Children of single-parent families are becoming more common in recent times; whether it is because of divorce, or women activists who have decided to have children without the father being involved. In comparing In Defense of Splitting Up and Where Marriage Is a Scary Word, the effects of both divorce in two-parent families, as well as single-parent families, is usually devastating on the children involved. There have been cases of long-term psychological effects in some instances. Growing up with one parent can sometimes be very hard on a child. They often face many difficult problems in their life that, morally, they should not have to deal with. Humiliation from other students in school is one of the problems faced. The children often feel that they are responsible for the breakup of their parents. These children may also do poorly in school. Sometimes they are so scarred, depending on how bad the divorce situation was, and as they grow older, they start to become rebellious towards their parents. According to In Defense of Splitting Up, forty-one percent of children of divorced couples are "doing poorly, worried, underachieving, depreciating, and often angry" years after their parent's divorce (Ehrenreich 618).
             According to the website, The Effects of Divorce on Children, two psychologists, Amato and Keith, conducted a survey to figure out if there are really any differences between children of divorced families and children of two-parent families (intact families). Their study also showed that children from divorced families are on "average" somewhat worse off than children who have lived in intact families. These children have more difficulty in school, more behavioral problems, self-concepts that are more negative, more problems with peers, and more trouble getting along with their parents. Amato also stated that the average differences do not mean that all children in divorced families are worse off than all childre...