What am I?

[FrazzledDad]

I am a dad and I am single. My ex and I share child care on an equal basis. I looked up 'single parent' on Wikipedia and it equates 'single parent with 'lone parent'. So I'm not one of those. I asked my ex if she considered herself to be a single mum and she said no because she only looks after the DCs part time unlike a single parent. When I call myself plain old 'dad' there's a tendancy to assume I live with a partner/DCs mum. I'm not actively looking for a lable but I was just pondering this.

unless you have a girlfriend, you're a single parent. A lone parent (IMVHO) is one whose ex, the other parent, only has the children a small amount of the time, such as 2 nights per fortnight, and doesn't organise things like doctor's appointments.

A single parent has another parent in the equation but no boy/girlfriend, a lone parent may have a boy/girlfriend but not one that lives with them, and so does most of the parenting him/herself. If your partner lives with you but isn't the children's father/mother, you're all a blended family.

Now you know

I knind of know what you mean with wanting a label. I didn't like to call myself a lone parent, because my dss' dad is actually involved more than on a token basis and it would negate his input. But I'm not a single parent because I have a boyfriend. I'm a lone parent really.

I didn't like calling myself 'just a mum' because I knew that the assumption of partnerhood would be made and I'd never get a boyfriend!

Cheers CT, glad you get where I'm comming from.

Well I would say you are a single/lone parent but one who is lucky enough to have a shared care arrangement with your ex for your child.

Lone/single parent simply means you live alone and are solely responsible for your child/ren when you parent. And within that the amount of input from the other parent can be lots, some, or none at all.

Lone/single parent covers a wide range of situations (as I often have to remind those at my work who bang on about 'single mothers scrounging off the state and causing lots of the ills in our society' but of course don't mean people like me when I point out I am a single parent...)

The lone parent group I belong to has many members in all kinds of situations. Some who are completely alone and get no help from ex or family, some who share care for their children with their ex, one who is a widow and a couple who are fighting for contact with their children.
Some have new partners but they don't actually live with anyone. The most commonly used definition for lone parent in our group is 'you live in a household that only has one person registered for council tax'.

No label fits anyone that perfectly anyway, so it's just as well you're not too worried about the label