Single parent but your not- why do people say this?

[QuickPearlFox]

Maybe an unpopular opinion but why do people/ parents in relationships say things like they are a ‘single parent’ ‘solo parenting’ ‘single parenting’ whenever they are not with their partner, partner at work or their partner is away for a a few days etc?
I don’t view this as being a single parent in any sense. Is this not just looking after your own children when your partner is not present?!!
in saying this it also minimises what life is like for an actual single parent eg one income, nobody else to help out with daily life and everything else that comes with it

It was definitely a WTAF moment!

I say I’m solo parenting when DH is away with work, for example to explain to my employer I can’t work late, or to friends I can’t do a social event. Or to ask other parents for help with clashing kids activities/parties etc. visa versa when I’m away, it’s all on DH. We have no family close by so when either of us is away then yes I think it’s right to say the other is flying solo.

I'm having a midnight mini fret that I've been saying the wrong thing now. I'm a mum 100% of the time only me, no other parent, I've used the words single/solo/lone parent interchangeably (it's honestly roulette what my knackered brain puts in a sentence most of the time) I honestly did not know the nuance (not sarcasm, tone here is confusion)

Yes, the mental and physical load of carrying all the responsibility yourself is immense, I don't think people realise the weight of it.

I had to take a sick day off work and I cried out of relief that I could be sick freely and just sleep whilst my child was at childcare (and I love my child more than life itself). I don't think those parenting solo for a fixed period of time would understand that, because they know they will get time back eventually. As a single parent doing 100 percent care, you don't get that time to yourself at all.

Also, someone whose partner is away working, is not suddenly financially responsible for 100% of the housing/ bills etc. The anxiety and difficulty around being the person responsible for all costs when your finances are low can be extreme.

As PP said, to me, solo parenting is being on your own temporarily.

It’s still okay to say that’s hard. Single parents don’t have the monopoly on finding it hard. No parent does.

What am I? I'm a divorced woman who's ex has seen our shared dc less than 10 times this past year. After seeing them regularly few hours twice a week. He paid child maintenance around 12 months out of 36months.

I haven't had the inclination to get into another relationship yet.

Ive gone from doing almost everything to having 50% of the time off now I’m single. I definitely have it easier than some not single mums who do everything with no help and no time off

Because they’ve never given any thought to what it is to be a single parent. They live in a cosy bubble of coupledom within a homogeneous group of similarly cosy friends and family.

If they do know people with different lives they’ve never really thought about those lives or those people’s experiences.

They and lack social curiosity and insight. They have low emotional intelligence - as many people do.

Or to put it more succinctly, their low EQ means they are a bit thick.

My greatest fear every day is leaving the house to go to work and being killed in a car crash. My kids would have nobody and nothing. No father, no family. They inherit our home and I have a life insurance policy but that is hardly comfort. THAT is the difference. I don't have/they dont have a second adult to go to if that happens, not to be housed, fed, cared for or consoled. Nobody but me. It is a lot to bear mentally I can tell you.

I’m afraid this is also true. Great post

I’m a lone parent (DC see their dad for supervised contact only a few times a year). I do everything for my family or it doesn’t happen. I have a colleague who is divorced and their ex is a SAHP. Colleague never has to do school runs and just has the kids for some evenings and weekends. Never has to deal with illness, closure days etc. Can travel to conferences and meetings. But apparently for employment purposes we are the same - single parents. I don’t want someone else to be disadvantaged and I expect to work my agreed hours but no one in their right mind can say that my situation is the same as my colleagues. It makes no sense to try and force us all to take on the same tasks when we have such different abilities (as long as everything is covered by the team it doesn’t matter who does what on a practical level). We all get on well, arrange things in a mutually agreeable way and I really will go the extra mile for my team when I can because we have each other’s backs but we still get funny looks from management who think either colleague is hogging “opportunities” or I’m not willing to go to things. There does need to be a clearer definition of lone parenting vs having the other parent to fall back on. Lone parenthood should be a protected characteristic if we want to get and keep lone parents in work.

My husband used to work away m-f leaving me at home with three boys. Sure I was solo in parenting but I wasn’t a single parent. Single parents don’t have a partner at the end of a phone line, they’re not juggling the household finances on their own. In my view it’s a completely different scenario where they hold all the responsibility for their children’s wellbeing.

I won’t lie and say it wasn’t lonely and difficult but being a single parent would have been much harder and I think it’s important to recognise that.

I just wanted to throw in there that some parents who call themselves single parents (not in a relationship) co parent and their child might go to their other parents for 50% of the time. Some single parents are doing everything or 99% and getting no help.

@Letterstojuliet Agreed. My DH's ex would say she is a single parent but the kids are here 50% of the time, he takes them for haircuts, and doctors and dentists, and does school stuff, and shops for uniforms, takes them to various activities even on her 'time'. Technically, she is single but she's not doing the same as someone with no co-parent on the scene so if feels a bit disingenuous.

I class myself as a single parent but i do in fact co-parent... its own set of unique challenges! my friend is very much a lone, single parent and again cannot compare...

I find it easier as a single parent as i do get regular breaks and my life and its systems that I created to make it smoother are all set up around being a single parent.

Some of those mothers might be dealing with domestic violence or trying to parent children with an alcoholic husband, who is worse than useless. You can’t just say everyone in a couple lives in cosy coupledom and haven’t a clue what it’s like to parent by themselves.

I understand. I have been completely on my own for 5 months now, my baby was 11 months when his dad/my ex left. He left me in a horrendous position financially, just walked out one morning with no prior warning a few days before our babies 1st birthday. It was horrific and traumatic and overwhelming. It still is, in some ways.

A week or two after he left I was at a forest school and got chatting to a lady. She told me she knows how I feel as her partner was working away for a few days, I wanted to scream. When my partner was with us he also worked away at times, and it is nothing, absolutely nothing, like doing it all on my own.

I’d guess they feel that way.

I had a friend in a similar situation as you and she would say the same as you.

I was a single parent to 4yo DD and had no support from XH. She had a DH who although away for 2-3 nights (rolling shift pattern) was always at the end of a phone, he was able to come home from work if she was ill, he was there for holidays, could do some school holiday cover so she could work. He was away earning a decent wage for the family.

As a single parent, I had to do everything, earn everything and bring DD up basically on my own due to XH refusing to set a regular pattern when he would have her, and he would go months without seeing her. My friend always acknowledged that she was not a single parent, just a parent doing it on her own for a few days each week. Not to say it wasn't difficult for her at times with 2 small DC when he was away. I acknowledged that too for her.

It worked well for me as a friend though, because her DH was on a shift pattern that meant he was away EOW, so it gave me a friend to do things with on some of those weekends.

To me a single parent is somebody who is single and bringing up their child on their own. I had friends who remarried and while the DH wasn't the father, they were no longer single parenting once they had remarried.

It’s a bit like using childfree to describe a time when you are temporarily without your children, or a time before you had them but when you were not planning never to have them.

This. Although if someone was in a live in relationship they are no longer a single parent.

There's always the crazy option of simply butting out of how anyone else describes themselves as it doesn't affect you in any way other than to annoy you.

According to The Purists in this thread - and the "my life is worse than yours" people - there isn't an easy single parent definition anyway

It’s a horrible feeling isn’t it? I know of a single mum locally who sadly died of breast cancer recently leaving her teenager pretty much alone in the world. If it happened to me, my oldest would have to upend his life completely to parent his sister- but at least he is old enough now to take care of her.