‘Carrying the mental load’: Exploring the reality for single mums in marketing

Supporting single parents is not a niche issue. There were 3.2 million lone-parent families in the UK in 2023 – 85% headed by lone mothers – according to the Office of National Statistics.

Unsurprisingly, flexibility makes a massive difference to single parents. Most (87%) single parents have not applied for roles due to inadequate flexibility, according to research from single parent coaching provider Solas Coaching.

The sample of more than 300 single parents found two thirds (66%) of those dissatisfied with their current work situation see inadequate flexible working as their primary challenge, while over half (55%) have considered leaving their job due to insufficient support.

In search of greater flexibility, half of the sample (50%) are currently not working at a level which matches their skills and experience, while 68% view childcare as a major barrier to career progression.

My customer director job is relatively part-time in comparison. I do it within certain hours, but my other job [as a mum] is 24/7, 365 days a year and it doesn’t stop.

Tamara Strauss

There is so much for single parents to contend with, not least the stigma they face in the workplace, argues Solas Coaching founder Orla Donoghue.

“Half of the respondents said they face discrimination and 25% weren’t sure. If you’re not sure, I think you’ve faced it,” she says.

“There’s definitely people’s perception of what a single parent is. There’s so much misunderstanding, because even within the single parent community there’s so much nuance.”

Seeing single parents as one homogenous group – rather than a community made up of solo parents, single parents and co-parents – is reductive, says Donoghue. She walked away from a successful career in retail merchandising because her role became untenable with the demands of being a co-parent. Donoghue describes the struggle getting from the office to pick up her son as like being in a computer game she “didn’t enter”.

The fact single mothers are stepping down a level or working in lower salaried roles is especially troubling given they are the breadwinner, she notes.

“They’ve already taken a massive financial hit by the fact they’re a single parent household and then on top of that they’re not even getting to work at the level that would bring the salary and help alleviate some of those challenges. It’s just perpetuating the problem,” Donoghue argues.

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Support tailored to single parents is rare. The survey found just 7% of respondents work for businesses offering specific support for single parents. Typically, single parent employee resource groups are grassroots initiatives spun out of a wider family and carers network.

There are other thorny issues to contend with, such as equalised parental leave. While she celebrates such policies, Donoghue questions whether a business offering six months leave at full pay for a mother and father who both work in the organisation, should also give single parents 12 months at their full wage.

“Even explaining that to people they can’t wrap their heads around it. But when you think of it from the child’s perspective, they’ll have a family member in that home who is getting full paid leave for 12 months and they’re not being discriminated against,” says Donoghue.

“Whether that be solo parent by choice or some people become single parents during their pregnancy. Again, it’s understanding it’s not just the one-size-fits-all it comes to diverse family setups.”

Family first mentality

In her conversations with the single parent community the biggest issue is flexibility, which can be the difference between staying employed and leaving the workforce altogether.

Donoghue has seen single parents being penalised once they become more senior. One respondent described not being allowed to take time off when their daughter was sick, because they’re at exec level.

Some of this experience resonates with former Premier Inn global customer director Tamara Strauss, who has seen examples during her more than 25 years in marketing where seniority has been incompatible with flexibility.

Strauss is a solo parent to her eight-year-old daughter and has always worked full time without formalised flexible arrangements, organising her life to ensure she can still do her job at full capacity.

The compatibility of being a parent and working in an agency is difficult. Throw in being on your own and it can be really challenging.

Michelle Mowbray, Be Seen Consulting

While Strauss has not personally felt any stigma for being a solo full-time working parent, people often ask how she manages to juggle everything.

“When people say to me ‘How do you manage it all?’ my answer is really simple. I don’t know any different. It’s never been any other way for me,” she explains.

The pandemic was a significant challenge, particularly working in the travel and hospitality sector. Both she and her daughter contracted Covid consecutively in 2020 and in line with regulations had to isolate for nearly three weeks.

“I remember recording radio ads down the line with Sir Lenny [Henry, Premier Inn ambassador], while simultaneously doing Play-Doh,” she recalls.

A keen mentor, Strauss prioritises a “family first” leadership style, something she encouraged within her team at Premier Inn. This starts with how she identifies herself within the wider industry.

“You go to events and they say: ‘Tell us about who you are and what you do.’ Most people go: ‘I’m a marketing director. I’m a CMO.’ I go: ‘I’m a mother first and then I’m a customer director.’ A lot of times people say: ‘That’s really powerful that you talk about being a mum first.’ I’m like: ‘But that’s my full-time job,’” she states.

“My customer director job is relatively part-time in comparison. I do it within certain hours, but my other job is 24/7, 365 days a year and it doesn’t stop. I always talk about that’s my main purpose. Then my secondary one is about running really great marketing teams.”

However, in a world where businesses claim to have made strides towards embracing diversity, Strauss questions whether such progress always applies to people with caring responsibilities.

“We talk about being who you are [at work], but I don’t think it is always from the point of view of we celebrate embracing who you are as a parent and what your responsibilities are,” she notes.

Normalising flexibility

Giving single parents the support they deserve is not about special treatment or making excuses, Strauss stresses. However, offering flexibility is essential, rather than organisations paying lip service to the concept.

A believer in equity, she argues flexible working requests for working parents should be considered on their merits, rather than a blanket yes or no. Single parents typically go “above and beyond” in Strauss’s experience.

“When a company makes you jump through hoops to give a rationale about why you should be entitled to more flexibility, it almost goes against the whole principle of flexible working,” she states.

“If I have to stand there and justify for every single day or hour that somebody’s not in the business, I feel that it’s a bit of a slap in the face.”

The fight for flexibility is not new to Michelle Mowbray, a single mother and marketer with 25 years’ experience – including two decades at MediaCom – who founded her company Be Seen Consulting during the pandemic. She argues single parents have to be driven on so many levels, not least because they are the sole breadwinner.

A lot of single parents are very hyper-independent and aware of the stigma, so they’ll do anything to make sure people don’t think they can’t do it.

Orla Donoghue, Solas Coaching

In the agency world, finding flexibility can be hard. Mowbray describes it as a “marketing environment on steroids”, dominated by constant pressure and curveballs, with pitches and big reviews always in the mix. Coupled with the logistical and mental load of being a single parent.

“The compatibility of being a parent and working in an agency is difficult. Throw in being on your own and it can be really challenging,” says Mowbray.

“It wasn’t being a single parent that made me set my own thing up, but it was definitely in the mix of feeling like I can’t do this anymore.”

Mowbray took a 10% pay cut to work half a day every Friday in her last agency role, which invariably ended up stretching to a whole day. Pre-Covid flexibility wasn’t normalised and often seen as something reserved for parents, which left working mums feeling singled out, she explains.

“I felt a bit shamed and accused that I wasn’t ‘all in’, because I couldn’t be because I was a single mum. I did it – I don’t know how I did it – but I did it for eight years on my own in a senior position. It was relentless,” she explains.

“My team are still there. I’ll look willing, I’ll be online, but I was working a full day, wouldn’t take a lunch and then I’d be back on my laptop in the evening. There was no flexible working really, it was just constant working. That rush when you get in to get on your laptop even though you want to be with your kid. It wasn’t always non-stop like that, but lots of times it was like that.”

Flexibility that “really is flexible” and normalised beyond working parents would help remove the stigma felt by single mums, says Mowbray. It’s not about special treatment but understanding that in many cases working mothers are taking a pay cut or working hours elsewhere in the week to make ‘flexibility’ a reality.

“I would quite like to do a 9 to 5, but it’s just really bloody hard for me. I’ve got to get home and pick up my kid. I can’t stay and do that team meeting, even though we’ve got a big meeting tomorrow. I cannot physically stay, because no one is picking my kid up, and he’s three and he can’t get himself home from nursery,” she recalls of her time agency side.

Ultimately, making flexible working the status quo would “massively help” not just single mums, but all mums, Mowbray insists.

Line manager lottery

Some 88% of single parents believe improved workplace support would significantly enhance their job satisfaction and productivity, while three quarters (74%) want to see better managerial training on single-parent inclusion, according to the Solas Coaching research.

For Strauss, it comes down to how a person leads, performs for the business and their desire to understand their team as individuals. She recalls team members confiding in her very early about their pregnancies and as a leader Strauss always wants to offer support, particularly as mothers could be experiencing anything from the trauma of baby loss to a difficult pregnancy.

“That’s where you come into your own as a boss, because you’re saying I respect you for the job that you’re doing and I know you’ve got something going on, and I’ll help you in any way I can so you don’t need to worry about negative perceptions at work during that time. I don’t think every boss will be able to do that,” she adds.

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As a single parent it’s a “lottery” whether your line manager understands your experience, agrees Donoghue. She describes line managers as the “missing link” between company policy and the daily experience of single parents, although often they aren’t trained to offer the right support.

Workplace policies should be audited to explicitly address the needs of single parents, Donoghue suggests. She advocates for single parents to have specific career progression plans tailored to their working patterns and the opportunity to apply for part-time leadership opportunities. Donoghue also welcomes the introduction of staggered hours to help with childcare, as well as dedicated support systems such as employee resource groups.

“A lot of single parents are very hyper-independent and aware of the stigma, so they’ll do anything to make sure people don’t think they can’t do it because they’re single parents,” she says.

“They put extra pressures on themselves in the workplace, because they don’t want anyone to think: ‘It’s because they’re a single parent they dropped the ball.’”

The fact so many single parents are not applying for jobs due to a lack of flexibility or working beneath their capabilities should concern all companies, Donoghue adds. It is a business imperative to unlock this talent.

“It will benefit everyone. It will make you a more attractive place to work. It will boost the morale of people who aren’t even single parents, because even if you’re not a single parent yourself, you’ll know a single parent,” she argues.

“You may be raised by a single parent and anyone who has been through that experience or seen someone go through a divorce, and the challenges that brings up, will have empathy towards their colleagues and feel it’s a really good thing their company is doing.”