JK Rowling, the best-selling author of the Harry Potter series, said she is “prouder of my years as a single mother than of any other part of my life”.
The writer, who is president of charity Gingerbread, added she wanted to give hope to any single parents suffering “stereotype or stigmatisation” after being ostracised herself as an “unmarried mother”.
Rowling added writing the first of the Harry Potter novels with the help of state benefits to look after her daughter, Jessica, had “not been my plan”.
She has now used her position at Gingerbread to rail against the “particularly offensive” language of “skivers vs strivers”, saying “such rhetoric drains confidence and self-esteem from those who desperately want, as I did, to get back into the job market”.
Rowling, who separated from her daughter’s father 20 years ago, said her belief that she would immediately find paid work was a “much bigger delusion” than believing she could write a children’s novel.
Rowling has since been estimated to be worth around £560m, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, and went on to remarry in 2001.
She has now said she wants to use her position at Gingerbread to campaign for the rights of single parents.
“I certainly identify with the results of a survey among single parents conducted last year which revealed that childcare costs remain the biggest barrier to work, closely followed by a shortage of flexible jobs: exactly the problems I faced when Jessica was young,” she said.
She added: “I would say to any single parent currently feeling the weight of stereotype or stigmatization that I am prouder of my years as a single mother than of any other part of my life."
“Yes, I got off benefits and wrote the first four Harry Potter books as a single mother, but nothing makes me prouder than what Jessica told me recently about the first five years of her life: ‘I never knew we were poor. I just remember being happy.’”
Read full article: www.telegraph.co.uk
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