Chapter 8. The Self-Sufficient Mother vs the Dependent Mother

Apologies in Advance: Mother, Not Parent

Before we start, one caveat.

In this chapter I write mother, not parent. I do it because of the statistics.

According to the National Census of 2021, nearly one in four Polish families is a parent raising children alone, more than two million people in total. And within that group the proportions aren't anywhere near even: single mothers make up around 19 to 21 per cent of all families, single fathers around 3 to 4 per cent.

Which works out at roughly five mothers to every one father.

The second reason is less statistical and more mine: it's mothers who get held to account for it. For decades the culture has told women that a good mother handles everything, and it still measures her against that yardstick far more harshly than it does a father. That pressure is real and it's there in plain sight.

But whatever your gender, if you're going it alone, you're going it alone. If you're a father raising children on your own, this chapter is one hundred per cent about you. Swap she for I and nothing changes.

The Biggest Difference

Do you know what the biggest difference is between a self-sufficient mother and a dependent mother?

The dependent mother is a woman. The self-sufficient mother is a female hominid.

Careful now: I'm not insulting anyone. In a moment I'll explain it all with a real-life example, and you'll see it's a compliment, just dressed in ugly words.

A female mammal has one job: keep the offspring alive. Everything else is optional.

Sleep is optional. Food is optional. Pleasure, hobbies, friends, thinking about yourself, optional. The wiring switches into a mode where only the mission exists.

And that mode works. It's brilliant. It saves the young.

But it has one cost nobody talks about: in that mode there's no room for a person.

The Story of an Amazon Called WuWu

Let me tell you a story.

WuWu, short for Wonder Woman. That's what I call her, and in a moment you'll understand why.

When I was starting my family, my WuWu was a self-sufficient mother. She handled everything herself, because she had to. There was nobody she could count on for help.

Our little boy was about six at the time. Our little girl not quite five.

A little flat, forty-two square metres. In that flat stood two clothes airers hung with tiny clothes, permanently, because there was never a moment when there weren't any. No dishwasher. No tumble dryer. Generally it was all very, how shall I put it, traditional, like the nineties. Everything by hand, apart from the washing machine.

A day looked like this.

Up in the morning. A walk with Max, a much-loved golden retriever who needed his time too.

Getting the kids ready for nursery. Then off to work like Batman. Work. Picking the kids up.

A walk with Max. Dinner for the little ones. Looking after the children. Constant fire, non-stop, not a single minute's break.

And at nine in the evening, when the children were in their beds and the house finally went quiet, the second shift began. Laundry. Dishes. Cooking for tomorrow. Getting ready for whatever needed getting ready for.

And then she'd fall flat on her face. So she could wake up in the morning and do the whole routine again.

Two small, very lively kids, a golden retriever and all the rest of ordinary life.

She didn't have time to fart properly, never mind be herself for her own sake.

And let me be precise, so nobody says I'm exaggerating. Of course she had time. She had her make-up on and looked lovely, she left the house like a human being. That's not what I mean.

I mean time that serves nobody else. An hour when nobody's calling, nothing needs doing, nothing's waiting. Of that there wasn't a single one.

Depression in the Queue

And now the saddest part of this story, told as funnily as I can manage.

Depression? Maybe it was around somewhere.

But it was standing in the queue for a place in her life.

Every day depression heard that its call was very important to us and we would answer as soon as possible. It was currently eighth in the queue. And the queue moved from eighth to sixth, and back to eighth.

Nobody ever picked up depression's call. There was no time for it.

WuWu flew her life mission day after day and, quite simply, had no time for herself. No time to be a woman.

She was one hundred per cent a female hominid. There was no room left for being a woman; after all, she had to get at least a little sleep between one life raid and the next.

That Wasn't Entirely a Joke

I said it in a funny way because there's no other way to say it. But I have to add one sentence, because without it this bit is dishonest.

Depression standing in a queue doesn't go away. It waits.

Survival mode masks it brilliantly, because in survival mode there's no time to feel that something's wrong. But that only works as long as the running lasts. Very often it's only when things ease up that it all comes back, with interest.

If you recognise yourself in this description and it's been going on for months, don't wait for a free slot in the queue. A GP, a psychiatrist, a psychologist. This isn't a luxury for people with time. It's repair work on the wiring that two or three other people depend on.

What Changed

Only when I came along and we made a family together could I bring in a dishwasher and a tumble dryer and give her a bit of breathing room in those daily operations. I was still living in the UK at the time.

Notice what kind of things those were. Not therapy. Not a spa break. Not find time for yourself, which is the stupidest advice you can give a self-sufficient mother.

Two appliances. A dishwasher and a tumble dryer. That's all.

WuWu started being a woman when I was in Poland a lot, and properly when I moved back for good. She could take a break from that mode, because either I took over the duties or we did things together, as a family.

You know those missions. Family Taxi, driving to every activity going. Swimming. Football. English lessons.

Whatever happened to be on the schedule.

This isn't a story about a bloke turning up and rescuing a woman. It's a story about something far more down to earth:

Somebody lifted part of the weight, and under that weight was a person who had been there the whole time.

She didn't become somebody else. She came back. Space appeared and a person stepped into it.

And Now the Other Side. Mothers Who Have a Partner

And here's the part that makes this chapter more important than it looks at first.

Because you might think: fine, self-sufficient mothers have it hard, mothers in relationships have it easier, end of story.

Not the end.

A great many mothers in two-parent families are self-sufficient mothers with a ring on their finger.

She lives with a partner, has children with him, they love each other and everything's fine. And still she's going it alone, because the whole weight is on her side, just spread out in a way you can't see until you count it.

Three Things That Give It Away

1. He helps.

That one word says it all. You help someone with their task.

If the sentence I helped my wife with the kids today gets said in your house, it means the children are her task and he performed a kind gesture. A father doesn't help with the children. A father has children.

2. She is the control centre.

He does things, but when she says what and when. He takes the bins out when he's told they need taking out.

He picks up from activities when he gets a reminder. He buys the present when she's chosen the present.

It looks like a division of duties, and it's a division of doing with zero division of remembering.

And the remembering is the real job. Who knows PE kit is needed on Tuesday. Who noticed the shoes are too small. Who keeps track of the dentist appointment, who remembers a classmate's birthday, who knows the toothpaste is running out. It's a full-time job, done in your head, invisible and unaccounted for, and in most Polish homes one person does it.

It's exactly the same mechanism as Life With Clothes from Chapter Seven. Only there it was the child who couldn't see the invisible items. Here it's the adult.

3. Nobody has the right to leave.

The test is brutally simple. Which of you can leave the house for three hours without clearing it with the other person?

If the answer is he can, she can't, then she's going it alone. No matter how many adults live at that address.

Why This Is a Problem for Him Too

Because a man who helps for ten years one day finds himself alone with the children for a week and has no idea how any of it works. He doesn't know where the leggings are. He doesn't know what time the activities are. He doesn't know which doctor.

So he calls her. At work, on her trip, on her holiday.

Which means she doesn't rest even when she's physically not there.

Competence can't be handed over with instructions. You get it by doing something from start to finish, on your own, mistakes included. It's the same rule we apply to children throughout this book, only here it applies to an adult.

A father who makes no mistakes with the children is a father who isn't looking after the children.

What Actually Lifts the Weight

In order, from cheapest to hardest.

Appliances. Boring, unromantic and unbeatably effective. A dishwasher. A tumble dryer. A robot vacuum. Each of these buys a few hours a week, and those hours come back every time, with no negotiating and no begging anybody. If you have a choice between a present and a dishwasher, choose the dishwasher.

Handing over ownership, not tasks. Not pick our son up from swimming today, but from today swimming is yours: sign-ups, fees, the kit bag, the calendar, the remembering. The whole thing. One domain handed over in full does more than ten tasks done on command.

The rule of irreversible incompetence. When he does his domain badly, you don't correct it.

The child will go out in checked trousers with a flowery top and survive. A correction is the message you can't do it, I'm taking over, and after three corrections the domain is back with you.

Recognise it? That's Chapter Five, except this time you're dying for a grown-up.

Joint missions. Not everything has to be divided. A Family Taxi with everyone in it isn't a division of duties, it's giving up on dividing them. And sometimes it's better, because the raid turns into family time.

People from outside. A grandmother, a neighbour, a babysitter for two hours, swapping favours with another family.

Asking for help isn't admitting defeat. It's management.

And the one thing hardly anyone remembers: the children. A self-sufficient mother very often does everything herself also because it's quicker that way. The contract from Chapter Seven is written precisely for her. Two children who have each taken on one real thing isn't a gesture, it's an hour a week won back.

For Those Who Really Are Going It Alone

And finally, honestly, because I don't want this chapter to sound like find a partner and everything will be fine.

Not find a partner. Lift the weight. A partner is one of the routes, not the only one.

The order I'd do it in myself:

1. Appliances before anything else. Even on instalments. Even second-hand. It's an investment in hours of sleep.

2. One domain handed to anyone at all. A grandmother, the after-school club, paid help, the child's other parent if there is one.

3. Contracts with the children. From the age of four, this works.

4. One thing a week that isn't a mission. Anything, as long as it's yours and serves nobody else. That's not an indulgence, it's the only way to stop the person underneath the female hominid from disappearing for ten years.

5. Answer that call. The one from depression. Before the running stops.

Because survival mode isn't a flaw. It's a strength, and it saves children.

But it's meant to be a mode, not a personality.

And one thing that has to be said out loud, because otherwise it hangs in the air.

A woman who can do everything herself doesn't need a man for anything. Except wanting to have him. That's a huge change and it's a good change, you just have to know what follows from it.

Once, a relationship held together partly because without the other person you couldn't keep a household running. Today you can. So there's one reason left for someone to stay: because they're worth being with.

That's where the numbers from the beginning come from. It isn't the collapse of the family. It's the end of compulsion.

And that's why training matters more than it ever has. Your son won't be needed by anyone as domestic help. He'll be needed as someone who's simply worth having around.

A wedding is not Mum, Extreme Edition.

And one more thing, to finish. This time for those of you with sons.

A man who doesn't see the laundry wasn't born that way. Somebody trained him like that, or rather, somebody didn't train him at all. He was somebody's well-brought-up little boy. Nobody made him fold the pile, because it was quicker to do it yourself.

And then that boy gets married. And his wife gets, as part of the package, all the work his mum did for twenty years.

A wedding is not Mum, Extreme Edition.

So if you're wondering why your son can't find a partner, when he's such a good boy, it's possible that's exactly why: because he's a boy. A good boy is not an adult.

Nobody goes looking for another child.

This chapter is about a woman who carries everything herself, and it's heavy enough already. A woman who gets married and is handed a grown boy to carry is somewhere further along still.

Train him now. You're doing it for him, but above all for someone you haven't met yet.

Chapter Summary

There are more than two million parents raising children alone in Poland, roughly five mothers to every father.

Survival mode is brilliant and effective. It saves the offspring. And it leaves no room for a person.

A self-sufficient mother has no time to be a woman, because the mission takes up all the time there is.

Depression standing in a queue doesn't go away. It waits.

It isn't about finding a partner. It's about lifting the weight: appliances, people, contracts with the children, domains handed over.

A great many mothers in two-parent families are self-sufficient mothers with a ring on. The test: who can leave the house for three hours without clearing it first?

I'm helping you with the kids is the sentence that gives it all away. A father doesn't help with the children, a father has children.

The work is in the remembering, not the doing. Hand over domains, not tasks.

Don't correct. A father who makes no mistakes with the children is a father who isn't looking after them.

Exercise

Take a sheet of paper and divide it into two columns: does and remembers.

Write down twenty things that happen in your home, from laundry, through doctor's appointments, to birthday presents and when the tyres need changing.

Next to each one write two initials: who does it and who remembers it.

Then count each column separately.

The does column can be quite fair. The remembers column almost never is, and that's the real subject of this chapter.

And finally one question, which you both answer, separately, on paper:

When did each of you last leave the house for three hours without clearing it with the other person?

If one of those dates is last week and the other is a year ago, you already know everything and you don't need the rest of this chapter.