Single Mom here, checking in again.
It’s now 2:08am and I am still awake watching TV and playing a game of Texas Hold ’em Poker on my cell phone. I am not always totally in touch with my feelings. Often times I need to take some time to digest what happened, then analyze what I’m feeling.
Yesterday, Tyler’s father and I were scheduled to appear in Family Court a.k.a. Child Support Court for an enforcement hearing. I was there but he didn’t bother to show up. That has been the story of Tyler’s life…. I’m there and his father is not. The only thing that I can say to the man’s credit is that, after being totally absent since Tyler’s 2nd birthday, he called and has been seeing Tyler since some time in September. Either two or three times Tyler has spent the night with him. One night, not the weekend. Really sad to have to say that he lives with his mom.
Without delving too deep into all the things that has pissed me off about that man, elaborating more about all the crappy details of his life, explaining how having such a loser as my sons’ father is, citing the billions of incidents where Tyler and I would be better off if his father did help financially, that he did have a job when I dated him, or exactly how I feel now, I somehow think that you know just what I mean.
Other single parents with absent co-parents personally know all the issues we handle alone, least of all the issue of balancing time and money. Single parents with a co-parent and couples personally feel some of it, but, I am sure that since you know all the things a parent is responsible for, you can imagine if the burden rested solely on your shoulders. My child is not a burden but worrying about finding a job to make enough money to support us because I probably won’t ever have reliable help, school clothes, winter coat, boots, a roof over our head, food on the table, keeping the house clean, clothes washed, cable, telephone, gas, electric, a vehicle maintained in good condition, auto insurance, extra curricular activities, stressing education… all of those things add a huge weight to my shoulders. The weight is so much heavier than when I was single because now my sons’ life depends on it.
Tuesday night when we were doing our normal routine of reading books before bedtime, Tyler said the most amazingly intuitive thing. He’s only three but he understands on his level. At the last pages of the book Goldilocks and the Three Bears where it says that Goldilocks was so scared she ran all the way home, it shows the three bears standing in the living room by their front door. Flanking the door are family pictures. Tyler likes to say who is in each picture. He says that he is Baby Bear. Of course I am Mama Bear. But Tuesday night, my intuitive little three year old pointed to Mama Bear and said that’s you, then pointed to Papa bear and told me that was me too.
in·tu·i·tive [in-too-i-tiv, –tyoo–] –adjective
in·tu·i·tion [in-too-ish–uh
n, -tyoo-] noun
Single mom vs. life 