A Nation of Broken Homes

According to the U.S. Census Bureau,

as of November, 2009, there exists 13.7 million single parents in the United States.
These parents are responsible for raising 21.8 million children (26% of under 21's in the U.S.)

The Consequences of Single Parent Families:
-84% of custodial parents are mothers
-38.4% of these children live in poverty
-by 1996 children with unmarried mothers were 5 times as likely to be poor
-and 10 times as likely to be extremely poor
-75% of American children living in single parent homes will experience poverty before 11
-children growing up without fathers are 4.3 times more likely to smoke cigarettes as teens
-and dramatically run the risk of abusing drugs & alcohol
-children growing up in single families are 3 times more likely to have emotional/behavioral problems
-3 out of 4 suicides occur in homes where a parent has been absent
-fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school
-teens from broken homes are 10 times more likely to be chronic juvenile offenders
and obviously run a dramatically increased risk of ending up in prison as adults