Hello? Anyone out there?

[lolo918]

It is generally quiet with brief moments of activity. Quite a few of us participate other places like parenting, single ladies, etc too.

[freezorburn]

Yes usually pretty quiet here. Like Lolo said, I think most of us spend most of our time on other boards, but come here for single parent specific talk. I usually check it a couple of times a week, more often if there is an active discussion happening. And I'm often slow to respond because when someone posts a serious question, I want to give a thoughtful answer. So I'll usually take a little time to mull it over.

What brings you here today?

[becwheat]

It is quiet here for now. My theory is as this place gets older and more people experience the end of relationships or single parenthood for other reasons we will get more traffic.

[freezorburn]

If you skim through the intro thread, you'll see that a few of the people who have come through here since we moved over from TD are going through various stages of divorce/separation. Actually, my marriage blew up just a few days after the Great Migration started.

I think becwheat is correct that the board will grow slowly over time, as TCF matures -- statistics are on our side, after all -- but there are other aspects that I think contribute to the quiet. Speaking for myself, my online time has gotten more limited as my son has entered toddlerhood and become interested in screens. In order to limit his screen time, I need to model the behavior that I want him to learn, so I'm not checking my phone much throughout the day. I pretend it's an old-fashioned dumb phone, and use it only for that purpose when we are together. When he was an infant I had a lot of time to be online, because nursing was so. darn. boring, and what else do you do when a baby falls asleep on you?

And then there's just so much more to do as a single parent, to keep the household in shape and keep the kid entertained. And my kid has autism, so everything takes forever. My sense is most of the people who have intro'd here have very young children who still need a huge amount of parenting time, are also transitioning into singlehood, which may also bring with it changes in work and housing circumstances. Everyone's circumstances are different. But for me, again forum participation went on the back burner when I entered crisis mode and was just trying to keep everything as normal as possible for my son.

Also, if you're in the middle of a legal process, your lawyers will probably tell you to limit your social media presence, or at least be very careful about what you post if you participate in social media. While we don't use real names here, personally, I'm paranoid that if my divorce were to get ugly, that a very keen paralegal doing opposition research could figure out who I am here and possibly find something I post and twist it to use it against me. So I tend not to share much detail about my personal life in my posts. Sometimes that doesn't leave me very much to talk about.

This place has been really good for emotional support. We did a Mother's Day gift exchange last year that was really nice. And we've had a little discussion about self-care.

Have you also looked locally for support? Last year I googled "Single Parent support" in my community and found an organization in my area that hosted playgroups and also had an affiliated Meetup/FB group that hosts all kinds of events. Lots of the events are kid-friendly, but there are also events for meeting up on days when kids are with the other parent. For me it's been valuable to get to know people who are farther along in their divorce/sep/single parent journey. With any luck, maybe you can find something like that near you?

Welcome, and sorry you're going through divorce. It's hard. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But sometimes it's what has to happen, I guess.

[becwheat]

Jan 13, 2016 13:49:48 GMT -5 deeds1017 said:

Jan 12, 2016 15:47:27 GMT -5 freezorburn said:

Yes usually pretty quiet here. Like Lolo said, I think most of us spend most of our time on other boards, but come here for single parent specific talk. I usually check it a couple of times a week, more often if there is an active discussion happening. And I'm often slow to respond because when someone posts a serious question, I want to give a thoughtful answer. So I'll usually take a little time to mull it over.

What brings you here today?

well, I've wandered over a few times.  I'm actually going through a divorce and when I suggested a divorce/separation board to the powers that be, I was referred to this board.  I never really see any action so I thought I'd post.

I also frequent the parenting board.

There may be periods of quiet, but if you have questions or need to vent you will get replies. I check usually once a day during the week. I am going to be having a kiddo soon, so that may go down or up lol, but we are here!

[jennaleigh23]

I check fairly often as well and post quite a bit. I just don't want to be the only one posting so I hold back a bit! There is a lot of supPort and great advice here though!