Twenties, and living for motherhood
I moved through my 20s ferociously and at a speed which is at once blurry-fast and treacle-slow in my memory. With my husband by my side I finished university, got my degree, got a better job. My husband was promoted. We bought a little house we could barely afford...
Twenties, and real love
I still think of my early 20s as a genuinely happy time in my life. I had made the break from the toxic relationship that had defined the previous 4 years and without that controlling, panicky knowledge of constant disapproval haunting my days I finally had some friends, real...
Teenage motherhood: struggling, succeeding
It was incredible to me, the way that being responsible for another human being before I was even an adult myself gave me such instant, pin-sharp focus. I had been drifting in a lazy way about the task of learning to drive; no longer. Within 3 months of my...
A teen mum, always
I was a teenage mother. That is a fact about me that I could never have anticipated would define me in the way that it has, even now, even when my first baby (born so neatly in the Christmas holidays of my final year of the 6th form) is...