emotional need. It sometimes could lead to the distance between the kids and the parent because they tend to face and deal with the problems on their own with no supports or consultations from the person they need the most.
Secondly, children who grow up with a single parent will face financial problems. Both parents indeed play important role in building a family and gaining enough income for their essential expenses. However, for a single parent, he or she will struggle in earning sufficient money for the whole family, especially when he or she has to support children on their daily needs and school fees as every expense depends only on his or her salary. Therefore, it results in children working part-time jobs at an early age, and more seriously, it will cause children to drop out from their school to support the family’s expenses (Debolina, 2017).
In addition to that, due to the underprivileged family in which children are living, they tend to receive discrimination from people, especially from the kids that go to the same school. Mostly, their classmates might make of them or bully them because they have only got one mother or one father and sometimes due to the lack of financial support from family. Thus, they are unable to do things like the privileged kids. Besides this, it also decreases student’s motivation in studying, which causes them to perform badly in class. Discrimination also develops the child’s mental problems like anxiety or depression and decreases their self-esteem (Dominic, 2013).
Although growing up with a single parent might help children to become more independent, this point has some merits on the surface. Due to the lack of family education, children tend to be more aggressive and find it hard to get along with others. With the sense of loss, it will lead to high rates of anxiety, aggression, and expression of their emotion in a variety of ways. Moreover, the loneliness that children have been experiencing also results in few friends and hardship in socializing (Modernmom staff, n.d.).
In conclusion, people should not overlook the stress caused by insufficient financial support, the pain from lack of care from parents, and frequent discrimination from society that children have to suffer endlessly in their lives. Single-parenting happens regularly in every society, not because they wanted this to happen but it was all about complicated situations and circumstances of the parents’ relationship. Consequently, as a part of society, we should at least provide support and be more understanding to those children as much as we can to show them the bright side of life that there are still people who care and love them.
