Broken Families: Research on the Effects of Divorce
Why did the broken family rate increase at 20 to 30 percent in the United States? This question led me to choose the topic of broken family essay to find the answer. The article that I am going to be talking about is “Broken Families and Educated Nations” by Julia C. Collins. No one gets married thinking, they will soon get divorced. When you marry, you think its forever, but in lots of cases, divorces are more common, which ends up in nasty lawsuits and child custody battles which is the cause of broken families. Collins states, “more than 72% of African-American births are out of wedlock”. According to Collins, the following stats for the following ethnicities are as follows: 25% of white, 42% Hispanic, 53% American Indian and Native Alaskans, and 67% Black children are in single-parent families.
The cause of broken families comes from the increase in divorce. Less than half of the United States of America’s, children, live in a traditional family, consisting of married heterosexual parents? When children are raised in a household with the mother and father in the home, it makes a big difference how a child develops and functions mentally and physically. Both parents play a big part in the child’s life and it gives the child a sense of security. Children raised by both parents have a better chance of being raised without social issues, mental problems, getting into trouble in school, or getting along with other children, or even making friends. Loving parents will allow a child to balance properly in the real world and it gives the child a sense of worth and a better chance at duplicating positive behavior when they have their own children.
However, I have family and friends that were raised in a broken family and they had a great life, but I also have peers that had behavioral issues and anger because both parents didn’t get along. When a child is raised with a broken family, depending on the circumstance and the maturity of both parents, will determine how the child develops in life. If both parents do not work together as a unit, even if they do not live in the same home, the child will begin to think that they are the cause of the separation of both parents. The attitude of the child will change and behavior issues will began. They will see their friends with their parents, and begin to resent the fact that their parents are not there by withdrawing, bullying, fighting and yelling out for attention, which will cause failing grades. It gets worse especially if one of the parents, stop coming around. There are some parents that are mature enough to be cordial for the sake of the children, which is positive co-parenting. In most cases, there are those parents that fight and act out negatively in front of their children. The immature parents will think that by keeping the other parent from the child is hurting the parent, but in reality, it is hurting the child.
My research from an Article in FACTANK News in Numbers, December 22, 2014, by Gretchen Livingston states, “Fewer than half (46%) of U.S. kids younger than 18 years of age are living in a home with two married heterosexual parents in their first marriage. This is a marked change from 1960, when 73% of children fit this description, and 1980, when 61% did.
The article states “the percentage of children living in families with 2 parents, have lowered from 88% to 69% as of 2016. Female head- households are more popular now than back in the 1960’s. Back then, it was frowned upon whenever you had a baby as an unmarried mother. Now in 2018, more couples are co-parenting or they are married. The male gender could move on and live their lives and hide the fact that they had a child leaving the mother with full responsibility.
Collins also states that “According to custodial Mothers and Fathers and their child support: 2009, a report released by the U.S. Census Bureau every two years there are approximately 13.7 million single parents in the United States today, and those parents are responsible for raising 22 million children. May 22, 2018. Statistics may show that single mothers are common in broken homes, however before I was born; my mother was a single parent to my big brother, Brooks. My mother explained and she gave me more insight on what it is to be a single mom and the head of household.
Statistics may show that single mothers are common in broken homes, however before I was born my mother was a single parent to my big brother, Brooks. My mother explained and she gave me more insight on what it is to be a single mom and the head of household. Now I understand why there is still Gender Inequality which has caused single mother head of household families throughout the United States even today. My mom and dad groomed my brother and my Dad was a great influence, but most of all, my mom did it alone for the first 10 years of my brother’s life and she sat us all down and explained her expectations of us and that education is key. She also taught us to be abstinent until marriage because being a single parent is not easy and it gets worst without your family support. She explained to my sister and I that women have it harder and that we have to work twice as hard. I don’t want to be a statistic, I want to be an example of change.
A home should never be broken it should be a happy place. I have a lot of friends who grew up with no mother or father. I just look at how blessed I am because it could have been me.
This essay views Julia Collins first glance, the author’s narrative choices—her antebellum frame, her principal character’s racial indeterminacy and domestic concerns, even the overtly racialized advice she dispenses in the essays she publishes and seems distractingly distanced from the immediacy of the unfolding national conflict. I was plotting on Collins’s story on the temporal and activist axes that she so openly engages by publishing in the Recorder, a paper that printed editorials and articles insisting on equal rights and recommending “education, spiritual growth and love for family, community and people, as it “nurtured a black American consciousness. Viewed synchronically, coeval assaults against Black communities serve as the historical bookends of Collins’s literary career.
Living in a broken home can be very stressful for you and the single parent you are living with. Most kids who are experiencing this tend to have academic and emotional problems. For example, Clinton stated, “We know that there are many well-educated, strong and powerful minds among us, which have needed only to be discovered” This quote is basically saying its educated minds but they are not seen because of so much stress and hurt the child or parent may be going through. I never realized how many broken families there were until now. So many children are lost, hurt and feel abandoned. I could only imagine how people feel when this happens to them. No one wants to be without a parent. Parents are the ones we admire and look up to.
In my conclusion to the essay about broken family, I have clearly explained the effects of the broken family. I have a better understanding of both being a single parent and being raised in a 2 parent home. My mom and dad groomed my brother and my Dad was a great influence, but though my mom did it alone for the first 10 years of my brother’s life, getting married was a great asset and the 2 parent family gave my brother balance. My mother sat us all down and explained her expectations of us and that education is key. She also taught us to be abstinent until marriage because being a single parent is not easy and it gets worst without family support. She explained to my sister and me, that some women have it harder and that we have to work twice as hard. I don’t want to be a statistic; I want to be an example of change and to have a 2 parent home so that my future child will have a chance.
Works Cited
- Foreman, P. G. (2017). The Christian Recorder, Broken Families and Educated Nations in Julia C. Collins’s Civil War Novel The Curse of Caste. African American Review, 50(4), 1063–1074. https://doi.org/10.1353/afa.2017.0161
