Single Parents on films

Interview of a single mother (who saw one of the films about single parenting at the film festival)

Questions asked:

1. How long have you been a single parent?

2. How many kids do you have?

3. Do you work? If yes, part time or full time?

4. Do you get help from anyone to take care of you child/children?

5. Which film from the trinidad+tobago film festival that pertains to single parenting

Did you see?

6. What were your views on the film/s?

7. What in the film stood out to you as a single parent?

8. What did you like about the film the most?

9. What did you dislike about the film the most?

10. Does the film relate to your own life as a single parent in any way? If so, how?

11. After looking at the film, together with your own experience as a single parent, what advice would you offer to other single parents out there?

Answers:

Single Parent #1

1. 5 years

2. 2 kids

3. Yes I do, full time.

4. Yes my mother.

5. Pelo Malo

6. It was a really good film, glad that I got to see it, it raised a lot of issues on parenting and what children from broken homes go through.

7. What stood out to me the most in this film would have to be the way the mother in the film treated her son. As children normally do, they like to play with their mom’s hair and stuff like that, my son does it, in the movie, when the child tried to be close to his mother in any way, she would just push the child away, as if his touch burnt her or something. It was disgusting the way she treated that poor boy, all he wanted was her love and acceptance, but she deprived him of such, which led to him acting the way he did.

8. I loved how the film showed the mother’s struggle to find work and the things that she had to do to get a job, it’s a very real situation that women face on a daily basis, struggling to get a job to make ends meet.

9. Actually I didn’t dislike anything, loved the entire film, very well done.

10. Yes it relates to my life in multiple way, firstly with the struggle for single moms to find and keep jobs while trying to raise their kids at the same time. Also it’s very difficult to see about two children and work full-time, I don’t want to work full time because I wish I had more time with the kids but it’s not an option for me. I have to do what I’ve got to do because I have two growing kids to raise, so I often depend on my mother to help me takecare of them. Sometimes I think, without her help, I really don’t know how I would cope. Single parenting is really not an easy task.

11. The advise that I would offer to single parents is that all children need is love, don’t substitute love with anything else, nothing will ever do the job as love would. I know it’s hard to find time in such a busy schedule but you have to make time for the kids, show them that you’re there, even if they may not see you for most of the day, make some time, somewhere in the day to show them that you are there for them, there to listen about how their day was, what they liked, what they disliked, things like that. It’s really important that you do as it affects the child more than you could possibly imagine.

 Guest Post By Stephanie Rattan