Kate Thornton has revealed the “grief” she felt in lockdown when she realised that her son Ben was “pulling away” from her.
“I love being his mum,” she exclusively told Entertainment Daily. “He’s 12 going on 13 and he’s pulling away now. He’s independent – he gets himself to and from school.
“He’ll come in and it’s: ‘Hi Mum!’ We’ll eat together and then he just disappears. It’s brilliant and as it should be,” said Kate, who hosts the White Wine Question Time podcast.
She then revealed that an “emotional” lockdown trip down memory lane had triggered a feeling of “grief” for her.
What triggered Kate’s lockdown ‘grief’?
Kate said she and Ben – whose dad is Kate’s former fiancé Darren Emerson – decided to have a sort out of their old family photos and videos and that’s what triggered the upset.
She told ED!: “We were together 24/7 so we had time to walk down our memory lane and it was so emotional I can’t tell you.
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“It kind of kicked off a grief of I’m never going to have him as a baby again and he is really growing up now and he has his own opinions, which are all brilliant by the way.
“But it’s the next stage, it’s like you walk through a different door of parenting when they hit the tweens and the teens.”
Parenting in the digital age
Indeed, it’s one that Kate revealed “worries” her “so much”.
It kind of kicked off a grief of I’m never going to have him as a baby again and he is really growing up now and he has his own opinions, which are all brilliant by the way.
“It’s such a complicated world that I try my best to help him manage it without being overbearing.
“But that digital world they live in of constant commentary, that worries me so much,” she said.
She then revealed: “My son is allowed a phone and some accounts and an iPad on the understanding that I can carry out a spot-check whenever I want. And if the password has changed, that’s it, it goes.”
Likening the menopause to making ‘popcorn’
Kate also revealed that she speaks to her son about the menopause and believes it’s time to change the narrative.
She told ED!: “They say as a woman you’re guaranteed two things in life – death and the menopause.”
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Of the latter, Kate added: “You don’t know when it’s coming to knock on your door. But it’s a bit like when you make popcorn, it’s like pouring all of your female friends into a pot and seeing who pops. Because we’re all going to pop. Everyone will pop. It’s just who goes first.”
Kate also revealed the struggles her friend Meg Mathews has endured as she tried to get her menopause platform off the ground.
“I know the trouble she’s had trying to get it recognised as a business and backers, pitching to a room of predominately older men about menopause. They’re a bit like what?
“If men went through menopause there would be finance behind it,” she stated.
Money worries early in her career
Finances are something Kate struggled with in the early days of her career too, she admitted.
“I was so skint after I started out that after my rent and my train fare I pretty much had nothing left to my name,” she said.
“I remember eating an awful lot of jacket potatoes with baked beans just because they were cheap and filling.
“But I didn’t care, I was working. I didn’t care that I couldn’t afford to eat much, I was just really happy to be working,” said the woman who became the youngest-ever editor of music magazine Smash Hits at the age of just 22.
Nowadays she’s her own boss, working on her own jewellery line and her award-winning podcast, White Wine Question Time with Yahoo UK.
The 100th episode is coming up soon and Kate knows exactly how she’ll celebrate.
“We’ll celebrate with wine of course, that’s a bit of a no brainer,” she said.
“When we launched it, the thought of doing 100 episodes was the ultimate ambition because that means if you get to 100 episodes then you’ve recruited a little army of listeners who love tuning in every week.
“Ours are so committed and lovely, it’s like being part of a really great club. I’ve had the most fun building this show. It’s a bit like a lovely carriage clock after 23 years in journalism and 25 years in broadcasting,” she laughed.
“You’ve earned your stripes so now you get to make your favourite show and people will listen. It’s like a prize of a gig really.”
You can listen to the White Wine Question Time podcast with Kate Thornton and Yahoo UK here.
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