1.0 INTRODUCTION
A
complete family with a mother and a father presence and very important to
generating prosperity to excellence of child’s life. The family is the basic
social institution built as a marriage between a man and a woman, according to
the tradition, religion and law. It consists of father, mother and children.
Both of parents such as mother and father are important to the institution of
the family because the family structure that better enable the child’s to find
the meaning of, stability, secure and a healthy life, competent and productive
citizens. That personally can produce prosperous family child welfare. Families
have an important role in a child's life whether a household or family unity
will be affected. The basic of family can collapse due to dissociation
separation or the death of any one of the spouses.
Single
parents phenomenon is not something a new among the people in our country. Our
society sees an increasingly rising number of single parents today. Like single
mother, single father are one of category community that totally increases day
by day. Based on the 2000 Population and Housing Census of Malaysia, there were
126,810 single fathers in Malaysia at the time. The number is likely to be
underestimated, and has definitely grown much larger today considering the
increased rates of divorce and separation.The existence of man as father and
wife keep the family without the presence a common thing that happens in a
family.The term of ‘single father’ is includes men in a variety of family
circumstances whether are separated, divorced, widowed or never married but
living together with adopted child without a cohabiting partner.According to
Wan Halim Othman (1995), a single father is a father who bears the
responsibility to educate, care, have to pay and bring up their children
without involving a wife.
The profile of single father
household is more likely single mother which is most of them typically less
educated and less well-off than their married counterparts. They are also younger
and lack of information’s. It is tough to be a single father and breadwinner at
the same time. Personal emotions and issues aside, single fathers are weighed
down with additional responsibilities that they have to deal with on their own,
and on limited resources. However, single father householders differ from
single mother householders on several indicators, which is households headed by
single fathers appear to be much better off financially when compared with
those headed by single mothers.
2.0 SINGLE FATHER ISSUES
Being a single father is not
something easy even though some researchers showed that living as a single
mother is tougher. Sometimes, he has to face challenges cause by both inside
the family and outside the family factors. Besides, single fatherhood gives
various effects especially towards his children.
Single father can we describe as a
person who face it divorce or death of their wife and non-marital childbearing.
They are rare for us to hear about them rather than single mother because a
single father really minority than single mother. Based on that, if we realize
that single mother have face it many issues to support their own life with
their baby. So, it also happens to single father that they need to face many
issues in their life and solve it their issues. Not easy to say that they are
really strong to face it especially how about to treat their children.
According to Kieran McKeown (2000), a single father is also often seen as
dangerous, useless, self-destructive or irresponsible person because everybody
thinks that single father cannot adapt and survive their life to the better.
Besides, single father also has issues on most socio-economic
indicators. Based on the research show that not all single fathers are categorized
as a stereotype but many do and concerned about what is happening in
disadvantages communities where young men are not being supported to take up
one of the most important roles to be a good single father. This statement
related about issues of the single father to take care their children. In the
United State, some studied showed lower educational achievement of the children
from single father families than from single mother families
(Biblarz&Raftery, 1999). The
children will affect their education with single father than are fathers who
are raising children without partner in the household. That issues is will be
serious because the children who lives with single parents will have tendency
to be disengaged from studied compared
to students from two families (Hyunjoon Park, 2008)
Crawford and MacDonald (2002) showed
that it is likely that mental health issues impact to single father and single
mother. Single fathers also will face it
issues about emotional distress and difficult in make a range of services for
housing, parenting and financial support due to lack of sensitivity of father’s
needs from the government providers is a major issues for fathers to access
services. So, for context counselling that issues is important such as domestic
violence, behavioral change that happen to single father. Based on a one
researched, Fletcher, Silberberg and Baxter (2001), there is also lack of information
and resource materials to promote many aspects of health and other support
services such as childcare and parenting to encourage men to have greater
involvement with their children.
Like single motherhood, single fatherhood also
caused some effects towards himself and his children. One of the obvious effect
is the educational aspiration level of the children that living with a single
father. In sub-Saharan Africa countries, children headed by a single father
tend to have lower educational chances in term of school enrollment and
attainment compared to children headed by single mother (Lloyd and Blanc,
1996). However, this effect may vary across the world (Park, 2008). Borgerset al. (1996) found that children from
single-father families have greater educational opportunities than those from
single-mother families in Netherlands. By highlighting the point, children from
single-parents families have lower educational aspiration compared to children
from two-parent families (Downey et al., 1998;
Amato 1993).
Furthermore,
poverty is also the effect of single fatherhood towards his children. According
to McLanahan and Sandefur (1994), children headed by single father are poorer
than children headed by two parents. In addition, the children of single-father
families are more likely to experience health, behavior, and mental problems
compare with those from two-parent families (Parke, 2003). Some single fathers
may experience unstable relationship with cohabiting partners and this
situation can increase the children’s aggression level and anxiety or
depression, make the children emotionally unstable compare with children who
are living with two parents (Osborne and McLanahan, 2007). Children may have to
defense themselves from negative perceptions about their situation such as
derogatory label that they come from a ‘broken home’.
4.0
EFFECTS ON SINGLE FATHER
Life of a single father may be is not as hard as a
single mother. However, most of the public attentions and charities focus on
single motherhood, leaving behind single fatherhood. Systematic deterioration
in the lot of single fathers is due to less attentions have been given to them
(Buckley, 1998). There is less research done on single father. The information
on single father is obtained as part of studies on single mother (Flanagan and
Richardson, 1992; McCashin, 1996).
Some
single fathers are young and usually they are less educated. This may be due to
marriage at young age and they stop study after married. Lack of education
makes them hardly employed, resulted in exclusion from the labour market and an
important source of identity and fulfillment through work (Murphy, 1996).
Moreover, these will affect single father as a breadwinner and caregivers.
According to Park (2008), financial status of single father is much lower
compared with father of two-parent families. Thus, this leads to the poverty of
single father.
In
addition, most of single fathers tend to busy with breadwinner which make them
have less time with their kids. This will affect the relationship between the
single father and the children.
5.0 CONCLUSION
The
conclusion that we have on this topic, while single parenting may pose some
negative impact on their children, at least at the initial stage, many
researchers found that children of single-parent families grew up to be as
healthy and emotionally secure as those from two-parent families. We often
underestimate the emotional resilience of children as they grow into adulthood.
When the older children in single-parent families take up the task of caring
for the younger brothers and sisters, they also learn
to become responsible people, and
form close relationships with their siblings.
prepared by :
Siti Mariyam Binti Mohd Zaini
Siti Mariyam Binti Mohd Zaini
Ainul Sarikin Binti Ibrahim
Taqiah Binti Mohamed Salleh
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