To think the gatekeeping of the single parent terms has to stop

[cadburyegg]

Yet again another thread where someone is told not to post on the lone parent board. So ridiculous. Why is there such a competition amongst single parents (I am also one) to prove who has it the most difficult? In real life no one gives a stuff about the terms lone parent, solo parent, single parent and who uses them. Do we need to have a debate every time about which term to use? It’s not a race to the bottom.

Not saw any threads about this but people referring to themselves as “solo parenting”
cause they took their kids to the shops on their own whilst partner worked irks me no end. That’s just parenting . And yes it’s tiring but nowhere near as stressful as having all the emotional and financial stress on your own 24/7. Solo parenting seems to having become the trendy term

As someone with no skin in the game, I interpret ‘single’ to be a reference to romantic status, ie not in a relationship with the other parent, who may or may not be involved in raising the child.

I would interpret ‘lone parent’ as someone who is doing it completely alone as the other parent is not in the picture at all, for whatever reason.

But so do mums who have 50/50 or less.

To me a single parent is someone who is not in a relationship and is a parent.
A solo parent is someone not in a relationship, is a parent and has no other parent around to lean on.
I have no idea what you call someone who breaks up with the other parent and then lives with someone else because they are not single, not solo parenting but still a parent.
The one that pisses me off though is someone whose other half works out of the country 4 seconds a year and they say they are single parenting.

But you can just use your words and explain the intricacies of your situation. I'm a single mum, their dad never sees them/sees them every day/ takes them every weekend.

So what about if they are in a relationship with someone new, but don't live with them? Are they single parents. Or demi-single parents? Dingle parents?

Yes it’s the gafekeeping thing. I’ve seen it many, many times. It’s a race to the bottom as if someone can’t have any support or encouragement unless they have zero help. But sometimes having an abusive, useless man can be worse than having no one because it’s like having an additional child in one way, someone who sabotages you regularly and because no one gives you the slightest bit of support or care because you’ve got a partner theoretically.

Of course someone who has to solely provide for their children and do everything for them deserves support. But there isn’t a clear line and there is nuance to this. It’s not like people who are ‘single parents’ for the weekend which I can understand is annoying but probably facetious.

Yes but this is thread is about being told you can’t post on the Board. I don’t think anyone should be gatekeepers of this. No one knows how someone is feeling and banishing someone who might be feeling vulnerable and alone is unnecessary or telling them off for not using your personal terminology. Who needs that.

I hide threads all the time if I I disagree with people. It’s easy.

Me too but mine was in the navy. During our last 2 years together before we divorced we'd spent the grand total of 12 weeks together.

I agree that there should be no gatekeeping and that is my point. We can have different types of single or lone parents. If someone said to me that they are a single parent but not a lone parent, I'd be curious about what they perceive to be the difference because I find it philosophically interesting. I'd never support ostracising or excluding people because they arent the right type of single or lone parent, though. I think it is beneficial to learn from each other.

I think there's a huge difference between doing everything alone and being separated from an otherwise engaged parent.

I can see why its desirable to make that distinction for example if you're looking for flexibility at work. Knowing someone is doing it all alone is quite important. (I say this as a co parent but I hate that phrase. I normally say a single parent where the dad is on the scene)

The one commonality with all solo/ single / co-parents ive met is we're all skint.

It depends on if they coparent with the kids other parent so maybe a dating co parent i dont know lol All I know is that except for 30ish hours PER YEAR all the parenting falls to me and I am single so mine is fairly cut and dried as labels go.

Do you think employers should take that into consideration? I don't. Maybe if the co-parent is dead but otherwise, it seems like the workplace and its staff are making up for an absent parent. I don't see what difference it makes when everyone can explain their unique circumstances for the sake of clarity. I don't think one type of single parent should get more than the other as it makes lying about your situation an incentive.

I think its all cut and dried. If you're not with the kid's parent, then you are a single parent to those kid's. You may be well supported by a partner who isnt their parent, but that's it. They arent legally responsible for parenting that child, financially or otherwise, even though living with them as a partner will lessen your financial entitlement to benefits to some degree.

It’s not a race to the bottom

what's this supposed to mean?

"continuously lower their standards" this is what the phrase means, how does it relate to single parents?

I do think there is a fundamental difference between a lone parent where they have their child(ren) 100% of the time, the father is barely in the picture and pays no maintenance vs a single parent who shares 50/50 custody and receives hundreds of pounds per month

that being said there isn’t a separate board for single parents and line parents - pretty sure it was asked of MN a while back but when they streamlined the number of boards and combined some they said no

Yes but there is a difference between a able bodied woman with 3 kids and a childfree disabled woman with 17 cats, they are still both women.

Yes, different types of single/married/separated/solo parents can have different set ups, why does that matter?

@Lexibletheflexible

it doesn’t matter but posters will like to make the distinction to point out their lives are so much worse

i have read the thread and did think the post about the OP not being a lone parent was totally uncalled for and completely irrelevant to the thread but some people just want to be arses

I am a "lone" parent - meaning I have my children 100% of the time with no involvement or financial support whatsoever from the children's father.

There are challenges that come with this that I don't believe others necessarily understand - the main example being that you are 100% responsible for your children 100% of the time with no safety net. All decisions are yours and yours alone. If something goes wrong, you are alone to solve it. No one is there to help you make important decisions, you can't bounce off the other parent and decide together. It is absolutely relentless with never any time off - even if you ship the kids to the grandparents for a night you are still on and thinking about what needs doing, and it puts me in mind of when you first have a baby. You know in your head it will be hard and think you understand before the baby arrives, but until you have that baby you don't understand really what that means (or in my case I didn't anyway).

However, that does not necessarily mean I have it worse than a "single" parent. My best friend is divorced from her kids dad, who was abusive to her. He is still in their lives and she has all the stresses to navigate that come with that. She has often said she doesn't know how I cope totally alone, but I can't believe she has to deal with her abuser in the ways she does.

Both are hard and have challenges, but both are very different. However, although I can intellectually understand that what she deals with must be so hard, I don't really understand what it is like day in and day out as I have never been in that position.

I think that is why some make the distinction - the two situations are so different and come with such different challenges. It can make people fell more heard if they get advice from someone who has actually been in their shoes and has more of an understanding of the unique pressures they are facing.

But ultimately everyone's circumstances are different and there is a scale - a lone parent may be high earning and have great family support whereas there may be a low earning single mother dealing with an abusive ex who barely has the kids and pays minimal child support. There is usually someone somewhere worse off than you. And while I can't get too excited about what someone calls themselves, there is a big difference between a lone parent (as I understand the term) and a single one with shared responsibility for the children.

"Do you think employers should take that into consideration? I don't. Maybe if the co-parent is dead but otherwise, it seems like the workplace and its staff are making up for an absent parent."

I don't think people with no other parental support for their kids should get constant allowance, or be let off working their full commitment of hours, absolutely not.

But there are times when its a real struggle to comply with everything and employer wants when you're the only parent in any practicalsense; if, for instance, there's a 3 day course run an hours drive away, and the company insists everyone stays the nights (at company expense) to team build/socialise rather than returning home every evening, it could mean that employee can't do the course, or even gets a black mark in their record, when there just isn't a source of overnight mid-week babysitting/sleepovers available to them.

My workplace has always taken it into consideration, although perhaps informally. It's definitely taken into consideration by line managers . A (different, not the dad) colleague of mine was stunned when quite an unusual and inconvenient (to colleagues) flexible working request was denied recently (she already has late start and early finish to allow for drop offs and pick ups from after school care but currently does the essential core hours and wanted to change to a very early start - when there is no work for her to do - because her mum has agreed to have her child before school, and finish at 2:30 to "have time to get the dog to walk to school" and not pay for after school care, when 3:30-4:15 is the absolute stress point during the day.
It's a primary school type environment (alternative provision) and it really isn't suited to flexibility, but she is very unhappy at not getting her chosen change of working hours!

The same could be said for someone who is married to a soldier, or a pilot. At what point do we say that this is the job, these are the expectations, and we need people who can fulfil them?

When i was in jail, so many screws wanted reasonable adjustments and flexible working that they had trouble staffing the place at night. This was more than 20 years ago. I can only imagine it is worse since then

I found this worse because the expectation was that they would be able to do things if you let them and the resentment of them being fucking useless in plain site, and the extra work they made.

Interesting. I must be on the wrong threads aa I've never seen this