Divide and conquer.
Sometimes four hands are not enough to care for, love, and feed two children. Two hands are usually enough to hold them down and get them through the day.
If one parent is ill, out of town, or is unable to be there for their children, it is a great loss.
This week, I was alone parenting for 72 hours.
I still had helping hands. I was able to ferry the other child while my grandparents took one of the kids to sport. Aunty handled school pick up. I was able to start late for drop-off because my boss was flexible.
But they can’t be available the instant I need a breath, or for the sixth attempt to return Master Three to his own bed.
It’s the capacity to share that 24-7 load that couples so often take for granted.
Both my ironing and washing baskets are full. The sofa has been over-run by a mountain of odd socks that has become my Everest, all laid out in a desperate attempt to find their match — different sizes, shapes, colours.
Like reality TV stars searching for love, every sock ends each week single.
A growing number of Australian parents are also doing so.
According to the most recent census, 14.7 percent of Australian families have one parent.
I’m left wondering, who offers them respite?
It’s why single parents went backwards further than most during the pandemic.
There are now more women working than ever before. But they’re first to cut back hours when parenting takes over, by choice or necessity.
The Federal Government’s equality taskforce is urging the Prime Minister to follow through on his words after previously declaring the decision to cut support payments to single mothers a mistake and one that shouldn’t happen in a rich country.
It’s under consideration, so goes the official response. This would be about a third the rate that is being paid for eight nuclear powered submarines.
I’ve always been a believer in the bean counter’s philosophy that work is the best form of welfare.
It can be challenging to find work in an economy with record-low unemployment.
Although shifting parents to Newstart at the age of eight may have saved $5 billion over 13 years, it was a huge cost to their mental health.
It’s worth about $200 a fortnight to single mums, 60 per cent of whom are escaping domestic violence and half are totally dependent on handouts to give them a hand up.
$200 to ensure school lunch boxes are full and maybe have enough leftover for a babysitter for a night off once a month — to raise the next generation of potential Prime Ministers.
