Mental Picture of an Ideal Family
For Americans who came of age before 1975, the mental picture of an ideal family, as portrayed by the media, included two parents, one of whom, usually the father, was the breadwinner. Those children who came from homes with only one parent present were considered, by researchers, to be experiencing a “Family Deficit Model.” Hardly an attitude designed to help single parents and their children feel good about themselves. Even worse, researchers did not look past the lack of a father or mother to other factors common in single-parent households when deciding that life in one of them automatically doomed children to second-rate academic and social performance. But with over three-fifths of all US children born in the last twenty-five years now spending at least five years in a single parent household, understanding single parenting positive and negative effects on academics is crucial.
Filed under: Family, General, Literature, Parenting
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