Our waitress so bad, you had to love her.
At a Friday night dinner for three, she was bubbly, friendly, funny and always disappearing. We found her, when the crowd cleared, sitting a couple of tables away, chatting with some customers.
One-third of all American kids live in single-parent homes or with unmarried parents, according to Census Bureau figures released yesterday.
She's 50, she's single and she has big plans for the rest of her life. "Since I turned 50 this year, I decided to run a 50 mile run this year," Sunny Fitzgerald said.
It's one thing to write policy recommendations; it is quite another to develop effective policy. Ironically, some of those who develop policy recommendations oppose those same ideas when implemented into policy -- especially when the wrong party does the implementing.
By Kathleen Costello
It's official: the single woman has arrived.
For the first time in our country's history, there are more single women than married women. According to census results, in 2005, 51 percent of women were living without a spouse. This has increased from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000.
Many reasons for this trend come to mind. Women are waiting longer to marry, often establishing careers first. More couples are living together before marriage. Divorce is more common and more easily attainable than in previous generations. Divorced women are less likely to remarry than divorced men. And it's more financially feasible for women to remain single.
Before people start bemoaning the demise of the traditional marriage (which is not for everyone), let's consider what this means historically. Not only are women less dependent on the institution of marriage than in previous generations, but this trend could potentially have a huge impact on social policies, workplace benefits and politics.
But first, single women need to make their voices heard.
Unmarried women usually don't live the glamorous lifestyle depicted on "Sex in the City." According to a recent article in The Baltimore Sun, half of single women make less than $30,000. Nearly 20 percent have no health insurance and nearly 23 percent are single moms.
Surveys indicate that women want public policies to reflect the reality that not everyone has a spouse, 2.3 children, a white picket fence and a two-income household.
Surveys also show that single women support a higher minimum wage, better access to health care and universal health insurance. Single mothers are concerned with education and child care, while older women care about Medicare and Social Security.
However, single women are much less likely to vote than married women.
Women received the right to vote in 1920; that's one of the facts schoolchildren are taught each year in March, in honor of Women's History Month. As March comes to a close this week, children across the country are likely to have learned about remarkable women such as Harriet Tubman and Elizabeth Cady Stanton who have left an indelible impression on our country's history. But it's also important to realize that women are making history now.
Look at some of the advances in this country just since we celebrated Women's History Month last year: We have the first female president of Harvard University and the first female speaker of the House of Representatives. A recent study revealed that for the first time ever, there are slightly more women enrolled in college than men. And then there are the single women.
Forty-eight million unmarried women live in this country. If they all voted and elected officials who supported the policies that addressed their needs, real social change could occur. At first glance, single women do not appear to have much individual power in this country.
But their collective voting power, if wielded, could be historic.
(National-NBC) - From celebrities like Oprah to professionals like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, many successful women these days are deciding not to marry at all. Why the trend - and is the institution of marriage in any danger?
They are the new majority -- women who find themselves, by choice or not, living spouseless. Divorced, widowed, never married, they are women discovering new strengths.
We've said goodbye to the days of mom, dad and a household with 2.5 children.
Two recent national studies say more women are living without a spouse than ever before, and married couples with children are no longer the norm.
The recent census finding that there are about as many single women as married women nationwide has triggered a flood of speculation about the cultural fallout from this demographic shift. But now that the single woman has officially arrived, the implications are broader than cultural. This emerging majority could have significant influence over America's political future as well.
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Punctuating a fundamental change in American family life, married couples with children now occupy fewer than one in every four households -- a share that has been slashed in half since 1960 and is the lowest ever recorded by the census.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Kim Braziel bought her first town house three years ago when she was 26 and a single, working woman in Los Angeles. She recalls the move when she was just four years out of college as a stand for financial independence.