Sep 5, 2026 · 5 min listen · Last updated September 5, 2026
From storyflo. This is your daily audio brief. Hey, it's Chloe. September 5th. Ten stories — one trial, three reviews, six takes you can actually use. Let's get into it. First, from Every Shade of Grey. 40 isn’t the New 30.
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Daily Parenting Brief · September 5th
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40 isn’t the New 30
Left: 32, Right: almost 42 (plus husband, 28/38) Last month Elle published a piece telling us that 40 is the new 30 based on some telling demographic data and shifting point of life markers. Millennials marry later (if at all), have children later (if at all) and buy homes later (if at all). I’m still renting, my eldest child is only just starting junior school (in the 80s, by 42 most mothers would have a university-age child).
There’s a clip that’s been circulating online amongst my demographic. I describe as such because it has been sent to me by mum friends in both west and east London and by my husband, whose FYP generally isn’t heavily populated with parenting reels. More Rolexes and Kendall Jenner in lingerie, but I digress. The clip asks, ‘if we could go back for just one day would we see it the same way?’ The anonymous text, read aloud by New Zealand-based radio host Jeanette Thomas, follows a woman in her 80s who travels back in time to experience one more day in the thick of raising her young children.
I’ve recorded a little video for my Instagram account to explain in broad strokes what’s been going on, but I wanted to write it down here too for posterity. Seeing that completion statement land in my inbox was a moment of intense relief, but it also felt particularly significant due to the number of words I’ve written about housing over the years - most pertinently in my book Your Not Forever Home.
‘Are You Mad at Me?’ by psychotherapist Meg Josephson is a revelatory, but also extremely useful book with lots of advice for anyone who has lived to please. Published last month by Penguin, the title covers everything from hyper-vigilance to the disassociation from your own desires. Josephson’s big contention is that peo…
Like many parents this week, my mind has been swirling with a smorgasbord of responsibilities and concerns as I’ve epically failed at my hard launch into the new school year. The train strike, a painful settling-in schedule for my youngest and utter parental burnout has not left me, shall we euphemistically say, in a great place. In this febrile environment, I’ve also been listening to podcasts about impending AI destruction. I now know what Singularity means – don’t Google it if you’re also not in a great place.
Last week, I found myself in a conversation with a man who looked and sounded exactly like the imaginary husband I’d fantasied about when I was a younger woman. He was erudite and educated, had bucketloads of EQ and could engage on a deep level with child psychology. We had read similar books and noticed similar patterns. He was handsome in a non-flashy, brainy way, with a happy, open face and an olive complexion. I have no idea if he was wealthy or successful, or what his background or family situation is or was, but then none of that has ever really factored for me.
Hey! So, I was reading this article, and it really made me think about how fast kids grow up, you know? It’s like, one minute they’re little, and the next they’re using slang you’ve never heard of, like "booyah," and talking about six-packs and girls. The writer's son is seven, and he’s already got these surprisingly mature, or at least *aware*, observations about the world.
It’s funny, the writer is trying to navigate these conversations, like when her son says girls only like boys with six-packs. She gives what I think is a pretty good, reassuring answer, but then he just rolls his eyes. It’s that classic kid thing where you try to explain something, and they just… don't seem to get it, or maybe they just don't care about your explanation.
Then, the article touches on something really interesting. The son is reading a book about different kinds of boys, and it features a transgender doctor, Alan L. Hart. The writer asks her son if he has any questions, and he just… turns the page. He’d just been talking about a kid at school experimenting with gender, but this biographical bit didn't seem to phase him. It makes the writer wonder if she missed a chance to talk about bigger issues, like the struggles trans people face. It’s that constant balancing act, isn't it? How much do you explain, and when do you just let them absorb things at their own pace?
Is it Ok for Me to do a Lingerie Shoot? You Know, As a Mother?
This week, my agent was approached to see if I’d be open to being photographed in lingerie. The brand requested full visibility of the underwear rather than a coy glimpse under a white shirt, which is quite honestly fair enough because they have bras to sell. At twenty-one again in a few weeks, the request feels like evidence of a positive shift against ageist standards, although as I remain in a small, if not exactly elastically intact body, we’re not entirely upending the system.
If you’ve spent any time in recent years trying in vain to reach the end of the scroll, you’ll no doubt have encountered some kind of content on the Seven Year Cycles. Where the concept originates is contested, but seven year slices of life can be found within yogic philosophy, astrology, Traditional Chinese Medicine (specifically women’s health), and famously, within Rudolf Steiner’s model of human development. An Austrian philosopher and social reformer, Steiner created a system based on 7-year cycles, which formed the basis for Waldorf Education (often known as ‘Steiner schools’).
For anyone new to this story, eight weeks ago, I embarked on a pretty abrupt career pivot and began retraining in construction. Over the 20 years prior to September, I’d worked as a fashion journalist, author, ghostwriter and lifestyle content creator, so this new direction has been quite the change in pace. The first question that everyone has asked is why? Or more commonly why? And are you mad? There are lots of answers and they all start with the house which my husband and I recently purchased after three years of renting it.