To ask about being a single parent in a poor country

[mumtomaxwell]

I’m shamelessly posting here for traffic....

My ex-SIL now lives abroad in a country where people go on holiday but most wouldn’t choose to live there. Outside the fancy resorts it is very very poor. Recently she fell pregnant during a brief fling but is no longer with the man.

Baby is due around Christmas and she will get about 10-12 weeks maternity leave. After that she plans to return to her resort manager’s job full time and take the baby to work with her. There’s no nurseries/childminders etc because women there either stop working or their extended family care for the children. Ex-SIL will have none of that as all her family/friends are in UK. She flatly refuses to come home but is scared and lonely where she is.

I’m asking for any experiences of how this might work? My brother treated her terribly in the past and I think she deserves a bit of happiness.

Well its obviously harder than in uk/ most of europe

Much less in way of employment rights, social security, benefits, child maintenance etc thats why family is more important for help or the the woman and child can easily find themeselves in the poverty spiral

What country?

It sounds like Britain when I was young. There were no nurseries outside a few cities that offered childcare for working hours. If she has no family there to help, I don't see how she can return to work. Who will look after the baby?

Where its unregulated, you will always find someone to pay to have he baby. Rudimentary childminders will exist.

Yes true. In Britain single mums used to pay a neighbour to watch their kids.

It'll be up to the management and how it will work taking a child in, obviously without knowing the place I don't know how they'd react. But she could probably find a child minder locally, but would have to make sure she was happy with them as no official checks will be in place. I've left my children with women who have been unqualified (as no system exists for qualification) but they are perfectly competent, lovely people (mainland China).

You say she is scared/lonely but she doesn't want to come home - how do you know either of these are true?

Can't see taking the baby in to work would work very well. Even if she is mainly office based, won't she have to be out and about in the resort keeping an eye on things and dealing with problems?

If children are generally cared for by their mothers or within extended families in that country, I would have thought that there would be some women looking to earn a bit of extra money by being an unofficial childminder - those whose husbands had left them, or become ill or died for example?

Of course it will be all off the record, no insurance etc, but that's the reality in poorer, less buracratic countries. Could she ask around with local work colleagues etc if they have a sister, friend, cousin etc in such a position that she could meet and 'interview'?

I assume little or nothing in the way of benefits if she is out of work? No chance of any support from the father? Spanner in the works question, is he likely to want to claim his child, especially if he thinks exSIL isn't being an appropriate mother within the norms of that country - he might want to take the child to be raised by his female relatives for example?

She’s in the South Pacific islands.

To answer a pp - I know how she’s feeling because we’re in frequent contact and have always been close. She divorced my brother not me!

She doesn’t want to “admit defeat” and come home... despite knowing that there’s a support network here.

I realise from reading all your replies I have a very sheltered UK view of the world!

No barbara no benefits or anything like that if she should find herself out of work.

The father is long gone and working on a different island! He does know about the baby, but he’s not interested.

I’ve lived in Angola and Spain (not a touristy bit) as a single mother and loved it. People were much less judgemental of single parents there and it was really cheap to live. My child wasn’t a baby though and I was working so in that sense it was easy. I also found it much easier to make childcare arrangements and it’s much more acceptable to go outside your house with a child after 6pm without getting scowled at like it is in the uk. Kids are actually welcomed in restaurants so it’s far easier to have a social life and not feel isolated. I actually found it much more isolating when I was in the uk between living abroad when my son was between 4-7 and far less kid friendly. Obviously can’t comment on the islands where she is but I’m so glad we lived abroad. It’s given him such a great sense of being a global citizen, he’s bilingual and loves to travel. He’s 19 now and planning to go abroad for uni.