When people ask (or when I need a good excuse) I tell them that I am a single parent. I’ve decided that isn’t quite accurate, though.
The term “single parent” implies quite a few things: that I can’t hand off parenting duties to somebody else when I need some alone time, that I can’t stop for a drink after work because there’s nobody at home with my daughter, that if she’s sick I need to take the day off work because there’s nobody else to stay with her. It means that I’m always the one doing the disciplining, the one driving her to school events and friends’ houses, the one making sure she gets out of bed in the morning.
And don’t get me wrong, although I say “can’t” and “have to” I don’t mean to suggest that these are bad things, I wouldn’t change a thing. It is just that as a “single parent” I’m solely responsible instead of having someone to trade off with.
So why do I say that isn’t accurate? Well, “single parent” means I have to do all those things myself rather than sharing the responsibility and effort with another, but really the situation goes beyond that. While surfing the web recently, I read a comment by someone that they weren’t “single parenting,” they were “double parenting.” That really struck a chord. Single parenting just means I’m always on duty; double parenting means that my duties include things that normally I wouldn’t do at all. (And it means that my daughter has to put up with being double-parented by me.) Double parenting means I’m the one to take my daughter shopping for bras and other female supplies (and it means that she has to suffer having her father take her). It means I have to learn how to deal with hair salons, help her choose girl clothes, and try to prepare her for her first ob-gyn visit.
It isn’t just that taking my daughter bra-shopping makes me feel totally ignorant and leaves my daughter somewhere between uncomfortable and flat out embarrassed. To some degree it means that she ends up short-changed… sure I’m semi-intelligent and know how to do some research on the web or reading in parenting books, but there are quite a few things that I just haven’t ever done and can’t speak from experience to help her. I’ve never had to fit a bra, or shave my legs, or worry about my bangs.
Until recently I was quite lucky, though. A good friend of mine was – until she went to South America to do volunteer work – kind enough to help out with some of the girl side of things, and her help was a huge relief to both my daughter and me. Not only was she able to give my daughter the assistance, information, and advice she needed from another female, in doing so she made it possible my time with my daughter to be fun time instead of embarrassing time. No, she wasn’t a co-parent, I was still solely responsible for my daughter, but as a friend to my daughter she did make life a bit easier for both of us. I didn’t realize until she head off to South America just how much difference her help had made.
If you know a single parent, keep in mind that they aren’t just working twice as hard, they are also doing all the things they normally wouldn’t have done (and may not be equipped for). And you can make a big difference for both parent and child with just a little bit of help.
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