‘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.

If people ask I say I'm a lone parent. Because my children have no contact with their father and there is no maintenance. But its easier for people to say single parent and thats fine, even if 50/50. They are single and a parent.

No you didn’t. You immediately started with personal insults.

Because I disagreed with your post. But carry on.

And you get a break @DarceyG you have no idea what it is like to not have a break and feel like yourself again.

The only people making this a competition or top trumps is the parents who have exes in their lives, pay maintenance, have them regularly and say they have it as hard. No idea at all.

My mum has my children while I work (3-4 days a week as I work 12 hour shifts). Does that mean I'm not a lone parent then? She does doctors or dentist if they fall on her days. She does this so I don't fall into financial ruin and end up on benefits struggling to feed my children. There is no childcare out there that would cover my hours. I'm still a lone parent, just with amazing support from their grandparent. I still make all decisions and financially provide for them by myself.

The worst of all are the ones that take their exes to court so they can have full custody and then complain how hard it is to be a single parent.

I do agree OP. I always say i co parent as we're pretty much 50/50. It absolutely is not all on me.

But is there a difference, at some point?
So maybe if we look at an extreme example - as a boundary on the thought?

Divorced friend gets has two kids 13 and 16, gets full spousal maintenance from ExH of 1200 per month plus 5000 in May for additional expenses. He also pays her mortgage. She doesn't work.
For the kids he pays her 1000 per month plus 5000 in November for additional expenses. Plus 100% their school fees, uniforms, shoes, school books and stationery, summer camps.
Pays all their dental plus health insurance for kids and mum.
(Yes ExH is (was?) a high earner but according to kids not necessarily in a great situation now, doesn't have a car (friend has it), bought a doer upper that he can't afford to do up and is falling apart around him (kids reporting leaks everything it rains).)
ExH has the kids EoW Friday to Sunday evening, plus Tuesday and Thursday evenings during the week. He comes to Dr appointments etc.
Friend has a partner living with her (child less).
Appreciate that this is a rare example but I'd guess OP would say it's very different to her life with no support.

God this thread is depressing. Do 'couples' argue over their 'status' and who knows who has it hardest in a standard family setup? No because they don't all feel they need extra recognition for their circumstances. Everyone's situation is different and call yourself a lone parent if it makes you feel better...but what do you gain from the label? Are you going to start berating the person upthread about having family help as a lone parent. I've been both and both have downsides, so get over yourself and chose whatever label you want and let others do the same.

She was quite clear she had passed the responsibility on. She was extremely senior and said that’s what she needed to do to get there. She doesn’t see her kids during the week at all! It wasn’t just childcare. She literally passed them over from Sunday night to Friday night (or Saturday if she was going out). She didn’t get involved in the boring stuff as she called it like homework or appointments, it was her mums to sort out.
My main issue is she didn’t see how everyone wasn’t in the same position as her (I have zero parental support) and should be prioritising work.

I'm a single parent. No family help. DDs takes her out for a few hours ad hoc. Pays a pittance. I've lost count of the number of people who say we co-parent so well. They clearly think I'm living the life of Riley, I do everything for my DD. And am lucky to have a job that (just about) keeps a roof over our heads and fed.

@Hdhabvdhhebsb well yes that's the majority of threads on MN around the mental load and housework.

@CatchersAndDreams yes but they are arguing about if the other person in the relationship/family should do more...not putting other families down by insisting on stupid 'labels' according to one person's perspective of how they see life

My point is that individual circumstances are all different. Lone parenting is not automatically harder than coparenting or vice versa

I have known 4 women who raised children totally alone, one was widowed, two had brief relationships and were abandoned when PG and then their ex partners both moved overseas and had nothing to do with them. The other just couldn’t get maintenance out of her ex and he just had nothing to do with his DS.

I then have a friend who did receive maintenance, the Father saw his DS on a regular basis and her Mother helped her a lot with money. The one that really complained was the last one. She still complains about everything it’s the way she is I suppose. She has had a huge amount of help with finances and also practical help. She is very witty and people love her company. But her unhappiness is really because she has never ever had a truly loving mutual relationship.

Yes coz it's just so easy to get full custody so you can moan about being a single parent 🙄. I'm hoping you were being sarcastic, courts don't award full custody very often or with no good reason, and they do it to protect the child, not make the person awarded custody life easier.

It doesn't really work like that. I'm one of the "worst ones" who did this to seek some stability and ensure my DS had regular contact with his father. His father chose not to continue having contact. This is better than the hideous way he behaved and disappearing for years at a time only to reappear demanding contact.

There is no such thing as "full custody". You have a resident parent and a non resident parent. If the father is on the birth certificate or you were married, they have full PR in any event.

It it sensible to have a child arrangements order.

The most annoying thing relating to this that I've observed personally, is people who say they are a 'single parent' but live as a family with a new partner and have an ex who pays and co-parents.

@Heidi1976 - yes, see my example. Surely that's very different to a single parent

@Eeksteek agree with everything you say about being a widow. It annoys me immensely that I lose child benefit if my total household income (mine!) goes over 50k, but a couple could earn up to 98k without losing it- mine's the equivalent of two parents earning 25K each when cut off which is not a lot.

I find the responsibility of being the sole earner to be one of the worst aspects of lone parenting, one of my children has difficulties which mean she needs a lot of appointments/driving to appointments every week and this impacts my job significantly, there's no other parent to do any of this. My job aren't happy about it and I live in fear of losing it, knowing there's no other source of income (unless I go on benefits but I have a mortgage so this would be highly unadvisable as not covered by them).

Being a widow is also a conversation killer, as you say!

I think it is because we are ALL stressed. I think that's it. I hate these threads as much as the "What class am I?" or the "Whats a good income?" ones. It's subjective most of the time.

We should be asking ourselves why modern parenting is so bloody stressful and what we need to change that and not turning on each other (and yes, it was stressful 50 years ago, but things are definitely different now too). I feel for lone parents more than co-parents as that is bloody hard if the lone parent works FT too, but unless we are all parents who have kids in school, an ample household income, a mortgage which is being paid off and not needing to work in order to do this then we all have it pretty hard IMO, just some have a heavier load than others.

Personally I see single parent as different to lone parent. A single parent is just a parent who isn't in a relationship, whereas a lone parent is someone raising their child without any help.

I see people say this but then I also didn’t have children to raise them completely alone and I never would have chosen to have children as a lone parent with the intention of going it alone so I wouldn’t have become a single mother by choice or used a sperm donor with the intention of raising a child without any input from the other parent and that’s why this is not a common choice for women as equally most wont want to raise a child solo because of how hard that is.

Oh do be quiet.. you have no idea what you are talking about unless you have actually done it. Having one parent dipping g in every two weeks is not the same as having a partner there all the time, regardless of maintenance payments.

@Day20

No I'm not a single parent.

I was replying to the "shared responsibility for education, health and well-being of children". comment.

You're a single parent if you have a child and you're not with the other parent.

I have two kids, one sees his dad once a week and the other's is not involved.

Is once a week too much to be a 'single parent'? Twice a week? Everyone has different arrangements, where's the magical cutoff?

I honestly don't give a fuck about gatekeeping. It doesn't help anyone and it's just misdirected bitterness in my opinion. Like people with GAD who say no one else can say they feel anxious.

If you want to help single parents, campaign for resources - childcare schemes or something. Don't moan about who can and can't use the word.