Annotated Bibliography

Does growing up in a single parent home affect a child?

Seaira Baker

Professor Malcom Campbell

English 1103

03/11/2015

Annotated Bibliography

Sanderfur, Gary and Sara McLanahan. Growing up with a Single Parent What hurts, What Helps

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. Print

This academic book presents one angle of my topic by examining the pros and cons of

living with a single parent. An interesting finding in chapter one states that, after ten

years of research, “Children who grow up in a household with only one biological parent

are worse off, on average, than children who grow up in a household with both of their

biological parents” (1). However, they also say that they disagree with three other

positions. These positions are: 1) there is no effect, 2) there are major negative effects

including poverty, delinquency, and high school failure, and 3) the results should not be

known out of fear of making single mothers and their children feel like they are doing

something wrong. The chapter continues to explain why these conclusions are not

proven to be true but why these children are in fact, worse off. The main conclusion of

why they say the children are worse off is that there are many correlations between

negative outcomes or behaviors and growing up in a “disrupted family” (6). However, the

correlations cannot directly be linked to any specific thing because there are too many

random variables to determine exactly what caused the behavior or outcome of the

children so it is only reasonable to say that these children are statistically worse off. The

authors and this source are credible because they have done 10 years of research. It is

reliable because the information is not biased and it is backed up with facts and numbers.

One problem is that any study done on human behavior can be extremely difficult to

prove because of the complexity of people as a variable. I would still say this is a useful

source regardless, because not many other people have done long term research on this

topic. This was information I did not know before and it was interesting to read about a

different position on the topic. My understanding for the topic has expanded after reading

this chapter. I will use this source in my project because it will help me shape my

argument and it has a great source of tables to back up the information.

Downey, Douglas B, James W. Ainsworth-Darnell, and Mikaela J. Dufur. "Sex of Parent and

Children's Well-Being in Single-Parent Households." Journal of Marriage and the

Family. 60.4 (1998): 878-93. Nov. 1998

This is a peer-reviewed developed article that discusses the differences in the roles each

parent plays in a child’s life and determines if the sex of a parent makes a difference in a

single-parent household. This study suggests that the parent’s sex does not affect a child’s

well-being. The first reason the authors give is that a study done by the National Center

for Education, testing involvement of either the single mother or the single father in a

child’s life, showed that 46% of children lived with an involved father and 49% lived

with an involved mother (879). Since these numbers are so close it is not accurate to say

the sex of a single parent is significant. The next reason is that after studying parenting

styles, the authors decided to research whether or not the sex of the parent and child made

a significant difference. It was concluded that whether a child was living with a parent of

the same gender or a different gender did not matter because there were strengths and

weaknesses in both situations. A flaw that was found, in previous studies, by the authors

of this article is that researchers were comparing single mothers, and the fathers of

mother-father homes instead of with single fathers. After correcting this, it was concluded

that the reason children in single mother homes were more deviant than children with a

father was not because of gender, but because there were two parents instead of just one.

The authors state that although there may be a slight difference caused by gender, there

are other variables that matter also and once these variables are controlled there would be

no difference statistically between single mothers and single fathers. This website is

credible because the authors did a lot of research to make these assumptions. One thing I

noticed is that the information might be outdated because this study took place in the

1980s and 1990s. However, their conclusion acknowledges the fact that there were times

when the sex of a parent did matter. The authors may have considered variables that did

not impact the results as much as they claim, or maybe these variables would make an

impact and should have been considered in other conclusions, such as the book in my

first citation, to make those results accurate. Because of the complexity, it is not

reasonable to determine which angle is correct. I will take this into consideration while

doing my project. It was helpful to see a different side and it allowed me to further

expand my knowledge and shape what I think personally about this topic. I have not

decided whether or not I will use this source in my project but there are many helpful

charts and statistics that could help me explain and give examples for my topic.

Gringlas, Marcy, and Marsha Weinraub. "The More Things Change . . . Single Parenting

Revisited." Journal of Family Issues. 16.1 (1995): 29-52. Jan 1995.

This article is a peer-reviewed reliable article that focuses on single mothers and their

children. The article questions whether it is the single parent, or situational factors that

are responsible for a child’s outcome (31). This article explains that the reason a single

mother’s child may have different outcomes than a child with both parents, is that single

mothers tend to live busier, more stressful, and less supported lives. This leaves less time

and energy to focus on the well-being of the child or children. The article discusses tests

conducted with “42 mothers-child pairs” (33). The results showed that there was no

significant difference between both groups in young-aged children, but there was a

difference seen during adolescence. The children of single mothers had more trouble with

academics, social settings, and adjusting to certain situations during their adolescent

years. The authors explain that because of the small sample size it may not be reasonable

to say that living with a single mother affects a child. The correlations did seem to be

significant and did also match the findings of other research; however, it was concluded

that more research needed to be done to determine the accuracy of this study and others

like it. This article is credible because it is peer-reviewed and it contain a lot of in-depth

research over the course of 7 years. Something that may not be reliable are the results

because the sample is not large enough to make a conclusion and the participants were

mostly Caucasian and middle class families. A difference between this source and the

others is that the single mother’s lifestyle was also taken into considerations instead of

just the children’s behavior. I will use the discussion in the beginning of the article in my

project, but I will not use the results of the experiment because they are not scientifically

accurate.

Vanzant, Iyanla, Roland Warren, and Oprah Winfrey. "The Role of a Father--and the Effect of an

Absent One Oprah's Lifeclass Oprah Winfrey Network." YouTube. YouTube, 4 May

2013.

This video from Oprah’s popular Lifeclass series discusses the problems boys face when

they grow up without their father. It was said that boys without a father do not get a

chance to see a model of how a man should act and that is one way boys are affected. A

statistic shown in the video says that “In the United States men in fatherless homes are 2

times more-likely to go to jail” (0:55). This video uses the statistics but also

acknowledges that there are actual people behind the numbers who suffer the

consequences of their parent’s actions, especially when talking about the father and son.

One reason males are said to be more affected than females is that boys have a more

difficult time expressing emotion so they find it harder to say what they are feeling about

not having a father in their life. This can cause more pain for boys because they have

feelings that they are unable to communicate to anyone and it was said by Vanzant that

many men don’t think they are supposed to say things such as, “I feel empty, or less

than” because they didn’t have a father and they might not even know how to say these

things at all. As she said this the audience of men nodded in agreement. There are many

videos in this series that discuss growing up with a single parent, and this particular video

concludes that men are negatively affected by the absence of a father. I found this video

interesting and helpful because the information is not solely based on numbers, but also

feelings that have been studied not only by Warren from the National Fatherhood

Institute, but by both co-hosts and the audience members. It is different from the other

sources I found and it was helpful to see a different form of research. Humans are

complex and difficult to study and numbers might not always be correct, but the people in

this video are sharing personal experiences that compare to scientific results. This is a

credible source because Oprah’s Lifeclass is award winning and the specialist in this

video has researched this topic to a great extent. However, one flaw in the conclusion is

that it is based off of not only statistics but also, personal experience which is not always

a reliable source of information. I will watch other videos in this series and determine

then if this source will be useful to my project. With these four sources, I have a better

understanding of my topic and also the different prospective of each and how they all

have a common theme even though there is a difference of opinion.