Single parent chiming in. I might have a unique perspective on this since I live in a conservative suburb of a major Texas metro.

The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that I’m not allowed to simply be a parent, at least as far as social opinions are concerned. Whenever I take my son out to, say, the park, or for afters, other parents willing to strike up conversations take one of two stances: I am either babysitting my son (i.e. giving mum a break), or I’m suspicious for spending time with him alone (the implication being that men can’t be trusted with childcare unsupervised).

I am acquainted with the parents of my son’s friends, but outside of major events like school functions or birthday parties, I have to take the initiative on giving him opportunities to socialize with his peers because those parents won’t include my son otherwise–because the mums won’t text a single man first under any circumstances and the mums are ones who do all the planning. And while I don’t believe this slight is intentional or malicious, it’s difficult not to take it personally when they’ve collectively only met his mum once (at an end-of-year school function) and they’ve only ever known us in the context of me being a single parent.

I have twice in the last year had to explain to the old bill that I am not, in fact, a predator using my child as an excuse to scope out the local park for victims, and that my son is, in fact, my son. That one is impossible not to take personally–his mother, who is a violent, cocaine-addicted terror of a person–would never be accused of such by a stranger. The assumption would simply be that she is his mum. As a dad, I am afforded no such courtesy, and it is astonishing to me the sheer level of impropriety in which conservative white women feel justified because “they’re just looking out for the children.”

And if that sounds bitter, well, as I said, it’s hard not to take the latter personally when it has the potential to forever (negatively) alter my son’s future, especially when I’m a single parent primarily to protect him in the first place.

If custody agreements in Texas didn’t come bog-standard with geographic restrictions that carried multiple felony penalties for breaking, I’d have left the States a long time ago. But I absolutely refuse to jeopardize my son’s future or my custody of him, so here we are.