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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 Profiles | 13 Profiles | 14
BUSINESS INSIGHT CONTRIBUTORS AND AGENCIES Profiles | 8 FINANCE AS A HINDRANCE TO THE GROWTH OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISE IN NIGERIA By Oyeneyin Olatunde, ACA he growth of SMEs in Nigeria is paramount as it Tis required to bolster economic development. SMEs contribute up to over eighty percent (80%) percent of firms in the country. They are equally responsible for a substantial percentage of the labour force in the country. As important as it is to economic growth, it is rather worrisome that it remained in the developing stage because financing has remained one of the key managerial challenges that keeps confronting SMEs in Nigeria today. Studies have shown that finance (capital) when in short supply most times due to mis-management greatly affects the growth of a business entity. Where there is no proper flow of fund to run and sustain a business entity, it is definitely destined for a premature collapse. Finance for the purpose of this Profiles | 9 content is the money invested in a business entity to start up and sustain a business. A small and medium scale enterprise within the context of Nigeria is a business entity whose asset base and staff strength fall within the range of ?5 million to ?500 million and 11 to 300 employees respectively. Adequate finance is required to run a business organization most especially when it is still at the infancy stage as a lot is invested in development and expansion. Study equally showed that a larger proportion of SMEs in Nigeria die in their first two years of existence. What are the sources of finance to SMEs and why is access to them limited or beyond reach? The source of finance can be formal or informal. The formal means comprise of the financial institutions, government agencies while the informal are mainly through personal savings and loans from friends and associates. Government in recent times has established agencies to fund and promote the growth of SMEs in Nigeria. However, despite the huge amount pumped into these agencies with majority of the funding coming from international agencies such as NEPAD, World Bank, little progress has been recorded as small business enterprise in the country is still bemused by high mortality rate due to paucity of fund. What then are challenges of SMEs in accessing finance? Records Keeping: The most crucial of all the requirements to unlimited finance is keeping up to date records in respect of accounts, plans and targets. Availability of these records
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