Professional Single Parents

[TeachesOfPeaches]

I'm a single full time working mother of one 3 year old in London. As my career is progressing I realise I don't know any parents like myself and I would really like to discuss how others manage childcare, travelling for work, getting a mortgage on your own, tax free childcare etc and I have nobody to discuss this with.

Anyone out there in a similar situation?

@MrsWilkinsonAthome welcome to the thread!

@Verily1 it's a very special and intense dynamic to be a family unit of two definitely

@MissB83 DD is fine this morning, those kids are so resilient. She's bruised and sounds nasal but hopefully it will heal quickly. I think the experience has been by far more traumatic for me than it has been for her!

The assumption that all single parents get help or need help is just so wrong. I work hard for us to have financial stability and we probably get by better than other families around us. There is so much less uncertainty when you only have yourself to rely on and don't expect anything from a partner. But somehow when I explain this to people they don't believe it - or maybe there's a sense of jealously too, because after all I don't have to deal with someone else's shit (apart from my daughter's of course )

Mine saw their dad yesterday. He collected them at 12 and brought them back at 6.30. I will post up the next time they see him but dont go holding your breath folks LOL
That said as its summer hols im dropping them to my mums tomorrow morning till wed after work and god knows what i kight get up to without them here - might go mad and do the ironing or clean the garden. The possibilities are endless

@TeachesOfPeaches thanks for setting this up.

I'm a mum of one 7 yr old, and find clinging onto my career very hard. My colleagues are not the tricky bit, it's the client-facing element of what I do that makes it so hard - unpredictable full and long days in London; not common, but incredibly hard to deal with when they happen. Sometimes I secretly dream of a 10-2 in a supermarket...! But I'd go mad.

@PIPERHELLO what type of work do you? I was having a fantasy evening yesterday on Rightmove looking at the houses I could afford if I left London rather than the 1 bedroom flat I rent!

I do consulting work, so it's my own biz - just me. Thankfully fairly steady so that's good. I earn ok (nowhere near pre child levels however) and I'm so grateful for that, it's given me a lot of financial freedom.

I went to visit a friend earlier this month - she's completely financially dependent on her lawyer husband - and it saddened me hugely when she showed me a WhatsApp of their (clever, student) daughter asking what dad (not parents) would give her for living costs at uni next year. I really thought my generation (I'm 39) might possibly be the last ones to really feel the effect of patriarchy like this and it's clearly not the case...makes me even prouder to provide for my Dd.

Hi everyone, sorry I am a bit off topic, but I am soon to be single mum. I just finished my level 2 aat accounting course and looking for a job.
I was wondering if there are any accountants here who could advise me what kind of job in this field is most children friendly?
Eg should I am for job at accountant practice or for non-accountant company etc?

How old are your children? If in practice then I would assume some of it would depend how far and wide their clients are spread and how far you would have to travel for audits etc and how that fits in with childcare. In business I was pretty much 9-5 in the early stages apart from a couple of days at months end and you will know what days they will be in advance so can plan.

Thanks for getting back to me. I have one daughter who is 2.5. It sounds as it will be easier to arrange childcare working in business.
Ideally later in life I would love to be able to work from home or have flexible schedule. Is it something I can achieve working in accounting?

I started as an accountant now work more IT project work. I work 3-4 days at home. But often evenings or weekends as well so it's give and take.

Hi @Anotherdiv I’m not an accountant but work for a large corporate and work with our finance department quite a bit (where there are many accountants!) They seem to work our normal office hours and days from home. We have a ‘smart/flexible working’ policy so people just do whatever they need to do, often 9-4 or whatever works. I work in FMCG (Unilever/Sainsbury’s/Mars/Tesco type area) and it's pretty common in our sector now. Innocent (the smoothies) are apparently an amazing company to work for and they have central finance vacancies currently I think. I’ve found having a set daily routine is key to keeping things working as a single parent, so any kind of client work (working on client site) I think would be very stressful.

I feel quite jealous of married partners or partners that co-parent effectively. Having a joint residence order means I have to be at the school at specific times and cant use childminders like other parents can. This is because the ex and judges will likely say if you cant care for child then the other parent should have the child [quite rightly I suppose]. Ive had to turn down some very lucrative consulting contracts because of geography or not allowing work from home. My ex claims all the benefits so there is no backstop for me. Ive been close to giving up, especially after the legal debt of securing joint residence and the time.
There is another ex couple in my childs school, the man works close to the school and the woman works in London, I feel a quite bitter that no one is pointing the finger at her. Why is it no one suggests to her that she should see her children every other weekend if she has to use child care?
Im just jealous because they work together and I have the ex from hell.

That sounds quite odd. How you care for your child on your watch doesn't matter, does it?
My son is with me full time, and I use Childminder's, holiday clubs and when I travel for work he stays with friends. All necessary so I can work and provide for my family. Does the order state explicitly that it must be you?

Thank you for your messages.

@Toomanycats99, do you mind if I ask what do you do in IT? The reason I ask is I actually have a degree in IT, although I studied in different country. I worked as a programmer for accounting program back in my country. Unfortunately it’s very different system to the UK so I decided to train as accountant now. But I am still interested what are my options out there.

@ChloeR8, thank you very much for your reply. I will look what they have!

No, but among my ex's many many excuses as to why she didnt want joint residence was my work. It turned into a big thing in court, she was like a dog with a bone. Anyway for 18 months Ive never once been late, never not been there and attended all plays, sports days, meet the teacher, parents evening etc. So its likely I could get away with the odd child pick up from school now but couldn't do it regularly.
To a certain extent I agree, if the ex were to be using childcare while Im here and willing Id go straight for that time too.

@anotherdiv
If you have a degree in IT there are lots of options but it depends on how much you need to earn initially. You could try operational IT functions rather than development. Service desk 1st/2nd line, desktop, there are thousands of these jobs. Then you could move on to service delivery, change, incident, problem, continuity management

@Anotherdiv essentially I am an interface between developers and the business managing projects to develop new finance specific system developments.

Off topic! But @Parent999 without wishing to de-rail this thread, and wishing you the best, but if you think of and refer to your ex as 'the ex from hell', its unlikely to help things. I speak from experience here.

She is the mother of your child/ren. There are many kinder ways of thinking of / describing her. Essentially, what I'm saying is that it's possible that changing the way you think of & describe her can really change the situation for the better.

@PIPERHELLO
I appreciate what you're saying and I used to think like that, however there are only so many times you can offer a co-parenting olive branch and get kicked in the teeth.
She can play all the games she wants, thats my responsibility to deal with because I chose to have a child with her. But when her games cause serious emotional damage to our child then she deserves no such respect.
If it makes a difference Im perfectly neutral when I talk to her, but wont say a word outside arrangements for our child.

How are all the single working parents getting on in this heat? My office is like a sauna as it is all glass surround.

currently 37 in London, partner and kids have gone to the river. hhuummffff

I'm just happy to be able to get on with some work.

Mon, DS2 went to the friend who was meant to be minding him while I was away at the conference.

She called in the afternoon as DS was quite unwell. 111, emergency GP appt (had to wheelchair the poor lad in as he was so dizzy) - but thankfully nothing more than a throat and ear infection (no ear pain at all). Delirious on Monday night, a lot better on Tuesday (AB magic), so I could work (I work from home full time). Wed pm went back to friend's and has been there since.

Heat wise, my garden office is lovely until mid afternoon and then it turns into a pizza oven so I move to the kitchen. The desk set up isn't great here, but it's OK for a few hours, and it's quiet. The house stays cool enough if the windows are kept closed.

Am tempted to see if the village shop as WiFi as they have lovely air con there! I could just set myself up by the chest freezer

Soak T-shirt and a wet tea towel on your head and sit in front of a fan, not a good look for skype conf though

I did a conf call in my pants the other day. Webcam off!

I'd been for a run and didn't have time to cool down never mind shower before the call, so just stripped off, put pants and t.shirt on and got on with it.