A Wreath Encounter.
How a chance meeting at a wreath-making workshop made this mum of three go freelance, become a single parent and find contentment.
“If Pete’s gone vegan, he should call himself Peat.”
I said these words in 2019 at a wreath-making workshop.
The strangers around the table - each holding festive foliage - paused. They nodded in approval. And laughed. It was a glimmer of hope that the word geek within me was still alive. It’s alive and kicking, but we’ll come on to that.
"At the time of the Pete/Peat pun, I had three children under six, was unhappily married and hadn’t worked for seven years."
Confession: part of my story was a lie. Despite attending the workshop alone, one of the women around the table wasn’t a stranger. She was Sarah. I’d worked for her during a placement in Aston Martin’s PR department 15 or so years previously. We hadn’t seen each other since. After a couple of hours together, knee-deep in spruce, dried fruits and tartan ribbon, she told me I was the same as all those years ago.
I didn’t believe her. At the time of the Pete/Peat pun, I had three children under six, was unhappily married and hadn’t worked for seven years. Plus, the fabric of my extended family was threadbare at this time because my brother was in prison and my mum suffered terrible ill mental health as a result.
On that night, the universe shifted and opened the door to the possibility that I could build a business on my terms.
I wasn’t the same confident young lady Sarah had known. I was less. Stressed. Lost. For example, when new acquaintances asked what I did, I froze. And then mumbled, “just a mum”. The way I played down my role back then infuriates me now. I wish I could go back and declare that being a stay-at-home mum is a tough gig.
That was just two years ago.
Yet it was a different era - before the covid-induced unity of women who dared to want more, before Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, before Helen Thorn’s Get Divorced and be Happy - It was a time in which the niggling feeling that something wasn’t right must have been because I wasn’t trying hard enough to be grateful, right?
Wrong.
*Insert as much faith in fate as you can muster at this point. I have a lot of faith in fate.*
On that night, the universe shifted and opened the door to the possibility that I could build a business on my terms.
In the days and weeks that followed the workshop, Sarah messaged me on LinkedIn. Then she forced me to think about going freelance. We met for lunch, during which she and another copywriter answered my many questions and eased my endless doubts. That day, I bought my domain name.
I’m happy now, but it’s challenging to be freelance and a single mum of three, a “threelancer!" Especially with no local family to help with childcare
I like to think Sarah bullied me into going freelance. The truth is, she saw the embers of a dying fire within me and reignited them. Forever grateful (and a couple of years later, still asking silly questions), I owe a lot to those ladies. I now make a living as a freelance copywriter and PR consultant.
It’s no coincidence that ‘free’ is in freelance. I’m free to work the hours that suit my home life. I’m free to choose the clients I take on. I’m free to set my day rate.
But let’s take any rose-tinted glasses off at this point.
I’m now a single parent to three children. My ex-husband is a good man. But our marriage had cracks, and it didn’t survive lockdown. I’m happy now, but it’s challenging to be freelance and a single mum of three, a “threelancer!" Especially with no local family to help with childcare.
I work late nights and weekends to make up for the time I’m cooking dinner (three varieties, of course). I don’t get paid holiday. I’m never really “off” because having a business is like having a baby; it needs at least a little bit of attention to survive. I work part-time because I like to spend Tuesdays with my pre-schooler and do every drop-off and pick-up for the bigger two. Would I change any of these downsides and go back to being employed? No way.
And I’m not alone in this. Out of the six friends I met at NCT classes nine years ago, three of us are self-employed to fit around our children. Two of the others work in schools because (you guessed it) it suits the children.
I could go off on a tangent about the sacrifices women make in their careers once they become mothers, but journalist Anna Whitehouse (@mother_pukka) is already nailing that brief.
And while I make a respectful nod to the salary, company car and pension that I “gave up” to have my children, I give a huge arms-open hug to my freelance business. It set me free and gave me a voice again.
Having felt unheard for so many years, has made me a good listener, which is helpful as a copywriter because a key ingredient to success is asking questions and really listening to the answers. When I work with clients - especially women who have no idea how special they and their businesses are - I hear their stories and make their words marketable. It gives me a buzz every-single-time. And when someone thanks me for my work, I can’t quite believe I get paid to do something I love.
If you’ve got this far into my tale, perhaps these words aren’t about me, but more about you? Do you have an inner voice whispering in your ear, telling you that your creative heart has more to give this world? Listen. Speak to women around you. Ask for their knowledge, share yours. Encourage and empower each other as mothers and women. Heck, go on a wreath-making workshop and see what happens. It might just change your life.
Forever trying to talk less, manage her curls and get faster at running, Faye Hatton is 36 and lives in Warwickshire, UK. She runs a copywriting and PR agency called Straw Hat Communications. But work aside, her real job is being Mummy to her three children.