Hi!  I’m Lily, a Montessori mother of one, living in London, England.  I discovered Montessori when my daughter, Bella, was a few months old and I was hooked.  Everything about the philosophy resonated with my parenting beliefs, and I read book after book.  As my year of maternity leave drew to a close, I thought about what I wanted my life to look like, and I realised that I wasn’t ready to return to work.

Maria Montessori chose to create her children’s house for 3-6 year olds, because she felt that 0-3 year olds needed to be in the home, where they could learn about daily life and have strong connections with their caregivers.  Even when Nido classes were eventually created to meet the demand from parents returning to work, they were designed to replicate the home as much as possible.

I’m incredibly lucky to be able to stay at home, something that was only possible from my own financial planning earlier in life, and also my earlier career planning which means that I can work freelance one day a week for good money.  I’m also very lucky to have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes care of Bella that day for free.

This has left me in the amazing position of trying to figure out how best to support Bella through these early years.  I read a lot, and I follow the blogs, and you know what – they make it all seem like sunshine and roses.  It really perpetuates the myth of the well-behaved Montessori child.  While there are many amazing aspects to Montessori, our children are the same as any other children, and so I started this blog to show the good and the bad.  Most of my posts are designed to highlight both, because things never go to plan, and there’s no shame in sharing that too.