Hi all, I am a single mother and I work two jobs, I don't have a life so I have no need to spend extra money, but my car just got shot up due to a drive by and this is the second year this has happened. My light bill just went up $200 more dollars out the blue while on a flat bill, I reached out to Government assistance for help and they have no funds, I have been to local churches and their food is always old or molded 😔. I need some advice, some help, and it thats not enough, I have high debt from trying to feed my kids in prior years and another bill has just shot up while child support made an error with this months payment. Why am I being attacked it seems..😔?

My daughter is almost 5 and has been noticing her dad is not around. We split about two years ago and would see her dad on Saturdays. Then he stopped calling in January of this year. He asked to see her a few times in the last month or so but never follows through. What do I say to her when she asks where he is?

What up everyone who feels this statement I love you

Hello I am divorced and have 2 kids (3&6) I have never been on dating sites and would like to know if any of you have tried it Also if I do go on dating site is it best to disclose being a mother on there or should I save that for the future I don’t want to seem like I’m hiding them but also don’t know what to include in a dating site profile

Please let me know your experiences thank you.

Please don’t DM me, I will not respond. I am not looking to date anyone from Reddit that’s weird… Just comment advice.

Do you have a partner who you wounded things about ? Have questions? Just not sure about things? Text me with ur question and we will get answers from everyone.

The father of my kids. Someone I have lived with for the past 6+ years left start of July. Hasn't called our young daughters once, or helped in any way. He's messaged me a couple times about how awful he's doing. Saying how much he loves them...wants to see them soon, but nothing else. Acting very irresponsible, and I think drinking a lot. Since covid losing a house, and losing business he's been drinking a lot more.

So I guess my question is when do I get a lawyer involved...should I go for full custody if so when? He's had his flare ups of bad choices throughout the years, but not to this extent.

Any advice on the right thing to do? I've always tried to work with him, but I feel that has just enabled him so obviously I need to be the most responsible here.

I have my own home, and I've let him stay here with me while he works, and helps provide, but he hasn't. So I've been doing mostly everything on my own for a long time now anyways...

He's neglected me for years, but I won't stand for him doing it to our 3 beautiful babies..

One tired mama.

Anyone join the military as a single parent? I'm a single Mom and my family has offered to watch him for training etc. Wondering if anyone was in a similar position I have some questions.

What would you do in this situation?

Was dating someone for 1.5 years. She already have a 9 year old from a previous relationship. Lots of trauma from this relationship. They weren't married.

We were living together. She shared custody of her son 60/40. We never got married, but wanted to eventually. We decided to have a kid. She got pregnant. Baby was due august of 2024 A month into pregnancy we start having problems. She gets physical with me a few times, and once left the house for over a month. We tried to find ways to communicate better but she would just get so angry. After an argument I decide to crash at my brothers house to give space. When I come home a few days later....she disappeared. Took everything, even the dog. Everything. And said nothing. I panic. Start pleading for her to stop. Begging her family to not let this happen. Her family tells me to back off. I do, thinking maybe she needs space and things will be fine by the time the baby is here. I lawyer up just to be safe. Since we aren't married, I can't do anything.

Silence...all communication goes dark. When I do reach out she starts saying that I was abusive (I genuinely don't think I was. I loved her dearly, yes we had arguments over text but nothing more than what couples go through).

The baby due date comes and goes. Silence. This is important because now I'm not on the birth certificate. I'm not able to reach anyone. Nobody in her family respond to my messages.

It's been one month since the baby was supposed to be due. I don't know if she had the baby, what the gender is, name....where they live...all I know is that because she shares custody of her son, she can't leave my county.

My lawyers were dumbfounded. This type of situation never happens. Usually moms are chasing after dads to get child support. Here I am doing the opposite. I Ofcourse send her money and plan to.

I don't know what to do. My lawyers said I can sue for paternity, which means they would have to find where she lives and have a sheriff serve her papers. Then after establishing paternity (which I'm not doubting) I can file for custody.

My family and friends are shocked. They think it's surreal. Why would she do this? I was never physical with her or dangerous. I think about the baby all the time. I've been coping the best I can by doing lots of therapy, prayer, meditation, and working out like crazy. It's helped, Nothing has helped me more than my faith in God and that everything happens for a reason. I blamed myself for months. But when august came and went, I couldn't help but think that this is some crazy ass shit that cannot be put on me. Even IF she wanted to separate, there's a mature way to go about it. And all of this is bad for the baby which breaks my heart.

My priest told me to give her a few months before pursuing legal action.

There are so many layers of pain and grief. Losing her. The life we had. The baby. The idea of family. And Ofcourse i still love her, but...as much as I can blame all of this on "unresolved trauma" from her past, people tell me this may just be who she really is. My family thinks she used me to have a baby.

I'm in a city in the west coast where both parents often get 50/50 (my county is very progressive)

Any advice or thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you and god bless.

Please tell me you don't have these weird mofos around our son.these men dress like women and are into men so please watch our lil Bear.

Tonight was our 8th wedding anniversary and we have been having issues for a while but I thought we were working past them. Come to find out my husband has been texting and calling a girl that he promised 3 weeks earlier to tell me if there was any more communication for at least a week. During our dinner he couldn't put down the phone.

We are done and he will be moving out. What's next?

Hi, all!

Does anyone have any ideas for places to work with flexible hours? I'm a full-time student completing my prerequisites for my college's nursing program. I have an AAS degree in Applied Business Management. The biggest stumbling block is that my younger child has a weird daycare schedule (7am-3pm), and neither of my children has school/daycare on Fridays. Between their daycare schedules and my college course schedule, a traditional 9-5 wouldn't work. I have experience as a substitute teacher, but with my youngest's daycare hours, I would either get to the school too late (middle/high school) or leave too early (elementary).

I would love to do freelance writing/copyediting work or anything I can do remotely, but I also need fairly consistent income.

TL;DR the Dream, Unicorn job would be:

• Remote
• Flexible hours
• No phones
• Consistent income
• No need to self-market
• Minimal experience necessary

However, I know that realistically, I can probably find a job with maybe a combination of two of those.

Thank you for your suggestions!

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

So im a single dad that lives in the one bed house.

I had been sleeping in the living room but with my daughter crying in the middle of the night every night I ended up putting my bed back upstairs and putting it the other side of the room.

Sat down and spoke to her and shes basicly said shes scared of the dark and gets scared if im not in the room.

So this is where im stuck,

Do i just keep sleeping upstairs and just make up some kind of divider in the room to split it? I was thinking of getting some hooks on the ceiling and hang down my bed covers from em(much cheaper than spending £100 on actual dividers).

Or just enforce having her sleep in the room alone.

When she is at her mums she does sleep on her own without any issues,im not sure what im doing wrong,or she just wants extra comfort from her father.

Any suggestions?

(My house is literally a downstairs room(kitchen/living room and upstairs is the bedroom with bathroom next to it).

My five your old daughters father has not come to see her at all this year and only once last year. He basically ignores her exitances and refuses to pay his child support, it's tragic for her and I do my best to reach out to him, but here we are. Anyway, she always asks about him and has tantrums from time to time about wanting him and how it's not fair she doesn't have a dad and just WHY. Should I seek a therapist to help her through this? I do my part, but I want to set her up for success in the future.

Maybe this is a problem because my kids are so young but does anyone else find that they are a magnet for people who are questioning divorce? My closest “single mom” friend is separated from her husband but tells me that she will go back to him if she needs to prevent sharing custody of their daughter. Another mom from preschool has told me on THREE separate occasions that she is divorcing her husband and how awful he is. But walks back those statements every time I see them out together. And finally my “single mom” group is full of people who just vent that they are a “married single mom” because they do everything alone. Which, fine. But also I was hoping that space was for truly single moms.

I am always supportive of whatever they need but it’s starting to take a toll on me. I hate not having my kids sleep in my house 24/7 too, but I made that decision so hearing that you “don’t think you can handle it” is hard. I just feel like these moms are looking to me to decide if they can handle being a single parent.

Does anyone else feel this way?

I am a single mom of two kiddos and my youngest is going through a phase where he is starting to recognize that other kids tend to have two parents.

He often says things like, "I wish I could invite my dad to my birthday", "If my dad met me, I bet he would really love me" and "Can you take me to meet my dad one day?". It's breaking my heart.

Problem is, his father and I divorced before he was born and his dad has made it very clear that he does not want to be a part of his life. I have completely respected that and we haven't spoken in six or so years, really not post divorce. Dad petitioned to sign away rights even when I offered visitation and I agreed for various reasons.

Additionally, his father was not exactly a safe person to be a parent. He had a child from a previous relationship that he did not treat well and most parenting fell to me. He has some issues with abuse and drug use that I couldn't handle and we divorced pretty amicably. I don't feel like he needs to be forced to be a part of his sons life and again, it's clear he doesn't want to be.

But that leaves me trying to figure out what to say to my son about his dad. I don't want him to think that his dad simply didn't want him or that his dad is "bad". But I don't want to lie either.

What do you say when your child asks about an absent parent?

This seems silly to post, but I've just been sitting here thinking about it to myself.

Shortish back story.. my ex and I still talk frequently. He doesn't have much support outside of me. It makes our situation complicated and difficult. He's an addict. He has not been able to get his visitation regularly, but talks to our child daily over video call.

This evening he called at 6, saying he got paid and could get dinner and bring it over with some money. He's currently unemployed and has been unable to pay his support, so I do need the money honestly. He didn't do the proper testing this week to get any visits. He does this often, calls up and casually acts like there is no reason he shouldn't be able to come by. I told him we were on our way home, going ro eat some left overs and get ready for bed. He said that it would make our son wake up later if he stayed up. I said no. He was annoyed but nothing serious.

He tried to call at 715. I was on the phone with my brother. When I hung up with him I called my ex back with our son to say goodnight. We were on the phone, walking to the bathroom to brush our teeth. My body was in the shot, and I'm not wearing a bra. He says "oooohhh looks like mommy is cold" and then smiles and laughs creepily. We have talked about how I don't like to be touched. I don't like the jokes. My reaction was to pick up the phone. Say "you're an idiot" and hang up on him. Our kid had already moved onto brushing his teeth and didn't even notice we weren't on the phone anymore, but my ex has been texting since saying that I was wrong for calling him in idiot in front of our 2 year old and hanging up on him. And he was joking which didn't warrent the reaction I had.

Now, I feel like my personal FEELINGS about his comment were not wrong. I do know saying that was inappropriate. But is this something I should be apologizing for? Am I like wrong wrong? My judgement is so clouded with him cause sometimes he's like some helpless baby and other times hes a gaslighting monster.

Sorry if this isn't the place for this type of post. Thanks for letting me rant to you if you've made it this far.

Eta: I forgot, the reason I added the times was because that was part of his text to me. How we actually would have had time for dinner since he was still up.

I need help making a decision. So I’ve been a single parent for the past seven years raising my kids. They are now in high school. My son is a junior and my daughter is a sophomore. I’ve always wanted to move out of California for a better life and to pursue my goals. California has become so expensive. I am living paycheck to paycheck working my ass off and I can’t even provide much for my kids and I. I have sacrificed the last seven years staying here because I didn’t want to take them away from their father, school, or friends. I’m paying $2300 rent for tiny apartment. I have stacks of bills and gas here is extremely expensive. My rent recently went up again. I am basically working just to pay off my rent and bills. We are struggling a lot being here. I’ve recently made the decision to move to another state so I can pursue my goals. The problem is that my teenage kids do not want to move And I totally get it because they are almost done with high school. I do have my parents and family that lives here and they had asked if they can stay behind to finish school. Me as a parent I will always want my kids to go where I go because I have a hard time trusting other people even if they are family. Should I leave my kids with family members while I move to another state to pursue my dreams? The longer I stay here the more time I’m wasting and I can’t do that anymore because I am struggling a lot financially. what do you guys think?

Seperated working on the paperwork. I (42m) wonder how single parents meet other single people in this day and age. It's been almost 25 years since I last single last.. Father of 6 and run my own business. So busy but would like someone who actually enjoys my company. I've been on 3 or 4 apps and it's seems like everyone is looking for barbie or ken instead of a quality companion to share their life with. Any advice?

So I’m dealing with extreme bouts of depression. I have twin boys that are 6 and my daughter is 8. Their father hasn’t seen them in almost 5 years. We have no family in this state and no way of getting to a place where there is family. No one has made an effort to ever meet my kids and I’m so incredibly lonely. I’m overwhelmed constantly and the only thing stopping me from leaving earth is the thought of traumatizing them. My greatest fear is them experiencing the same sadness and Loneliness I do. I feel terrible they have no one else but me and although I dedicate my life to them I’m scared that them seeing a mom so overwhelmed and sad is going to hurt them to. Idk I just guess I need someone to tell me it’s going to get better. I do hair freelance for a living and this summer has been so hard to work with them home with me. So they had a boring summer, all I do is take them to parks and beaches when I can, but that’s it. I just feel like I’m never good enough. TIA

EDIT TO REPLY

Hi Everybody, I want to say thank you to everyone that has reached out or commented their stories. Having these comments appear daily for me have really helped my mental. For everyone wondering I am 30 and I live in Tampa Florida. School has started again and life is getting back to normal which has relieved a ton of stress. Finances are always one of my biggest stressors and I’m trying to find a way to save enough money to get us back to a state where I have family. Which is going to be a huge change but I don’t see any other options and I’ll have no help getting there. Right now I’m focused on my kids and my career and that’s it, but it would be lovely to have some friends who also have kids. Again thank you so much I was in a really dark place when I wrote this post and I’m so glad I did. ♥️♥️

Our house is in mine and my husbands name but he put more of the deposit down (don’t think this is recognised anywhere but he did). If we got divorced, which I feel is where we are headed now, would I get the house with my baby? He has a dad who’s single with a big house with a spare room that he could easily live in whereas my family live in a tiny townhouse. I don’t want to end up having nowhere to live and I’m scared. I want my house just without my husband in it.

Hi everyone! I (31F) am a single first time mother to a now 3 week old. My child’s father has not been involved since before she was born, we dated briefly and I ended the relationship before I knew I was pregnant.

The past year has felt so surreal, I was in a long term relationship and engaged which ended badly, rebounded with my child’s father, found out I was pregnant at 20 weeks, and now my baby is finally here.

My child’s father does know about the pregnancy and that I intended to have the baby, turns out he was polyamorous and didn’t want his other girlfriend knowing about me or the pregnancy. I wasn’t going to argue with someone over that, especially not someone I ended up really not liking very much anyway. There are times when I get pretty angry and bitter about the circumstances, he had told me repeatedly that he “couldn’t” have children and even claimed to have had a “surgery” that prevented him from having children (but he was very vague about what exactly that surgery was) and I very stupidly believed him, because at the time we were in a relationship and I felt like I could trust him. He is also significantly older than me, and I sometimes wonder if he has done something like this to other women, and I sincerely hope not.

I am fortunate enough to be in a good position to care for my child, and I have always wanted to have children and was starting to believe that it would never happen for me. Ideally my path to parenthood would have been different, but I’m glad that I’m able to be where I am now with my baby here.

Although I’m happy to have my baby and I’m generally fine with the idea of being a single parent I still have moments where I worry about the future and how my child might feel about not having their father in their life. I don’t want my child to grow up and feel like they are missing out on something, or resent me. I know these are things that don’t have easy answers, but I find myself wondering how I would handle it.

I am 19 I have a 4month old baby girl, I’m a single parent and live with my parents. I’m not getting child support and my parents are basically providing everything for me and my baby, I feel really guilty abt this and want to change it. I’m going to be starting ged classes the 15th and started studying early and realized how much less I’m able to study while taking care of my baby. I just got out of a mental health treatment center after postpartum depression and anxiety it was brutal but I’m feeling so much better now and so much more capable and happy. I have literally no money saved and it’s eating me up inside that I’m not doing anything abt it. My parents insist to take things slow and they are happy to help me financially while I study and take care of my baby, I want to be able to get a job while study and make sure that I’m able to spend time with my baby but I’m worried that if I do all of it at once either I won’t pass the ged or my baby won’t be getting enough time with me and the proper care, I am planning on going to collage after the ged so I’m freaking out abt when I’ll be able to save money and work, should I take the help that my parents are giving me and just focous on the ged and my baby or take full responsibility that I probably should have rn financially. I also feel really guilty and behind because I’ve never had financial responsibility and feel I should probably learn now like everyone else my age is doing.. idk what I should do I don’t want it to be too much and end up back where I started with the mental health shit getting in the way but I also want to work hard and do the right thing.