This week is maternal mental health week and I am here. for. it.

Around 1 in 10 women will experience pre and post partum anxiety and depression, but I guarantee we’ve all felt different degrees of different feelings at different stages and that is just fine. Motherhood is hard. But despite all the claims that a nice bath and a day of self care is going to cleanse the mental health palate, what mums really need is revolution, mum style.

I am fully into the wellbeing movement- I love herbal teas, yoga with Adriene and a good meditation app. I really like self care days, running, and knocking about in my velvet trackies doing some intentional QT for ME. But I know this is not the solution. Millions of mums around the UK are tired, they are stressed, they are spinning the multiple, heavy,  plates of work, school, extra-curricular, childcare, cleaning, cooking, caring, and they are done in. Despite what we’ve been told, austerity is still super real,and many mums are struggling to eat, clothe and care for themselves or their children. We have families living in B&Bs and children with additional support needs unable to access basic support. Mums have been blamed from everything to obesity, screen addiction, trauma and criminal behaviour. It can feel like a never ending battle to stay on top of things, and whatever we do, somehow we’re doing it wrong.  But mums, we are not failing, we are being failed. Badly.We need a new system that takes our self care beyond bubble baths and wine time, and takes us all the way to mumtopia.

Now a mumtopia won’t be easy to get to, what with the current political climate of climate crisis, rising hate and increasing poverty, but it’s worth a shot. The mumtopia will of course mean different things for different mums, and who the hell am I to tell you how to feel, but it will be both aspirational and heavy into self care. In the mumtopia, we’ll say goodbye to the 40 hour working week, and say hello to flexible working, secure housing and universal childcare. We’ll relax into actual, proper paid paternity leave, unwind into decent job shares and basic income, and lean into shared parenting.

We’ll allow our bodies to adjust to a slower culture of total chillvibes, supported by equal pay and a recalibration of what counts as high value work (nursing! Teaching! Childcare!), and enjoy the gentle waves of social change that recognises that mums are both amazing but also not perfect. We’ll rest deeply in the knowledge that every child and family is different and it’s totally cool how you choose to raise your children.

The are many many reasons why mums experience poor mental health; social isolation, pressures, overwhelm, sleep deprivation, brain chemistry, lack of support- the jigsaw puzzle of mental health is complex and nuanced. But oh boy, we are up against it when we live within a deeply unequal society. Despite this, what we do have on our side is the core strength we’ve developed by knowing the ins and outs of all the feelings, all the time. Whether you’ve experienced mental health challenges, or whether you know someone who has-mums, we are indeed strong as hell. Who better than to lead the next revolution that everyone’s mums. Us.

Meet me with a merlot at the post revolution spa party.