Do you get a lot of (rude) questions?

[SunshinePop]

I'm fed up of being treated differently as a single parent. Questions about work - yes I work, I shouldn't have to explain my life away. Questions and pressure to 'get on' with my abusive ex, I get on with him as much as needs be for the sake of the children. Questions about why we split, how much he visits the children etc.

Also patronising, like I'm a fool and failure. After I got made redundant I was given a lot of pep talks about the need to get a job asap - I know that I'm doing my best and found something rather than need to claim JSA (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Maybe I'm just grumpy.

Not rude questions but I do get patronised a lot. That pisses me off.

I was asked constantly if my children had the same father when dd2 was a baby because I left before she was born. Fucked me right off!

Yep. How I'm going to handle childcare when I go back to work "as a single mum". How things are going with him (as if it were a question about a new relationship or something). "Well done"... I know it's well meaning but it's just stuff you don't say.

I am no longer a lone parent. But how timely you should post this. I was actively thinking about how shit the stigma was for me, how old fashioned and out of step people are about lone parenting in this day and age.

The 'same father' question. Honestly. That wound me up no end.
A lot of parents at my son's school wouldn't mix with me, apart from other lone parents. We formed our little club as outcasts. I avoided talking to school fathers like the plague because the whispers were crazy. Because I was a lone parent, I was seen as desperate to find a partner, a father for my child, any guy at the school gates would do. There's this assumption that lone parents are predatory. That hurt the most, that assumption. When I look back, I was very happy and very balanced. I was proud of what I'd done on my own steam without the support of my son's dad. He wasn't around, yet a lot of the parents at school and my colleagues at work tended to define me by my single parent status and they were all way too curious about my boy's dad. It was weird.
Everyone wants to put lone parents into the 'victim' box. That drove me mad... the pity! I was delighted to not be with the father of my child. I grew spiritually/emotionally tenfold as a lone parent. Hard as it was, it was also one of my happiest times in my life, undoubtedly. You don't need a man/partner to make your life complete. You just need a good opportunity, a break. If you happen to meet a great partner along the way, fantastic!

No, not at all

My friends have asked all these questions but they aren't derogatory in any way.

I was asked about work and childcare and how much free time each parent has when I was married, why would people not ask when you have slightly different circumstances,

Personally I pity people who cannot cope on their own.

I much prefer being a single parent.

Yes plenty of people avoid talking to you for fear of catching 'the single parent disease' still that's their loss!