Jul 13, 2026 · 44 min · 11 segments
Single parenting after divorce can feel like carrying an endless mental checklist while trying to keep your children, your career, your home, and yourself from falling apart. In this candid and…
Deanna CoyleHost
Mandy PullanHost
Being the default parent, which really means it could be in a same-sex marriage.
I think in my case, I know I was the one who knew what the kids wanted to have for dinner and took them to all of their doctor's appointments and make sure that they were keeping up on their schedule and taking them to school and buying their clothes.
But when you're going through divorce or after divorce and you have to keep all of that in your mind, it can be a lot.
And as we were talking about in preparation for today, I don't know if there was ever a default parent in my situation.
So by default, like he always knew what was happening before I knew it, but he always did a good job of keeping me updated of what was going on.
But I think that naturally people would go to him about things and then he would fill me in.
And then the other piece of it is, and I don't want to get into it, but I had some health issues when we were going through our separation and divorce and he stepped up and took the lead on parenting while I got better.
Yeah, Mandy, and thank you so much for being open with that because we all face challenges.
And when we get the help we need and then we can share what we went through and what we got from that, that can help so many other people.
And I think our situations were different as we've talked about in other podcasts.
And he focused on the job, and he was able to get a job that tripled his salary, that was able to support us in a really good way.
I had at the time, the way teachers get compensated, it's throughout a series of steps.
A huge salary, but a significant enough amount that I needed to go back to work.
Being the default parent, which really means it could be in a same-sex marriage.
I think in my case, I know I was the one who knew what the kids wanted to have for dinner and took them to all of their doctor's appointments and make sure that they were keeping up on their schedule and taking them to school and buying their clothes.
But when you're going through divorce or after divorce and you have to keep all of that in your mind, it can be a lot.
And as we were talking about in preparation for today, I don't know if there was ever a default parent in my situation.
So by default, like he always knew what was happening before I knew it, but he always did a good job of keeping me updated of what was going on.
But I think that naturally people would go to him about things and then he would fill me in.
And then the other piece of it is, and I don't want to get into it, but I had some health issues when we were going through our separation and divorce and he stepped up and took the lead on parenting while I got better.
Yeah, Mandy, and thank you so much for being open with that because we all face challenges.
And when we get the help we need and then we can share what we went through and what we got from that, that can help so many other people.
And I think our situations were different as we've talked about in other podcasts.
And he focused on the job, and he was able to get a job that tripled his salary, that was able to support us in a really good way.
I had at the time, the way teachers get compensated, it's throughout a series of steps.
A huge salary, but a significant enough amount that I needed to go back to work.
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