Single mum - am I right to be annoyed by this type of comment?

[blythet]

Ive been a single mum since my Dd was 1 (my exH had an affair while I was pregnant).
Dd stays overnight with her dad 2 weeknights per week. With me rest of the time.

I work full time in a stressful & demanding job but lucky enough to have flexi time so I’m able to school runs etc when Dd is with me and the 2 nights she’s with her dad I work late and start early the next day.

my dd is also ND although in mainstream school but I find it hard to manage too but think I’m doing quite well considering. She doesn’t cope well with having to go to her dads and has huge anxiety and meltdowns before going (there is a court order in place so I have no option for her to go).

I do all school stuff, all homework with dd, drs/dentist, driving to clubs etc - it’s all me. Other than the 2 nights she’s with her dad he’s pretty hands off.

anwyay, the type of comment that annoys me is when other mums say “oh you’re so lucky. I’d love a 2 nights ‘holiday’ every week”

this is something an acquaintance said to me last night but I get similar comments fairly regularly. I always smile and agree when in reality I feel like saying:

”well I’d love to have a hands on supportive husband and my Dd with me 100% of the time. Instead of me doing 50% of everything, I’m doing 100% of stuff 5 out of 7 nights a week. On top of that I’m working longer hours when Dd is away to compensate and I’m mentally drained from dealing with the anxiety and distress she experiences from the way she struggles with the situation. I also spend my ‘holiday’ catching up on everything in the house, sorting uniforms, food shopping, housework, scrubbing toilets because 1: I’m one person doing all of this instesd of two; and 2)I don’t get a second to do any of this the other 5 out of 7 days/nights.
On tip of all that it doesn’t feel like a ‘holiday’ as despite how hard it is given all the above, as a mum (and purely from a selfish pov) I don’t want a ‘holiday’ and would rather have my Dd with me all the time”

This rant aside, I’m actually very happy in my life but when I get this type of comment it just feels really insensitive. But I’m presuming it comes from a place of not knowing what the reality is like for many single mums

As a single parent, you can never win, so not worth trying. I had a super strong attachment when DC were little, so everyone went on about how I was "making a rod for my own back" how "they will never settle for anyone else if you keep pandering". Kids were fine with sleepovers etc so when their kids struggled it changed to "oh maybe yours are just enjoying having more people in our house" and "it probably feels more homely with 2 adults". Approaching 11+ I got "as a single parent who isn't tutoring your dyslexic DC they certainly won't be going to Grammar" then when they passed 11+ "why are you sending them to a private then?" and now I get "how can you possibly let them board, you had such a close relationship!".

You cannot win OP. For some reason people think they can give advice to single parents as if simply having a partner makes them a better parent by some divine right. It often doesn't but they don't like seeing you doing it better than them all by yourself!

Parenting can be relentless regardless of what support you have (or don't have). Nobody really knows how easy or hard it is for others, or what else is going on in their lives. The grass is always greener so I would just smile and forget about it.

I honestly think they are trying to put a positive spin on it, mixed in with some ignorance of imagining us sat with a glass of wine and a face mask twice a week when in reality it's a lot of catch up (single mum myself).

I'm also a single parent doing 100% of metal load (sounds similar to you in terms of full on job and child with additional needs except dad does 2 nights a fortnight) and I resent people thinking I have lots of free time. I point out that all the things their OH does in the fortnight I need to cram into 1.5 days, so actually I don't get much time to relax during the weekend. Plus I need to use that time for adult company which I don't get as standard on a normal day!

I totally understand. I'm a single mum to two kids and we separated when they were very young. One diagnosed autistic, one being assessed. My ex doesn't take their needs into account at all which leads to lots of masking.

Similarly I've had to deal with meltdowns and massive sleep issues pre and post contact every time. When my oldest came back it would take days to start settling again and I would be absolutely exhausted.

I used to hate going out and about and bumping into people telling me how luck I was for a break. When in reality I was sleep deprived and desperately trying to catch up on work, housework, appointments etc.

My oldest child no longer goes and life is actually so much easier without their pre and post contact behavioural issues.

I hear you. On all counts. Mine used to go for 2 nights every week. Weekends alternating week days. One is also autistic. As she has got older the fall out on return from dad’s is often a nightmare. It’s got worse as she’s got older as they don’t stay at his as often due to his work patterns so I can be a weekend every couple of months. He can also sometimes announce the weekend he’s free last minute. This also doesn’t go down well with either of them as the autistic child needs more warning and the other child want to go out with friends.

I actually find it easier just doing it all myself and harder when they suddenly go to his for a weekend last minute. I just go along with it as I don’t want to be seen as the parent who stops the dad seeing their children. But actually at some point I think they’ll refuse to go. The oldest kind of has a few times now under the guise of needing to stay home to do GCSE revision - which she is actually doing.

That's so true that you can never win. My SiL has made some really patronising and unkind comments about my parenting in the past, which she 100% wouldn't say to a couple

When my DC were small, my exH was always at work or out drinking, and never did anything at home other than put the bins out. He even asked me if I could do that too, but I refused. I WFH part-time on a 'when needed' basis, so not an income I could rely on. He paid for everything apart from the telephone bill and the running of my car. I look back at that time now and realise what a miserable time that was for me and the DC. He eventually left a year after I first asked him to go. He was the meanest man I have ever met.

”Well id love to have a hands on supportive husband” OP that’s not the only alternative to your situation.
My DD’s Dad did the same when DD was 1 - affair then left. Only he left completely. Gone, a hands on and loving Dad just vanished. That was a decade ago and since then, I’ve not had more than a few hours off parenting.
I have no family besides my mum but she isn’t well enough for childcare. My only friends all live miles away and none locally. DD is also ND but in mainstream. It’s very hard I agree but I too would LOVE two nights off every single week. That’s not me downplaying how hard you have it, that’s me saying you’re somewhat fortunate to have that. It may not feel like it as you work hard and parent hard. However the reality is, you are ever so slightly more fortunate in one small way, than some other lone parents. That’s not an insult or a criticism.

Keep going! 💜

Single parent here too.
My standard response to this type of twaddle of a remark is that people always think the grass is always greener but I assure you it isn't.
Then say nothing more

Agree. People also say things without thinking. I met someone for a playdate who was looking after their nephew, they asked me what I do and I said I was a SAHM and they said they'd love not to work 🤨 I think it would be slightly different for her as she doesn't have kids! 🤣

YANBU

I recently became a single mum and my God it is hard work! Far more than I thought it would be, despite the fact that DCs dad hardly lifted a finger when we were married anyway.

It's the mental load that I find exhausting. Having to know everything all the time. I don't have a court order yet, but I do feel like it should be the case that a parent can't have the children overnight unless they are competent enough to remember things like appointments, school trips, ironing uniforms etc as some mums still have this responsibility despite shared custody.

I'm sure if we answered truthfully about what the reality is like, we would still get judged by others!

I hear you. I’m in a very similar position.

I don’t smile and nod. I used to respond with comments like “yeah, it’s great dealing with the grenades he throws on our lives and doing double the work to make up for him dropping the ball during his time.”

Now I just stare back with a deadpan expression and walk away.

SometImes
i fantasise about being single

sorry! We all have it hard in different ways

People are unempathetic fuckwits who are incapable of thinking beyond their own lives.

It’s all relative. I’m a single mother of 3 who also works full-time. They go to their dad’s every other weekend, so two nights per week does sound rather blissful!
A single parent of 5 who gets no free time may consider my set-up to be cushty.
I agree that such comments are a bit annoying if it comes from a parent who isn’t on their own though.

This . When my eldest 2 were small it was being stuck in night after night that did my head in. Their dad wasn't at all interested. Luckily after a while his mother offered to have the kids a night or 2 every fortnight ( this is after he told her to forget she had grandchildren after we split) and I paid for a babysitter the week in-between so I could have an adult social life

“I wouldn’t be in the type of marriage where my DH adds to the load”

Easy to say but I’m sure there are plenty of people who’d say “I wouldn’t have a baby with the type of man to cheat while I was pregnant”

Things don’t work out how people imagine. Everyone naturally thinks they’re working harder than everyone else. No one really thinks that hard about other people’s struggles. Too busy with their own.

These comments are just the ‘look on the bright side’ stuff that everyone tries to do when people are complaining, it’s small talk.

Agree. Being stuck in every night is the worst.

Who the fuck are the 20% saying YABU?? Are they serious?

@blythet I completely agree. My children spent 12 days out of 14 with me, with a useless EOW dad, all life admin was my responsibility, and I would spend my ‘weekend off’ tidying, doing laundry, and generally trying to catch up on the tasks that had fallen off my To Do list because I was constantly caring for an ND child (who also struggled and would melt down after a weekend at dads) People are stupid and insensitive.

You can’t control what people say to or about you but you can control how you deal with the comments emotionally!

Why waste time and emotion ( and posting on mums net) because of other people’s views of your life, hasn’t everyone had a grass is greener thought with their own vision of someone else’s life,
until they experienced something similar themselves?

What are you going to do print out a lot of letters explaining your life story and hand them out to everyone that makes a comment about certain aspects of your life and lifestyle?

I never met my dad until I was twenty three years old, he abandoned my seventeen year old pregnant mother in this country, she didn’t speak the language the was no welfare and my first crib was a cardboard box, do you know how I know?

Because that story along with dozens of others have been drummed into me like a stuck record by my mother for sixty years until recently when I told her sternly to give it a rest and enjoy her final years in peace! Do you want to end up being like my mum ?

Now I’m looking after a thirteen year old daughter whose father buggered off to Dubai and he does not send her or her mum a penny for keep, it’s all on me. I should be retired in Cyprus now but I’m committed to this young girls education and future because I never had anyone to guide me as a kid and I don’t want her to slip the net. I’m 99% certain her dad will be beating his chest at sometime in the future, proud of his daughter and her achievements under my guidance, time and money. But that’s okay, I don’t do it for reward just for satisfaction and job done!

I’ve been with my girlfriend for two and half years, she kept texting and phoning the ex for money,
she’s only on minimum wage, she had to work part time to raise her daughter because they have zero family here did support. In the beginning I told her not to lower herself and ask for money because he is not going to pay a penny, I added, think about it! If parent does not bother to send a birthday / Xmas card with twenty pounds for an xmas or birthday present, he’s not going to send the thousands he keeps promising you because of some deal he’s allegedly working on, two and a half year later it appears I’m right, the daughter only got a text message for her birthday recently and not one penny had come into fruition, he’s like my biological father, a tosser!

My loser of a sister has managed to ostracise my my nephew and now I’m dealing with the police, child / adult services because we don’t know where my only niece is, after her and her boyfriend managed to get themselves evicted from their council house, I was changing my sisters nappies when I was nine years old and it seems like I’ve been wiping her backside all my life

I’m not complaining, I don’t have to do it and in my sisters case I feel like abandoning her, it’s not even about having a conscious it’s about a very strong overwhelming sense of duty, and yes I’m one of those men that wants to fix things!

Today my thirteen stepdaughter asked “ Are you alright J ? You look sad! I said, I’m alright J just stuff going on with my sister and I’m tired of it all, thank for asking. Not even her mum asks me that, but it meant so much to me, I often wish she was my biological daughter and wasn’t in contact with her dad, he does not deserve her.

I consciously chose never to have children but I seem to be looking after other people’s children, again it’s a choice.

I know how comments grate, I happen to look younger than my years, it’s genetic. I don’t particularly look after myself other than I don’t smoke or drink, and I’ve done okay for myself financially. When people find out my age they say they don’t believe I’m that old ( but I quite often feel it) and then grating comment comes…

You to look so young you must have had an easy life!

They could not be further from the truth. I want to snarl show my teeth and bite back but what’s the point? No matter how many times I explain it to someone they are never going to understand, they will have their fixed opinion of my life, so it’s pointless, futile and draining to spell it out to them.

Let them revel in their own ignorance, smile quietly inside as. Say to yourself, if only you knew you sunshine?

I only surround myself with positive people, I’ve shared their rocky journey and they’ve shared mine so we have common understanding and empathy with each other . To me it sounds like you need the someone to talk to, and for them listen and have empathy, don’t you have anyone like that, maybe a family member?

Maybe your one of those people that like to show a a front so all those around you so they think you’re strong and independent and have no issues, you do need to to open up just a bit or everyone is just going to assume your just fine and dandy.

Keep your chin up, and just ignore them.

I agree that such comments are insensitive, though probably not meant unkindly.

Try and console yourself with the knowledge that, judging from the many posts on Mumsnet, quite a few resident dads are not at all "hands on" and in fact create more work and aggravation for their partners - not just in practical terms but in being unavailable in providing emotional support.

Your sound like you are doing a great job - just ignore silly remarks.

I find it interesting how many single mums think married couples share childcare equally - I’ve been a single mum the past 3 years and it’s so much easier than when her dad was here! I’m now able to do what is needed and have fun times without having to think about what he wants to do..

I don’t have an ex that’s involved though, he lives the opposite end of the country and has seen our DD once in 3 years.. I’d hate her going away

Just relax and let it wash over you (a necessary skill for any mum). No point in getting into the whole im struggling more than you competition. Everyone, well nearly everyone has their own unique mix of shit to deal with. I was married for years to a man child so that's the same as being single mom without the benefits of being single and an extra child to look after. But on the other hand I found motherhood easy and full of joy (especially after divorce) which made me feel so lucky. Everyone struggles. Not everyone appreciates that everyone's struggles are slightly different. Chin up, you got this x