Part-Time Single Parent

I live in a reality suspended somewhere between happily married to the man of my dreams and single-handedly dragging my girls through their wonder years.  I used to ask myself, “Why would I choose to do this?  Why would I let my husband off the hook all the time?  Why don’t I just leave his back side in the ashes, find a man who will be there for me all the time, and move on in life?”  I’ve stopped questioning anymore though.  In fact, I now realize that I’m hopelessly addicted to this life.  The reason is simple: I’m married to a fireman.

When people ask what I do, I sometimes say that I’m a Part-Time Single Parent.  The guys at the fire station always laugh at me for this.  I finally asked my husband’s Lieutenant, “Why do you laugh at that?  It’s the truth, you know.”   

His reply was, “Because it’s so true.  My wife would love that term.”  So ladies, feel free to use it to the fullest.  I might regularly get Knox Box confused with sox on fox and fox in box, but I know what women freshly married into the fire service are going to experience throughout their lives.

If you are one of these women, gear up.  You will weather many major holidays without your firefighter.  If you choose to celebrate at the firehouse, you will likely plan, prepare and cook, only to spend your holiday eating alone and listening to dispatch and the firefighters blast their status throughout the abandoned station. 

There will be nights early on in the marriage when you simply can’t sleep without your firefighter’s comforting warmth in bed beside you.  You long for him to be there and even feel a touch of jealousy toward others in the firehouse because he’s with them and not you.  After you have a couple children and some years in your Part-Time Single Parent position, there will be nights when you simply can’t sleep with him snoring by your side and you long for the big bed all to yourself on his shift nights. 

As you pull up to intersections together, you will be expected to look right and announce what traffic is coming, just as it is done on the fire engine.  Your children will be quizzed about fire trucks versus fire engines.  You will hear the horror story about the fireman’s wife who burned her house down because she didn’t know how to use a fire extinguisher and instead threw the whole canister at the fire. 

You will have moments when you silently curse your husband’s down-time at the firehouse because Part-Time Single Parents don’t have any down-time.  This thought will nag at you as you balance a baby on your left hip, fix dinner with your right hand, keep the cat from jumping onto the counter with your foot, give homework advice to the child at your elbow, and mentally balance your check book so you know just how much gas you can put in your truck on your way to soccer practice with all the kids in tow and no husband to help. 

My solace throughout these years of sporadic loneliness has been friendship.  I’m best friends with my fireman first, but I’ve come to rely on other firewives to give me a sense of what is normal in the fire service.  Women who have been in the fire family for years can offer great advice.  Women who are new to the fire life give me an accomplished sense of perspective.  I see my past in them and I can’t believe how much I’ve learned, how far I’ve come, or how well I’ve held up as a Part-Time Single Parent for the past decade.

By using the brotherhood to find other spouses, men and women, who understand what I’m going through, I’ve realized that my husband is not the only one who can reap the benefits of our second family; I can too.  I know I’ve found a sympathetic ally in anyone who has ever had an important telephone discussion with their spouse be cut short by tones and the words, “That’s us!  Gotta go…click.”