It is hard to answer questions that the children ask, especially if you are not sure what the answers should be. These questions can leave even the most loving parent searching for answers to give their child. Each single parent has to find his or her own way of re-assembling the family jigsaw, and this may be with some help from the other parent or not. For some fortunate ones, support from their extended family brings a feeling of stability and strength. On balance, the message which comes through is that a parent on his or her own, creating a new family, does feel very vulnerable.
Society still does little to make room for a lone parent.
But single parents are no longer prepared to fade into the background, and there is a strong move to combat the damage done to families by labels.