These parents are raising kids without a partner, but they're not alone
Ron Hall's son, Mitchell, was nine months old when his mother exited their lives and 26-year-old Hall shouldered the full responsibility of parenting by himself. He was no good at first, he admitted decades later on Tuesday. He didn't know how to change a diaper, and his friends -- mostly young men whose lives did not include room for babies -- had neither the skills nor the inclination to be of much help. "It was very hard … I had no friends; I had no support," Hall said. "So I decided to make a group, and 21 years later, here we are." 'Here' is Single Parents, an online group that allows its more than 100,000 members to share advice and provide support to one another as they work to raise children without a partner -- but, thanks to the internet, not alone. Hall started Since Parents as a mailing list on the now-defunct eGroups in 1998, then moved it to Yahoo and finally to Facebook, where it exists now. It's been an invaluable resource to Lawrenceburg, Indiana resident Jessica Young, she said. Like Hall, she was once a single parent living in an apartment with limited knowledge and access to resources that could have helped her. Her newborn daughter, Eva, went through extensive medical testing to identify potential physical health issues. Young later learned Eva had ADHD and autism, but no other health problem.
