“Single mum”

[BonneMaman77]

This is a genuine question.

I hear many women saying they are single mums, when the ex is still part of the kids’ life.

Custody arrangements vary, from 50/50 to every other weekend. The latter where the kids are young, the ex couple agreed she will work fewer hours and take on more childcare and he pays mortgage, childcare and her maintenance.

I am curious as to why they describe themselves so and if this is the norm now if you’ve split with kids?

Nope never heard it and never referred to myself as a lone parent, always a single parent.

Agreed, before I moved in with my current partner, I referred to myself as a single parent even though I had a BF because I was living on my own and doing all of the parenting. If I didn’t live with my partner (but was still in a relationship) I’d refer to myself as a single parent

It’s odd you’ve never heard of it as it’s a well known term

Well sorry for being ‘odd’ but I haven’t heard of it!

I'm a single lone parent.

My older kids father had no contact what so ever. Did not pay for them etc etc.

My younger kids dad has them every other weekend. He does pay for them but he does no parenting. He has no understanding about their education, friends sen/autism. Emotions etc. His mum does everything. He's the Disney dad basically

I have heard of lone parent but did not know there was a difference between a lone parent and a single parent.

What term do you think should be used to describe this?

And I really don't think that the arrangement you have described is very common at all.

I am a single Mum but I am not a single parent.

I know what you mean, I used to think it sounded like they were alone parenting their children, my mum was a single mum with no father involved, so maybe that's why I think that.

My mum was definitely a single mum . My dad had us every other weekend (he wouldn't have had us had she not pushed for it) payed £5 maintenance between 3 kids (even though he had his own business) ,she put food on the table and a roof over our heads. I remember her asking my dad for more maintenance and he said no , so she had to go hungry to feed us kids .

What's a 'lone person' and what is 'single person'

In my view, you are a single mum if you have children and aren't in the relationship with the father or living with a new partner, regardless of the father's involvement in the kids' upbringing.

Ah right, I think I heard it is single parenting. Probably as the term has been used interchangeably with the term lone parenting. I’d not heard of the term lone parenting until now and it seems more fitting for the examples.

Thanks for sharing, some awful experiences, I am so sorry to hear.