to raise them alone. June Andrews Horowitz observes that, in America, "normal families were equated with two parent (that is, mothers and fathers), white, middle to upper class families" (44).
Nevertheless, circumstances are making the single-parent family a more common event; in these situations, biogenetic relatedness becomes the single most significant factor in the kinship system, as the mother (single parents are almost always mothers) assumes full responsibility for the child which she conceived and gave birth to. Kristin Luker writes, "The unwillingness to marry or remarry does not . . . translate into an unwillingness to have children" (166). In these circumstances, socio-economic pressures can often increase the love/support connection, as the mother and child become a tight-knit unit in their struggle to survive.
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