I got the call on Thanksgiving weekend in October 2011. My daughter and I were staying with a longtime friend of mine who lives outside of Toronto. All three of us had just returned to my friend’s home from a four-day trip to New York.
My daughter’s father called me with a question.
“When did you start your period?” he asked.
“I was a late bloomer at 15,” I replied.
(See, how much you’ll all get to know about me via this blog?")
I didn’t think much else about that call and went back to enjoying dinner with my daughter, friend, and her father; he and I also shared a couple of shots of brandy.
It was the following week, during a visit to my niece’s house, when I learned the story behind that phone call.
My niece, who was then 10 at the time, started her first period. Her father is a single dad of two daughters, who my daughter and I have long affectionately called “the girls.”
Both my niece’s father and my ex are former university football players who were spending what they thought was a quiet Sunday watching NFL football.
But that relaxing day was interrupted when my niece came out of the washroom crying, not knowing what to do.
And neither did her father and my ex. Menstruation may start with the word “men” but not all of them know how to handle talking about the topic, let alone when it actually happens.
My niece’s father recalled the chaos of the day.
“You’re a f%*king firefighter!” he yelled to my ex when they scrambled to figure out how to handle this milestone they clearly weren’t expecting to take on.
“I don’t think they teach menstruation at fire school,” I said.
I told my niece if she had any questions, to just let me know.
Why am I telling you this story? Well, when you’re a single parent or a co-parent, you often find yourself handling parenting situations you never thought would be your responsibility. There is no division of labour like there is in a two-parent home. (Yes, I know there often is no appropriate division of labour when there are two parents in a home).
Parents often share advice to their children based on their own experiences as a child. Now, of course, we have Google, which helps, but kids still have experiences and questions that need a parent’s voice and care.
My ex and his brother handled my niece’s first period as well as they could; it helped when my own daughter started her period, too. Her father wasn’t scared to ask if she needed any “supplies.” He’d even buy them.
I’ve had to do parenting jobs that I don’t always know how to handle. I am the resident spider remover, for example. And, on a couple of occasions, a mice catcher, although my daughter really did a lot with that incident.
I also hire reinforcements. I have an excellent mechanic and an accountant. I can change a bulb in a headlight, but otherwise if I hear a noise in my car, I look underneath it as if I know what I’m doing (I don’t). My mechanic now takes care of my daughter’s car.
I do need a handyman for those fixes around the house, but YouTube also might help.
I really don’t enjoy cooking, however, and need to teach my kid some recipes. We just talked about making chowder. I will have to suck it up. The cooking part and the chowder itself.
Single parenting isn’t for the faint of heart. There will always be fires to put out, but just like my ex and his brother did, if you’re on the scene, even if you’re the only one, it only really matters to your children that you’re there to try and help.
Suzanne
PS: Thank you to everyone who signed up! I’m grateful to have readers and people sharing my work.
And many thanks to my Halifax Examiner colleague, Philip Moscovitch, who wrote about this newsletter in his Morning File on Monday. He’s also been sending me news stories about single life that will be good fodder for this blog. Stay tuned for more this weekend!