There are plenty of wonderful and surprising things about taking your children away as a single parent.
Tearing up the rules, for one thing: that means chocolate pancakes for breakfast every breakfast, plus screen time in the evenings – because after dinner there’s nothing quite like “jammy time” (where pyjamas are de rigueur at 8pm and movie night is every night).
Plus, I’ve never felt closer to my kids than when pushing the three beds together to make one single, giant sleeping space, or when joining in with a game of “Marco? Polo!” in the pool with them and snorting loudly while being told, “Mama, you’re terrible at this.”
Being away – and the only responsible adult – with a teenager and an under-10 means being able to be silly (and who wouldn’t want to dig a massive hole in the sand and sit in it) while also feeling stressed the entire time about having to be responsible for all the decisions: which place to eat, which activity, is it safe?
It is fun and fulfilling while also being anxiety-inducing and overwhelming; it is hard and somehow still satisfying to look back and say, I did that. I gave them a beautiful holiday – all by myself.
square JAMES DIXON I moved to Copenhagen with my daughter – Danish parenting showed me I was overbearing
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Yet while I was expecting some turbulence (not least when we nearly missed our flight home, thanks to some very long queues at the tiny Greek airport), what I didn’t expect was to have my heart torn into pieces at UK border control.
For it’s there that a British border force officer casually asked this question: “Are these your children? Why do you have different names, then?”
On the one hand, I didn’t take it personally – he was just doing his job. Posters warning against human trafficking are there for all to see as you queue to re-enter Britain; staff are trained to spot people (particularly children) being coerced or forced to travel. A couple of years ago Operation Bumble focused expressly on training staff at Stansted to recognise signs of exploitation.
So no, I didn’t take it personally – yet I did. And to my shock and surprise, I felt the sharp sting of tears when faced with this simple, routine, vital question.But these are my children, I wanted to cry. I wanted to walk him through my painful pregnancies; explain the angst and fear of childbirth and the intense, obliterating love that hit me like thunder when they arrived.
I wanted to look into his eyes and tell him that when they were born, so was I. That if the situation ever called for it, I would throw myself in the path of disaster for them without even blinking.
That I stayed awake for three nights in a row when my daughter was in hospital, rocking her to sleep because she was afraid; that I still have nightmares about an accident my son had when he was seven, even though he’s forgotten all about it. That despite the rules while travelling by plane, there’s simply no way on earth I would fit my own oxygen mask first.
I didn’t say any of that, of course. I stammered a bit, flushed bright red (and then worried about looking guilty) and said proudly: “Yep. I’m rocking it as a single parent.”
And when he asked me if I had their birth certificates to prove it – and asked my son to tell him who I was – I felt the enormity of solo travel (and divorce) hit me like a blow to the stomach.
Thankfully, I’d planned ahead for this – I have done for every trip, I’ve just never had to use it before. I pulled out a copy of both their birth certificates, plus a signed consent form from their father. But what if I hadn’t? Would I have had to scroll through thousands of photos to find the ones of me cradling them tenderly, seconds after giving birth, then insist we were who we said we were?
There’s no way around it: if you have a different surname to your child, you could be challenged when flying alone with them at any time. The best advice is to take their birth certificates and a signed letter from the other parent (if they have one) to prove your relationship to them – and that you have permission to travel.
This is because even though you automatically have parental responsibility if you’re the child’s mother, you still need the written permission of anyone else with parental rights before you take them abroad to prevent child abduction.
What this experience left me with is a nagging sense of somehow not quite measuring up – something single parents are made to feel all too often in society at large. It also left me with renewed determination to go through the long and arduous process of adding my surname to my children’s legal names – by deed poll.
It will be expensive and drawn out (I’ll also have to apply to get them new passports), but I’ll do anything to avoid being interrogated about the most important people in my life.
Because love, when it comes to crossing the border into Britain, isn’t enough.
Hence then, the article about the border force question that brought home the reality of being a single parent was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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