One of four children reared in a single-mother household, Mr. Celester, who was known as Blast, ran in a gang called the Marseille Dukes.

When a father goes to prison, his children often become members of a single-mother household.

Of particular note are the increasing number of children living in unmarried or single-mother households.

Divorce is the veritable plutonium of domestic fission, leaving a trail of heartbreak, confusion and the poverty of single-mother households.

But while single-mother households have grown about 60 percent, the number of father-only establishments has more than tripled.

New Orleans also has the nation's highest rate of abandoned housing and the third-highest rates for single-mother households and births to teen-agers.

That includes those with couples in which both partners are employed and single-mother households.

That's a sharp increase, but still far lower than the percentage of single-mother households, 7.2 percent.

In communities with 1,000 or more people, Jonestown had the second-highest rate of single-mother households, 32 percent, after Ford Heights, Ill., near Chicago.

Most adults live in households headed by married couples; single-mother households are more common than single-father households.