You were a perfectly successful member of society. The accomplished captain of an adorable young family. Until, BOOM! Life as you know it implodes, and all too suddenly you’re one of those “single mums”.
SHE couldn’t hold it together, SHE couldn’t make it work. This popular perception needs to do one, ta!
Co-parenting’s a ball, isn’t it? Cos when you already feel like you’re doing nothing well and dropping the ball in all areas of your life. Its dead encouraging to get a text from your ex, fuming at you for forgetting to pack the right trainers. Or that they’ve been notified you’ve missed one payment on some bill, that is actually in BOTH your names. But you’ve been paying single handedly for years!
But it strikes me that no one’s ever quick to point out, that if you were single and not a mum, at the same age, you’d likely find it more difficult to arrange a social life or find someone to go on holiday with. Having a child undoubtedly opens your life up to a much bigger social circle. I can’t go round to my friends who don’t have kids, and stick Sonny in the bedroom playing Fortnite with only the dog for company. While we drink wine and slag off people on the internet, can I? No! They need a few mates to bounce on the bed with, to afford you that freedom.
Sometimes it can feel more socially isolating than freeing to have a weekend to myself, while Sonny’s at his dad’s. People have their own lives at our age, and it’s likely they don’t want to go out on the town with you every single Saturday.
But being a single mum has so many good parts! Sometimes, we just have cereal for our tea. Other times we go out for impromptu cake and hot chocolate after school, without having to rush back to make some gobshite his tea. We can do whatever we want!
And when you’ve only a Childs imagination to ask for permission, the sky’s the limit! Fancy travelling around Japan this May half term, K! A friend of mine who’s a single mum and business woman has just spent 5 weeks travelling around Australia with her 10 year old son. You can’t tell me having a fella wouldn’t put a dampener on an idea as outrageously fun as that? Come off it!
Being a single mum is not dissimilar to what I imagine it would be like to have your own place and money at 14 years old. Fancy going the pictures and watching three films in a row? G’wed! Tuna pasta every night for a week? Sound!
Its also free pass out of any awful social event you simply don’t want to go to, guilt and peer pressure free. “Oh your hen do’s gonna be in Ibiza?! And its only £1200 each?! For 4 days?! Sounds amazing, but I’d never be able to get the childcare. SOZ!”
Having a fella’s sound. But you can’t tell me he’s chill with you lashing your latest motivational audiobook on Alexa at 6am, while you lie in bed writing silly stories for the internet, rather than ironing his shirt?
Turn up for your life, girl! Fella’s aint shit!*
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