The paper shows that there has been much debate centered on the growing number of single parents raising children and how
society tends to blame single parent homes for the majority of ills including drug abuse, violent crimes and juvenile
delinquency. While there are some single parent
households headed by men, the overwhelming majority of single parent homes are headed by women. The paper shows that this fact sparks another concern, since the average household income for the female single parent is a mere 24,000 per year, which depending on the size of the family could mean that many single parent households are living at or below the poverty rate. The paper questions that with the apparent negatives of being a child in a single parent household, is it a valid conclusion to say that on average, children of single parent households are worse of than their counterparts living in a two-parent household? This paper also discusses how children of single parents cope emotionally and how they fare academically relative to their peers.