The 6 sorts of wine mum you may meet if you change into a dad or mum – from the snooty Cotswolds-lover to the smug snitch – they usually’re all so odious, I’ve left our group chat: ANNETTE KELLOW

It’s Friday night – and after a long week of battling tantrums, helping with the homework and racing between school runs, grocery shopping and work, there’s nothing us middle-class mothers like more than a glass of Pinot Noir and a gossip.

We’re dubbed ‘wine mums’, using the promise of alcohol after the children are in bed to ‘get through the day’.

And what’s better than a glass of red? Sharing it with like-minded parents who know the daily struggles you face.

Once my son started at school, I found wine-o’clock was the way most mums like to unwind and socialise after a busy five days, with the latest UK figures showing 79 per cent of women enjoy drinking alcohol, consuming an average of 9-14 units a week.

For me, a parents’ wine-fuelled get-together was a great way to make pals and meant my only child could run around with kids his own age for a few hours in a casual setting.

I hadn’t hung out with this many women in years – and I soon realised, that with all wine-o’clock events, one must be on your guard. You never know how deliriously happy, sullen or unhinged they may act, depending on the mother’s mood after a few glasses of Sauvignon Blanc.

Truthfully, navigating wine mums is pretty exhausting, and rather than continue with dealing with their antics, I’ve removed myself from the WhatsApp groups and, as it turns out, silence really is golden.

But for the uninitiated, I would hate for any parent to come across these mothers and not be prepared. So, here’s my ultimate guide to the different types of wine mums you’ll likely come across in most groups of middle-class parents… from the over-sharer to the one who will tell you off – and the smug snitch.

The Snooty Mum

There is an easy way to immediately spot a Snooty Mum. Unlike the rest of the parents at the school gates, who barely manage to look presentable amid their busy schedule, she will be immaculate, with not a single hair out of place.

Dressed head-to-toe in lululemon, the Snooty Mum will always look effortlessly chic, with perfectly blow-dried hair, a matcha latte, and a perfect manicure. And if you’re not up to scratch, she’ll politely ask if ‘something is wrong’.

She insists on bringing her own booze to events, which, of course, is a magnum of Verve Cliquot. She wouldn’t be caught sipping on Tesco Prosecco as ‘it gives her a headache’.

Once the bubbles hit, she’ll avidly discuss her Cotswolds conversion while moaning about her Kensington gardener.

She’ll ask in earnest why you haven’t tapped into the property market yet and tell you of the right Botox doctor to sort your wrinkles out, all while wearing a smile that’s just a little too sweet.

I accidentally made friends with a Snooty Mum when I was pregnant. She hosted champagne dinners where she gave lofty speeches about ‘women’s empowerment’.

She kept badgering me about why I hadn’t signed my son up to a prestigious prep school loved by celebrities. 

I hadn’t the heart to tell her I was skint, yet she drunkenly trilled on, telling me that she signed hers up from birth.

It all went askew when, at one particularly glamorous launch in London, we arrived, and the mother was horrified that they’d let ‘normies’ in. She’d assumed it was a private event.

She was so distressed that she instructed her driver to take us elsewhere immediately. 

While at the new restaurant, she got blinding drunk, and I was dreading the mounting bill arriving. She slurred that if I didn’t write some press releases for her, I wasn’t allowed to go to the glitzy event that she had planned.

Spoiler: I didn’t write the press releases and deleted myself from the WhatsApp group without a further thought.

The Political Mum

The Political Mum has a husband who was a member of UKIP and is now a local councillor. He works in data or, at a push, the civil service, and all he talks about is politics, even when they’re in the bedroom.

This has now been infiltrated to the Political Mum who has it running through every fibre of her being. She will turn a boozy summer fair into a debate about politics.

When you don’t agree, she will drone on and on, so that you have to make an excuse to check little Oliver, just to get away from her.

This happened to me during the 2024 general elections. One of the mums I know cornered me and asked who I was voting for.

‘It better be Labour,’ she said to me with enough menace to make my stomach drop. She was delighted when they got in and kept crowing how the borough would now be a sanctuary of peace.

Fast forward a year, and I’ve witnessed her at mum events getting progressively drunk and declaring that Keir Starmer has let the nation down badly.

I’ve even caught her commenting on Reformers’ profiles, telling them in caps, ‘they’re never going to make it,’ while downing Sauvignon Blanc.

The Oversharing Mum

She’s started a family blog, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube and documents every second of the day, including wine-o’clock with the other mums at school. She’ll ask you not to be shy about the videos as it’s all good content.

When the baby has a poonami, it’s content. When her children are at soft play, it’s content. Every moment is worthy content and needs to be documented, she’ll say.

But her top-ranking videos are the ones showing her breastfeeding in public, of which she convinces her husband to secretly film the public’s reaction. The comments go wild, and so does the gossip at school.

I’m all for sharing parts of your life, but not to the point where it takes over every single second of your day.

One parent I know, a nature-obsessed mother-of-five who made homemade protein balls and rode her children around in a family cargo bike, complete with the youngest addition strapped to her chest, filmed her births.

She was a stay-at-home mother, aka a blogger, who captured and uploaded the birth of all her children to YouTube.

At a mum’s wine event, she let it slip that they’d been shared thousands of times and had made her quite famous. Cue it spreading like wildfire around the school, and being shared multiple times between the dads.

One of the dads tried to show me on his phone, and after that, I couldn’t quite look her in the eye. It was a relief when she decided to move out of the UK, and none of us had to be in the videos anymore.

The Judging Mum

She’ll breeze through the school gates early, diverting her eyes and pretending she can’t see you, even though you know perfectly well she has.

Her first direct line to anyone is, ‘What do you do?’ She’ll look horrified if your job isn’t highly paid or, worse, if you work part-time.

At bake sales and school fairs, she’ll stare at you accusingly if you have more than one glass of wine, asking who’s watching your child, and look you up and down while taking tiny sips of Pimm’s.

If her child has done anything wrong, she’ll flat out deny it. She likes to write letters to the school at 3am regarding children wearing trainers. She boasts about her little one’s achievements – and that she’s passed her 11+ exams at age eight with flying colours.

She is absolutely two-faced, and anything you tell her will be churned into gossip and used against you for the next seven years.

I first encountered the Judging Mum when she spotted my vintage fur coat. It had been in my family for years, and it was much-needed in the freezing weather.

The Judging Mum looked absolutely horrified when she spotted me and asked if it was real. When I said it was a family heirloom, she said nothing. But the icy silence told me everything.

From that day on, she’s either completely ignored me, or if she has to speak to me, she’s as sharp as nails.

I thought it was just me, but another mum I know noticed she does the holier-than-thou act with her, too.

For a laugh, we’ve decided to play a game. We’ve started saying ‘good morning’ and forcing her to speak to us by being overly friendly. This has made the whole thing amusing as we watch her secretly seething that she can’t be balls-to-the-wall rude.

I recommend this to all parents trying to navigate the Judging Mum; it will definitely make the morning go smoother.

The Recently Divorced Mum

The Recently Divorced Mum will spill the tea after the first cork on the wine is popped as she’s on a journey of freedom and liberation.

After 15 years with her dull husband, life in the bedroom had become a bit of a ‘duty’, but she finally divorced him after she caught him arranging to meet another woman online.

Now that her children are with him every other weekend, she’s on a quest. She’ll regale you with tales of different men she’s met off Tinder, and even hooked up with an old work colleague.

If you aren’t trying out weird and wonderful positions with some interesting partners, she’ll urge you to get on HRT because ‘it’s changed her whole life’.

Of course, everyone gossips. At kids’ parties, wives clutch onto their husbands for dear life, worried that her vixen ways will overturn them.

Being a fellow single mother, my own encounter with a Recently Divorced Mum did not end well.

When I met her at a boozy picnic, she enquired about my love life, and when I informed her that I’d just started seeing someone, she told me I was lame and needed to have at least three on the go.

‘One for romance, one for money and one for the bedroom,’ was her disposition. ‘What if you can get three-in-one?’ I asked, feeling a bit worried about time constraints and so much bed-hopping.

She said that was impossible, then rattled on about how tequila always gets her in the mood.

The Stingy Mum

The Stingy Mum loves wine and secretly has the money. But at any wine-o’clock event, she’ll turn up empty-handed, often just with her door keys and iPhone.

She loves the expensive stuff and secretly asks the dads for a cigarette once the alcohol hits.

When everyone needs to chip in for the teachers’ presents, or it’s time to volunteer for the school fair, she’ll feign work meetings or pretend to forget.

This will result in a screaming match between head mum and stingy mum, with stingy mum gaslighting her that she’s overreacting.

Stingy Mum has secretly bought a couple of rental properties abroad with her frugal mentality, but she feigns poverty at every opportunity.

I once knew a Stingy Mum who lived in a massive house and would invite me over, but ask me to pop to the shop on the way. With a very specific list, I’d bring snacks and wine, and then she’d ask me to grab something on Deliveroo while there.

For her kid’s birthday party at her house, she asked everyone to bring their own booze, and I deleted myself from the WhatsApp group, hoping she wouldn’t notice.

I don’t normally bring out the ‘feeling sick’ excuse, but I’d decided that if she asked, this was a perfect time for it. I told one of the mums to secretly back me up, and I never heard another peep from her.

In fact, she didn’t even bother inviting me this year, which was a relief.