To notice happiest mothers single with good shared care

[brasty]

The happiest mothers I know are those who are single, but have shared care with their ex, and their ex looks after their DC properly. I know a few mothers like this, and they all say their ex does way more than they did when they were together, plus they get lots of time off to pursue friendships, and hobbies. These mothers tend to socialise lots, and maybe because they get so much time off, seem way more relaxed when their kids are badly behaved, than the rest of us.

Love reading this thread and living vicariously through the stories! My sister has shared care of one daughter. She lives round the corner from her ex, they have a fab working relationship. She has her daughter every Friday eve -Sunday afternoon plus goes to see her once during the week. Their daughter has two awesome bedrooms, everything she wants, and two calm parents. My sister is extremely happy and free in this set up and has an incredible life doing gigs, working and seeing friends plus her DD is blessed having a happy fulfilled mum as a role model. She has had a few abortions, as her life is so good the way it is and I respect her decision. Our family seem to get pregnant just looking at a man, regardless of contraception..

Then there is me. I have two kids and one on the way - all by different dads (classy bird eh - please don't judge!) the two kids never see their dads as one is too selfish to be arsed, the other turned out abusive n violent, and I'm extremely lucky my partner is a wonderful stepdad to them and cares so much for us all. However we NEVER! get a break - my family are dead/no help - and are constantly frazzled. We have practically no life outside the kids, we don't have the energy for one! I am massively jealous of anyone with the awesome life you mentioned in the OP. Even just the kids having dads who cared and helped would be so wonderful a fantasy. You get to have all the joys of kids without the complete loss of freedom and they get two parents who have a life, and energy, which is so important for their upbringing. I'd never regret any one of my babies, they were not planned but I could never have aborted in any circumstance. But I sure as hell regret the twats I had them with. IF ONLY I'D HAVE KNOWN!

Moral of the story. Never sleep with anyone you remotely suspect to be a knobhead.

Some mothers are happy some mothers aren’t. Some of the most unhappy mothers I know are single- I’m in a long term relationship (18 year) have 2 jobs, 6 year old, and sometimes I’m happy sometimes I’m not.... my child is happier because he has a mummy and daddy in the same house all the time. We make the best of what we have- we’re women!!!!

Great post stop

No such thing as black and white. Despite people wishing it were so.

Happiness is bloody difficult to achieve and we come to it from different perspectives...