For real?

Let me start off by giving you a little background on something that makes me wonder if people are serious in their thoughts on certain matters. One of my pet peeves is when mothers that are happily married say something like "oh my husband works such long hours that it is like I am a single parent." HELLOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! Ok now you have to realize I am not trying to discount the very valid frustrations of these women. Of course it is hard to have the man you love gone so much and not have as much help with the children that you wish you could have but it is not in any way shape or form the same as being a sole single parent. There are a few glaring differences. For one, they have the emotional support knowing there is someone there loving, caring for, and supporting them even if not with them all the time in person. They can call etc. They have the financial backing of that man which is pretty huge. If he is working late hours it is probably because he is working to provide necessities and beyond for the family that the wife has the luxury of staying home with kids instead of working their butt off and seeing their kids less to still hardly make ends meet. They also have the knowledge and support with the children that they are not the sole caretaker, provider, attention giver etc of your children and that there is someone else invested in every decision when it comes to them and to discuss it with. I could go on and on about this but you get the idea. Sorry for the heated talk. So today I was talking with someone and they made the comment that "dating with a child would be the same as being married with children." This made it all the more apparent to me how scewed people that are not single parents and especially that don't have full custudoy just don't get it. When you are married the children are both of yours and you both provide and care about them and want to spend time together. You spend time with the whole family together and do things that benefit the family unit. It still can be challenging to find alone time with your spouse but it is a lot easier when you are under the same roof. In dating you are trying to get to know someone and the roles of the people involved with a child are a bit scewed. When do you introduce the person and as what? When do you show small bits of affection in front of your child. You have to plan time to be alone with the person and get to know them and it is hard to do that on a decently often basis when you always have a kid at home and can't always have a new person join you when it is not their kid. Ok I can feel myself not thinking clearly about this anymore so I am going to leave this post for now. Obviously I have strong opinions on this topic. Hah but you all get the jist. Maybe I feel the need to educate people on this topic cause I find a lot of people just don't get it in the least. Even single parents with shared custody don't fully get it. I am trying to change the world one at a time :) By the way I am not bashing single parenthood in any way or form. There are a lot of perks that I can speak of some other time.