"single parenting it" is the new cool

I'm gonna vent for a sec mkay?

I've read a lot of blogs lately where moms are alone all day, or dad works crazy schedules and is never home and they like to say they are "single parenting it". Wait a second! lets back up a minute shall we? You mean to tell me you take care of your kids for 12 hours a day and your husband is bringing home the bacon and that the same as being a single parent?

Lets just take a look at my actual, honest to goodness single parent life and then we'll compare and see if its the same shall we? what a fun little game

I wake up every morning by myself, as in, no one else is awake. I'm actually sharing my bed with an almost 5 year old who has cried multiple times (night terrors, fun stuff) and/or dug her toes in my back all night long. I'm the only one that lets the dogs out, I'm the only one that wakes the kids, I'm the only one to load (or not load and then scrub) the dishes in the dishwasher. I shower quickly then rush to get kids up and where they go.

Lets think about the fact that I have to find places for my kids to go before and after school because, oh wait, there is just me. This is not as easy as it seems and I'm gearing up for next year when I have a kindergartner and I need to find a place for just half a day.

After this I rush into work, usually late because of last minute shoe hunts or homework dashes or what ever it is. I work 8 hour days, and I'm lucky its a normal 8-5, Monday through Friday job, no dealing with weird shifts and changing schedules for me. I'm lucky that way.

But there are times when kids are sick, or have soccer/basketball/whatever, that starts at 5 so I have to get off work early to be there. I have to make all the doctor appointments and dentist and am the only one that takes them. After work its homework (for both of us, yay for college at 30) dinner, baths, brush teeth.

After the kids are in bed, this is when I get me time. Time to do fun relaxing things like laundry and dishes and pay bills, finish homework. Then I head to bed, where if I am lucky I will get 6 hours of constantly interrupted sleep.

There is no one else to bring home the bacon. There is no one else to fret with, to worry with. Granted I am luckier than some and the Ex is still involved in the kids lives, he takes them one night a week and every other weekend. But really they are my responsibility. He doesn't worry and fret over their safety and school and doctors appointments and vitamins and bed times and all that stuff. I do, and I do it alone.

There is no spouse to call up at work in the middle of the day or talk to in the night and say, hey our seven year old just called me a bitch and says she hates me all because I go mad she threw a chair at her sister (true story) what should we do? there is no "we", its just me.

So while I understand its a lot of work to take care of kids by yourself for long periods of time. I feel no sympathy for someone that complains they have to "single parent it" for all but one waking hour of the day. In fact I'm jealous of that person, because really, if I had just one hour a day with another adult who was in it together with me? I think I would weep from joy.

You're being an adult, not a single parent. But I guess our perspectives are just a little bit different.

I marrried an idiot

And then divorced him a short 5 1/2 years later after he left me to date men.

good times good times

So the ex is gay and that's lots of fun

He's also an idiot, and I'm not sure if he got dumber after we divorced or I wore rose colored glasses while we were married because seriously?

Maybe a little back ground is in order before I vent the latest issue with him.

He grew up in Really Really Small Town (RRST) we lived there after we were married and I even stayed there after we split. He took off for Bigger town closeish by. Almost his entire family live in RRST, I'm talking brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles cousins. In a town of 1000 people, that's a lot of family.

I moved from Really Really Small Town back to my home town with my mom while I built my current house in Better Small Town (yes I am biased) 30 minutes from RRST. This whole time I work in Middle Small Town where everyone knows everyone and everyone talks and the Ex moved back to Middle Small Town.

Middle Small Town and Really Really Small Town are close enough they are the same schools and the same school District and for years and years and years, Middle Small Town and Better Small Town have had a huge rivalry.

Confused yet? I'll make a point soon

Enter the Princess, she started Kindergarten while I was living with my mom, and for ease of transportation she went to school in Middle Small Town (I could drop her off on my way to work, she could ride the bus to daycare etc.)

Kindergarten was Hell. Let me just tell you. I almost lost my job, she was in counseling, we had a rough year. I know it was all the moving and all the changes and everything, not necessarily the school or the teacher (we loved her teacher). BUT it was bad

First Grade we were in our new house (that I built thank you very much!) and she had an incredible teacher (who oddly enough is from Middle Small Town and graduated from High school with the Ex)
We loved her, we loved school! We also payed a ton of money for her to go to daycare after school (different daycare, whole other issue)

Now we are all up to speed right?

The Princess started second grade yesterday (holy crap!) and I have been trying to figure out where she can go after school so I don't have to start chopping off limbs to pay for daycare. I asked The Ex to help me figure something out. His only solution was to bring her back to Middle Small Town for school.

Because his family is close by.

Um what? just because his family might be 20 minutes closer to one school than the other does not in any way, guarantee they would help! We moved a birthday party so it would be closer for them to come and not a single one showed up! not even his mother! what makes him think they would help after school?

Better small Town is closer for my family! and guess what! they show up to help. My Mom watches them one day a  week, and is willing to drive where ever. My sister is picking the princess up and watching baby girl when she doesn't have to work. Guess what, they would do it no matter where they were in school, because they did it when she was at Middle Small Town.

Should we seriously put her in a school she hates, with none of her friends, further from her home on the off chance his family might one day decide they care enough to help out?

I love his family, really it was a big pro when deciding to marry him (should have been a red flag that his family had to weigh in on that decision right?)
BUT, they are only involved when its convenient for them. His father, their only grandfather, has only been to our house once. And that was the day we brought Princess home from the hospital. And for 5 years we lived around the corner from them, literally.

His Mother is around more, she helps me out with the kids when she can, and I really appreciate it. But I can't help but be upset that more than once she has been the only family to show up to an event for the kids when they are all invited, and more than once, even she hasn't been there (a 6th birthday fiasco, that's a whole new post too).

I honestly think it the whole school rivalry thing that is causing issues. Seriously? Isn't that a stupid reason to uproot a child's education.

What I cannot get through his thick skull is shouldn't we be more concerned where is best for our child regardless of the school colors?

Oh yeah, the rose colored glasses are so off.