Parenting

Sally bounces her six-month-old boy on her knee while she responds enthusiastically to my questions. At twenty-six she is a relatively young mother; however, Sally had her first child when she was only eighteen.

A wasn't using any birth control at the time," she tells me. "I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to support my kid without dropping out of college, but I made it! Joey here wasn't an accident," she tells me frankly. "I thought the relationship was going to last, but you know how these things go."

Many of the single mothers I interviewed for this study shared similar sentiments: most of expected their relationships with men would last and that they could form a "big, happy family." Their disillusionment has made some of them stronger, others bitter and mistrusting of members of the opposite sex. Sally is of the former camp; her lively...
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