'I'm basically a single parent in the week'

[sittingonacornflake]

I'm a lone parent of a 15mo and I'm in quite a lot of different Facebook support groups for little ones such as gentle parenting, breastfeeding, travel groups, Food related ones all sorts.

Something I see quite a lot which drives me mad is people posting a query or asking for advice and add in the caveat 'I'm basically a single parent in the week'. Usually because their DH works long hours out of the house. The most recent example of this was someone saying that their DH was out of the house working Monday - Friday 7am -6pm so they were basically a single parent during the week.

I don't comment but AIBU to think this is just SO insensitive and couldn't be further from the truth.

You have a husband. Your child's father comes home every day. If your child is ill and you can't even have chance to make yourself a meal during the day it's ok because your husband will come home and can take over cuddling or whatever so you can get some food and a shower. If you're at the absolute end of your tether with exhaustion and just want 5 minutes to yourself you just have to wait for your husband to come home and you can do this!

Being on your own during the day with kids is exhausting and had work I'm not taking that away from anyone but it's simply nothing at all like being on your own ALL. THE. TIME.

Every single thing is on you - keeping the house clean, laundry done, food in their bellies, stimulating activities, love, everything. There is simply no comparison to someone doing this 24/7 and someone who parents on their own during the day 5 days a week.

I probably am BU. Now I'm typing this out. But a few nights of teething and hardly any sleep i just want to pull my hair out with tiredness and reading these posts just grinds my gears!

Rant over. Be gentle with me. I know I'm BU really. I've got it easier than most (despite that rant making it sound otherwise).

I'm a single (lone?) parent. I don't have family help. I do manage to work full time but it's hard going, would be a lot easier with free childcare and a second income for sure.
But I LOVE my life. I will never be in another relationship. Being in an unhappy relationship with someone who doesn't pull their weight was for me so much harder. I felt more alone in my relationship than I ever have since leaving.

You are not being abusive.
I'm alone with my daughter and I know someone through my daughter's school who is alone during the week and she constantly complains.
Yes, it's hard for her BUT her husband has a fantastic salary and takes care of all paper work, insurance, life admin. When he is present, eg weekends he helps out a lot.
I also find these comments really irritating.

I am a lone parent. My family are 100 miles away. My youngests' dad left us when youngest of them was 4. She's 11 this year. He used to see them every other weekend then had some sort of mental breakdown and didn't see them for 3 years. I had to deal with all the emotional fallout from that, as well as making all the education decisions, medical decisions and whether or not I could afford to stay in our lovely house or to sell it and move to rented (which is what I had to do).
He now pays nothing in maintenance and sees them for 2 hours a fortnight in a contact centre.

The phrase really really gets on my tits, OP. People have absolutely no fucking idea what my life is like, day in day out.

For me, the difference is this:
If you were involved in a car accident when the kids are in school / nursery, would your children have to go into care? Mine would, because I'm a totally lone parent.

If you had a fall at home and your kids were too young to ring A&E, would you and your child perish because no one else is looking for that child - lone parent.

I know these are pretty grim but that is my reality. Also, the fact that ALL decisions are yours, all wakes, feeds, finances, discipline, hurts, joys, everything - are yours for the foreseeable future (not until next week or until dead weight husband takes pity on you), makes a big difference.

Yes, I know that some lone parents have extended family around. Many probably don't. The best I can do is teach my children how to get help in case of an accident and all the things they must do.

I'm happy being a lone parent if it means I'm not with my ex. However, 'being like a single parent' is not the same thing.

Yanbu. Every parent I know, especially during the early years, hugely admires single parents for doing it alone.

I don't think this thread was ever about competing for who has the toughest parenting job.

The majority of the single parents who have posted on here have not said that their situation is tougher than that of a 2 parent family unit where there may well be other significant challenges.

Perhaps posters have pointed out the particular challenges of being a single parent but I think that's fair enough when discussing why 'I'm basically a single parent' is rarely true. It's just a careless turn of phrase. The only time it's a comparable situation is if the partner is doing nothing whatsoever to support the family whether that be income, childcare, repairs on the house, doing bathtime, leaving work if there was an A&E type of emergency etc.

It is not being a single parent if the partner is out earning money that pays the mortgage, buys school shoes etc. But saying that is not to acknowledge that there are situations that fit this where the mum would be worse off than being single, if the DH was an abusive twat, for example.

Blackberry- i don't especially admire single parents. Like others have said they don't necessarily have it harder as I know from experience.

I have a slightly different angle on this.

Military family. DH wouid go away for 6 months or more at a time, and sometimes to dangerous places, and comms (until pretty recently) were irregular and unreliable.

I used to - very occasionally, and with careful caveats - say that it was 'something akin' to being a lone parent. Different worries, no change to finances and no change to relationship with ILs- so not the same thing. It was simply the load of being the only parent 24/7, responsible for everything, difficult to get any break from it - even when they were a bit bigger and I had better support networks, you don't quite switch off the sense that the buck stops with you alone.

And one time, when DH had been off for about a fortnight for a repeat tour in a dangerous place, the DC were old enough to understand the dangers and were still feeling his departure, and the months were stretching ahead of us, I had a bit of a moan in the playground. Another mother told me to stop making a fuss because 'lots of us have husbands who work long hours and it's no different for us'

Comparisons are indeed shit, and YABNU OP for pointing that out.

That woman might have though that (even though I don't get it, because those husbands were coming home, daily or after usually no more than a week's trip) but I really wish she hadn't said it (though I managed not to burst into tears). Except part of me is glad she did - no ne really is interested in listening to a whinge, even when it's at a very bad time for the person. And it gave me a change to re-evaluate what I though of certain other people

Oh, and my experiences of something a little bit akin to lone parenting, has led me to admire lone parents who have to deal with those stresses long term.