Dad Working 60-Hour Weeks Furious That His Wife Calls Herself A 'Single Mom' Because He's 'Never Around'
There's no doubt that the stay-at-home-mom workload is enormous, but… this is a bit much.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A | Shutterstock The load of motherhood is enormous, and it seems to be getting larger every year. And when you don't have a partner available to help you during the day, it can become downright untenable.
But a so-called "deadbeat dad," or a dad who's selfish and lazy, is one thing. A dad who's not around because he's working all the time to stay afloat is quite another. A conflict that erupted between one such father and his wife has sparked quite a debate online.
The dad is furious that his wife calls herself a 'single mom.'
In his since-deleted post, the dad wrote a dilemma likely familiar to many parents out there. He and his wife have a three-year-old son, and the cost of supporting him has put them in a seemingly untenable position.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A | Shutterstock
"Lately, she's been venting online and to friends, saying she feels like a single mom because I'm 'never around,'" he wrote. "I get that she's overwhelmed, I am too, but l'm working my [tail] off to keep us afloat."
She refers to herself as a 'solo parent' because he works 60-hour weeks.
The breaking point came when he heard her refer to herself as a "solo parent" on a call with her mom. "After she hung up, I told her that I didn't appreciate that. I'm not partying, I'm not neglecting our family, I'm working," he recalled.
His wife countered that he was being overly defensive and not appreciating how she "feels like a single mom" because she runs their household alone. Which is very likely the reality: Studies have shown that even in egalitarian marriages with two working partners, women do on average a third more childcare and twice the housework as men.
But her take was nonetheless as controversial online as it was with her husband. "I don't want to invalidate her," the dad wrote, "but I also feel like she's ignoring everything I do."
Being a stay-at-home mom and a single mom are two entirely different things.
I am the last one to jump to my fellow men's defense when it comes to issues like the division of household labor, because I've seen enough in my friends' homes to know that it is a wildly unequal burden. But as a kid raised by a single mom? What this guy's wife is doing feels like something along the lines of stolen valor.
There's no doubt that her load is likely untenable — that's not in question. But single moms deal with a completely different set of problems, like having to hold down a full-time job while also raising a child, often completely alone.
Single parents also earn much less on average in that employment. A 2024 study found that 40% of U.S. single parents earn $17 or less, which is basically a poverty wage in today's economy, especially when you need to pay for childcare because you're a single parent.
Arsenii Palivoda | Shutterstock
As someone who lived it from the kid's point of view, I can tell you how this sometimes shakes out. It's having no choice but to leave your kid home alone to babysit himself at far, far too young an age. It's having a ceiling cave in and having to just live with it until it's fixed, because there's no money to go to a hotel.
It's having to tell your kid "no" every time they ask for basically anything, and it is, more often than you would ever imagine, bursting into tears because of the pressure of having to do absolutely everything — provide, parent, shuttle, comfort, clean — completely by yourself. All because your ex-husband basically couldn't be bothered.
That is not remotely the same situation, and her husband, who is breaking his back to make sure none of this happens to his family, has every right to be hurt by it. That doesn't negate the fact that his wife is overwhelmed too, however, and they need to try to come together to walk each other through it. Nobody should have to parent this way, but until the burden lightens, the only way through it is together.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
