2 Single Moms Exemplify Growing Trend : They’re Sacrificing Material Gains but Not the Will to Succeed

Rhea Samuel’s twins were 22 months old when her husband walked out of their Hacienda Heights home, announcing that he didn’t want to be part of a family anymore.

For Samuel, a religious woman who taught kindergarten, divorce was something that happened to other people, not her.

But in 1987, Samuel suddenly became a single mother. Her middle-class finances shrank. She had to hire a baby-sitter just to go to a PTA meeting. She began worrying about male role models for her three children, Marisa, now 10, and the twins, Mindy and Megan, now 6.

Over in Pasadena, Marceline Burton was under no illusion when she gave birth to Markesha and Marcus, now 11 and 9. Never married and financially struggling, Burton has relied on members of an extended and close-knit family to baby-sit, ferry the kids to after-school activities and provide emotional support.

“I keep them busy so they don’t get caught up in why Daddy isn’t at home,” Burton says. “I guess it doesn’t cross their minds. Maybe it will later.”

Samuel and Burton are two examples of what demographers say is a growing phenomenon in the United States: millions of families headed by women.

The 1990 U.S. Census showed a huge jump in such families, as well as other non-traditional households made up of unrelated roommates, unmarried couples, senior citizens, gay couples and others.

In the San Gabriel Valley, which corresponds roughly to national trends, women who head households constitute from 5% to about 18% of the families from city to city. Meanwhile, the number of traditional married couple households has dwindled in the past decade, even as the paradigm lives on in reruns of 1950s TV sitcoms.

Single moms made the national news earlier this year when Vice President Dan Quayle attacked the TV show “Murphy Brown,” in which the lead character has a baby outside marriage.

Quayle’s attack, and the ensuing controversy, focused new attention on single moms. But the esoteric issues debated among political groups often have little relevance in real life, the women say.

For both Samuel and Burton, single motherhood has meant financial constraints, loneliness, concern over their children’s emotional health, material sacrifices and a striving to overcome value judgments that society may seek to saddle them with.

But whether they became single mothers by choice, or default, both Samuel and Burton seem at peace with their lives--proud of their accomplishments and emotionally close to their children. And both say they believe it is better to raise children alone than with an unhappy or abusive partner.

“I resent it when people try to tell me what I should do,” Burton says. “Dan Quayle needs to go to sleep at night and have a dream that he’s a single parent for a while before he knocks it,” she maintains.

Burton says she was 18 and attending Pasadena City College when she discovered she was five months pregnant. Abortion was not an option for her, and her mother and sisters rallied to help. So, for two years, she successfully juggled a job, college and a baby.

Then she gave birth to Marcus and dropped out of school altogether. Although she regrets not finishing, Burton says, it became too difficult to raise two children and go to school. She has worked at several banks but lost her most recent job when the company relocated her division to another state.

Now she works two days a week as a health clerk at her children’s school--Cleveland Elementary. Additionally, she volunteers one day a week at the school and was PTA president from 1990-91.

“If you feel sorry for yourself, society will get you down, but I had too much pride and family support for that,” Burton says.

The stereotype of single moms, she adds, is that they live in the ghetto and collect welfare.

“I get a little government assistance but I can’t see depending on it totally, when I’m able to work. Oh no, not me.”

Samuel wishes she had siblings nearby, as Burton does, to lean on. Her parents help out with rides and finances. Sometimes they even drop by to do several loads of laundry while she is at work.

But Samuel says the divorce devastated her. Five years later, she still speaks in tremulous tones about it. None of the friends in her circle are divorced. She struggles with self-esteem, with not being paired off in a world that seems filled with couples.

Most of all, Samuel worries about raising children without a father figure at home. But much to her relief, the girls appear loving and well-adjusted. The children see their father occasionally and are on good terms with him.

“He’s not a ‘big bad wolf.’ He just wasn’t going to be the dad out at the soccer field or the Father-Daughter Girl Scout Dance,” Samuel says wistfully.

She says the truth of their situation hit home when her daughter, Marisa, came home from school one afternoon after comparing stories with her girlfriends and announced, “Mommy, do you know that some daddies live in their house with them?”

Single Mothers

A breakdown of the households with children in the San Gabriel Valley that are headed by women. Cities and unincorporated areas as well as the total numbers of households for each area in 1990 are represented.

Alhambra

Households: 28,239

Single Mothers: 2,198 Altadena

Households: 14,656

Single Mothers: 1,254 Arcadia

Households: 18,352

Single Mothers: 884 Azusa

Households: 12,651

Single Mothers: 1,256 Baldwin Park

Households: 16,614

Single Mothers: 1,952 Bradbury

Households: 266

Single Mothers: 2 Claremont

Households: 10,472

Single Mothers: 524 Covina

Households: 15,531

Single Mothers: 1,289 Diamond Bar

Households: 16,901

Single Mothers: 893 Duarte

Households: 6,530

Single Mothers: 461 El Monte

Households: 26,131

Single Mothers: 3,054 Glendora

Households: 16,327

Single Mothers: 927 Hacienda Heights

Households: 15,623

Single Mothers: 910 Industry

Households: 106

Single Mothers: 6 Irwindale

Households: 270

Single Mothers: 36 La Puente

Households: 9,019

Single Mothers: 1,020 La Verne

Households: 10,740

Single Mothers: 559 Monrovia

Households: 13,242

Single Mothers: 1,191 Pasadena

Households: 50,199

Single Mothers: 3,712 Pomona

Households: 36,443

Single Mothers: 3,724 Rosemead

Households: 13,701

Single Mothers: 1,306 Rowland Heights

Households: 12,887

Single Mothers: 956 San Dimas

Households: 10,948

Single Mothers: 622 San Gabriel

Households: 12,216

Single Mothers: 938 San Marino

Households: 4,303

Single Mothers: 121 Sierra Madre

Households: 4,629

Single Mothers: 231 South El Monte

Households: 4,774

Single Mothers: 522 South Pasadena

Households: 10,232

Single Mothers: 192 South San Gabriel

Households: 2,088

Single Mothers: 718 Temple City

Households: 11,055

Single Mothers: 718 Valinda

Households: 4,564

Single Mothers: 388 Walnut

Households: 7,846

Single Mothers: 336 West Covina

Households: 30,096

Single Mothers: 2,543 Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Compiled by Richard O’Reilly, director of computer analysis, and Maureen Lyons, statistical analyst, of The Times.