Single mothers, challenges and the society

Motherhood is the most beautiful gift every woman dreams to be adored with in her life; the happiness of waking up to see the beaming smile and cries of her baby every day makes every woman fulfilled.

Hence, the interest of every woman is to enjoy the happiness of bringing up a child with her partner, however, in situations of no fault of theirs, such as the death of a husband, the rejection of pregnancy by the father among others, some mothers become single parents taking full responsibility of their children.

One cannot look silently at the challenges these single mothers face day in and day out in the discharge of their responsibility of bringing up their children to fit well in society and grow up to their expectations.

The task of single mothers become very heavy and burdened because they have to attend to their personal, children and work needs all at the same time. These needs can be emotionally, financially and socially over bearing among others.

The single mother becomes very lonely, depressed and panics when her financial gains from her work is very low and cannot fend for the whole family she is taking care of especially when she dreams of enrolling her children in one of the best schools, providing quality health care and social needs such as good, sound and comfortable place to be called a home.

Sometimes support from friends and other family relations can help reduce their burden but not in cases where the society does not accept single mothers especially when the parent is a teenager.

In Ghana a bigger challenge for single mothers is stigmatization as mostly they are named as “born one”. A single mother finds it very difficult to start a new family with a new husband as most men prefer to settle down without any step children.

So has the society fairly welcomed single mothers and their responsibilities? I think it is negative especially where the society has embraced the nuclear family system “each family for himself” when the needs of your family becomes the topmost priority and that is all.

This in a way affects the performance of children raised by single mothers especially when most of their needs are not met. A study by Ruschena, Prior, Sanson & Smart (2005) have stated that children in single parenting develop low self-esteem, worry, fear and withdrawal symptoms.

I will conclude by congratulating all single mothers who have fought a good fight in nurturing their children to be people like Angelina Jolie, a Hollywood actress, Kate Beckinsale, a Model and Gifty Anti, a Broadcaster and TV presenter.

Their efforts are greatly seen as some of their children excel in the sectors they find themselves in.