Living Someone Else’s Dream

While Mine Got Left on a Shelf Somewhere Near the Bottles of Calpol

Author’s Note: this is a shared story from one of you – a fellow worn out working mum who gave me permission to turn it into this piece. It was written in a haze of fury and love, hope and despair. Basically motherhood.

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I used to think I was the lucky one.

I had a career I loved. A passport that got stamped regularly. Sunshine. Community. A kitchen that didn’t smell like fish fingers and resentment. We had help. We had balance. We had big plans.

And then we had a baby. And then he said: “Let’s move back home. Just for a couple of years. So we can buy a house.”

Spoiler alert: it’s been four years, I live in a town I never chose, in a life I didn’t design, raising a child I adore (largely alone) with a man who works shifts, weekends, evenings, and has magically designed a life that revolves entirely around his convenience. Meanwhile, I can’t even revolve my bladder around childcare.

I used to think I was different from the women who came before me. That we had evolved. That my ambition meant something. That shared parenting was real.

But it wasn’t evolution. It was branding. They just got better at selling the same sh*t in different packaging.

Now I see it. The slow erosion of self.
The “just for now” that became forever.
The way we contort to keep everything running smoothly for everyone else, and call it love.

I’m not oppressed.
I’m just exhausted.
And married to someone living his best life while mine got labelled “too much,” “too angry,” or “just hormonal.”

But here’s the twist: I don’t see the women before me as naive anymore. I see them as warriors. They weren’t weak. They were walking miracles of resilience! Getting up every day to live someone else’s dream, with grace, with grit, and sometimes with lipstick that hadn’t even smudged.

And maybe it’s our turn to stop whispering, to stop saying “I’m fine,” and to start saying:
This isn’t fine.
This isn’t equality.
This isn’t the life we were promised.

But we are still here. Feeding the fish. Packing the lunches. Keeping receipts of who we used to be. And maybe, just maybe, our children will see us clearly enough to do it differently.