Growing Up a Little Faster: The Experience of Growing Up in a Single-Parent Household

On the basis of interviews with single parents, and with adolescent children living with single parents, a theory of the structure and functioning of single-parent households is proposed. The premise of this theory is that the two-parent household maintains a hierarchy—an echelon structure—that the one-parent household can forgo. The absence of hierarchy permits the single parent who works full time to share managerial responsibility for the household with the children. The consequences for the children may be a fostering of an early maturity.