Six years ago Genny Jones, found herself a single mother to two boys aged 3 and 4 after ending an abusive relationship with their father. Though she had chosen to seek a divorce, she was unprepared for the stresses involved in going it alone. Now on the other side, she is able to look back and see that the experience, although incredibly hard, actually made her stronger.
'The most important advice I can give new single parents about coping and keeping their spirits up? I always tell them… avoid being isolated'.
Genny's journey involved a steep learning curve that taught her invaluable survival skills. 'In a three month period, I was made redundant, the house was going to be repossessed, and there was I now a single parent. It was like Oh my God, what am I going to do, how am I going to pay the bills, how am I going to survive?' She cut herself off deliberately at the start 'Even though I had parents and people around me, I wanted to do it on my own. Because I thought if I asked people for help, they might think I’m a failure.
Sometimes I just wanted to collect my kids from school, come home and not deal with any adults. Because I thought we were going through a stressful time and its best if it's just me and them trying to develop and bonding again as a unit of 3 as opposed to a unit 4.
Sometimes on your own you get discouraged, especially when you are trying to lead your kids on a good path and they do something really naughty and you think Oh my God I am not doing a good job. When people make remarks about their behaviour, you feel deflated. You think I am no good.
It can be stressful when you feel like you are stuck in your situation and there is no relief, no one to take over. I got useful advice from single parents network Gingerbread. They help you develop coping strategies, to make sure you are OK and the kids are Ok as well. So it would be like let's go to the park, you run around and I can relax. By the time they have run around the park four times, you take them home and its Ok, they’ll go to sleep. Networking with other parents at the school helped. So for example some of them would take the kids on a weekend break, or they’d have the children for a day. And even my neighbours were quite good. The kids would go there for a couple of hours because they knew that at times it would be too much for me to take.'
Jones now believes she has benefitted from the solo endeavour of single parenthood 'It has made me stronger, more confident, more assertive. Better at relating to other people who might be going through the same thing. My people skills have developed so much, it has made me a lot bolder. Even in dealing with my ex, he knows that there is nothing he can say to bring me down, because I can handle it.
I sit back sometimes thinking of how it was at the start and think Wow, I went through that and I’m here still. It feels really good. And that's why I have set up a support group, I think if I can do it, then you can do it. You just have to try, you just keep pushing and pushing and you can make it.
Recently Jones had a stall at the funfair talking about lone parents. 'The amount of people who came to talk. Even a guy came, he said I am a lone parent, I am a man I am a dad. I just need to talk. It has been eight years.'
