Sitting on her bed in a dressing gown, former TV presenter Sarah Cawood53, sobs that she feels ‘lost, redundant, left out’.

In a video posted to Instagram, one of the original 90s ladettes confesses to feeling washed-up compared to her peers. ‘There’s been so many occasions recently where I’d be fresh from mopping the kitchen floor… and then I’d scroll through Instagram and see someone I used to work with looking amazing on the red carpet. I’d think: “God, what happened to me?”’

Some will scoff. She’s not been forced down a coal mine, has she? She’s been lucky enough to have kids, a husband, a roof over her head. But like many other midlife women, I can relate to Sarah’s words and to the uncomfortable truth that putting your career on the backburner when you become a mother brings mixed emotions down the line.

While I was never a TV star, I did have a pretty exciting career. From my mid-20s to mid-30s, I worked in politics, most of the time as David Cameron’s chief speechwriter. Each day I would trot into Downing Street in my 3in heels to speak to the prime minister, write speeches on weighty subjects, speak to MPs and mandarins.

It was an extraordinary job, an adrenaline ride, hammering out scripts to the tightest of deadlines, seeing those words splashed over the front pages the next day.

I’ll never forget sitting beside Cameron in the back of the prime ministerial Jag, a motorcade of motorbikes with flashing lights clearing a path for us so the car sliced through traffic like a knife through butter.

Or sipping red wine by the fire at Chequers as we discussed the next speech. Or flying to Brussels for EU talks, a group of us huddled in a room to work on a statement. That intoxicating feeling of being at the centre of events.

Life was a flit between No 10, Parliament, swanky Soho restaurants and the kind of Mayfair hotel bar where your martini is served with almonds dusted in the finest Himalayan salt.

I met presidents Obama and Sarkozy, shook hands with Her Majesty the Queen, hobnobbed with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Following my political career, I worked as a consultant and the whirl continued with lots of business travel: one month New York, the next Dubai.

By my mid-30s, though, I longed to have a baby. I didn’t want to go to another party; I wanted to press my face to a toddler’s pink cheek, to throw myself into the maelstrom of nappies and broken nights.

And so, when I got together with my husband a decade ago, I was determined to do two things: have babies fast and do motherhood the full-fat, no-holds-barred way. I would be a stay-at-home mum, just like my mum had been for me. I had given 100 per cent to my career – now I would give 100 per cent to my children.

At 36, just before I had my first baby, I stepped away from my successful career.

When my daughter was a few months old we moved (due to my husband’s job) to a city far from London. The contrast to my old life was sudden and stark.

In the space of a year I went from high-flier in cinched pencil skirts to frizzy-haired mum in a fleece, from days filled with meetings to days filled with food shopping, baby groups and picking Play-Doh out of the carpet. Within 15 months we had another baby, then another, then another.

Over seven years and four babies I’ve remained a stay-at-home mum – and most of the time I am glad of the choice I made. Now seven, six, four and nearly two, my children are wonderful company.

Just this morning I was out in a park with my youngest, who stared intently at the ladybird in her hand as I stared intently at her lovely face, glowing in the autumn sunshine. We had all the time in the world and I was overcome with gratitude that I have the freedom to be with her.

I know many working women would love to be in the same position. I also know I’ll have no regrets about how much time I spent with my children.

But sometimes, when I see friends and former colleagues soar in their careers, or when I’m facing a pile of laundry the size of a small landslide, or if I’m in a public toilet trying to change a nappy while stopping another child licking the mirror and another pulling the red emergency cord, I can’t help but think, like Sarah: ‘What happened to the woman I was?’

The identity wobbles that so many mothers feel betray the persistent belief that parenting – while important – is not much of an achievement.

Glory goes to the high-powered, the glamorous. As Lily Allen once sang: ‘Life’s about film stars, and not about mothers.’

Social media compounds this skewed value system, its endless reel of boasting and narcissism subtly undermining the stuff of our everyday lives as prosaic and humdrum.

Sarah, whose children are now 13 and 11, admits her feelings of redundancy were triggered by social media. Here’s where we differ; I wouldn’t go near Instagram, that showreel for show-offs.

I sometimes reflect on how much has changed. In a parallel universe there’s a version of myself who hasn’t taken her foot off ambition’s pedal, who has a live-in nanny to care for her children, who has scaled the corporate ladder and now sits around a board table on the top floor of some glittering city tower.

But here’s the thing: I know that parallel me would be miserable. She’d be doing a big presentation while yearning to be at home, stroking her child’s hair. As my children get older, I might work a little more – but the high-octane, high-pressured career is no longer an option.

To quote the oldest of chestnuts, you really can’t have it all. To admit so isn’t a betrayal of womanhood, it is simply the truth.

Most mothers, working or not, are prone to guilt, regrets, over-analysis of how they can do the best for their children while maintaining their own sanity and sense of self.

The role gets ever harder in an age when social media constantly promotes the unattainable. I wish I could put my arm around all midlife mothers like Sarah who are feeling lost or redundant, and buck them up with a reminder of all they have achieved.

When your inner voice whispers that you’re unimportant, remember how important you are to those who really matter.

And for goodness’ sake, stay off Instagram.

Quit the OnlyFans look, Taylor

Taylor Swift was hailed as a different kind of artist: intelligent, thoughtful, poetic. Now she’s released a flurry of pictures in which she’s trussed up like a Vegas pole dancer. For a singer with millions of primary-aged fans, it’s all a bit OnlyFans, isn’t it?

In her new song Wood, she boasts about fiance Travis Kelce’s manhood: ‘Redwood tree, it ain’t hard to see / His love was the key that opened my thighs.’ Oh, Taylor. You’re better than this!

Time to kick my Diet Coke addiction

Bad news for Diet Coke addicts like me: research shows that just one a day can raise the risk of deadly liver disease by up to 60 per cent. I have been hooked for years, my two-can-a-day habit seeing me through many an afternoon lull.

So many women are the same. Could it be because of those ‘Diet Coke break’ ads that made it seem the drink of choice for professional women? Or the dopamine hit served by these fizzy little espressos? Either way, this news prompts me to try – again – to quit the black stuff.

Jilly Cooper is being rightly eulogised for her wit and wickedly good writing. For me, her towering achievement was to create the only fictional character I’ve ever fancied. He may have been arrogant, lecherous and king of the cads, but Rupert Campbell-Black remains my dream man.