1. Please introduce yourself: Name, what you do & how many children you have
I’m Steph Douglas, I run the thoughtful gift company Don’t Buy Her Flowers, and I have three children with my husband Doug – Buster (12), Mabel (10) and Frank (5). The business actually came about because I received eight beautiful, well-meant bouquets when I had my first, and thought it was a bizarre gift – to give a new mum another thing to care for.
We now cater for all occasions, with customers creating bespoke gift boxes for women, men and children and corporate gifts too, but it very much started because of my experience having children. My eldest thinks I owe him some kind of fee for the inspiration!
2. How do you manage to juggle work and life balance as a mother?
Sometimes it feels like I’m managing, other times I’m dropping balls and feeling rubbish about how I’m performing at work and as a mum! This stage is the ‘rush hour’ – when your kids are young and physically still need you, you have responsibility at work, your parents are getting older, you’re still young enough to feel like you should have a social life, and there is just a lot pulling you in all directions.
When I had my third child, I massively lowered my expectations of what is possible – I can’t volunteer at every school event, I can’t make every meal from scratch, and my house is not the tidiest and I need to be ok with that or I’ll end up totally burned out. I chose to run a business and I chose to have kids, and I can’t do each of those things while pretending I haven’t done the other. The summer holidays are coming and they take the juggle to a whole other level!
3. What top tips would you give to any working mum?
If you have a partner and you both work, the two of you need to figure out what that looks like. How do you split the household chores, the pick-ups and drop-offs, and the admin involved in school or nursery?
I think we slipped into fairly traditional roles when the kids were small, and I felt really resentful of it but at the same time couldn’t work out why – I’d grown up seeing those traditional roles in my family as well as in films and messaging all around me, but we’re living in a very different world.
It took a lot of conversations for us to work out, reading and listening to people like Eve Rodsky of the Fairplay method, and Laura Danger of That Darn Chat, and thankfully Doug has engaged in the conversation! Also, accept help. Sharing lifts, swapping kids for play dates, building a community locally where you help each other out. We don’t live near our families and that has helped massively.
4. What do you love most about London? Do you have a favourite spot with your children?
I love how close we are to central London if we want it – I didn’t love going into London with a buggy but now the kids are a bit older, they can appreciate how cool it is to be a 20-minute train ride from it all! I think they’re going to love it even more as they get older.
Southbank is always excellent with kids – for roaming and climbing and snacking! Where we live in Richmond, Richmond Park and Marble Hill are regulars for us at the weekend.
5. How do you define quality ‘me-time’?
I think I view any time on my own as ‘me-time’ – supermarket, solo train ride to a meeting, smear test – I’ll take it! But ‘quality’ time is probably when I’m not doing something for someone else or with a purpose – I play netball once a week and that is definitely not for anyone else. I have to concentrate really hard so it really clears my head.
I recently went on a pilates retreat run by my friends Nicola and Zoe, called Retreat Yourself. There were fifteen women and it was really emotional at times, as it was a big deal for everyone to have booked something just for them and away from families and work.
It felt massively self-indulgent in the run-up, but once there it highlighted how little there is that is just for me during this phase of my life and that of most of the women I know.
6. What is your favourite & least favourite thing about parenthood?
My favourite thing is seeing these delicious babies turn into humans with likes and dislikes and personalities and friendships. They’re each really different; my eldest is now twelve and secondary school is a whole other thing.
He comes home with opinions on the education system or knowing a song that is from the nineties and it is fascinating to watch (as well as making us feel really old). My least favourite is the number of times I have to repeat ‘TEETH’ and ‘SHOES’ still in the mornings, and generally nagging them about picking up their stuff.
I’m very glad to be out of the baby/toddler phase. I look back at pictures and videos and they were so so gorgeous, but I still remember how exhausting it was and all I wanted was someone to say ‘it gets easier’, and in my opinion, it does.
7. Tell us something people don’t know about you
I applied to go on a show called Bar Wars when I was at University and went to an in-person audition in Bristol. Who knows what could have happened had I got on!
8. Given we are all about embracing Motherhood, what advice would you give a first-time Mum?
You are doing a better job of this than you will ever give yourself credit for. If you can get a new mum to recognise that, they might just be a bit gentler on themselves. Unfortunately, most of us work this out way later, having beaten ourselves up for not being good enough.
9. I’m a mum and…
I wish we could all be gentler on ourselves.
10. Finally, please let us know what you love most about Kensington Mums
I love the ideas about places to go and things to do in London. We tend to go to the same places so getting tried and tested recos is great!
Read more inspiring interviews as part of our online motherhood exhibition and get in touch to share your story with us. We would love to hear from you…
