The unsingle single parent

I don't think anybody would fall off their chair in surprise on hearing that parenting as a single mother can be a challenge. When you're used to sharing at least the same roof as the children's father, chaos ensues when they leave. After a while, however, you cobble together your own version of ‘normal’ family life.

 

Eight years later, I have been a single parent for almost as long as I was a cohabiting one, and life is still chaotic – but that has little to do with living in a one-parent household. The four of us have become quite a tight little unit, so it was with some hesitation I decided to allow a man to enter the mix. Indeed, I had always maintained that, should my single status change through some miracle, I would wait at least six months before introducing the brave man to my brood.

 

That was before I met this man, however.

 

All my hard-and-fast rules about shielding my babies from my relationship went out the window. Within a month, all five of us were sprawled on the couch watching movies, with the dog in a state of delirious confusion over which one of us he should shower his drooling attention on next.

 

My boyfriend is now part of my family's life, but I am careful that the relationship will never make my children feel left out or less important. Of course there are times when I take a step back and ask myself how they might feel about the situation. Like the other day, when the five of us were in my boyfriend's car and he took my hand and held it on the gear stick. It felt like the most natural thing in the world, but when you have two teenagers and a pre-teen in the seat behind you, you become acutely aware of the sick-making potential of middle-aged romance.

 

I need not have worried. I was driving the four of them home from school, my hand on the gear stick and my mind on the dinner possibilities of an eerily empty fridge. Suddenly I felt a hand cover mine. I shot a look at the Leaving Cert, who was struggling to keep a straight face. There was an explosion of giggles and fake retching sounds in the back seat. I breathed a sigh of relief: I should have given them more credit.

 

Aoife O'Carroll is a separated mum living in Co Kerry with her two boys aged 17 and 14, and a girl aged 10.