3.0 When Did Socialising Become a Kids’ Activity?

Before I became a mum, life felt... uncomplicated.

I trained because I loved it. Some weeks five days. Sometimes six.

I worked hard and climbed the career ladder. I went away or booked a restaurant without a single second thought.

I could spend an entire Saturday doing whatever I wanted. Usually that meant a long walk along the Thames in Putney, ending up at a riverside pub in Hammersmith, losing track of the time.

There was room for all the different parts of me.

Then came our first daughter. Then, not long after, our second, and suddenly there wasn't. Not because I loved those parts of myself any less, but because motherhood has a funny way of unintentionally replacing them with everything and everyone else.

Training became something squeezed into nap times or cancelled because someone hadn't slept... or because I hadn't slept and my energy levels just weren't there. Two C-sections later, hormones doing whatever hormones do, a body that didn't feel like mine anymore, and those strange postpartum moments where I'd cry at absolutely nothing or absolutely everything.

I remember people saying, "Everyone has the same 24 hours."

Do they?

Because those 24 hours felt very different to me.

Then it got me thinking about my age. Being in your thirties is funny.

Everyone tells you they're supposed to be your best decade. Mine certainly have been, but they've also been the hardest.

This decade has introduced me to two incredible little girls. It's introduced me to a version of myself I never knew existed. It's also closed chapters I didn't realise were ending. Friendships have changed, my priorities have changed and I have definitely changed. Sometimes those changes feel exciting and sometimes they feel lonely or even heartbreaking. Sometimes I grieve versions of myself that technically still exist... I just don't get to spend much time with them anymore.

People assume, because I talk about wine so much, that I just like drinking wine.

I do, but that's never really been the point. I've always loved what happens around it. The conversations, the slowing down, the extra hour nobody planned for.

Wine has always been less about what's in the bottle and more about what it gives people permission to do - to maybe stay a while, to talk that little bit more, to connect.

Which brings me to something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

Why is motherhood obsessed with coffee catch ups?!

Again, don't get me wrong. I genuinely love coffee, and I genuinely love those catch ups, however somewhere along the way, coffee became shorthand for friendship after children. An hour, with maybe with a lukewarm cappuccino because you don't really get the chance to drink it while it's hot. As a big foodie, and someone who loves wine, I always felt like something was missing. You leave having seen each other, but I'd argue... not really.

I missed long lunches, the ones where food arrives in stages, where you laugh about the completely irrational cry you had in the shower that morning, or the advert on television that somehow broke you. Where somebody simply says, "Me too", because that's the thing nobody really tells you. Motherhood can feel incredibly lonely in rooms full of people. What we often need isn't another quick catch up it time alongside the reassurance that you aren't the only one.

Why do we feel like becoming a parent means every social occasion has to become a children's activity? Sometimes they don't need to be the centre of the day. Sometimes they're simply part of it, and I actually think there's something really special about children growing up seeing their parents enjoying themselves too.

Looking back, I think that's exactly why BYOB (Bring Your Own Baby) became one of the first events I ever hosted. Not because it was a clever concept, but because it solved something I was desperately missing myself. It gave parents permission to do something that felt grown up again, without pretending their children didn't exist.

And these days, they're also a reminder that you're still allowed to enjoy things that aren't directly related to your children.

Which is where I think we've got it slightly wrong. We happily take our children swimming or to baby sensory or rhyme time or a soft play. Those spaces are designed entirely around them. So why do we suddenly feel guilty taking them somewhere that's designed, even just a little bit, around us?

Becoming a mum has been the greatest privilege of my life. Nothing comes close. But becoming a mum shouldn't mean becoming only a mum. I don't think we need less of ourselves to become better mothers, I actually wonder whether we need more.

More laughter, more movement, more conversations, more communities that make room for both the children and the women raising them.

Because I don't think we were ever supposed to choose between the person we were and the mother we've become.

I think we're allowed to be both.