Single parent and Gingerbread Chief Executive Victoria Benson explains why Single Parents Day on March 21st is a day to celebrate:

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day celebrate all mums and dads. But there are extra challenges for parents who are doing it alone. As single parents, we all know there are times when we have to dig deep, ignore how tired or lonely we feel, and do what needs to be done to keep our families going.

So we want Single Parents Day to be the day when all single parents get a big shout-out for the extra special love and dedication they show their families all year round. We hope that this year you’ll join us in making it a day to celebrate.

Single Parents Day started in the USA in 1984, and has been celebrated in Britain since 2018. It’s a day to bring attention to the challenges that single parents face, and to celebrate the achievements of the nearly 2 million single-parent families across the country. We’re delighted to be working together with One Parent Families Scotland, Parenting NI, One Family Ireland and Fife Gingerbread to celebrate single parent families across the UK and Ireland.

This Single Parents Day, we want to reach out to as many single parents as possible, and let them know that they’re doing a brilliant job.

We’re encouraging all our local Gingerbread groups to get together and celebrate Single Parents Day. (If you’re not a member of a local group, you can find out more information about joining or setting up your own group here).

We want to make sure that all single parents – whether they’re members of a Gingerbread group or not – can get involved in Single Parents Day. So we’d love it if you could celebrate a single parent or single parent champion in your life, or if you’d like to share your story with us. If your company would like to celebrate your single-parent employees, then we’ve got a range of resources to help you do this.

Above all we hope that, whatever else you’re doing on Single Parents Day,  you can take a few minutes to relax with a cuppa, and feel proud of the hard work, love and dedication you give your family every single day of the year.