What Happens When You Have One Sick Single Parent, One Healthy Kid?

What happens when your kid is sick but both parents work?

That's the question the author of this article, Two Working Parents, One Sick Kid, addresses. When faced with his kid sick for the first time, the author (the dad) realizes sexist cultural norms still exist today and that, by default, in situations like these, mom stays home vs. dad.

He writes:

I, on the other hand, felt the full weight of parenthood finally pressing down on me. The buck stops with me, I thought, but I am not the buckstopper... Now, it was on me, and he was sick, and he was sad. And I had work. Lots of it. Something had to give. It was exceedingly hard to say, "Hey, I need to take some time off to care for my sick son." ... And I realized I was holding onto some guilt, too. Like I had abandoned my work, which I care deeply about, for a sick kid.

It's comments and, frankly, complaints like these that make it difficult to empathize.

Abandon his dear work to care for a sick kid? A sick kid? Said sick kid isn't just any kid but happens to be his own. What do working people who love their work really think when they have kids? That they won't have to make sacrifices for the life they brought into the world?

Moreover, it's all relative. While the author acknowledges working-parent cultural norms are sexist and the privilege is in his favor, he fails to acknowledge the full extent of his privilege. That, while he might have to take a few days off, his family still benefits from a) a higher chance that at least one present parent is healthy enough to care for their child and, b) a dual income to support his family.

This is not some raging single-mom rant. But to put things into perspective, what happens when you have one sick parent, one absentee one, and one healthy kid?

“I left an abusive relationship and I have nowhere to go. I have Hepatitis C, so no one is willing to take me in. I...

Posted by Humans of New York on Thursday, August 13, 2015

The author of the above article is experiencing a completely normal situation in probably the best of circumstances. While everyone is entitled to complain, what is he really complaining about?

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Written by piecesofm.

Baby's First Year TAG Video!

While being a first-time parent can be fun, exciting, and full of joy, it can also sometimes be a little overwhelming, considering all the things you have to learn and choices you have to make.

As a first-time parent, I rely on my skills to do research, as well as experienced family members, friends with little ones, and any other parent who's open to sharing with me their experiences. The latter, in particular, is a favorite. What are real parents actually doing these days with their kids? What works? What doesn't? What's good? Is this normal? So on and so forth. Since there's no one way to parent, it's our jobs as parents to try to research the options and find what works best for our children and it's our goal to bring out the best in them and to raise happy, healthy (and juicy :>) citizens :>

Hillary was right— it takes a village. So with my love of asking questions and love of hearing what other parents have to say, I created this TAG (video), which consists of 25 questions related to you as the parent as well as baby's latest developments. The TAG's called Baby's First Year but many of the questions apply to older tots as well, so please don't feel excluded!

Please do and share this tag! we'd love to hear your responses and I'm sure there are other parents out there who would too!

Enjoy and thanks for watching!

Part 1:


Part 2:


Happy Healthy Baby Juicy!

TAG! You're it!

The ART of Today's Evolving Families

What does Proposition 8 and Jen Aniston's new flick have in common [other than the fact that the former will be ineffective and the latter will be released both by the end of this week]?

Parenthood.

It used to be that assisted reproductive technology [ART], as it is so fancily called, was used by 'traditional', married [opposite-sex] couples experiencing problems with conceiving, including fertility medication and in vitro fertilization. Today, well, we no longer live in a traditional world. As romantic relationships change in our society, so does the meaning of family.

A notorious example is divorce.

Remember when divorce was uncommon? It actually wasn't so long, ago. Rates soared in the early 60s, turning what was [and still is] believed by some to be the most 'ideal' parenting situation— one with a mom & dad — into single-parent, missing-parent and step-parent households. Today, it is estimated that about 50% of marriages end in divorce.


Legalization of same-sex marriage and partial effects of women’s lib are two additional, emerging examples that are changing relationships in our society today.

As same-sex marriages begin to integrate into our society as a norm, it’s likely more families are going to arise out of them.


As for women’s lib, namely in the arena of career, the issue used to be figuring out how a working mom can juggle both work and family life. But now, as time progresses and women become even more focused and successful in their careers, the issue is not just how to deal with both lives but how to attain them. That is, some women may be so focused on career that they forget about or don’t invest enough of their energies into relationships, while others may put forth the effort but without any luck of finding ‘the one’. Whatever the case, these women are single, with clocks ticking, and with enough of a nest egg to support nesting an egg of their own.


In both these cases, if adoption is not the method of choice, ART is. And like divorce, these non-traditional families don’t come without complication or at least issues of their own. In divorce, issues include custody, visitation rights, and child support. In these new familial shifts, issues extend even further into legality, such as whose name goes on birth certificates [carrier, donor, partner..?], to possibly morality and ethics, such as addressing whether using anonymous sperm strips away children’s ‘inherent right’[?] of knowing where/who they [totally] come from.

For a more extensive discussion and an interesting article: Read this.

[Gamete] donation is a current hot & heated topic of the moment, as it is brought into the limelight along with Aniston's new flick, The Switch, her public comments about it, and the use of ART.

Along her press junket, Aniston has been [controversially, or juicily] quoted as saying..

'Women are realising it more and more knowing that they don't have to settle with a man just to have that child.. Times have changed and that is also what is amazing is that we do have so many options these days, as opposed to our parents' days when you can't have children because you have waited too long..

'The point of the movie is what is it that defines family? It isn't necessarily the traditional mother, father, two children and a dog named Spot. Love is love and family is what is around you and who is in your immediate sphere. That is what I love about this movie. It is saying it is not the traditional sort of stereotype of what we have been taught as a society of what family is.'

Not one to shy away from controversy, Bill O'Reilly responded:

'She's throwing a message out to 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds that hey, you don't need a guy, you don't need a dad.. That's destructive to our society.. [and] diminishing the role of the dad.. Dads bring a psychology to children that is, in this society, I believe, under-emphasized. I think men get hosed all day long in the parental arena.'

Feeding the feud, Aniston responded:

'And, of course, many women dream of finding Prince Charming (with fatherly instincts), but for those who've not yet found their Bill O'Reilly, I'm just glad science has provided a few other options.'

While it might be the end of the discussion for these two [for now], it’s just the beginning for the rest of us.

To conclude, some food for thought: Considering divorce situations aren't deemed the most ‘optimal’, is that then to say even heterosexual couples shouldn't have children because of the such high risk of potential unideal circumstances [a dissolution of the mom and dad duo]?

And for dessert, some la la’s..




Happy Healthy Juicy Families without borders but Full of Love!

A Loving Home is Better Than None

Within this week alone, I've unintenially encountered, on three separate occasions, stories of alternative means of parenting. I wonder: Is this the next or latest trend?

First, there was the article in the August issue of Marie Claire, which admittedly has some of the best articles on love and relationships. The [true] story is about a single, divorced woman who has and a child with her two gay best friends. Well, only one of them donates the sperm, but, together, they are all raising the 'baster' child.

Then, I caught glimpse of this new tv show, called '{Strange} Sex', on none other than the network that brings you the Duggers, Gosselins, and 'I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant', good ole' TLC. The episode features this self-proclaimed high-self-esteemed woman and two guys in a polyamorous relationship, where she has a kid with one of them, but they raise the kid together, as they all live together. The episode ends with the three parents meeting a new potential love interest, who might join the group, as 'poly' isn't limited to just three [plus baby].

Then, as a supporter of Team BritBrit, I cracked open the August issue of Cosmopolitan, a read I don't recommend if you want to boost or even maintain your faith in men. The article discusses how more and more women are not depending on being in a relationship to attend to their biological clocks ticking away; instead, they're purposefully inducing themselves into single parenthood.

[T]he idea of “family” has changed drastically over recent years, and people have a more flexible view–whether it’s kids being raised by unmarried couples, gay couples, or single parents. “A large number of us have also witnessed our parents go through a nasty divorce or had absentee fathers, so that intact nuclear family just isn’t the model anymore,” says Mattes [the director of Single Mothers By Choice]. The result: single motherhood is a growing trend.

The whole thing is pretty fascinating. The first two stories remind me of Full House [funny but unconventional and, at least on screen, it worked, if the sappiness wasn't debilitatingly nauseating], the last makes me come up with Jay-Z. The idea of an 'intact' [whatever that means] nuclear family being the ideal is a rigid one. Love is love and is unbounded and fruitful, whether it be from 1, 2, 3,...


Happy Healthy Juicy Parents with Love!