Father/Mother-less

I just finished marking my students’ essays about themselves. Something I always do at the start of a new semester. I ask them to tell me about themselves. It’s always nice to be knowing a bit about your students before the lessons start. The students always manage to surprise me with their essays. One thing that I found from this semester’s essays is that many of the students came from a single parent family. They wrote about how they live in Malacca, for example with the mother while the father is in Terengganu. They wrote about how strong their mothers are for having to care for them and their siblings alone. They wrote about how they missed their father but they can always visit. They sound very casual like it’s the most usual thing to happen. I, on the other hand find it not as casual or normal. Coming from a family where my parents are always together and many siblings to accompany me growing up, I find it quite disturbing. Deep in my heart I pity these students. Maybe I’m wrong to pity them but I can’t help myself. I think there’s something lacking when they came from a single parent family. I don’t know why the parents broke up. I don’t know why the mother or father went away. I don’t know whether the students are truly casual and OK with their situation. However, I do know that by observation I can see more and more students don’t have their mother or father with them. Will this affect their personalities? The way they behave? The way they would react to others? Something must be wrong somewhere.. right?