Sophie White

“Mom Guilt: Why It Plagues Us and How to Fight It” or “A Surprising Root Of Mom Guilt, And 4 Ways To Overcome It.”

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Sophie White Opinion The abiding feeling of motherhood is guilt. Love, too, for sure, but even the love feelings can be muddied with guilt

It’s 10pm and I am going through my customary bedtime routine. Not skincare or meditation or any of the other prescriptive methods of self-care we’re supposed to be doing to stave off the nihilism threatening to engulf us at all times. No, I am doing my nightly google, researching all the ways that I may or may not be f**king up my children for life.

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Sophie White Opinion One of life’s great inequities is that in your 30s you can still get monstrous hangovers — even when you don’t drink

It’s a Tuesday and I am hanging. I am trudging around hating life and low-key terrified that everyone I know and love hates me. I eat all day long, trying to satisfy an unending appetite for delicious crunchy carbs but nothing quite does the trick. I pass the day lying on the couch wallowing in my grottiness, feeling like shit and berating myself for wasting the day being so hung-over.

"The songs turn round and around these little moments. And the singers never know how they’ve held us."

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Sophie White Opinion Dancing to pop songs in fields this summer, we’re transported back to happy, difficult or amazing times

You may have noticed that virtually every band of our youth is on tour this summer. Some are even the bands of our parents’ youth. Boomers are getting to reminisce with The Beach Boys — albeit minus three of the original band; Abba, albeit in hologram form, and Diana Ross, who graced the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury. Gen-Xers had Guns N’ Roses, while millennials got Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer all in one night!

"This extreme framework allows for little to no fruit and hardly any vegetables and should, if you ask me, come with a health warning the same as the ones on cigarettes."

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Sophie White Opinion It took the absurdity of the keto diet to realise how bonkers and disordered my relationship with food had become

Like a lot of people, I have been locked into a battle with my body for as long as I can remember. I was about six the first time it was pointed out to me that my thighs were fat, which I knew, even at that age, was supposedly the very worst thing you could be. I don’t remember the exact origins of this conviction and I sense it probably wasn’t any one thing, but more simply, the blizzard of fat-phobic messaging we were living with in the 1990s.

"Now, four hours spent beyond the radius of the couch now require 40 hours of recovery time."

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Sophie White Opinion Past a certain age, all activities, even pleasant ones, loom… hanging over you like the blade of a guillotine

As I type, I am on the precipice of cancelling a forthcoming outing with a friend. Though, to be accurate, I wouldn’t actually describe this outing as “forthcoming” — it is looming. Past a certain age, all activities, even the pleasant ones, loom.

"I have been a devotee of Fruit Gums for 30 years and I am devastated at the recipe change."

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Sophie White Opinion I have no beef with vegans but the new softer Fruit Gums are a squishy betrayal of the sweet’s loyal fanbase

It is with a heavy heart I have to report that Rowntree’s have ruined my life. It began a few months ago when I picked up a packet of Fruit Gums at the airport when collecting a friend.

"It is also worth noting that if our national health services were running well, perhaps people wouldn’t feel compelled to turn to the internet."

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Sophie White Opinion As Dr TikTok joins Dr Google, is it time to admit that self-diagnosing via the internet isn’t the worst thing?

Last year, after a long and frustrating process (the particulars of which warrant a column of their own), one of my family members was diagnosed with a neurological processing disorder, which means they experience the world differently to me and many people. It wasn’t a shock to me — I’ve had a sense of this for years. Also, they’re happy and I am happier too for knowing them a little bit better now.

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Sophie White Opinion Beware others’ opinions on having kids: ‘It’s the best thing you’ll ever do’ is a huge oversimplification

One of the unsung by-products of having your first baby quite young is that you manage to completely avoid the years of pestering by elders. Ya know, that constant nagging about when you’re going to have children that plagues women in their 30s.

"I want to celebrate my friends but I want to do it for their achievements that go beyond legally attaching themselves to someone to argue with over bins for the rest of their lives"

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Sophie White Opinion We’re celebrating all the wrong things in life. Instead of bridal showers, why not have new business showers?

Since I got married 10 years ago, the landscape of nuptials has changed dramatically. And since our parents got married, the change has been seismic. Growing up, I was always very disappointed in reports of my parents’ wedding in the mid-1970s.

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Sophie White Opinion I’ve started to think of my body as being like the Titanic. Injuries and niggles are slowly sinking me

After a recent bout of googling symptoms, I decided to present myself at my doctor’s office for a full run-down of my ailments. On the day, the ailment ‘run-down’ seemed to point to my being actually run-down. Ah, being run-down... that most infuriatingly vague and seemingly constant state.

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Sophie White Opinion Never trust your phone: they’re creepy things and we need to start monitoring them as much as they monitor us

My book club gathered last weekend and, as per usual, the book was analysed in exhaustive detail with insightful and intelligent contributions from all assembled.

" I worry if on some level, my aggressively marching them from one activity to another is kind of negating the whole enterprise."

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Sophie White Opinion If I’m wrecked from the rat-race of extra-curricular activities, then how are the kids doing?

The pressure on parents these days is something we do a lot of hand-wringing about. However, that doesn’t seem to stop people making value judgments on our choices. When you have young kids, it can feel like you’re constantly being scrutinised. The ‘kids these days...’ refrain is never far from our ears.

“A holiday is just normal parent life, only without any of the things that make parenthood easier”

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Sophie White Opinion Children are just not compatible with holidays. Thankfully there’s Photoshop for faking those ‘happy memories’

Every summer, there’s a cohort of Irish people I spare a thought for. Not the boiled-ham folks who cannot even stray under direct sunlight for a single second — though god love them, too. No, the people I light a metaphorical candle for every May are those who’ve recently become parents for the first time and for whom this summer holiday will be the first one they try to “enjoy” with a child in tow.

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Louise O’Neill excels again with dark twist on abuse and privilege

Idol Louise O’Neill Transworld, €14.99

Even the thinnest tittle tattle made for gossip in the pandemic. Stock image

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Sophie White Opinion The dearth of gossip we experienced will not easily be forgotten. Post-pandemic, every morsel must be savoured

The gossip economy took a huge hit in pandemic. For two years, we had nothing frivolous or salacious to talk about whatsoever. It was the unspoken (and completely superficial) underlying ill-effect of Covid-19.

"At that moment, I stumbled over a mean message in my DMs on Instagram."

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Sophie White Opinion All my life, people have criticised me for being too sensitive. Having feelings is not some grievous offence

While on holidays with my husband recently, we were sitting in the hotel dining room at breakfast. It’d been years since we’d gotten some quality time with no kids and just each other. So naturally, I was sitting across the table from him gazing adoringly at my phone. At that moment, I stumbled over a mean message in my DMs on Instagram.

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Sophie White Opinion I’m throwing a party for my sober birthday. How are we supposed to sell recovery if we paint it as joyless?

This week is my fourth sober birthday and I am going all-out.

"Cooking for a family crisis is a real gap in the cookbook market, I reckon. I might even pitch a follow-up to my first book, Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown: Recipes for a Vigil?"

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Sophie White Opinion Hearing of my loss, he said the five most profound and loving words in the English language: ‘I’ll get a ham on’

Five years ago, I made one of those phone calls. You know the ones. You dial the number and wait for the ‘hello’. The ‘hello’ comes through sounding so normal, and what you have to say is the furthest from normal anything has ever been. You say it. Some variation on:

On regrets, my grandmother had only one piece of wisdom that she passed on to us, her daughters and granddaughters. “You only regret the clothes you didn’t buy.” Sophie White photographed by Evan Doherty

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Generation regret: Are the things we come to rue a necessary part of life or the preserve of the privileged?

There’s nothing I hate more than someone announcing that they wouldn’t change a thing about their life to date because it has made them who they are. Shut up , I rail in my curmudgeonly geriatric-millennial way. Why do you like who you are, anyway? And why on earth, given the option, would you choose to learn all your lessons the hard way?

“Nobody tells you where to look when a person is breastfeeding”.

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Sophie White Opinion When a person is breastfeeding, too much looking is not good – but ignoring them feels odd too

‘Why do you need to look at all?” was my husband’s response when I said, “Nobody tells you where to look when a person is breastfeeding”. It was probably your response too when you read the standfirst of this piece. But hear me out as a person who has been on both sides of this — ie the person being milked while out and about and the person in the vicinity of the milking — the looking or not looking is worth discussing.

"Like the beginning of any new relationship, we were nervous of each other. On the first date, we invited him to our house to take a look around."

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Sophie White Opinion Help! I’m being ghosted by my builder, but I’m so grateful I have a home to improve

He has left my husband and me blue-ticked for days now. It’s a torment. We just want to see him, hear from him — anything! Is he unnerved by the two of us (my husband and me) pursuing him at the same time?

"I discussed it with some pals and we did identify that there is a certain polish we aspire to — we call it ‘rich lady hair’. It’s the woman who gets her blow-dry twice a week, uses hand cream and wears discreet jewellery."

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Sophie White Opinion Is a cos-playing teen appropriate style for a woman in her late 30s, or should I start dressing ‘for my age’?

When I was growing up, my granny had an utter fixation with my aunt’s hair. This in itself was not crazy, my own mother is deeply invested in my hair and any adjustment, however minor, sends spasms of horror through her. If I’m getting my hair cut, she panics. “Don’t get any off the length!”

"As much as I have experience in the field of losing my shit, it is still enormously difficult to know the right thing to say to someone you love who is struggling."

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Sophie White Opinion When a loved one is having a mental-health crisis, suggesting they make a gratitude list is not going to help

One of my best friends and I have a safe word for mental-health crises. Well, it’s actually a safe emoji. It’s the one that looks like a hand reaching and we call it ‘The Flail’. We’ve both spent time in the same psychiatric hospital, although for different things, and never at the same time (more’s the pity — we would’ve wrecked the gaff in the best possible way).

"Sometimes, I bring the rage to the glass-recycling bins and yell as I smash the bottles through the tiny holes. Totally healthy."

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Sophie White Opinion Parenting advice should come with a trigger warning

My friend sent me a link a few days ago. ‘This will enrage you (parenting related)’ was her accompanying warning text. The warning is important because some days, I am too beaten down to read another hot take about parenting and just how far we’re falling short with it. Some days, however, I wake up only dying to rage and desperately searching for somewhere to direct it.

A person participates in a protest against the use of Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador in 2021.

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Sophie White Opinion Bitcoin dictating how I feel about my nearest and dearest is becoming exhausting. It’s a very volatile currency

I am nearing my late 30s and, as such, I am starting to notice that many of my friends have become adults. It felt like a bit of a betrayal until I bought a new kitchen last year and realised I was joining them on the other side of the great divide. I’d decided to have some work done on my house, and having work done on one’s house is really up there in terms of adult activities.

My brain immediately switched into jump-on-trend mode and I had it purchased in the time it takes to say, “You don’t need a special water bottle to drink more water, Sophie!”

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Sophie White Opinion Sophie White: To Wordle or not to Wordle? How to know when to jump on a trend or let it pass

I am very susceptible to trends. As I am constantly telling my husband, it’s one of my more endearing qualities. “It’s not,” he is quick to argue, but I can barely hear him because I have my recently acquired, noise-filtering earplugs in. You’ve most likely heard of them. The ads on Instagram are pretty relentless and very persuasive. They’re the futuristic circular things that promise to filter out the sounds of your family or any other unpleasantness you may be contending with.

"I waited so long for the cage to be opened... and now I didn’t want to leave." Stock image

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Sophie White Opinion How do you get back into the world after 2 years? After my nervous breakdown, I learned to take it slowly

I’m in AA and when the pandemic first hit, my other alcoholic friends and I would often talk about how the isolation of addiction had inadvertently prepared us for the isolation of the lockdowns. I was a little smug about it, actually — which is funny when I think of it now. It’s hardly the world’s greatest brag, is it?

"This year, I thought it would be helpful to catalogue the ways in which the millennial relationship can give all the appearance of being totally on the rocks but, in actuality, is just fine." Sophie White on Valentine's Day

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Sophie White Opinion From not having a communal show to texting friends first — signs your millennial relationship could be in trouble

As a person who has been lucky enough to write a weekly column for many years now, I have grappled over and over with Valentine’s Day in print. To care or not to care is the question many a lifestyle columnist must decide each time it rolls around.

Was that the worst January of all time, Life columnist Sophie White wonders

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Sophie White Opinion Sophie White: It’s an unwritten rule that you don’t speak about January til it’s over. And even then, broach with care...

That was, surely, the worst January on record? I know it’s hard to quantify such things and this is a highly subjective, not to mention privileged take, but my god, that was the most January-January in living memory. And this is coming from a woman who spent January 2021 in isolation, with three kids under seven, for 26 days.

"I’m very lucky — not only do I knit, I also dance, do DIY tattoos and, more recently, roller-skate."

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Sophie White Opinion Sophie White: Collect hobbies – they're the only thing between you and nihilism

In pandemic times, pretty much everyone got a pastime. They were even recommended by the HSE as a way of coping with the stress of such an unexpected turn in our collective fortunes. Before Covid-19, either fewer people had hobbies or they were less vocal about them. The proliferation of chat about crafts and hobbies on social media felt a bit like voices in the dark sharing intel on survival.