I Don't Know Why She Bothers

Daisy Waugh wrote 'Waugh Zone', a weekly column about her family life, at the front of the SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE. She has been writing for newspapers and magazines for many years - as an agony aunt, restaurant critic, interviewer, property 'expert', and travel writer. She has published seven novels and has also written a travelogue about living in Africa. She lives in London with her husband and children.

Mothering skills are now scrutinised, measured, judged, discussed and disapproved of like never before. The bar is set so preposterously high, it's impossible, at least in the early years, not to feel like a long lost loser: and honestly, mothers only have themselves to blame...Motherly love is ferocious, intense, fathomless, unconditional and absolute. Daisy will add a dusting of reality to the sickly sweet bake-your-own rubbish by covering topics such as breast pumps, other children, sleepovers, swearing (yours and theirs) and contagious diseases.

It's time to burn the maternity bras and Daisy is the first at the stake to exclaim, 'Enough! Life is short. Mothers adore their children. But they're people too.

And that is more than just a mother.'