Lydia Bright: 'When you become a single mum, you become part of this club'
Alison Perry
Netmums contributorLydia Bright opens up about her experience as a single mum in this week's episode of The Netmums Podcast
Former TOWIE star Lydia Bright — and mum to three-year-old Loretta – has spoken to Netmums in an open and honest interview about single motherhood.
Chatting on The Netmums Podcast, Lydia shared her unfiltered thoughts on motherhood, societal pressures, and finding support in the most unexpected places.
The reality TV star turned author wishes she hadn't worried so much about what people would think about her being a single mum. In fact, if she could go back and tell her pregnant self one thing it would be 'stop worrying so much'.
'I was so nervous for it to come out that I was pregnant and I was doing it by myself,' she tells podcast hosts Wendy and Alison. 'I was worried sick that people would judge me.'
- Primark shoppers 'need' new travel bag that fans are calling 'perfect'
- Exact date millions will be paid benefits early this month
- The Aldi Specialbuys landing this weekend including £50 Dyson vacuum dupe
'I wasn't 100% happy mentally. I was lost and heartbroken'
Last week's podcast guest Dani Dyer told us that single motherhood was 'scary and daunting' but Lydia says the deluge of support she's had from fellow single mums has made it much easier.
'Oh, my gosh. The outpouring of support that I received from single mums was incredible,' she says. 'I almost think that when you become a single mum, you become part of this club. We all just gravitate to each other.'
Lydia describes how often other single mums approach her when she's out and about.
'They'll come up to me and they'll say, "hey, Lydia, I follow you on Instagram. I'm a single mum as well." And it gets the conversation going. It's like a single mum club.'
The support was particularly important to Lydia during her pregnancy, after her split from Loretta's dad.
'I still wasn't 100% happy mentally. I was lost and heartbroken,' she recalls. 'But I feel like that support that I received really did empower me and it did make me find this kind of strength.'
'I do share that my child can be feral and rude and wild sometimes, but she's also very enthusiastic and confident'
Lydia also touches on the importance of showing the reality of single motherhood on social media.
'Pre Loretta, my social media, I used it like a lot of influencers used it. And there's nothing wrong with this, but I used it sort of like an editorial magazine of my life,' she explains.
'But now, as a mum influencer... I just wanted to be a lot more real on my platform and a lot more honest.'
'I do share the ups and downs and I do share that my child can be feral and rude and wild sometimes, but she's also very enthusiastic and confident and she's got all these wonderful qualities as well,' smiles Lydia.
'But I show the reality of it, that she can be hard work sometimes. And I wouldn't change that for the world because I don't want a boring child.
'I want my child to be outspoken and I want her to have all these bundles of energy because, gosh, I think I was like that as a child. She's never going to be shy, is she?'
Related articles
'My kid just absolutely doesn't care. She doesn't want me to read the book to her'
Writing her first children's book — Mummy and Me – is clearly something Lydia is hugely proud of. But, as she tells us, despite having this idea in her head that showing Loretta the book based on their lives would be a special moment, it didn't turn out that way.
'When I gave her my book for the first time, I hid the camera and I thought, it would be a lovely piece of content, a magical moment of sharing with my daughter that I've written a book for her and I've worked on it for all these years.
'Well. I gave it to her and it didn't go to plan,' laughs Lydia. 'And, I mean, I could have easily just reshot that and tried to do it again, but I thought, I'm going to share the reality. I'm going to share that. My kid just absolutely doesn't care. She doesn't want me to read the book to her. She's got no interest. She's sitting there sulking.
'My dad ends up getting the hump with my mum because she keeps laughing. My dad's in the corner of the video, giving my mum a dirty look. And it's just normal family, everyday life.'
'I think it's so important that children need to see other family setups to become more inclusive people'
Writing Mummy and Me has been Lydia's mission to provide representation for single-parent families, after struggling to find many books that Loretta could see herself in.
'I was trying to buy anything that I felt would represent our family set up and I found that there just was a real lack of single parent books,' she says. 'The book aims to weave the magic of storytelling with the reality of different family dynamics.
'I think it's so important that children need to see other family setups to become more inclusive people. What a boring world it would be if we all are the same and we all had the same family set up.'
Hear more on The Netmums Podcast
Find out more about Lydia's family life plus her new picture book Mummy and Me on The Netmums Podcast.
Catch up on previous episodes
Have you caught up with the last season of The Netmums Podcast yet?
It was packed with brilliant guests, from popular children's author Jacqueline Wilson, Gemma Bird aka Money Mum, Steve Backshall, Ollie and Gareth Locke-Locke, Kelsey Parker, Dr Ellie, Nigel Clarke and Sarah Beeny.
Each week we bring you a terrific lineup with guests talking all about parenting, celebrity, money and much much more.
Listen to more brilliant Netmums Podcast episodes
