I’m walking up our street in a summer dress and hastily-pulled-on biker boots.
We form an absurd little parade: our giant rescue dog, intent on sniffing every wall, “checking his pee-mails”, as the saying goes. My toddler, overtired and with the same loss of impulse control as someone who’s hit the bank holiday booze, picking up every empty crisp bag and occasionally lying down on the wet pavement, like a protester going limp. Our little black cat flitting in and out of my ankles in a way that, honestly, seems purposefully dangerous.
From the next street, you can hear my high-pitched, slightly strained voice jostling everyone home, hopefully all still alive. “Come on, sweetheart. Tell me what colour the next door is. Come on, Johny, good boy. Good boy. No, no, Johny, what are you eating? Dora, Dora not on the road. Psss, psss, psss.”
Johnny does a poo the girth of my forearm. Dora runs in front of a car to chase a squirrel. My little boy tries to lick a rusty lamppost. I struggle to maintain my sanity during the fourth day I’ve been looking after my toddler alone while my husband is away.
I’ve seen a trend amongst mothers to call looking after your kids alone “single parenting”. As in: “Oh, I am single parenting this weekend.” And, let me tell you – as tiring and often hilarious as the four days that my husband has been away have been, I would never dream, in a million years, of calling it single parenting.
This is because I grew up in a single-parent household. And I know the absolute, all-encompassing reality of only having one parent holding a whole family’s responsibilities on their shoulders.
I was delighted to see a recent Press and Journal article with the headline: “Single parents – modern-day heroes?” To which I say a resounding: “Hell, yes!”
I would actually like to campaign for a national holiday for single parents. I hear there is some other sort of holiday going on this week, something to do with a man with a gold hat. I say, let’s give single parents that day, and the millions spent on it. Perhaps during One Parent Families Scotland’s Single Parents Week, each March. We’d have discounts in all the shops, free childcare, pop-up lounges on every high street with soft sofas, good snacks and all the bingeable TV series you’ve missed.
There is still stigma around single parenthood
Single parents are heroes. They head up 25% of our families with dependent children in the UK, and as many as 90% of them are women. Plus, 44% of single-parent families live in poverty.
They’re doing the hardest work in society, absorbing the responsibility of care and financing for children, while often paying a “single-person supplement” for rent, food and childcare, without the support or resources to be able to offset this with work in the same way as those who co-parent or those who do not have children.
I grew up with a single parent in the 1980s and 1990s. And I am, frankly, bewildered by how hard it must have been for my mother to survive in the truest sense, with no family support at all.
She was never able to get sick though, of course, she did. When we ran out of money, we had no one to turn to. If there was a funny noise in the night, it was her who got up to check. If we had an accident it was all on her.
Nowadays, even if we’re extremely isolated, we have the internet, where we can find a community or get answers to questions. Back then, we often didn’t even have a landline phone installed. My mum dealt with significant personal challenges and the often still prevalent stigma of single parenthood.
Single parents are heroes
These four days while my husband has been away, I’ve known that I am supported. That my little boy, who got used to his father being a dismembered head on a phone screen propped in a box of tissues surprisingly quickly, would be distracted by a video call while I made dinner.
I knew that, even if not immediately, Peter would come home and relieve some of the strain. I cannot even imagine the emotional and physical toll of knowing that it is all on you, every day, for as long as your child is dependent which, in these days of the cost-of-living crisis and housing shortages, is often well into their adulthood.
Of course, it’s OK to think – as you wrestle with a giant dog, a floppy toddler and a bag of warm dog poo – that you’re having a hard day. Just don’t call yourself a single parent
Single parents are doing vital, important work in society, and should be recognised for it. I see you. I don’t know if I could do what you do, and I appreciate how much it must take day in, day out.
Of course, it’s OK to think – as you wrestle with a giant dog, a floppy toddler and a bag of warm dog poo – that you’re having a hard day. Just don’t call yourself a single parent. Because that is a true badge of honour, and should only be given to our unsung heroes.
And, if you are a single parent and you see me out and about (look for the pink hair!), let me buy you a drink, let me get you a muffin at Starbucks, let me chat to your kid so you can use the toilet in peace. If you’ll accept it, let me give you a hug and tell you I think you’re amazing.
Kerry Hudson is an Aberdeen-born, award-winning writer of novels, memoirs and screenplays
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