As a single parent I use to think that once the kids grew older and their bed times got later I would have more company in the evenings. Huh yeah right.
Now they are at the teens age. Bedtimes are much later to the point they never seem to go to bed and there were occasions I was going to bed before them. Then they started having a social life. I mean a proper social life as in nothing to do with me. Gone are play dates when you had adults to talk to as you accompanied them everywhere. Instead its replaced with evenings waiting for them to come back in or having to go and pick them up. Cant work out why I (stupidly) agreed to them being out later.
So now its waiting around to go and pick them up, making sure they are home ok. You of course have to go through the conversation of them wailing that you don’t trust them and you getting exasperated at repeating for the hundredth time its others you don’t trust, not them. Could read a book or catch up on emails while I wait but I prefer to play slots. Yes shocking isn’t it. I am an adult and I always play within my means. I checked out http://slots.info to find the slots I like and away I play until the teen texts to say its time to pick them up. The other good thing is if I have to hang around in the car waiting for them I can carry on playing slots on my phone.
When they are little I spent the evenings clearing up toys, doing the hundredth round of clothes washing and then crawling into bed after starring at them sleeping. No matter how ‘trying’ they were when they were awake, they still looked so deliciously cute when they slept. Oh how I miss those days. They seem really easy now but no I couldn’t do it all again.
The middle kiddy age bit was I think the most traumatic ( for me) filled with homework and not wanting to do homework (me and them) so there never seemed to be any extra time together. If I wasn’t dragging them to the table I was spending hours trying to figure out the homework so I could help them with it. Bedtimes where also hard as they were often over tired from homework and spending half the evening resisting doing their homework. If they just got on with it…..yeah I know.
ha ha ha ha ha, I’m in that tweenie stage, 9 and 10 and laughed at the comment about homework. That is soooooo utterly true. I’m a Brit living abroad, my kids’ first language is French…. imagine the fun of helping them with French grammar…… coming in after a hard day’s work, sweating over a hot microwave and then spending half an hour translating the darn question- before we’ve even contemplated an answer.
Being a single mother demands everything – respite is fleeting or imaginary. But I guess that’s our lot. I always wanted to be a mother, there was never any doubt in my mind. Being a single mother is not the format I ever intended, by a long stretch. And yet, I cannot imagine my life without kids – it would be void of any meaning.
Your blog hits the nail on the head. I’ve felt all of the things you mention. I still feel excluded/isolated in certain situations, and then bizarrely, in others I feel empowered and liberated. It wasn’t my choice to be a single mum, but in life we don’t always get to make the choices do we ? It’s about making the best of what I still maintain is a bad job. What kid doesn’t want to grow up with mum n dad ? That said, there are certainly relationship scenarios that would be much worse than going it alone.
I’m in my 4th year of single-mumdom and it’s getting easier and feeling more ‘normal’. Thanks for having the courage and energy to share what most of us are experiencing – helps us feel more, er normal 😉
I can’t lie and say it gets easier but it does get different. Toddlers are a breeze compared to teenagers lol. We’re still doing college and exams here. Of course that’s we in the royal we. I’d love to go back to college but three jobs, 2 teens and 1 cat don’t quiet allow more .