What is a lone/single parent to you?

[IneedAsockamnesty]

Meaning, to you what exactly does the term mean?

I define myself as a single parent because I'm a single person and a resident parent.

I recently had a conversation with another parent who described themselves as a single parent and it confused me a bit as their child is resident with the other parent not them.

Totally up to them how they describe themselves but I was quite interested in how the term is perceived by others.

If a NRP does some of the parenting in terms of the responsibility of parenting then yes, but if all they do is take their DCs out and spoil them rotten and return them home throwing up because they have been fed crap all weekend and refuse to do things like homework with the child because "it is a waste of time" and "not my problem" then I will dispute that they have any right at all to the term parent, no matter how much I get flamed....

I've never met a NRP who does that.

Is that common in your experience?

But what is a nrp parent then? surely they are still a parent who is also single = single parent

That's exactly where the confusion was for me when I started using MN It depends if you use the single to describe relationship status or parenting status. It it's relationship status, they're a single parent. If it's parenting status, they're not.

No idea if it is common, but it is something I have direct experience of yes.

I agree with noisytoys

I have the same view point as horseman

now says it really grates me whenever I hear a divorced parent with shared responsibility for their dc describing themselves as single parents

so if you are raising a child single handed with no family around no partner and no dad in sight… what would be the term to use?

its all a different story

just call yourself what you are pleased, you are ex married, divorced, separated whatever

at least live single parents, the truly single parents, a way to feel they are indeed a special category…if nothing else!

rant over but I had to

I was on benefits the whole time I was a single parent and so my definition of single parents would be similar to the DWPs - it would just be the resident parent who is able to get IS etc. So if someone described themselves as a single parent I'd assume they were the resident parent. But now I think about it, it seems logical enough that the NRP could describe themselves as a single parent. So I don't think it's wrong as such, just not what I'd expect. I don't think I've ever heard of a NRP actually using the term single parent though, but I don't think I'd be offended by it.

You can't assume that the RP is going to have all the hard slog anyway. When I was a single parent, I did have lots of help from family, though no input at all from the NRP. But other single mums I knew had shared custody arrangements of up to 50% and also family help, and lots of financial support/good divorce agreements from their exes, so just because they were the RP they had a very different lifestyle from the one I had.

I would lean towards Horseman's view - a single/lone parent is a person who is single and whose child/ren live/s with them, not someone whose children visit at weekends. I don't really know why NRPs want to adopt the term to describe themselves - maybe to try and convince themselves and others that they do more than they actually do? It leaves me with a nasty taste in my mouth, tbh.

I define myself as a single parent to dd as her dad for all his faults is around for her ish

I define myself as a lone parent for ds as I've raised him without any help at all from his dad since he was 4 months old.

lone parent - suggests to me only parent in the picture
single parent - parent on a dating site not living with a partner, be that the other parent or someone else.

I think actually I would just wait until they said a bit more before jumping in, just to be safe.

How is it a 'lesser label'? It's just not an accurate one. I don't know why anyone would fight to call themselves a single parent when they aren't, tbh; mostly the word has pretty pejorative connotations at least in popular media/memes.

Because he only does it two days a fortnight? He's still a parent. Just not a lone parent. Maybe we need a new term for parents who only have their child for a small amount of time now it's such a common thing.

I never thought about it. I live alone with DS and currently not in a relationship. I don't particularly like being a lone or single parent. I have never heard of a NRP referring to themselves as single/lone parents even in one case where a friend's partner abducted her child.

I'm thinking of getting into a relationship soon maybe if it works out I'll call my GF my DCs step mum and we will be a blended family on the first date. I'd personally prefer not to be a lone parent.

Serobin,

You know what your friend is after all you use it in your description of him he's a NRP.

It's common on this forum and on online dating sites hahahha for the NRPs to refer to themselves as lone or single parents.

Single parent is a perfectly sensible description for a dating site. I'm single but I have kids. Important info.

I was explaining to here where you can see NRPs using those terms. And I disagree with it being a sensible description. "Single parent" still has connotations with parenting status to a lot of people from before lone parent became more widely used. You can be single and be a parent but when you put the two together to make "single parent", it does carry a different meaning to a lot of people.

I already used the scored out on a dating site in my previous post. To me, a single woman looking at men on dating sites, single parent didn't specify residency, just that they were a single parent. If they said lone parent I'd think they were the RP or perhaps widowed.

Oops, I didn't see your previous post, sorry I understand what you're saying now, whoops. I shouldn't come on here this late

I would define myself as a lone parent as dd lives me with me and her Dad very sporadically sees her so I make the decisions etc.

I would define her Dad as a single parent as all though it is sporadic he is still her parent too.

The dating site thing is a good example.if someone introduces themselves as a single parent and I wanted to ask them for a date,in genral I would not expect them to be able to be very flexible on short notice due to having to make childcare arrangements much the same as I would have to.

If during the date it became apparent that was not the case as the children did not live with them and they had no care giving responsibilities I would be a bit vexed by the description.

It's a bit like the term boyfriend/girlfriend you don't tend to use them about just friends I.E I would not introduce someone as my boyfriend because they were a friend who just so happens to also be a boy but I would if they were my actual boyfriend. It's the same sort of thing.

This has reminded me of a conversation I overheard my ex having once.

What he said (to a woman he was trying to chat up who we both vaguely knew) "I'm a single dad" she then talked a bit about her kids then asked how often he had the kids he said "every day" they talked a little bit more about some of the more amusing aspects of parenting.

In the real world the children lived with me he only ever saw them when his taxi was being paid by the local authority to drive them to school,as he had somehow been able to get the contract from county (apparently it saved them money as they did not have to fund a supervising escort).

i used to bump into her sometimes in the local shop just after 5am every time she saw me she would say hi and ask why I was up at that hour.

When she spoke to him she thought she was having a chat with another resident parent when she spoke to me she thought she was talking to a NRP she would not have thought that if he had not used the phrase singe parent.