Will the single parent household rate ever decrease in the Black Family structure?
(Posted on Wednesday, May 27, 2020)
Today, many men raised by women have turned out great and are raising their own children with good values. The former president of the united states, Barrack Obama, was raised by a single mother, and we can agree that he turned out better than OK. Men raised by single mother are doing fine, because fatherlessness does not mean a slow walk to the dark side. However, is this the rule or the exception?
Right now, one out of four children are raised without fathers; that’s about 16 million children. Will each one of these children become presidents or close? Maybe not but it is not possible.
Boys who are raised by their mothers alone are twice as likely as children from two-parent homes to drop out of high school and never go to college; 1.4 times more likely to be out of work for a long time or be idle. Many of these children have low school grades and grow up to have high divorce rates
As much as we cheer on single women to raise their children alone, we cannot ignore the effect of fathers on their sons. Boys from two-parent homes, sometimes have a more rounded growth experience. From their mothers, they learn strength of character, and from their fathers, they learn to handle the aggression that comes with the Y chromosome.
This does not mean that women cannot teach their sons to manage themselves; however, as the boy grows, he finds that he is stronger than his mother physically, and this often leads to the boy undermining the mother’s authority. This makes it difficult for many single mothers to influence their sons’ life choices. They either feel like she cannot understand, or realize that she is not big enough or strong (physically and emotionally) enough to make them stop. This often leads to them acting out. With a father, there is an example of what they could be, and so they tend to listen more when told what to do or not to do.
Here is the thing; women can raise great sons alone, but the reality of successfully raising a son alone is so complex that it can be heavily discouraging. It takes quite a lot of trial, error, and re-do for a woman to raise a great son alone. It takes a special type of woman.
Still, what can a woman do than raise her son when she has been left alone? We can try, and that’s what we do. We work hard to be two people; good cop and bad cop; the firm one and the soft one; the one who understands and the one who insists; they one they can cry with and the one who pushes them to be strong and stand up to the challenges of life. Women who can do this are amazing. All the same, should this be allowed to become the norm? When do women get to be women when doing the job of man and woman?
The fact that women can raise their boys should not be used to encourage splits in families. Daily, black fathers are lost to violent crimes, prisons, addictions, the mental illnesses, lack of responsibility. Yet, we should not close ourselves off from the option of giving our sons fathers who can join us to raise them. Furthermore importantly, let us tell our brothers, our friends and our sons to do better. The woman can raise her son alone, but she should not have to. Here’s an instance; if your body can take hot spice, does that mean that you should take a clove of pepper with every meal?
Every strong person needs support. Therefore, as we empower single mothers who raise their sons to be great all by themselves; should they have to.
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