What is the definition of a "single parent"?

[Anonymous]

I'm a single parent. DD has never met the person who contributed the sperm. I pay for all of DD's needs and am the only adult taking care of her. I am te only parent on her birth certificate, and the only parent she has ever known. If I get a break, it's because she's at a sleepover at a friend's house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm like your friend - totally and completely a single parent -zero support in any fashion or form. I don't begrudge the use of the term single parent by those with shared custody or support as i think is the more common situation and understanding, but their circumstances and mine cannot be compared. She has no idea what it is like to be in my or your friend's shoes at all.

You chose to have a child WITHOUT benefit of marriage or committed partner. Stop complaining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm like your friend - totally and completely a single parent -zero support in any fashion or form. I don't begrudge the use of the term single parent by those with shared custody or support as i think is the more common situation and understanding, but their circumstances and mine cannot be compared. She has no idea what it is like to be in my or your friend's shoes at all.

You chose to have a child WITHOUT benefit of marriage or committed partner. Stop complaining.

Actually, you're incorrect; I'm not a single parent by choice. But you go on judging - that's clearly what you like to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm like your friend - totally and completely a single parent -zero support in any fashion or form. I don't begrudge the use of the term single parent by those with shared custody or support as i think is the more common situation and understanding, but their circumstances and mine cannot be compared. She has no idea what it is like to be in my or your friend's shoes at all.

You chose to have a child WITHOUT benefit of marriage or committed partner. Stop complaining.

I'm not complaining. You are right, I chose to go through six rounds of ivf from a sperm donor to have my children. All I said was that I have zero support. This is true and I'm not complaining. I didn't say it was harder for me, that life is unfair, that i struggle to find a moment alone, that it is extremely stressful to know you are your child's only parent and that I have no one to support or challenge my parental choices. i wouldn't change any choice that I have made. And I am extremely blessed to have the opportunity to be a mom and to have a job that allows me a,azing flexibility and pays well enough to provide a house, clothes and good food to my children. But I don't think my experience as a parent can be compared to the OP's sister in any way.

Regardless, I don't care about who calls themselves a single parent. I know there ways in which my experience as a parent is much easier than some married parents and some divorced parents. And the reverse is true.

Get off your high horse and stop reading into other people's posts what you are hoping to see and, subsequently judge.

[Anonymous]

I define a single parent as someone who is single (that is, they aren't married, and don't have a partner), and a parent (that is, they have a child for whom they provide significant amounts of day to day care, and financial responsibility). Being a single parent can come with certain challenges that are unique to various kinds of single parents, e.g. dealing with your children's grief if you're widowed, or negotiating custody or child support, or figuring out how to introduce your child to someone you're dating, or carrying the burden of major worries by yourself, but not all single parents face all of these challenges. But single parenthood isn't defined by challenges.

I'm a single mom of one child who has no father who acknowledges him, or is listed on his birth certificate. Right now, my parenting life is about as easy as parenting can be. My kid's in high school. He walks himself to school, and gets all of his extracurricular activities at school (e.g. chorus, sports practices, etc . . . ), so I don't need to worry about carpools or fitting my work schedule around his. He's gone a ton of hours between practices and sleepovers at friend's houses, and if he is around and I want to go out he can stay home alone, or get himself wherever he needs to go on the metro. He cooks food, and does his own laundry, and has a part time job to earn his spending money. He's got an easy going personality, and a strong work ethic so we don't have behavioral crises, and I don't have to help with homework.

I have married friends whose parenting life is far harder than mine. They might have many small children, or children with disabilities or challenging personalities or medical conditions. They might have other issues that impact their parenting, financial stress or health issues. They're dealing with diapers, and daycare bills, and kids who need constant supervision.

If you define single parenthood by how "hard" one has it, then I guess I'm not a single parent right now, and my married SAH neighbor with the severely autistic preschooler and the husband who works 80 hours a week is. How does that definition make sense.

OP, it sounds like you're frustrated by her whining, and that you judge her for creating the situation she's in. I can understand that, and it's quite possible that she's being a whiny brat. I think you also need to realize that sharing custody comes with its own set of problems. In the beginning, kids are often confused and anxious and clingy. Kids who are exposed to two different parenting styles, can have problems behaviorally adjusting to the new setting. Helping your children stay connected to someone, and have positive feelings for someone you are angry at or even hate, is tough. She's probably dealing with all these things, and feeling overwhelmed, and worried that they'll never adjust and that it will always be like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm like your friend - totally and completely a single parent -zero support in any fashion or form. I don't begrudge the use of the term single parent by those with shared custody or support as i think is the more common situation and understanding, but their circumstances and mine cannot be compared. She has no idea what it is like to be in my or your friend's shoes at all.

You chose to have a child WITHOUT benefit of marriage or committed partner. Stop complaining.

Actually, you're incorrect; I'm not a single parent by choice. But you go on judging - that's clearly what you like to do.

Umm, pp was quoting me and I am a single mom by choice, but I appreciate that you had my back. PP can just go and scurry right back under the bridge (rock) she came from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm like your friend - totally and completely a single parent -zero support in any fashion or form. I don't begrudge the use of the term single parent by those with shared custody or support as i think is the more common situation and understanding, but their circumstances and mine cannot be compared. She has no idea what it is like to be in my or your friend's shoes at all.

You chose to have a child WITHOUT benefit of marriage or committed partner. Stop complaining.

Actually, you're incorrect; I'm not a single parent by choice. But you go on judging - that's
what you like to do.

You had a choices: abortion or abstain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm like your friend - totally and completely a single parent -zero support in any fashion or form. I don't begrudge the use of the term single parent by those with shared custody or support as i think is the more common situation and understanding, but their circumstances and mine cannot be compared. She has no idea what it is like to be in my or your friend's shoes at all.

You chose to have a child WITHOUT benefit of marriage or committed partner. Stop complaining.

Actually, you're incorrect; I'm not a single parent by choice. But you go on judging - that's
what you like to do.

You had a choices: abortion or abstain.

You are an idiot. A 'completely ignorant to the ways of the world and how differently people may choose to live their life' idiot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm like your friend - totally and completely a single parent -zero support in any fashion or form. I don't begrudge the use of the term single parent by those with shared custody or support as i think is the more common situation and understanding, but their circumstances and mine cannot be compared. She has no idea what it is like to be in my or your friend's shoes at all.

You chose to have a child WITHOUT benefit of marriage or committed partner. Stop complaining.

Actually, you're incorrect; I'm not a single parent by choice. But you go on judging - that's
what you like to do.

You had a choices: abortion or abstain.

Did you ever hear of a widow with kids?

[Anonymous]

As a single parent, I sometimes secretly hope that people who judge single parents harshly will someday see what it's like. Because in my mind, being a nasty person is the kind of thing that could eventually cause a marriage to dissolve, with animosity.

There's a continuum of single parenting. On the one end you have people with 0% support from a coparent. On the other end you have the 50/50 arrangements where mom does have plenty of free time and support. Most of us are in the middle. I do feel that it's harder, though, because it's a financial stretch to support a household on one's own, and you don't get the efficiencies of scale from having two adults running a single household. And it can be lonely, not having a partner to turn to for decisions and companionship.

[Anonymous]

There are different types of single parents. Just like there are different types of married parents.

Some families deal with a spouse being deployed for several months. Some single parents have full custody while others have joint.

Op, sounds like she has an ideal situation to me. More importantly, her kids do.

[Anonymous]

I think it's safe to say that your annoyance with your sister has very little to do with her proclaiming herself to be a single parent.

[Anonymous]

OP, I hear you. I have a SIL who is the same kind of "single parent." and posts on facebook about how "other single mothers would understand" [insert whine of the day]. She has so much more time to herself than we do. She also lets her kids run feral and complains it is because she is a single parent. Um, no, it is because you don't watch them and spend hours a day on your toilette.

She works, then takes the kids to the gym where they sit in the daycare while she exercises on the days she does have them. Cry me a river, lady.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I hear you. I have a SIL who is the same kind of "single parent." and posts on facebook about how "other single mothers would understand" [insert whine of the day]. She has so much more time to herself than we do. She also lets her kids run feral and complains it is because she is a single parent. Um, no, it is because you don't watch them and spend hours a day on your toilette.

She works, then takes the kids to the gym where they sit in the daycare while she exercises on the days she does have them. Cry me a river, lady.

Same question as the OP: why do you care what she calls herself?

[Anonymous]

It sounds to me like the OP and the others agreeing with the OP take issue with the WAY a person became a single parent - like it's only legitimate to be a single parent if it happened somehow against the person's will - or else with the level of complaining that that person does as a result of their various challenges. I am totally sympathetic to being annoyed by and dismissive of whiners, especially performative whiners who feel compelled to complain about their kids on Facebook or whatever. But the former? That's just not fair. A person can still be stressed out and overwhelmed by situations of their own choosing, whether those situations be related to their kids, their parents, their spouses, their friends, their jobs, whatever.

I'm divorced and I have a 4 year old. We have 50/50 custody, but when something goes off the rails, I am always the one putting it back together. I am responsible for all the doctor's appointments. I pick out and sign up for any extracurricular activities. I am the one who is and has been dealing with everything related to the DC preschool lotteries. If I had an actual emergency, was in the hospital, had to fly to take care of my mom because of illness or something, DD's dad would probably step up. He loves her and while he's not as involved as I wanted him to be (one of the many reasons we got divorced a year and a half ago), he's a not a terrible dad. But the fact that he would be around in a me-related emergency doesn't make it any less irritating and stressful when he forgets that he has to take her to a doctor's appointment and never remembers when her ballet class is. Those things can obviously happen to married people too, but when you're divorced from the person who's dropping the ball, there are a limited number of things you can do about the situation. Most of the time, you have to just suck it up, vent to your trust friends (or FAMILY - OP, does your sister know how you feel about her?), and get on with the show.