More Disabled Kids Live With Single Women

[Rose Siding]

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Children with disabilities are more likely to live with a single woman -- whether she is a mother, grandmother or a female foster parent -- than other children, according to a new study.

The findings by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill indicate that organizations aimed at helping disabled children must also consider the particular problems faced by the single women who often care for them, said Philip Cohen, an associate professor of sociology at the university.
...
It found that while 62 percent of children without disabilities live with a married, biological parent in a two-parent home, only 46 percent of disabled children do.

Single mothers care for 17 percent of children without disabilities, but for 24.5 percent of those who are disabled. Fewer than 5 percent of disabled children live with a single father, about the same percentage of non-disabled children living with fathers.

In homes where no biological parent is present, Cohen said disabled children were more than twice as likely to be cared for by a single woman than were children without a disability.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-disabled-children-mothers,0,3237123.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

[Mythsaje]

1. Doesn't surprise me.

One of my foster sisters has devoted her life to her son, who's got brittle-bone disease. Don't ask me to spell or pronounce the scientific name--though he could pronounce it himself at the age of 4.

The father? Who knows where he is--but he was a bit of a bastard anyway, from what I could tell.

[TalkingDog]

2. I can see that happening.

Of the couples I know who have had disabled children, not many of them stay together. It's very tough on the marriage.

I think there ought to be some low-cost couples counseling programs out there for people with disabled children to utilize.

I mean there probably are, but nobody I know in this situation has ever mentioned it to me.


My favorite Future Famous Dead Artist: KarenParker

[HuffleClaw]

3. thats hardly news

[Rose Siding]

4. Somehow, I'm still glad someone's doing studies on it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Yeah, I know a couple of cases in which the husband bailed

out on the marriage when a child was born with a disability. "I can't deal with this. Bye!"