The Honest Mums' Club.

In 2006 Hannah Oakland was a drama student living in Central London - with a headful of dreams. Now she is a mother-of-two. In the second in a series of extracts from her inspirational new book she shares the ups and downs of parenthood ...

Mothers are an advertisers dream. Perpetually paranoid, convinced that we’re doing it wrong. That our days aren’t simultaneously filled, educational and serene enough. That we work too much. Or too little. That we’re feeding our precious offspring all the wrong foods.

We worry that in twenty years it will be our children costing the NHS millions in therapy. Or dropping out of college with rock-bottom self esteem and a nasty narcotics habit.

No? Perhaps it’s just me.

I doubt it.

There must be a few of us, at least. Otherwise the marketing gurus have seriously misplaced their money.

You can hardly breathe at the moment for ‘must-have’ gadgets, or educational apps. For tutors to help your children exceed their academic potential, or forest schools for when it all gets too much. Cookbooks full of ‘family friendly’ recipes that leave me convinced that mine must be the only children on earth who won’t eat kale, or pine nuts, or anything made of potato. Clothes that wouldn’t last five minutes on either of my mud-monsters. Not that they’d ever set eyes on them in the first place, given that they cost twice our monthly food budget.

I don’t think that motherhood has ever been so well-marketed. So riddled with guilt, and fear, and expectations. The list of ‘new baby essentials’ grows longer by the day. No wonder so many people delay having children. Or just abandon the idea altogether.

It’s all nonsense. In my humble opinion, anyway. Every mother - whether they’re pregnant for the first time, a new mum or a seasoned pro needs only one thing in order to survive.

Friends.

Real, honest, there-through-thick-and-thin friends. Preferably the kind who are already parents themselves. They tend not to be so horrified when the topic of ‘how-close-the-baby-came-to-being-thrown-out-of-the-window-at-3am’ comes up.

Last night I went to a bead party. With a room full of exactly this kind of women. This kind of friends. I may just be the luckiest girl alive.

A bead party is not like a Tupperware party. Or an Avon party. Or even an Ann Summers party. Except that the host’s husband had to leave the room as soon as he arrived home because there were ‘just a few more boob stories to tell’. Told you. These girls are the greatest.

They’ve become a tradition at our church. Bead parties, not boob stories.

It’s like a baby shower. But better. And with fewer presents. All the mummies get together for an evening, to show their support for the mother-to-be. We share poems and prayers and words of wisdom. Birth stories involving cupboards and French ambulance drivers, or nameless on call-birth-partners who left their phones on silent while they drank wine and watched telly, only to miss the entire event. And, if last night is anything to go by, a lot of sugar.

Everyone brings a bead, and throughout the evening they’re threaded onto a piece of elastic. So that the new mama has a bracelet. Something physical. Tangible. To wear in labour and those hazy early days. To bite on, or run through her fingers, or use as a blunt instrument against anyone who tells her that the baby will arrive ‘when it’s ready’.

To remind her that she is not alone.

Those bracelets are special. Beyond words. No doubt. They have starring roles in everyone’s birthing pictures. But what really makes these evenings precious are the friendships.

Last night was no exception. Nine of us, sitting in a kitchen, making ice cream sundaes. And eating them too, obviously.

I’d had a hell of a day. Week, actually. With my unruly three year old. One girl arrived off the back of three sleep-deprived teething nights. Another, four months pregnant and existing on a diet of tinned caramel and super noodles, was just pleased to have cleaned her teeth without vomiting.

We all came with baggage. Some of us almost didn’t make it at all after a close-call with the traffic on one of Reading’s more intricate roundabouts. But we were there. We laughed. We cried. We laughed until we cried. We ate way too much sugar for that time of the evening. We hunted imaginary cats who may or may not have broken in through the back door. And, through it all, we were real.

Real can be hard to find these days. But when you find it, you don’t let go.

These girls have been my lifeline over the last year. My place of safety. Where it doesn’t matter that I have no answers. Or that I’m wearing the same clothes for the fourth day running. Or that my daughter has just styled her own hair. With peanut butter. Because they understand.

These girls hold my secrets. When I told them I was terrified of mothering a boy, they understood. When I told them I was depressed, they cried with me, held my hands and listened. They know, they care, and they don’t judge. They’re amazing. Every last one of them.

We know how dark and lonely motherhood can be, and we also know its delights. We’ve seen each other at our very best and at our absolute worst.

We’ve cried together through miscarriages and broken hearts. We’ve cared for each other’s children. We’ve cooked meals when new babies arrive. Most of the clothes that our little ones are wearing have already done the rounds at least twice.

Some of us have real-life sisters. Some of us don’t. Some of our real-life sisters live on the other side of the world. But here, in this muddle of baby bumps, leaky boobs, caramel junkies and bone-tired eyes, is another kind of sisterhood. And it is breathtakingly beautiful.

We’ve christened it The Honest Mums’ Club. And I am beyond privileged to be part of it.

Nobody should have to face motherhood alone. We’re not built that way. Community. Sisterhood. Honesty. That, right there, is what every mother needs.

Every new mother who can barely see out of her sleep-deprived eyes. Every mum of six who can’t figure out how to split herself so many ways. All the home-schoolers. All the chairwomen of the board. All the Annabel Karmel devotees. All the chips-and-beans mamas.

You don’t need another gadget. You don’t need a new routine. Or a tutor. Or a fancy app.

All you need is friends. Real, honest friends.

And perhaps one more ice cream sundae.

This is an extract from The Honest Mums’ Club by Hannah Oakland, available now in paperback, priced £9.99.