Single Mums Business Network [SMBN] [CIC]

I am delighted to welcome Tanya Gebhardt to the Single Mums Business Network. I will confess that reading Tanya’s introduction made me cry. So many of our members share stories of walking down the isle or starting a family in a loving relationship and never expecting to be a ‘single mum’, but alas we are and we are coming together to not only support ourselves, but support all Single Mums in Business throughout the UK, read what she says here;

Hi, I’m Tanya. An expat from sunny Pretoria, South Africa. I have lived and worked in London for not-for-profit organisations as well as corporate companies for 13 years in various roles within Finance before moving to Malvern in Worcestershire. I moved to be with my then partner, my 6 year old daughter’s father. We met at Twickenham, England vs Wales back in 2012. Before him, I loved my independent life of socialising & travelling the world but I was ready to move out of the big city into the beautiful countryside and start a family with him.

Pregnant and away from a way of life I had mastered & far away from all my friends, it was the most difficult adjustment I had to make, second to leaving my home country. My experience was feeling alone while learning how to navigate my life from scratch again with very little understanding & support from my partner. None the less, I was a good mum, dedicated to offering my daughter the best experience in life I could offer her in a wonderful town I grew to love in the hills of Malvern. This is still my mission.

I’m a survivor, so while holding down a job of 3 days a week working from home as a Project Accountant for a London company, I also trained to be a Permanent Make Up technician and qualified a couple of months before giving birth to Lily at the age of 40.

We bought a house in 2016 & moved to Evesham, & 5 months in, my man decided we were no longer a match for each other & he moved on to the next skirt within a month of splitting up. With not much equity from the house sale, Lily & I moved back to Malvern into rented accommodation with no physical or financial help from the ex at all, just a couple of days before Xmas 2017. This forced me to go into full time employment. With a corporate restructure I also found myself in a position of applying for a new role, as Project CoOrdinator.

I managed full time, stupidly late hours, travelling to London once or twice a month, relying on local friends for childcare because my ex couldn’t see his way clear to step up and fill in when there was a need. His job was and still is more important than mine. I did this for a year & could see the impact on my daughter. I was stressed and would snap at her, she started hating school & the TV became her childminder while I was on back to back conference calls. NOT what I had in mind for a wholesome family life!

At the beginning of 2019, feeling settled at home and in my support network, I handed in my notice and took the plunge into doing Permanent Make Up full time. I have not looked back once. We are so much happier. My only worry is getting more clients. Even though I make as much as did full time, I don’t make enough profit to draw a salary yet. Everyday I worry that Universal Credit will be stopped and I’ll be forced back onto the hamster wheel. Raising the matter with the ex and the impact it’ll have on our daughter, his approach is, this is my problem not his.

I’m determined to be a success and stick it to him but above all I’m determined to show my daughter how wonderful it is to be a woman in business.

I am looking forward to meeting some of you & I am pleased to be a part of a network of extraordinary woman standing for a brighter future for single households.

btw. I need marketing / social media taken off my hands. It’s a mess! ha

You can connect with Tanya via her social media links below

https://www.facebook.com/DetailPMU/

https://www.instagram.com/detailpmu/

---

https://singlemumsbusinessnetwork.wordpress.com/