To wonder if I'm the only one with no help at all?

[Sofielou]

When I look around at friends and colleagues, it seems that many of them have extended family support when it comes to their DC. For example, someone to call if DC are poorly at childcare and needed picking up early and born DP and I have work meetings we're struggling to cover; or someone to drive older DC to social events with their mates when you're stuck at home with a sick toddler and partner is working.... that sort of thing. We have absolutely no one. Not one person. My DP and I are a FT working (both of us) exhausted two man team, with zero back up from anyone else.

We're surely not alone with this, are we??

None or few surviving grandparents isn't odd, but to have no otherfamily, or friends who arenearby is odd to me yes

Work move us around UK.

We'd have been fine in first location were many people had moved to and we in similar position.

Unfortunately in second people had family and friends sicne school didn't want or need more- very insuar location and blow ins like us tended to move on very quickly. So there was little scope for setting up recipicol relationships.

Here - I think we'd have been fine if we'd move here with younger children. We ended up in a futher away in a school which has places - so not in catchment and our not seeing direct neigbours children at school gates/school things. We have occaionally had odd reciprocal arrangement but the kids were older anyway and by then my career was toast and I was used to working around the kids.

Its not odd at all in 2022 , it just shows that you are quite privileged. Many people can never afford to stay and live in the same area next to their parents, family, childhood friends. Most young people these days often have to move cities and countries to find decent jobs and often have to re-build their lives from scratch.

@Lazypuppy - that's not always possible either. For people who have gained lots of qualifications, for example, it may be necessary to move to other areas to find work in their field. It may be necessary to undertake training in different areas. Not everyone can remain in the same area they grew up in surrounded by loving family and friends. It takes some time to make new local friends. It also usually requires a mutual relationship eg it's hard for a full time working parent to ask a SAHM without making them feel that you are taking advantage.
Not everyone's life is like yours. It's odd that you don't understand that.

We had no help. It's hard. I always used to feel a pang. [My kids are older now.]

Nope- you arent alone. My parents are dead- never met my children and my husband's parents live in another continent. Zero help with kids whatsoever.

It blows my mind when people on here say that they "ONLY" get babysitting help from their parents or in laws twice a week and one weekend every month! I would kill for even one weekend away alone with DH.

That said, it has made us extremely self sufficient and I have started my own business which I believe was in part motivated by my strong independent streak and resilience at having no choice but to tackle everything and find solutions alone. I get friends telling me they dont know how I had the guts to do it and I think well yeah,- because you have never had to do it alone, you've always had lots of people around you to take up the slack and so of course you couldnt imagine it- you've never had to! So, there are some hidden advantages of doing it all alone 🤗

Immigrants! We get the job done.

My family is scattered over 3 continents. Not particularly unusual these days.

We were the same. Once they are in school it can help if you are able to pick up or drop off at least sometimes to make some contacts with other parents. Through this we were then able to exchange support a bit with other working parents, not so much for the full days or picking up sick children, but certainly for lift sharing for activities and emergency school pick ups if someone got stuck in a traffic jam getting home or taking a child home from school or an activity if the parent was home with a sick sibling or if it was late and they had a young baby and only one parent available.

I find it odd you think this! I know a few people who lost parents relatively young and have no siblings- that is hardly an "odd" thing to happen lol

That’s nice but depends on the school I think..4 kids at school and I had never heard of class WhatsApp groups until I joined MN, definitely not a thing at my kids school no Facebook groups either (I did look)

we have 2 sons, 1 late primary, 1 late secondary and never had any grandparents locally to help (1 set abroad, the other 3 hours away), nor friends and we both work.

You are not alone.

We do have sympathetic employers who let us have time off if they are ill, but for the run of the mill things it's really difficult. Today, I asked another parent if they would take my youngest from after school club and she is doing this for me. I know the family as they have been in primary school and after school club together for years and they also both work so she understands.

Can you get to know other local parents at parties, school disco, etc?

We do don’t have anyone either and never have - my family live abroad and DH’s parents are dead. In an absolute emergency, as a last resort, we could call one of DH’s siblings, but on an everyday basis we have no one. It is tough and it is one of the main reasons why I have just the one DC.

@Drinkingallthewine you are fortunate your DP is able to wfh and you had in-laws once you moved.

If you have no one to help with the DC you can’t even join the PTA / have a hobby for yourself. I did the PTA in the evenings once a month for a year (paid for a babysitter) but the DCs begged me to stop as they wanted the time with me and I couldn’t justify the additional nanny costs.

No-one here either. ILs are deceased. My parents live on a different continent, as does my sister. Parents provide insane amounts of help to my sister (has the children 3 times a week and frequent overnights) and my sister still manages to complain (and also on one memorable occasion told me that the only reason DH and I could not go to (childfree) wedding in France was because we were not organised enough. One of my children has learning difficulties and significant medical issues that requires someone trained in the administering of various medications to be with him at all times. I will not repeat my reaction here.

I’m in the same position and my DH works away sometimes. I’ve been in the position where there’s been a health emergency when he’s been away, I’ve needed to go to hospital and I’ve had to beg for help on Facebook, hoping that one of the school mums in the area would be able to help with the DC until he can return. People are very kind - I’ve had multiple offers of help even from people that I don’t know very well.

I think lots of people who live in London dont have that so would actually assume this is super common. I mean who would usually help with things like that - we have both sets of grandparents in London but one set works and the other ones are frankly too old to help. My sister might possibly be able to pick up our DC if it's a true emergency but she isnt exactly going to take the afternoon off just because my meeting is running late.

But you DO have “someone”. Your husband.

single parents such as myself… actually often don’t have “someone”

I think its funny everyone is presuming i live where i grew up. All my friends are people i met when i moved to where i live, met through work, met through my husband etc, and now met through DDs nursery. And we'll meet new people when she goes to school.

I don't know anyone who doesn't have some family/friends close by, so to hear people say they have literally no one is odd to me.

I have my mum around but she works full time so she can't pick DS up if he's ill, it would have to be me. I've only had to do it once to be fair and he's nearly 9.

I think you could rely on your dcs friends parents.dont be too afraid to do that.they will I'm predicting have heard of your children so will no of them/you and do wouldn't be shocked to be called in an emergency.if I got a phone call like this I no I'd be more than willing and eantomg to help.
Is their any local groups on fb or anything.
Could you try and get friendly with anyone:neighbours,friends parents via play dates or just introducing.
I no it must feel really bloody hard.try not to let the thought of being alone in this actually become the issue rather than the issue itself if you see what I mean.dont get bogged down with all that feeling.it will swamp you,and spiral and then just make things worse.abd tasks you can manage will be overtaken by the thought spiral of doing alone.

This is one on the biggest reasons we didn’t have any either own or adopted/ fostering.

Surely you have someone
Because if you have absolutely noone iwould assume its Because of you 🤔

My mum is on the school forms for in case of emergency. School insisted we put someone. I mean, she’s 2 hours away so not likely to be able to do much considering school expect us to collect sick dc within 10 minutes and are always horrified if I’m unable to do that depending on where I’m working. They ask, don’t you have any friends? Well yes I do but they all work so I can’t imagine them leaving work and picking my dc up from school because you can’t get hold of me.

Single parent

i wrote my best friend. Don’t you have any local friends that the school could contact in an emergency if you some reason neither you NOR husband was available?

my best friend lives 4& miles away. And has children. And works. But she get an emergency call from my child’s school and they can’t get through to me despite desperately trying…. She would come through no matter what.

No family help nearby - my parents live abroad, in-laws are 3.5 hours away, and a brother in law who is single and not a fan of kids is an hour away. We do have friends nearby, but luckily for us we haven't needed to call on them yet (touch wood!)

We have a 2.5 year old and another on the way. I've found it liberating- no interference, unwanted "helpful advice" and having the freedom to bring up our daughter after our own lights.

We had no family help.
But once DC were a bit older (7+) I made a really useful alliance with a lady in a similar situation - her husband worked away a lot and she had elderly parents that needed care.
We managed to share school runs, holidays and the odd emergency.

It really worked for both of us.
Sadly were to different to be real close friends and it kind of fell apart with the move to secondary school (we chose different schools). But we still write Christmas & Birthday cards.

Maybe you can find a similar alliance?