I'm a former single Mom that is now a military spouse that is deployed. So sure I'm married but my life, other than more money, is pretty much exactly the same.

Yes. There is a spectrum. My ex lives across the country and the only time our child sees him is once a year when I take him to visit. It is too costly to go more than once a year. I pay for the entire visit. My ex sometimes pays child support but he has been in arrears for the last 2 years. I take care of our child 24/7/365. I don't have the money for babysitters so except for school and occasional sleepovers, I never get time to myself. My neighbor is also a single mom but her ex has the kids half of the time. She has hobbies including marathon training. She travels to marathons a lot. She goes on girls' weekends and volunteers. She also gets some child support even though she has 50% custody.

My ex pays healthy child support but sees the kids every 2-3 months and I pay for every minute I am not with my kids. He doesn't pay extra for school clothes, medicines, or activities - he pays his support and that's it. I consider that very different from when we were married. I could rely upon him to watch them so I could go to the gym, met friends etc - I don't have that now. There also wasn't this drawing the line on funds available for what the kids do.

That said, there's a spectrum. All things considered, I know I'm better off than some women in my situation, and worse off than others.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter's (partial) genetic contributor has literally never met her, and could not pick her out of a lineup of 15 year old girls. He does not know her name. He is not on the birth certificate. I am a single parent.

Why do women do this? It is especially bad for girls. She will marry any man by 21 and have 4 kids by 30 to create the family she never had.

There is probably some truth to this.
That said, I married at 22 and had 4 kids by age 30. I married “any” man who also wanted the family he never had. We are all very happy and functional. No regrets.

It's a continuum. I'm a single mom in most senses of the word. I am unpartnered, and was never married to my daughter's dad. I'm definitely less financially well-off than I would be if married, because we have two households. I am the primary parent, but he does help me co-parent, and he does pay support. He deploys often for months at a time and I'm the 100% solo parent, but with financial support. I have no local family.

i also have friends who had babies 100% on their own, and friends who had children with men who have since disappeared. They are further down the "single mom" continuum than I am, but we are still single moms. Some of my single mom friends have more money than I do, or local family help and in that way, they do have it easier. But my daughter has a dad, so we have it easier in that sense.

It's not a competition.

I get annoyed when married moms call themselves single moms because they are not. But I will sympathize when they feel like a single mom in some ways because their husband is deployed or always traveling or whatever. We can relate to being the default parent.

Anonymous wrote:I think there is some leeway in the terminology. There is a woman down the street whose husband is away at sea for 6-8 month deployments at a time. I don't think she can even contact him via text or phone. She may be married but it sure does seem to me that she is a "single mom" when her husband is away and she is fully responsible for the safety, health and care of their kids.

I can't remember what the specific form is called but we are her back-up for the kids if there is a national emergency and she can't get to them because of her job, which is also military. She literally cried when we agreed to do it and then got all the legal forms notarized. We were not super-close at the time but they were new to the area and had no one local to turn to.

You did a good thing. It probably took a lot of courage and/embarrassment to ask and it's great to help her (I'm not really a patriot but I'd say our country too if I felt that way).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter's (partial) genetic contributor has literally never met her, and could not pick her out of a lineup of 15 year old girls. He does not know her name. He is not on the birth certificate. I am a single parent.

Why do women do this? It is especially bad for girls. She will marry any man by 21 and have 4 kids by 30 to create the family she never had.

Maybe she didn't want to abort an unplanned pregnancy? Can't fault her for that.

Why do men do this? Why do they leave their sperm in places where babies grow, condemning the offspring to a lifetime of difficulty?

Maybe it's a continuum instead of black and white?

In some ways it was easier when I was married. You could do things like go to the store when the baby was napping because there was an adult in the house. Once divorced, I remember when I had to take the baby to urgent care in the middle of the night, and no one in the house to leave older child with.

In some ways it's easier now because when they are with their father, they are actually WITH their father. His responsibility. He can't do one, two-hour activity on Saturday and then wash his hands of them and go golfing.

So I get 48 hours "off" from parenting every-other weekend. If folks want to conclude that that makes me not single mom enough, go right ahead.

I will say that one thing that bothers me is that my ex thinks of himself as a good, involved parent. But he doesn't have to worry about vaccination schedules, refilling prescriptions, laundry (always returned dirty if at all), haircuts, transferring out the winter clothes/spring clothes, homework, etc. etc. etc. Non custodial parents have it SO easy, they get to be "Uncle Dad" or "Aunt Mom" - all fun and none of the real heavy lifting. I do resent it. But I resented it when I was married too so..... yeah.

Anonymous wrote:I think there is some leeway in the terminology. There is a woman down the street whose husband is away at sea for 6-8 month deployments at a time. I don't think she can even contact him via text or phone. She may be married but it sure does seem to me that she is a "single mom" when her husband is away and she is fully responsible for the safety, health and care of their kids.

I can't remember what the specific form is called but we are her back-up for the kids if there is a national emergency and she can't get to them because of her job, which is also military. She literally cried when we agreed to do it and then got all the legal forms notarized. We were not super-close at the time but they were new to the area and had no one local to turn to.

It was very kind of you to do this. Thank you.

Anonymous wrote:My daughter's (partial) genetic contributor has literally never met her, and could not pick her out of a lineup of 15 year old girls. He does not know her name. He is not on the birth certificate. I am a single parent.

Why do women do this? It is especially bad for girls. She will marry any man by 21 and have 4 kids by 30 to create the family she never had.

Single is a term that defines your dating status. Nothing more, nothing less.

No clue why some women insist upon fighting over who has it worse.

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who claim to be single while married, because your husband is traveling. Is it OK if your husband tells women at the bar that he's single because you're far away?

Yes, he couldn't possibly be cheating on you because you are both temporarily single.

Anonymous wrote:Single = one.

One paycheck. One decision maker. One logistics coordinator. One retirement. One college saver. One household manger. One default parent. One boo boo kisser. One vacation planner and payer.

So many people just don't get this concept.

Anonymous wrote:There's a world of difference with moms, single or not, between those that have support systems and those that don't. A single mom with lots of family around may have an easier time than a married mom who only has her husband to help, especially if he travels 5 days. I agree that it's just a label, meaning you are not partnered.

Exactly, I am a single mom. I also have one super easy kid who is long out of diapers and no loner needs a babysitter after school. Plus my mom is close, retired, and loves to have him over. My life is not particularly hard. I have a friend who is married to a great guy. They have two of the most medically complex kids I’ve met and are constantly in the hospital. Plus she’s caregiver for her elderly mom, and they have custody of a very young nephew whose parents are both in jail.

Her life is way harder than mine, but I am the one you would describe as “single” because single doesn’t mean “hard”, it means “not married/partnered.”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the "true single mom pp"

Is the single woman who adopted by choice without a man greater than the single mom whose husband died when the infant was 2 weeks old?

Who of the two is the truer single mom?

I don’t care. What does it matter? That’s the point of my post.

I didn’t initiate the “true single mom” term. OP did. I responded.

+1
The people who are taking issue with your post are projecting- you literally said you just considered yourself a Mom and folks are losing their shit. It's like they completely missed the context of the "true single Mom" part of your post!

The only people missing the context is you two.

The "true single mom" poster wanted to make a point about how the "label" of single mom doesn't matter, but in order to do so, made that *very* distinction ("I'm a true single mom") to give herself the credibility she wanted (she's *actually* a single mom so you'd better listen up). That's EXACTLY what OP's referring to.

Ah the irony.

OP posed the question and introduced the "true single mom" terminology. It's okay to miss the mark sometimes.