6 alternatives to a 6pm glass of wine.

There's an easy way to tell if I've had a 'mother' of a day. It's when I retreat to the shower and take a glass of pink wine in with me. The first time I did it, I felt like I'd cracked the keys to the universe. And now - I'm not so sure.

Mummy wine culture is the stuff of internet memes and light-hearted jokes. It’s printed on novelty glasses and carries cultural callbacks to Tami Taylor in Friday Night Lights. Tami drank a lot – but everyone wanted to be Tami.

A wine mum/mom is someone who drinks to take the edge of parenting and who is self knowing enough to poke fun at that fact. Mum-wine-life was there in the bottles of white wine we used to take to the park on Friday afternoons and plastic cups, along with Tupperwares of cut up cucumber and carrot, sausages and bread rolls for the kids. We would have a drink and cheers 'TGIF' while the kids rumbled and played.

For me, it got more potent when we had the kids at home in those long formless days of lockdowns. It wasn't just a wine with dinner or with friends. It morphed into the medicinal tinkle of ice and Campari that I came to crave at 4.15 pm, as the sky started to purple. It helped mark the passage of time after hours of home-school fracas and a three-year-old who wanted to play endless rounds of 'sick baby horse'.

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When I had a job outside the home, we would often celebrate 'knock off' with a drink. It was socially acceptable, celebrated even. The irony of full-time care-work is that there IS no ‘off time’. Motherhood is 24/7 work (particularly if your children resist sleep the way mine do). Pouring a drink was one way to cling to some vestige of the old order and insert some hands on the clock. The only problem with that, is that you’re also technically drinking on the job.

In those years, I was also resorting to drinking when I was doing my other work too. I've been known to follow in William Faulkner's footsteps of 'write drunk, edit sober.' I got into a habit where I would take a large glass of red to my desk in the dark; because mothers usually write in the gutters of the day. With the wine sloshing, the words flowed more easily. I found it easier to tap into the dark and ugly bits of life to write about. But soon my reward, became my crutch.

"Alcohol," says Ann Dowsett Johnston, author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, "is the modern woman’s steroid."

These were ideas I was toying more with when I was writing that second novel; A Recipe for Family. It's a story about the impossibility of trying to do two jobs at once. It's about women trying to keep their heads above water and the mistakes you make when you're trying to get it right. It's about the compromises; whether inviting a 19-year-old au pair into your house as an affordable surrogate parent, optimising your relationships in pyramid schemes, or cutting corners to get through each day. And it's about what we turn to for comfort when the world is hard. Sometimes it's your Nana's shortbread, pelmeni dumplings and pesto pasta. And sometimes it's wine.

My favourite of the mummy wine memes takes a much darker tone. It crosses out 'Mummy needs a wine' and replaces it with 'Mommy needs - An end to the patriarchal capitalist system that makes modern motherhood so dehumanising that self-medication is both aspirational and expected'. 

The night I was doom scrolling and found that, I put down my glass.

These days I'm trying to foster some new habits. I don't want to quit drinking completely. I'm a food writer. If I had to design my perfect day, it would be a long table filled with laughter, a pot of bouillabaisse and cold wine. Wine and cocktails bring me great joy. But I want to be the boss of it.

Here are six alternatives to a 6pm glass of wine:

1. Replace pink wine with raspberry kombucha, drunk out of a wine glass.

The similar feeling in my hand and colour help dupe me into the 'wind down' feeling of a glass of pink at 5pm.

2. Make a batch of strong peppermint tea.

Chill it and have it with fresh lime and sparkling water.

3. Keep a stock of non-alcoholic negroni cans in the fridge.

Serve them over ice with frozen orange peel (every time you peel an orange, put the peels in a Ziplock bag in the freezer for ready-garnish).

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4. On the day when I'm feeling frayed heading into the evening routine I put in my earbuds.

I listen to a 'spa music' soundtrack. It helps muffle the trigger-noises, and reminds me to breathe, rather than drink my way through the chaos.

5. Before I go to read stories and say goodnight I make a large pot of sleepy time tea and a box of special treats.

I pull down a box of special treats - dark chocolate almonds, dried cherries, and honey joys put together are like DIY Florentines. That way when I eventually sink onto the couch I can reach them, instead of red wine.

6. When I really have had a mother of a day, I go into the shower and take in my toothbrush.

The toothpaste means I don't want to taste wine. I then spend time listening to a podcast, putting a face mask on, and doing some stretching on a soft mat before going to bed.

This means that on the nights I reach for a glass of wine, or when friends come over, I’m pouring a glass because I choose to. Not just out of habit.

If you find yourself needing to talk to someone after reading this story, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Tori Haschka is the author of A Recipe for Family and Grace Under Pressure.

Feature Image: Supplied.