Habits & traits of the (not so) common single mom

Almost two years ago, the boy's then-teacher explained to me that when I got home in the evening, I needed to do very specific things with my son and do more of these things on the weekends in order to enhance his education. Everything else surrounding that conversation aside, I raised my eyebrow and said something to the effect of:

Well, I'll you what -- I'm going to tell you my schedule, and you tell me where to work all that in. I'm up around pre-dawn a.m. I take one hour to myself to check my online messages, have coffee and give myself some me-time.

After that I get ready for work, get the boy up and ready for school, and spend at least 10 minutes getting him into the car all while he's whining and complaining. He spends all day at school and after-school, and I'm at work all day.

I pick him up after work. We either run to the grocery store or go straight home. Either way, we get home between 5:30 and 6 and put up our things. At 6 p.m. I'm getting dinner ready while he's picking up the living room, because that's one of his chores. After that, he's allowed to sit down and watch T.V. while I finish up dinner.

We eat dinner. He clears the table and I clean up all the dishes, put away the food and straighten the kitchen. He gets a few minutes to play.

Once I'm done, he gets a bath, which can last anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 minutes, and I have to draw it. By the time he's ready for bed, it's almost 8 o'clock, which is his bedtime.

Somewhere in all that, I have to find a few minutes for my second job, talking to clients on the phone and checking online messages or doing some function of this second job. This second job helps me pay the bills.

Then there are those days that we have extra-curricular activities, including soccer, the very occasional visit with friends and any unplanned-for errands that come up, like having to go to the bank or getting something that the boy needs for school. Or there are many times the neighbor kid comes by asking if my son can go out and play. He needs to get outside and play with other boys.

You also mentioned weekends. Saturday morning is house-cleaning. He has his chores for that, too. I cook a full breakfast before and we have lunch after chores. All this requires additional cleaning.

Saturday afternoon is usually spent running errands that I can't get to during the week. We come home and put away anything we may have bought. Then we get a little bit of time to play together, because we usually don't get that time during the week.

If there isn't a dinner party to get ready for, I have to cook then clean again. All day, I'm doing laundry for the upcoming week.

On Sunday, we have a lazy morning, that I think we both deserve, at that point. I'm usually still doing laundry in the afternoon and doing more work on my second job while the boy gets to play, watch a little bit of T.V. We fit in more time to play together before I have to cook dinner, clean the kitchen, put away all the laundry I just finished, get the boy his bath, read a book together and get him in the bed by 8 so he's not too tired to get up and go to school the next morning.

Once a week, I try to take him to go do something fun, like going to the park or the bouncy houses. When I get my paycheck from my day job, we go out to eat celebrate that mommy has a job, and we can afford to go out-to-eat. This also teaches him how to behave in public.

Some weekends, there are birthday parties, dinners with friends, out-of-town guests, church-related activities and so forth.

Then there are non-school-related interests that he has that I take time out for, spend money on and encourage him to explore. I take him to museums, demonstrations, fairs, concerts and so forth, to give him experiences he won't get at school or by sitting at home all day.

There's the holidays, too. I'm sure I don't have to explain all the preparations for those, except that it's just me and him putting them together.

So, please tell me where do you think we can fit all these other things in that he should be learning at school?

She gaped at me a bit.

The point of all this was to give her a picture of what a week for a single parent looks like. It isn't just single moms; it's single dads, too. Either way, this is what it looks like when there's not another parent in the household.

This is also just one child. Can you imagine what it would be like having two or three tossed into that kind of schedule?

Single parents have to work in order to support, not just themselves, but their kids, too. And many of us are willing to take whatever paying job comes our way. Extra income means being able to get the door handle fixed on the car or call an exterminator instead of bombing the house with store-bought pest control. It means being able to rent a movie or go have an ice cream outing one evening.

Being a single parent means more responsibility to the child and less time for self. Most weekends, I don't have time or am too tired to catch up on sewing. I've been reading the same book for three months now.

This also doesn't take into account that, sometimes, my son has a bad day and needs extra mommy-time and snuggles, which usually means something that needs doing won't get done. Because my kid is more important to me than a couple of dinner plates in the sink.

Because we spend so much time together, I have the marvelous opportunity to experience with him new things, watch him grow, get to know him in a way I wouldn't otherwise have if there was another adult in the household to spend that time with him while I was doing "necessary" things.

Single parents work hard: We work at least one job; we play with our kids; we raise independent, self-reliant kids.

Single parents make extra sacrifices: We don't get a lot of time to ourselves, spend less money on ourselves, forgo that new shirt we've been eyeing for three months and skip doing some of the things we enjoy in favor of the child's extra curricular activities.

Here's what I did when I was single and no kids: Read three books a week, had a neat-as-a-pin house, browsed my favorite stores regularly, went grocery shopping in the middle of the night to avoid the crowds, worked at the office longer hours some days, and went out on Friday nights with my friends to get a drink and eyeball the men.

The life I have now is much more fulfilling. Much more worth it.

If you were to visit my home, you'll find toys on the living floor, a couple of empty glasses in the sink and a smear of you-probably-don't-want-to-know-what-it-is on the bathroom counter. There are stains on the rug from spilled chocolate milk and misplaced markers, crumbs in the couch cushions and an ever-present laundry pile next to the washer. There's something sticky on the kitchen counter, a garden that need weeding, and up-high shelves that haven't been dusted in a couple of months. Costumes get strewn from one of the house to the other, and I'm okay with all of this (as long as it eventually gets picked up and put away).

I'm not a perfect parent, but I am a loving parent. I am a single parent with a 24/7 responsibility I chose to have.

I have a child I adore and protect and love and nurture and make sacrifices for. Because, ultimately, as I'm so willing to make these sacrifices, they aren't really sacrifices at all. If something is really that important to me, I will find the time to do the things I want to do. Right now, spending time with the ever-growing mending pile doesn't compare to spending time with my son.

#parenting #single #teacher #school #overworked #children