When was the last time you did something just because you enjoyed it?

In this episode of After the Drop Off, we’re unpacking hobbies in motherhood — why they disappear, why we feel guilty having them, and whether scrolling Instagram counts as one (asking for a friend).

We talk about:

• ​Losing your identity after having kids
• ​The mental load and why hobbies feel indulgent
• ​The difference between self-care and actual hobbies
• ​Why some mums “bounce back” into interests and others don’t
• ​The pressure to be productive even in our downtime
• ​Whether exercise counts as a hobby or just survival

If you’ve ever answered “what do you do for fun?” with a blank stare, this one is for you.

Because somewhere between daycare drop-off, school WhatsApp chats and cutting crusts off sandwiches, we forgot that we’re allowed to be interesting too.

This episode is for the mums who:

• ​Used to have passions
• ​Want something that feels like theirs again
• ​Or are just too tired to even know what they like anymore

It’s honest. It’s funny. It’s mildly confronting. And it might just make you rethink what fills your cup.

🎧 Listen now and tell us — do you actually have a hobby?

Kids’ birthday parties in Australia have become… a thing.

What used to be pass-the-parcel and a Woolies mud cake is now balloon arches, RSVP anxiety and full-blown primary school social politics.

This week on After the Drop Off, we unpack the modern kids’ birthday party pressure many Australian parents feel from comparison culture to party bags to the awkwardness of chasing RSVPs.

Because somewhere between “just a few friends at the park” and “professionally styled backyard party”, the stakes got weirdly high.

In this episode, we cover:

• ​The rise of over-the-top kids’ birthday parties
• ​RSVP etiquette (and the passive-aggressive RSVP culture no one talks about)
• ​Low turnout anxiety and what it does to parents
• ​Kids’ party budgets: how much is too much?
• ​Party bags and lolly bags: are they essential or out of control?
• ​ Comparison culture in primary school parenting
• ​ The pressure to host a “good” party in Australia
• ​ Kids’ party hacks we’ve seen online (and the ones that absolutely flopped).

We are not event planners. We are not influencers. We are simply Australian parents in the thick of primary school birthday party season, trying to navigate modern party expectations without losing perspective (or our savings).

And yes, we close with Party Court, where we put common kids’ birthday party crimes on trial, from not RSVPing to over-styling,and hand down completely unqualified verdicts.

If you’ve ever:

• ​Googled “how much to spend on a kids birthday party in Australia”
• ​Spiralled over RSVP numbers
• ​Compared your backyard to someone else’s balloon installation
• ​Wondered when birthday parties became competitive

You’re in the right place.

Please RSVP on time. It’s not that hard.

____

Hosts:

Beth Stanford Brown @bethstanfordbrown

Jess Ashworth @jashworth_

Follow the podcast @afterthedropoff

Keywords: kids birthday parties Australia, kids party pressure, RSVP etiquette, party bags, primary school parenting, birthday party comparison culture, kids party budget, Australian parenting podcast

“Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”

That quote — made famous by supermodel Kate Moss — shaped an entire generation of women. And if we’re honest? Parts of it still live in our heads.

In this episode of After the Drop Off, we ask the uncomfortable question:

Did diet culture ever actually go away — or did it just rebrand itself as “wellness”?

We’re talking body image, weight loss pressure, gym culture, “clean eating”, and the quiet ways mums still shrink themselves — physically and metaphorically.

We unpack:

• Growing up in peak 90s and 2000s diet culture
• Why “heroin chic” never really left
• The moral language we use around food (“being good”, “being bad”)
• Post-baby body image and the pressure to “bounce back”
• The contradiction of wanting to feel confident without becoming obsessed
• Raising sons and daughters in a world still obsessed with appearance
• Whether body positivity has helped — or just added another standard to live up to

We also admit the messy bits:

The calorie counting.

The comparison spiral.

The gym guilt.

The jeans that don’t fit.

The thoughts we’re trying not to pass on.

This isn’t a body positivity lecture.

It’s not anti-weight loss.

And it’s definitely not us pretending we’ve figured it out.

It’s a real conversation about body image in Australia — and what it takes to unlearn decades of messaging while raising kids who are watching everything.

Because maybe the problem was never the quote.

Maybe it’s how deeply we believed it.

After the Drop Off is a podcast for parents navigating the primary school years — real, raw and funny conversations about modern motherhood, identity, friendships and the cultural stuff we’re still unpacking.