SEX AND THE SINGLE PARENT

In 1950 there were a million and a half children of divorce under the age of eighteen in the United States. In 1975 there were 11,220,000 children under eighteen living with one parent. Between 1970 and 1975 households with a female head increased by 30 percent, and the number of people under thirty-five maintaining households alone doubled. All of which is frightening. No less frightening is the prospect of maintaining a sex life as a divorced person under the scrutiny of one or more small children. Even worse, the scrutiny of one or more adolescents who, the author Of this maintains, would often prefer to employ an age-old defense mechanism: to deny that their parents are sexual beings. Adams interviewed single parents of both sexes, their children, their new (often temporary) partners and took the trouble to bare her own, psychosexual soul to point out what a difficult proposition sex without a legal spouse can be. Even under ""ideal"" conditions (when the original partners in a marriage stay married), a child's sexuality hinges on the parents' attitudes. How much more difficult to insure a child's sexual health when you can't tell the players without a scorecard.