| Summary: | This is a descriptive study of the statistical association between the amounts of financial—emotional supports available and their impact on the degree of difficulty in the performance of the parental roles of a nonrandom sample of eighty-six Mexican-American female single parents from McAllen, Texas. The sample was divided into four socioeconomic status categories.
A total of twenty-nine variables were correlated: twenty independent, financial-emotional and nine dependent parental performance variables. The twenty variables were defined in terms of socioeconomic resources: child-care availability and satisfaction, nature of personal/children problems, and frequency of interaction with significant others defined emotional supports. Parental role performances were defined in terms of having children with medical, learning or emotional problems, and the degree of difficulty in caring for sick children, spending time with them, yelling and screaming, use of corporal punishment and feeling overwhelmed by parental demands.
Analyses indicated that these families functioned in a stable and viable manner, with little evidence of disintegration or "pathology." The parents had extensive social networks comprised of kin# coworkers, and friends, and they interacted with these support people on a regular basis, usually several times per week, but at the same time the parents rarely interacted with the ex-husbands or ex-in-laws, The majority of ex—husbands had never made any support payments and rarely saw their children.
The single parents did not evidence unmanageable problems in caring for their children, or in asserting control and authority over them. Corporal punishment, yelling and screaming, and other discipline problems were minimal issues, and were not more severe or serious than before the divorce. The mothers were satisfied with the available child-care and the general growth of their children, but felt they continuously carried a tremendous burden, and all indications are that, even with sources of different kinds and levels of support. Finally, a number of recommendations were made for further research hypotheses, issues, and public policy formulations.
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