As a mother, you know you’re no longer number one. But when it comes to the welfare of your children and the wellbeing of yourself, how much neglect should you take?

Imagine the scenario: A separated couple with two kids who live with their mum. Their dad refuses to commit to any regular contact and sees them occasionally, sporadically. This is a) hard for the children as they have no routine, never know when they will next see dad and also when they see him its not long enough to satisfy their needs; b) hard for the mother as she is constantly unsupported, exhausted and doesn’t know when she will next get a break.

NB: if she denied him regular access he could take her to court to get it, if he won’t arrange regular access there is nothing she can do about it.

I have a theory. Developed through speaking to other single parents I know. The less a child sees the absent parent, the more they deify them. Their desire, their craving for that parent is so strong, maybe their memories of time spent with the absent parent even become pictures of perfection. The child strives to attain the love of this brilliant, elusive, novelty parent, maybe using their own fantasy to flesh out the image they have of them as there is not enough real-life experience to go on.

And the parent who hardly sees their children often makes a huge effort when they do. Puts themselves out to a degree impossible to maintain for more than an hour or two a week. They can also spoil the children rotten without being around to cop for the consequences. Thus making them seem much more fun, generous etc than the everyday, exhausted parent who is trying to instill values, discipline and healthy eating.

The absent parent becomes like a grandparent or a favourite aunt or uncle, constantly treating the child and letting them call the shots, ok then we’ll go for fast food and a plastic toy when it’s dinner time, yeah, let’s get a big bag of sweets and watch tv all afternoon, or lets go and spend a load of money on action figures and dvds, and no, you don’t have to brush your teeth or do your inhaler. Unless the child is allowed a complete lack of responsibility, boundaries and limitless sweets, the main-carer parent can only seem boring and a kill-joy in comparison.

The result of being overworked, exhausted and not having any time for yourself, missing adult conversation, peace and quiet, opportunity to exercise, access to culture or whatever interests you had pre-parenthood is usually misery. However much you love your children, to be virtually solely responsible for them is unnatural and for most people, overwhelming. Rather than bloody hard work with heart-warming rewards, parenting becomes a chore, home becomes a prison and the noises of your children’s voices a tough-to-bear cacophony. You respond by shouting, snapping, are so tired you are incapable of thinking clearly enough to pick your battles or come up with strategies to avoid troublesome behaviour, you overreact and generally make things worse. The children pick up on your stress, you feel like a failure and the absent parent looks even more fantastic than ever.

In the past when I have had (rare and brief) breaks from my children, the experience really is like the re-charging the batteries cliché. A brisk walk, seeing a nice landscape and breathing some fresh air, or half an hour in a café with the papers can have a great effect. A lie in or decent night’s sleep gives you a much better perspective and renews your coping mechanisms. And guess what? You can actually enjoy your children.

With countless mothers on anti-depressants, it is likely that not all of these women actually suffer intrinsically from a shortage of certain chemicals in their brains. More likely is that they do not receive enough support with work which is incredibly draining and at times thankless and monotonous.

And I’m not ascribing the loneliness and overwork merely to single parents. In a society where the nuclear family is the norm, where traffic volume and road accidents are so prolific and where every newspaper or TV channel plays on our parental fears with constant reports of crime, many of us feel trapped in our little boxes with our children for a variety of reasons.

To go back to the single parent unsupported by an absent ex, what are the options? If asking politely for regular contact doesn’t work, you might try asking angrily, pleadingly or straight-forwardly trying to describe how it affects you and the children. If that still doesn’t work, what then? Cut off contact altogether? In the hope that the ex would be so shocked and miss the contact so much that a regular arrangement might result? This would be hard as a) it would break the children’s hearts, b) you are probably so desperate for a break you couldn’t turn down the opportunity if it came up and c) it might not work.

I am sure that most absent parents have no idea of how the daily drudgery of single parent life can grind you down. However, some will be much more sympathetic and willing to try and put themselves in your shoes. Some will instinctively want to participate as actively as possible in their children’s lives. On an individual level, the issue is not: Do they know how hard it is, for you and the children? But: Do they care?

"All stay at home mothers claiming the government's new universal credit will be required to make themselves available for work or lose state support, putting them on a par with single parents for the first time. The requirement would apply to mothers with children aged over seven." from the Guardian