Being a single mother as a new Ukrainian experience
While the war lasts, Ukrainian children keep losing their fathers or being separated from them, and being a single mother is now familiar to millions of Ukrainian women.
In my time (well, that refers to three years ago when I became a single mom of 5-month-old baby) in Ukraine you could be single and a mother but you still were not considered a single mother. The family law in Ukraine is… well, weird. If there’s a guy whom you named as a father in the birth certificate and he did not object, then your child has a father and it’s more like your responsibility to make him keep his duties towards the child. This means you are not a single mom and you cannot pretend to have any support or benefits the single mother would have. You can go to court and court can confirm the guy has duties. There are no instruments, though, to make him participate in a child’s life or welfare. If you can prove the father did not contact the child for more than two years (sic! for this you need two years to pass) and did not perform any interest, the court can terminate the dude’s parental rights and you will become a single mother from that time on (if the guy did send you an sms “How is the little one”, the whole scheme would not work).
At a time that drove me crazy. It wasn’t like I was to terminate my daughter’s father’s parental rights and I encouraged their contact and always will, but the situation he was in was such that he was not able to participate in the child’s life and welfare at all. He was not able to help even himself, let alone take care of a baby, paying rent or provide diapers, buggies and all the other baby stuff.
It was a tough time for me. I got my so desirable baby and all of a sudden had to be back to really intensive work three days after we left the hospital, otherwise we’d have no money. That wasn’t what I planned and expected at all, but it was what it was. Since she was almost 5 months I started living alone with her. Keeping working, doing everything in the house and having her, woohoo. I had to get a part-time nanny and once a week the lady would come to help with cleaning (and I had to work more to pay for that help, but without it, I would not be able to pay even our rent and our bills or meals), and some people would tell me how cool is it to have a nanny. Honestly, I’d prefer no nanny and no cleaning lady, but a normal life with my baby, and shared responsibility on her and no need to secure everything by myself singlehanded. Sometimes I wanted to scream to everyone: Can’t you f*ing see how impossibly difficult it is? Can’t you see I don’t have any support or help and so no option to fail, as if I fail I will fail the life, health, safety and welfare of my child?
Compared to Ukraine, it’s relatively easy to be a single mother in the UK, where I am now. You need to prove nothing apart from having a child. Even if you are married but your husband is at the frontline or unable to join you in a safe place, you would be considered the one who needs help and support. Honestly, this helps me a lot to embrace my whole situation here and this will be something that I will always try to make possible in Ukraine too: mothers in need get support easily.
They won’t shower you with money but as a single carer of a young child, you’ll always have a roof above your head (like, not an overnight shelter, but your true place, the house or the apartment you’ll be able to call home) or the support in renting it, at least part-time childcare options, access to the doctor, free playgroups and mother-child entertaining or educating (or both) activities and some money, enough to buy basic food and clothes. And a discount for public transport, too.
A lot of Ukrainian women who have brought their children to be safe here can stay here securely and keep giving their kids care and education only due to that support. I’m so grateful for that to the government and all the people of the UK!
If you are Ukrainian, after 2022 you don’t even need to be single to become a single mother. And a lot of Ukrainian women now have this experience, too. I'm so sorry they do, for I know how impossibly difficult it is.
I’m afraid even to think or speak of families, who lost their father/husband at war, being killed by russians, of those, who are still held captive or of those, who became wounded and will need help and assistance to recover (and probably won’t recover), because this is beyond something words can describe. This is a trauma, that is going to impact not only a few generations of Ukrainians but the whole world. We don’t have numbers, but whatever the toll would be – it would be a horrible tragedy.
But then, there are others. More than 10 million families with children are either staying in safer regions of Ukraine while the fathers do military service, or living abroad seeking safety from Russian bombings while fathers are not allowed to leave the country and wait there to be recruited. Those women are doing everything on their own, often with no house, support, family, friends or help, they work, sort our children and support their men, too, and they simply don’t have other choice. They can’t fail. Some of them have to start their careers over from point 0, as they don’t know any foreign language or don’t have experience that would be relevant to the foreign market. Others have to abandon all professional achievements becoming full-time sole carers for children who have special physical, psychological or educational needs. What I knew from the beginning – how impossibly hard and unfair this is, – they know now, too. And it’s impossibly hard and unfair, that they do. The war is impossibly hard and unfair.
Despite all the support, it’s not easy to be a single mom here, too. Both for refugees or people seeking temporal protection – and local women. The tricky thing with all those benefits is that they rather keep you being a struggling single mom instead of encouraging you to become a successful single mom: if you start earning a little bit more than survival minimum, you become not eligible for help with housing or rent and free childcare. In money that means that if you earn let’s say GBP 1000 per month, you after all have more money than if you earn GBP 3000. You don’t really feel the difference if you earn let’s say GBP 6000 per month, but the thing is earning those 3000 is a stage you can’t skip while growing professionally. And if you are a single mom, you just can’t afford this stage, you are forced to stay earning 1000 and receive benefits, otherwise you just have not enough to pay rent and childcare. So it kind of pushes women with kids out of the career market, but at least they will not starve or become homeless. I believe the system will be fixed and encourage developing professionals and single mothers working to become independent more. But at least this system is working and helpful already now, and for Ukrainian women and kids, this is crucial to be able to survive while the war lasts.
Not that I’m using all of those benefits, I still work as I always did, though