To the woman who makes me feel inadequate

Slip on your hand-knit cashmere socks, curl up among the antique quilts you like to scatter in front of the stove, and allow waves of gentle superiority wash over you. You deserve this: You spent the summer honing your body to lean perfection with outdoor hip-hop Yogalates and home-grown chard, while your children studied Java through Mandarin and learned how to do a mean sheepshank on that sailing course.

 

Anyway, you'll need a breather before it's time to start planning an intimate Christmas get-together at home, or in an abandoned barn. You'll need to gather your strength before you launch into the annual jamboree of twisting dead plants and balling twine into quirky wreaths, fashioning personal greeting cards from your collection of pressed garden flowers and paper that was crafted from sustainably harvested wood pulp. Oh and baking organic carob cookies to give to your Yogalates instructor.

 

I know you exist because I see you everywhere, lolling elegantly on horrendously expensive sofas that would send my dodgy disk into spasms; leaning easily against your edibly gorgeous man while your kids tumble happily on lush (ethnically sourced) carpet. You are everywhere, sometimes blonde, sometimes dark-haired, occasionally silver-tressed, but always glowing, always perfect, and always so bloody pleased with yourself.

 

Everything about your modest smile, your quirkily mismatched tableware, your kitchen counters crafted from salvaged shipwrecks murmurs “I make this look easy – so easy in fact that you will torture yourself forever wondering why your lifestyle looks so grey and embarrassingly mismatched in comparison.”

 

The reason it looks so easy is that armies of stylists, photographers, editors, and salespeople have invested countless hours and euros into making all that faux rustic simplicity look easy. That woman with the tawny streaks in her hair and the adorable gap in her teeth? She's a model, paid to do a job - and, no, she didn't make those adorable nettle and chive flowerpot loaves herself. 

 

And those children, tumbling delightfully among the heirloom patchwork quilts? They are only laughing like that because they are sugared up to their eyeballs on the sweets they were promised to do just one more take.

 

I know they’re ads, I’m know they’re not real, but it still doesn't stop me feeling jealous.

 

Now where's my loom and sustainably sourced wool? Time to start weaving that onesie - ideal for winter evenings scoffing frozen pizza in front of Love/Hate…

Aoife O'Carroll is a separated mum living in Co Kerry with her two boys aged 17 and 14, and a girl aged 10.