To all the parent/carer women and all the stay-at-home mums raising kids who need them around more than we typically believe kids need their mums nowadays.

To all the women who’ve been to parties and had someone say, “So what do you do?” and then watched the mild recoil and micro-expressions of awkwardness when what you reply indicates that you don’t have a salary or an up-to-date CV or possibly even a travelcard or a passport, and you watch the eyes disengage and start scanning for someone else to talk to “who might be interesting” [read interesting as valuable].

To all the women who can’t afford the time, let alone the money, to have their hair styled how they would choose, their nails done, or even a gym membership; those women who have devoted their everything to a niche specialist vocation – helping their child achieve their potential – that few understand, that most fear; and that seriously doesn’t pay.

To all the women who’ve endured well-meaning advice about “you time” and self care from people who don’t understand how it feels to regularly sit in rooms with professionals and specialists who don’t even bother to use our names, who call us “Mum”. To be the generic.

To the women who can ace a PIP application on the first attempt, navigate DLA tribunals and mandatory reconsiderations, who can manage complex regimens of medicines and therapies, complex calendars of referrals and diagnoses, who can and will sue councils, who tirelessly lobby and petition, who intimately understand their industry’s acronyms of ECHP, SENDIASS, CAMHS, EWO, SAO, LSCB, TAC/TAF and many more…

To the women who do not get sick pay, holiday pay or pension contributions,

AND the women who do all of this while also working, building their own businesses, starting movements for change,

AND the parent/carer single mums who do this alone.

To all of us women who are strong enough to cry but yet stand firm, unwavering, resolute, who are defeated and yet rally, time and time again, and who volunteer and advocate and sit and hold space for the others following behind us.

Women who know what it means to endure, who are fire, grace, beauty, strength, and power – happy International Womens Day – we are everything this world needs and more.