Adulting - #84 Motherhood, Parenting & Raising an Ally with Remi Sadé

Episode Date: November 15, 2020

Hey Podulters, I hope you're well. In this weeks episode I speak to writer, podcaster and activist Remi Sadé. We discuss motherhood, how it's changing across generations, and why COVID-19 has shown us that children are better at understanding the concept of responsibility than we maybe previously thought.Remi's Books:Sulwe - Lupita Nyong'oAll About Love - Bell HooksThe Colour Purple - Alice Walker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Or visit connectsontario.ca. Select games only. Guarantee void if platform or game outages occur. Guarantee requires play by at least one customer until jackpot is awarded. Or 11 p.m. Eastern. Restrictions apply. See full terms at can okay in lockdown 2.0 if you are in the UK. And wherever else you are, I hope you're also doing well. In this week's episode, I speak to Remy Chardet. is a writer podcaster and activist and we talk about motherhood we talk about raising an ally we touch on racism and internalized phobias

and the way that we've been raised to have these ideas about different marginalized groups and it's a really lovely discussion Remy is mother. She has a daughter who's now three years old. And a lot of her work, she does the Make Motherhood Diverse podcast. And the platform is hosted by Candice Brathwaite. And so we talk a lot about some of the themes in there, including the fact that Remy had a very difficult birth. And in fact, her and her daughter

almost died during childbirth and as we know black women and black mothers are five times more likely to die during childbirth so that is a big thread of her work online that she does and we do touch on it in the podcast as well as always I hope you enjoy please do rate, review and subscribe. Bye. Hello and welcome to Adulting. Today I'm joined by Remy Chardet. Oh, I need to say hi. Hello, how are you? I'm really good, thank you. How are you doing?

I'm good, thank you. That was so embarrassing. Oh my God, don't worry. How has your been and and how are you getting on at the minute um it's been okay I moved house during this time we moved out of London so it um it was interesting at the beginning we were in a one-bedroom flat um in South London which kind of sounds cool, but it wasn't. It was really cramped. And I'd been planning to move for a really long time and then everything happened and lockdown and, you know, the main concern was just about staying safe and staying at home. So now that I've moved, we've got a bit more space, we're not in the city anymore. Oh my gosh, a delivery just came to my house. This this is like I know it's so classic don't worry go grab it this happened to me in the last episode I did I had a delivery okay cool I'll

go grab it and also I've got a door knocker and not a doorbell sorry about that I mean I might as well just say now disclaimer I have a three-year-old who's upstairs so hopefully there are no more interruptions oh my god do not worry at all um we're going to be talking about motherhood a lot anyway so if she does interrupt I'll just be adding to the story yeah exactly so for people who don't know who you are and um what you do could you give us an introduction to Remy um so I am a writer, a podcaster and an activist. That sounds, are we, wait, are we allowed to swear on this? Yeah, go for it. Okay, cool. That sounds really wanky, but it is a real thing. And I, because of those things, I've kind of become like a

amateur archivist of like people's stories and stuff. I talk to loads of people about various different things all of the time. And my main belief is that the best way to tell people's stories is to have them tell them themselves and to facilitate those conversations. I also find people not only interesting, but I feel like no changes can be made in the world unless we have like a dialogue that is informative, but also progressive. Yeah, I completely agree with that. How did you get into doing this? And did you always want to be a writer? Or like, what was the thing that really started this career for you? Yeah, I always wanted to be a writer but when I was younger I think it was a bit of a pipe dream and then I grew up and I was like right I have to

be realistic. I went to university and felt pregnant while I was at uni and while I was on maternity leave I just started writing about my experiences. I felt like there wasn't enough representation of people like me with kids who were young. I was 22. I was trying to stay in university. I didn't know what to expect of it all. It was quite surprising. And the industry of parenthood, which I had discovered wasn't very diverse. And so that was something that I felt like should change. And so I didn't really start writing for other people. I started writing for myself in the hope that if one other person felt how I did when I had originally found out I was pregnant and became a parent then in some way that would be helpful. Yeah totally when you got pregnant at 22 like what were you how different from is it

was it from what you were expecting because this book is all about all the things we didn't get taught in school and I think actually like when was younger, I kind of imagined I'd have a baby at 22, because when you're little, 22 sounds really old. But 22 is actually really like quite young to have a baby. What was that experience like for you? And what was different from what you were expecting? I found it to be quite shocking. I don't know what I really expected sometimes I remember that you know I thought parenthood specifically was going to be really really stressful um and I was nervous I wanted to make sure that I was a good parent and the idea that I was so

young and and very quickly became aware of how ill-equipped I was to be anybody's mom I could barely take care of myself um so yeah it was it was like the most shocking thing I literally would describe my pregnancy as shocking I spent most of it surprised um I don't think it really set in until I was like seven months pregnant yeah I could imagine and there's so many things that like even now all of us obviously have a mother we were born from someone and there's people talking about motherhood a lot more now but even then there's so many things I just don't know like yes on my Instagram stories we were talking about nipple piercings and someone who's a midwife replied about how like oh when the baby drinks milk it doesn't come out of one hole anyway It comes out like a shower hose out of the nipple.

Just stuff like that. I had no idea. I thought it just spurted out from like one hole. Like, it's such a weird thing that it's such, there's so much mystery about like pregnancy and motherhood when literally all of us couldn't have existed without that process of happening. Yeah, absolutely. And I always say to people whether or not you are a parent you have a relationship with parenthood or motherhood or fatherhood or whatever

because you whether or not you have parents or don't whether or not you have the presence of paternal figures in your life or you don't there is still so much that we kind of base our ideas of adulthood on those formative years um and the presence of other adults in our lives at that time um and so I found that quite interesting because I was like wow like I don't know how to be a parent but I know how to be a person and eventually my child is going to become an adult and a person so some may say it's like too liberal or unconventional, but I try to believe in some ways that I'm raising a person and not my child just or not just my child, but also like a citizen of the world. Well, I think that's what is probably changing with our generation. And what's really important is we're all really hopeful that we're going to raise little people who grow up into being like really good human beings whereas I think before it was about raising people who would be fit into a

system properly so they'd like be a good agent of capitalism and get like a really good job and actually like when I have a child yes obviously I want them to like do well in school but fundamentally I'm more worried about them being kind and like knowing how to have good relationships and I think that's kind of maybe what's changed in recent years when it comes to what we're prioritizing with parenthood would you agree with that do you think um yes and no I'd agree in the sense that like we have better intentions or not even better intentions I think we're more aware of our intentions I think for a long time when it

came to child rearing it was just about like it's like you said quite systemic um but at the same time I do think we hope to raise I guess kind people or you know um more thoughtful people but the reasons behind that are some people would argue too adult to explain and I think that sometimes that's where like there needs to be a bit more of a conversation and a dialogue between children and adults and younger people especially in teenagers and adolescents because we don't always have the the way to have these conversations. But when we say, you know, we want someone to grow up and be a better person, like better than who and what and why as well. I think the why is so important, especially when we talk about raising allies.

Why is the reason that there needs to be an alliance and to whom should you be allied um and how does that essentially create this change that we speak of that we intend to achieve because thus far it's not exactly going to plan yeah I mean so your daughter's three now and I guess like you can't necessarily have super intense heavy conversations with her but how many topics when especially when it comes to allyship or quite like progressive ideas how many conversations are you actually having with her like day to day and is it more or less than you would imagine because I imagine like a three-year-old absolutely full of questions yeah there are so many questions all of the time um it's interesting that you ask that because I speak about this quite

a lot through my activism especially about um being active and effective allies and I don't know everything about allyship I do have certain privileges but at the same time I am also a marginalized person of various intersections and so we have those conversations but um I don't think those conversations are as deep as they sound like they could be because she's three and when I speak to other parents who are raising children with various privileges specifically people who are raising you know cis white males because that's eventually who they'll become and now all of our kids are children and they don't necessarily have a full understanding of certain things but I think it's our duty as their parents and

caregivers to translate those things in a manner which they can understand. So we have those conversations and we talk about difference. And I always say to people, it's really hard to have those conversations, but everything starts somewhere. And growth is, you know, something that sometimes you have to practice it and sometimes you have to sit with. It's not linear. It's not easy, but parenting isn't anyway. And we have to translate so many different types of things to people. A lot of that comes from understanding. And a lot of the things that we teach our children, the reason why we are usually reflections of our environments is because we are taught um the things that the people from our environments know best however if now we are sorry i can't even think properly how do i word this

however if now we are people who intend to raise people differently to how we were raised we're trying to do something we don't necessarily have an example of but we intend to do it so we need to understand it and I think that comes from conversation and communication and sometimes my daughter asks me questions and I don't know and I tell her that I think it's very very very important for her to be aware from a young age that I don't know everything and I'm unsure and the things I do know I know them well and these are the reasons why and sometimes that's from experience or you know it's from second-hand information or research um but I think that it's important that we have the dialogue regardless of

whether or not it's uncomfortable because actually that's how we have like changes made and and questions asked that are not just I guess intrusive but also progressive I think actually you're right it's interesting about like it's not so much necessarily about the conversations you have with your children it's more about whether you are in the right place to pass on the right kind of information because I guess a lot of the things maybe that I learned or was taught kind of not directly would have been from people's like unconscious bias or actions they took which wasn't necessarily them saying things in a very direct manner to me it would be from the way that society was kind of maneuvering around me and that's how children absorb loads of information it's not doesn't

have to be from like very direct Q&A scenarios with the parent and so i guess you're right you have to know that as a parent you're in a position where you're not going to be accidentally passing on negative or problematic behaviors to your children without even realizing that's what you're doing and i guess like a good example of that is like when it comes to body image with young girls and stuff like that's something I always think about if I ever have a daughter because we do all this negative self-talk and you don't even realize like how much if a child's watching you do that then of course they're going to grow up to have lots of negative self-beliefs I feel like that's maybe like a good way of like looking at that in that kind of instance yeah absolutely I absolutely understand what

you're saying I um I made a conscious decision after I had her to live truthfully because when I thought about the kind of person I wanted her to become I genuinely just wanted her to be happy but a lot of that I found comes from living in your authentic self and I always thought to myself if she becomes nothing like me but all of herself then I've done the right thing because I just want her to be able to be okay with who she is and for me I learned that being okay with who I am was sometimes being able to just accept and admit that I wasn't and like that's a very raw and vulnerable space to have found myself in but having a child for me was such an insane experience that I was just like wake up in the mirror and have not only just feelings of like I don't

recognize this person but also like how did you get here because I have memories of my former self the person who I felt like I was, but then I would look around and be like, this isn't her life. Like, where is she? Is she all right? And then I'd be like, no, you're going crazy. Stop talking to yourself about these things. And I very quickly was just like, no, you know, actually things have changed and it's hard and it's not a bad thing, but it's an adjustment all the same and I would think about well when my child's older how would she manage something like this and the truth is I don't know because I didn't know how to manage it myself um and so I was just like okay how did

was it quite like an instantaneous change that you felt because I feel like in movies it's kind of like the woman becomes a mother and all of a sudden the gears change and she becomes this like superhero really organized like did did motherhood change you in a way that you weren't expecting or was it almost jarring that almost everything was the same you just had a baby like what kind of experience did you have in that kind of like transition time sorry give me a second because my don't worry don't worry hold that thought sorry about that she's a chocolate bourbon kids have some interesting timing oh my god don't worry at all um yes because she knew I'd say yes becoming a parent did it change my life entirely it changed my life in a way I didn't expect um I thought I would be a terrible parent

because I would I was it's weird I loved her so much when I was pregnant I was scared of being a crappy parent because I was so like unprepared and she wasn't planned and I was pregnant, I was scared of being a crappy parent because I was so unprepared and she wasn't planned. And I was 22 and I was living off my student loan in a one bedroom flat. And I was just like, yeah, how are you going to do this? Because I don't know if you're cut out for this. And then I had her and actually, so when I was in labour, we both nearly died. So because of that, it made me very protective, but also I wanted to be a really good parent. And so I made it my business to just be a good mum.

And I just kind of became consumed. And a lot of people who have had children speak about that whole period when you're in the fourth trimester, which is like the first three months of their life where you're just consumed with parenthood and I was so I guess I was so aware that like her life was so precious because in the first moments of her life like she was potentially not going to survive or I could have not survived so I just became enthralled in motherhood and my my personhood disappeared. And that was the part of me that I didn't recognise. Like I loved parenting her, but then when she went to bed, I was just like overcome dread.

It was very strange. Also, my mental health was completely out of whack. And that's something I talk about quite a lot as well, is maintaining like sound mental health and being aware of the various changes because after I had her my experiences and understanding of mental health changed greatly and it was really important for me specifically being a single parent to ensure that I always was responsible with it I felt like it was my responsibility to ensure that my mental health never stopped me from parenting her to a standard that I felt was not only adequate, but also what she deserved.

And so I've been in therapy, like psychotherapy for two years, just over two years now, weekly. And I really enjoy it. And it's my version of self-care almost um and I see it as taking medicine and when I went into therapy I was very unwell and thankfully I'm not now and haven't been for a long time but I still feel like it's something that I kind of want to do forever um and I don't think there's anything wrong with that no I think therapy is

like the truest form of self-care like you know it's it's literally physically looking after your mind and your brain you couldn't do anything that's kind of more caring for yourself than therapy I did think um you spoke briefly then about your birth and I know that that was like a super traumatic experience for you and I read I can't remember when you did it but you did like one of the most heart-wrenching beautiful posts about it um is it something you'd be willing to talk about or is it too traumatizing no I'm willing to talk about it but I appreciate you for asking because I think that it's first of all I think on like a broader level it's um harrowing because

systemically we know that black women are five times more likely to die in childbirth so I think like your story along with those statistics makes it kind of like just a validating how fucked up that is and then secondly I think it's also just kind of like we see all these beautiful stories about birth and you kind of forget that it's one of like the most rigorous most I don't even know what the word is like things that anyone can go through and we just talk about as if it's like oh it's just what people with vaginas do and it's not so it's really it's it's a really I think parenthood is one of the most selfless and selfish things you could ever enter into I think that when we choose to become parents we want to have a child

or we want to raise a child whether that child is already born or not but it's about our desire to do this thing or it's about the cards we were dealt and the circumstances we found ourselves in and the choice that we've made but it's still based on how we feel and then once you begin and you realize what you're doing you are betrothed forever to this human but yes you chose to I guess invite them into your life or have them in your life. But now you are also shaping and cultivating theirs, the most formative part of it. And I think that it's a really interesting thing. So when I started to think about all of that and then think about the fact that, you know, I had nearly died bringing my child into this world, it kind of spun me for six because I was like wow this is like life-risking stuff and the way that parenthood not even

parenthood the way that labor itself is presented even in the media and film it's all very polished I remember watching um a quite popular show that used to come on it was about an hour long and there would be usually three or four women per episode who were giving birth and even the labours that had complications because it was so edited you didn't really get a realistic representation of what that was like or the I guess I don't know what the word is the psychological effects of giving birth as well yes yeah and I remember once there was a program there wasn't that about um although I thought it was a bit badly done but it was about women who go into psychosis after giving birth which is really common yeah and I hadn't heard about that before and there was like

a documentary I don't know if it was Louis Theroux it was something like that um and I hadn't heard about that before and there was like a documentary I don't know if it was Louis Theroux it was something like that um and I remember being like wow I had no idea this happens and even like um postnatal depression all of these things are so so so common but as you say everything's kind of quite polished and sanitized um it's like it's some big conspiracy to cover up that it's actually really fucking scary it's it's interesting because I won't tell a pregnant person about my laboring experience but you know there's a lot of public information out there about how I give birth and my experiences of that but I specifically make it my business not to say that to somebody who is pregnant because it was like horrific and I'm just like dude or like you're you're here now the baby's got to come out some way

so there's no point in me I guess like being all doom and gloom because I still I mean I would definitely change it for the world in terms of my labour and experience but parenthood is the most incredible experience of my life it is the thing that made me the person I am now and all of these other cliches which I it's so cringy to say but they're all really true and my career wouldn't be what it is if I wasn't somebody's mum and And I know that for everybody, they find they call in at various times in life. But I think it's potentially because I had her so young. I didn't know who I was anyway. And then when my womanhood started forming, that was intertwined with my experiences of

parenthood as well. And that's when I kind of started caring about and thinking about the person that I was and the example that I was setting for her and all of those kind of things. Yeah and it's interesting as well even thinking about like how we both say like you were so young but actually like 10 years ago 22 wouldn't have been young at all to have a baby it's kind of interesting how there's so much pressure coming from all kinds of angles on women when it comes to like 22 is very young but oh 32 is quite old now and it's like oh my god what I feel like in a funny way it's kind of it's kind of nice that

you've done like that you've got your baby now because it means you can like focus on your work sometimes I think that I'm like shit maybe I should have just done it like five years ago because what happens if I get like really successful in my career and then I don't have time and it's too late and it's like all of this stuff going on it's so overwhelming I speak to when I when I started doing this my target audience were people who didn't have children and very quickly the people who I was interacting with the most and who were engaging with me the most were parents and this was never my intention and not what I wanted and it felt alien to me and I used to say to people I don't feel like a real parent the way you guys are real parents your lives are more put together it's more established it was more ready for a

child there was more consideration for this human coming into your world and I literally felt pregnant and kind of was like okay cool like let's figure this out um whilst figuring out who I was as well and still am a lot of the time but also I say to people personally I'm one and done she is incredible but one is enough and I don't think there's any right or wrong time to have a child I don't think you can be super prepared and you know have the most seamless experience equally I think you can be completely unprepared and still just figure it out um so yeah I think it's one of those one of those kind of choices that if you find yourself in a position where you want to have a kid I'm I'm personally of the school of thought now that I've done it like go for it because it's going to

just turn your whole world upside down anyway even though you are prepared to speak into those people whose lives I looked at and thought wow like they've got it together and their kids are going to grow up and be such well-rounded people it just kind of doesn't work like that and equally I think that the way the world is today and the standards of what is together or normal or abnormal or conventional or unconventional we're redefining those for ourselves all the time anyway um and I when I think of the I guess the intersections that like reside in my household just within me and my family unit we're like five different like categories and tick boxes in the diversity quota but at the same time we are just people and so I always think to myself this is always

going to be my child's version of normal she's always going to grow up in a household where the people in her household are considered to be ethnic minorities in this country and we're so queer and that's not even a radical thing to her because we don't talk about it in the sense of like so you know like mummy dates when a woman it's not that conversation but when we talk about family structures she's aware that there are various family structures but also we're a single parent household as well and I'm a woman so we also have the gender and like conversation of like feminism and all of those kind of things as well. And we talk about the fact that some women have short hair or, you know, wear baggier clothes and some men present as more feminine and some people have no gender and some people identify as all. And none of these things are radical concepts for my kid because this is just the world that she's a part of. And this is her version of normal.

And I never thought, because when I talk to my friends, sometimes I annoy myself because I feel like I'm the most millennial stereotypical parent. It's definitely an all-encompassing, we have to understand everything. You know, in a childlikelike fashion in a way that is age appropriate her awareness of people to me should be go on no no I was just going to say what's so incredible about that and I would be the same is that she is just as you say like that's all going to be so normal to her whereas I think for like our generation or like for some people or certain things we had to unlearn all of this shame or prejudice that we might have had about whether it's sexuality or I don't know anything

whereas she's never going to have to unlearn it because she's just as you say that's just her starting point like she already knows it and that's like the most amazing thing I think. Yeah I think it's interesting though because I say to people when I think about it, I think she's been raised in such a liberal environment that actually she's it's not there's going to not be a desire to really step outside the box because there is no box. Everything will just be what it is. when we talk about things like growing up and deciding to like remain the gender that you were assigned at birth or choosing to be a different gender and that conversation I remember saying to her you know like when you grow up you can do whatever you want at this age if you feel different you can tell me she was like no I'm a girl and I was like okay but you know I support you she was like yeah no I'm a girl and I was like okay cool no problem and I was like if that

changes she and she was like you know if it changes I'll let you know I don't think it will but so that was that was a conversation and then another day she came to me and she said so girls can't play football because it's only for boys and I was like oh my gosh she told you that like where are you getting this from because I'm I'm doing my utmost best to ensure that she has the awareness that she can do whatever she wants. But still, that was a really binary comment. And then I said, where are you getting this from? She was like, well, I only see boys play football. And then I was like, oh, okay, no, we have to change this. We had a conversation about, you know, female footballers and women football teams and all of those kinds of things. But I think that the main difference with the way that children are being raised today

and the way that we were raised in previous generations isn't necessarily that the world is different, but it's just that we are talking about the fact that the world could be different or should be, or that there is difference whether or not we see it, whether or not we are encouraged to accept it externally we can choose to regardless and I essentially think that's what allyship is in the age that children are you know like definitely I would say beneath 16 I don't necessarily think it's about saying I'm expecting you to go out and be an ally and do xyz in this Z in this way. But just by being aware

of and respecting and conversing about these things and knowing how to have those conversations and that dialogue in a diplomatic way and being able to articulate those conversations in itself is allyship because we weren't even allowed to do that because people assumed that those concepts were too adult for us. And I think, you know, the more I parent, I'm starting to feel like it's kind of counterproductive to say that these conversations are too adult or these topics or these concepts are too big for children

because kids play games about like cops and robbers and they play games about jail. Those are very big, in my my opinion big adult deep concepts but we are able to simplify them down to a point of enjoyment for children so why can't we choose to make the same efforts and do that on other topics just because we don't necessarily identify with the people who they affect. And that is kind of how I see myself as raising an ally. Yeah, it makes total sense. And even thinking about like this idea that children are too young to understand sexuality. And I always think back to my childhood and think how it's so weird that from such a young age, people would ask me, oh, do you have a boyfriend

when you're like four? Do you know what I mean? You'd have like relatives being like, well, have you got a boyfriend? As if it's normal to ask a four-year-old if they have a boyfriend when you're like four do you know what I mean you'd have like relatives being like well have you got a boyfriend as if it's normal to ask a four-year-old if they have a boyfriend but you can't introduce the idea that at any age that maybe they might have a girlfriend and I always think about that and I'm like oh my god I'm gonna and I bet you're like this you probably go like in your head about so many things about making sure that you take the right way and I actually I don't have kids and I worry about what if I like push somehow push gender stereotypes into them or what if I forget to make sure that I'm using inclusive language. But I think that that's really, that you're right. If our generation is like that, then we will raise children who just innately know how to be allies because they don't have any of these stereotypes or ideas in their heads.

They don't even know what the idea of like the default is we're brought up with these defaults of sexuality and gender and the way that you should behave and if you don't bring up your child with these ideas of default then there's nothing to not um rebel against but you can't be odd in a society where there is no such thing as normal inverted commas yeah absolutely and i i think that it's it's interesting because what you said about give me a sec my kids just walked into them with a packet of crisps and I know exactly what's gonna happen here no please would you say you're welcome hi sorry about that she's like oh my god that is so funny she's doing

so well today she I mean she's definitely ensuring that she's heard and also gets all the snacks in while mum's working because she's gonna say yes so I think as well sorry I'm just not trying to talk for a second I think as well when raising kids there's first of all the fact that they do things like that and they are still kids irrespective of how much you think you could be taking some of your child's innocence away by talking to them about the reality of the world I think to be honest with you this pandemic has truly shown us how resilient but also intelligent children are and understanding our whole lives have changed and as adults we've been losing our shit. If you look at social media, if you look at the news, if you look at the climate of the world and politics and the way that we even respond to each other as human

beings has entirely changed. Industries have been changed forever and kids have had to not see their friends for six months and you know we as adults often talk about the necessity of routine for children but we've had to change their lives because it's for their own good and it's for their safety and it's for the safety of the world. And we've had to explain to them things about community responsibility, because when we talk to kids about social distancing, we're saying this protects you, but this also protects somebody from you because we don't know. And that is, in other instances, potentially quite a a serious quote-unquote conversations have with the child teaching them about their responsibility but also their potential to harm unintentionally

but but when we have that conversation in terms of things like allyship we feel like it's too it's it's too complex but when we have that conversation in terms of things like well the rest of the world is doing and it's for the greater good of humanity, it doesn't feel that difficult. And nobody really gave us a guidebook for how to handle this pandemic with children, care for ourselves too and each other we had to have this global conversation with an entire generation of people who we didn't think were able to have conversations about things that we've known about and on some degrees understood for hundreds of years so in in relation to like the current things that happen in the world now and then relating that back to conversations that people have been trying to have for such a long time. I think that we know how to do things if we want to, and we still make mistakes.

I remember questioning how to communicate with my daughter about characteristics and what were valuable characteristics because we naturally tell girls that they're beautiful and they're pretty and my daughter's going to grow up to become a black woman so I definitely want her to feel beautiful and pretty but I also don't want her to only feel like that but I know that it's very necessary to impress that that onto her because the world doesn't say that about black women all of the time most of the time it doesn't say that about black women and the universal standard of beauty does not reflect what she sees every day in her home

and within herself but also I want her to know that being intelligent and and generous and understanding and considerate and all of those other things and thoughtful are also very important characteristics and I remember saying to some of my friends I just I don't know if it's too much also when she displays emotions that some people may say you should temper such as anger I don't want to silence her in those moments either so how do we have those conversations I'm learning on the job sometimes she has reactions to things or not just her but children in general have reactions to things and we scold them for it but as adults we can kind of like work it out and rationalize it and I will say to people most situations are negotiable but also understandable and workable

once there is justification and context and so based on that I try to be quite patient as well because I'm like yeah yeah I get it you're having a tantrum and I mean I wouldn't necessarily handle it like this but if I was three then potentially like cool like you're expressing yourself do you want to talk about it and and we have that dialogue and now she can tell me you know like I need to express myself and I feel annoyed because of x y z but sometimes she she can't because children are still developing but if we implement the the framework for how to develop these conversations throughout life I do think it will help things I can't say that this is going to change the world or anything I feel like it's very utopian of me but I do think it's a good place to start. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one

feeling, winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio exclusively on FanDuel Casino where winning is undefeated 19 plus and physically located in Ontario gambling problem call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca please play responsibly no I think you're completely right and I think that if the problem is because children are so often stifled in like when they want to show emotions like they'll say to boys that you don't need to cry you're a big boy and to girls that you said like don't be angry at a lady like or whatever and actually all that happens is that later on in life we then don't know how to deal

with our emotions or we get worried we feel ashamed when we feel angry when actually like that anger was telling us something you know it was a warning sign or whatever it might be so if we allow children to learn how to communicate from a young age it does mean at a later stage in life I do think there will be like a population of hopefully slightly happier humans who don't all need therapy because we all need therapy I just started and I just have my second session and it is like unbelievable to think that you can speak to someone and that they can figure out like whatever the problem is that you have and that you can work towards a solution because as an adult I feel like if you have any kind of mental health issue from like a really small thing to like a really big mental illness that's taking over your life

the scariest thing is feeling like well that's it now like I'm just a shit person and I'm never going to be able to change it or whatever and then when I went to the therapist and they just explained to you that you can solve these problems and that there's ways of like figuring out life and it's like it feels like being a child again you're like learning how to deal with your brain I don't know if you felt like that but that's yeah so I had had a knowledge of therapy vaguely um just because of my experiences growing up and the conversations that I had around to me but I'd never gone into it like and I took it seriously I was like right I'm someone's mum my life is a mess I don't know who I am I love my kid I better

sort it out like um but my whole attitude was I respect my kid enough to not let her mum be like a hot mess. So that was my attitude. And I remember having sessions and just thinking to myself, wow, like I really hope that my kid is not sitting in someone's office in 20 something years saying X, Y, Z. But, you know, I think that they're gonna be in therapy for something else I just don't think it's gonna be what we would it'd be like you know my mum loved me so much and she was so liberal and like just gave me all this choice and I just didn't have guidance and it's like oh my god seriously you could do whatever you wanted um and and I but at the same time I wonder I wonder like where do we even get the idea of like what we want and what we don't want from when we're especially when we're in our

mid-20s because I feel like it's like okay you're old enough to be an adult but young enough to be a young person but understand now the seriousness of the choices that you make because you've had almost a decade of being like playing at being an adult and for me anyway that's how I felt like I was playing at being an adult for the past 10 years I left home at 17 so I was quite young and I learned all of these different things but some of them were just bad habits and some of them were actually helpful and and I didn. And I didn't really think about many of the choices that I made, whereas now I'm like, well, the choice that I make now, what could happen in the future?

But also knowing that sometimes it doesn't matter as well. You just grow and evolve and you learn from the choices that you make and the people that you meet and all of those kind of experiences. And I'm really grateful to have that hindsight. And talking to my therapist about all of those things and making sense of it is what I find to be the most helpful part of therapy um and I personally believe that like everybody has mental health issues because actually you can't be happy all of the time if if we were happy all of the time we were content all of the time like content

based on what and unhappy based on what every person has an experience of the world in their life and that is how they kind of gauge their version of good and bad and right and wrong and unhappy and unhappy so something that could upset you for example I might be okay with so I do think based on that everybody has experiences of joy and also unhappiness based what is relative to them yes and like I spent my whole life saying I've no mental health problems because I'm so privileged and for some reason my brain equated that to mean that I can't ever not be like grateful so then I have to always have good mental health and for some reason for so long I just squashed those two things together and I spent years saying on podcasts and interviews oh

I have perfect mental health and then when I stopped and thought about it I was like fuck I think I'm actually really anxious I get like quite down sometimes it's kind of feels like I'm a bit depressed and I was like oh and it was like the minute I suddenly started like looking at like the way that I felt in certain things or like if certain things triggered me and I suddenly it was like the minute I suddenly started like looking at like the way that I felt in certain things or like if certain things triggered me and I suddenly it was like someone opened the curtain and was like, look, this is your mental health. And it was such a big relief because for ages I just was like, oh, I'm just when I would go through these periods, I would just think, oh, I'm just an absolute arsehole. And then the next day I'd wake up and be like, oh, I feel fine. What was that about? That was weird and like I'm talking about it now because to me it was such a shock to find out that actually

like it's because of so many people normalizing talking about mental health so much that I finally assessed my own and realized like I go to the gym every day and I try to like look after my body but for some reason I thought I was exempt from having mental health issues and that isn't how it works. No, it's not. And I think it's really important to talk about it. I remember when I first started talking about it, some people asked me, well, you know, why are you having this conversation so publicly? And I said, why are you assuming it should have ever been private? We talk about going to the doctor all the time. If you've got a cold, I mean, pre-grown up, if you had a cold, you might just go on Instagram and be like, hi guys, sorry, I mean pre-grown up if you had a cold you might just go on Instagram and be like hi guys sorry I've been so like quiet I had a cold today and I

had to go to the doctor and you know now I'm on the mend or I'm doing a bit better um and a cold lasts for two or three weeks and or can do and then you know you feel a hundred percent you know back to what you were before if you have a bad bout of mental health and you just hop on the internet and be like hi guys you know sorry I've been quiet were before. If you have a bad bout of mental health and you just hop on the internet and you're like, hi guys, you know, sorry I've been quiet. I just wasn't feeling so great. My mind wasn't right. And I spoke to my therapist and I'm on the, like, why do we assume that? Because this illness or condition or experience, if you don't even want to call it an illness or a condition, presents in the non-physical form, it doesn't have the same value. Your health is your your health and so I talk about

my I don't necessarily talk about my mental health but I definitely talk about my mental health care practices um because I changed my entire life to promote um my mental health being as stable as possible um and that is something I kind of just carry throughout my life with interactions with other people in my home with my child. And it's been so beneficial for me. And the biggest thing about it wasn't just normalising it, it was acting like it was never abnormal too. Because I think sometimes when we say let's normalize something, we use the point of deviation to be what it used to be. And I get that. But also that for me was almost like a comparison. It was like, well, when I didn't talk about this or when I didn't normalize this, when I did.

And it was like, well, no, I'm not going to focus on what I don't want. I'm going to focus on what I do want. I'm going to focus on what I do believe, what resonates most with me and use that as my point of deviation and and so talking to people when they have a different way I guess of viewing these kind of things and and they're more private about it which I absolutely respect I also talk to them about it in a way that's more open and I'm always kind of met with the same thing which is like you seem really comfortable talking about this thing and I'm just like well like it's like taking medicine for me or going to the doctor or getting a checkup it's just it's just a natural thing that I've chosen to do to take care of myself it feels natural to me because my kid needs her mum to be okay. And if somebody said to me, well, you are physically unwell,

and all you need to do is take this medicine once a week, and it's not going to cause any disruption in your life, I'd be like, okay, cool. That doesn't sound like a big radical thing to me. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I even think, especially when it comes to motherhood, I think part of the, what's the word? Not the glorification, but the way that mothers are held up is that they're so selfless and they do everything for their children. And it's like you'll run off your feet. And that's true. But also you can't do anything for anyone if you're like burning the candle at both ends and you're feeling really mentally unwell and you're feeling like unrested I think this is another great thing like changing the conversation is if you want to be like help others around you and you know fill other people up you've got to like fill yourself up first you

can't be doing all of this if your engine's broken or whatever kind of trying to think of all the shitty metaphors people use yeah but what is it the oxygen mask airplane one yeah well that one yeah I know which one to talk about but I think that's like a really positive thing that I used to be so hepped up in this idea of like having to be this really like thoughtful woman like the idea of womanhood that I think was really romanticized when I was younger these women are just automatically so thoughtful like they just know know how to, when to send a card. And I would like get really obsessed with the idea that had to be this perfect kind of angel

that just floated around. Actually, like, I'm not like that. That's not necessarily my disposition just because that's what like women or especially like white women are categorized as. I think it's different for black women. Like you were saying with your daughter like um Candice and I spoke about this because on my podcast with her I was saying how at school

everyone would just tell me I was pretty and so I used to think being pretty was like the most important thing and when I grew up I really resented that she was like I had the opposite experience because I was a young black girl she's like so no one told me I was pretty so I never had to operate she was like in a weird way that was like one freedom I had was the freedom from having to be I think those things are quite interesting like in terms of how we're treated like womanhood is actually so different culturally in terms of what's imposed definitely definitely part of the reason that I decided to have these conversations publicly or decide to have these conversations so full publicly as well and and I'm quite a private person but I still like to I guess just explore things um and being

like an out bisexual single parent who is also part West African, was a conscious decision. It wasn't just like I was having a chat. No, I thought about it and I made this decision. I also speak about abortion and reproductive rights. And I'm very passionate about those things. And culturally, we are, I believe, readied for motherhood. You are readied for womanhood from girlhood and womanhood includes motherhood in our community.

And I have an absolute respect for that system, but I do also feel like it's quite patriarchal. And when I started having relationships with people and the difference of gender was absent, it really redefined my definitions of motherhood and my views of of womanhood as well because I had some ideas already but a lot of those were to do with not being a woman who feeds into heteronormativity or hyper femininity in a way that I didn't feel was best but I didn't really think about okay

well what is womanhood to you what what is what does that look like who are you in those ways um and it was it was a really really powerful process and something that I I was very like I want to be conscious of this moving forward in my life as well I want to make sure that whilst I'm having these conversations, I'm also being visible, you know, because we say representation matters and representation does matter, but also it doesn't just matter for people who haven't seen it before. I think it matters for people most who are it and who who identify with a part or a whole person um so yeah because obviously with your your podcast which you brought up with the earlier is make motherhood

diverse um and that was such a big when when did you start that platform or your the page for that so it was started by candice and two other women and then candice kept doing it i think this is maybe oh don't quote me i don't know but it's maybe like two or three years ago now um and it was like it the the premise was it's the humans of new york for mums um and the platforms just you know it's been quite recently just because of everything else that's been happening and like moving house and life and kids and all that kind of stuff and just our individual careers but um Candice and I really felt like it was important to ensure that people just came and and shared their experiences but I'm also just very nosy and I read these pictures and these

captions of these people and I was like like, okay, but what happened next? So then when the baby turned this age, and because it was so many different experiences, I was like, I need to talk to these people. Also, I feel like, like I said, I feel like I've become a bit of an amateur archivist because all of the projects that I get involved in or I want to create include me speaking to as many different types of people as possible on one thing.

I think that it's very important for us to just see all of the different perspectives and just have that information, not necessarily to take advice or anything from it, but just to be aware that different people have different experiences of the same thing. And variation is all around us and very available you know and some people aren't always sure of how to have certain conversations or ask certain questions and I understand why and I respect that but also that's not an excuse to be ill-informed or uninformed um so yeah I just like, I just want to talk to all of these people. And I was having these conversations in my DMs and, you know, working on various projects with different types of people who had different experiences. But sometimes all appeared to be the same as well. And I was kind of mind blown. And I was like, wow, we have to document this.

And it's like so beautiful and like some in some ways like what it is really touching like looking at the page and seeing it because it looks like what and the stories and the kind of the way that you you handle it it's it feels so I don't want to say earthly I don't know what I mean like just so real as opposed to like the glossy motherhood that really ramped up in the Instagram era and like I think the mumfluencer scene is going to change I hope it ends like I've just no I can't I I find it to be honestly like I find it to be really the most racism I ever experienced in my entire life was in the parenthood industry um which is sad and that that was what made me start writing my 101s. I don't even know what to describe them as.

Everybody asks me, so I'm not even going to try, but I started writing them because I realised that the majority of my audience were white mothers and they were raising the future generations just as I was. I'm also raising somebody of the next generation and I just thought you know intending to raise nice people isn't enough or kind people is not enough at this point in the world in our lives you know we going through this pandemic have been afforded and I wouldn't say that this pandemic has been a privilege because it hasn't but we've been

afforded the privilege of attention like we understand we are really understanding as a as a race of human race of people where we put our attention to and what we put our attention on and the things we're engaging in and and for a solid six months the entire world was effectively getting all of their information and all of their connection through to other people through the internet and through our phones and our awareness of other people and our attention on other things and other people through the internet and through our phones and our awareness of other people and our attention on other things and other people's experiences became really heightened also because we're kind of sick and tired of ourselves this kind of era of narcissism that social media feeds into kind of became boring for us and so we started to look a bit more outside

of ourselves and when we did that it was like snap the world is really mad like what is happening like there's all of these things that are just going on and and why are we not discussing this where is the in the the um i guess interest why isn't there one what's been going that all of these questions it's almost like we became like kids and we had all of these questions and i i was just like well know, I've been aware of the word is where you just have to speak into you didn't want it to just kind of go away like just be a passing thing yeah I didn't just want to be speaking into like lost space I wanted it to be informative but also proactive because people are dying I don't have conversations about anti-racism with people who accidentally or intentionally inflict

on people who look like me or myself for banter like this isn't it's not a drill this is not a game these conversations are only happening so that these things don't continue and so I want to have these conversations also we engage with each other in the world and I always say to people who specifically people who are raising my children and say to me well how do I talk to them about this when we have people around us who hold certain views or opinions and blah blah blah and I will say to them okay well the first option that you have which I know most people don't want to make is to remove that relationship the second thing is to say it's okay to love your grandparent for example who doesn't hold the most progressive

views but it's also okay to just say your grandness are racist and she loves you and you love her but her views are wrong that is not okay we do not treat people this way I think it's important to accept the nuances of the the way we live our lives I think that you know we try to distance ourselves so much from these things that we see as prejudice or wrong that we are not willing to address or accept or even be aware of whether or not those are present in our lives and I think that's hard because it's confrontational and it makes us question whether or not we are good people or we are kind people or whether or not we sometimes allow our privileges to be used toward our advantage or not um you know I started to realize that a lot when I was talking about motherhood and parenthood because not everybody who gives birth to somebody

is a woman and equally not every woman who was a parent gave birth to that child. And so it really made me understand, you know, there is a privilege there to be walking into women-centred spaces as a cisgendered woman, because I don't have to deal with the the um binary experience as an outsider you know and that wasn't something that I thought about before I had my kids that wasn't something that I'd even seen really discussed because I wasn't looking for those conversations I wasn't open to the idea of people who were non-binary or transgender having kids in the way that I had experienced I didn't think about I knew and I understood that various types of people had children but I didn't think about the fact that well the space that I'm using and the services

that I'm accessing are gonna be the same for them but we are not the same. And so, you know, if every conversation you have, somebody might call you a woman or a mum or she or her like 30 times every time you go to the doctor, and then those are not your pronouns and that is not your gender identity. And you have to engage with that just to ensure that your child is safe and healthy. That is a really difficult thing sometimes for some people, and I kind of just wanted to become more aware on that basis about the whole entire world, but also it allowed me to see the perspective of people who I never really understood it or tried to understand from that perspective. And then once I did start to think about that I was like well you know it's my responsibility to be educated about that because my kid is going to

grow up and potentially go to school with children who come from different family structures that are not just outside of the heteronormative norms which is you know a single parent household and um a two-parent household with two parents of different when we say two-parent household we mean the two-parent household with the mum and the dad we don't mean a two-parent household with people of the same gender and I wanted her to be aware of all of those things but also I wanted to educate myself because I was archiving all of these conversations and wanting to ensure that people's experiences were represented. So I went out in search of what that meant for everyone. And having those conversations was really enlightening.

And it made me really respect the fact that you need to do your research as well and make an effort to ensure that everybody is not overlooked as well which isn't always easy um but that doesn't mean it can't be done totally and when I remember when I first learned like the concept of like intersectionality and like intersectional feminism and just how many facets there are to privilege and stuff and you suddenly are like fuck there is things are so much more complex and nuanced and I really like what you said like a little bit earlier on about um you know you can say to your child that you can your grandparent loves you but they hold these really abhorrent views that are racist I think that's a really um important way of framing things

because as you said we get so fixated on the idea of what's good and bad and then make that our identity so much so that we don't even interrogate like well maybe I could people are so worried about being called racist more than being racist like that people get more stressed about being called it than realizing that their actions are in fact yeah and it's harmful it's really harmful and the truth is that people don't get called racist unless they do or say something that can be interpreted or perceived that way or is that way like you know we we get so caught up on the adjectives of our actions that we don't focus on the verbs of those things which is the infliction of or the experience of.

And that is where that is where the harm lies. It's the conversation is not where the problem is. The conversation is literally a conversation about a happening that somebody has to live with. You know, somebody has to carry, somebody has to sit with or maybe avoid. And I don't think I don't think not wanting to talk about it is fair, to be honest. Not at all. And why should you be able to like inflict pain or harm on someone else and then be like, oh, I don't want the consequences of that.

You can have them. Like it's just this system, the way it works, it doesn't work, which is, as you say completely why it's everyone's responsibility to a bit like exactly going back to what you're saying about how we've all accepted children and adults like the concept that we wear our masks for other people it's like a minor inconvenience it's not really for you it's about not spreading your germs in the same way we should do lots of habits in our life that don't serve to benefit us and they're purely done to make sure that other people are safe whether that's like

emotionally or physically or whatever it might be you're so right how interesting that as a concept we've managed it when it comes to a virus but not when it comes to these other systemic pandemics that we've had yeah which I would consider white supremacy to be a virus definitely like that is something that I see as like corrosive and harmful and and you know changes people's lives and dominates and dictates as well and I think it's one of those things that if you are unaware of it because you benefit from it then yeah you're not going to see it as a problem but the majority of people in the world don't benefit from being marginalized or underprivileged you know the privileges of like that come with classism and the inequality the major inequality that we've seen like recently around kids and school meals if if a child comes from a family or if there is

a family that can afford to feed their child every day then this conversation might not even be something that they're aware of or having but if you're a family where you're affected by this and there is more than one child in your house especially this is like a huge thing this is a huge political conversation that directly affects your household and everybody who is having this conversation who has the power to decide will never probably ever be in a position to feel the effects of these decisions um and I kind of feel like how can you know that and live in this world and then not raise somebody to be aware of those things yeah and it's with the school meals thing the thing that's so sickening is they're so far removed from the conversation

of understanding like what poverty really means what it means to not be able to afford something that they can't even understand why someone would need free school meals and they can't see it as this huge spider diagram of like systemic injustice that has happened whether that is due to like class or race or some other usually failing on behalf of whatever system or government has happened in that person's lifetime that they just they feel so much indignation against it and when you read like these tweets and these things it's just unbelievable how like coddled these fully grown adults are from the reality of what's going on in this country which is the majority of like families don't have enough money to be feeding their children well not the majority but a vast number and also it's the climate has changed the economy has changed so much as well um i i think that we

often look at when we think about children and adults as like we look at them as separate separate parts of society but the family structure and sociology especially is considered to be one of the most fundamental parts of society like families and households so when we separate kids and adults and then we say well kids can't have these conversations and adults can have these conversations I learned so much from my child the question of why especially even if it's like no you can't have that thing. If the question is why, I'll think about it and I'll form my answer. And sometimes I'm like, you know, I really wish you wouldn't question it.

But actually, no, I don't. Because eventually, questioning why things are the way they are is going to be the biggest part of, I think, what changes the world moving forward. I don't think changes can happen without questioning why things are the way they are and we have these households all across the country where there are people of various ages not communicating with each other but we're still hoping for changes to happen I don't think that makes sense necessarily no and it's so funny you say about the why things I think my niece like a few years ago I can't remember what the question was but it was something just like really normal and she was like but why and I was completely stumped I couldn't figure out I was like I don't actually know that's

such a good question I don't know why that is why it is whatever the question was and you're so right that we so many things we just take to be facts that we never interrogate them because you lose that sense of curiosity that you have as a child and actually to be like constantly reminded that to be honest everything is made up like the laws are made up the rules are made up so it is interesting um I don't want to keep you too much longer because I'm aware that your daughter's probably being like where is she but so I wanted to ask you the last question on this podcast which is if you had to pick three top books at the minute that you would recommend people to read, what would they be? Okay.

Do I have to do it in any particular order or no? No, you just say whatever you fancy. Okay, cool. So the first book would be Solway. It's by Lupita Nyong'o and it talks about colorism in a really good way. It's for kids. I'm just putting that one out there for any parents. I don't know if you have any parents who use this, but it's a really good book it also doesn't use those terms so it feels

even more childlike but as an adult you'll read it and you'll be like wow like this is incredible um and it's just a really nice book the illustrations are by Vashti Harrison as well so they're beautiful um and then I would say bell hooks has a book called all about love I don't know if Grace has sold you but I told her to buy it she has been telling me about it every freaking day

oh I'm so glad oh my god have you read this have I told you about this book every time I've seen it she gets it out of her poke pocket and she's like by the way I don't know if I've mentioned this book to you that Rami's told me about. And I'm like, babe, this is the 10th time. Okay, so I'm not going to bore you and tell you all about it.

But I told her to get it because basically everybody in my life, so anyone I talk to, I tell them you need to read this book. It will change your entire life. It's a short book. You need to read a few pages at a time. It's just going to revolutionize your whole experience of the world like it's one of those books I feel like I have my own book club at this point because I have like people reading it and I'm still reading it as well but I'm just like listen this is it so all about love by bell hooks is just it's just it's just golden it's an

absolute fave please do like please do It's actually out of stock until December. I don't know what's going on. But if you can find it at, like, an independent bookstore or something, definitely do that. Wait, it says there's seven left on Amazon now. Oh, my gosh. Buy one right now. Yeah, I'm going to do it.

It's such a good book. So, yeah, that is just, it's an incredible book. When you get to chapter three text me um okay and then I would say so actually funny enough um Candice asked me about a hero or heroine oh Candice's book I'm Not Your Babe Mother is incredible just read it because it's incredible but like can I sneak in what I was actually gonna say um she asked me about a hero or heroine from a book and I said well I think it was Miss Sealy from The Colour Purple and I've been thinking about that quite a bit recently um and I was just thinking about like Alice Walker's writing and that particular book is one of the first times in literature that I read about a woman like making sure she had hers

and she was good and she didn't really she didn't really care about what other people thought obviously sister was the main character but just having that I guess such different women in the same book it kind of like made me sit up and think about things at a really young age that I kind of wasn't I didn't think about and I didn't question so yeah I would say the colour purple as well I've had the colour purple for years and I just haven't got around to reading it so I'm gonna remember to read that um please read it watch the film but also please read it okay I'll read it first and I'll watch the film I read on your website that you're writing a book are you yeah oh my gosh you did your research yeah so I wrote a book um I wrote a book independently and we're seeing what happens with that and now I am writing another book um

so yeah we'll see what happens we'll see what happens I'm always working on stuff I'm always writing stuff um my topic of choice at the moment in addition to all the other stuff we've spoken about is love and romance and and relationships and it's really interesting um so that's going to be the next kind of thing that I start talking about amazing can people buy your first book or it's like maybe no it's all basically in a vault okay yeah but any if anything changes be sure to like come hang and say hi and I will let you know oh amazing well thank you so much joining me it's been such a pleasure to talk to you I could have definitely spoken to you for about four hours um I know sorry for rambling it's been great um talking to you as well oh my god not

rambling this is like one of my favorite podcast I just feel like it's such a talking to you as well. Oh my God, not rambling. This is like one of my favourite podcasts. I just feel like it's such a good chat where we're just really immersed in it. I kind of forget that we're recording. So for people who don't, maybe don't follow your work yet, where can people find you? Where would you,

is there anything you want to direct people to, to look at or? Yeah, I guess check out my Instagram, which is at remy.shade, which is R-E-M for mother I, dot S for sugar, A for dog e um so yeah I would say check out my Instagram because that's where you can see my 101s which is the main bulk of the work that I'm doing at the moment um I also I say that my Instagram space is like an anti-racist anti-sexist anti-mad movements environment with like a side of accountability and

I got to pay my bills hashtag ad that is basically my words on the internet and then also like me and my kids sometimes um so yeah and you know I'm also like a regular young person who's just figuring my stuff out and myself out so sometimes I disappear off the internet for like two or three weeks and sometimes I talk to you guys every day um but that's kind of where the majority of my work sits and where the majority of any updates about what I'm doing happen as well oh I love it well thank you so much again it's been such a pleasure to talk to you and I hope that you have a nice oh my god it's so dark I thought it was like evening I've just realized it's only quarter past three I was about to say I hope you have a really nice evening and it's got like half the day left oh well thank you so much and thank you everyone for listening I will see you next week bye bye Fanduel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning.

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