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As a child sits and plays with his train he carefully attaches the other cars to the engine so the train will work as one; fore he knows if one car is out of place, it will affect the whole train. We can take this same analogy and apply it to the nuclear family and it is needs. The engine is the family and the other cars are family support, social support, economic support, and increase of single fathers. If the engine changes it’s needs it will effect all the other cars and occasionally the train will have to be taken apart to add more cars or change the exciting cars so they all work together. The nuclear family today has seen changes from father and mother heading the household to rising numbers of single mothers and single fathers heading up their own households. The U.S. Census Bureau reports “ married couples make up a smaller portion of family households in 2000 than in 1970.” In 2000, they were 55 million couple family households compared to 12 million one-parent families. They were 10 million households headed by women compared to 2 million headed by men. As the structure of the nuclear family changes, so does the need of the different types of families. As I mention before if the engine changes, it will affect the other cars and how they perform. The needs a nuclear family are going to be different from a single mother’s or a single father’s needs. Their needs will be different in social, education, economic, and family. Over time women have began to see some changes in   education, economics, and employment positions but not enough. Even though they has been some changes women still have difficulty with job opportunities and income. Men have also seen a change in job opportunities and income but not nearly as women do. This could be because of education or that women usually have the reasonability of the children after the marriage ends which leaves other stresses on women. Companies have cut back on pay, health insurance and benefits their offer their employees. The results of this are a greater social awareness in all areas. . According to Nelson, (1981Raschke, and (1997) social support plays an important role for both single mothers and single fathers in reducing stress. According to Prociano and Heller (1983), perceived social support and family support can be measured by a 20-item questionnaire measuring how fathers or mothers may perceive the fulfillment of support needed from both family and society.

Family Support

                            Fischer and Corcoran (1994) found that the term family is thought of as a birthright and family support is automatic and requires very little maintains. Family support network, which include the nuclear family, grandparents, and siblings are seeing their roles changing.  In a couples relationship the support is very general including visits to grandparents, uncles, and aunts homes. They are no stress or family support needed like in a single parent family. As the family has changed, so has the need for external family support. According to Fischer (1982), more women turn to their families for social support and economic support than men do. Fischer hypothesis that mothers are more involve in family, kin, and social support than man. Although Fischer does point out that non traditional families are expected to be involved in more family activities because of the help their need from their extended family. A mother who does not receive family or social support can show signs of depression and stress. Men show less signs of depression or stress Fischer credits this to the man having a stable job and a good income. Previous research has shown that socioeconomic status has an effect on mothers, fathers, and children. When a mother and fathers relationship end in divorces the affect on the children is noted in many different areas such as schoolwork and later economic status of the child as an adult is. If the divorces cause the parent not to be at home during the time the child does homework they is no encouragement for education (Amato &Booth, 1997). This may affect the education experience and future economic status of the children. When family and social support is missing or scarce mother, father, and children will all suffer short term and long-term effects. (Amato & Booth, 1997). The short-term effects would be children dropping out of school, which would in the long-term effect our economy and the future of the children.                           

Social Support                       

                      Lazaus and Foldman (1984) define Social support “as what an individual draws on in order to cope.” Thoits (1986) viewed social support as coping assistance. Thoits thought a person using coping assistance is more likely to take on their problems instead of avoiding them all together. Fischer and Corcoran (1994) found that social support requires more effort to maintain and is more short term. Holloway and Machida (1991) have research the impact of no social support and social support with divorced mothers. They found that divorced mothers without social support show more stress compared to divorce mothers with social support. Tein, Sanders, and Zautra (2000) who compared custodial mother’s possible stress levels where social support is present, as well as divorced mothers without social support. They found that mothers with social support had less stress and were better able to handle their children’s behavior, whereas mothers with no social support were more stressed on a daily basis and were apt to have trouble dealing with their children’s behavior. Mothers who did not receive social support had very little or no social life, which added to the mother’s inability to deal with financial difficulties and children’s behavioral problems because the mother had no outlet to get away from her situation. Mother’s who received social support got a sense of relief and were better equipped to handle stressful situations and their child’s behavior. Having a social support system allows for the mothers   to leave they children with friends and family members with out paying a babysitting fee which allows financial relief and she is able to go out maybe once a week. This, in turn, helps her deal with stress and enables her to help her children copes with their behavior. When mothers do not get social support, it not only puts stress on them and their children, but on family relationships and friends as well (Bowen, 1992).

Economic Support

For many years, men have dominated the workforce, but in the 1960s, women began entering the workforce and filling traditional male jobs. Companies were forced to re-look at what they offered in wages to men versus women and the flexibility hours they offered. When women enter the workforce, they are often entering with strikes against them. They often do not have any training or higher education, which means they will not be paid as well as a man who already has higher education and training. This, too, could add to the social pressure as well as being very stressful, because the woman may have to take two jobs just to make ends meet. This is where a strong family support system would come in if the woman had custodial rights. If she did not have this support, it is easy to see how her situation could add to her stress and depression.

Increase of Single Fathers

The U.S. Census Bureau reported that the number of single fathers families in 1970 was 393,000 and increased to 2.2 million in 2000. With this increase, companies are forced to re-look at flexible hours for dads as well as moms (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). However, single fathers do not get the social support from other dads that mothers do. Single fathers are more involved with their parent’s relationships, and single mothers are more involved with siblings, but after this, it is friends who are most important in social support relationships among non-traditional families (Marks & McLanahan, 1993). Little is known about single fathers and the amount of social support they receive from both society and family. This is because single custodial fathers are relatively new phenomena, and thus there has not been a lot of research. The research available has single fathers with custody grouped with others groups, so clear results on single fathers with custodial rights are not clear (Marks & McLanahan). Marks and McLanahan found:

Overall, most of the non-traditional two-parent family fathers appear to be receiving less emotional support than traditional family dads, which lends support to our second hypothesis regarding a negative effect of less institutionalization. Single fathers appear somewhat more likely to receive emotional support, but the differences did not test statistically significant.

Single fathers with children were shown to have more involvement with their parents, which is similar to single mothers. Single fathers with children did not show a greater sibling involvement as mothers with children showed. Turner, (1994) found that men and women often receive different quantitative rewards and qualitative rewards in their relationships, which also includes the size of the network in which they say they receive social support and the degree of emotions from families. Women report that they have more same sex friends. Men talk more to their wives and use them as their main supporter. When the man divorces, he loses his main instrument of support, his wife. Men tend to rely on their wives more for social support than wives relay on their husbands, and that is why when the family structure collapses, men are faced with less social and family support in the beginning of their new family structure. Men find it hard to find social support in a system that is geared toward helping single mothers with children. As the number of single fathers with custodial rights grows each year, single fathers will begin to see the traditional structure of single mothers with custodial rights and the difference in family and society support change to the point where there is no difference in support received. As the number of custodial fathers grows each year, more research will be done on them as an individual group instead of grouping them with other groups. According to Turner and Turner (1999), it is very important to consider emotional factors and dependence on oneself when looking at social and developmental factors in depression. In their study, the authors found a tendency for women to be more depressed than men did. This may be the result of lack of social support or family support. Men tend to be less depressed about economic status and less stressed. Therefore, if women were able to get social and family support, they may be able to increase their economic status, which will also help in forming new structures, both family and social. The research will explore that single mothers with custodial rights receive more family and social support than single fathers with custodial rights.

Methods

Participants

The participants for this study answered a request on the Big DM web site that asked for help filling out my survey. Some of single fathers came from Fathers with Pride directed by Vernon Kennedy, Fathers Matter directed by Deacon O’Neal Seward, and Single Parents, Parents with out Partners. The participants are from Columbia, South Carolina. The participants ranged in age from 18 to 45. The survey investigated   perceived level of support received from family and society. Twenty custodial parents (twenty single fathers with custodial rights and twenty one single mothers with custodial rights) all in Columbia, South Carolina, participated in the study.  The sampling technique used for this study is convenience sampling. Participants will be notified that the study is being done anonymously and any information given would be kept confidential The participants are told if at any time they want to withdraw from the study they can without any penalty.

Apparatus 

The Perceived Social Support – Friend Scale (Fischer & Corcoran, 1994; see Appendix A) and the Perceived Social Support – Family Scale (Fischer & Corcoran, 1994; see Appendix B) were used to assess each parents’ perceived level of support. One survey will measure the perceived level of support received from society. The second will measure the perceived level of family support. Each survey consists of twenty items with a Likert-type response format with three alternatives (yes, no, or don’t know).

Procedure

The participants were given an informed consent (Appendix C) along with the survey to fill out and return to me. The participants for this study filled out two surveys. The variables being used are gender of custodial parents, social support, and family support. After they finished filling out the survey they were given a debriefing form (Appendix D). An alpha level will be set at .05. When I finish collecting the data I used the program called SYSTAT to organize and analysis the data. ANOVA was completed to help organize the data collected.

Results

A comparison between single mothers and single fathers perceived the level of support they received from family revealed that single mothers demonstrated a slightly higher average (M 12.47, SD 6.79) than single fathers (M 13.81, SD 6.09). The difference between single mothers and single fathers is not significant, t = -0.632 (32.6), 7.05, p > 0.532 two tailed. Another comparison was conducted between single mothers and single fathers perceived the level of social support they received from society, revealed that single mothers demonstrated a slightly higher average (M 11.09, SD 2.38) than single fathers (M 9.82, SD 2.89). The differences between single mothers and single fathers is not significant, t = -1.45 (30.9), p > 0.05 two tailed. (See Appendix E)

Discussion

The results of this study do not support the initial hypothesis that single mothers received more support from both family and friends than single fathers. The results maintain that fathers are receiving slightly lower support from social and family support than single mothers. In the study conducted on the initial hypothesis, it was demonstrated that single mothers received higher levels of support from society that single fathers and single fathers received higher levels of support from family than single mothers. The results of the surveys were not conclusive with the study conducted by Turner who found differences in perceived levels of social support among women and men, with women reporting receiving more support than men. The outcome of this study may have been different if I could have gotten more participants from both single mothers and single fathers. This outcome goes along with the study Turner (1994) did where he found as the number of single fathers increased, there will be more research would be done on them as an individual group. This in turn will show effect on a larger group and possibly show a much greater difference between the two groups. Derived from both the single mothers’ surveys and the single fathers’ surveys was the concern about child support and how the amount was determined. In mothers and fathers received the same amount based on their sex.

Another issue was child support laws across state lines and why they are so different. It is apparent here to me that this is a topic that affects both single mothers and single fathers and needs more research to be done on it. What I found very interesting is on my survey there is one question asking about child support laws but both single mothers and single fathers added comments. One single father wrote me a letter sharing his feelings on the child support system and even voiced concern that the current child support system seems to be “mom” support with no regard to the welfare of the child. On the other hand, I had a single mother write me about her problems with the child support system and the lack of help she received from the Department of Human Resources for non-payment of child support. As I read on, I could sense her frustration in her words. Her concern is not for herself, but for her four children. She is having a hard time providing just the essentials for her children. (Refer to Appendix F) As we are aware, the child support system is not a get-rich-quick plan, but it does have its problems. It also has come a long way since my mother received child support from my father a total of $200.00 a month for all five of us. It is like everything else. A system needs to change along with the changing family and their needs. As earlier research has shown, women were more apt to be forced to take a job because of lack of education. After speaking with some of the single mothers, they felt they could get the same job opportunities men have because colleges and state funds have made it possible for women to go to college or trade school to learn a trade and be able to get a good job. These mothers have seen some changes for the better. One mother told me the she and another mother were taking turns watching each other’s children while they worked. This is how they work out childcare. This goes along with a study Tein, Sanders, and Zautra (2000), who looked at the stress levels of single mothers that received social support and single mothers who did not receive social support, and found single mothers who received social support were more apt to deal with their children. I think that is what these mothers were doing was depending on each other for support which in turn lessened their stress.

After doing my research, I realize that not only does our child support system need changing, but so does our society and they way we feel toward single parents. Some single parents wrote comments about losing friends after they became single parents. This put more stress on an already stressful situation. One single mother said, “It feels almost like a death.” The friends she had when she was married were not longer her friends. In fact, if her friends saw her at the store, they would act like they had not seen her. This really hurt her. I can understand her feelings of hurt because after the death of our son, Joshua, the parents we were friends with started avoiding us as if what happened to us was contagious. On top of the stress, depression of losing our son, we also had to deal with losing our friends at the same time. Turner and Turner (1999) did research on the developmental factors in depression. Their results show a difference for depression among women and men in the areas of social support and family support. I think research on this subject is important because it will help research develop programs or reevaluate existing programs to better serve the public.

References

Amato, R. P., & Booth, A. (2001). The Legacy of Parent’s Marital Discord: Consequences for Children’s Marital Quality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(4) 627 – 638.

Bowen, G.L. (1982). Social Network and the Maternal Role Satisfaction of Formerly Married Mothers. Journal of Divorce, 5, 77 – 83.

Fischer, J. & Corcoran, K. (1994). Measure for Clinical Practice (vol 2).

Holloway, S. D. & Machida, S. (1991). Child-Rearing Effectiveness of Divorced Mothers: Relationships to Coping Strategies and Social Support. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 14, 179 – 200.

Lazaus & Foldman (1984) Social Support, Appraisals of Events Controllability, Coping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66,06, 1094-1102.

Marks, N. F. & McLanahan, S. S. (1993). Gender, Family Structure, and Social Support among Parents. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, 481 – 493.

Nelson & Raschkle (1971-1981) Society for Industrial and Organization Psychology (vol 6)

Procidano, M.E., & Heller, K. (1983). Measure of perceived social support from friends and family: Three validation studies. American Journal of Community Psychology, 11, 1-12.

Tein, J. Y., Sandler, I. N., & Zautra, A. J. (2000). Stressful Life Events, Psychological Distress, Coping, and Parenting of Divorced Mothers: A Longitudinal Sturdy. Journal of Family Psychology, 14, 27 - 41.

Thoits (1986) Social Support, Appraisals of Events Controllability, Coping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66,06, 1094-1102.

Turner, H. A. (1994). Gender and Social Support: Taking the Bad with the Good? Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 30, 521

Turner, H. A. and Turner, R. J. (1999). Gender, Social Status, and Emotional Reliance. The Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 40, 360

United States Census Bureau. (2000). American Families and Living Arrangements, June 2001 (No. P20-537).  Washington, D.C: Fields, J & Casper, and L.