Monique Hillen, a 59-year-old Amherst resident and psychotherapist, has raised three sons as a single mother during the past 14 years. Her sons are now adults, but she wanted to create a resource for single moms like herself. So, last year, she launched a social media site called PerSisters to connect single mothers across the country.
Among the most difficult challenges for Hillen as a single mother: feeling isolated and dealing with financial woes.
“I remember at night I was laying in my bed wondering how I’m going to pay my next bill,” she said. “So, I would pay what needed to be paid first: my mortgage, my phone, my electricity and heat. And the rest was just pilling up … At one point, I had a friend who saw that I was struggling and said, ‘Hey, let me help you a bit financially.’ It would have been so much harder if I didn’t have that.”
Hillen added that she had friends who were also single mothers and would support one another with child care.
“They would step in,” Hillen said. “It’s really important to have a community as a single mom.”
With PerSisters, a free social media and networking site, Hillen is building that community of single moms digitally.
According to a study by the Pew Research Center, the United States has the highest rate of children living in single-parent households in the world. Hillen, who is originally from the Netherlands and has lived in the U.S. for the past three decades, said she found that reality at first to be a “complete culture shock.”
Hillen explained that she started PerSisters as a way to create additional support for single mothers across the U.S.
In the past year, the online group has gained 25 members, and Hillen said that with the current COVID-19 pandemic, she’s strengthening her efforts to reach more single mothers with the site.
“I’m sending out press releases every single day, everywhere,” she added. “I’m contacting single mothers through social media … I’m trying to get the word out there because it’s so important.”
She added that with children no longer in school due to the novel coronavirus, it’s even more challenging now for her target group.
Some of the women she’s trying to reach “work in jobs where they are more exposed to the virus than others. When they get sick, what are they going to do with their children? The lack of income and being alone doing all this are specifically issues for single mothers.”
Unlike other social media sites, Hillen said, PerSisters doesn’t share user information with third parties, so that private information is kept private. Those who sign up for the site can connect with other women based on their age, education background, religious beliefs, political backgrounds or hobbies, similar in that way to a site like meetup.org. And members don’t just have to be single moms, either — the site is generally open to women looking to support other women.
The site features user profiles along with a friend’s list labeled, “sisters,” as well as event, group and resource tabs. Some of the groups featured on PerSisters include “Dog walkers unite,” “Women against sexual abuse,” and “Meditate with Moms.”
“The other part that I created was that they can find and share recycled items,” Hillen said. “One woman has a crib she can use no longer, so she can put it on there for other mothers to find who are having financial problems.”
The site also allows users to create groups that focus on specific subjects, such as breastfeeding, child care, life outside of being a mom or raising kids with autism, she added.
The resources section of the site lists information about rent and food assistance programs, among other links.
Shayna Smith, a 32-year-old Florence resident, recently joined PerSisters. As the single mother of 10-year-old Mady Smith, she said most of her time is spent working 40 hours a week as a retail manager and taking care of her daughter.
“It’s a great place to meet moms and people in similar situations,” she said of the site. “We can kind of trade tips and trade ideas and come up with things for kids to do. It’s a resource for all things parenting.”
Smith said that in addition to providing practical support for single moms, she likes that PerSisters is also a place where lasting friendships can be created.
“It gives moms a great place to connect, whether that’s organizing play dates for our children or sharing things that all single moms struggle with. It’s just a great resource for community events and things that we can do with our children. Again, daily struggles: How do I do this when I have to work full time and I have a child, especially now with COVID?”
Hillen noted that many single moms don’t have much time to go out between working and caring for their children, which is why she believes PerSisters could be valuable in creating an online community.
“They can support one another while they’re home with their children and feel like they’re not alone and isolated in the job that they are doing,” she added. “I would invite every woman to be part of this. Single mothers could use the help of any woman that’s out there.”
For more information about PerSisters, visit persisters.com. Chris Goudreau can be reached at cgoudreau@gazettenet.com.