Hello! My name is Emma Johnson and my goal is to help you build a full, awesome life as a single mom.

I started Wealthysinglemommy.com when I realized a huge need for community, information and inspiration for women like me:

Professional single moms.

Immediately after launching in 2012, tens of thousands of women every month started visiting, commenting and connecting on Wealthysinglemommy.com. The media started calling. Something special was going on.

There is an unprecedented number of women parenting alone. We’re not going away. There are 10 million U.S. unmarried moms heading families, and 57 percent of births to millennial moms were outside of marriage. For the first time in history it is very possible for unmarried women to raise amazing, healthy children while also building wildly successful businesses and careers – and enjoy dating and the pursuit of romantic love. I’m one of them. So are you. But moms like you don’t always feel like they fit in. So they come here.

This single mom business is not easy. On the tough days it is stressful, exhausting and lonely. But life as a single mom can be brilliantly fulfilling – even if you don’t stay a single mom forever (hello, dating!). I am here to help single moms like you build an amazing family, career and love life.

Bestselling single mom book author

Penguin published my book, The Kickass Single Mom: Be Financially Independent, Discover Your Sexiest Self, and Raise Fabulous, Happy Children. It hit Amazon’s #1 bestseller list, was named by the New York Post as a ‘Smart, Must-Read’ and got shout-outs in more than 150 media outlets.

Here I am on The Doctors promoting the book:

Emma Johnson in the media

I have been in the media hundreds of times, as a journalist and expert on single parent topics. As an expert, I have been invited to write op-eds for the New York Times, profiled in the New York Post and appeared on CNN, Headline News, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, U.S. News, Inc., MONEY magazine, TIME magazine, CBS Marketwatch, Woman’s Day, NPR, Fox&Friends, Oprah.com, Jenny McCarthy Radio, and hundreds of others.

Awards and shout-outs include:

Parents magazine named Wealthysinglemommy ‘Best of the Web.’

New York Observer named me to its “9 Most Eligible Singles” list.

My podcast, Like a Mother, was named by U.S. News as a ‘Top Personal Finance Podcast.’

A few articles of note:

Oprah.com: 3 Keys to Thriving Financially as a Single Mom

Money magazine: Financial Advice from a Single Mom

U.S. News: Self-care for Single Moms

New York Times has interviewed me, invited me to write an op-ed on working parents, and covered my book party:

Here I am on Fox & Friends, where I am frequent (liberal) commentator on parenting issues (do you like my ‘Bitch, please’ face?)

Activism

I believe passionately that the only way for women and men to be equal is for all genders to earn, save and invest equally. It is impossible to close to gender gap if women are the presumed primary caretake of children — either inside coupled relationships, or co-parenting outside of marriage.

While a court cannot mandate equally shared parenting time and responsibility inside of a marriage, family and divorce courts have an incredible opportunity to stem the gender gap by mandating equally shared parenting for separated and divorced families.

I advocate for:

These arguments for shared parenting are in addition to the 62 peer-reviewed studies that find that equally shared parenting for separated families is what is best for children, stems our the dire fatherless epidemic.

I speak on this topic frequently in the media (whether the media ask me to or not), and I launched Moms for Shared Parenting as a call for policy and cultural change to focus on the obvious benefits for children, women, men, feminism and our society when parents share equally in raising children.

My single mom journey

My name is Emma Johnson. I’m a single mom. I’m a bunch of other things, too. I’m a mom-mom. I’m a writer, journalist, business owner, small-town Midwesterner, New Yorker, world traveler, homebody, cook, friend, neighbor and woman. I love to bike, run, dance, and do yoga (though inside I’ll always be that fat kid in gym class). I’ve been broke and I’ve figured out how to make a good living. I’ve felt ugly and gross, and I’ve felt wildly attractive. Some days I’m sure I’m the worst mom in the world, but my kids are so awesome, I must be doing something right.

If you’re here, you have a story. Here’s the short version of mine:

My husband and I had a stable if contentious relationship. We were those typical, ecstatic first-time parents. That first year of my daughter’s life was my happiest. Then, when she was 14 months old, my husband went on a work trip to Greece. My phone rang. His boss was on the line. My husband had fallen off a cliff. It’s serious, he said. My daughter and I jumped on the first flight to Athens. He had a brain injury. Nearly killed him. My ex-husband is perhaps the strongest person I know. If you know about brain injuries, you know people are never the same, even when their recovery is — by all doctors’ measures — miraculous.

A month later he came home. He was angry before. We fought before. Now it was impossible. Then I got pregnant again. Then he left. I had a second baby, a gorgeous boy.

I’d always been into my career, ambitious. I grew up poor with a single mother. That shaped a lot of who I am, how I think about money. After a few years as a (poor-ish) newspaper reporter, I started working for myself as a freelance journalist and writer. Self-employment was the most exciting, empowering thing I’d done. I figured out how to make money. The sky was the limit.

When my daughter was born in 2008, I’d cut down to 12 hours per week of work. Still made pretty good money, but not enough to live on. After separating, I got child support for a while, but that did not continue for long. I had to figure it out. And I did.

The past four years have been my hardest yet. And they have been the most wonderful. My kids are thriving. I found unexpected success and meaning in my creative and professional lives. And I have enjoyed dating and my body in ways I never imagined. I am at my strongest, my happiest, and in every sense of the word — my wealthiest.

#1 top single mom blog

This is not a brag. Wealthysinglemommy.com is the largest single-mom community in the world. It is not just a blog for divorced single moms. It is for all single moms — never-married, separated, widowed, divorced, babies out of casual hook-ups, committed partnerships, gay and straight. We are living in 2020 right along with you.

Facts:

300,000 monthly page views

100,000 social media following

30,000 email list

Citing in hundreds of top sites and news organizations

Founded by an award-winning business journalist

Emma Johnson professional bio

Emma Johnson is a business journalist, gender equality activist, #1 best-selling author of The Kickass Single Mom (Penguin), and founder of Wealthysinglemommy.com, the world's largest platform for single moms.

A former Associated Press reporter, Emma has been featured on New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Headline News, CNBC, NPR, TIME, O, The Oprah Magazine, The Doctors, and many more. She was named Parents magazine's “Best of the Web,” “Top 15 Personal Finance Podcasts” by U.S. News, and “9 Overachieving New Yorkers You Must Date” by New York Observer.

Emma frequently speaks on women's issues, including at the United Nations Summit for Gender Equality. She is founder of Moms for Shared Parenting, an activist organization aimed at making equally shared parenting the norm in both culture and policy.

Emma grew up in Sycamore, Ill., and live in Astoria, N.Y., with her kids, Helena and Lucas.

My articles about single motherhood

I have been a professional journalist since I began my career, starting in community newspapers, then at the Associate Press Financial Wire in New York City, then as a full-time business freelance journalist. Here are some places I have been published:

Oprah: 3 Keys to Surviving Financially as a Single Mom

Forbes: Why Does the $3T Travel Industry Discriminate Against Single Moms?

New York Times: On Snow Days, Help Parents Work From Home, Too

TIME: The Parenting Fantasy that Holds Women Back

U.S. News: Self-care for Single Moms

MindBodyGreen: 8 things you should never say to a single mom

Contact me

Via the contact page or emma at emma-johnson dot net,

Please fill in the form below, or email emma at emma-johnson dot net. I aim to respond within 48 hours.

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Work with me

Want to get together, get creative, and make the world better? Some ways I have worked with brands, organizations and individuals on this page: Work with Emma