Newly Divorced or Single Parenting? Here's How a Personal Assistant Helps

Single parents carry every logistical and emotional task of running a household alone, and research consistently shows that translates into measurably higher stress with fewer built-in ways to cope, compared to parents who share the load with a partner. A personal assistant can take on the recurring logistics (errands, scheduling, household upkeep) so you're not solo on everything, even if you're parenting solo. If you're newly divorced or doing this on your own, I want you to hear that there's help for the logistics part.

The research shows that solo parenting is both common and measurably more stressful. The U.S. has the highest rate of single-parent households of any country tracked by Pew Research Center, nearly a quarter of American children under 18 live in one, more than three times the average rate across the more than 130 countries and territories Pew surveyed [1]. This is far from a niche situation. It's a structural reality for millions of households, including a growing number in Nashville.

Pew's 2023 "Parenting in America Today" survey found that 41% of parents overall describe parenting as tiring and 29% describe it as stressful all or most of the time, with mothers reporting higher rates of both than fathers [2]. Layer solo parenting on top of that baseline, and the research gets more specific: according to the American Psychological Association, single parents face compounding stress from juggling childcare, household maintenance, and work without a second adult to split any of it with, and a peer-reviewed study on cumulative stress among single mothers identified low perceived social support and a young age of the youngest child as two of the strongest predictors of that stress (Sartor, Lange, and Tröster, published in an APA-affiliated family psychology journal, 2023) [3]. A separate PLOS ONE study on single mothers' coping strategies found that structured, practical support, not just emotional support, was one of the more effective buffers against burnout [4].

So if you're exhausted, please don't read that as a personal failing. You're capable. You're just short on bandwidth and hands.

The car needs an oil change, but there's no one to sit with the kids, so it waits another week. Then another. That's exactly the kind of thing we can pick up.

Support makes the biggest difference when it's practical, because emotional support and practical support aren't interchangeable, and practical support is often the piece that's missing. A friend checking in helps. But a friend who can't pick up your prescription, run the school form to the office, or handle the grocery order doesn't change your Tuesday.

That's the gap a personal assistant is built to fill, and it's where an extra set of hands matters most:

We wrote about this exact overload pattern in 10 Signs You Need a Personal Assistant for Your Home and Family, and the underlying mechanism is the same one described in The Mental Load No One Talks About: what breaks you is rarely one big task. It's the accumulation of small, unshared ones. For a single parent, there's no one else in the house to absorb the overflow, and that's exactly the overflow I'd want us to take on for you.

Is single-parent stress actually different from stress in two-parent households, or does it just feel that way? It's measurably different in the research. Peer-reviewed studies specifically identify lower perceived social support and the absence of a second adult to share tasks with as distinct, quantifiable risk factors for single parents, not just a subjective impression [3][4].

Can I hire a personal assistant for just a few hours a week? Yes. Friday's part-time personal assistant service starts at a minimum of three hours a week, which is often enough to cover the recurring errands and logistics that pile up the fastest.

Will a personal assistant work around my parenting schedule, including last-minute changes? We do our best to accommodate short-notice requests, and while you may not always get your usual team member on very short notice, we move quickly to make sure your needs are covered. Weekend and after-hours support is available with advance notice.

Is this only for high-income households, or does it work for a typical single-parent budget? Support is hourly and scales to what you actually need, from occasional as-needed help to a recurring weekly minimum. Many single parents start small (just the recurring errands) and adjust from there.

Where does Friday provide this support? Friday serves the greater Nashville area, including Brentwood, Franklin, Green Hills, and surrounding communities.

If you're doing this alone and the logistics are the part wearing you down, schedule a consultation with Friday to see what taking even a few things off your plate could look like.

Ready for an extra set of hands? Friday pairs busy Nashville and Denver households with vetted part-time and full-time personal assistants and house managers, starting at just a few hours a week. Get started with Friday →