The Mother Project with Sophie Beresiner

Articles

Playing the long game

2 months ago | sophieberesiner.substack.com | Sophie Beresiner

If you think about it we’ve been told since the dawn of advertising, that thick, voluminous hair equals beauty, equals youth, equals health. So when it thins (apparently for one in four of us women) - even in a gradual way like mine, it feels like a loss of something foundational to how we see ourselves.
Exhausterwhelmulation and The post Motherproject Project

2 months ago | sophieberesiner.substack.com | Sophie Beresiner

OK, here is what I’m thinking. My IG algorithm is feeding me constant posts about how we are the generation of mothers who aren’t having it all, we are doing it all, and so we are TIRED. And how we are the mothers who literally - literally - sacrifice our lives for our families. Not just our careers, time or our sanity/skin clarity etc. No, actual years of our lives. Studies have found that marriage with kids can increase the life expectancy of the men in that equation, but decrease it for the women.
MotherProduct Week: Day 2

2 months ago | sophieberesiner.substack.com | Sophie Beresiner

Hi. Me again! Happy Friday, and day 2 of MotherProduct week. I sincerely hope I’m not coming across too spammy with a daily email of offers, but there’s nothing not to love about excellent free things, or money off other amazing things (I think, anyway), so I’m taking the stance that if I’d be happy to get this message, then hopefully you will too. Normal service will resume next week… But for today - Buggy Boarding.
MotherProduct Week: Day 3

2 months ago | sophieberesiner.substack.com | Sophie Beresiner

If I had to describe myself in 3 words I might be tempted to waste two of them with ‘Savvy’ and ‘Shopper’. It is true that I sometimes shop too much (depends who you compare me too) but I’ve got to say finding the small things for the little people has been one of the most fun parts of being a mother for me. It’s a natural extra-curricular extension of the day job, but when I’m stressed, or night feeding, or simply bored, I research. Baby stuff.
See something you like?

2 months ago | sophieberesiner.substack.com | Sophie Beresiner

GOSH I am tired. Is it just me? Is the moon in some kind of ascension? Is it the extra seasonal sugar that is simultaneously causing me to crash while my toddler bounces off the walls, quite literally. But it’s Christmas isn’t it, so I am somewhere between exaltation and exhaustion. My mum asked me what I’d like for a gift this year and I realise I hadn’…
It's not what you're thinking.

2 months ago | sophieberesiner.substack.com | Sophie Beresiner

I read that in Norway, “up and not crying” is a common response to “how is it going?” and that feels pretty much perfect right now. The month that brought us the Post-Christmas wasteland, Sub Zero wind chill plus two named storms, Blue Monday, Tax Return Time and Pope Francis, is almost at a close. I didn’t dry January (no ‘new’ mother should put themse…
How covid stole my story

2 months ago | sophieberesiner.substack.com | Sophie Beresiner

You probably didn’t know, but like the twist you don’t see coming in most stories, my book was killed off. It wasn’t a cut and dry murder, but I’m pretty sure we can stretch to manslaughter. Or at least aggravated assault. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin. In what I’m pretty sure would be my last stroke of bad luck towards the end of My M…
How do you talk to your kids about loss?

2 months ago | sophieberesiner.substack.com | Sophie Beresiner

I don’t know how to start this one so I just will. I’ve felt like, and said often, that since having babies, I have little else to ‘post’ about on whatever platform, than kids and cats. Kids and cats cats and kids. They’re my whole life, basically. Such is the importance- to me anyway - of all the living things I cherish in our household.
Is it OK to complain about parenthood when you went to hell and back to get there?

2 months ago | sophieberesiner.substack.com | Sophie Beresiner

I recently wrote a piece for a national newspaper. A riff off my ‘I hate weekends’ Substack that was then picked up by a commissioning editor from The Daily Mail. I hesitated before I accepted the commission because of the vitriol I assumed I’d receive from the demographic in that Venn diagram intersection of A = Daily Mail Reader + B = Surrogacy Oppose…
MotherProduct Week: Day 4

2 months ago | sophieberesiner.substack.com | Sophie Beresiner

Why Mummy Drinks by Gill Sims is basically the diary of an exhausted working mother. It’s fictional, but so entirely relatable that it was Sunday Times No.1 bestselling book for seven weeks. The protagonist Ellen very neatly (and relate-ably) summarises an afternoon at a soft play centre as an event for which ‘there is not enough wine in the world to ease the pain’. I’ve written about similar feelingshere.