ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explore the psychological adjustment of the women through their emotional and mental states of mind and their general outlook for the future as lone mothers as they perceived them. Cultural identity is also especially suited to serving as the “primary foci of identification,” since it is based on belonging, and not accomplishment. The cultural deficit model which also emerged during the 1960’s assumed that the majority culture was superior to the ethnic culture, with the immigrant expected to adapt to the life-style and customs of the host nation. The responses of many of the women in the sample reflected those of the mothers. The general impression given was that the optimistic outlook was due to the fact that they had “disentangled themselves from a marital relation that had been mutually destructive, debilitating, or completely ungratifying”.
