by Chelsea Downham

Created on: February 03, 2010

I am a first time mom as of eight weeks ago and I am single and thousands of times throughout the past two months, I have thought about what kind of impact this will have on my son.  When any mother cradles her tiny son in her arms, she holds all the hope in the world for him.  She imagines he will grow up to positively impact others, to make the world a better place, and above all else, love his mama.

An odd thought occurred to me a week or so as I gazed down at my son – what if he grew up to be a mass murderer?  I know, this is incredibly disturbing, but I honestly pondered this for a few minutes.  No new mother expects her son to grow up to be “bad,” unsuccessful, disrespectful, or any other undesirable "thing" one could be.   But the truth of the matter is, bad sons can happen and they can happen to anyone.  And for a single mother to blame herself for a situation that has many different contributing factors is not only a way to drive herself crazy, it doesn’t make any sense.

I didn’t do any amount of research, but common sense tells me that there are several factors that could contribute to having a bad son, aside from being in a single parent home.  Some of these reasons are:  mother’s age, mother’s education, mother’s income level, mother’s free time, mother’s relationship with the son’s father. 

For example, I don’t think it’s too bold to say that a son who has a sixteen year old mother will most likely experience a much more unstable environment than a son who has a 30 year old single mother.  The older you are, the more life experience you’ve had, and I think in turn, this impacts the kind of mother you are. 

However, the things I’ve listed above – age, education, income, free time, parental relations – these are all factors that affect children in a two parent household as well.  I happen to have a very strong yet easy going relationship with my son’s father.  I have no doubt in my mind that my son is better off with this situation than a son who lives with married parents that constantly fight.

There are many different reasons that a son could grow up to be good or bad, and while having a single mother may be a contributing factor in some cases, it is simply silly to make such a broad generalization.

Learn more about this author, Chelsea Downham.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.