I haven't been a single mum, but my DF is away from monday afternoon through to 11:30 friday night and then from 2pm to 11:30 saturday night as well working for f* all money in a town 50km's away.
I'm home looking after DS, feeding, changing, bathing, washing clothes, doing dishes, cleaning the house, feeding the animals... and then he tells me that I should still do the morning feed on saturday morning coz he had to go to work at 4:30 every morning all week.
Yeah, I can live with doing that every now and then, and I know he works hard for s*** pay, working from 4:30am to 10am, then a break until 3:30pm, and doesn't finish his second shift until 10-11pm. It's when he's home that I have the problem. I'm exhausted by the time he gets home at the end of the week, but I have trouble letting him do anything to help because I'm so used to doing it on my own. I think I would be able to survive quite well as a single parent. Considering my budgeting skills have vastly improved since I first left home lol
Financially, we were better off before we moved in together. Now, we don't earn much more per f/n than a single parent gets. At least we're managing to stay on top of everything, there are so many other who are far more worse off than us.
To ad to this, my father raised my brother and I on his own from the time I was eight until he remarried in december 2004. We only saw our dad first thing in the morning before we left for school, and at 7pm in the evening when he picked us up from after school care. On weekends, he spent half of every saturday and sunday catching up on paperwork, and the other half was spent doing housework, so we pretty much learned how to take care of ourselves. We also only saw our mum a couple of times a year, which was really hard too. Recently I learned that my parents had come to the agreement and that my brother and I would live with our dad as he earned more money that our mum and we would be better off with him. It's not easy for single parents, and it's not easy for the kids either.
Just my two cents worth, not trying to upstage anyone or make fun of anyone.
