Coping with Children as a Single Parent, After Divorce or Separation

By: Jan Gamm

One of the very worst aspects of being separated or divorced and having to raise kids alone, is the distraction of other responsibilities getting in the way of things you would like to be doing with your children.

Many women (or men), faced with the task of raising children single handed, have to make a choice of whether to mow the lawn or play with the kids, whether to do the ironing, or go to the movies with Junior; whether to allow the house to become a pig sty and give the kids as much of your spare time as they need, or neglect the kids while you dick about with a vacuum cleaner and a can of furniture polish.

Admit it - one has to acknowledge that in the old days, much as you would like to think of them as a useless piece of detritus you are doing very well without thank you very much, you did rely upon your significant other to do the many things you now find yourself having to tackle, as well as having to manage your own chores.

As a single mother I woke up one morning to find the car would not start. I rang a mechanic who made all sorts of unpleasant references to the stupidity of women and then asked me if I had ever considered putting oil my car. I replied testily that, until now, I had not had to bother my little head about such things and then made a mental note to change my garage.

This was the first of many unpleasant shocks over the ensuing months. I found that doing a full week at the office and then having to tackle mowing a lawn fit to accommodate a polo match really separates the men from the boys. Added to the physical challenge of completing such tasks (being somewhat long in the tooth and short on muscle) the emotional turmoil in your life at these times adds to the 'life really sucks' feeling and makes you feel not only bodily tired but mentally drained.

What on earth do you do when the pilot light goes out? (Until I had to live as a single parent, I was not even sure which appliance the pilot light lived in). Where is the stopcock? What is the stopcock anyway? What kind of mortgage do we have? Where is the fuse box?

Added to all these concerns and taking top priority, are the children. Not only are the children the major casualties in separations and divorces, they cause the most worry and heartache for the parent left to deal with them on a daily basis.

If you are the departing parent and have access to your children on holidays and weekends, then your difficulties are of a different variety, most of them steeped in guilt whether you deserve to feel that way or not. The parent living at home with the children comes in for all the criticism the children feel they wish to dole out at this time and understandably so. Just at the moment when you are at your lowest point, you are required to put in the finest parental performance of your life.

The classic cure for all these problems is unfortunately the long winded remedy, which is time. Until enough time has elapsed to allow a cooling of emotion you are stuck with the tantrums, the tears, the stomping of feet going up and down stairs, the slamming of doors, which you must put up with as patiently as possible when what you really want to do is slam a few doors yourself. Right?

As much as you would like to lay in bed each morning and pretend none of it is happening to you, the very best thing you can do at this moment is to fight your problems with a rigid regime of organised activity. If that statement makes you want to print out this article just so you can have the pleasure of ripping it to shreds and throwing it out the window, please feel free if it will make you feel better. Then read the rest of this piece as it might help you overcome your difficulties.

Sit down and write out a list of your daily chores. Do not include weekend responsibilities; write those on a separate sheet. Then extract the chores you can ask the children to help with or take responsibility for completely, such as taking out the garbage, cleaning their own rooms, supervising the recycling bins, feeding the dog, you know the sort of thing and you know what you can trust your own kids to do.

Make up your mind you are going to manage. You can have bath time and friend's time to moan and cry and wish things were different. Try to assess how much time you need to do your daily tasks and then take the radical decision to do them early in the morning if possible, before you get ready to go to work. (There is a reason for this).

Call on your friends for help with weekend chores, but try not to take advantage of offers to help on a regular basis. You can lose your friends this way and right now you need all the friends you can get.

Do not cut chores out if they concern the children's welfare, such as cooking their breakfast, helping them dress for school if they are very young, etc. Do not hurry them through their breakfast, unless you want to deal with all sorts of food issues later on. Try to keep a cheerful disposition in the mornings. It is hard, but try anyway.

I was horrified to realise at this stage in my new life, that in order to complete all my obligations each day, I would have to get out of bed at six. I made up my mind to try it for at least two weeks. By the end of the two weeks I was feeling a hundred times better. I was managing my home, my job, my car, my child, and if I was living without my partner I was at least coping with life.

The advantage of doing all these things early in the morning is that you have your entire evening in which to revive your spirits after a hectic day. For people who enjoy laying in bed in the mornings this regime might be harder to deal with but the benefits are the same for everyone.
Children flourish so much more successfully in a quiet, harmonious environment, as we all know. Having after school and evening hours free gives a child so many more hours in which to interact with you as a parent and share all the things they need to share to enrich their home life. Having their own chores to do at this time can help them to realise they are helping you. Children can feel useless at a time like this, as if they are causing you even more anxiety by being in the way. You can help them not to feel that way by giving them a role to play. Besides, you are not Superman and very few people could manage all the extra work alone.

You yourself will benefit from having a few precious hours to yourself, to lay in the bath, watch TV, listen to music, read a book. Take the time to sort out your wardrobe, clean out your paperwork, talk on the phone with friends. 'Me time.'

It is this time, rescued from the mayhem of your new routine which will fuel you for the days when it might all otherwise get on top of you and break your emotions. Try it for two weeks. Good luck.

Jan Gamm writes reflections on life with an emphasis on world travel. She has lived in many countries and traveled extensively in the Far East, the Middle East, America, South America and throughout the South Pacific. She writes for fun and for money whenever she can manage it.

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