You probably know this already but it bears repeating – being a mom is the toughest but most rewarding job you will ever do. Emotionally rewarding as it is, it doesn’t pay the bills. Many of us either have no choice to, or simply want to, continue working while bringing up our little bundles of joy. There are many upsides to being a working single mom, but there is also quite a few downsides. One is an endless supply of…
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I didn’t spend my pregnancy reading pregnancy, labour and motherhood manuals. In fact I mainly spent my pregnancy working, moving house (which included moving to a different country at 30 weeks) and supervising some fairly serious renovations to a house we were due to move into. I did do a bit of research on labour. Google petrified me – never type ‘episiotomy’ into Google and then hit images! I also went to NCT classes (for those of you not familiar…
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Most single parents don’t get much me-time . They are on parenting duty 24/7. There is no time to indulge in a book, or to go for a run, to have a quiet cup of tea whilst reading the paper. Single parenting isn’t that much different to coupled parenting really. I know many of my friends would say they don’t get any time for running, tea and reading either. Other single parents, like me, operate a co-parenting schedule. Co-parenting schedules…
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Today is the deadline for all private companies in the UK, with over 250 employees, to publish how much their male employees earn compared to their female employees. Companies have been reporting their #genderpaygap This isn’t about equal pay where you compare the pay of a man and a woman who are doing exactly the same job, this is about the average hourly pay for all men in an organisation compared with the average hourly pay for all women. I…
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I was in need of an indulgent Sunday. Life has been quite busy recently. A new role at work is keeping me more than occupied. I often sit down after Cygnet has gone to bed to do the thinking that I haven’t been able to do at work. At least I can pour myself a glass of wine in the evening. Cygnet has been with his dad this weekend. Our alternate weekend schedule means that I am now child free…
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On a rainy day like today it can be difficult to know what to do with a three year-old. Our two bedroom flat just isn’t big enough to exhaust him so that he will sleep soundly at night (something that is really important to me). Cygnet needs action, fresh air, activity, a good old run around. Yet, when it is raining, the last thing I want to do is to hang around in the local park or even venture to…
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I have been a single mother for three years now. There have been times when I have felt a little insane. There have been times when I’ve let it all get on top of me and overwhelm me. I have some tips for how to stay sane as a single parent. My son was five months old when I left his father. Single motherhood was never my plan; it was never my dream. I had been with his father for…
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International Women’s Day #IWD2018 is a day when ordinarily I am frustrated and angry because there is so much to change and so little that I feel I can do to really make a difference. Sexism, misogyny and inequality are so engrained in our society that they are normal and go unnoticed. In the last year, we have called out sexual abuse and harassment – it turns out that everyone has a #MeToo story to share. In the last…
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This isn’t the first time I have written about the advantages of being a single parent. One of the big advantages if you are co-parenting, (and there aren’t many advantages so you do have to make the most of them) is that you get a free babysitter on a fortnightly basis. On Friday night, primarily to do some research for you all (honest!) I went to the Victoria and Albert museum (V&A) and their themed night on the Future of…
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The most important thing about me is that I am a single mum. I have been a single mum for three years now. Even if I marry or find myself in a long term relationship I will still feel like a single mum. When you’ve had children with someone with whom you are no longer coupled your separation defines everything. Apparently, good separations do exist. Good separations are where everything works swimmingly, payments arrive on time, your partner sticks to arrangements,…
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