Parenting is far from easy, even more so for those who are doing it alone.
When social media is filled with photos of couples enjoying Christmas with their children, it can be a lonely time for mums and dads without a partner by their side.
Then there's the stigma that society sometimes puts on single parents - that children from 'broken homes' will somehow suffer as a result of their parents' failed relationship.
That's why the M.E.N's Manchester Family wanted to focus on the success lone parents can make of their lives and how children's happiness isn't dependent on a 'traditional' family set-up.
One parent who's proved exactly that is Cheryl Doyle, mum to Archie, seven, and five-year-old Jake.
Having separated from the boys' father when she was pregnant with Jake, she has since raised her two sons alone.
From being a care worker and working in bars, she decided to embark on a nursing degree and now works in the A&E department at Tameside General.
Of course, family support has been key for Cheryl, she couldn't have done it without the help of her parents Paul and Debra Theobald, who have the boys overnight when she's working night shifts and moved them in for the first three months of the pandemic to help keep them all safe.
But she wants other people in a similar position to realise what they can achieve if they believe in themselves.
"I do not get any help financially or at all from the dad so I am literally a sole parent," said Cheryl, from Haughton Green in Tameside.
"My kids have me only and they know and understand that. It is not a broken home as we are happy and whole together as a three and we get all we need and want from me working as a nurse.
"Archie was one-and-a-half and I was pregnant with Jake at the time we split. I used to fully believe we had a broken home because I was a broken person. Once I finally felt myself again, my home no longer felt broken, it was broken when me and him were together."
It wasn't easy for Cheryl to embark on a new career, but she was determined to do it for a brighter future for her and her boys.
"Unfortunately my relationship with my sons' dad broke down, we split and I was alone with my two boys," said the 33-year-old, who was nominated for a local citizen's award because of the time she spent apart from her boys earlier this year.
"My kids spurred me on to do my nursing degree. As a single mum to do a degree with all the placement hours whilst my children were five months old and two, it would have been impossible without the support from my mum and dad, but because of them I did it and it was done to give my children the best life I possibly could.
"My mum has the boys overnight as I work mainly nights. I drop them off then pick them up in the morning after work and get them ready and take them to school as my mum works full time and my dad works full time nights. It’s very tough on them too, but they are my rocks."
She added: "It was hard when the boys were living at my mum's, I would stand at the bottom of the garden and talk to them at the front door, plus FaceTime. My youngest found it the hardest and would cry a lot and try to run and hug me, but it was in everyone’s best interest including keeping my mum and dad safe."
Far from feeling inferior, or that her children are missing out by having just one parent, Cheryl feels strongly that they have a better life because she is on her own.
"I am very happy to be able to give them a stable home, I feel thankful that we are here and healthy," she said. "I don’t think we would have what we do if I wasn’t a single parent. Our lives wouldn’t be this way, I even doubt I would have been strong enough to do my degree.
"I hope that by sharing my story it might help other women who have been through a tough time to realise that their lives can get better if they believe in themselves."
