First, I don’t think anyone should be a single parent. Find a new mate asap, if you can’t there’s something deeper there. If not for you, for your children. Th

First, I don’t think anyone should be a single parent. Find a new mate asap, if you can’t there’s something deeper there. If not for you, for your children. That said, I get it. That’s a situation where you need support and help. I also don’t view it as a “failure”, there are optimal and suboptimal situations. If you didn’t have children in a marriage and / or you divorced your spouse; that’s suboptimal and created by the parents (ie a failure). In situations where the spouse dies, society supporting them is necessary. It also isn’t a failure in the sense of any control. Ultimately though, it’s still the parents job. You can’t just ignore the responsibility, you may also not do as well as possible, even if it’s out of your control. It’s unfortunate, but life.