Katherine Ryan says she didn’t find being a single mother ‘a struggle’

‘You just do it,’ the comedian said

Katherine Ryan has revealed she didn’t find being a single mother difficult.

The comedian, 41, raised her 14-year-old daughter Violet alone after becoming pregnant aged 25 and has never publicly shared the father’s identity. She subsequently rekindled with her childhood sweetheart and welcomed two further children: Fenna Grace, one, and Fred, two.

Ryan said she enjoyed the years she spent alone with Violet and expressed concern that her single motherhood era was the best time of her life.

Speaking to Kate Thornton on the White Wine Question Time podcast, Ryan reflected: “I don’t think being a single mother explicitly was a struggle. That was a wonderful decade.

“I went back to our flat yesterday to do some work over there, and I looked at that flat and I was like, I’m worried that the best years of my life were spent there,” she revealed.

The Duchess star explained: “Being a single mother is fantastic and rewarding, and you know that you can’t rely on anyone else so you just do it and you do it without resentment, because you don’t have an example of another adult who isn’t doing it and you don’t have to consult with anyone.

“You know exactly where you stand, and you have this unique life experience.”

Katherine Ryan and her daughter Violet (Instagram / @katbum)

Elsewhere in the interview, Ryan revealed she had a consultation about freezing her eggs because she wants one more baby but can’t take a career break.

“This is the timeline that women have to navigate,” she said.

“A dad, if he wanted another baby, could just have one now. But I’m about to go on tour for about a year and with me, I’m very hands on looking after them for a year afterwards I breastfeed them, I [also] sleep with them.

“So professionally, I’ve just taken three years to do that, twice, plus lockdown in front of that,” the comedian continued. “So I was like, what should I do in this time? Because I can’t even think about having another baby. I’ve decided, for like a year.

“So I thought maybe I should freeze some eggs in this year.”

Last year, Ryan expressed disgust over how her teenage daughter is routinely sexually harassed by much older men, calling a man who had filmed her daughter on the tube a “sick freak”.

“There’s no mistaking Violet’s age. She’s 14, she has braces on her teeth,” she said. “Anyone looking at these girls, no one is mistaking them for being adult women.”

Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time is available to listen to on all podcast platforms.