Profiles

SINGLE PARENTING: THE CHALLENGES OF A CAREER WOMAN
By Oyedapo Aderonke
he word Single parent was
allien in our grammatical
Tcontext until it became
prominent and hence a course to
reckon with. A single parent is a
parent not living with a spouse or
partner and has most of the dayday
responsibility in raising the
child(ren).This status is attained
as a result of death occurrence of
one partner, separation, divorce
e.t.c.
They are usually referred to as
the child(ren) primary 'care
giver'; meaning the parent the
child have residency with
majority of the time.
Although this can be associated
to both the Male and Female
gender as either party has a fair
share of burden or challenges
attached to this status, but our
society recognises the woman as
the primary 'care giver' in cases
of separation or divorce.
Considering the recent women
campaign for gender equality
which enables them to have a
head to head run on all fronts
with the male counterpart would
make any woman that desires to
become a professional in any
field of study or occupation, thus
such a woman is described as a
'career woman'.
Marrying both status of being a
career woman and a single
parent come with its own woes;
here are few possible challenges
that is attributed to this dual
status;
Firstly is Task Overload: A single
p a re n t ' s re s p o n s i b i l i t i e s
certainly do not stop the moment
work ends each day. You may
have what seems like a full day's
worth of tasks awaiting you at
homefrom cooking dinner to
doing laundry to helping your
child with homework. Although
these same obligations are faced
by working mothers who are
married, a single parent has to
face these responsibilities alone,
without the helping hand of a
husband.
For that reason, many single
parents feel chronically fatigued.
They often feel physically and
emotionally exhausted and find
themselves yelling more at their
children. As their youngsters
move through middle childhood
and normally become more
opinionated and challenging of
their parents' points of view, more
arguments may develop.
Secondly is Reduced Time and
Energy for Personal Pursuits;
Single parents often feel they
have no time for themselves,
whether it is to exercise at the
gym or to have dinner with
friends. Even if they can find time
for these individual pursuits,
they may be so tired that they
have no energy for them. Being
deprived of sleep will take a toll
on anyone, parent or child. Sometimes
the best that you can do for
yourself and your child is to get
more sleep each night.
For some single parents, during
or after the divorce, their lack of
energy is dramatic and part of a
more ser ious depression.
Persistent sadness, irritability,
difficulty sleeping, and weight
gain or loss are all signs of
depression. A depressed parent
has much less to offer a child.
Thirdly is When Children
Become Burdens; Single parents
sometimes begin to perceive the
responsibilities of child-raising
as overwhelming. Even the most
routine events in their child's
lifecarpooling, events at school,
o r n o r m a l o p p o s i t i o n a l
behaviorbecome burdens for
parents struggling to squeeze
everything into their day. Single
parents experience a great deal
of tension and sometimes guilt
that comes with not being able to
attend to all of their child's needs
o r t o p rov i d e a l l o f t h e
opportunities they wish their
child to have. At the extreme,
these parents feel they can't deal
with their children anymore.
They may resort to physical punishment
and even become
abusive if they are pushed too far.
Or they may give up altogether
and agree too easily to their
children's demands.
Although am an advocate of
being a career woman like every
other woman would but beg to
defer with the ideology of single
parenting; however it does not
implies that as a result of myriads
of challenges this class of women
face would make them a bad
parent or they are parent to the
bad ones in the society, but their
adverse impact on the child(ren)
can't be totally separated.
Family life
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