Single Parenting: Eliminating the Bias in Social Research
Single parenting in America has dramatically increased since the 50s. Today's statistics suggest that every year more than one million children's lives will be disrupted by divorce. Before the age of sixteen, 38% of white and 75% of black children will experience the effects of divorce upon their daily lives (Amato, 1991, p. 26). Recent research indicates that previous studies of single parenting and their children have been saturated with cultural and ethnic bias (McHenry, 1993, p. 99). Although children can be traumatized by the effects of divorce and single parenting, current research indicates that a more detailed analysis with greater sensitivity to class, status and racial difference needs to be conducted. Only within the last fifteen years have sociologists realized their need for radical revision when studying the culture of divorce and recognized that a unilateral approach to this multi-layered topic must be jettisoned.
In their innovative book, The kids' book about single-parent families, Dolmetsch and Shih compile children's own responses to the challenges offered by living in single-parent families. Interacting with the children themselves, Dolmetsch and Shih begin by trying to arrive at a working definition for single-parent families. They dismiss the mythic qualities of family life as portrayed by the 70s television show "The Brady Bunch" as unrealistic (Dolmetsch, 1985, p. 4). Since it is emphasized that no two families are exactly alike the problem of defining life in post-divorce families is further complicated. They conclude first, that "the only true single-parent families are when a parent has a child by choice, if one parent dies, or if a parent completely disappears" and second, that most children in single-parent families actually "live with one parent most of the time and the other parent some of the time" (Dolmetsch, 1985, p....