I've ranted before about how it bugs me when people take words with specific meanings and use them to dramatize their feelings about things for which there are already perfectly good words in existence. I realize there are horrible things in the world that I could be getting upset about instead, and that these are annoyances rather than rages, but boy-oh. Pets are not children. Friends are not family. And the ones that's been bugging me lately is the misuse of "single parent".
If you are not getting any partner-type support, financial or otherwise, from another adult, then you are a single parent. That is exactly what those two words mean - you are unpartnered as a person and specifically as a parent. But here's the thing: If you only get every other week to yourself while your former partner has the kids, or you're fighting about pick up times, or you think they should be giving you more money, or they work out of town, or whatever, you ARE NOT a single parent. It cheapens the extraordinary difficulties that actual single parents have to deal with, and it also makes your own difficulties seem like you have to exaggerate them when in fact they're often horrible enough on their own. I'm glad every day that I don't have to worry about custody and child support, believe me. Look, we all make choices -- and sometimes we don't even have a choice. But when you choose to call a divorced or separated parent a single parent, I lose some respect for you. Wouldn't you rather call yourself what you actually are, or skip the labels altogether, and pull up a bottle of wine and talk about it?