I once argued fiercely for child-free spaces. As a mother, I still believe in their sanctity | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

My baby is a pub regular, but sometimes I just want to be around adults - the parent v child-free divide is starker online than off

This morning I did something that I rarely do, for fear of inducing a full-body cringe the likes of which I have not experienced since, aged 10, I jumped on my dad's back in the local swimming pool only to discover that it wasn't him: I read one of my old columns. Written nearly a decade ago under the headline I'll drink to child-free pubs and cafes", my twentysomething self grumbles about the presence of kids in adult spaces.

Fast forward and I have a one-year-old who regards my local pub as an extension of his living room. I have sung him to sleep in the beer garden and breastfed him, rose in hand, while sharing birth stories. Sometimes, I have looked up and seen an exclusion zone of empty tables around where we are sitting. Time makes hypocrites of us all.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist