‘A mother’s choices are limited by extortionately priced, inflexible, inaccessible childcare. A mother’s choices are limited by maternity pay that is well below the national living wage. A mother’s choices are limited by the rising cost of living, which means most families need two incomes to cover their basic costs.1 A mother’s choices are limited

‘Do you mind either way?’ The woman behind the till has scanned my box of Colgate and bottle of nit shampoo, but her hand pauses over the pregnancy test. My eyes flick quickly up to hers. I have four children already; asking me if I mind, as I buy a test that will seal my fate, feels way too intimate. What if I had been a different person, in diffe

And I realized that their concept of teamwork in parenting was that my mum was left for weeks at a time to raise us as if she were a single mother while she boasted that her husband was working in ‘the Far East’.

We face a whole array of challenges in this area, from basic considerations, like earning enough money, to worrying about how we’ll be perceived by people around us for taking a different approach to work and life, to even feeling a sense of guilt for “giving up” what so many hardworking women struggled to have the opportunity to achieve.