What bothers me is that I am 99% sure Ioan would have wanted to help in a situation like that. Alice is lamenting that she’s a single parent, which technically she is, but she didn’t have to be the only parent - to imply heavily that she has no one else to help is entirely by her own design.
She should be thanking her stars she had a ex husband who wanted to be a parent to their children. My ex sees our son every other weekend deliberately scheduled to make minimal impact on him and barely does any holiday time, so the fiscal and logistical cost is on me entirely. I get no extra support for the £1000 extra it costs in the summer holiday for childcare, given that I don’t work a job where I can take the entirety of it off. Ex earns double what I do, and pays the bare minimum per month. Alice could have really had a very cushty set up from her separation, but the anger and sheer cuntiness won out - a real shame.