A Qualitative Study on Single mothers Experience of Raising their Dependent Children: A case in Lideta Sub City of Addis Ababa
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Date
2014-10
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study is concerned with assessing single mother’s experience of raising their
dependent children in Lideta sub city of Addis Ababa; Ethiopia. The objective of the study is to
find out the experiences of single mothers in raising their children. The researcher has employed
qualitative research methodology. The basic research question is; what are the experiences of
single mothers in Lideta sub-city, Addis Ababa’ in raising their dependent children? For this
purpose, the data requirements for the study were collected from 11 single mothers and 11
children of single mother families were selected by using snowball sampling technique.
Altogether 22 semi-structured interviews were conducted for the analysis so as to collect
relevant data. The data collected were analyzed using thematic analysis or major idea analysis.
The findings from the study revealed that financial problem (difficulty for the mothers to meet
the basic needs of children and the family) and psychological challenges ( loneliness, helpless
and hopeless ) were the main stressor for majority of the single mothers, while children of
single parents receive little support in their educational engagement form their mothers (that
have a negative effect on their performance in school) and single mothers received limited
support from community, neighborhood , government and noon government organization. The
study also suggests that there is an urgent need to recognize the unique challenges of both the
children of single mother families and their mothers (as compared to children of nuclear
families) and calls for multifaceted interventions by both government and nongovernmental
organizations to help these groups of the society to cope-up with the psychological, financial and
emotional problems
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Keywords
Single Mother; Children of Single Mother Families; Child Parent Relationship