‘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.

I always say lone parent now.
No maintenance, raised DD13 completely on my own since she was two.

Pisses me off too when co parents say they are single parents so I've changed my language.

there are always single parents on tv / radio about lack of finances but there's no explanation of where the other biological parent is

why is it the parent who stayed who should somehow have to explain the absence of the other?

But every situation is completely different and it's all such a grey area... you have no idea what peoples situations are and how alone people feel. My situation is that my daughter lives with me and her dad has her every other weekend on a Saturday afternoon and overnight, he also pays a small amount of maintenance. So, on paper, do I co-parent?

My reality is that my ex actually has a serious traumatic brain injury and relies on his parents for care. He is unable to offer any support and we definitely do not co-parent. When DD is with him she has to stay at her GPs with him and finds the whole situation very upsetting.

You just don't know other peoples situations.

I understand OP.

It's a huge difference having every weekend or other to yourself. Having someone help with their care.

What about dads in the military?

"shared responsibility for education, health and well-being of children". He wouldn't know his to make a doctors appointment and I don't tell him when I apply for school places. It only affects me and them.

Dd best friend sees her dad Friday night-Monday morning every week. I'm married / in a relationship with my dds father. He sees them every other weekend but often not for 4/5/6 months at a time.

I get what you are saying, definitely but there are just too many variables to police. Like if there is no help from the dad but lots of help from family e.g.one night a week at one nans and all weekend at the others, does that make her a single parent or coparenting with relatives?

Where do you draw the line and who gets to decide what that looks like?
Me personally I get 24hrs a week where they go to their dads. There are lots of things I don't like about his set up (I wouldnt call him responsible at all) and 24 hours is long enough. I get absolutely no maintenance and little-to-no help with other things like uniform, clothes and clubs. He makes no parenting decisions, does no life admin or appointments or anything.
So interested to know what would I be?

I have only rarely met co parents in 17 years of lone parenting. It is very rare.

This is a goady op post tbh.
Lone parent is how I would discribe my friend who has no support form child's dad and she has it hard.
Im a single parent as every single day it's on me, I buy all the clothes, food, school drop offs and pay for wrap around care to work. I get 1 or 2 weekends off a month as he sees his dad.
But I assure you the 70 quid a month I get in maintenance obviously covers the shortfall of having another earner in the house and makes up for the evenings trapped inside as no other adult so can't even go for a run or pop to shops if need milk.
Seriously STOP competitive parenting, everyone has it hard in some ways and society is quite judgy towards single parnets as per Katherine Ryan's earlier comedy stand up shows

how is it helpful to go around deciding who is a ‘real’ single mother/lone parent and who is not?

If you are a single person and a mother, you fit the criteria - whether you’re rich, poor or whatever; whatever your contact pattern for the children; however small or large (or absent) the maintenance payment is; whether you have an army of supporters or have to do everything yourself; however effectively you are able to parent with/alongside/despite your ex.

There will always be variation in circumstances. Insisting others aren’t proper single parents because they don’t fit a stereotype of a woman abandoned with the children, struggling to eat and with no support, is ridiculous.

Some women who are now single will be in much better situations than some married women. Many will be in worse. insisting women whose exes aren’t useless call themselves coparents instead just increases the prejudice associated with lone/single parent in unhelpful ways.

Where do you draw the line? My ex takes DD EOW. He doesn’t pay maintenance (but I’m not broke). He doesn’t buy her any vlothes, take her to any appointments, organise any single thing for her. He just has her over on those weekends. Does that make me a semi single semi Co parent? He sure as shit isn’t an equal parenting partner!

Your not a single parent are you? If you feel that way why are you in the relationship?

Presumably you have a joint mortgage or rent and you SHARE the finicial load. It's not comparable in any way. Your finances will be split 50/50!!

As someone in this category, I would say don’t waste your time worrying about this. It is very hard being a lone parent but it does get better as they get older and more independent. I am sure there are challenges that those who co- parent face that you will not have to.

I say I’m a single parent.

My ex pays almost irrelevant maintenance of £28 a month. And sees his kid every other weekend but refuses to do more despite living in the same small town.

So I have an ‘involved co-parent’ according to some. But no way am I calling him that till he steps up. And for example pays proper maintenance, keeps the relationship with his kid going between EOW, considers what to do for childcare in school holidays, and the myriad of other responsibilities an actual co-parent would do.

I have a friend who does this. Its also a constant competition for her to prove how much worse her life is than everyone else in our group of friends.

Her ex husband has the children every other weekend - I’ve had a handful of weekends off in 18 years. I’m exhausted.

Her parents gifted her £100k to convert her attic - we remortgaged for ours - doubtless it’s hard work, but others have challenges, too - and I agree it’s a bit thoughtless towards single parents.

i joke that she’s competing in the misery olympics

I was a single parent. I was single. And a parent. I never got any maintenance off my ex and he was unreliable with contact.

I wasn't a lone parent, but it would've been bloody easier than him being sketchy with contact and letting the kids down and me never being able to plan anything because he wasn't reliable to turn up and/or drop back.

As for shared responsibility for education, health and well-being of children and financial and residential security hahahaha you're joking.

I use the term single or lone parent to refer to myself. Apart from 2 nights a month when ex-H has him to stay, I do everything myself, hold down a full time job and pay my mortgage/bills myself with a small amount of maintenance from my ex.

It’s hard, undoubtedly others have it harder but I don’t really see it as a competition or a ‘status’ thing. Most of the time I am alone with my child. My ex has never done a school run, packed a lunchbox, signed a form, bought a single item of school uniform etc.

He parachutes in twice a month, feeds him a load of rubbish and drops him back off at my house before legging it as fast as he can for another 2 weeks. Doesn’t really feel like co-parenting to be honest. It’s the bare minimum and DS deserves so much more from his Dad.

I don’t date, I don’t have much of my own life outside work and caring for DS. I feel single parent fits my situation pretty well.

I think it’s because it annoys OP that she’s unable to verbalise how her life is worse than other people’s who give themselves the same label.

But if we go down that route, where do we stop?

‘I’m a lone parent AND have a narcissistic mother’

’l’m a single parent AND I have dc with additional needs’

‘I’m a co-parent with a hands-on ex BUT he fucked me over in the divorce so I lost everything’

We all have struggles. Creating divisions between people who, however you look at it, don’t even have someone to make them a cup of tea of an evening isn’t the way forward.

FWIW, the bigger issue is why single parents are financially penalised through council tax and tax breaks…

I understand what you mean. When I first split with my ex we Co parented. He lived close by and would come over and make dinner for everyone several evenings a week, be there for most of the important stuff. Now he is living with a new partner much further away and I'm lucky if he sees them once a month and the money he sends barely covers a weeks food for a month let alone anything they need extra. Luckily they are old enough to be home alone when I work now.

As other posters have said, every family is different.
XH sees DD 5 days a week, before and after school.
So that sounds fair, as if he is genuinely coparenting.
BUT, he only does this because I am at work.
So 100% of my time is either at work or caring for DD.
So I get not a moment to myself. Its exhausting. I get no freedom, no time to do housework, to have a coffee, to watch TV etc.

So whilst XH looks like super dad for doing so many hours, as soon as I'm home from work at 5pm he is off and free to have a social life, chill at home, etc, every evening.

So what I actually have is a reliable babysitter, not a co parent.

I think it’s because it annoys OP that she’s unable to verbalise how her life is worse than other people’s who give themselves the same label.
I agree, although no situation is automatically worse. There are challenges in co parenting, challenges in being a single parent 12/14, challenges in being a lone parent. I found being a lone parent much easier than abuse from my ex partner at the weekend. A 'day off' a week was not worth the stress.

Gosh it's galling that some posters are coming onto this thread and basically saying their exes are like babysitters who pay minimum maintenance. I'd have loved minimum maintenance and an eow babysitter when my dc were young.

I've weirdly been both. I was a lone parent until my eldest was 6/7 and then dcs dad came back in their lives. I really really appreciated that eow and whilst I've never had regular maintenance the 100 quid at the end of august for school and adhoc money really did help. It's 100% different than lone parenting.

What would you count me as? The kids dad pays maintenance (CMS minimum) and sees the kids supervised by me twice a week for a couple of hours. If there was an emergency and he was sober he would come and help. He would have the kids over night if I let him (he has his older son one night every 3 weeks) but I don't trust him and he doesn't push it.

That's not a lone parent, he is part of their lives. But I'm certainly not classing him as a coparent either.

My ex paid no maintenance. Ever. Not a penny.

He wasn't reliable with contact. He would literally just turn up and expect to take the kids for the day or the weekend. But he wouldn't always keep them for as long as he said he was taking them for if it was difficult or he changed his mind.

Contact was court ordered every other weekend, but as I found out, that just meant I had to make them available.

The night he turned up to pick up a 5 and 7 year old at 11pm because he forgot he'd said he would get them and phoned the police on me because I refused to let him take them was a particular highlight.

I refer to myself as a single parent. Their dad is great, but he’s great with them for about 24 hours a fortnight. He is invested in between and speaks to them most days but in terms of parenting, Im doing it all.

When I say turn up I mean maybe once every 4/6 weeks he would rock up on a Saturday or Sunday and take them for the day. He would have them for a weekend 4 or 5 times a year and he never did half of the holidays.

But he would say he would bring them back at 7pm, for example, but decide at 2 or 4 or 6 or any other random time that he just wasn't doing any more he had had enough.

I couldn't go anywhere or do anything as he would just leave them in the garden and drive off.

Once they were old enough for a key he would go in with them and have a good root around. So that had to stop too.

He never bought clothes. Or uniform or went to parents evening or helped with homework or worried about friendship groups.

How the fuck am I not entitled to call myself a single parent?