“This is such an odd way to tell the world that you hate being a mother.”

The great sit-down controversy of 2025

The year is 2074.

I’m 72. My son is 42.

We haven’t spoken in 15 years.

I’m sitting in a flat in Spain - I did eventually change my name to Sandra and open that beach bar I dreamed about. Living my authentic, child-free life.

Except the bar’s called “Sandra’s Sips” and the only regular is a man named Miguel who pays in coins he finds on the beach. The “authentic Spanish experience” I’m offering tourists is mainly watching me try to work out the wifi password while flies circle the cocktail garnishes.

And it’s not really child-free, is it? Because I had a child. And I ruined him.

I pull up my old Substack archives on my laptop - the one luxury I allow myself, though I’m three months behind on the subscription that they eventually implemented and surviving on free trials using increasingly creative email addresses.

There it is.

My most viewed article. The one that made it all happen. Well, “made it all happen” is generous - it got 9200 views and several people telling me I hated being a mother, which I took as a sign to lean in.

I read it again, this time with 40 years of perspective and some fake Ray Bans I bought from a market stall.

The bit about missing sitting down. The jokes about eating chocolate without hiding. The part where I said I’d probably miss this phase one day.

That last bit makes me laugh now. A hollow, bitter laugh that startles Miguel, who drops his beach coins into his sangria.

My son grew up knowing his mother found him burdensome. He grew up reading articles about how much I missed my old life. He grew up believing he’d ruined me.

Now I sit here in Sandra’s Sips, which TripAdvisor has described as “an experience” (1 star), and I have all the sitting I could ever want.

I can rot for hours. Days, even. No one climbs on me. No one interrupts my meals. No one shouts “Mummy!” from another room.

It’s everything I ever wanted, apparently.

And the silence is deafening.

[RECORD SCRATCH]

[FREEZE FRAME]

“Yuuuup, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.”

Well, dear reader, it all started when I wrote a humour piece about missing the ability to sit down...

Of all the things I’ve written on, I didn’t expect that to be the article to cause a ruckus.

21 things I want to say to DINKS… A lighthearted, humorous (or so I thought) little listicle I wrote off the back of seeing some people sitting down enjoying a slow morning while I ran after my non-stop little boy smelling faintly of onion.

All was going well on the engagement front… My most viewed piece to date.

Parents - lots of them - getting it. Even some non-parents also getting it. What an absolute vibe.

But this is the internet.

And on the internet you get people that are intent on misinterpreting you, misrepresenting you, and dare I say it… being c***s for the sake of being c***s.

Granted, I thought Substack was a bit of a safe place - this isn’t X after all. But it is still the internet.

In amongst the very many people getting it, there were some who didn’t…

Read at your own peril - you may or may not lose some brain cells

I could let sleeping dogs lie… These are clearly people seeking attention. Why give it to them? But also, shit like this REEKS of something more than just attention seeking on the internet. Something that lies at the intersection of motherhood and womanhood and as those are two of my very favourite subjects, I am going to talk about it.

So here goes…

“This is such an odd way to tell the world that you hate being a mother.”

Firstly, this is such an odd way to tell the world you have the sense of humour of a literal garden paving slab.

Secondly, this is such an odd way to tell the world that you hate mothers.

Because, and I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but apparently I do - the article was a humour piece.

A humour piece. With jokes, and comedic observations, and an emotional arc that ended with me saying that this phase I’m in is “kind of the whole point” and I’ll miss it when it’s gone.

So for someone to read it and conclude that I hate being a mother is... quite a leap? Genuinely, it’s Olympic-level leaping.

Actual footage of Miss “you hate being a mother” jumping to conclusions

To hammer this point home, my partner was so baffled by this response that he asked ChatGPT to analyse my article. No leading questions, or “does this woman hate her child?” just, “tell me what you think of this article”.

ChatGPT, a robot - a literal algorithm with no emotional investment, no agenda, no ability to understand human emotion beyond pattern recognition - said it was “brilliant” (*blushing*) and that the humour was “driven by love, not cynicism.”

It says a lot when even AI got the tone.

So when actual humans with fully functioning (I think?) brains can’t - or won’t - identify obvious humour, you have to wonder - are they actually this dense, or is something else going on?

I’m going with option B.

I’m at the park. My son is on the swings, shrieking with delight, as I push him.

“Higher, Mummy! I want go higher!”

Around me, the park is full of other parents who all look absolutely thrilled to be there. One mum is sitting on a bench - sitting! smug. bastard. - drinking what appears to be an actual hot coffee while her two children play with Lego so as not to dirty their hands. They’re not licking anything or falling into corners. They’re just... playing. Independently.

She catches my eye and smiles. “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”

“Is it though?” I snap back. “IS IT?”

She looks alarmed. I feel nothing except an overwhelming urge to document this oppression.

The time is 12:45pm. Nap time. Finally.

The second he’s down, I’m at my laptop, fingers flying across the keys.

This is it. Time to release the hounds - my manifesto.

“21 things I want to say to DINKS...”

I type furiously, pouring all my resentment into every word. The sitting down. The rotting. The eating chocolate without hiding.

When I write “I’ll probably miss this,” I’m lying - performing, making myself look better - you know the drill.

I hit publish and sit back, satisfied. Let them know. Let them ALL know how much I hate being a mother.

It’s 9pm. I’m finally back downstairs after cuddling and feeding my son to sleep (fuck this doesn’t sound like I hate it does it - must try harder).

I read through the responses to my article.

Most people seem to have enjoyed it. They’re laughing, relating, sharing their own stories about hiding to eat chocolate and having camera rolls full of poo photos.

And then I see it.

“This is such an odd way to tell the world you hate being a mother.”

I sit back. Screenshot it. Frame it mentally.

Finally. Someone who sees me. Someone who understands that beneath all the jokes and the “I’ll miss this” rubbish, I’m just a woman who regrets her choices.

Validation…

[RECORD SCRATCH]

Oh wait, no. Hang on. Oops I did it again… *Oh baby baby*

Because, you guessed it, none of this ever happened - well except the part where I wrote an article and someone said I hate being a mother. That bit’s real.

But the rest - the joyless parenting, the resentment, the damaged child, the name change, the lonely future at Sandra’s Sips and Miguel with his fucking irritating coin paying - completely made up (maybe I should get into fiction writing after all).

Because what these comments seem fundamentally unable to grasp is that you can miss being able to sit down whenever you want AND think your child is the most incredible thing that’s ever happened to you.

You can find something exhausting AND deeply meaningful.

You can make jokes about the relentless bits AND genuinely mean it when you say “this is kind of the whole point.”

You can wish for a lie-in AND not want to go back to your old life for love nor money.

These things can coexist. In the same human. In the same brain. In the same heart. Quite happily, actually.

Here’s some stuff that’s actually true:

I do have a camera roll full of poo photos. Not because I hate being a mother, but because I love my son so much that I spent months documenting his bodily functions when he was tiny because it was all new and I was worried and I cared that much.

I do spend my life cupping corners with my hands. Not because I resent him, but because I love him so fiercely that the thought of him getting hurt makes me want to wrap the entire world in bubble wrap and put him in a Zorb ball.

I do hide in cupboards to eat chocolate. Not because I’m miserable with my motherhood existence, but because if he can’t have any before dinner, I don’t want him to see how unfair it is that I’m scoffing it like a feral beaver when I’ve said he needs to wait. Because I would rather hide in the bog than make him sad.

I do keep my shoes on a high shelf. I do live in fear of pens. I do put breakable things above nipple height. I do hover behind him near stairs and mentally track his bowel movements and carry 17,000 toy trucks everywhere we go.

Not because I hate being his mother.

Because I love being his mother so much it’s actually quite overwhelming.

That’s what the article was about. Missing certain freedoms (sitting down, rotting on the sofa, eating chocolate without faking a cough, using both hands, experiencing silence) while also loving this phase so much that the thought of it ending makes me want to cry.

Exhausted and fulfilled. Touched-out and wanting more cuddles. Missing certain silly aspects of an old life and knowing that this is 100,000 million percent a better use of my days.

All of it. Together.

That’s what motherhood actually looks like for most of us.

Complex, contradictory, exhausting and meaningful and hard and worth it and sometimes you want to scream and sometimes your heart feels so full you think it might burst and it’s all happening at once, all at the same time.

But that complexity doesn’t compute for some who choose to wilfully ignore it.

So they read “I miss sitting down” and conclude “She hates motherhood.”

They read “I hide to eat chocolate” and decide “She’s miserable.”

They read jokes about the relentless bits and ignore the part that says “Right now, for this fleeting fluid moment in time, I am his entire world... And as exhausting and relentless and sometimes absolutely soul-destroying as that is… it’s also kind of the whole point.”

Because in this weird little binary world, mothers must be simple. Either blissfully grateful floating ethereally around the kitchen baking blueberry pancakes that no fucker will eat, every single second, of every single day ad infinitum, or full of regret.

Pick one.

Heads I win. Tails you lose.

Here’s what I actually know, sitting here at 32 (not 72, not in Spain, not estranged from my son):

I don’t hate being a mother.

I love my son so much it’s frightening. I miss him when he’s asleep. I think about him constantly when we’re apart. I would burn the world down for him without hesitation.

AND.

I miss rotting on the sofa in a damp towel for three hours and shitting in peace.

Both things. At the same time.

Not hatred, not regret, not depression, not harmful to my child. Just being a complex human navigating an intense, demanding, meaningful phase of life.

And if a literal robot can understand that complexity - well… Need I say more?

To the parents (and non parents) who read the original piece and got it - who laughed, who saw themselves in the poo album (not literally, that would be a bit weird), who understood that love and exhaustion can coexist quite happily - thank you.

You’re not abnormal or ungrateful or doing it wrong.

You’re just honest (and also probably quite funny - welcome to the club ;).

And every time a mother/parent is honest - every time we say “I love this AND I’m knackered” without immediately apologising for being knackered - we give permission for others to be honest too.

So that means that I’ll keep writing about being complicated and contradictory and fully human. Love it or loathe it.

And to she who asked “Are you going to look back on these posts years from now and like what you wrote? Would you think this is healthy?”

Yes, actually. I bloody well will and I bloody well would.

Will you look back on policing other mothers and think that was healthy?

The jury’s still out on that one.

P.S. My future 42-year-old son will be just fine. Sandra’s Sips will never exist. And Miguel can keep his beach coins.

Me… The last time I sat down… 2.5 years ago… JOKE, IT’S A JOKE. PLEASE DON’T FLOG ME.