Single In The City

There is a visible trend of single parenting today. On the one hand, the courts are clogged with divorce cases and we see single dads and mums taking on the entire responsibility of the child. So does being single actually work for these parents and their children? M&B decided to investigate...

“It’s becoming quite common,” says clinical psychologist Dr Seema Hingorrany. “Some are young mothers who just want to adopt. Some don’t want to get married and want to have a child. And sometimes women get pregnant and want to go ahead with the pregnancy despite being unmarried. Some make the decision of not getting married because they feel they don’t want to ruin their life as well as their child’s, because they are commitment phobic. They don’t want to get into a relationship with a spouse but want to be a mother, just as actress Sushmita Sen did. People are coming to see me before going ahead with such a pregnancy or adoption and asking questions like ‘Will I be able to raise the child well?’ and ‘What are the emotional hiccups the child will have if the child doesn’t have a father?’ This trend is really picking up now,” she observes.

Stylist Malini Desai feels that single parenting is not a trend but it’s due to circumstances which vary from person to person. “For example,” she says, “It could be a divorced parent, it could be a career choice or it could be due to death of a spouse.” Sardesai also points out that rising divorce rates, which is one of the commonest causes of single parenting, is an urban phenomenon. “It’s more common in bigger cities like Mumbai and Delhi and I believe it’s because of the lifestyle of people which is less intrusive. In cities like Bengaluru and Kolkata, they are much more conservative,” she says. An article published in the International Herald Tribune states that since 1990, the annual number of divorce petitions filed in Mumbai has more than doubled to reach 4,138 in 2007. This excludes the couples who have agreed to mutual separation in order to avoid legal hassles.

SINGLE DAD V/S SINGLE MUM