hello, i’m nayva

I’m a forty-something solo mum of three, former primary teacher and writer of personal essays about ordinary life.

After spending more than two decades in education, I left teaching in 2026 and began a completely different kind of working life. The change gave me a new relationship with my time, energy and ambition – and far more space to notice the life happening around me.

These days, that life includes work, school runs, teenage conversations, football evenings, unfinished laundry, attempts to look after my health and the ongoing business of making our home feel like ours.

Life is busy and occasionally chaotic, but it is also stable, interesting, funny and genuinely good.

Solo motherhood is part of the context in which I live and write, but it isn’t a permanent crisis or the only interesting thing about me. I want to document a broader and more honest version of it: one that makes room for difficult days without turning struggle into an identity.

This is where you’ll find stories about solo motherhood without the survival narrative.

I write about life after I’ve had enough time to understand what I actually think about it. I prefer reflection to running commentary, and I don’t believe every difficult or vulnerable moment needs to become content. Some experiences deserve privacy. Others become stories when the time feels right.

This website is where I collect those stories.

You’ll find personal essays and everyday observations about motherhood, home, routines, work, health, identity, family life and the small moments that quietly shape our days.

I’m not here to offer a blueprint, teach anyone how to live or pretend that I have everything figured out. I’m simply paying attention to my own life and writing about what I notice.

Most of it is very ordinary because I’m increasingly convinced that’s where the good stuff is.