Holly Willoughby is no doubt enjoying spending time with her husband Dan Baldwin and their three children after leaving This Morning recently for the summer break.
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The presenter has previously told HELLO! that being a mum to Harry, 11, Belle, nine, and five-year-old Chester is without a doubt her favourite job. She said: "All I ever wanted to do was to be a mum. It wasn’t like when I was at school I thought, 'Oh, I’m going to be this big career girl'. Being a mummy is definitely my most favourite job of all, without a shadow of a doubt."
Holly and her husband Dan are parents to three children: Harry, Belle and Chester
However, she has encountered her own parenting struggles, many of which she has shared with her followers. We look back at the relatable ups and downs of Holly's motherhood journey...
Homework
All parents find themselves helping their kids with dreaded homework, even Holly. The TV star recently opened up about the difficult school project her daughter Belle had been given. Taking to Instagram, Holly shared a photo of their attempts at making a 3D air raid shelter out of a shoebox. To make matters worse, the shoebox had been sabotaged by their pet cat Bluebell, who had decided to take a nap in it.
Holly shared this relatable photo of Belle's homework disaster!
She wrote beside the picture: "Whilst Belle and I struggle to make a 3D air raid shelter out of a shoe box for her school project... Bluebell has other plans... I’m coming back as a cat." Although she was able to see the funny side on this occasion, we're sure that she has suffered from several other homework disasters!
Mum guilt
Being an in-demand presenter who previously juggled This Morning, Dancing on Ice and Celebrity Juice, it's no surprise that Holly found it a "challenge" to balance her career and being a mum. In an interview with Red Magazine, the 39-year-old candidly revealed: "Becoming a mum was the only thing I knew I definitely wanted when I was growing up, but the image I had never involved me being a working mum," she explained. As a result, she has experienced 'mum guilt', something many parents - the Duchess of Cambridge included - has spoken out about.
Holly has found it a challenging balancing her career and being a mum
"That's the biggest challenge. I've been riddled with guilt about getting that part wrong. You love them so much and you don't want to mess them up," she said. For example, the 39-year-old has candidly spoken about how she "hated" missing Harry and Belle's first days of school due to filming commitments on This Morning. "I didn’t do the drop-off because I was working," she said. "I hate that I wasn't there because those memories you can't get back."
School schedule
This brings us onto the school schedule! All working parents can relate to the fact that being there to do the school pick-up and drop-off around nine in the morning and three in the afternoon is not ideal when it comes to their own work commitments.
The This Morning presenter "hated" missing her children's first day of school
Speaking to Closer, Holly confessed, "I do have a nanny, otherwise the kids would have to walk themselves to school!" However, the mum-of-three has revealed that she has found a way to "combat those feelings" of mum guilt by greeting her kids after school - following her early starts - and spending time with them on weekends. "I'm lucky I do a job that allows me to do school pick-up, so I feel quite blessed to have that," she continued.
Luckily, she told HELLO! that she loves her job, despite its clashing schedule with the early morning school run. Holly explained: "If I’m going to get up and leave the kids in the morning then it has to be for something that I care about, or feel passionately about – and I’m lucky to be able to do that."
Parenting in lockdown
During the coronavirus pandemic, Holly found herself taking on the role of teacher for her three children. She told This Morning viewers that she was not giving her kids a strict timetable of work to complete, but later revealed that she was struggling to fill their days with activities - and even resorted to sticking to their homeschooling routine during the holidays!
WATCH: Holly Willoughby reveals she didn't tell her children about the Easter holidays
"My kids don't even know it's Easter holidays, I haven't actually told them that, they have no idea!" She continued: "We're just carrying on because there is nothing else to do!"
However, Holly soon realised her mistake and clocked that her kids were probably watching. "They're probably watching this now and I've just given the game away," she said. "That was a really stupid thing for me to say – I'm only joking kids!" We bet she was pleased to see their school reopen in June!
House chores
Anybody with children will know that the mound of dirty clothes in the washing basket never seems to go down, no matter how many loads of laundry you do - and this was especially true with everyone spending extra time at home during the lockdown. But one item of clothing that seems to go into the wash never to be seen again is socks!
The mother-of-three often loses her children's socks in the laundry!
During a live chat with Celebrity Juice co-host Keith Lemon, Holly admitted that she, too, is forever losing her children's socks in the laundry. She was talking to the comedy star while sorting out her ironing, and held up three different pairs of socks that didn't have a pair. "One sock, two sock, three sock. They all went in the wash as pairs," she said as she held them up to the camera. "You know what that is, it's the washing ghost!" Keith replied, as he joked that Holly was "like a real person" for doing the ironing herself.
