To say how much I admire lone parents.

[Geekster]

This last couple of weeks I have been on my own with my ten month old DD, as DH been away with work Sun-Fri. Luckily DD has been happy and slept well. Even so it feels like a lot of responsibility when I'm on my own with her. If she had been ill, or I had been ill it would have been hard. It makes me admire those parents who have no choice to be lone parents.

I've always admired my mum for (among other things) looking after me on her own when I was born, and then bringing up three children as a LP later on; but never so much as since I had my first child 12 weeks ago.

May I add my non-patronising pat?

I don't know whether I am a lone parent - XH and I split up nearly two years ago but he has the children on average two nights a week so although I have time when I'm the sole carer I also have time on my own which on balance is better than being married to someone and thinking you can rely on them when you can't. Also helps that DC are 7 and 9 so at school.

Aml he gets them two nights a week. One of those is hobby night. I play a lot of music, difficult in a relationship, but my kids have trained themselves to sleep through it! They are 9, 7 and 4.

I've wanted to post this OP for ages but was afraid of being told I was being patronising.

I do admire single parents. I know you have no choice but to get on and do it, but still I admire you.

I admire my friend who has been single since pregnant.

I admire my friend's dad whose wife upped and left one day and left him with 3 children then tried to come back a few years later to take the children who all refused to go with her.

I admire my MIL who was also single since pregnant and who brought up my DH really well.

I've tried telling MIL this, but she always brushes me off telling me how easy DH was compared to DS (and on paper DS does sound harder work as a baby, but I still think she did wonderfully well throughout DH's childhood and is a lovely MIL now).

LuluMai we're in a very similar boat then, being LPs since pregnancy and non-involved father. I find the hardest thing is lack of babysitters as it means that I'm tied to the house in the evenings. I can't even go for a run or swim if I feel a bit stressed probably why I'm so unfit.

I agree with those who said that being alone can be easier than being in a relationship, especially a bad one - you only have to glance at the relationships board to see that. All my friends are married but you know what? I wouldn't want to be in any of their marriages. One has DH who works away constantly, one has DH with drink issues, one has DH who doesn't lift a finger in the house...I'd rather be single!

I do hate being so skint though. I went back to work FT when DS was 5 months old, then my circumstances changed and I've worked PT for the last few years and I'm broke. No chance of increasing to FT where I work so I'm currently considering other options (2nd job, self employment etc). Sometimes it's hard not having anyone share to the financial burden with.