‘Single parent’ status misrepresenting reality

[Rainycitydweller]

AIBU to be so infuriated by so called ‘single mums’ who actually co parent their child/children with a responsible ex partner , have more independence and less responsibility than cohabiting parents and a reliable maintenance payment every month but who wear their status when it suits to suggest they are someone how disadvantaged? Not only is it insulting and disrespectful to the invisible on SM etc co-parent, playing up to the connotation they are a bit shit or neglectful, but it also totally undermines actual lone parents (and their children)genuinely struggling to survive parenthood completely unsupported as well as any parents who have responsibility for their kids 24/7 with no weekends off etc ?
I appreciate co-parenting is not easy but it’s totally different to having sole responsibility in every way for your children.

No not at all, I never make public my status as a parent to people that don’t know me or on social media and I certainly don’t look for pity or validation but I do get insulted and frustrated sometimes by people whose actual circumstances I do know aligning themselves with me to imply something that’s untrue.

Because '"co parent" doesn't describe someone who turns up EOW.

But unless you want a medal for being more hard done by, why do you care how difficult they portray their lives to be?

Since my DDs dad got out of prison he sees her once a fortnight and pays no maintenance...am I allowed to be a single.parent or am I a coparent?

I sort of know what you mean OP. I actually have a friend who has her kids two nights a week, her parents have them for two nights and her ex has them for two. She loves telling people she's a ' full time working single mum' despite the fact that for two thirds of the time, she's on her own.
Very different to my other friend who's ex lives on the other side of the world, or another who's ex see's their son four hours per month (unless he has kickboxing)

Yep.

I am a lone parent. I do get child maintenance though. However zero family support and ex didn't take eldest for last 7 years and has youngest 6 hours on a weekend. Zero breaks for 10 years. Only started dating since eldest old enough to be left. Other single parents I know locally do not have maint but do have an ex partner to do 50/50 care AND family help and get plenty of time off for fun (because ì heard all about it...every bloody week). I just 🙄🙄🙄 yep sure, you're a single parent, who has someone to take over if you get ill etc. My eldest has me, that's it. Youngest could go to her dad's. But he would not want her full time in reality. He needs his rest 🙄

But I also understand where do you draw the line. I get maint. Others get nothing and are true lone parents.

Lone parent here , I would agree it's co parenting when it's shared but leave them to call it why they want

I’d just like to say before I log off I fully appreciate single parents all have individual experiences and reality but what I was talking about is people who are actually quite lucky in the spectrum of it all but who seem to get some heroic / pity I don’t know what thing from making out this isn’t the case and using the term to imply something un true , I can’t honestly believe any struggling single mum hasn’t encountered this and found it annoying af.

Sorry going to bed now but this is exactly what I was getting Thankyou.

People who are "quite lucky?"

Nope not buying this its the same old divisive shite you can't call yourself a single parent unless xyz has been achieved

Bollocks

It drops an iron girder across the conversation, doesn’t it? It makes everything VERY awkward. Especially if it’s just a casual conversation (or worse a transaction) and you just want to move it along. In those situations I say ‘I’m on my own’ and people can infer what they like.

There is as much difference between a separated parent and a widowed parent as there is between separated parents and cohabiting couples.

If I were unconscious, there is no one who could legitimately leave work early and step in. NO ONE! Sure friends and neighbours would, if it’s convenient, but they can also say no, they’re too tired this evening, sorry. It’s all my responsibility, all of the time, everything. That’s what people with back up won’t get. Even crappy back up will turn out if you’re in ICU. I don’t have that. Social services will have to figure something out in that case (fortunately I have managed to stay upright so far) and that’s what lone parenting means to me.

Money is an issue, too. No benefits for widows after 18 months now (bloody Tory’s) and even if you do earn enough for two, no tax breaks, either. If I earn as much as two people, I’m still taxed on it as one. Any income from my husband’s investments is still taxed as my income - I can’t use his tax free allowance - or if assessed for benefits, it isn’t discounted as maintenance is. You don’t get married persons tax perks. Which is fair enough, as you aren’t married, but they didn’t replace it with anything. Widowed parents have been fucking shafted. Make sure you have good life insurance, is my advice.

I knew a single parent whose ex contributed in every way and if she ran out of money or food or needed a babysitter she ran to her parents . She also had a business her parents helped her set up . She posted on Facebook about how hard it was being a single parent with no support!

I think that's why it's important to separate lone parenting from single parenting.

Other than that, why would you want to cause even more division in a group that already has it harder than average? There's loads of evidence that women who are single parents - co-parenting or not - take a huge financial hit Vs women in relationships.

Even among 'coparenting' friends, it's rare that it isn't one parent (usually the mum, who has them the most, who ends up sorting the uniform and doctor appointments etc), and also taking the bigger earning hit because of the need to be around for more dropoffs and pickups. CMS, even when it's paid in full, is a pittance Vs what the less-resident or non resident parent is taking home.

And 2 nights 'off' a week isn't exactly a cakewalk when you knew that you split up because he was abusive, or didn't want the hassle of parenting, so you're afraid of what might happen or alternatively that he will use money and guilt to ensure he's the hero. Not many women split up with wonderful men when there are young kids in the picture, so most exes were bad in the day to day, or cheated and left. Most are left financially worse off, and still having to take sole responsibility for the house and financial stability just as you are.

None of it's equal. I have a coparent but there are some huge issues with that, and our families are overseas. My friend is a lone parent but with involved parents who do weekly childcare and help with money. Neither of us is 'winning', it's bloody hard

Save all the anger you want for married women who say 'its like I'm a single mum ' when their husband is away for work, or for a government that doesn't do enough for truly lone parents struggling on solo. But beyond that, think about why you're picking on another struggling group instead of the more privileged.

I'm a lone parent, ex has chosen to cease contact with DS. Pays £15 a week maintenance as he can get away with it. My lovely friend is also on her own, but does have EOW and gets decent maintenance. I don't see much difference between us. She's still doing the lions share of the work while her ex does a bit of Disney Dadding. He does exactly nothing to support their every day lives and she's absolutely exhausted in the same way I am. It isn't a race to the bottom.

Totally agree - 'single parent' is outdated and pejorative.

You're a co parent if your ex partner is at all involved, you're a solo parent if there is no one else eg widowed or solo parent by choice.

Lone parent always seems a bit drearily sad, like you've been abandoned, but understand why people use it.

I don’t want it to be a competitive thing. All parenting is hard. Single parenting is really hard. True lone parenting is hard in a way I don’t think anyone who hasn’t done it is even capable of conceiving. It’s the huge, unending, total responsibility for every damn thing, all the time. It’s the little things like having to train your three year old to dial 999 or which neighbours to go to for help if you fall and don’t get up again, just in case, because no one would report you missing or come and check on you. Or having no one to mull over which school to go to, or when to allow your tween to stay home alone. It’s never, ever, ever being off duty. Never being alone. Always having to drive, everywhere, every time (and navigate and dole out snacks etc). Always having to carry the bag and the baby. And only being able to do one thing at a time. No ‘you start dinner and I’ll run their bath’. Or ‘you check the map for a better route round the accident while I drive’ It’s needing to do favours for people, even though you have no spare capacity, so you feel comfortable asking for them when you need them (because you will). Having to accept that people knock you back for small favours, because for them, they are no big deal, but for you it’s a massive issue (how do I drop the car in to have a new clutch fitted, just how?!). It’s having to learn to be good at everything, even things you don’t like or haven’t felt were your thing (car maintenance. Running after wobbly bikes. Wrestling. Surreptitiously inventing a reason to go shopping and mentioning Mother’s Day so your little kid ‘remembers’ and gets you something (and doesn’t feel bad later when they find out). Having to rock up at school plays alone and look like an idiot during the interval with your tea and biscuit. It being able to host friends for dinner, because it’s really, REALLY hard to cook a dinner, fend off a clingy child, get people drinks and chat. Needing a babysitter to do anything at all without them, so even a run isn’t really possible, let alone an evening class or a local community thing. Social life is pretty hard to maintain, too.

Being two people is, unsurprisingly, pretty taxing. And yet people think it isn’t a big deal, and it’s absolutely the same if you are two people some of the week or for years on end. There’s a world of difference. A world.

I wouldn’t get bothered about it. Why does it really bother you OP?
I describe myself as a single parent.
Some people might get maintenance from an ex and that’s it. In my view, the money is worth less than real caring engagement with the children and time.
It annoys me a bit when people in caring, supportive parenting relationships flippantly claim to be like single mums. They have never experienced the absolute loneliness that can involve… or if they have (and ok some have) they really need to end their relationships.

I hate it, you are a parent who is single, totally different (still really hard) from a single parent who is the only carer for the child.

Whst grinds me more are ones who are in a committed relationships and still call themselves single parents - no you are both a single parent! I am a lone parent, I do understand where your coming from but as long as they are single amd getting no support from a partner involved in their family dynamics I take no issue

That should read NOT a single parent *

I think I know what you're getting at OP. Nothing can describe the grinding exhaustion of my life.
I have my kids 24/7, work full time in a demanding job in an enormously male oriented profession, and they have supervised visits with their father an hour's drive away once a fortnight which I am court ordered to support despite this being a permanent situation. If anything were to happen to me my kids would be in care. One of my kids has special needs and I am on the go from 7am until 11:30pm all day every day. It is relentless. I have lived this life for well over 2 years now and am unsure how I can survive the next 6 years of this, and it's certainly not comparable to most of the 'oh it's so hard being a single parent' scenarios you are referring to

I agree with the gist of your point OP

I say I'm a single parent but really I'm a (entirely) lone parent. I'd love a second parent to help make those difficult decisions or to pay me anything to help bring up my DCs, rather than the absent dad we had/ have.

So people who have their DCs 50% shared care or even 70:30 etc aren't in same boat as me.

I was more a single parent when I was with my ex than I am now. Because we were together I did everything.

Since we have split, he has them so i get some respite.

However, I would have preferred to have been a lone parent as they're my kids and I miss them when they're not with me. But I think it is better for them to have both parents in their lives.

2 of my friends are widows and I feel for them and their kids.

I was a lone parent from the time my DC were 5 and 7. I got child maintenance but not spousal maintenance and although I got every other weekend off I didn't have any support from grandparents and worked full time. I organised everything for the kids. I wasn't in the same boat as single parents but my DC now say I was one because they know how much I did on my own two feet with no help.

I think single parent is fine. It’s a household with one single parent in it.

I have been a single parent and a lone parent.

’Co-parent’ doesn’t work because couples also Co-parent.

Quite frankly my life is easier without the EX involved. I don’t agree with the narrative that single parents with the ex involved always have it easier.

Exh had ds 3 nights a week. Ds became anxious about school because exh would drop him late. Uniform, trainers, clothes, toys etc would go missing at my exhs house all the time and he wouldn’t replace them, so it was up to me. There was always problems with his latest girlfriends that upset both my kids. My eldest stopped seeing him early on after he tried to tell her she had to treat his new girlfriends children like brothers and sisters, 6 months after he had split with another woman whose kids were to be considered her brothers and sisters.

He caused the kids all sorts of emotional problems. I had to pay for counselling. There was no Child support payment as he was self employed and his income is officially low.

I still had to pay all my own bills, run the house, organise the kids (even if things were happening on his time), sort Christmas presents, birthday party presents etc but trying to do it with someone who is determined to make it more difficult is soul destroying. The fact that I often got 3 nights a week on my own, mostly which were at the weekend, meant that I spent those 3 days working then catching up on everything I could to make life easier when ds came home.

Since his involvement has reduced to an occasional couple of hours visit, it’s been loads easier. Dd went to uni, with the only input from him being a box of food that was mainly beans. There’s been no dramas, no issues and so much easier that he wasn’t involved. Me and dd have sorted it all between us.

The term lone parent isn’t always accurate. I know people who have no involvement from their ex, but loads of family support. Weekly sleep overs for several nights. Babysitting when they need, free child care, help with the bill. In some cases the lone parents, parents take the place of the absent parent.

The point I am making is that all situations where you parent alone, have situations where it’s easier or harder. Some co parent with and ex and it’s harder than doing it alone. Some do it without their ex but have it fairly easy because of their family. Some people who are entirely alone, find that easier.

Squabbling over what people call themselves because you view them as not having a hard enough life, isn’t helpful to anyone and no one label will encapsulate their own situation, exactly.