Column: A Boy Called Dad’s Chris Howard on the chaos of lone parenting

He’s an expert at survival in the wild, but how will Cambridge adventurer Chris Howard fare when left in charge of his three lionesses for a stint of lone parenting?

It’s 9:45pm and the clock of chores in my life looms its great clonking hands ever heavier on my mind. I’ve cleaned all the toilets and bathrooms in the house, done the 26 gazillion mountains of laundry, fed the cubs, eaten the leftover cheesy tuna pasta from the pot (to save time), loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, read with the cubs and listened to how swimming lessons went. I’ve made sure that I’ve said goodnight to them all individually between questions about how ‘the sun can’t be fire because there’s no air in space’.

Brain-achingly finding a circumvent, I find myself reply with ‘that’s nice darling, sleep time now’, before kissing Youngest Thing goodnight and wondering what on earth we’ve produced! Heading downstairs to find myself alone in the kitchen working backwards from tomorrow’s list I feel suddenly lonely and slightly despairing. She’s gone. . .

But don’t worry, dear readers! My wife’s not gone for good, simply off for a break to sunnier climbs with friends (very well deserved, I might add). All too soon the band shall be back together but right now I’ve no best friend to share the tales of the day with, to laugh with, to have and to hold.

I have many friends that are single/lone parents, and I have so much respect for them all, full stop; I cannot express that fact enough. It’s by no means the same but my wife and I are often apart for work or travel, leaving one or the other of us to lone parent for a few days or weeks occasionally. I am not comparing the two scenarios; however, I am in awe of anyone that is able to lone parent full time. Most of my friends that do, just have things down; they’re cool and laser-focused on making sure everything gets done and almost nothing in their lives gets overlooked or forgotten about. Unlike in mine, where I literally forget to pack pants or eat food if my wife doesn’t prompt me!

After school drop off, I’m stood in a supermarket looking into the trolley trying to think of what family meal I can muster with the hair conditioner, tin of sweetcorn, rice crackers, AAA batteries and Calpol; probably don’t even need Calpol but why break the 10-year habit?

Then I find myself off to work for what feels like about 30 minutes before I’m making tracks to get back to school and collect all three cubs to feed them dinner in the van on the way to actual Cubs before Akela bleats about being late. . .again. Thing Two chooses the exact moment of getting out of the van to write in her reading record whilst half eating a pickle sandwich and peeling an orange simultaneously.

It is a tough gig for anyone and from the outside looking in we, as humanoids, have the dirty habit of making judgements where we shouldn’t. ‘There should be none’ I think to myself as I stand outside in the rain hoping it’ll mask my tears, realising that I’m stranded on a never ending merry go round of homework, kids’ clubs, feeding the gannets and a tornado of pants that fly around my entire existence because God forbid, they might all be put in the same place.

I absolutely love having the cubs all to myself. I just wish my wife was here to experience it with me (*laughs internally over the actual sobbing*). Then Thing One grabs my hand and says ‘it’s okay daddy; I miss Mummy too’. A beautiful child we’ve raised, compassionate and knowing. Until she looks up under the brim of her cap and says in the next breath ‘anyway, I’m going to catch us a duck for dinner by negotiating with their leader,’ before waddling off with a ‘quack, quack’.

‘Imagine seeing the world though her eyes,’ I think to myself quietly, ‘what must it be like?’. Hmmm, I do love duck though.

Read more about Chris’s adventures at thecoastwalker.com