5 Struggles of People Who Raise Their Child Alone

Being a parent is one of the hardest jobs that you can ever take on. Being a single parent is an even harder job. When a parent is raising their children in a home with another parent present, they are a team. Sometimes it takes teamwork to raise a child. If you don’t have your child’s other parent in the home helping you raise your children, it can result in a whole set of struggles that people in a two parent home don’t need to deal with.

One Income Rather Than Two
When you are raising your children alone, you don’t have the benefit of two incomes coming into the home to help raise the family. It is just yours. You might get child support from the absent parent, however, it wouldn’t be as much money as if you had another parent in the home. Most single parents cannot make ends meet on their one income, therefore, they need to get a second job. If you need a second job, it can take you away from your home and your family.

Financial Responsibilities
When you are raising a child alone, all of the financial responsibilities fall on you. This means that every year, you alone are responsible for paying for school clothes and school supplies. You are also solely responsible for paying for doctor’s visits, medication, and anything else that your child is going to need. When you have another parent in the home with you, these things aren’t such a big deal since you have someone there to help you.

You Have To Be Both Parents
Being a mother or a father is a hard job. When you are raising your children alone, you have to be both parents at once. This can make the job twice as hard. When you have another parent in the home with you, you can stick to your one role. If you are the mother, you can focus on nurturing your children and caring for them when they are sick. If you are the father in a two-parent home, you can focus on teaching your boys to be men and protecting your daughters. These roles may seem dated, however, this is how many two family homes still work. If you have to be both parents, it doesn’t give you the chance to focus on the role that you always believed that you would have as a parent.

Handling Parental Duties
Being a parent is hard-work. Every night, your children will need help with their homework. If you are tired after a long day at work, you will need to deal with it and help the kids. If your kids are in after-school sports, it would be your responsibility to drive them to their games and practices and to be there to cheer them on. If you had another parent in the home, you could take a day off once in a while. This is not possible when you are raising your children alone.

Dealing With Disappointed Children
As a parent, you may have to disappoint your child from time to time. You may not have the money to buy them the video game system that they want or you might have to be the one to say no when they want to go to an unsupervised party. When there is another parent in the home, you have a teammate to take some of the blame along with you. When you are alone, it is all on you.

*This is a collaborative post*