How do single parents do it?

[babylon88]

I'm not a single parent, but I am the primary caregiver, "housewife" (by that I mean I predominantly cook for DC and I and do the cleaning), and am trying to become the breadwinner. I thought to myself earlier "I bet very few people are putting it themselves in this position" and then realised that single parents are all three and manage to cope, whereas I'm overwhelmed constantly. So if you're a single parent, how do you (moreso mentally) cope with the load?

I find it OK.

You need a well paying job and you need an employer that copes with the fact you're a parent.

You get organised and you get into a routine.

Afterschool clubs are your friend.

As the kids get older ti becomes easier.

Get a cleaner.

Use online delivery for the food shopping.

It's fine.

I am "the household" so I've the autonomy to change dinner plans last minute in favour of pizza, to go to the cinema with the kids when I'm tired and doze in secret.. I can pull the plug easily on plans if it's all too much.

But it's fine. My kids are great. Life is good.

I work full time, Mon - fri.

I don't batch cook as that fills me with some insane sick feeling of "my life has now ended". But it seems to be recommended a lot!

Same - my best friend is a SAHM to 2 kids and her partner works 6 days a week but she has a cleaner and her mum comes over 3 days a week to relieve the pressure a couple of hours a day as she is retired.

Repeatedly when I see her she says she feels like a single parent because her partner is out of the house 6 days a week earning.

I put her in her place last time and reiterated that being a single/lone parent means the following:

1. 100 % responsible financially for you and your children
2. 100 % responsible emotionally for you and your children
3. 100% responsible for the running of your household and your children's routine
4. If your kid is sick then YOU are the one who has no choice but to take a day off at home.
5. There is no day off if you're sick, if you're hungover, if you don't feel like it, there is nobody to share the mental load with of raising your child.
6. There is nobody to ask advice if you don't have your immediate family around you or to discuss important matters with (medical, emotional, financially, schooling)
7. YOU are 100% responsible for making choices for your children and hope for the best that they won't come back to bite you.

You are 100 % responsible for bringing up your child on your own.

She since hasn't used that term to be since.

DH died when DD was 2 and I would do anything to have him back, he was a wonderful hands-on dad and a fantastic partner. But to be honest, while there are aspects of solo parenting that I find very challenging (holiday care, being ill, never getting any down time) in general I don’t find it significantly harder. I am a very organised, tidy person and in a way I find it easier knowing everything is on me – I just get it done. Nowhere gets messy because I tidy up after myself, I don’t come in to toast crumbs or a dirty coffee cup or whatever. And mentally it’s easier too — I don’t feel resentful over emptying the washing machine because there is nobody else to do it! It helps that I have brought DD up to be helpful – she understands that we’re a team. She’s 5 now and keeps her room tidy, separates her laundry into darks lights and whites, makes her bed, puts her dishes into the dishwasher and generally helps me when I’m cleaning etc.

No where did I say I feel like a single parent?? Don't understand why you're twisting this?

Tired, muddle through and pray I don't get ill. And mine are teens now. I've had 6 nights off in 14 years.
they'd better both go to Uni so I can tidy up and sleep

Yup.

All the "wow aren't you amazing by coping" is patronising as fuck too.

You seem to be drawing comparisons between your choice to undertake all housework, child care and cooking (and contemplating returning to work) with being a single parent?

I just wanted to point out that it’s not the same. I totally agree with @Kidsarenotalright You’ve been polite enough but you’re on shaky ground here (I’m sure not intentionally- perhaps ignorant of what it actually means to be a lone parent)

I still don’t quite understand why you wouldn’t (or don’t) share the parental / household load with your dh.

Its possible to be a lone parent but it’s not the same as choosing to go back to work so your husband (who won’t take on responsibility for household tasks) can retrain.

OP I feel like there's a slight element of comforting yourself by comparing yourself to single parents, "at least it's not quite as tough as they have it".

Which isn't fair. I'm sure you meant not harm but it doesn't matter how you dress it up, other people's lives are not useful examples for you to make yourself feel better about your own less than ideal situation.

Yes!

I like my life. I like my single parenthood. I don't need people's sympathy.

As to how - just be more resilient.

I am a lone widowed parent, ten years, no support. It's true you just have to get on with it, You are expected to just keep up like two adult families. regardless of your circumstances. Women I work with seen frightened to death that I'm getting more help than they are financially, constantly wanting to know many hours I work etc. l have seen a very different side of human nature, then you come on here and read some of the mindless drivel like not feeling they are being good enough parent because not flying off around the world, and it just brings it home these people don't have a clue. I can't stomach ninety percent of the posts on here tbh, the constant wallowing in self pity is off the charts.

My life's now easier as a single parent. I get a few days each week to myself. Always blitz the house in advance so I can have the downtime chore free

Echo this, I wouldn't have it any other way.. even if I met a guy, he wouldn't be part of my daughters upbringing. Our ship runs very tightly and I don't want to be washing a blokes pants and making his dinner every night. No thanks.

I agree. Independence is bliss. Personally I feel relationships bring nothing to the table. Men rarely step up with housework and chi ldren often and it is just one more person to skivvy after if you ask me. Besides we get to bring them up our own way without anybody i nterfering. Personally I feel sorry for all women who cannot cope on their own.

I don't think the OP meant this in a bad/patronising way at all!

It is hard, and its nice to have that acknowledged by someone else who is fortunate enough not to be in that position.

I am lucky in some ways as I left a very abusive ex, and so I am glad to be single, and me and 3 DC are a tight unit. I work a high-flying job with long hours, and DC are very helpful around the house, and I am also very lucky to have family support (after years of being isolated from them by my exH).

But yes, it is tough, the mental load is huge, and so is the financial burden. Equally it is liberating to be in charge of (and learn so much about) my house, my holidays, my social life and my freedom.

I find it very difficult tbh. No family support and one of the DC has SEN and is challenging to put it mildly.

I agree you just get on with it, and I wouldn’t still want to be with ex but I do find how small my life is really difficult if I’m honest. I keep hoping I will get to a place of accepting it, but 5 years on I haven’t fully! I hate not having time to myself and having no life except my children.

Obviously I don’t dwell on it day to day and don’t let my kids know but some days the feeling of being trapped overwhelms me.

Also agree that people who have partners who work away comparing it really isn’t the same. I was in that situation for years and you still had someone to discuss things with, talk through decisions with etc. And still the back up of another person I’d say you lost your job.

You just get on with it.

Because you have to.

Honestly I found it harder when I was in a relationship with a useless bloke who didn't do anything. At least when we split up I only had to care for my child and not him too.

Toddler stage was undoubtedly the hardest. Ages 5-11 was an absolute breeze. DS is 15 now so it's a different set of challenges but he doesn't need me physically any more, so I can have a social life.

I'm not the type of person to put pressure on myself though, if I fuck up I fuck up, as long as I'm trying my best I don't care, I just move on from it.

Mumsnet is a very middle class place, with people worrying about school catchment areas, saving for kids to go to uni, help them with house deposits, etc. That has never ever been an option for me, so it's not something I think about at all. DS just went to the school that was near to where we live, if he wants to go to uni he'll either have to go local and live at home or take out the maximum loan and get a part time job. When you don't have the luxury of choice it actually makes things simpler in a way.

Lone parent of 3, work full time in a stressful job.

I just get on with it, there is no choice. I also don't like the pitty people seem to have for me 'oh I don't know how you do it!'. Well if I didn't my kids would starve to death and be put in care, so what other option is there? I also listen to people whinging about their partners and wonder why the hell they put themselves through it. Independence is a wonderful thing, I make every decision in my house and I love it.

Single parent here, you cope because there isn't another choice and don't waste energy resenting that. The worst is that I have to make every single decision alone and stick by it. However the biggest insult was always the ' I feel like I'm a single parent ' comments from mums that were not, or the hero worshipping of single dads.

See my username.

Nothing fucks me off more than friends telling me that they understand how hard it is to be a single parent because their DP has been away for a few days for work or a jolly or something.
They have no idea whatsoever.

When you’re a SP and have no family support and a waste of space exH, you: take kids to school/pick them up/cook every fucking day/ deal with the car, the house maintenance from changing batteries on the smoke alarm to organising for someone to look at the damp in the kitchen/arrange all appointments including doctor, dentist, vet, hospital for anything extra/clean/do the washing/fix anything broken/do all the shopping/change the bedding/remind DC to do homework and tidy rooms/act as an agony aunt over friendship problems/communicate with school/pay for every fucking thing.

You also go out to work. Full time.

Unless you’ve been a SP, you have no clue what the responsibilities feel like. You carry everything.

All the SPs I know are on anti anxiety tablets.

I just wing it

yes something that really grated with me was that my sister assumed that because she was a primary school teacher of 4-5 year olds for a year or two she somehow understood the intricacies of single parenting and that she had more experience than me at dealing with young children, as if her job was somehow harder (she didn't have kids).

I don't doubt her job wasn't easy but what she didn't really get was that as a parent you never get an hour off, you can't go to the shop on your own to grab a pint of milk, if you're exhausted you can't sleep in at weekends, it's relentless and it grinds you down. Not to mention carrying the emotional and physical burden without a break and the stress of earning money and paying every bill, keeping your child fed and watered and trying to work on top of it. When you're doing it without a break especially when they are really super small up to before school it honestly drives you completely potty with stress.

Imagine working a demanding job 24/7, 365 days a year for minimum 5 years before there's a little let up, on top of that you have a screaming child who is waking you up 3 times a night and you're physically shattered, and you still have to try to find some time to fit work in as well as everything else. The emotional strain of not getting any me-time I found profoundly difficult and effected my health badly. Not to mention the worry about paying the bills.

Even when my child went to nursery a few hours I was trying to fit in a million things, work, clean, tidy without even factoring in a rest which was rare.

Mine are teenagers now so it's much easier. I think the main thing they and I missed out on was leisure time as a family, because my weekends were swallowed up with housework etc. Also I don't have a car so we rarely ventured far. Seemed normal to me (child of working single parent myself) but the other school mums always seemed to have loads more time for a social life and other activities than I ever did.

when my son was younger, the few times that I got a couple of days off, maybe once a year from age 3 to about 7, when I could drop my kid at my mums for the odd weekend, I used to come home and sit in the kitchen after dropping him off and just cry for 20 mins from the sheer relief of not being the responsible one for a young child, as well as from the sheer exhaustion - like you know when you actually stop for a change, in recognition of 6 months without a break or someone to help.

Yep! I was a lone parent, the fact that people are amazed we can raise our own children is fairly offensive.

I’m no longer a lone parent, parenting with another adult to share it with has been a piece of piss so far, so I’m enjoying it until the children are older and we have to use divide and conquer.