I was speaking to my parents the other night and we were discussing how different our child raising experiences were.  How different my parents’ situation was raising me and my three siblings compared to the situation I’m in with my two.

My parents had very little help from my grandparents despite them living relatively close by.  Yet, since moving back to be nearer my family when my kids were two and newborn, my parents have been very actively involved in the kid’s lives.  We see them a lot, they take them out for the day during holidays if I have to work, they’ve offered to take them for sleepovers many times.  They have my two plus my four year old nephew regularly but if you were to throw in his baby sister how would they feel about that?  I always used to think my grandparents didn’t do much to help my parents which I still think is relatively true but maybe four young kids at once when you’re in your late 60s and early 70s is just too much?  My grandparents weren’t the most robust either and were quite traditional in their views.

My point in writing this article is that my parents remained married, they raised the four of us together day in, day out, full time, as is the norm and the way it should be in an ideal world.  Two loving parents staying together and raising their children together.  How different my situation is.  

We were discussing the fact that my partner and I have a lot of free time.  My partner has a clean 50/50 split with his ex wife and my split, to be exact, is 57/42 in my favour.  We have every other weekend and every Thursday to ourselves.  Every other weekend we have Thursday – Monday alone.  During the school holidays we both work to a week on/week off set up meaning during the calendar year we have six full weeks to ourselves.  My partner has a lot of holiday with his job and I work for myself as a freelance writer.  We have the time, if not the finances (!) to have regular holidays.   We actually rarely go on holiday together but the point is that we could.  We are passionate about walking/hiking so we do a lot of that together.   Our relationship exists almost equally both with and without our children.

But this is the situation we are in.  We both married the wrong people.  Those marriages failed with catastrophic consequences, emotionally, financially and our children will feel the impact for the rest of their lives.  But the alternative of staying with our ex partners would have been worse, certainly in my case.  Maybe not financially but emotionally and I truly believe the impact on my children would have been far worse. 

I am now in a happy, loving relationship with a man I adore and who adores me.  My children, 57% of the time at least, are cocooned in that love as is my partner’s son 50% of the time.  They can see what love should be.  They can now build their own healthy ideas of love and happiness.  Surely this is better than “staying together for the kids” and surrounding them with misery and despair.  Forcing them to set their own bar for what a marriage should be so low.  

But this is just my opinion and am I simply making excuses for the decisions I made of which my children are now the only victims?

My mum said she couldn’t wrap her head around my situation being a part time parent.   

So there is that statement.  Part-time parent.

I had always considered myself as being a part time step-mum.  Having three kids part time but at no point had I considered myself a part time parent to my own children.  My stepson has a loving mother and father.  I am not there to fill either of those roles and nor would I ever try to.   The decisions about his life, whilst I would have an opinion and my partner and I discuss it together, as we do with all three, ultimately lie with his parents, as does the day to day care around his schooling/doctors etc.

When my stepson is not with us, he is with his mother and there my responsibility as caregiver ends.  When my own children are not with me and are with their father, this is in no way, shape or form the end of my responsibility for them.  I think about them constantly, their futures, whether they need anything for school, sorting uniforms, clothes, how much I miss them and love them, what they’re up to with their dad.  

I hear people tell me we’re so lucky.  We have all this time alone to spend together.  But then these are the same people who struggle to spend even one night away from their kids.  So I ask, if you really thought about it, who is lucky?  How would you really feel if you lost your two year old for nearly 50% of your life?  But like anything, it’s a mindset you have to adapt to.  And whilst I do enjoy my time with my partner, time for us to stay connected, rest, focus on work, our hobbies, each other, clean and tidy the house, this should never have been at the expense of time with our children.  It’s like living with a hole in your heart 50% of the time.  You’re on the outside looking in to the other half of your child’s life, of which you only ever get glimpses.

My dad always says blink and you’ll miss it.  Before you know it they’ll be married with their own kids.  That when you’re a grandparent you have the time to look back at your grown children and wonder where it went.  That when you’re in the thick of it, it’s hard to step back and enjoy it and you don’t appreciate it until it’s too late.  So maybe this time my partner and I have to ourselves does give us time to step back and reflect so that we can be 100% in the moment with our kids when we have them.    The time we have with our kids when they’re young is precious and when that time is reduced for whatever reason then it makes it even more precious.  

My children may only be with me for 57% of the time but I am their mum 100% of the time.  I think about them 100% of the time.   I love them 100% of the time and nothing will ever change that.