Statistics reveal stark challenges for children raised in one-parent households
Kathryn Wall, Springfield11:46 p.m. CST November 24, 2012
the plan.
Heather Tucker married a man and thought she’d spend the rest of her life with him. The union didn’t make it to a second anniversary.
Jacqueline Beebe was already a single parent when she married for the first time. The couple had a son. The man left four months later.
Andrea Smith felt like she could not leave a troubled relationship — she had two young children to think about. But she ended up leaving precisely because she was thinking about her children’s future.
David Parrott was married with two children — until he came home from his out-of-town job to find his wife’s car repossessed because she had not been paying the bills.
Research shows the clear link between poverty and the growth in single-parent households nationally and locally. For instance, a local report found one of every two single mothers in the Ozarks lives in poverty.
Statistically, a child in a single-parent household is far more likely to experience violence, commit suicide, continue a cycle of poverty, become drug dependent, commit a crime or perform below his peers in education.
According to the Single Parent Success Foundation, a national nonprofit that encourages educational opportunities for single parents:
• 63 percent of suicides nationwide are individuals from single-parent families.
• 75 percent of children in chemical dependency hospitals are from single-parent families.
• More than half of all youths incarcerated in the U.S. lived in one-parent families as a child.
The News-Leader spoke to four families who are trying to escape those statistics.
Although all have diverse backgrounds and different living arrangements, all are experts at making it work. All have unique and complex schedules, with delicate balancing acts between work, play and all that comes in between.
The super mom
Only 7.7 percent of all out-of-wedlock births in the country in 2008 were to girls under the age of 18, according to the Heritage Foundation.
Heather Tucker is used to the static that comes with calling herself a single mother.
“A lot of the assumption is I was a teenage mom. I was 25 when I had Faith, and married,” she said.
Online court records show a number of protection orders against her husband while they were married. Her ex-husband was never criminally charged, but she felt she was in danger.
Faith is now 13. She has chosen not to have contact with her father. The divorce was finalized just after Faith’s first birthday.
Today, Tucker works full time while balancing coursework at Evangel University. Tucker’s mother also lives with them.
She helps with Faith, and Tucker helps when her mother has health needs. She is a cancer survivor.
The schedule at Tucker’s house is a complex one. The day of the week determines who gets the car — on days Tucker is at school, she drops off and picks up Faith from her own school. When it’s a work day for Tucker, her mother drops them both off and picks up Faith later.
This semester has been a little more hectic, but next semester Tucker will be taking night classes, allowing her to work more during the week. She’s looking forward to more family time on weekends.
Faith is well-adjusted, excelling at school and by all indications, a happy teen.
But Tucker often thinks about the other children in similar situations, in addition to wondering if Faith really is getting everything she needs.
She advocates for churches to step up, starting programs that give children with only one parent the option of spending time with other kids like them, or mentors who could provide a good example.
Maybe a support group for single parents. Or a handbook of local resources for single parents.
“As a church body, we need to do something. And I’m ready,” she said.
“We need to take it to the next level. It’s not about breathing Christ down their throat. It’s about sharing that love.”
From welfare to work
Thirty-seven percent of families led by single mothers nationwide live in poverty. Comparatively, only 6.8 percent of families with married parents live in poverty, according to data from 2009 compiled by the Heritage Foundation.
Jacqueline Beebe was 27 when she had her first son, Jaryd.
She was in Seattle then, having moved there from Phoenix. Before that, she had grown up in Branson.
She couldn’t wait to leave home, but eventually things soured between herself and Jaryd’s dad — though they’ve stayed friends throughout the 11-year-old’s life.
She decided to move back to the Ozarks, to be closer to family. Years later she met another man, married him and had another son, Jayden.
Four months after Jayden was born, his father left.
She filed for divorce. Court records show he never showed up for the hearings.
Now 3, Jayden is still too young to understand how his mother struggles to make it to work on time, get him to day care, get Jaryd to school, make sure homework is done, feed the kids, pay bills, kiss boo-boos and everything else that goes with parenting all alone.
But Jaryd does.
“I wish my 11-year-old didn’t know how poor we are,” Beebe said as she tears up.
Beebe knows all the statistics, especially for boys without a father figure. According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, children who live in fatherless families use mental health services at a higher rate, have more behavior problems at school and are more likely to enter the juvenile justice system.
