with the less-than-perfect?  That's how I've survived with seven kids.  I gotta tell you, sometimes I just want to laugh when I hear someone talking earnestly about how difficult their one small baby is...I never had one baby.  I started off with twins!  The only talent I claim to possess is an ability to overlook a lot of imperfection.  

I can understand your frustration, but what did you do when you had a sick child when they were little?  Even now your son is too young to stay home alone, yes?  Perhaps a little luck in terms of staying healthy has been on your side?  Perhaps as a single mother, you have developed a stronger support network of friends and family to help fill in when things hit the fan. I marvel at how single parents manage, especially the evening part!

about why people come in late or leave early.  Where I work we have some firm appointments and other times when we write, consult, do site visits, etc. and we are in and out, so maybe I'm just used to not seeing everyone all the time.  I sort of glaze over when people tell me about doctor's appts., car maintenance, etc.  As long as the work gets done, it really doesn't matter to me.

There is one woman at work who is always skating close to the line, saying she's somewhere and then not actually being there.  She seems to be trying to get away with stuff and there are a few people determined to bust her.  But, she's not a mom!

I can sympathize if you feel like you are making it all happen without a lot of fanfare and people around you are big-dealing stuff you just quietly handle.  That is definite eye-roll material.  I had one co-worker whose baby was the First One In The History of Mankind to ever teethe, get diaper rash, get sick at daycare, etc.  Truly miraculous.  She was stunned when the boss told her she could either work or have a kid but obviously she couldn't do both, at least not at this job.

I grew up with a single parent who didn't always have it together, in face it was far from good.  I slept on boyfriend's couches, she took me to bars and I was abused in one way or another by a couple.  She put her needs first and my last.  She married an abusive man to make a family and it did nothing for me.  They drank, did drugs and I always had to be the adult.

Now as a parent, I'm a mess.  I have days where I don't know how I can do it and I have just one, that's it.  Maybe I'm flawed, fucked up or just inferior, but it's hard.  How you do it, I have no idea and I admire that, but you cannot set the same standard for everyone else.

I do my best, my work is usually done.  If I miss work I usually have to catch up with overtime.  It is frustrating that I have a coworker that saunters in at 10 am, takes a two hour lunch and is gone by six and has a magical nine hour day on her time card.  It's downright infuriating, but at the same time there is nothing I can do about it.  So I try to worry about me.

Venting is good, spending too much time thinking about what others do on the point of dwelling is bad, it just eats you up and doesn't hurt them one bit.

 I have a manager who calls out sick weekly.  She uses excuses from having to help her boyfriend move to having to take her mom shopping.  I'm sorry, but this sounds like poor time management.  The problem is, I'm the one who has to cover for her or find someone else to cover for her (I'm one of her assistants).  I figured out over the years that these are the actions of an individual who is not dedicated and is not a team player. Oh well, no use dwelling on it.  She'll get hers sooner or later!!!  I'm a firm believer in never, ever lying about my daughter being sick to skip out of work.  That's just beyond wrong.
 I always say I am technically a single mother but I am lucky enough to live at home with my family which provides me with huge support. (I was widowed 6 years ago). That means I don't have trouble finding a sitter and they are always there when my daughter needs them.  My daughter is never lonely and always has her grandparents or aunts and uncles she can hang out with.  Pretty darn important when you work full time which includes weekend hours and late-night shifts.  
 My grandma was a single mother who worked full time in a male-dominated industry.  She supported 2 children on her own in the 50's without child support.  Those are the single mothers who also need to be praised.  She raised a son and a daughter who turned out to be loving, giving parents.
 Families are a blessing.

At the moment I am not working anywhere near fulltime.  One of my part time commitments is a children's choir at my church.  My father is my babysitter for that weekly rehearsal engagement.  Sometimes he really screws me over with that as he does not value what I do at all and doesn't understand that I need to be there at least 15 minutes before the kids start coming in the door.  It is so frustrating because I end up rushing over there -luckily it's less than 5 minutes away.

I hate how unprofessional it must look.  On the other hand, I am not paying for him to babysit which is good because this is not a high paying job anyway.  My boys love their grandpa and have a ball with him and I know that they are loved and safe. I've come to anticipate my father not showing up early enough for my comfort level and will often run over with the boys and set up well before the rehearsal on days where I need to have more equipment ready so I do compensate for this. He has never made me so late that I have to cancel the rehearsal at the last moment either although I have had to bring my kids to rehearsal on a few rare occasions-always exciting as they have no concept that I am teaching and will do fun stuff like try to swim in the baptismal fountain.  

Luckily when that happens, one of the moms who stays for rehearsal usually steps in to help out with them.  I really appreciate her as she has 5 kids of her own and nothing my boys pull seems to shock her.  I can't say the same of some of the moms who have fewer kids or maybe not 2 boys so close in age.  My helper mom even came out and said that it's difficult to have boys so close together as the energy is different.  She has a girl or two between both of her sons LOL.

I love your posts.  They are so honest and funny.

Let me flip it around.  I'll vent.  Ok, I don't work anymore, so this is a (hypothetical) story from the past:

How about the single co-worker without kids, who works until 10 pm every single night, doing every last thing that people ask of her and promising to get it to them by the morning, even though that will surely mean she will be working until midnight?

Why?  Because she's got no one to pick up.  She's free.  

So what does she do all day?  Hardly nothing.  Her work day starts at around 4 pm after she's answered all of her email, done her personal business with banks etc., taken a long lunch with her office buddies.

Now, she can make the moms and dads who are running out of there at 5 p.m. on the dot feel like slackers.  Little do they know...

I work at a job where everything we do is completely individual. If I miss a deadline (which I never have, I'm that anal), it's all on me, no one will "pick up my slack." So I don't feel bad when I have to take off for my kid or anything else-- it's not like I'm making anyone do my work while I'm gone. I've always been in jobs that are individual-contributor in nature, so I can't really compare to your situation at all.

My mom was a single parent, 2 kids, 4 years apart. She was absolutely paranoid about taking off work for her kids for any reason. When I got the measles when I was 15 and was running a 104+ degree fever, she took off for two days and that was a HUGE deal. I never scheduled any appointments that required her to leave work early. If I was sick, I stayed home by myself from 4th grade on. In short, work was the end-all and be-all for her, and nothing could interfere with her schedule. I felt sometimes like our needs were not her priority, but I know she was just doing what she felt she had to do to protect us.

So in reaction to that, I definitely do not feel bad about leaving work for my kid. I don't ever want him to feel that his needs are an inconvenience to me, or a second priority. If my boss has a problem with it, he can talk to me. My coworkers don't-- or shouldn't--give a shit since nothing I do affects them and their work. Anyone who sits around counting other peoples' hours worked and days off clearly doesn't have enough to do.

I think there are people who, for whatever reason, will use any excuse to get out of work. They just don't have a decent work ethic. I totally agree that it's especially annoying when they use a "legitimate" excuse like their child, which only makes things worse for other parents.

Some people will get away with whatever they can. My favorite example is a radiologist who hides Sudoku puzzles in his stack of films. He spends his days Sudoku-ing while his partners do the work. But there are no consequences for his behavior, so why not? It just goes to show that there are slackers in every line of work, no matter what noble excuse they hide behind.

and I'm sorry that her behaviour makes all working moms look bad.  And I'm glad I'm a stay at home mom so my slacking nature is only apparent to myself, my kids and my husband (whose complaints can be easily bought off with a little nooky)

who made some big sacrifices when her children were born- she worked retail which meant she missed holidays. She worked long hours and sometimes her kids were asleep when she got home. She had to give up breastfeeding, and had to have her mother live with her to make up the daycare.

Frankly, I don't give a crap if that's what she did. Bravo, good for her- but her martyr act was detrimental to any other mothers who DIDN'T want to be the ones to give up so much. I like my job, and I did it very well where I was. This woman's work flow had no affect on my time spent in my office. My work got done, and done right. But she'd schedule meetings over my scheduled pumping time. She'd set 8am meetings knowing my start time was 8:30 because of daycare drop offs. She would tell me over and over that I better get better at sacrificing like she did. I still want to punch her in the face. She was a great mom, her kids loved her and had a lot of respect for her. But her own guilt and bitterness made her the most impossible person to work with.

I applaud that people can make the impossible work. I also fully recognize the capacity for laziness and avoidance of work in a lot of people. I've found the people who complain the loudest about other people's work habits are the same ones who, if faced with a group of people with the exact same work habits, would either falter or find something else to pick on- if you're not "better" than other people, why are you so valuable to the company?

Companies also get a lot of traction out of pitting people against each other this way- it encourages 12 hour work days with no additional benefits or pay, because you're competing for "bestest employee ever!" status. There's a reason managers pass of an absent person's work onto the person who is there- it creates an instant tension for the person who is gone and the boss? Never has to address it. When I'm faced with doing someone else's work, I do my own first, stay until my normal time and leave whatever is left over there. Maybe it's just my field, but I've rarely seen an instance where what is left at 5:30 can't be picked up, with the same results, at 8am. Not much business gets done past 6 or before 10.

Just reading about your commute -- we are talking about L.A. traffic, ladies! -- makes me hurt. I am in awe how you keep it together. And you are an awesome mom, to boot. You go, Gloria! Now fix yourself a margarita when you get home. :-)

I also feel your frustration. At my old job, we had a father of four children who was always taking off early. I think he contributed as much as the rest of us, but because he left early the rest of us felt resentful. Also, the company had had some layoffs, which meant we were doing more work, but not for more pay. Grrrr...I think this problem would have been remedied if the rest of the staff didn't feel overburdened and resentful towards this dad who actually had a normal 40-hour work week. I wonder if this is what's going on at your job?

My experience is that people who abuse their parent-status to be slackers have always been slackers. It's not truly related to being a parent.

I'm a big fan of flexible workplaces, and I have been fortunate to always work in one. I used it before I had a child to do things that were important to me. And, I did my best to make up for that time by helping out other people when they needed help. I'd take a random Friday off to attend an important competition, but I'd happily work a school holiday or Christmas so that parents could be with their kids. It has to be a give and take, not always give, not always take.

All of us will have a crisis in our lives. It may be a child, our own health, our spouse's health, or our parents. It might be our best friend needing to be driven to chemo appointments. It might be the day our plumbing explodes or the purchase of a new house. We should not allow this to be framed as mom vs. single, let alone mom vs. mom. Just call her a slacker if her work isn't getting done and she's doing nothing to atone. Or maybe see if she can be helped - maybe she can take some work home, or perhaps some more reliable sitter resources can be found.

Good luck!

who called in sick at least once every two weeks.  It was at a pre-school, so it was a huge imposition on everyone else.  A few others did this, too, but eventually disciplinary action was taken.  With him, they were so desperate for a male who interacted with the children well that he got away with it.  When it came time for layoffs, he and I had the same postion and he'd been there a year-and-a-half longer, and he got to keep the position while I was demoted.  I asked them to add our time up by the hour, but they didn't.  He had kids, but that wasn't the problem.  

Whatever the reason, this kind of behavior creates resentment when you have the sort of job where another's performance effects you.  So are you being too hard on your co-worker?  I think it's human nature for you to react this way.

She misses work A LOT for reasons mostly based on the care of her daughter. He tries to be understanding. But what really gets him, is that she has used all of her sick time, vaction, and FLMA time and still takes lots of days off regularly. He spoke with the higher ups and she's been talked to, but it doesn't do anything. I guess what she, and perhaps the other parents Gloria referred to, don't get is that sometimes other people rely on them as co-workers to get things done. DH fumes some times because of the lack of support. When she is scheduled to be out he can usually get the work covered, but sometimes when it is short notice its a struggle. I feel bad for him. Sometime he has to stay even later (he stays until 7PM as it is...) to do stuff like coping etc. that normally she would do, but couldn't b/c she was out.