A Year of You, A Year of Change

Dear Hazel,

Today you turn one.

A year ago, you arrived in a world that felt uncertain but still, in many ways, familiar. In the months since, that sense of familiarity has shifted. The world you’ve been born into is not stable in the way previous generations might have assumed it to be. It is faster, more fragmented, more volatile — and, in some ways, more honest about what it has always been.

This past year has been shaped by forces that will likely define your lifetime.

Power is becoming more distributed, but not necessarily more just. The idea of a single global order is fading, replaced by something more complex and less predictable. Technology is accelerating faster than our ability to govern it. Artificial intelligence is not just changing jobs; it is reshaping how decisions are made, how value is created, and who holds influence.

At the same time, the planet is responding to decades of extraction and neglect. Climate change is no longer a distant concept; it is a present condition. It is influencing where people live, how economies function, and what stability even means.

And beneath all of this, there is a deeper shift; a growing recognition that the systems we built were never neutral. Conversations around inequality, justice, labour, and responsibility are becoming harder to ignore. Whether they lead to meaningful change is still uncertain. It would be easy to look at all of this and feel overwhelmed.

There are real reasons for concern. That conflict is becoming normalised. That economic pressure is reshaping how people live and what they can aspire to. That decisions made today are still too often driven by short-term gain rather than long-term survival.

I think about what this means for you. But I also think about what this past year has meant for me, becoming your mother while trying to remain myself. Everyone talks about balance. As if it is something you can find, and then keep. It isn’t.

The truth is, the balance has become harder as you’ve grown. Not easier. You need more now. More attention, more presence, more of me. And the world of work has not adjusted to meet that reality. I am lucky. I have flexibility that many don’t. I can shape my schedule, choose how I work, build something on my own terms. And still, it doesn’t feel like enough.

There is a quiet, persistent guilt that comes with leaving you, even when I know you are safe, loved, and cared for. It is not rational, and it is not evenly distributed. It is a weight that mothers carry in a way that fathers, more often than not, do not. Not because they care less. But because the world has not expected them to care in the same way.

This year has made something very clear to me: the working world was not designed for families like ours; households where both parents work, and both want to be present. Not for mothers who are ambitious and attached. Not for children who need more than a system is willing to give.

And so the tension sits with us. I can feel it in the background of decisions I haven’t had to make yet. What happens as you grow? What happens if our family grows? What gives and who gives it up? These are not abstract questions. They are structural ones. And too often, the answer still falls on women.

This year, that tension has been tested even more. External events have forced us to adapt quickly - to work, parent, and manage uncertainty all at once. The boundaries between home and work, already thin, have all but disappeared. And yet, life continues. Work continues. Expectations continue.

That, more than anything, has made me question the systems we operate within. Not just whether they are sustainable for the planet — but whether they are sustainable for people. Because alongside all of the uncertainty in the world, there is also an opportunity to rethink what we are building.

To question whether productivity should come at the expense of presence. Whether growth should come at the expense of care. Whether success should be defined in a way that leaves so many people carrying invisible trade-offs.

Your generation will inherit a world in flux.

More aware of its limits. More shaped by technology. More honest about its inequalities.

And with that comes the possibility to do things differently.

To build systems that recognise care as essential, not optional. To create ways of working that reflect how people actually live. To redefine ambition in a way that doesn’t require people to fracture themselves to achieve it.

None of this is guaranteed. But it is possible. If there is one thing I hope you carry into this world, it is not blind optimism, but clarity. The ability to see systems for what they are, to question them, and to decide where you stand within them.

The world you inherit will not be simple.

But it will be yours to shape.

And that, more than anything, is what gives me hope.

Love, Mum