Mother's Little Helper, or Mother's Ruin?

Did your family give you a present on Mother’s Day this year? Breakfast in bed maybe? Flowers? A home-made card?

In the days BS (Before Sober), my three children always knew what to give me as a present, because they knew what Mummy’s favourite hobby was: drinking wine. 

So, they’d buy me a corkscrew. A bottle stopper (ironic, since there was never anything left in a bottle of wine once I’d opened it). A giant wine glass with ‘Mummy’s glass’ etched onto it. You get the picture. 

            

This year, my kids gave me a frame, with a photo of me and the three of them inside it. This made me all tearful, as I realised that now my focus isn’t distracted by wine, it really is on them. Not entirely on them, obviously, but more so.

            

I might not have been given booze on Mother’s Day this year, but an awful lot of women in the UK were. 

Between 2016 and 2018, gin sales doubled to over £2 billion, and the sales peak – 2.6 million bottles – was in March, coinciding with Mother’s Day. 

In the weeks leading up to the big day, retailers bombarded us with alcohol based presents. I saw a bottle of wine branded ‘Mummy Fuel’, wine bangles (hollow bracelets filled with wine) and wine purses (handbags with a built-in wine pouch and a tap on the outside – yes, really).

How did we end up in a place where motherhood is synonymous with wine? Or gin? When did ‘mother’s ruin’ become ‘mother’s little helper’? Why did we all start buying into the myth that it’s impossible to be a mother without some form of anaesthetic?

I had my first child in the early days of this century – 2003. That was when the ‘mummy blogger’ first appeared, and back then mothering was all about perfection. We wanted to do it brilliantly. 

We read Gina Ford and The Baby Whisperer. We tried to bake perfect cupcakes and make home-made playdough. We bought organic vegetables and spent hours pureeing and freezing them into little ice-cubes. 

And we were knackered.  We felt like failures. Because motherhood is really hard, and perfection is unachievable. You just need to give it your best shot, and forgive yourself.

            

So, by the mid noughties, the backlash began. The perfect-mum-blogger was replaced by the slummy-mummy. 

We cheered! We threw Gina Ford in the bin and bought ready-made baby food from Ella’s Kitchen. We laughed about our failures on Mumsnet. And all of that was a really good thing, but along with it came wine-o’clock.

            

When we decided to shout about motherhood being difficult, we also started joking about how we managed to cope. And how we managed to cope was WINE. 

As social media took off, so did all the wine memes. Wine o’clock. Why Mummy drinks. Mummy juice. 

The retailers and marketing departments were really quick to jump on the bandwagon, and then start driving the train. We didn’t feel bad about pouring ourselves a large goblet of wine at the end of a long day, because it was ‘me-time’, we were worth it. And everyone else was doing it too.

The problem is that wine is a drug. 

That sentence looks really obvious to me now, but it wasn’t back then. How could something so beautifully packaged, so ubiquitous, joked about all over social media, be an actual drug? After all, you wouldn’t joke at the school gates about being desperate to get home for a line of cocaine, but everyone admitted looking forward to that first glass of wine.

But it is. A drug. And, like any other drug, your tolerance increases over time, so it no longer takes one glass of wine to help you unwind at the end of the day, it takes a whole damn bottle. And when you’re drinking several bottles of the stuff a week, it’s not just your shoulders unwinding, it’s your whole life.

I honestly bought into the myth that wine helped. I thought it made me more relaxed. When I’d had a day filled with nappies and wipes and Monkey Music, a glass of wine made me feel adult again. I thought it made me more tolerant with my kids.

The scary thing is, alcohol does exactly the opposite. 

            

Alcohol made me anxious all the time. It made me rush through bedtime stories so I could get to the fridge. It made me short tempered and grumpy with my kids. And it made me a terrible role model. I was teaching my children that grown-ups need a drug in order to be able to cope with everyday life. To be able to cope with them. 

            

So, this Mother’s Day, I looked at that photo of me with the three of them, looking relaxed, happy, present, not wishing the time away until it was wine o’clock, and I realised that sobriety is the best gift ever, for you and your children.

To read about my first year sober, and for lots of hints and tips, check out The Sober Diaries. You can find it here (UK) or here (USA).

(I wrote this article for Catherine Gray's Sober Spring campaign, in conjunction with Alcohol Change).

Love to you all,

SM x

Christmas has Arrived!

Christmas has arrived in the SM house.

I picked the children up from school yesterday and we went shopping for a Christmas tree. We found a gorgeous one which was then wrapped in netting so we could transport it home.

At this point #2, who was helpfully trying to carry said tree, got the netting all tangled up in his school blazer buttons and was inextricably attached to a large Norwegian spruce.

A couple of hours later and our kitchen was festooned with fairy lights, lovely tree in the corner, fire lit and the children were playing carols on various musical instruments.

I was drinking Marks and Spencer's alcohol free mulled wine (as recommended by RedRecovers)

Mr SM was sulking slightly as he realised that the presents under the tree were labelled 'with love from Mummy (and Daddy)'. I've never seen such a huff over a couple of parentheses.

I looked around thinking this is all really Hygge. It almost looks like good parenting.

What a difference from last year, when I was in the middle of radiotherapy for breast cancer, and the year before when I was ricocheting from drunk to hungover and back again, only briefly passing through a state which could be described as 'normal and happy'.

And today we are all trooping into Covent Garden for lunch followed by the new musical: School of Rock. Then I have a babysitter booked to look after the children in the evening as some old friends of ours are having a big Christmas Housewarming near Oxford.

How is that possible? I hear you ask. Surely Oxford is at least 90 minutes up the motorway from London?

And it is, my friends. But here's the thing: I can drive! Because I don't drink. So we can go to the party, stay three hours, drive home and still be in bed by 1am. Result.

When I was coming up to my first sober Christmas it felt like too huge a hurdle to handle. But now I realise that Christmas is a truly awesome time of year, and being properly present in every moment is just amazing.

A sober Christmas is calmer, happier, more organised and generally more....Christmassy.

Merry, merry Christmas to you all,

SM x

Look After Yourself

I was reading an article about mental health, when I came across this expression:

You have to look after yourself before you can look after the rest of the world.

It sounds obvious, but - to be honest - it was a bit of a light bulb moment for me.

You see, we all run around madly trying to earn money, bring up our children, look after our parents, the dog, and - somewhere along the line - squeeze in the odd 'date night', and there just isn't enough time to look after ourselves.

I feel guilty if I even sit down, let alone take time out for a massage or a pedicure.

I'm actually rather thrilled that my hair is going grey (fyi, American friends, that's not a typo, it's the correct spelling of grey. See also colour), because I'm forced to go to the hairdresser every six weeks to have it coloured (never say dye), which means that I have to sit still for nearly two hours. Bliss.

Then I saw that line in my magazine and thought, hang on a minute. I've got it all back to front!

You see, I used to run around like a whirling dervish, doing all that stuff. By the end of the day I'd be shattered and stressed, so I would reward myself with...... you guessed it.... a bucket of vino. Which would mean that I'd start the next day already below par and exhuasted. Repeat, ad infinitum.

Actually, what we should be doing is 'rewarding ourselves' in advance. We need to make sure that we are properly healthy, rested and relaxed before we can look after the rest of the world.

It's NOT an indulgence, it's actually just good common sense. It's obligatory. It's part of your job description.

It's a bit like the safety briefing on an airplane when they tell you "In the event of the oxygen levels in the cabin falling, oxygen masks will be provided. Make sure you fit your own mask before helping your child."

They know that your instinct is to help your child first, but you will be entirely useless if you can't breathe.

I know what you're thinking: It's all very well, SM, but I don't have the time or the money to look after myself.

Nonsense. How much time did you spend drinking or hungover? How much money did you spend on booze? Just take a proportion of that time and that cash, and make sure you do something good for yourself.

(See my post: The Concept of Self Care written when I was on Day 52, and badly in need of a pick me up)

On that note, I went to the gym yesterday, for the first time since the cancer thing. I spent an hour doing a full on aerobics session with ladies half my age, then came home and had a good long soak in the bath (because my muscles had seized up and I could barely walk).

There are recent studies that show that aerobic exercise is one of the most effective ways of reducing cancer recurrence rates (or avoiding cancer in the first place). So, it wasn't an indulgence - it was a way of ensuring my children have me around to help look after their children. Medicinal.

So, don't leave 'self care' to the bottom of the list, when you might be able to squeeze a bit in after doing all the other 'more important' things. Schedule it. Make it a priority. Not for you, but for everyone else in your life.

Love SM x

Alcohol and Parenting

I'm not a great parent.

I was astounded when they allowed me to walk out of the hospital with a helpless, newborn baby twelve years ago.

"Where's the instruction manual?" I wanted to shout. "I have no idea what I'm doing here! I'm an amateur!"

They say it takes a village to raise a child. And in the old days you would be surrounded by parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and siblings who would all help teach you, and your offspring, how to do the growing up thing.

These day we are much more geographically spread out. We don't have the same support network of older, wiser women.

We muddle along, confused by the conflicting advice of the 'experts,' like Gina Ford and Supernanny. We rely on our girlfriends (who are also making it up as they go along), and smug, self righteous strangers on the internet.

Just as we start to feel like we're getting good at the whole baby thing, we suddenly have school aged kids, and a whole new set of challenges. Start feeling a bit more able to cope with those, then BAM - they grow a foot, a crop of pimples and become smelly, hormonally challenged teenagers!

It's no wonder we need a good glass (gallon) of vino at the end of the day.

It's only now that I see what a useless parenting prop alcohol is....

I was putting the children to bed last night, when I realised that my house is now peaceful. Nobody shouts. This is a major change from few months ago.

When the children were small, I would get them into bed by 7pm. The bedtime routine was pretty exhausting - tea, bath, milk, nappies, stories, cuddles etcetera, times three. But then I could sink back into an armchair, with hours of 'grown up time' stretching ahead of me.

As the children grew up, however, bedtime got later and later, and wine o'clock crept earlier and earlier.

My evenings would go something like this:

5.30pm - children all home from various schools and after school activities. Pour glass of vino while making kids supper.

6.30pm - Pour second glass of vino while trying, in vain, to get them to focus on their homework.

7.30pm - Pour third glass of wine while getting them in and out of bath and ready for bed.

By this time it would be around 8pm, and I'd be trying to do bedtime stories and get supper ready for husband while getting more exhausted, frazzled and - let's face it - drunk.

The combination of tired, stressed and drunk would lead, inexorably, to SHOUTING!

By the time Mr SM was back from work (at around 8.30pm) I'd be yelling at the three children in rotation, desperate to get them into bed as quickly as possible so I could sit down with the husband and share a(nother) civilized bottle of vino with dinner.

But one thing I've now learned about bringing up children is that the only real way to teach them is by example.

You can't tell a child not to swear, then swear like a trooper around them. You can't teach them manners and kindness if you don't display them yourself. If you show them that alcohol is necessary to have fun and to relax they'll believe it. And if you yell all the time then so do they....

So we did not have a peaceful house. I would yell, and the kids would all yell. At each other. At me. At their father.

The mornings involved just as much shouting as the evenings, as I'd be tired and grumpy, and the getting ready for school routine was all just a bit much.

But now I don't mind that the children aren't going to bed until 9pm. I enjoy having the extra time with them. We spend ages over stories. I teach them how to cook while getting supper ready for Mr SM. We chat about our days. I'm not constantly trying to get rid of them.

And mornings? I love them! I wake the children up by saying "Wakey wakey! It's another glorious day!" I am punch-ably chirpy.

I hardly ever shout any more. And if the children ever do, I say, very quietly, "Please don't shout. We don't shout in this house." And I am not being hypocritical.

I am still very much a work in progress as far as parenting goes, but I have, at last, created a home that feels happy, relaxed and peaceful. It's still sometimes very noisy, but that's because we're laughing and dancing to bad disco music.

If anyone was ever foolish enough to ask me to write a parenting manual, the very first page would say: Put down the vino. It is not your friend. Alcohol and children mix like oil and water. The wine witch is not Mary Poppins....

Love SM x

Related post: Cravings and Tantrums

Mother's Little Helper

I don't remember ever feeling much guilt before I had children. Yet, from the moment I became a mother there's probably not been a single day when I haven't felt guilty about something.

We were the 'have it all' generation. We were weaned on Cosmopolitan magazine, and raised to believe that we could - no, it was our duty to - have everything; glittering careers, successful marriages and perfect children.

I would picture myself wafting seamlessly from board meeting to baking perfect cupcakes, children at my side, clapping their chubby little hands with glee, and licking out the bowls without messing up their beautifully pressed outfits.

But it's not like that, is it? And perfectionism and motherhood go together like oil and water.

Guilt became my constant companion. Crushing guilt because I couldn't breastfeed #1 for longer than a few weeks (mastitis), guilt when I went back to work, guilt because I found nursery rhymes and building bricks boring, guilt for secretly hating monkey music, guilt for losing my temper. Guilt for not being the perfect Mother of my imaginings.

For five years I juggled the high powered job with one child, then two. Peeling sticky fingers off my leg as I dashed to the airport to catch the red-eye to New York. Hastily 'distressing' shop bought cakes at midnight for the nursery bake sale. Endlessly missing bedtime stories so I could entertain clients at the latest trendy restaurant.

It started to drive me crazy. I got to the point where I was sleeping no more than four hours a night. I was physically unable to sit down or keep still. I was constantly moving, but achieving little. The only way I could switch off was by drinking.

I would have a glass or two of wine in the office bar before going home (as a managing partner that counted as crucial debriefing time with the team), then another half bottle (at least) at home. I'd eventually get fuzzy headed enough to sleep, but would wake up three or four hours later, mind racing.

On top of that, I'd often have an excuse (client entertaining or team bonding) for drinking at lunch time.

I sometimes think that I deliberately got pregnant with #3 in order to give myself a 'get out of jail free' card. She was my excuse to get off the hamster wheel.  

After my maternity leave drew to a close, I feigned regret and handed in my notice. I decided that I was going to scale down - do one thing properly. I was going to be the best ever stay at home Mum.

Ha ha ha.

After years of being the boss, and employees falling over themselves to follow the direction you set, dealing with three headstrong children is a bit of a shock, to say the least.

I had a small baby, so was getting hardly any sleep (plus ca change), trying to deal with a stroppy toddler, and the eldest who'd just started school and was tired and fractious much of the time. Plus I decided to get a puppy (!) So I was potty training, house training, cooking nutritious meals from scratch, and breast feeding on the go.

I was exhausted, impatient, bad tempered and not very good at it. I missed adult interaction. I missed using my brain. I missed being able to go to the loo without someone banging on the door. I missed being able to leave the house without snacks, wet wipes, nappies and clothes covered in milk stains and pureed carrot.

By the end of the day I'd flop into a chair with a goblet of wine. Yet again it became the way to wind down, to change gears, to punctuate the day. It took the edge off. helped me relax. Put the lid on the guilt for a while.

Luckily, I was too frantic to be able to drink too much. I barely had time to breathe, let alone drink. Until #3 went to big school two years ago. Suddenly things clamed down a little. I was 'free' from 9.30am-2.30pm.

I was still busy, but it was all mundane stuff. Housework, admin, shopping, cooking. I was bored. I was alone much of the time. The gloves were off. There was no-one to tell me that a glass or two at lunch time really wasn't a good idea....

So, over the last couple of years, the drinking escalated to the point where I was drinking a bottle of wine a day, every day. Two a day at weekends.

Like many mothers over the generations I used it to 'take the edge off', to help me relax, to make me feel adult.

And if there's one taboo greater than someone not being able to control their drinking, it's a drunk mother. So I, like hundreds of thousands of others, did it secretly.

Ann Dowsett Johnson, in her book 'Drink' asks 'Is alcohol the modern woman's steroid, enabling her to do the heavy lifting in a complex, demanding world? Is it the escape valve women need, in the midst of a major social revolution still unfolding?' Yes it is!

But Ann also points out that the generation before us had their version of 'mother's little helper' too. Between 1969 and 1982, Valium was the most commonly prescribed drug in the US. In 1978 it was estimated that one fifth of American women were popping it. They also needed a secret escape hatch.

Having children was, without doubt, the best and most rewarding thing I have ever done. But also the hardest. I don't get appraisals, feedback, bonuses and pay rises. I am constantly learning, and I never get it 100% right.

But, slowly, slowly, I'm starting to accept that I don't need to be perfect. Plus, in being totally sober, I'm a hell of a lot more perfect than I was!

And my children, bless them, tell me (sometimes) I'm the best mother in the world. And they mean it (I can tell when they're fibbing).

Happy, sober Saturday to all you perfect-enough-Mums out there.

SM x