Single Parenting

In a two parent family, I don't think enough gets said about the single parenting phenomenon. Now, I do not want to take anything away from single parents who do not have a significant other to share the parenting duties with, but I must stand up for those of us who often parent alone without the support of our SO.

What is happening is in today's family with two parents, many of those parents are working and their schedules are sometimes manipulated to allow for baby to have less time in daycare. In my situation, my SO works nights and one weekend day, while I work days and am off on the weekends. This allows baby to be with a parent for 21 out of 24 hours 5 days a week with one parent on duty all day on weekend day and both parents available the other weekend day, unless my SO gets scheduled for another weekend day, which sometimes happens (sigh).

This means that my SO and I spend a great deal of time with baby all by ourselves with no support or anyone to turn to when you need a break or to eat dinner. We are very fortunate to have family around, but life and baby's schedule requires you to be home and getting life stuff done, so family only goes so far.

What this schedule creates is a lot of stress on the parents, which I have to believe is similar to the stress felt by parents going it alone. I don't know what anyone else thinks, but I think we should give it up for all of the time any parent spends going it alone.