Men Are Wonderful Entry 5: Custodial and Co-Parents

Men are not always the reason for the divorce. They’re not always the abusers, cheaters, and screamers. Sometimes, we— the women — can be a bit of a problem, can’t we? 😂 We’re not above doing the abominable things: sleeping with men’s best friends (or best men), having affairs soon after childbirth, emptying joint bank accounts to finance habits or escorts, having lurid affairs out in the open, publicly shaming our mates when they are at their lowest, embarrassing the family on social media, demanding polyamory to “spice things up” after twenty years, secretly setting up OnlyFans or Ashley Madison profiles…

I mean, sugar and spice can be bitter and poisonous at times, yes?

Women can be horrible for a season, just like men can be, and guess what? It’s really hard on children when their matriarch is on a socioemotional tangent for five to ten years (or more). Not all of these children are moving in with grandmas, aunties, or cousins until Mom comes back. Quite a few of them are being raised by Dad.

Yeah. I mean Dad, the single parent, or Dad, the sacrificing co-parent.

Dad, the Single Parent

I hope it’s okay for me to say that guys are no more prepared for single parenthood than women are. Single parenthood sucks. At the time of life when you most need someone to commiserate with — particularly because this little person is a combination of both parents’ best and worst qualities — one of you (in this case, Mom) throws up the deuces and leaves. For a man who has typically been the breadwinner, this leads to a lot of questions.

• How am I going to explain this to our families and friends?
• Should I go after her? I mean, is it safe?
• What am I going to do about childcare?
• How am I going to work to pay the bills and get meal times, bathtime, bedtime, and stories done every day?
• Do I get a support system? If so, who should be in it?
• How do I manage health needs? I mean, I can only take so many days off…
• What am I going to do about all this loneliness? Should I do something?

It’s the exact same nightmare that single moms experience in everyday life except the whole world pretends that single dads are non-existent or wholly incompetent. So, where single moms get the sympathies of the legal system and cultural structures, single dads are the unicorns in a fictional book about a Candyland that nobody is reading.

Single dads are still doing everything: fixing bottles, managing funky sleep schedules, going to school functions, meeting with doctors, setting up playdates, running around outside when they’d rather be napping, cleaning up vomit, washing and folding so much laundry, calming screaming toddlers, wearing baby carriers, spilling food and drink all over the place trying to get dinner out and the bath ran, everything! They’re still doing everything!

And some Dads are doing everything while checking in with Mom at the rehab center, or while trying to coax Mom out of the crack house and into a rehab program, or while begging Mom to leave her lover and come home, or while begging Grandma to convince Mom to think about her family, and while hiding the whole catastrophe from the kids just in case Mom decides to come back.

Men, we the single moms — and I am one — sympathize with you, and our hearts break for you. That you can manage these pieces and not have a total meltdown means that you are wonderful.

Dad, the Sacrificing Co-Parent

Finalizing a divorce is hard enough when you know — for a fact — that you were not the problem and a divorce was not what you wanted. But, surprise! On the other side of a tumultuous crawl into singleness, you find a co-parenting arrangement that pretends that schedules can somehow turn you two newly-separates (Is that a word?) into a collaborative parenting team. And guess what, when Mom is on a wild drinking spree, exploring her sexuality, or taking domestic flights with her new man every other weekend, it doesn’t work. Someone has to put the kids first!

So here you go, the sacrificing co-parent, right? You’re picking up the kids from school when Mom’s nowhere to be found and making a gentle excuse for her, maybe even lying to soothe the children. (Moms do that too.) You’re canceling your plans when the sleepover schedule is obliterated — unnecessarily — for the third time this month. Where’s she going instead? Who knows? You’re dropping off food and necessities at the house in addition to the government-mandated child support you already pay because, where’s that money going?

And how did you get yourself into this mess? And how could you not have seen that the woman you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with was going to leave you high and dry in life and parenting, raising these kids, and telling tall tales to keep the children’s psyches together?

She’s like getting remarried, changing careers, starting a new diet, and moving on in life… or she’s out partying with the young crowd, sowing her wild oats, and developing a new persona… or she’s just out there, and you’re here. You’re the responsible one.

We — the mommy versions of the sacrificing co-parenting arrangement — see the commitment in you, and we love that. I mean, there are a few of us that’ll pick you up if you can find enough time and childcare to put yourself out there. We love men who can run the home and the children when necessary, so don’t get too far down in despair.

Dads Are Sometimes the Ones Holding the Home Together

It is easy to believe that only women find themselves in the single custodial or solo responsible co-parenting predicaments, but it’s just not true. On behalf of women everywhere who may have dropped the ball a bit for a few months — or a few years — while trying to find themselves, I’d like to say, “Thank you.” I realize of course that Mom may never say “Thank you” herself, but let’s not let that matter.

What matters is that you’re here, and you’re holding things together, and you are loving your children, and that is wonderful.

We — the women — love you for that. Once you get things organized and you can breathe again, you get back out here and holler at one of us that’ll stay. Respect to what has gone, but you’ve got to live too.

You too are worthy of love and a new start.

Keep reading the Men Are Wonderful series with Entry 6: When They Commit.