Its a wonderful life... Want to try.....?? A Single parents View.. !!xx!

black-saturn

lancsman wrote:

As I said a couple of days ago;


I rest my case

I'm not saying he doesnt have the same amount of work as I do. Of course he does. I've heard people saying things like "he does all the housework on his own, all the cooking cleaning and looking after children the poor man". What do they think single mums do? No one really disagrees when he wants to get a babysitter and go out wheras if it's a single mum she gets asked how can she afford it? Shouldn't you be staying at home looking after the children? and You went out in 2003 you mean you want to go out AGAIN? Also the job my boyfriend has got was given to him because he's a single dad. The interviewer felt sorry for him for looking after his daughter on his own and gave him the job without even asking about childcare or any child related questions. Every job I've been interviewed for you get questions like "If your child is ill at school and you have to go and get her what are you going to do?" or "Whos going to look after them in the school holidays?". My boyfriend has also been given council housing every time he's wanted to move without having to wait. I was waiting 20 years before I bought this house.

shellsuit

My Ex's brother preached to me one day about their Father, saying that they owed him everything after him bringing them up after their Mother died when they were little.

He was the dogs scrollocks according to them because he was a single dad and if he said jump, they jumped because they 'owe him' so much.

I bit back saying I was a single Mum for almost 5 years before I met my ex and my kids didn't and would never 'owe' me anything.

It's your duty as a parent to bring your kids up the best you can whether you are a single parent or not, but there is all this 'awww isn't he amazing' when it's a single Dad.

I guess this happens because single dads aren't the norm, but it does make single mums (not all but some) feel inferior as if they don't do as good a job.

Firefly

Unbelievably when I had the interview for the job I have now, the questions didn't focus on my childcare arrangements rather than the likelihood of meeting another partner and having yet more children! I've never let them forget it!

MommaCC

Sarahsaver wrote:

People tut and stare and dont help a single mum on the bus with her buggy

A person on the bus struggling with a buggy is just a person on a bus struggling with a buggy. They could be single, married, seperated, divorced, auntie, uncle, mother, father or au pair.

If someone choses to help someone by opening a door or lifting the front of a buggy it is something that is done on the spur of the moment, not usually calculated in advance, no time to think "I won't help that person, cause they are a single parent". How would they know the situation of the person they are helping or not helping.

Lets try not to get to paranoid here.

I too am a single parent, not that it makes any difference.

savingsgirl

I have recently become a single mum and I have had nothing but support and praise. Noone has treated us any differently

Sarahsaver

I'm not paranoid, they are all just out to get me LOL.
I have first hand experience of the buggy scenario, but maybe thats society in general. Also the assumption that just because you are young looking you couldnt possibly need to sit down on public transport (i lose my balance due to a stroke)
I know lots of people too who have praised me when I was a single mum, but even when they did it was hard to take the praise. Still recall mum and nanna telling me of 'fallen women' and relatives who went to 'live with aunties in the countryside' At least we have moved on from that.

Walking through town today I thought actually we should be worried about the COUPLES there are, you know chav and chavette with their little designer clad 'dont get yer happy meal on yer FCUK babyro' brigade, popping out kids like they were shelling peas! :rolleyes:

westernpromise

Sarahsaver wrote:

I knew a single dad and everyone felt sorry for him. Whereas if you are a single mum it must be 'your fault'

While it's certainly not always the case, it is clearly at least possible that it is 'her fault', in the sense that it's possible for a woman to become a single parent electively.

If she decides she wants a child, she can then find someone to make her pregnant. She need not consult or inform him about her intentions first, and she can force him to become a parent against his will if she chooses. He - or, if he can't be found, the state - then has to fund the consequences of her choices for 18 years.

It is entirely and categorically impossible for a single man to do the same. He could conceivably get a woman pregnant by deception - by claiming he has had the snip, for instance - against her wishes, but he cannot force her to go through with the pregnancy; if she does, he will anyway not get custody.

It is also extraordinarily rare, AFAIK, in divorces for the mother to offer / concede custody of the children to the father. Generally speaking, when custody is contested, it's the mother who actually gets it.

Thus, a man who is a single parent most definitely did not choose to be one, because there's effectively no way - short of being widowed or the children having a provably jailbird / drug addict mother - in which he can. A woman, OTOH, may have done so.

On that basis, if one is sympathetic towards single parents generally, it is quite right to be sympathetic towards men, because for all practical purposes they are always deserving of such sympathy. Women are not, necessarily.

Sarahsaver

It is absolutely easy for men to 'father' a child and disappear never to be seen again. Bit harder for mothers;)

westernpromise

Sarahsaver wrote:

It is absolutely easy for men to 'father' a child and disappear never to be seen again. Bit harder for mothers;)

It shouldn't be - the fact that fathers are able to get away with this simply reflects bureaucratic incompetence. Commercial organisations and debt collectors are very astute at spotting and tracking such duds; no reason why government could not be except that it's easier to just raise taxes.

That's the flipside of having the option to have children whether or not the father agrees, unfortunately. It doesn't alter the argument I proposed.

mrcow

Sarahsaver wrote:

People tut and stare and dont help a single mum on the bus with her buggy.

:rotfl:

As opposed to any other kind of Mum?

How can you tell if someone is a single mum by the way they are getting on a bus?