The Bush Administration has established sound relationships as one of its recommended strategies for addressing the challenges single-parent families face due to poverty and, more broadly, for enhancing the success of low-income children. The reasoning is rather clear: Each year, about 33 percent of all children born in the United States are thought to have been born in error. Similar to how a portion of all first relationships terminate in independence, when young people are added, a significant proportion of the single-parent families that result are poor. For instance, compared to approximately 35 with 40% of single-parent families, just 10% of married couples with children appear to be helpless. A huge percentage of American children will spend a large portion of their childhood in single-parent families due to the dangerously high percentage of new births occurring without a father present and the depressingly high rate of family breakups. In light of everything, adolescents who grow up in a single-parent family exhibit far fewer social cues than do children who do not (Flanagan and Sander, 1994). For instance, they are less likely to drop out of school, have a child, get caught, and lose their jobs. Although it is neither the primary cause nor the only explanation for teenagers’ increased propensity to engage in these harmful practices, being raised by a single parent is a contributing factor. To put it another way, while opportunities and compensation have the potential to reduce the negative implications of adolescent onset for children in single-parent families, children reared in two-parent families actually value the advantages they have over their peers.
