The Life of a Working Single Mother

The life of a single mother is packed. Her mornings are spent running around like mad trying to get all the kids ready for school, packing lunches, pouring cereal, gathering things for work, making sure the kids got their homework done, then rushing to get them to the bus on time, and if she’s lucky she may even get out the door in time for work. She spends the day slaving away at her job, then comes home to make dinner, help the kids with homework, do the dishes, get the kids bathed and ready for bed, stories, and finally … Continue reading →

Is it Typical for a Single Parent to Work during a Holiday?

It has been a while since I have had a completely work-free holiday. While I am generally able to carve out time to be at home and I do work on making sure that I am quite available for important and ordinary things, my single parent existence is contingent on my working. With my own business comprising more than half of my income, this often means doing at least a little work from home on holidays. What I would like to know is if this is common and I am a “typical” single parent because holidays general do not mean … Continue reading →

Remind Yourself of the Reason You Work

Most single parents are working parents. For many of us, it is not only a requirement, but our work provides the lifeblood for our children’s health and safety. When things get stressful and we feel hopeless, or wonder why we are working so hard and putting up with the stressors we put up with—it can be a perfect time to remind ourselves of why we work as hard as we do. I am not so altruistic as to say that the only reason I work is for my kids—I also like to have a roof over my head and buy … Continue reading →

Work Travel as a Single Parent–Part Three–Coming Home

In my brief “series” today about work travel as a single parent, I have been sharing my personal experiences and observations about what it is like to have to leave one’s family and travel –however briefly–for work. For me, one of the most exhausting parts of traveling for work as a single parent is actually coming home… Coming home from a business trip for me is more than just handing out presents and showing the digital photos I took (although I do that certainly)–there is generally a house to be put back together, shopping to get done, and catching up … Continue reading →

Work Travel as a Single Parent–Part Two–What We Miss

I wrote earlier this morning about some of the realities of preparing to leave home and travel for work. In my own life, I have been able to avoid work travel until my children are older teenagers, but it is still not a walk in the park. Even though we can adjust and handle it, it is not easy–my kids miss me and I miss them; I also miss out on many daily details that I would ordinarily take care of. I noticed when I was gone to Scandinavia last fall that while I did not ache for my children … Continue reading →

Work Travel as a Single Parent–Part One–Preparation

What many people do not understand is that traveling for work as a single parent is not the relaxing get-away that they might imagine. People will say things to me like: “It must be great to get away” and “You must feel lucky your children are older now and you can travel more.” The reality is that not only am I working the entire time I’m gone; but there is often a great deal of work leading up to the trip AND a ton of preparation I have to do on the home front in order to feel half-way at … Continue reading →

It Doesn’t Help when People Tell You how Tired You Look

Like most of you single parents, I try to keep it together; I really don’t want to live an exhausted life of constant chaos so I do try to eat right, get enough rest, balance my life, etc. Unfortunately, there just seem to be times when all of that isn’t possible. I do get overwhelmed and overextended and I am the first person to get crabby about it (I am NOT one of those people who love to be busy or thrive in crisis, quite the opposite.) It definitely does not help when others tell me how puffy my eyes … Continue reading →

Tending to Family Without Losing Ground on the Work Front

One of the things you will hear when a group of single parents get together is that we often feel like when we are at home, we should be working and when we are at work—we should be taking care of home stuff. We need work flexibility and to be able to take off and tend to family business, but there is the worry and risk that we will slip behind or jeopardize our positions at work. How can we take care of family business and not compromise our work and careers? I think that it can depend on the … Continue reading →

When Our Kids Feel Jealous or Hate Our Jobs

While the “job jealousy” issue is not the private domain of single parent families, I have found in my experience that many of us single parents do have to contend with our children seeing our work or jobs as being in direct opposition to them. After all, many of our children learn quite young that what “takes us away” from them and home is our work. As single parents, how can we foster an understanding, appreciation, or at least a “truce” with our children when it comes to our jobs? When I first became a single parent and my children … Continue reading →

Considering a Relocation for Work and Opportunity

I have written before about how challenging it can be for a single parent to balance work and family obligations and ambition. We want to do what is best for our selves and our families and it can be tough to figure out what comes first and how to fit everything in. Many single parents eventually face the challenging issue of deciding whether or not to move or relocate to take a better job, go to school, or make other major life changes. For a single parent who might have custody realities to contend with, as well as trying to … Continue reading →