“I love being a mum.”That much is evident as Bethany Firth gives her daughter Charlotte a massive hug.”Being a mum, it is the best thing I’ve ever done, but the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” explained the six-time Paralympic swimming champion.”She gives me so much more perspective, and I think she makes me want to be a better person. She makes me want to work harder and try harder and just keep going.”Charlotte was born at the start of August 2024 to Bethany and husband Andrew.Now, just over a year later, she is getting ready for her first long-haul flight, as Charlotte will travel to Singapore with dad and her grandmother Lindsey to cheer on mum as Bethany returns to action at the World Para Swimming Championships.It will be the first time in more than two years that Firth has competed for Great Britain, the last occasion being the World Championships in Manchester in August 2023.Firth won two of her five world titles there and was preparing for the Paris Paralympics when she got news of her pregnancy.”We missed out on Paris, but we got Charlotte instead,” she said.Now as she prepares to return to international competition for the first time as a mother, Firth wants to be a role model for other female athletes who choose to start a family.”Sport definitely is a very selfish thing, and I feel like it’s really hard for women these days,” she said.”A lot of people expect you to choose, ‘do you want a family, do you want sport?'”I felt like whenever I announced that I was having Charlotte, everyone just assumed, ‘oh, she’s retired. That’s it’.”I felt that really hard. I was like, ‘why are people making this decision for me?'”I want her to be around the sport. I felt like I also don’t want to give up. I wanted to show her, actually, we can do both.”We’re not going to give up. For me and my swimming, I’ve obviously not raced at Worlds yet, but I feel like it’s definitely given me more purpose and more joy towards this sport.”It doesn’t have to be really regimental and really restrictive and really selfish. Sport can be fun, and, you know, having her has made me see that.”
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Bethany Firth: ‘They assumed I’d retire, that annoyed me’ – Firth on becoming a mum and returning to swimming
