Research finds that children raised by single mums may have better social skills

I honestly don't know how single mums do it all but they do.

Night feeds, school runs, temper tantrums and everything that comes with parenting, and usually working a job on top of it all too. You'd almost think they had super powers. I grew up in a single parent household so I've always been extra appreciative of all the hard work they do. Over the years there have been several studies conducted on the negative effects associated with raising a child in a one parent home. However new research has found that there are actually many positives to being raised by a single mum. A study published in Science Daily found that there was absolutely no difference between children raised in two parent and single parent households. The negative effects attributed to children raised in these homes often stemmed from a troubled relationship with the parent in question and not how many parents resided in the household. In fact the research found that single mothers often have a better support system than two parent families, giving their children more social interactions and affection. One of the researchers,  Mathilde Brewaeys said;

"Single-mothers-by-choice and their children benefit from a good social support network, and this should be emphasised in the counselling of women who want to have and raise a child without a partner."

In recent years there has been a significant rise in the number of women choosing to parent alone, particularly with the increased availability of treatments like IVF. The study compared 69 single-mothers-by-choice (who had knowingly chosen to raise their child alone) and 59 mothers from heterosexual two-parent families with a child between the ages of 1.5 and 6 years. The results concluded that there were no major drawbacks to parenting alone and that children who are raised by single parents end up having more social connections. Having grown up in this environment myself I can 100 per cent vouch for the fact that I'm extremely close to most of my immediate and extended family. When it came to my upbringing it was very much 'it takes a village' and I wouldn't have had it any other way.