The scale taps the availability and nature of five distinct modes or dimensions of social support (e.g., advice/guidance, emotional support, financial assistance, practical assistance, and socialization) both from family and friends. The fact that these mothers report high levels of satisfaction in their parenting role may be an indication that they have successfully mastered the role confusion phase of identity development. They also appear to have incorporated their roles as parents well, even given the many roles they fill as low-income single parents. Overall, regardless of their level of effective parenting, low-income single African American mothers are less likely to receive services than their white counterparts. Child welfare workers and other family service providers are often uncertain about how to promote and increase parenting effectiveness among single, low-income African American mothers. Ongoing research is needed to identify other variables that may have a more significant effect on parenting among single, low-income, African American mothers. Fathers Black single fathers barely exist in the cultural mind. African American fathers are often assumed to be nonresident fathers or, if they live with the child, they are assumed to live with a woman, in married status or in joint family status, even with the mother. In the case of these fathers, their stressful parenting environment was compromised by the idea that their parenting is in some sense non-normative. American culture does not expect men, especially black men, to be full-time single parents. One study found that single fathers, compared to single mothers, were also less stressed due to their lack of education about eating disorders. A father's teenage daughter and her friend had once committed credit card fraud, but she confessed the crime to her father. Furthermore, this father's eldest son had recently left home with no explanation or information as to his whereabouts. The father attributed his gray hair to these two incidents. There was also a father whose daughter was on drugs and in trouble with the law and said that dealing with her situation was the first time he had suffered from depression. Of course, becoming a single parent is a huge responsibility that these men didn't have. preparing your whole life to become so similar to any unexpected responsibility comes doubts and fears. One father said he felt overwhelmed when he first realized he would have two children on his own, however it was the children themselves who provided the motivation needed to overcome the situation