Series on Parenting

by Deborah Hansen

The Hardest Part of Single Parenting

“What’s the hardest part of being a divorced, single parent?” This question was asked of me often over the fifteen years that I fit into this category, and my answer was always the same. It wasn’t the financial struggle or the loneliness, although those were certainly issues. It was the aloneness that was such an on-going struggle. It was the stark reality that there wasn’t another adult in the house to go get milk for the baby when we ran out at inopportune times, or run to the drugstore for medicine for a child’s painful earache in the middle of the night. I was just so alone.

As a survivor of those fifteen years, I learned some hard lessons as well as some survival techniques that I hope will help those of you who are struggling down that same path as divorced parents. We will take a look at some of the obvious issues, but also some of those hidden traps that most people don’t realize are there until they fall into them. There’s no point in each of us taking those tumbles if someone else can alert us to the fact that a precipice lies ahead. Your comments and suggestions are encouraged as we move through the months together, because shared knowledge can be a step toward combating that aloneness.

Now that you are separated as a couple, it’s important to set boundaries as a separated family. Your divorce agreement may deal with some of these issues, such as where children are to be picked up, for example, and those must be followed. But over the course of time, you will find that small informal negotiations need to be made in order to deal with the realities of raising children in a fast-paced, activity-filled world. It’s hard enough when the family is intact, but it becomes even more complicated in a separated family.

If a child’s dance recital lasts until 7:00 PM and your agreed-upon pick-up time is 6:30, as parents it’s important and necessary to be flexible. Too many divorced parents use small issues like this to act out their own hurt and anger at their former partner. Obviously, it isn’t in the best interests of the child to be yanked off the stage before her last number, merely because her parents are using that 30 minute gap in time as a weapon of punishment for past wrongs.

It’s also important, though, that you don’t allow your boundaries to be completely erased by your former spouse or by your own good intentions to be accommodating for your child’s sake. Over time, it’s easy to allow those boundaries to be blurred so that the non-custodial parent may more fully participate in the lives of their kids, especially if you’re not dating someone else. But patterns are difficult to realign once they’re set, so be protective of your personal privacy as much as possible. Although you want to do what’s good for the family, you also need to establish yourself as a single person. Eventually you will be involved with someone else, if you aren’t already. If your former spouse is too present or has been allowed access to your home at will, it will be hard to close that formerly open door.

There is no doubt that parenting as a separated couple is a difficult road to maneuver as you try to navigate through your own complex feelings about the divorce and the impact it has on your children. But, the journey is less apt to be littered with roadblocks if both parents are flexible about schedules when possible, respect each other’s privacy, and don’t use these inevitable bumps along the way as tools to punish one another at the expense of their children.

--March 2005

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Deborah Hansen is a veteran of divorced parenting, and a former middle school teacher. She is also a certified county court mediator, and a regular columnist for several parenting publications. She may be reached for comments and suggested topics at [email protected].

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