Why are people so mean about parents?! Specifically single parents!

[Winamy192]

I don’t know if it’s the general consensus or just my personal experience but I find it so frustrating the level of assumptions that are made about parents and especially single parents.

I am a single parent have one DS2 - I work full time and his ‘dad’ doesn’t see him at all, I go through CMS but he works cash in hand and claims benefits so I get £29 a month.

But whenever I get into an (mainly) online discussion on social media I seem to either get ‘you chose the wrong person to have a child with’ like his failings are somehow my responsibility?!

Or there’s an assumption that I’m ‘lazy’ and don’t work and stay home claiming everything I can.

Now the latest is that because I work full time and use childcare with funded hours and tax free childcare that taxpayers money shouldn’t be used to support working parents as it’s a lifestyle choice. The ‘don’t have kid if you can’t afford them’ brigade. But now the same people are basically telling me what a shit mum I must be cause I’m not a stay at home mum and I work full time, asking why I bothered having a child in the first place just to outsource his care to the state.

‘I’m a taxpayer and I don’t want my money funding your choice to have a child’ like I’m not a taxpayer myself 🙄

It feels like I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t!!

Is society really such a mean and selfish place these days?! Or is it just social media where it’s faceless pretty much and these are people who wouldn’t dare say it if they couldn’t hide behind a keyboard?

I genuinely can’t understand it - I have no issues with my tax contributions being used to make life a little easier for those who need it!

AIBU?! Am I just seeing the worst of people?! Or is this attitude normal? And I will say it generally seems to be people at least a generation older than me with this attitude. I’m 35 for context.

I do wonder now though if it’s less easy target and more intimidating or something less than that word but similar if that makes sense. Single parents were basically outcasts once upon a time but now the tide has turned and a lot are actually thriving without a man instead of sinking.

It is always the woman's fault.

My ex's mask dropped when I was pregnant, I thought it was savable until baby number 2 18 months later and it got really nasty.

I kicked him out when the baby was 10 weeks old, I had 2.under 2. His parting shot was to empty my bank account and he has not seen them since.

In the 8.5 years since I have

Finished my BSc
Finished my MA
Parented two high needs Special Needs children solo, without a single night off.
Work full time.
Take them on holidays and life experiences because of the money I make.

Yet I will still never be good enough.

We should start blaming those who just walk away.

I’m from a single parent family. I didn’t want my kids to grow up in a single parent family because I was very judged on how I would turn out compared to my cousins who had fathers. My mum worked till I was 5 then had to leave to look after my nan so we lived on benefits until my nan past and my mum went back to work but we wasn’t any better off. As it happened me and my brothers are the only ones in the whole extended family to go out and get jobs and get married and have kids and drive. Unfortunately I will become a single mum because my husband is terminally ill and that worries me so much for my kids and how they will get judged, like I did. Just ignore the keyboard warriors, their lives must be so perfect that they need to pull other people down. You’re doing an amazing job. Carry on being you

This is what I mean! I wonder if they slate us cause it’s scary to them how well we actually do without them. When it was always assumed we would fall flat without a man.

good for you!!

We all have a goal or an idea of how we want things to go. It’s very rare life turns out how you wanted! I grew up in a happily married family still married now and cause of that I wanted to make sure I didn’t have kids until I was married. Wanted my kids to have what I had growing up. Made it to 32 and got caught out but wouldn’t change it for the world now. I’m the first on my mums side to have a baby out of wedlock which is wonderfully old fashioned 😂 I’m sorry for what you’re going through must be so so hard, if it helps I don’t think the judgement for kids is as bad as it once was. Families are all so different now and it’s actually learnt about which it wasn’t for us in older generations. Sending you lots of love and strength xx