These Are the 8 Most Challenging Moments for Single Parents

Most everyone would agree that single parenting is a hard gig. Not only is there an emotional aspect to it, but the workload is intense!

As a single mother of two young children with no family support, I can tell you that, aside from all the joy that comes with parenting, it’s easy to become overworked, exhausted, and annoyed. Yes, annoyed. Sometimes being a single parent has nothing to do with the larger struggles of life, sometimes being a single parent is simply just annoying.

#1 There Is No One Else To Blame

Oops. Little Johnny just uttered a swear word. Well I can tell you that he heard that word from… well, I guess there is just me. And it must have been me that told him it was okay to eat off the floor in our house, or that we can sometimes eat cake for breakfast, or me that he heard those song lyrics from. Yep… I’d like to not have to claim all of that, but there’s no one else here.

#2 Go Ask Your… Oh Wait, Never Mind

Send backup. I repeat, send backup because I need someone else to confirm to the 3-year-old that no, he cannot wear a bathing suit to daycare in December.

I mean, I know that he can’t wear that, but he seems convinced that he has just as much insight into the world as I do and I would like a sidekick that reminds him that he is three.

I would like this in the same way that I would like someone else to back me up when I tell him that he needs to stay in bed. The problem with being the only one here is that he and I get into power struggles. There’s not another adult to confirm his 3-year-old status, which is annoying.

I need some reinforcement and yet the only other person here is his short, tiny, sister and she often does not side with me either. Not to mention that everything that they don’t like is my fault.

I get to be the “eat your vegetables, take a bath, clean your room” person all the time. All. The. Time. Sometimes I just want to pass off the “in charge” hat, but nope, it’s just me!

#3 Being Needed In Two Places At Once

It was 2:30 a.m., my son was feverish, my daughter was sleeping, and we had just run out of Tylenol. What were my choices: leave one kid burning up or put them both in the car in the middle of the night and go shopping? This sucks! Just like it sucks when I have no choice but to drop everything I’m doing at work to pick up a sick child or bring a forgotten item.

And some of these situations are even less important, but still just as annoying — like the time both of my children were participating in a Halloween parade at their respective school/daycare and they were both at 3 p.m. Hum, which child do I love more?

Now I know I’m certainly not the only parent (single or otherwise) struggling to manage things like this, but it’s the constant need to have to make other arrangements to accommodate the “I can’t be in two places at once” scenario and never having a “go-to” partner to fill in that starts to wear on you.

#4 Dating

Do I even need to elaborate on this? There is nothing more annoying than trying to date as a single parent. Not only is there the whole “When do I introduce him/her to my kids? Are they worthy of meeting my kids? Will they like my kids? Do they like kids so much that I should be concerned?” and so on and so forth.

Not to mention the small fortune that I invest in our babysitters (or all the favors that I owe my friends) so that we can even go on a date. Or all the dates I’ve have to cancel because one of my children has had a sudden onset of some childhood issue and vomited/spiked a fever/developed an attachment disorder as I was ready to walk out the door. (Or like the time I learned my daughter had lice a couple hours before a date. “Hi, I can’t come… we are hair farming tonight. Is next week cool with you?”).

Yup, dating as a single parent is fun. Or not. I’m gonna go with “not.”

#5 Group Errands

I had just pulled in my driveway after a marathon shopping trip on a Saturday. My infant and toddler were half asleep in their car seats, I was exhausted, but victory was mine because the job had gotten done!

Victory was mine for all of about 10 minutes until I went to put the groceries away and realized that I had forgotten the key item that had spurred the trip. I would have loved nothing more than to be able to ask the children’s father to pick up the thing I needed so that I didn’t have to drag two children back to the store with me, but nope, it’s just me! How annoying is that?

And it’s not just limited to forgotten items, it’s the group doctor visits, group haircuts, group everything! There is nothing that says “annoyance” like bundling up the children to go sit at the DMV for a couple hours.

#6 The Grunt Work

Parenting is not a pretty job. There are dirty diapers, stomach viruses, wiggly teeth, dinnertime disasters, bloody scrapes, and scary injuries. When you are a single mom you don’t get to pass off a task that is too much for you to stomach.

Me? I can deal with the ridiculous amount of fluids that my children seem to excrete, but show me a wiggly tooth and you are going to need to catch me as I faint because I just cannot handle the creep factor of moveable teeth.

You know what else I can’t handle? Foreign objects stuck in places they are not supposed to be stuck, like the time my daughter got a baby carrot lodged in her nose and the pediatrician advised me to “suck it out with your mouth.” Give me a break here. That was a task I would have loved to pass to her father.

#7 Complaining Friends

I should have a checklist of “things I wish you would not talk to me about,” because I swear I would be a better friend if my friends didn’t complain about certain things to me. Now I love my friends, all of them, but there are some things they say that just annoy the heck out of me.

Please don’t complain to me if your husband gets your kids all riled up when he comes home from work — just be happy that they have a father. Also, don’t complain to me when he works late (therefore bringing home money for your family) or when your vacation plans are stressing you out (because in my financially strapped state I can barely afford a trip to Walmart).

Don’t complain to me that little Robby was clinging to you all day because my son is being raised in a daycare and I would love him to have the opportunity to bond to me like that. Certainly don’t complain to me that you are exhausted from spending the day at the zoo, because I spent the day at work, the place your husband went for you.

So yes, this probably makes me a horrible friend, but sometimes my friends’ complaints do nothing but annoy me.

#8 I Just Want To Sleep In

This probably shouldn’t be a category all on its own, but I’m adding this last one in because this is my personal annoyance: I just want one day where I get to sleep in and someone else makes sure my (young) children don’t light the house on fire or go running down the street in their underwear. Is that too much to ask?

So single parenting — it’s totally worth it on a million different levels and I could go on and on about how blessed I am, but this article isn’t about that. It’s about the fact that there are moments that are simply just annoying. Really freaking annoying.

Eden Strong wrote this article for xoJane.