Because from where I was sitting, I could hear it. The quiet but persistent pressure to be preparing, achieving, scheduling. Are they walking yet? Are they ready for school? Are you doing enough? Society has a way of nudging parents away from slow, connected, play-led childhood and toward a kind of low-grade anxiety about the next milestone, the next stage, the next thing their child should already be doing.

I have the professional knowledge to push back against that. To remind myself what I believe. But I still feel it. And if I feel it, with everything I know, I think about the mums I sit next to at Plunket groups and the library. The ones who are already doing so much right, but who've never been given the language or the framework to trust what they're watching when their child plays.

That's why Nurturing Play exists. Not to add more to your plate. To give you the lens that changes everything.