29/09/2025
☕ The irony hit me this morning…
While getting ready today — and indulging in a quick 10-minute doom scroll — I came across something that stopped me mid-scroll:
Marks & Spencer are now hosting Parent Mornings — between 9:30 and 11:30am, any parent can go in, have a free cup of tea or coffee, and enjoy a slice of cake. No agenda. No forms. Just come as you are.
And I thought: brilliant… but will the parents who need it most actually go?
Because a few hours later, I was running one of our Triple P parenting programmes and asked 20+ parents to reflect on their homework from last week:
> “Do one small thing to look after yourself.”
Half managed something — a bath without interruption, a quiet walk, a cup of coffee alone. For many, these were rare, almost radical acts.
Why?
Because even with partners, relatives, friends or older children, many feel they can only ask for help when it’s an emergency — when they’re too ill, too exhausted, or another crisis forces them to stop.
It’s a pattern I’ve seen over nearly 30 years of working with families, and almost three years running programmes at Incredibly Elev8ed CIC:
> Parents — especially mothers — often need to reach breaking point before they feel “allowed” to rest without guilt.
After today’s session, I spent the afternoon calling around: “Where can I refer parents for safe, agenda-free spaces — somewhere to just breathe while their children are looked after?”
I found structured classes, coffee mornings with topics, support groups with agendas…
But a drop-in, guilt-free space to simply be? Almost none.
And that’s the irony. Even when there is a simple, free space (like M&S’s Parent Mornings), parents — and in particular women — often feel they can’t step away unless it’s a crisis.
💡 We need to change this story:
Normalise parents taking breaks before burnout.
Build true “villages” where asking for help is not weakness.
Create agenda-free spaces for parents to rest and reset.
Challenge the guilt that says you must earn a pause.
Because resilient families start with supported parents — and that means more than just telling people to “self-care.” It means creating the conditions for it to happen.