
Holding the Baby
- Publisher
- Dewi Lewis Publishing
- Year
- 2022
- ISBN
- 9781911306795
- Specifications
- Softcover with jacket
24 x 17 cm
96 pages
56 colour and black-and-white photographs
Texts by Sally Williams and Claire-Louise Bennett
Overworked, under-appreciated and often vilified: it's hard being a lone parent in a society still geared to a two-parent family. And yet one in four families are single parent households. Around 90% are headed up by a single mother. In the summer of 2019, Polly Braden, a single parent herself, started to document the day-to-day reality of what it means to be a single parent in the UK. From one mother’s resourcefulness in converting a sitting room into a bedroom, creating a special space for her child to thrive, to the loneliness of being sole earner, teacher, playmate; Polly puts the distinctive culture of solo parenting under the spotlight. Holding the Baby is a powerful collection of portraits; a moving expression of stoicism, anger, exhaustion, pride, compassion and love.