New at this....


findingmyway
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Okay, so.... I am wondering how single parents do it, how they survive and take care of their children. Hopefully I can get some advice since that is something that I am going to experience in the next 6 months or so. I have 3 step children, and I will soon have temporary custody of them while my wife will be away for 6 months or so. This all happened quick, and I am not prepared for this. My wife and I were separated for a while, and I moved out closer to my work. We were on the brink of divorce before this incident happened.

I am trying to find a (safe) place for me and my children to move into, closer to my work, find a babysitter, find a way to take care of kids and pay all the bills, and I am a little stressed about this. This will be quite an experience and it leads me to wonder how people do it. My family lives in a different state, and cant really help, not too much friend support (yet), my job is not good enough, summer break is almost here and kids will be home all the time and stressing over finding a safe, affordable place to move into, and someone trustworthy to watch them.

Can anyone give any suggestions ? 6 months is not a long time, but I guess I am just stressing on how to do this since this is my first time. My wife managed to raise the children, and she says if she can do it, I can too. She did receive support though, from the state and from the kids father, plus some side work she did. Again I am new to this, and seeing I dont have a lot of legal rights when it comes to the kids, I have no idea how this is going to work and I am left with a lot of uncertainties. I am learning a lot, and any advice will be appreciated.

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I will tell you how I do it, and hopefully that will give you some ideas of what to expect and do:

My first step was getting a job so that I could afford to pay for everything that needed paying for. Since you already have a job, you've got that step covered. Step two was to secure child care for while I was at work and could not watch my son. If your children are school age this is already partially covered for you, but if your hours go outside school hours you will need to get someone who can watch them during that time. I opted for a daycare as this better met my personal needs, but I also have a "backup" babysitter for the days he may be sick or days the daycare may be closed and I still have to work.

I was able to get assistance in covering the cost of daycare through my workforce center. You may be able to as well. I don't know. It depends on what kind of salary you are making, but you can always look them up and ask for a Child Care Services application. Even if you don't qualify for their help, the application gives you information about their website. The website has tools that can help you look up a good daycare center (or in home service).

After securing work and childcare, I started looking for an affordable and safe place to live. That part was a lot of work, and I looked at a lot of rental properties before finally picking one. Do a lot of online searches, and drive around looking for rental signs in areas you are okay with (not everyone posts their listings online). When looking online, do google/bing searches AND look up the websites for particular realties, as not every realty has listings that come up in general searches.

After that, its just making sure the bills stay paid, food stays on the table, and making it through every day. I get up early, get myself and my son ready for the day, drop him off at daycare, go to work, take care of any errands I can on the way home before or after picking him up from daycare (depends), then go home, make dinner, spend time with my son, give him his bath, get ready for bed, and do it all again the next day. Saturdays are typically my laundry/cleaning days as I don't have much time to get it done any other day, but sometimes we go on an outing on Saturdays- then I try to fit my cleaning and laundry in sometime during the week.

Other things fit in as needed. I don't know if you will need to be concerned about providing health insurance... that may already be covered by your wife. But you might want to look into it if you aren't sure. There's doctors appointments, dentist appointments, church activities... Just keep a good schedule and have a to do list for every day so you don't forget what needs to be done.

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Work as tho everything depends on you, pray as if everything depends on the Lord.

Also, the church can help with food, if need be. The WIC off ice can help if you have any children under 5. The state can help with food stamps if need be.

I know we want to be completely self sufficient, but wen push comes to shove, some help is ok.

It's very hard but if I can do it, so can you! I did it a couple times and survived. Hang in there!

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Get all the help you can qualify for, you have been working for a while and have already paid for it out of your check all this time.

However, since you don't currently have custody you might not be able to get any assistance yet from the state. Like Judo mentioned, they do have lists of daycares with phone numbers, etc.

I would suggest networking with your church and coworkers. I'm sure you have coworkers with kids, ask them if they know any good daycares. Older kids can stay home during the summer if you live in a fairly safe neighborhood.

Also let your home teacher know of your situation, let him know that you could use some help until their mother is back.

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