single mother

1.0 Introduction.

In Islam, divorce is a thing that is allowed but would be best to avoid. If the situation is out of control and the spouse is not able to handle it then they would have the choice of divorcee. Divorce would not only affect the husband and wife but also the family itself as they have been living together. From the divorce the husband and wife would be known as a divorcee and they would also be single parents if they have children together. Single parents are includes both woman and man.

 In this assignment, we would discuss about single parents and we would specific it to mother. There are few type of single mother that exist in this world there are a woman that divorce with their husband and get the custody of their children, women that lost their husband because their husband die and they are ready to continue to take care of their children, woman that did not get any living expenses from their husband to refine daily basic needs of she and her children, husband that have illnesses and cannot fulfilled their responsibility to give their wife the living expenses that their family needs, also woman that adopted a child and a wife that his husband suddenly left them without saying anything. In our discussion, we will discuss specifically about a wife that be a single mother because of divorce. As a single parents, the woman should have a good coping strategies so that she would survive from the trauma of being left by the husband and also to gain the support to handle the situation whereby she would need to take care of her family now.

2.0. Issuesfaced by single mother

2.1 Emotion Management

            Stress can contribute to emotional instability for single mothers and their children. Balance and emotional stability is important for single mothers, especially in the context of enlargement children and a willingness to face the changes that occur from time to time. for single parents divorced, the divorce, alimony, property and so on, which takes a long time and adds to the cost as well as have to deal with complicated procedures. Thus, single mothers should be ready and strong to face such situations. The big challenge for single parents make up the system and good emotional management so that problems like this do not weaken them and their children.

In the context of children, the separation will cause conflict in their lives. Otherwise refined and well-formed, it may cause children often rebel where she is one of the medium for them to express themselves. Azizi (2008) in a study conducted by Diyana, Doris & Nor Aini (2009), describing the emotions will cause imbalance in terms of the physical and will. The reaction of a child to a stimulus will cause an emotional and dependent on past experience.This statement also support by K. Nidhi & P. Bharti (2009) say that single mothers tend to suffer from a feeling ofrestlessness and lack of identity after divorce. This is especially true of womenwhose identity was formerly associated with thatof their husbands after spend their life together. So, their emotion will uncertain and have a problem to manage their emotion. This is one of the issues that happen to single mother who have been divorce by her husband.

2.2. Time Management.

            Managing time can be a huge challenge and issue for single mother, especially those who are also working to earn some money to support their life with children. Single mother will have this problem if they work because they need to manage their career and family matters. Sometimes, single mother use their time to focus on jobs or work and this situation will have some negative effect such as lack of spend time with their children. When this happen, the relationship between mother and son will damage and the trust of son to mother also decreased. Hamidah & Hamdan (2003) say that the relationship between mother and son will not close each other because of the lack of spend time together are less. So, this is important to mother who has career to know how to managing their time about career and family,

            Firth (1996) in research Zaliha, Maznah, Kamal & Anuar (2004) said that, children from single parent families prefer to stay with grandparents. It is because they require more attention from caregivers and that why they choose to stay with grandparents than mother. As we know children that still young need more attention and love from other people. Besides that, they also know that their mother busy and doesn’t have time with them. Sometimes, mother just sent their child to child care centres. In addition, single mother also need have their own time and own schedule such as doing relaxation or doing things to their own self to release stress and make their own life happier or meaning full. This time management also one of the issues that happen to single mother that divorce because it hard to one person to handle career and family.

2.3       Society perception

There are a lot of issue that nowadays are faced by single parents especially a mother. One of the issues that being faced by a single parent are view by the community near them. We would discuss about the view from community towards a single parents that are divorce with their husband. In Malaysia, community usually will have a negative perceptions towards single mother especially a women that a divorcee. Society mostly will blame the woman for what happen in their marriage. Because they believe that woman that is divorced did not have the qualification that as a wife should have. They are lack of characteristics needed as a wife .Mustari, M. I., Ya’kob, R., Chik, S. N., Jasmi, K. A., & Mohamed, A. K. (2004) said that the community always have a bad perception about single mother as they also thought that the family would never be complete if the family only have a mother without a father. 

2.4       Financial problem

The second issue that are faced by the single mother that is a divorcee is from the financial aspect. Zarina M.N and Anton A.A(2012) in their research said that financial abilities play crucial roles in single mother survival in particular, when the ex-husband and government agencies are not helpful as they would like it to be. As a single mother they would have a problem from financial especially if the woman is not employed during their marriage or they have quit their job. It would be a problem to start back after such a long time of unemployed. It is also would be hard to adjusting back to the work as their old working environment would be different from before. The system or the working environment might change based on the needs of the market and the company are following the changes. It might hard for the single mother to catch up with the changes. They will need time and also a lot of practices to suit them with the changes.

3.0 Effects

            One of the effect that may cause to the single mother is the percentage to children custody is low if they have some issues that have been discuss such as financial, emotion and etc. Some single mother will not accept this because as mother they have the right to take care her child and they is the one that born the child. From that, the emotion or ways of think will be dangerous and the tendency for them to hurt other people and kill herself is high.

            As for the children with a single mother it would be hard for them to continue involve with the society as they ashamed that their family is incomplete unlike other family. This would be a big issue for the children especially when their friends always tease them saying that they do not have father. This would also affect the kids performance in academic. Nor Ba’yah Abdul Kadir, Kamsiah Ali(2012) said that the children which came from a single parents family would not perform very well in their studies.

4.0 Coping Strategies

            Sajjad (2011) in study done by Joel, Ana Maria, Jasper, Gina & Catalina (2012) said that chatting with friends on the telephone was the most commonstrategies used by mothers to cope with stress and some issues that happen when become single mother.Mothers tend to get closer to the family for supports and get some spirit. This is one of the strategies that single mother do to be more social and not be alone to handle some problem.  When mothers share her problem with people that her close, her emotion and stress will decreased because she tell someone to hear what she experienced and sometimes when share that problem the other people that hear will give some feedback or ideas if they also been through the same problem.

            Besides that, counselling session is one of the coping strategies that good for single mother now days. Faizah Abd Ghani & Azian Abd Aziz (2013) in their study said that single mother require two or three more frequent counselling session for the purpose of mental health. The emotional distress experienced by single mothers always happen when they doing all work such as career to get some income, as housewife taking care their child and etc. So, counselling session also one of the coping strategies that single mother can do to give them some space or sharing especially about their personel problem and family problem. Counselling is one of the sessions that help people to find their own answers.  

If the single mother is a woman that was not educated and the husband did not give them any living expenses to support the mother and their child, the mother need to attain any courses that suitable with themselves. They need to learn any skills so that they can work to and get money to support themselves and their children. The single mother would also need money in case there are unexpected events happened to them or their children such as the chid have a disease and they need to operate him or her. And this would cost large amount of money.

5.0 Conclusion.

            Conclusion from this topic we can see that now days single mother is increase every year because of dead, divorce and etc. There will have some issues that happen to some other single mother that cannot accept the situation of can’t handle these issues. If they cannot handle this, they will have some problem to their life and it will be more dangerous to single mother because the tendency for them to do something crazy is high cause of emotion that they have. So, single mother have to give some space for herself and think positive of what happen to their life. It is because they have ways of coping strategies about how to solve some issues about single mother. This is not the end of their life, they must look forward and believe in their self because many single mother in this world have been success in career and family.  

6.0 References

Che latifah Ismail sharipah Isa.(2004). Tuntutan hak selepas penceraian di kalangan ibu tunggal negeri Perlis,11-12.

Diyana, I., Doris, P., & Nor Aini, I. (2009). Isu Dan Cabaran Ibu Tunggal Dalam Menghadapi Perubahan Persekitaran Global (Issues And Challenges Of Single Mothers In Facing Global Changes), 331-333.

Faizah, A., & Azian, A. (2013). British Journal of Arts and Social Sciences. Profile of Single Mothers in Southern Malaysia And Issues Afflicting Their Lives, 16(1), 198-200.

Hamidah, A., & Hamdan, A. (2003). Masalah Keluarga Melayu Bandar: Isu Dan Cabaran, 10-15.

Joel, M., Ana Maria, R., Jasper, V., & Gina, D. (2012). Coping Strategies Of Parents Of Children With Developmental Delay: A Quantitative Analysis, 1(4), 184-186.

Martin Evans.(2013). Single Mothers in Malaysia: social protection as an exercise of definition in search of solution.

Mustari, M. I., Ya’kob, R., Chik, S. N., Jasmi, K. A., & Mohamed, A. K. (2004). Permasalahan Ibu Tunggal dalam Melaksanakan Tanggungjawab Pendidikan Anak-anak: Satu Kajian Kawasan Sura, Dungun, Terenggannu in Seminar Pembangunan Keluarga 2004 , pp 1-6.

Nidhi, K., & Prabhakar, B. (2009). Problems Faced by Single Mothers, 197-204.

Nor B. A. K., Kamsiah A.(2012).  Suara wanita dalam memperkatakan tentang takdir, amalan budaya dan kepuasan hidup: Kajian kes di kalangan ibu tunggal di Samarahan, Sarawak, 107-118

Zaliha, H., Maznah, W., Kamal Bahrin, S., & Wahab, A. (2004). Kajian Taraf Hidup, Pendidikan Dan Cabaran: Menelusuri penghidupan ibu Tunggal Dimukim Tanjung Dawai, Daerah Kuala MudA, 10-13.

prepared by :

amzar ahmad 35453

kartika suwardi 36452 

jessica peter 36369