With my third daughter, I was technically single from the moment she was born. I was alone with her and two elder ones, knowing fully well that I cannot expect help or support from my then-boyfriend. He left me alone too, but the huge difference was that I knew it in advance that he would. Knowing that I was to do everything was terribly exhausting, but somewhat a relief. I didn’t have to wait for someone to alleviate my burdens, as I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

Being a single mum is a lot easier for me in many ways, than having a co-parent, who I couldn’t fully count on — for one reason or the other.

Knowing that it is your task and your task only

When you know that it’s all up to you, it becomes more difficult, but it is also liberating. You don’t wait for anyone, you just do it — everything. Parenting and managing through a day feels a lot like long distance running. When running, you need to pace yourself and manage your energy in a way that you can last until the finish line. Knowing how much you still need to accomplish is a good way to manage your energy, to distribute it evenly through the distance and time.

Co-parenting with all the expectations of being helped felt like a race where the finish line got constantly moved. Imagine running a half marathon, expecting it to be 21K, and suddenly just before the finish line, someone adds another 3K distance, just pushing the line a bit further.

In single parenting, there is no one to push your finish line. No one to expect involvement from, no one to count on a daily basis. It’s terrifying, but it is very reliable too. It’s all up to you, and if any help comes, you can embrace it and be grateful for it.

Taking better care of yourself and your mental health

Knowing that you are alone in this puts a huge responsibility on you. You cannot afford to break down, to get anxious, to get depressed. You are the one holding together your family, you are the one to set the boundaries for yourself and for your kids. You are the role model — they look up to you, they copy you, they follow your lead. You need to be in good mental shape to give them all the guidance they need, be it managing emotions, managing their time, taking care of them, or even just eating healthy and stay fit.

You have to take care of yourself so you can take good care of them too. You need to carve out minutes and hours of our days to show them how it is done and also to grant you the possibility of recharging.

Learning to ask for help

When I was co-parenting I failed to ask for help. It was both due to my lack of communication skills, and my husband’s inability to decoding our common needs. I was always assuming that I will be helped and I got disappointed lots of the time for it. I didn’t know how to communicate my need for help, as I assumed that he should know when and how to assist me.

As a single parent, you can’t rely anymore on assumptions. When you need help, you ask for it. You go after it, you ask for favours, you pay for babysitters, you can’t afford to be shy about it — there is no other way of managing three kids. You need it and you need to learn to request it.

Being okay alone and a single parent

Being and feeling alone in a relationship is a lot worse than being alone when you are single. I stopped feeling bad about it. I want to have a relationship, but it doesn’t affect my parenting. Being alone is a temporary thing, unrelated to being a mother — which is for good. I am not looking for a co-parent, not looking for a surrogate dad for my daughters, not looking for someone to save me from my misery.

I am not miserable, I am a single mum.

I want to be appreciated for who I am — not definitely in its wholeness. I am a lot of things at once, whole in each of my roles: being a woman, being a working woman, a writer, a mum of three. None of these is more significant than the others, they are just different facets of my life and personality, and they are all complete on their own. And I don’t feel it a compromise if I am not appreciated in all areas, I am pretty content to have an intellectual connection as a writer or a sexual connection as a woman.

I put up with the thought that I am going to be a single parent from now on, as I am not expecting anyone to pitch in and become a parent to my girls. I would appreciate any input and involvement from a partner, but not as a requirement or condition, but rather something that I would be very grateful about.

Photo by Xavier Mouton Photographie on Unsplash

Taking parenting seriously with a huge dose of humour

Parenting is a serious business. Immense responsibility, mentally, emotionally and physically taxing. It can be very frustrating, especially if you take it too seriously.

When I was co-parenting, I was instinctively reaching to humour to alleviate the weight of the daily decisions I had to make, I was laughing about sleepless nights, I was making jokes about needing to spend a night in hospital, saying at least we get some breakfast there as I was behind with the grocery shopping. I did the only thing I could to survive it mentally, the worry, the fear of failure.

I was scolded and resented for my sarcasm, for the funny comments, for my way of dealing with the unbearable fatigue and despair. I was told I am not taking it seriously enough, hence I am not a good mother. It confirmed my own dysfunctional belief about being a failure — but never solved any problems.

Humour, laughter, stretching boundaries and flexibly rewriting the rules are perfectly fitting the picture of parenting. They are all very much the pillars of it. Being a single parent allows me to be myself, to deal with everything my way. I don’t worry anymore if my kids are taking me seriously because I know they do. They appreciate me for sometimes being the silly mum who is joking, and the next minute the mum who orders them to brush their teeth, do their homework, go to bed. It fits next to each other perfectly.

Moreover, using humour as a parent is also a way to teach kids about the importance of a sense of humour, self-irony and a general coping mechanism against the turmoil of life.