Lead
Growing up in a single-parent home. Raising a child on your own. These facts attract a particular kind of social framing: sympathy ("how hard for you"), prejudice ("that explains the problems"), or the compensatory compliment ("you did it despite everything"). Each of those responses arrives before the individual reality of any parent or child. Each is a label applied in advance.
The research on single-parent families has accumulated considerably over the past three decades. It is not simple. It does not support the story that single-parent status causes poor outcomes in any direct way, but it does not support dismissing the association either. This article tries to represent both what the studies show and what they tend to leave out.