Number 2 Thread When You Are Fed Up With The Solitary Burden Of Single Parentdom

[Solo]

Happy New Year and Happy New Thread to all the single parents looking for a place to rant, rave, moan, share the highs and the lows and chat with people that know! It is the second thread and probably a slow one if the first is anything to go by, but it's here when we need it.

LINK TO THE FIRST THREAD

My EXP always, without fail, books the week before the school holiday as annual leave... meaning I have to pay for holiday clubs... so I feel your pain slat... The school holidays are a nightmare 😕

Sorry Skat! Not slat 😀

Ha! That's ok!

little rant from me too. XH has picked up DD today. Each time he has her, I have to ask him when his next visit will be, so that DD knows when she will see him again. He emailed me yesterday with times for today, literally "I will collect at 10 and return at 6". I replied please advise date of next visit by midnight tonight, she is not available on Mothers Day, can you confirm you are now going to see her every third Sunday.

He replied "Monday 28 March" so no response to anything else. He can't see her then as we are going away, and it is 6 weeks away! I told him that and said that DD thinks 3 weeks is too long,never mind 6 and that I have asked him twice now to arrange skyping yet he hasn't responded. He never replied to the email. He obviously doesn't want to see her on Easter Sunday but expects her to be free when he does want to see her.

I suppose that after not seeing her for 6 months, 6 weeks is nothing, but I feel so sorry for DD. He was 20 minutes late this morning and she was stood there saying "he's not coming is he mummy" :(

He refuses mediation, he says that I am awkward and won't communicate yet he is the one now using as few words as possible and not answering any questions I put to him.

This is one of the reasons I asked for mediation, his refusal to reply to emails about DD.

So now, I am right back to square one, no idea when he will next see her, and afraid that she will come back later spouting all sorts of shit that he has told her.

He never has her in the holidays, so childcare is always my problem, never his. He think he is dad of the year and paints me as being awkward, nasty, and says that I make it difficult for him to see DD.

But if he won't tell me when he plans to see her, how can I help it if she is busy when he does want to! We can't sit around doing nothing just in case he deigns to see her sometime!

Rant over. Sorry.

I am in the South West, so nowhere near Kent . It would be good if some of you could meet up though.

Skye :(

Am posting on here (after a name change) because I think this is the only group on here that really gets it and some of you have been LPs for a lot longer than I have (DD is 2 and I've been on my own almost since she was conceived).

I really wish I could go away, recharge my batteries and come back to DD. At the moment I feel like I'm failing her. I'm getting overly angry with her to the point where it's scaring me to be feeling so mad. I'm pretty sure I'm inconsistent with how I parent her I have no support at all, and no back up and I'm not even sure what I'm doing right and wrong. I feel like I need to do better though, or my relationship with DD, which has been amazing until now, might deteriorate. I"m terrified she might not want to know me when she's older because I was a sh*t parent, if she remembers any of this.

It really isn't her, her behaviour can't be any worse and is probably worse in general than other toddlers. She is testing me all he time (like, threw a whole dinner plate at me hard yesterday) and is incredibly stubborn and will fight me, like when I try to dress her. She can't tell me what's going on yet so I know it's partly down to communication difficulties. She's started hitting me, probably because (I'm not proud of this) I have given her taps more than once. I swore I would never do that when I had kids and I know all the articles tell you not to and why not, why it only makes things worse. It's just so hard in the moment, especially when she causes me physical pain - I react out of some kind of instinct before my brain engages fully.

Whenever I read other people's posts, the answers always say 'go and get help', and then if you have already tried they say 'go back and insist on help'. I've tried to get help so many times its ridiculous. And as far as I can tell there isn't much if any help out there. HVs suggest you go to a GP as do most services. GPs only push antidepressants at you without trying to diagnose anything and don't have time to listen to you talk. If you refuse pills GPs send you to another service, you get an initial assessment appointment in 3 months time. If it turns out you've been sent to the right service (which IME is rarely if ever the case) you might get to speak to someone appropriate 6 months after that. That's if you are really really lucky. I've been passed from pillar to post for nearly 3 years now and only 'might' have the right appointment in March. GPs say if I'm feeling 'desperate' I should turn up at A&E - which doesn't sound like a solution to anything and there's no way I'd do that with DD.

I get free childcare hours but am using those to try and find a job and otherwise have loads to do around the house so they aren't a break, more an opportunity to speed up when DD isn't around.

I go to plenty of groups during the week with DD and get out of the house enough I think, but I just don't have someone, anyone, and hate hanging out with smug married mums, it just does my head in and I generally feel like they'd rather I wasn't there anyway.

Sorry this all sounds down and a tad self pitying but I'm mostly scared, about my own emotions and how to manage them on a daily basis with DD. If anyone has been 'here' and completely on their own like me and has any words of wisdom I'd be grateful to hear them.

This, mine were a few years bigger than yours but I worked full time (which meant paying for full time childcare as their father pays nothing and does not even have them one night a year so I am a very single single parent). It gets easier when they are bigger. 2 year olds are hard at the best of time. Just hang on in there. Would the father's parents have the child at all? Most grandparents are delighted to help out.

Hugs Skye
I'm in south west too hon x

This welcome. You sound very wound up, but you are right when you say that we get it on here; we certainly do get it. I too swore I'd never smack my Dc's, but I did and sometimes Dd still gets a smack on her leg. I hate it, but she knows how to push my buttons and talking/shouting/ignoring her just don't work. So you have my sympathies, but I'm sorry to say that I have no answer as such. Parenting is very difficult when there are two parents, but when it's just you on your own, it feels impossible. Deo is right though with what she says about that age being hard ~ it is, so it should get easier and if Dd goes to nursery, then you will start to meet other mums in similar positions and situations to yourself. Smug marrieds are not the right people for us really are they? But don't worry, you'll find someone you'll click with I'm sure, but in the mean time, keep posting here :)

Thank you Deo and Solo, no DD's dad has never met her though I've tried. Grandparents - on his side are on the other side of the world and on mine we're not in touch (with any family).

I'm in Maidstone! At Gravity! And everyone is so... white! ~scuttles back to East London~

I've really fallen off this thread. Will gave a catch up.

Have got an unpaid week off for half term so I'm catching up on my to-do list, relaxing and refereeing arguments.

Hi meglet :)

Hi everyone

Am fed up with peoples judgey pants views of LPs and the fact they seem to think they can say whatever they like to you

Was in the supermarket today and saw someone I really didn't want to see anyway because she's a total cowbag every time. Exchanged 1 or 2 sentences and she found out I was about to home cook tea, and she knows I'm a little short on cash so repeatedly questioned why I wouldn't just buy a ready-made version of the food..

..um, because I like to know what goes into my food, and I like cooking, and I don't get to have any hobbies because I'm at home with DC ALL the time on my own, and I want my DC to grow up seeing someone prepare real food, and also perhaps because people are so ready to point fingers at people like me if/when we DO live on ready-made food, and at least I'm trying? And WTF was it any of her business anyway? I'm not even on benefits, it's not her bloody tax money.

Seriously, geez. I guarantee you the next time I say I'm struggling for money in her hearing this will get brought up, because I paid 50p more to make a meal myself. What should I do, raise DC on chicken nuggets and give her something to really gossip about?

You've probably made her feel totally inadequate! She probably buys ready made meals all the time!!

Confession: I have been using Colmans packet sauce ingredients of late they are amazing! Breakthrough. You still do enough cooking and can buy good quality ingredients. So far I made shepherds pie and chilli con carne they do a whole range. I am going to make this a regular feature from now on.....!

Oh Flower sorry I didn't mean that pre-made stuff is 'always' bad or anything, I use all sorts myself not a health fanatic or anything. I just had it in mind to cook a nice meal for DD yesterday and this stupid woman delightful soul went out of her way to make me feel crap about that idea and in general . I guess I need to develop a thicker skin or any skin, might be useful. Will look out for the Colmans

Solo the way she talks about her husband's huge income you would think she could employ an army of chefs

ds wont potty train at nursery apparently its because im a lazy single parent and not coping is a phrase being bandied about by the nursery staff i repeatedly tell them he is dry at home they just look at me like im a liar and continue asking me if i need support in potty training NO I FUCKING DON'T HE IS DRY AT HOME! perhaps the health visitor could drop in and give you some tips then? really why do i need tips he is dry at home she has been to my house seen him use the potty watched him get himself dressed/undressed what more can she do? then they whisper is it her first? no it's my third and he is DRY AT HOME! (backstory is he is speech delayed and i had a social worker involved because of his dad and they were concerned i wasn't using the free two year funding so his potty training has been stilted as its spread out over home nursery and "ocd" grannys house who freaks when he pees in case he goes over the top and tiddles on her carpet so he won't often pee there either)

so tired of being judged husband and i split for good reasons none of them were my fault but im the one they look at constantly never him as he has them for less than six hours a week

abbs that kind of Kafka-esque conversation would enrage me

And the word lazy. I mean of all the things to say about a LP, seriously, that's the stereotype that people pick? It just says they have absolutely.no.clue.

Since DD was born her DF hasn't even given enough oney to cover my rent and I don't access any benefits. As that's the sum total of his involvement, I've paid for and done absolutely everything else. Every day. Without support. As do so many LPs. So 'lazy' just makes my blood boil.

'Not coping' I would understand more, but it doesn't sound as though that applies to you!

My childre's father has about 8 weeks school holiday over the summer. Year after eyar he doesn't have them even for one night all that time. I work full time and when they were younger would have to pay for childcare for 7 of those 8 weeks. Not a very fair deal when the law does not let you force a man to see and have his children.

plus ive just today found out that the boys dad is telling them he puts plenty of money in their bank accounts for them he gives me money occasionally but he does not put "plenty" of money in the bank for them he is on ESA!

Hello, this thread has gone quiet. Maybe we didn't all survive half term?

warm I keep meaning to catch up properly then I get distracted somewhere else on mn.

We did survive half term. I had the week off work but read the riot act last weds and put them in holiday club the next day so I could catch up on errands and stuff. In my defence they were being little toads and refusing to do anything I asked.