Don’t wait for the right relationship to have children, do it alone.

Genevieve Roberts explores the hot topics and parenting challenges she faces while raising three children in her weekly column, Outnumbered.

Of all the things I love most about Katherine Ryan, it’s not her sharp humor – which I love – or her openness – which is why I’m sure many of us feel a connection to her, but her fearless attitude.

It’s this attitude that led her to repeatedly call out a co-worker she considered a sexual predator, and when applied to parenting, it’s perhaps not surprising that her words feel like a rallying cry for me in my thirties.

“I don’t think a woman’s idea of ​​her biological heritage should be dependent on the suitability and availability of a man. It’s a very flawed system and a risky gamble,” she tells me. “It’s a really smart decision to create a family in your own way that suits you, and use donor sperm or eggs or surrogacy.” I couldn’t agree more—I only wish someone had said it so directly when I was making the decision to start fertility treatment to become a single parent nine years ago.

Ryan, 41, started donor insemination at 34. She checked her fertility levels (high) and bought sperm in Seattle (“British sperm had strange reasons, very colonial, and then a guy from Seattle said, ‘I love my mom, I love my skateboard’ – he was 21 or so “) while the relationship was breaking down.

“I think there are concerns about creating a non-traditional family. What about the 2.4 family where the father is a depraved alcoholic who gambled away the family money? Like, is this a risk? she asks. “I wasn’t going to foolishly let my late thirties slip away while I waited for the right relationship or tried to squeeze in the wrong man and have kids. Once bitten, twice scared. I had already had a bad relationship with my daughter’s father and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice because that’s a lot of admin.”

In fact, the Canadian comedian is back together with his childhood sweetheart Bobby Kustra after 20 years apart, and they are now a family of five: Violet, 15, Fred, three, and Fenna, almost two. But she remembers single parenting as “probably the best decade of my life” and worries about socializing.

“I don’t want to talk in such a romantic way, although perhaps there is a single mother who is financially insecure, like me, who feels really isolated. And I say it was great,” she explains. “But the beauty is that it must have been difficult in places, but I don’t remember the hardest parts. I really liked it. Make all the choices yourself and don’t consult anyone else.”

And she’s honest that some things are more difficult in a partnership. “I have to really consider other people’s points of view, and I can’t just go full steam ahead,” she says. “But my children have brothers and sisters, a very loving father and a larger family.” I get it: as a single parent for the first four years of motherhood, constantly making micro decisions, I’m still learning how to improve my communication and not make decisions unilaterally.

Ryan’s work life includes touring with and without the kids (she comes home to bed with the kids if she’s less than three hours away from work) and a family reality show: She’s currently filming four hour-long episodes At home with Katherine Ryancontinuing success Katherine Ryan: Parenting Guide. When we chat, her voice is husky from the show.

Somehow she works—and survives—on minimal sleep, “a very scattered six hours a night.” Her two youngest children stay up all night. “It’s my fault because I didn’t want to sleep teaching them,” she says. “They just want to check where I am, or ask for milk, or go potty. Fenna is very independent, she says, “I sleep in Fenna’s bed,” but then she wants me to get in the bed too, so I end up curling up at her feet. Fred won’t sleep in his alcove bed: he sleeps on a mattress with a small platform that was supposed to be my bed, but Fred took it for himself. So sometimes I lie on the floor, sometimes I lie on the bed in the alcove, and sometimes, if I’m really lucky, I lie on Fred’s bed, which is otherwise uninhabited.”

Her husband Bobby sleeps alone – she previously said they have sex twice a month, increasing in frequency as the kids get older; while Violet also sleeps alone, albeit “with the cat she recently brought home without permission.”

She speaks widely openly about parenting, receiving widespread praise for her exploration of maternal guilt, identity and family fatigue. Katherine Ryan: Parenting Guide. She has also been attacked for opening up her children’s lives to the cameras, despite maintaining strict boundaries during filming and avoiding baths and naps.

“We never film anything where they are in a vulnerable position. Likewise, if they start arguing or crying, we turn off the cameras because I would feel disrespected if I was really upset and someone was filming me. I put myself in their shoes both in my life and in my behavior on social media,” she explains.

Ryan’s Instagram posts are followed by millions of people, but she believes it is important for every family to be open about how much of their family life can be shared online and use their instincts about what is exploitative. “I refrained from posting photos that I thought were so cute. I will ask myself, “Is this exploitative in any sense?” Am I over-indulging myself with images of Fred that I don’t own?” I don’t think I own my children’s image, but at this point I am the custodian of their image.”

This seems reasonable: I realize that my own social media use will soon be tested and challenged by my children. “Violet started saying at about 10 years old, ‘Why aren’t there any pictures of me on social media?’ My friends go on social media when their parents post pictures of them. I don’t like the dimming. Again, I had to be responsive and cooperative and say, “Okay, let’s let you appear in some photos on social media.” But that doesn’t mean I post everything all the time. Never a school uniform. I always ask permission. And as soon as the kids understand, I’ll ask them too.”

But she’s also realistic: “At some point we will be a disgrace to our children, no matter what we do.”

She tells me that while she was in Cork with her family this month to perform her stand-up show Battleaxe, she and Kootstra had Fenna baptized. “I have a link to all these amazing photos, and I need to not exploit my children, not overindulge myself, and just publish a modest number of photos.” The next day I see that she posts nine very discreet photos on Instagram. Modest. Two days later she publishes another dozen posts. I laugh.

When it comes to her daughter Violet’s social media use, Ryan says parenting in the social media age is something she “navigates every day” and maintains firm boundaries. “Giving Violet unregulated access to this tool would be as crazy as giving Fred access to a chainsaw: he could actually harm himself and others,” she said.

“For me, the rule is: she can’t have personal passwords and she doesn’t have a phone. I have a phone. At 15, she won’t be able to get a phone contract. I would especially like to remove her from Snapchat. But teenage girls get so much out of being with their peers, and unfortunately this is the tool they all use. I don’t want to completely isolate her. We try to be open and honest. If I’m afraid, I say out loud what I’m afraid of and why, and let her problem solve: How can you make me feel better about this thing? What do you think we should do? Do you understand how dangerous this is?

Over the past 15 years, Ryan has learned to respond and reinvent herself as a parent every day. “Sometimes when they act like they don’t need you, when they’re very independent, that’s when they need you the most,” she explains. “So you have to be quite versatile.”

I’m curious what she finds the most joyful part of raising children. “I think it’s so wonderful to love someone so much. It’s so scary to love someone so much,” she says. Scary? From the fearless Katherine Ryan? It’s touching to hear her say this.

“When Violet was born, I didn’t feel that rush of love that everyone talks about,” she says. “I thought it was really irresponsible to give me a person to take care of. I couldn’t believe they let me leave the hospital with her, and it was nursing and taking care of her that made me fall in love with her in about eight hours, and then I became obsessed with her.

“I never think of it as them loving you back. Of course it feels good to be loved, but when they get older they will take that love away and give it away and take it away and give it away and go to university and say you’re shrinking. It will come and go, but it is so human to love someone so much.” I have to wonder if Ryan’s fearlessness is a result of never taking love for granted.

Katherine Ryan is an ambassador for food box brand Gousto, which offers over 250 recipes to choose from every month and costs just £2.99 per serving.