III. Door of Hope Ministries seeks to enhance and to broaden networks between young adults, the church and their Community.

The median age of female single-parents is 34 nationally and statistical theory would tend to suggest that approximately half of all single-parents fall in the young adult age group. Door of Hope will sponsor rap sessions and mixers designed to facilitate the process of getting to know one another. Door of Hope will challenge young adults to set aside their individual differences and work together for a greater out come, by becoming big brothers and big sisters to children who are at risk. Parker Chapel Young Adult Fellowship will work with young adult groups in C.M.E. churches in Milan, Humboldt, Martin, and Jackson in Tennessee to provide these specialized services for their communities.

There is a myriad of issues that confront families in our emerging global economic system in the midst of a rapidly advancing technological world. Everywhere you look, children today are being forced to grow up faster and process more information than ever before, just to keep up. There's more violence, a higher rate of illness, parental neglect, and a host of things that make it more difficult being a child in the 1990's than in previous generations. Some of the barriers facing healthy child development are cultural violence, child abandonment, child abuse, declining education standards, and single parent families (Lawrence, 1994). Furthermore, the pervasiveness of despair in poor, inner-city communities contributes to the proliferation of violence among its inhabitants. Feeding their already desperate circumstances are drugs, lack of jobs and a bleak outlook for the future (Anderson, 1994). Politicians and opinion-makers in the United States have unfairly blamed single motherhood with most of the social ills plaguing modern American society (Coontz, 1994).

Families in all cultural groups are expected to be the first line provider of the following: 1) unconditional love and affectionate ties; 2) economic and other life supports; 3) basic education and socialization; 4) health care, and 5) social services (Williams, 1991). Furthermore, Rollins and Galligan (1978) suggests that the family as a social system must complete a number of roles that are essential to it's survival. Among this plethora of roles essential for the mental healthiness of parent and children are the following: 1) economic support, 2) child care, 3) child socialization, 4) housekeeping, 5) recreation/leisure, 6) therapeutic/emotional support, and 7) sexual satisfaction.

Research suggests that family income and poverty status are powerful correlates of the cognitive development and behavior of children, even after accounting for other differences - in particular family structure and maternal schooling - between low and high income families (Duncan et al, 1994). Moreover, research focusing on maternal unemployment and work interruption discovered that these economic stressors affected adolescent socio-emotional functioning indirectly, rather than directly, through their impact on the mother's psychological functioning and in turn, parenting behavior and mother-child relations (McLoyd et al, 1994).

The face of the American family has been under going a metamorphosis since 1960 when 88% of all children under 18 years of age resided in what social scientist termed "the nuclear family". Social scientists have recognized two other family structures that in certain ethnic groups are growing at an alarming rate. Those family structures have been termed the step-family and the single-parent family. The step-family is formed as a result of either the death of a parent or through a divorce and then the custodial parent remarries. The single-parent family occurs from either the death of a parent, a divorce, or childbirth out of wedlock. A single-parent family is one in which someone raises his or her children alone without the presence of a second parent or a parent substitute (Weiss, 1979). Research suggests that by the end of the twentieth century single-parent and step-families will out number the traditional nuclear family in the United States (Dinkmeyer, 1987).

Society in general has moved away from "the autocratic system" based on relationships between superior and inferior and using punishment and reward. The movement is toward a "democratic system" based on social equality and rights and responsibility. The family too has moved away from the autocratic system based on the parents (particularly the father's) authority and the children's obedience toward a more democratic ideal of mutual respect and responsibility. Parenting in this context becomes more of a team effort that actively involves children.

A 1984 Census Bureau study reveals that only about half of American children reside in the ideal nuclear family. In a society in which the nuclear family is considered the norm, the single-parent family is perceived as seething with problems. What some social scientists believe that the quality of time a parent spends interacting with the child and the amount of time away from the family conflict; and that, income and education are more important than the household make up (Atkins, 1994). More than 30% of American families are headed by a single parent and studies reveal that these families are generally less successful than two-parent families (Schuster, 1994). Although most of the time a single parent is a mother, it is becoming more common for children to be raised by their single father (Winton, 1994; Ford, 1994).

The prevalence of single-parent families is highest among the African American community. Forty-six percent of African American families with children are single-parent families headed by females. In 1965 Daniel Patrick Moynihan unfairly labeled this phenomena occurring in the black family as pathological. The Moynihan report to President Lyndon B. Johnson said that the black family operated on a principle contrary to the norm that held that the father was the head of the family: the black family was matriarchal. The black family was linked to joblessness, illegitimacy, poverty, and a host of other issues confronting urban blacks. Moynihan's thesis was that black youth were caught in a "triangle of pathology" that repeated itself generation after generation. However, numerous studies have been completed that rebut the pathological aspect of the Moynihan report, which suggests that the black family was problematic and places the blame on the society that ignored for years the significance and consequences of the black experience in America (Billingsley, 1968; Hill, 1972; Willie, 1976; Ladner, 1986).

Myths and unrealistic expectations abound concerning the single-parent family. Current research has concluded that although single-parent homes represent the majority family structure for some ethnic groups, it remains characteristic of our culture to view the single-parent family as deficient and associated with adjustment problems in children. Females head 88% of single-parent households in America; this figure has remained constant since 1970 (Norton & Glick, 1986). The median age of single parents in 1970 was 37.2 and in 1984 the median age for female single parents was 34.6 and 39.6 for male single parents. In 1984 28% of the single parents didn't have their high school diploma. However, from 1970 to 1984 fewer single parents terminated their education. The most alarming statistic concerning single-parent families is 60% of the children living with the mother are poor. Studies revealed that families headed by single fathers usually fair better than families headed by single mothers. Researchers postulate the following reasons: 1) in contrast to mothers, fathers usually have higher income; 2) fathers have usually attained higher education levels; 3) fathers usually have greater job stability; 4) single fathers are more likely to live in their own home; and 5) fathers are more likely to be employed in a professional or managerial position (Norton & Glick, 1986).

Research reveals that there exists a far greater chance for children to develop unhealthy perceptions in families where there is frequent fighting between parents who stay together for the sake of the children. In 1985 there were 1.2 million divorces in America, statistics reveal that about 75% of divorced Caucasians usually remarry (Diegmuller, 1986). It is a serious mistake to think that children's behavior problems are solely the result of divorce. Moreover, children do not have to have a full-time mom/dad in the home to grow up mentally healthy. For instance, a single parent may think that he/she must be both a mother and a father. Although it is true that it is helpful for a child to have a close relationship with a role model of the same sex as the absent parent, this role model can be provided in a variety of ways (big brother & big sister programs, counselors, teachers, minister or a coach). Some single parents feel they must become "super parents" and sometimes take on too much responsibility and overwhelm themselves. Finally, some single divorced parents feel that they must make it up to the children for the divorce - they assume the responsibility for putting their children in a disadvantaged status.

The phenomena of the single-parent family in the African-American community, is rooted in the experiences of reconstruction, after that which John Hope Franklin termed "the peculiar institution of slavery". Following the demise of slavery 90% of all black families were intact two-parent families (Guttman, 1976). Furthermore, the phenomena that Sudarkas (1981) termed "transresidential cooperation" existed among black families. The whole black community assumed collective responsibilities during slavery that transcended the boundaries of the plantation. Hence, the survival of the black family has always been predicated on the interdependence of members of the black community. Note this cooperation is an extension of what African Americans recognize as the extended family. The extended family and mutual aide networks have always existed to some degree within the African American community. However, during reconstruction the precursor of a welfare system appeared as a governmental agency to assist newly freed black people. It was called the Freedmen's Bureau and was to assist newly freed black persons by providing (men, women, and children) with food, clothing, shelter, and vital information about consumerism, land acquisition, and labor contracts (Jewell, 1988).

The Freedmen's Bureau assisted newly freed slaves in acquiring their 40 acres and the mule; however, the agency only lasted for seven years. In the absence of social institutions designed to address the needs of black family members, new informal mutual-aide networks were established. These networks provided goods such as food, shelter, and clothing. The black church was the vanguard of the mutual aide networks then and still is today. The church promoted the ideals of mutual dependence, collective responsibility, and cooperation. Door of Hope Proposes to network Young Adult Fellowships from the Christian Methodist Episcopal churches Gibson, Tennessee Labor Market Area in an effort to pool their resources in a contemporary mutual aid society aimed at addressing the needs of single-parent families.