[Sunset]

Hello wonderwoman24

4 children and the youngest so small. You are wonderwoman and have my admiration and good wishes.

I think it appalling that he does 30 days of childcare per year and calls or co-parenting. We are in the dark ages still and I think not moved on very much because we have no time to change things which desperately need to change.

Yes – I also think 13 is hard as it’s neither here nor there. Not a proper teenager you can leave to get on with it or a year 6 still although I must say I think it does get easier because of the increase in freedom for us as a parent – more time to take care of yourself- hmmmm – what’s that? Now you have the opportunity to find out.

I think couples find the teen years harder than SPs because they’ve always had the freedom anyway.

One plus of being parented  by one working person I think is the children become resilient and are able to fend/look after themselves more easily as adults. Also they have the undivided, if fraught often, attention of you and don’t have to listen to parents chatting together and leaving the child out, although there are phones as chatting partners nowadays which didn’t exist only a few years ago – can you believer that?

Bye for now and good wishes to all you amazing people on here.

[Sunset]

Hello there

Thank you for posting –

I was a single parent to my two boys who are now grown up with children of their own. They are both with partners and have no idea about doing it alone and having to do everything yourself.
I look after two grandchildren sometimes and tell them ‘there is just me’ and they look at me in a sort of shocked way and understand that yes, I am cooking, playing, reading the story, clearing up, taking them with me to buy milk etc. – whereas at home daddy drives off alone to shop, go to the pub etc and mummy goes out with friends while daddy puts them to bed…

When my children were small I joined a gingerbread group – an ordinary place in Kent – Sittingbourne – which was run in the early evening once a week in a church hall. Back then Gingerbread was thriving and I’m not sure if it still is as I was going 35 odd years ago…

It saved my sanity. I made friends who were in the same boat as myself.
I went back to work while one looked after my children and I paid her of and another had a swimming pool at her work so we went there every Friday evening and bought chips after. Another had three children and lived around the corner which was great as I made a friend living close by and her house was a free for all.

I would not have survived without Gingerbread and would love to start a group for young parents like I was but have no idea how to go about it.

I found the teenage years not quite as hard as the baby years as at least then I could go out alone and they could walk home from school alone and look after themselves until Ingot home from work – a certain amount of freedom but looking back my boys had very little of anything as I had no time or energy. It was all about keeping a roof over our heads and keeping myself together mentally and physically.

Now I do feel guilty that I didn’t  provide a better life for them and they appear to be now giving their own children everything they didn’t have…

Please  keep in touch and tell me how it’s going with your son and anyone else who’d like to text and I really understand what you are going through. It really is very hard having no help or support from anywhere or from anyone.

xx

 

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