shelob replied: "I think that it is a lot more complex than that, and personally as I am raising children on my own by choice I get really hacked off by this sort of thing. I am glad that the film avoided this sort of woman blaming. I can think of a number of serial and spree killers who grew up in 2 parent homes, and I think that the 'vast majority' of those in prison is probably an exaggeration, I would want to see some stats. Back to the personal - 3 single parent familes on my landing, all doing a fine job (my neighbours children are grown now and she spent most of the time on her own due to violence from the fathers of her kids), 3 families over the road I can immediately think of as 'problem' familes (heavy drinking, violence and drug use are some of the probs) - they all have the father in the home, I can think of 2 single parents who are not doing a great job, one of them has a substance abuse prob - of the kids that my kids play with 2 have a father in the home, 2 do not, all nice enough kids for my kids to play with. I wonder if the critics of single parent women think that it is better to stay in a relationship no matter what, or that it is always that the woman is always to blame if the man leaves. Both my sets of grandparents lived in miserable marriages and my grandmothers put up with emotional and verbal abuse for many years. 2 of my uncles ended up in prison, my dad was mentally ill from a very early age. My mother and sister both divorced, my mother twice. None of us were brought up by single parents. My point of course is that miserable marriages are at least as bad. One of the reasons why children of single parent women have such a lower 'success' rate is that the absent father is usually a disruptive influence - there are custody battles, or he is sometimes there and sometimes not. My neighbours ex once took their son out to a town 50 miles away for a day trip, went off to a pub and never came back. The boy was 10 years old, my neighbour had to get a cab all the way there to get him back. This kind of unreliability is not uncommon. Many single parent women I have spoken to say that they learnt very early on not to say dad was coming to take them out because he usually wouldn't, so it was best not to say anything. My dad - considered to be a thoroughly decent repectable man (before the illness really took hold) agreed to pay child support to my mum, and paid it ONCE. I am doing an effing brilliant job - my kids are so happy and healthy, they have sound structure, firm discipline, consistency. I am always getting letters from the school praising the eldest. I really believe that if single parent mothers were given a decent status and not looked down upon, given support instead of blame, not told that we are welfare scrounging sluts etc etc ad nauseum we would as a group be doing much better. I am not like other single parent women, but that doesn't mean that I am the only one who has 100% commitment to her kids and can follow through with excellent childcare practice and the kind of love and support that all children need."