Why Mummy Drinks Wine

There's something I need to make clear right at the beginning of this post:

Motherhood is by far and away the most rewarding, enriching and joyful aspect of my life, and my three children fill me with wonder every day. However...

....motherhood is hard. Harder for our generation, I would suggest, than for any previous one.

A while ago, my sainted mother came to stay at our house for a week to look after the children while the husband and I went on our first holiday without children for thirteen years.

She was horrified!

"Why do you women make things so difficult for yourselves?" She asked. "Why all the after school activities, the music practice, the endless playdates, the fussy organic food? We didn't have any of that stuff in our day. You ate fish fingers, Smash and Angel Delight and spent your afternoons in front of the TV, and you turned out all right!"

Well, that's debatable, but she has a really valid point.

I have seen motherhood from both sides of the great divide: as a full-on working mother and as a stay-at-home mum. They are very different, but both equally hard.

As a working mum, I was desperately trying to perform in the office as if I didn't have children at home, and to be the sort of mother for my children who didn't have a job.

I constantly had to morph, suddenly and seamlessly, from one persona to the other, from presenting at a board meeting to reading the Gruffalo for the thousandth time, and I was convinced I was failing at everything.

After I quit, I was determined to be the perfect mum, to create craft tables and freshly baked cupcakes and to remember to do my pelvic floor exercises.

Instead, I felt guilty about how tired and isolated I felt much of the time, and I was exhausted by the stress of trying to persuade fussy children to eat the perfect diet, to keep them off the electronics which I was told would fry their brains, and to mimic all the perfect images of motherhood littering my Facebook feed.

There has been a backlash recently, with a host of fabulously funny mommy bloggers railing against the pressure to be perfect and revelling in being relaxed, slovenly mothers.

And hurrah for that!

But what antidote do they suggest to all this stress and pressure?

BOOZE! Lashings of it.

There's are several bestselling (and hilarious) books along these lines, like Hurrah for Gin, Why Mummy Drinks and Unmumsy Mum.

There are endless Facebook memes about wine o'clock and mummy's little helper.

And I get it! I get it better than anyone. For a decade or more, wine was my sanity, my oasis, the way I slid from one part of the day into the next.

The problem is that all the books, all the jokes, normalise using an addictive drug as self-medication.

We get so used to dealing with all the everyday ups and downs of life with booze that we don't learn any healthier ways of de-stressing. After all, pouring a glass of wine is much easier and quicker than meditating, doing yoga or going for a run...

Slowly, insidiously, the amount of wine you need in order to wind down increases, and you discover you're drinking a bottle of wine a day and finding it impossible to moderate.

So, at the risk of sounding like a killjoy, I think we have to call time on the mummy wine jokes because what they do is normalise the issue. I spent years thinking the amount I drank was perfectly okay, because everyone else was doing it too...

Astonishingly, the hugely popular mummy blogger, Scary Mommy, agrees with me. She says she's 'done making Mommy wine jokes.' Her post explaining why is on the SoberMummy Facebook page (click here to visit, and 'like' to stay updated).

But, more than that, I think we have to look at why mothers end up relying on wine, and start creating lives for ourselves that we don't feel the need to run away from.

We have to make life simpler, and stop judging ourselves, and other mothers, so harshly. We need to focus on the important stuff- creating a relaxed and happy home, not one driven by lists of endless stuff we all have to achieve.

If you'd like to read the story of my first year without booze, you can buy my book - The Sober Diaries - here.

In other news, I've found a brilliant group of (mainly) women, based in Cape Town, but with a global following, called World without Wine. If you're doing Dry January you can sign up to receive daily motivational e-mails. They also have a fabulous Facebook page.

Love to you all!

SM x

Does Drinking Make You a Selfish Parent?

There have been several articles in the press recently about alcohol and parenting.

The headline of Liz Jones's column in the Mail on Sunday last weekend read Parents who drink are selfish. My boozy dad taught me that.

Liz wrote: Me, aged 11, in my narrow divan. It's 11pm and I can't sleep. Not until I hear the crunch of my dad's car on the gravel, which means he has made it home from the Wheatsheaf. I'd been praying, hands clasped, for him not to crash. Only when lights streak the ceiling can I unclasp; my palms are wet.

Liz goes on to talk about her sister's children coming home from school to find their mum unconscious, surrounded by bottles, children who are now motherless.

Then the Telegraph ran an article, inspired by the tragic death of Sean Hughes, from cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 51, titled Are alcoholics born or made?

The article reads: The former Never Mind the Buzzcocks team captain may have joked of a childhood where he was left in the car outside pubs for hours - “We would while away the hours by nodding at the other kids parked up in other cars as we all looked to the warm glow of the pub” – but he also talked of disliking his father for his behaviour.  

It seems fairly obvious that those drinkers, like Liz and Seans' fathers, who have travelled pretty far down the slippery slope of alcohol addiction towards rock bottom, do not make good parents.

But what about the bottle-of-wine-a-day drinker, like I was? What about the mum who has just one or two large glasses of wine at the end of each day to reward herself for a job well done?

To be honest, I didn't think I was a selfish parent. I thought I deserved that wine come six o'clock. It was me time. Mummy's little helper. It made me feel adult. It helped me wind down.

Surely, I would argue to myself, a relaxed mum is a better mum? Happy mother, happy child.

And this general acceptance that boozing and motherhood go hand in hand has inspired endless Facebook memes and books like Why Mummy Drinks and (the hilarious) Hurrah for Gin.

But last week, the Guardian ran an article titled Even moderate drinking by parents can upset children, based on research by the Institute of Alcohol Studies.

The study found that even parents drinking 'moderately' can leave children feeling embarrassed, worried or lead to their bedtime being disrupted, and that children who see their parents tipsy or drunk are less likely to describe them as a positive role model.

15% of children in the study had asked their parents to drink less, and 11-12 year olds described alcohol as “like sugar for adults” and said parents drink to “solve their problems”.

Even so, I'm not sure that I would agree that drinking necessarily makes you a selfish parent. I know many, many wonderful parents who enjoy a glass of wine on a regular basis.

Also, I don't think it's right or fair to judge other parents. We mums are all just muddling along trying to do the best we can.

However, I would argue that being sober can make being a good parent a lot easier - at least I'm certain that's the case for me. Here are five reasons why...

1. I'm not constantly running away

In the drinking days, I was always looking for excuses for 'me time.'

On a Saturday or Sunday morning, if I woke up with a hangover (which I often did), the last thing I'd want to do is to push the swings in the park, play Monopoly or (god forbid) go to a soft play centre. I'd be much more likely to switch the TV onto CBeebies and crawl back under the duvet.

At countless children's bedtimes I would skip over pages of whichever picture book we were reading, so I could turn the lights out as fast as possible and retreat to an armchair with a goblet of vino. Because I'd earned it.

I'm pretty sure my children knew that I was often searching for an escape hatch. But they didn't blame the vino, they just thought I didn't like spending time with them very much.

2. I'm more consistent

Any parenting expert will tell you that children hate uncertainty and crave consistency.

One of the main reasons why children are uncomfortable with their parents drinking is that their behaviour changes - they become different people and that, for a child, is scary.

A few months after I quit drinking I asked my son whether I'd changed. "Yes," he replied, "You're more....mummyish."

What he meant is that I was behaving like his mummy all of the time. I was no longer swinging from being mummy, to being grumpy hungover person, to being wild child, then back to mummy again.

3. I have more time and more energy

Drinking, and recovering from drinking, takes up an awful amount of your day.

I get twice as much done at the weekends now as I used to. I bounce out of bed (well comparatively speaking, at least) and never fall asleep in the afternoon.

In the old days, I would often engineer separate 'child activities' and 'adult activities' at the weekends.

My favourite Sunday activity would involve a long, boozy lunch with a group grown ups, while the children watched a movie. I told myself this was more fun for everyone.

I certainly wouldn't plan anything that involved driving anywhere after lunch, or in the evening.

Now, I'm much more likely to plan something for all the family: a bike ride and picnic, swimming, bowling or a cinema trip. I am - I hope - making memories, ones that will have me actually joining in.

(I still arrange those long Sunday lunches with friends, but now, instead of sending all the children off as quickly as possible, I organise games for everyone, like Charades or Who am I?)

4. I'm more patient

Looking back now, I realise that I was a pretty grumpy mother when I was drinking. I was often short tempered and I did an awful lot of shouting.

This was partly because I didn't like myself very much, but to my children it looked like I didn't like them.

Being free of the constant merry-go-round of recovering from one drinking event and trying to hurry through to next one has made me, comparatively, zen. Liking myself again has helped me like the world a lot more.

5. I'm a better role model

One of the main reasons I quit the booze is that I didn't want my children to grow up thinking that it was normal for mothers to spend every evening with a glass of vino welded to their hand.

I didn't want them to believe that all grown-ups need alcohol to enable them to cope with the ups and downs of life.

I wanted to be able to show them that it's perfectly possible to live a fabulous life without a drug to take the edges off.

I'm still far from a brilliant mother. I'm a work in progress, and I expect I always will be. But, I'm very much better at it than I was.

I'm also certain that I wouldn't have got through my recent treatment for breast cancer, without all the wheels coming off in front of the children, had I still been drinking.

I don't begrudge those mums a large glass of vino at wine o'clock (there are still times I'd love one myself), but I've come to realise that, for me, and for my children, life is a lot happier, easier and more peaceful without it.

Check out the SoberMummy Facebook page for lots more inspiration and information about quitting booze. If you 'like' the page, Facebook will keep you updated with new posts.

To read SoberMummy's book (described as 'Bridget Jones Dries Out') and find out what it's like to go sober in a world where everyone drinks click here: The Sober Diaries, or here if you're in the USA.

Love to you all,

SM x

Hurrah for Gin

Finally, after eight whole weeks of summer madness, the kids go back to school today.

I'm up stupidly early in anticipation.

The uniforms are laid out and labelled. Pencil cases are stocked with newly sharpened pencils, pristine erasers and unblemished protractors.

I've shaken the sand out of their ears, blasted stubborn verruccas (my spell check thinks this should be verrucae) off their feet and had their hair cut.

We are good to go.

When I quit work after #3 was born, nearly eight years ago, I thought I'd be the perfect Mum.

The house would be filled with fresh flowers and the aroma of cup cakes baking. It'd be craft tables, not TV, laughter filled outings to museums and perfectly delivered introductions with eye contact.

How the Gods must have chuckled.

Instead, I was sucked into an exhausting Groundhog day of wiping orifices, peeling dried spaghetti and Rice Krispies off floors and ceilings and dealing with tantrums, all set to the soundtrack of The Wiggles and punctuated with endless re-readings of the Gruffalo.

So I totally get the latest trend (spearheaded by the movie Bad Moms) for tales of 'imperfect mothers.'

According to the Sunday Times, this Christmas's bestseller is going to be one of these, titled Hurrah for Gin.

Hurrah for Gin is based on a blog written by a 26 year old Mum of two who's on maternity leave from her job in advertising.

It's exactly the book I would have written ten years ago (when I was also in advertising and on maternity leave with a toddler and a baby). And it struck me that it's like the prequel to this blog.

(Except my book would be titled Hurrah for Chablis. My only saving grace was not having developed a taste for spirits).

And the title is perfect. Because when you're in the trenches of motherhood, alcohol provides those much needed oases of calm.

For me, a glass of wine could put the zing into a late afternoon playdate with a girlfriend, and the zen into post children's bed time. At the end of a long, frazzled day I could pour a glass of wine, dance around the kitchen and think yeah, baby, she's still got it.

But the problem with relying on vino, or gin, to relax, to de-stress, to feel adult, is that one day - maybe a decade down the line - you find that you can't relax, de-stress or feel adult without it.

And that's when you stop reading Hurrah for Gin! and start reading Mummy was a Secret Drinker.

So I do rather worry about yet another book which normalises relying on an addictive drug to get through the realities of everyday life. After all, I am the cautionary tale.

Love SM.

P.S. If you'd like a male perspective on all of this, then click here to check out my new friend, Makeittea.

And thank you, Makeittea, for your incredibly generous donation to my Justgiving page for breast cancer support (www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sober-mummy).