To ask you what you would do if you were about to be a single parent?

[ohwelaughed]

I’ve phrased that so badly.

If you were planning a baby imminently alone what would you say are the most important things to sort out?

Never.

No, honestly. Perhaps I just had exceptionally healthy parents! I have never been in hospital either.

My friend went down the donor route at 43. Twins!
She worked and still works, full time. They are 21 and at university. So she's 64. And very tired.
It's been a hard road, she doesn't regret it but the cost and the effort has been huge.
If she hadn't worked that much, she would have no financial security in her old age.

Your parents never had flu?

Friends with small children are way more useful than friends without. They're happy to spend all afternoon standing in a freezing cold park pushing kids on the swings, for one thing. And they know how to change nappies already. Cultivate your friends who are parents. Offer to babysit now while you can! Offer to have their kids for the day to give them the chance to go Christmas shopping! It'll give you practice, and perhaps they'll return the favour.

My point re friends with small children is that they are busy, tied up in family things and don’t like having their children taken from them by someone wanting to curry favour for future events. In any event many live abroad.

You just don't remember them being ill because you had 2 parents so it didn't impact on your care. Everyone gets ill at some point.
You can't plan for every eventuality but you should plan for certainties and you definitely will need help with childcare at some points.

And no, my parents never had flu that I can remember. Neither have I.

(And practically speaking, friends with toddlers now are much more likely to be able to help look after your child than friends you meet at baby group. There's a reason a toddler and a baby is considered much easier than twins.)

Indeed, but I can’t plan for it now

You seem to think getting sick won’t happen to you. It does. I don’t have any friends with children where it hasn’t happened. Within a week of having my daughter I had mastitis. She has brought home D&V, hand, foot and mouth and conjunctivitis from nursery.
I was by myself at this point and relied on the vaguest of friends. When I had mastitis I wrote on Facebook asking for help. You have to lose your pride and ask for help. It’s not about you, it’s about your baby.

No user

What I’m saying is that I can’t say that if I get sick when my child is four the friends I’ve been babysitting for six years previously will drop everything and care for my child.

It’s better to deal with things like that on an as and when basis whether that’s paid help or whatever - than trying to plan vaguely. Otherwise you just panic and think it can’t be done.

I do think toddler groups and the like open you up to meeting others who could possibly help

Everything you've said about your friends with small children applies equally to parents you meet at toddler groups. Except more so because a. It is a lot easier to maintain a friendship if you already have one and b. Two babies are a lot harder to look after than a baby and older children.

You asked what I'd do in your scenario. I'd arrange to meet up with a friend with small children, talk this through with him/her then say "The more I research this, the more respect I have for parents like you. I'd love to have the kids one night so you and your dp can have a night out just the two of you." That's not stealing their children - it's taking the first step to building a support network.

And if by "most live abroad" your mean "all my good friends live in Geneva" I'd be seriously considering looking for work there.

Ok cheerful, quite honestly it isn’t something I can see myself doing. Nor is moving to ‘geneva’ as I sort of have to keep my job in order to have a child.

I feel as if we are rubbing one another up the wrong way and that isn’t what I want, but you must surely be able to see that moving abroad just to join friends who probably wouldn’t help anyway is a tad, ah, bonkers

And yes, of course you're right that you build up these relationships over time and your friendships now will be completely different to those you have in five years time. But you asked how we'd prepare and this is how we'd do it.

Nobody's saying you have to have amassed enough savings now to be able to support your child for the next eighteen years. We're just saying your life will be easier if you start saving what you can now. And if you don't have a job, your first priority should be go m to get one.

Similarly, you don't need to know who's going to babysit in five years time. But strengthening existing friendships is a good place to start.

I don’t have a job?

How on earth would I be able to afford ICSI with donated sperm without a job? How would I be able to house a child, feed a child?

I can only conclude you think I am a complete and utter dimwit! Perhaps it is best if we draw a line there!

Sorry, I did wonder if that wasn't clear. I meant that as a comparison. You kept saying "I can't plan for getting ill now" and I was explaining that I thought you should have existing support networks in the bank, as it were.

Just as you didn't need to have your child's upkeep funded for the next 18 years, but you did need some savings.

And that saying "well, I don't have a support network now, but I'm sure I'll get one at some point after I've had the baby and if not I'm sure it'll work out" sounds as bonkers to me as me saying "well, I don't have a job now, but I'm sure I'll get one at some point after I've had the baby and if not I'm sure it'll work out" sounds to you.

I wasn't suggesting you were unemployed.

Perhaps you don’t realise that it is difficult to find support when you don’t need it. Having savings is always sensible. Making friends with people with small children when you don’t have small children yourself is surprisingly difficult.

The best and only advice I can give is the knowledge that your life is no longer your own. Every decision you make from the point if conception, needs to hold your childs best interests - even if its not what you really want to do. Never mind the, cant have a wee or shower in peace... imagine having to leave a relationship and a partner you love because it doesnt work for your child or leave a home and area you love because it is no longer safe for your child, or having to give up your career and stay at home on signifcantly lower income/benefits to care for your child. It can be the most rewarding and fulfilling experience in the world; it can also be the most painful and heartbreaking one.

Tilly I can understand that in a practical sense you may feel like a single parent - you're basically doing it all on your own.
Emotionally...nope. Even if you don't speak or see your partner, you have the knowledge and comfort that you have someone to share the happiness and difficulties with. Someone to discuss problems with. Someone as unconditional backup in an emergency (I presume he would be given home leave in a crisis). You can talk to your child about daddy. In your mind you can save up the things you want to share with your partner. And even if the w/e are infrequent - you do get them. You know there's a break in the future.

But yes....I do agree, you may have some useful insight for the OP.

I'm a bit snippy...eh.

To be fair, I do think you build a support network as you go through the stages of becoming a mum. You don't really know until it happens how your friends will react -- some may be bored by babies and disappear, others may get closer.

There is definitely a place for paid help. Get several trusted people on board as occasional household help from the early days, then get them to start babysitting as and when. I have three trusted long-term babysitters who are total lifesavers. Also, I feel like I can be more directive about what I want them to do, and how long I want them to take DC for -- because I'm paying. And that works well too.

It's really easy to meet other people with small children when you have a small child yourself -- you go to baby groups, stay and play, rhyme time, nursery, whatever. And there they all are.

Unfortunately, many other parents are also 'just surviving', so may not be a support network themselves!

If you can identify some child-free friends (or friends with grown-up children) who take a real interest in your journey towards motherhood, these are actually the people who may have the time and inclination to help you!

I did it - my children are currently six (years) and eight months and I bloody love it. 10x harder than I could have imagined, at times, but also all the good things I hoped it would be.

I had some of the essential support already in place before I began (family, some close friends) and I've gained more along the way (mostly through nursery/school, some through my work). I didn't really have any substantial savings to get me going, but we lived within my means and my salary has steadily increased as time goes by.

My life would be fulfilling without them, but I love them and I love our life - I don't look with envy at the two-parent families in the park or whatever at all.

Good luck with whatever you do.

When DD was around 18mths we both had really bad Norovirus. I remember us both lying in my bed I'll, not a clean sheet or towel in the house. We survived. Just like when she was blue lighted to A&E with suspected meningitis. You know what, we survived because we had to. Flu? You get on with it.

DD is 9 now and things are much easier. That said, she had to come to work with me the other week despite being off school with a cold and I couldn't rearrange a meeting. She survived. The sky didn't fall in.

You will make friends and your own support group through groups and nursery etc. So I wouldn't go patching things up with long lost cousins. You will survive op and I'm sure will make a great and resourceful mum.

I just wanted to say don't listen to the naysayers. As you say, these days everybody has a child for selfish reasons, including people in relationships. The world is already overpopulated and it's hardly a 'lie back and think of England scenario' anymore. We all have children because we want them and it surprises me that people in relationships use this as an argument against single motherhood.

As for having no father. There is quite a bit of research on this now, and again and again it all points to the importance of a stable home and consistency being the most important factors in a child's happiness and attainment - far more so than having 2 genetic parents. A single parent is far far better than 2 parents who are constantly arguing, fighting or not talking and "staying together for the kids". And based on the adults I know who went through this when they were kids, that's what causes long term trauma and the need for therapy...

As for tips, my best friend had a child with donor sperm and she's said it's much easier than she ever imagined, she thinks it's because she expected to be doing it all from the start - she hadn't expected to have a partner to help her out, she didn't go through the trauma of having a partner leave her. You can have cornflakes for dinner and go to bed at 7pm if you want, you don't have to keep in-laws happy, you can make your own plans and parent in the way you want (again, parenting style is one of the major causes of arguments in couples with kids).

However, my friend does feel the lack of a support network and if I were you that's what I'd really plan for now. If you don't have good friends locally, you could join the DCN and meet people in the same boat so you can be each other's back up in emergencies? (e.g. if you are ill or have to go to hospital in the middle of the night). This actually happened to my friend and she was offered to have social services take him into temporary care for a couple of days. So it is possible, but absolutely not optimal - imagine a 2 year old with complete strangers for 2 days. (She didn't have to take them up on the offer in the end, as a local friend stepped in).

WhatShoesCinders - Yes you’re right, I see what you meant. I think sometimes I feel very single but he would be there (I hope) if he needed to be.