Monday marks a day to honor parents who raise children on their own. National Single Parents Day celebrates moms and dads who take care of their kids without the help of a partner.

The holiday falls on March 21 each year and coincides with the day Parents Without Partners was established in 1957.

National Single Parents Day didn’t become official until 1984, when the proclamation was signed by President Ronald Reagan.

The U.S. has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households, according to a study in 2019. About 23% of children under the age of 18 live with one parent and no other adults.

The number of kids living in single-parent homes is much smaller in other parts of the world, including India with 5%, Nigeria at 4%, and 3% of children in China.

Below are some quotes about single parenthood to share on social media to celebrate the strength of single moms and dads everywhere:

  1. “Being a single parent is not a life full of struggles, but a journey for the strong.” — Meg Lowrey
  2. “I knew going in that being a single parent would be one of the toughest jobs I’d ever have. I’d been a talk-show host, actor, comic, and on and on, but this gig was going to be my defining moment.” — Arsenio Hall
  3. “I would say to any single parent currently feeling the weight of stereotype or stigmatization that I am prouder of my years as a single mother than of any other part of my life.” — J.K. Rowling
  4. “I don’t think I realized how stressed I was, being a single parent. It was really, really stressful. It’s not easy on anybody. — Reese Witherspoon
  5. “Divorce isn’t such a tragedy, a tragedy is staying in an unhappy marriage teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce.” — Jennifer Weiner
  6. “As a single parent, I had become tyrannical in order to survive, and anything I couldn’t control caused me enormous anxiety. As a naturally untidy, disorganized man who never made lists or kept receipts, morphing into someone who could take care of a toddler on his own may have caused me to overcompensate a little.” — Simon Van Booy
  7. “I’ve been a single parent for a long time. It reminds me of being a waitress. As you walk back to the kitchen, requests come at you from all sides. You’re doing the job of two – you have to be highly organized.” — Cherie Lunghi
  8. “If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much.” — Jackie Kennedy
  9. “I don’t think anyone imagines themselves being a single parent. But I don’t have a choice.” — Laila Rouass
  10. “In 2013, 71 percent of black children in America were born to an unwed mother, as were 53 percent of Hispanic children and 36 percent of white children. Indeed, a single parent is the new norm.” — Nicholas Kristof
  11. “It’s not single parenthood in and of itself. It’s more about how people parent.” — Sophie Zadeh
  12. “I’m always working, and I’m a single parent, so I don’t think I have time for stuff most normal people do.” — Charlie Murphy
  13. “I don’t think you necessarily have to be part of a traditional nuclear family to be a good mother.” — Mary Louise Parker
Single Parent
Pictured: Representative image of a mother and her daughter together. Pixabay
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