The Stigma of Single Parenthood

I just read one of my favorite bloggers' very well-worded rant about how insulted she is when parents crow/complain about being 'single parents.'

I'd like to add my two cents.

I commented on her post and mentioned that a lot of people tend to lump all single parents into the same category - that of 'unwed mother' as if the only way a parent could possibly be a single parent was to find themselves pregnant "by accident" and then not marry the child's father.

I have five children. They have three different fathers. I was married to two of those men.  I have made some pretty poor (crappy, actually) choices in men over the past couple of decades. However I like to think that perhaps now I have my head on and pointed in the proper direction, and while I'm as sorry as I can be that my poor decisions left my children without a 'traditional' family in which to grow up, the fact remains that I am, and must continue, to do it on my own.

(Minor clarification: I did not get to raise my eldest for several reasons, and my second eldest hasn't been a member of my household for several years now as we are estranged. But the three youngest have been 100% my responsibility for about the past seven years; the father of children #4 and 5 is prohibited from any contact with them).

Now that my youngest child is 10 years old I don't need a sitter, but from the number of people who were willing to help out when I needed one, you'd think I live my life under a rock.  Exactly one family was 99% always willing to watch one or more of them when I needed to take another to a doctor appointment or I had some child-prohibited activity I had to do.  There were three other families who watched them......once or twice each. Those other families, by the expression on their faces, the tone of voice as they (obviously reluctantly) accepted my pleas in need of a sitter, made it perfectly and painfully obvious to me that they were REALLY doing me a favor.

The end result of all this?  I haven't been to the doctor since I fully recovered from my very necessary carpal tunnel surgery three years ago.  I haven't been to the dentist in about 5 years, I think. I got sick and tired of ALWAYS having the same (large) family watching my kids so I just decided I wouldn't do that any more. My kids have been 'sat' in their own home exactly ONE time by someone who wasn't their grandmother. Every other time someone has watched them, they've been at the other family's house. When I go away on a retreat my mom comes and stays with them - she got terribly offended the few times I had them stay with the same big family who would watch them for short stretches - but now she says she isn't going to do it any more. No, I have no idea what I will do now. Most likely not go on retreat until they are old enough to stay at home alone.

I realize that the majority of single parents do have a pretty decent support system (heck, I know single parents who actually have social lives!), but there are those like me who don't. (I think this probably has something, if not a lot, to do with the fact that I and a good many of my 'real-life' friends are Catholic - and I'm sure even my non-Catholic readers know that being Catholic and divorced is not the most friend-attracting combination).

So if you're married, thank your lucky stars.  If you're married and know of a single parent who could use a break now and again, how about OFFERING?  And if you happen to have the ability to actually sit those kids in their own home, how about OFFERING to do that? Married couples have sitters out the wazoo, and the last I checked the sitter came to the kids' home the majority of the time.  Maybe that single mom you know would love to not have to load her kids into the car and schlep them to your house so she can go to the eye doctor/job interview/gynecologist (I once took my three youngest kids with me to a mammogram appointment, because I had to. I changed the appointment five times in an attempt to get a sitter and finally just told the appointment nurse that I had to bring them with me).

Oh, and you might have to OFFER several times before that single parent you've decided to help out will actually accept the offer.  We single parents get used to the idea that it's all us, all the time, because usually it is.

Back to Tech-Free Tuesdays

For a while there our attempts at staying unplugged on Tuesday evenings were pitiful to nonexistent. But without a lot of fanfare (so as to hopefully avoid weeping and wailing, gnashing of teeth, and casting into the outer darkness) we had a pretty tech-free Tuesday afternoon this week.

I had a political meeting in the evening, and took Lightning McQueen with me, and even if I'd said not to watch tv, Velvet and Birdman would have had it on, scurrying to the back door every so often to see if I'd come home yet so they could turn it off without me knowing.  And I let Lightning play with my phone at the meeting: two sound recordings, a video, multiple sessions of Angry Birds and at least one visit to my Facebook page that I saw out of the corner of my eye.  Sigh.

So the revised plan is this: to have one evening a week off the technological grid.  It'll still be called Tech-Free Tuesday, but depending on our schedule it might happen on Monday, or Thursday, or even Saturday. (It's my day and I can call it whatever I want. :-p) No tv, no computer games, no blogging or facebooking.  Radio permissible.

Now, in other unrelated news, remember I posted about some mom who came ranting to my doorstep about my kids terrorizing the neighborhood "for weeks"?  Well, a bunch of kids were roaming the streets around my house today and it turns out they are the kids whom that mom says my kids were so mean to. These are AWFUL, unruly kids.  Two of them were riding their bikes up our driveway, turning onto the walkway that goes from the driveway to the back door and then on to the side street!  Didn't their parents ever tell them that's trespassing? I know a lot of kids who seem to have no idea about how to respect other people's property; what are these kids' parents teaching them?  That it's ok to just go wherever you want because it looks interesting and you're having fun? Next thing you know they will be helping themselves to the produce from my garden; they were running through my yard outside the fence already. (For the record my kids were not outside playing with these kids, they were doing their chores and finishing up a bit of schoolwork). I don't care that these kids were riding their bikes around our street, but they need to STAY ON PUBLIC PROPERTY unless they are in their own yard.
Yes, it seems I am turning into a real grump. But from the way those kids' mom talked to me, I can just envision one of them falling off a bike and running home to say it happened on my driveway and there we are with a ginormous lawsuit.  So don't go where you're not invited, children, and if my kids aren't out, stay OFF my driveway, sidewalk and grass!

The second job goes well.  I think I will get my first paycheck next week.

Just About Tired of Trying

I got the photos uploaded but life happened and I haven't had time to compose a post to accompany them.

I started a second job today, as a seamstress at a local casual-clothing store in the mall (mostly hemming jeans).

Some woman I've never seen before in my life came to my door this evening and told me that "every day for weeks" my kids have been abusing her kids and her neighbor's kids, that one of my kids tore up her daughter's expensive bicycle, and pushed her daughter and hurt her wrist so that she has to take the child to the Urgent Care. She said she is contemplating calling the police. I did ask the woman why, if this has been going on for weeks, did she wait this long to come to my house to say something.  She said that 'the older boy told me he was telling you everything.'

And my mom said it wasn't anyone else's responsibility to check on her and my kids last week.

Ever feel like crying but know that it's just not worth the effort?

Here It Is, But You Can't Get To It.......

The last time I got any child support money was about three weeks ago.  Before that it was 2008.  Yes, you read that correctly, 2008.  Three years ago.

Now you have the backstory.  Here's the scoop:

I opened a letter from the local child support enforcement office this afternoon to find, as I expected, a summary of 'support payments processed in June 2011'.  No surprise there. The surprise was on the line below the one for "amount collected and disbursed by check" (this line read $150.00 which is the amount of the check I got a few weeks ago).  The next line reads "amount collected and disbursed by debit card".

ANOTHER ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS.

Yes, I have a child support debit card.  The last time I used it, it had a ZERO balance because the last $17 was taken by Chase Bank for inactivity fees, because I left that amount on the card.  But I didn't receive any more money on the card after that, so for three months I had a $5 fee and then the fourth month after that last 2008 payment they took the last $2.

And the card is expired.

It expired in 2009.

I tried the number on the back of the card, and when I get to part where I enter the card number I get a recorded message that my card is expired and then the call is terminated.  I left a pretty urgent message on my support caseworker's voicemail, whose greeting says she will try to return all calls within two business days.

Sigh.

I'll keep you posted.

If the child support people could make him pay, I wouldn't have to agree to tailor stuff like this.

Another Look at Father's Day

I've been thinking most of the about  how to write a Father's Day post about how it is to be a single parent whose children do not have their father involved in their lives - without seeming bitter and blaming-everything-on-him.  I'm not sure it's possible.

I made the very poor choice to marry my kids' father, and I also made the choice to take the children and leave (and also to file for divorce).  In hindsight I can see a LOT of red flags that would now make me send him packing, but that wasn't the case back then.

This man had every opportunity to step up and be a husband and father.  Instead he chose to molest four children, the oldest of whom I have now been estranged from for 5 years, mostly because of his interaction with her.  He chose to extinguish a cigarette on one child's ankle and another's tongue.  He chose to allow them to watch 'slasher' horror movies while they were still in diapers.  He chose to take the youngest with him to the lawn & garden store, so this little boy would see and hear him lie to his brother the salesman as he told a story of how I'd given permission to purchase a $400 lawnmower with the money I'd given him to pay the rent. (Said lawnmower didn't even make it out of the box; as soon as I saw it I was on the phone to the brother and told him that it was coming straight back to the store).

He chose to cut the steering wheel and hotwire a car that was given to me by my parish.  When I asked the parish to back me up to the police to help get the car back, I found that he'd gotten there ahead of me and I was told that I'd have to find assistance somewhere else.

After my fifth c-section, I went back to work the day after being discharged from the hospital, because without my earnings there would not be enough money to pay the bills.  I had to ride the city bus and slipped and fell (with baby Lightning in my arms) in the parking lot of my work, because he chose not to get out of bed and drive us. I sprained my hip, strained a few staples in my incision and ended up being ordered to bed rest for 6 weeks.  He chose to go to his mother's house and call my parish, telling them that I had some kind of mental disorder from having the baby and if I called and said I needed help or anything, that it was a lie and that I didn't need anything - his family was cooking all our meals and helping out with the other kids and errands (meanwhile he'd told his family that my parish was doing all that).  So when I called the parish and told the secretary I needed help getting groceries in the house, cooking and cleaning etc., it just bewildered me when she told me they couldn't help.  Meanwhile there is nothing in the house but ramen noodles, chips and pizza rolls.  I can't count the times the children had bread with cold coffee and sugar on it for a meal because that's what he fed them.

The morning after I took the kids and left, half his family turned up at my work and proceeded to get in my face and yell and scream at me for nearly three hours - how dare I go off and not let them know where I was, I'd better get myself and the children back to that apartment where we belonged (or we'd regret it, which his sister actually said to me).

I did, and do, regret it.  During the time we were in and out of court over the divorce and visitation schedules, he and his family chose to report me to CPS over twenty times, for the following (and similar) things:

• daughter had a skinned knee
• baby son's hair was cut unevenly at his forehead because his older brother had played barber
• daughter bowlegged
• all three children cried for me during several entire visits with him
• I asked the 9yo to change the 18mo's diaper, therefore 'parentifying' her (did you know that in this state, having a sibling change a diaper is potentially child abuse?  I didn't, but I sure do now!)

I have a great deal of admiration and respect for women who make every effort to repair a marriage-gone-sour and not resort to divorce.  However, I should say that as part of the divorce process we were required to go to at least one joint counseling session.  During this session he informed the counselor that I was mentally ill, that I was a pathological liar and I couldn't be trusted to tell the truth even if asked what color is the sky, and that since I had a woman business partner that obviously I was homosexual and therefore should have my parental rights terminated.

You may be asking yourselves (if you've even managed to read this far) where were my family and/or friends during all this.

That is a very good question.

At the time, my mom lived over 300 miles away.  And my friends?  I guess he got to them first.  I did get some help from the local Gabriel Project people with a ride to the grocery store a couple of times, and also to the laundromat, but those six weeks I spent on "bed rest" I was basically confined to a tiny apartment with four children under the age of ten. I tried talking to both the Gabriel Project volunteer and the WIC person at one of my appointments about how things really were, but neither person seemed to take me seriously.  Even the nurse at my 6-week postpartum appointment wasn't interested (heck, she didn't even suggest I might have PPD; if I'd gotten a referral to a mental health professional I might have been able to get us some help sooner).

Anyway, Lightning McQueen has no real memory of his father; I'm the only parent he's ever known he has.  Velvet and Birdman remember him very vaguely. 

So Happy Father's Day to me and all the other single moms out there.