Adulting - Adulting 2.0: Ellie Flynn

Episode Date: February 19, 2023

Hey Podulters! Welcome to Adulting 2.0: The Timelines.Ellie Flynn is journalist and broadcaster. Her timeline changed when at 27 Ellie got her fertility checked and as a result of the findings made the decision to have a baby earlier than a lot of her peers.In this episode we discuss motherhood, the pressure surrounding the decision of if and when to have a baby, her work undercover and how this has impacted her as a woman, a broadcaster and a mother of a son. Please do check out Ellie's documentary on All4, it's called 'Undercover: Sexual Harassment - The Truth'. I hope you enjoy, and as always please do rate, review and subscribe. 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 speak to investigative journalist and broadcaster Ellie Flynn. At 27, Ellie decided to go to the doctor and get her fertility checked due to a familial history of early-onset menopause, and the results she received

means that she decided to get pregnant and have a baby earlier than a lot of her peers. So we discussed motherhood, the pressure surrounding the decision of when and if to have a baby, as well as her work going undercover, especially in her documentary for Channel 4 last year about sexual harassment,

which, if you haven't seen it, you you absolutely should and you can catch up on all four it's called undercover sexual harassment the truth i really hope you enjoy the episode and as always please do rate review and subscribe it helps others to find the podcast happy listening bye so i always knew there was a risk that i might go through early menopause because my mum did my nan did one of my aunts did as well and everyone in my family had kids really young so my mum was 22 and she had me so there was sort of no way of finding out whether anyone in my family could have a child past about 25 so I was like right I'm just gonna go and get a fertility test done just because I was

weighing on my mind I was in a long-term relationship you know I thought we'd probably want to have kids one day and so I just thought we'd go get this test done and the results came back and I was told that I had a low egg count and a low AMH which is a hormone which is an indicator of fertility mine was a lot lower than it should have been at I think I was 27 or 28 when I had the time when I had the test probably 28 so mine was a lot lower than it should have been and so what the doctor said was this means that you probably don't have as long as other women do to have children if you want to especially if you want to have more than one he was like I think you need to start thinking about it within the next

year so what was your reaction in that moment was it were you anticipating that answer at all or were you kind of thinking I'm just gonna get this done but it's gonna be fine no it was it was pure shock so I'm I think part of me had I'd definitely been worried beforehand that that was what I was gonna get back and my boyfriend kept being like don't worry like I'm sure it's gonna be fine like it's you know it's not gonna be that and I think part of me knew that it probably was the result I was gonna get but I yeah I just I sort of like the doctor just I just remember like listening so I want you know when you hear that when people say about when you get bad news from a doctor and it's just like it washes over you and you're not really paying any attention to

what they're saying and my boyfriend was asking all of the questions and it was during covid so we we were at my mum's house and we had a pair of headphones we had one ear in each and we were both like listening to this diagnosis on my phone in my childhood bedroom and it was just like the most surreal situation and yeah my boyfriend was asking all these questions and I just like couldn't even I couldn't even think straight I couldn't even think about anything that I needed to ask and all I could think about was just like oh my god what does this mean he was talking about freezing my eggs or freezing embryos and IVF and all of these sort of huge words that I just I couldn't wrap my head around I think it's so confusing because we're growing on a time especially where everyone's like put your career first like

you don't need to have kids straight away and then sometimes I think like a lot of the conversations that I have with my friends is like that's all great but then what if what if that isn't the case and like in your case sometimes you don't have as much time as we're told we're gonna have initially before this had happened were you imagining that you'd have kids much later down the line or yeah I'd be like mid-30s I think before I'd even start thinking about it if this hadn't happened I was like you know I love my job I felt my career was going really well it was not the time that I would have chosen without this happening for me to have had kids I probably would have waited for a few of my friends to have done it first I followed them did it when they did it yeah it just it was it was definitely not anything that I was planning

on happening anytime soon and then I got yeah they told me this news and it just completely changed it just completely changed everything really how long did it take you from that moment of having that conversation before you were like actually now it's now or never yeah so it was so I did have options you know one option was to freeze my eggs and it took us like a little you know we had a conversation about it for a while and I sort of ummed and ahed with the egg freezing idea but I know I'm quite squeamish and like I sort of just like didn't want to go through with it I was like oh I don't know needles and like that sounds long I'll just be pregnant for nine months I'm just like I'll get pregnant have a baby

that's not long at all that's super chill um so I just yeah I just I didn't really love the idea of egg freezing and then what mostly put me off was the fact that that was all well and good but then what if I struggled well and I knew I wanted kids I knew it's something that's important to me and I knew I wanted to do it with my partner and so I was like is it is it mad to sort of kick it down the line freeze my eggs and just spend the next sort of eight years worrying about whether it's going to work, potentially struggle and it might not work. And then, you know, do I have the regret forever of not just doing it when I was younger? And it's hard. And it's like, you know, like you said, I think for our generation, particularly people are.

I mean, there's loads of reasons why people aren't having kids like careers coming first they're expensive people are doing it later so I think you have the kind of peer element of it but and it's like it's such a polarizing subject where I feel really conscious of what I say about it because I don't want to like scaremonger everyone into having kids when they're 25 because what happened to me is super rare and I know that like it's not the right decision for everyone and it's not helpful sort of pressuring women into feeling like they've got this ticking time bomb that means they have to do it quickly but also I think we need to be a bit more frank about the fact that for some women there is a ticking time bomb and for me that was the case and you know I just think it comes down to better education and like I'd love to see more sort of options for I had to go private to get this

fertility test and you know I'd love to see more options like that on the NHS for people to be able to kind of get as much information as possible in a way that's like affordable and also not scary I think what you said about it being so polarizing is so true and I think another interesting aspect is you're saying I don't want to scare anyone but I remember friends said to me once I was like I don't think I want to have kids now I think I want to get my career down and like I'd love to have kids when I'm like 36 and she's like and only you can say that whereas she what she wanted to do is get married have a baby and I think we were like 27 we had this conversation she's like I would never say that because in like probably more so in London like maybe in our

circles there is almost this like shame element to wanting to be a mum younger and 28 isn't even really that young in the history of mothers do you know what I mean and so I think we've gone too far the other way where people are thinking like god I can't I shouldn't have a baby because I've got to wait not even because of um like any of the career or other reasons but because it feels like that's the done thing now do you know i mean no definitely yeah i think i think that definitely people are doing it later and i think that as with anything it's a decision that you want to make with your friends you want to do it with your friends you don't want to feel like you're the only person doing it but

that is difficult for someone that knows from a young age that that is what they want and if they feel like they're ready to i think you're right there can be a sense that you know people are going to judge you or people are going to are going to sort of think you're weird for like wanting to be a mum before 30 which really isn't that weird in the grand scheme of things no I think it's only in the last like maybe five to ten even less than 10 years that it has been like really normalized that people would be like in your 30s is when you have a baby but like if I speak to most of my friends most of I mean my mum had me quite late because I was the third but most of my friends mums were having them in their early 20s that was like

the complete norm and I think sometimes like feminist conversations around motherhood have almost gone too too far like you said like trying to encourage women that they don't need to feel rushed but then I do get worried sometimes I'm like what if I'm going okay great well I'll just have a baby at 40 which women do more and. But what if that isn't available to me? It's just, I think it's such a minefield and it's really tricky because we're not necessarily making decisions just based on when we want to be a mother.

There's like so many other, it's sometimes like not necessarily factors coming into play like peer pressure or societal ideas. And it's really hard. And I think it's important that there's, I think that's why more people need to speak about it on both ends of the spectrum like i think it's important that people who want to have kids younger feel like they can and that there is maybe more awareness of some of the fertility issues that women might might face especially as they get older but also

not doing that in a massive scaremongering way which is like well if you don't have kids by 30 then you're going to be infertile. Because that's also not true. And I think it's like normalizing people who don't want to have kids, who maybe aren't that fussed by kids and are happy to leave it until they're in their late 30s. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't.

While also supporting women who think, actually, I know I really, really do want this. And so I want as much information as I can get in my 20s or in my early 30s so that I then maybe don't have to panic when I get older if it doesn't happen what did you because you're I mean your career from watching on the outside let's say going from strength to threat you've got like a really exciting documentary coming out which we can talk about later but you've your baby is seven months old and you've still been working so how is that because I can imagine that would have been such a big thing like you're front facing you're on camera you're doing quite dangerous work sometimes having a baby in that environment or being pregnant in

that field of work is probably quite scary and especially people in the media do tend to have children later because you've got to get those you know big bits of work out the way so that you're established how has that impacted your career so in a way it's been way better than I thought it was going to be so I made the decision to have a baby and I was fine with that decision but I was like okay this is it my career's over I'm gonna have to be a stay-at-home mom now and that's the only option and I was just convinced that I would never get any more work and I really really felt so anxious about it and I worried about it so much throughout particularly the early part of my pregnancy and then and I didn't tell anyone work-wise that I was pregnant until I was like eight months pregnant um and I was meant to be doing all these documentaries and I was like oh

by the way I can't start yet because I'm having a baby next week and then they seen like did you not show afraid no there's one there's one guy that i just because it was all on zoom because it was like just after covid and there was one guy the exec for the documentary that i'm making who i've been chatting to him for ages about this and i was like it might not get commissioned for ages anyways there's no point just like putting a hold on anything so i was like just like have the conversation see what happens and then it was sort of in the final stages as it was like about to get commissioned i went for this meeting at channel four and i turned up like eight months pregnant and he was like oh i was like oh yeah i don't know if anyone told you i'm pregnant by the way

and he was and everyone was just so nice and like was like really fine about it and actually it hasn't been an issue at all like I'm working on a podcast investigation which I had to stop halfway through which they were all totally fine with and channel four and this production company have been so accommodating and like just so accommodating throughout the production process as well I went back to work quite early and you know they were like offering to let me bring my baby to shoots if I needed to you know they I was breastfeeding so they were giving me time to pump in the middle of the day. And it was all, everything was really, really centered around me and the fact that I had this young baby and how I felt about it. And I just did not expect that

at all. I thought, you know, even if they are fine about it, and even if I can continue my line of work, I'm just going to have to pretend that I don't have a three month old baby at home. And it just like, wasn't the case. So I think that's been really reassuring that you can still I suppose I suppose with like the right the right kind of work environment or the right team around you you can still have your normal life or your normal work life and also have a baby so that's been quite reassuring that's incredible because I feel like that's such a positive story to hear because that is just not what you hear at all like women get pregnant and they're suddenly like oh like or they get like maternity cover to come in and then they never rehire them after the maternity cover and maybe like the industry you're in it's quite lucky because they're probably slightly more

advanced in those kind of things but I think that is one of the biggest fears like so many of my friends I know maybe would have a baby sooner but it's like we can't risk that like the risk with our careers which men just don't have that like yeah my wife's pregnant and then they get a promotion yeah but how has it impacted like you said you did feel a bit like you're going to be missing out with your friends how has it impacted like your social life and things like I think at the minute and I'm quite guilty people say this to me because I've had a year of like going out a lot because I had a big breakup last year and so I just suddenly was like with my friends the whole time and like doing all these really fun like late 20s partying and I think when you're watching that from the other

side like some people are like oh my god you're making me feel like I'm doing nothing but I think whichever side you look at it always feels like it's better on the other side but I didn't that's very so ineloquently put no I know exactly what you mean it's like I think the ground not even the grass is green if it's like you're always gonna feel like you're missing out on something and you're always gonna put pressure on yourself and feel like you're not doing you're not doing it right or you're not doing what this other person's doing and you know Instagram is the worst for that because you're constantly comparing yourself in some way to someone else like now I have that as a mum but I also have that as someone in my late 20s well I'm 30 now um I'm very officially

um so yeah I think I I mean I was definitely I mean I'm sort of like eternally optimistic in everything I do and I was definitely naive when I came to how little when I thought about how little it was going to change my life I was like I think they're just going to sort of like maybe slot in I'll just be like out and the baby will be there and I'll be at work and the baby will be there and like I was yeah I was like torn between those two things I'm kind of like well I'm obviously never gonna work again and then also being like it'll be fine I'll just bring the baby to work with me and of course it's changed my life it's completely different to how it was before but not in the ways that I thought it was going to be so it's really hard to articulate it's like you know there's all the cliches of like I don't want to go

out as much because like I'm happy to go home and like hang out with my baby and he's like really jokes and like we have a good time and I'm tired and I don't want to like go out until four in the morning anymore but I also you know and again it's like I think I'm lucky that I've I work in an industry where I'm freelance I can go back and do sort of a few days here and there and so I've been able to slot back into my old life quite quickly and quite easily and I know I appreciate that that's not the case for everyone like you know if you work really long hours for the NHS you can't just kind of like slot in and do a couple of days here and there so i feel really fortunate in that sense but i think being able to get back to work has enabled me to like feel like myself and so then it's made me more comfortable sometimes leaving him overnight and if i want to

go out with my friends like hang out with my friends he's really really self-sufficient he's great he just puts himself to sleep makes himself an omelette and he's fine really self-sufficient he's great he just puts himself to sleep makes himself an omelette and he's fine but i remember thinking that once i was like i remember saying to my mom i think some of my eldest sister i have three nieces and my eldest niece is nine i remember being like oh my god you can't just leave them if you go to the shop my mom was like no i was like can't you just put them in a cot i thought you could just go i think i must have been like 19 at the time but it blew my mind i was like oh no that is a lot to do wow it's like you literally can never it's not like a dog but you can just like be like i'll be back in a minute i was like you have to watch them all the time my

mom was like all the time yeah god that is quite stressful it's a lot but yeah i think you know i i think i definitely have still had i mean I don't go out obviously every weekend, but I have been out since I've had the baby and it's been really fun and I still see my friends. And I think that, yeah, I feel like I've been able to maintain that balance of being a mum and really enjoying that while also still trying to keep some parts of myself before I was a mum.

I think as well, there's something about like, because I do think this is about having a kid. I have a few friends that had children when we were like in our early 20s and I got a bit jealous sometimes because I'm like god their moms are so young so they've got like amazing grandparent support because their parents are still really young and then they're going to be able to like when they're in their 40s their kids going to be like so grown up they can just swan off and do anything and I think we forget that whichever period you have your kids you're going to get freedom it's just on the other side of the channel yeah and i think sometimes everyone thinks oh my god if you have kids in your 20s you're gonna miss out in your 20s but

if we're having kids like in our late 30s and 40s like your retirement's screwed like do you know what i mean when you're like having your lunchtime rose whatever you're doing yeah someone might have a four-year-old so i think that like children are always going to mean that you're going to have to sacrifice like portions of your life and sometimes I think we get too hepped up on you know like the 20s being this time and actually whenever I speak to anyone they're always like your 20s are the worst years of your life it just gets better and better everyone says yeah and I think that's true and you know that comes back to like and again this is such a cliche but everyone says there's no right time to have a kid and I don't think I'd have ever been able to find the right time I'd have been like oh well this is happening

at work or you know I've got tickets to Glastonbury next year or I'm doing this or I'm doing that and there'd have been a thousand different reasons that I'd have put it off and put it off and so for me it's almost a relief that I had this this decision that was kind of taken out of my hands because I think I'd have found it really difficult to commit to it at any point and I've always felt like it wasn't the right time and I think what I've learned is that like you know there isn't really a right time you it's like hard work and it it does change your life massively but it's great as well and you can still do everything you can kind of still make it work there's a really i haven't read it but he shared a quote rob delaney from his new book he

posted whenever someone tells me they're expecting their first baby and they're nervous i tell them the following oh my goodness that's wonderful i'm so happy for you listen of course you're nervous but here's the deal you're ready for the bad stuff you've been tired before you've been in pain before you've been worried about money before you felt like an incapable moron before so you'll be fine with all the difficult parts you're already a pro what you're not ready for is the wonderful parts nothing can prepare you for how amazing this will be there's no practice for that and I remember I heard isn't that like so nice it's so nice so true because I think there is this other aspect where people also really want to be like em clarkson posted this actually if you follow her but she's pregnant and she was like please

can everyone stop dming me going like well enjoy this now because once the baby's here you know and she's like I am trying to enjoy it but you keep making me really stressed I think I messaged her after that actually because I was like it's really great don't worry I think there's so much shit and also it then can make you almost preemptively make things worse because you're so terrified and like I think on the one hand it's good I feel like we've been so enlightened as a generation to learn about motherhood I listen to so many parenting podcasts god knows why I'm like I feel very clued up and like I'm always trying to read up on like how and so I think our generation are really aware I think almost could have gone too far the other way but I think people are

terrified now of parenting because it feels like oh my god my life's going to be hell but like like that quote says you're exhausted and you might feel awful but like the payoffs are huge and it's so hard because I think this is true of so many different topics but it's like in this bid to be sort of real or relatable people you know share all of the difficulties of motherhood which like of course there are some and like it's important that that content is there but then sometimes it's like you you don't want to appear like someone who's enjoying it too much or who's like bragging about your baby and so you know you find yourself being like oh god yes and he's a nightmare honestly i'm like making up things that my baby's doing that he's not doing because like i don't want

people to sort of think that i'm bragging or you know enjoying it too much it's like well actually that's not right either you know you can't scaremonger people into, into thinking that it's all going to be this sort of like hellish, no sleep nightmare. Cause it's like, it's not that like, of course there are parts that are hard and like, no baby is, is, you know, an absolute dream, but it's, it's great. And like, it's, it's also possible to have a life and be a mum and to still be you and I think that sometimes that message can be lost a bit yeah how do you so how do you find that with your identity you know some people like I had a baby and then immediately now I feel like I'm not Ellie anymore I'm just this woman who's like feeding a baby with her boobs and

it's like the carrot did that happen to you you? That like loss of identity? Yeah, I think definitely in the early weeks particularly because also what I hadn't appreciated is how little you get back from a newborn baby. Like it just, like he didn't do anything for like weeks. And like it takes like four or five weeks to smile even. So they're just sort of like there and your nipples are bleeding and like, and they just

want to feel the time or cry and it's like I think I have really hadn't appreciated how hard and how unrewarding those first few weeks would be I thought it was gonna be this like amazing bubble and I'd just be like glowing and breastfeeding yeah around the house and like a silk gown um it wasn't the case and so yeah so I definitely had that I think for the first few weeks where I sort of was but think for the first few weeks where I sort of was but also in those first few weeks you're just trying to adjust and cope and it's absolutely mental and you're just like what has happened but I think I think for me again it's like lucky that I could get back to work I mean it's it's so it's funny because I feel like

everything I say is contradictory but on the hand, I was like feeling so guilty about the fact that I went back to work so early and he's like the youngest baby in nursery. And it's just, you know, I felt awful about that. But on the flip side, I think it's great that I've been able to get that sense of identity back. And so I think I've enjoyed motherhood a lot more because I'm still enjoying those other parts of my life.

It's like what you were saying. And it kind of is like on a micro level what this series of the podcast is about but it's everyone's motherhood will look very different and everyone will do it in a way that works for them but there is so much kind of like scripture about the right way to do it and how to be a good mother and what the right time is and any kind of deviation I think can make other people feel insecure about their choices and I don't know why with motherhood but it's definitely one of the most sort of like heated and fertile grounds for sort of like anger and frustration and projection. And like whenever I see like M Clarkson's post or anyone that's pregnant online or has like a young child, I think it's just because women are constantly being judged anyway,

that then there's such a sense of frustration when something doesn't work for you in a way that it did for someone else and it ends up being yeah a lot of projection I think yeah and and don't even get me started on sort of like the amount of advice on mothering or like parenting there is online and like it's an overload of sort of information and everyone is telling you how to do it and if you don't do this thing you're doing it wrong and it's it's a minefield and in the end I've just given up sort of trying to actually do anything that any of the experts say because it's just like it's too difficult and they all say different things but it is I think that it's such a it's a very vulnerable time just in terms of like the hormones and also you know

feeling isolated from from other parts of your life and I think that it doesn't help when there is this real sense of yeah judgment if you if you make any mistakes or if you do anything that's different to someone else it is complicated I think that like it also what you're saying about not looking at advice I think this is the really interesting space that we're in like again everything's becoming so intellectualized whereas before it was sort of about this idea it's very natural and you kind of figure it out and you go along and you'll the baby will arrive and you'll just know what to do and now everyone's going well actually it's blah blah blah and there is so many conflicting things that I love listening to Rob Beckett and Josh Whitacombe's podcast do you ever

listen to it it's like parenting how and it's about like all these celebrities talking about how they raise their kids but it's so funny because they all have these really specific evangelical ideas about the best way to like make your baby sleep or the best way and then and all of them are completely different and and it just makes you realize that actually there's no right way there really isn't and like there's no babies are so different like they're all so different and they've got their own personalities and they dictate really what happens i'm a totally different mom to the one that i expected to be i thought i was going to be like super chilled and just like he would just be like hanging out with me wherever I went.

And I'm obsessed with routine. Yeah. Which is like not what I expected at all, but it's because my baby likes routine and I've just sort of been led really by what he needs. And, you know, I tried to read all these books and I was sort of like to the letter trying to follow 15 different parenting guides. And in the end I was like, okay, I i'm gonna work it out on my own i still need something quite structured but i'm not gonna read all these different books because it was stressing me out too much trying to do it right and yeah that's i think that's the main that's the main thing that i want all parents to kind of know is that whatever you're doing is probably right yeah yeah it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing it's like stop comparing yourself to all these other parents stop comparing your baby to other babies just try and enjoy it

because you're gonna drive yourself mad otherwise maybe i need to have a baby to get better at my routine because even like my sister had these but you know when they do the little like i can't not milestones what are they called you know the babies and at every age yeah is it the milestone they do like a different thing i was like god that is quite a lot of like stress me putting like they'll be like well so and so did this they reach their third milestone at four weeks or whatever because they're like really granular aren't they if you do they are but they're also nonsense it's like honestly you'll have sort of this health visitor will be completely going mental if your baby's not walking by one but it's like adults all learn to walk yeah it's not like there's a baby that didn't walk by one and just like now like he's like scooting around age 30 like it's not it's

i just think we put so much pressure on things like that when really they will probably be fine and like some babies will be you know i've now got mum friends because i'm a mum now and all of our babies are doing different things and like one of them will be great in one area and then you know not as advanced in another and then you know my baby will be really advanced in one respect but then not very good at this other bit and it's just it i think that yeah you just have to kind of like accept who they are and try and be as relaxed as possible i don't know i probably sound like a dickhead to people listening but it's just like you've got to like i just think you've got to try and enjoy it because otherwise, what is the point in doing it if you're just going to stress and hate every minute?

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which I keep seeing amazing press for, and I want to talk to you about what it is. Actually, let's talk about what it is first because then my follow-up question is, how does being a mother and having that identity now change how you approach the situations that you put yourself in work? Because I don't know, would you say

this is probably the most dangerous or probably the most like kind of scary situation in terms of like where you've gone with your investigative journalism yeah I think this is probably it's definitely the most scared I have felt making a documentary so basically what happens is I made a documentary about sexual harassment trying to show how prevalent it is and trying to show the reality of what women face and so I did a number of undercover stunts and one was I signed up to a lot of dating apps using photos of me when I was 18 and just got inundated with dick pics so many dick pics and then another part was I went undercover on two nights out in one weekend so once in Liverpool once in London and the idea was to show I was acting drunk

and the idea was to show what kind of behavior you encounter as a drunk woman separated from her friends on a night out and so across the two nights I was followed three times once by two men twice by solo men and one of the men came all the way back to my hotel room where I confronted him and asked why he followed me there and you know the whole time that they were sort of interacting with me on the street I you know I didn't really say I never ever consented to them following me I never suggested that they came back to my hotel you know I was just saying things like I'm fine on my own I don't need any help I'm gonna find my friends and they continue to follow me and yeah it was I

was so I've been undercover before and I'm quite good at compartmentalizing I can sort of I don't think you have to be to do my line of work I can take myself out of it and I can take the emotion out of it and you know I'm a journalist who's there to report on on facts and this is the most sort of emotionally invested I think I've felt. And it really, I mean, as soon as the guy leaves the hotel room, I just burst into tears, which is really, really unlike me. And I just, yeah, I don't know if it was because I'd recently had a baby and everything just felt very heightened. Or if it was just the subject matter particularly got me. It definitely has, I think, changed changed my I mean in just thinking about this

documentary like you know I feel a huge amount of pressure raising a baby and you know how do you teach them about all of these big world issues and how do you make them into a good person and that's like a huge pressure that I think I feel and then also yeah in terms of my line of work I definitely I used to I would have said yes to pretty much anything I'd throw myself into any situation I think whereas now I would definitely be more careful about what I take on I would have said yes to pretty much anything I'd have thrown myself into any situation I think whereas now I would definitely be more careful about what I take on I know I'm gonna watch the documentary so don't ask too many questions but when can I ask you more about it because I just think it's you can because I think it's so important it's so good to to speak about

because as I said like just before recording this I was talking to a couple of my guy friends they were like oh my god I've seen this documentary she's doing and they're like can't believe it I'm so shocked and I was like oh no I'm not that doesn't shock me at all like I the amount also sometimes I think I'm being I feel like I'm being followed all the time and sometimes a man's just walking behind you but even that your heart is like oh my god how are you being filmed have you got a body camera other people nearby like or did you genuinely feel alone in the moment when they're like coming with you so I was wearing a hidden camera and then I had members of the team stationed around me who were also wearing hidden cameras and I had a specialized security team so I had one guy who was following me out on the street and I

had another guy who was hiding in the bathroom of my hotel room okay so I was really well protected and I knew you know I had a safe word I knew that if anything were to happen I had people sort of right right there who could step in but when I was you know when I'm in the moment I'm in character I'd had an acting lesson to teach me how to be drunk I was gonna that's quite difficult to do it is really hard although she basically said have you been drunk before just remember and I had so much experience that I actually I think I did all right also I suppose if they've been drinking as well if they've been out it's quite hard to gauge and it's quite and it's easier in a way I think what's really difficult and this and it's sort of like my

criticism of anyone acting drunk on tv is almost when you have to talk or when you have to act kind of tipsy and it just never yeah ever really resonant yeah whereas like I was sort of you know I was so past that point of being drunk where I just wasn't really respondingant. Yeah, because the slurriness is too. Yeah, whereas like I was sort of, you know, I was so past that point of being drunk where I just wasn't really responding and I just had to kind of like stumble and not answer, which is a lot easier to do than actually trying to like have a conversation while pretending to be drunk.

So like the thing that is shocking or like just validates why I need to do this is you're filming this documentary, you go out twice and within that, like it's not like you had to keep going out and try and find an instance when someone would do this it happened literally like that straight away and that's what i think is most shocking is this could happen on i i feel certain that on any night out in any city in the uk if i went out and did that it would happen yeah i think something would happen and that's i think what's shocking

but you're right i think women for women it's totally unsurprising because we've and that's why i wanted to make this program and sexual harassment is something that i've really wanted to tackle for a long time and i've never quite known i've never quite known how to do it because i think we've i think we're so accustomed to hearing about all of these sort of awful experiences and you know sometimes they're really glamorized for tv and so people expect all this like graphic graphic awful detail whenever they're they're hearing about this kind of topic and so i think sometimes when you're trying to explain the weight of like a comment or a look or someone following you people just don't get it and by people i mean often men don't get it because it's like well it's you know it becomes this scale where it's like well that's not as bad as this and you know that's definitely not as bad as that thing when actually it's all

a spectrum it's all a continuum really where the reason that i feel so frightened when you cackle me or when you sort of stare at me for too long is because I think that this could be the next step or I don't know what your intentions are and I don't know whether you're a good person or a bad person and it's really trying to highlight that I think yeah and it's just so insidious as well because it's like these men what's the after process with the men that then have been filmed following you do you have to do they have to contact them or so we were required to protect the men's identities in order to comply with our legal and regulatory duties because of the secret filming and then we haven't reported what happens to the police we do have the footage but we don't

have any details about who the men were or any we don't know anything about them but we're just hoping that by transmitting the film it's going to raise awareness and get people talking it definitely absolutely will and i think that it's that fact that it's these things happen in the dark when people are on their own and it's not to say that i think like obviously i do agree that it's not all men but it is all types of men and i think that's what's like the differentiation it's obviously not every man out there is is like causing harm to women but it comes in every aspect and i think that's why when it's like someone that's just following you home after the club it's not like like you said how it's like kind of really sensationalized in the press it's like oh my god like taken is what people

yeah imagine and the thing is is and someone told me I think someone I spoke to for the documentary gave me this analogy which I thought was really good for this where she was like a man is like a loaded gun, where if I go into a room and there's a gun there, I don't know if the gun's loaded or not. So I don't know if that gun could kill me, but it's a gun. And I know that some guns could kill me. And if it was loaded, it could kill me.

So I'm going to treat it with caution. And it's exactly the same with men. It's like, I don't know anything about you. You're a stranger to me, but I know that some men are dangerous. So until I know whether you're a dangerous man or not, I going to treat you with caution that is such a good analogy isn't it that's so good to explain that you touched on this briefly but obviously with raising a son because this is something I think we talk so much about like raising daughters to be like protected in society or whatever and then we're like actually it's the men that like you said

that that is something that preoccupies you is it something that you're already thinking about? I mean, I know he's only seven months old, so you can't be like, look. I'm scoring him. Yeah, it is. It's, you know, it's something that I feel, I do feel really conscious of. And it's something that I definitely want to try and bring into my parenting. I don't know how you approach that. And it is more important, I think, to educate our sons and it is to educate our daughters because this is ingrained in girls

and this is something that we again touched on in the documentary like from school age we are taught to police ourselves to be aware of our surroundings to not wear things that might you know incite some sort of violence like as if wearing something can incite violence but men aren't or young boys aren't taught to check each other or to about what kind of behaviors can be seen as predatory or what can be scary for a girl in the same way that girls are taught about you know the things that men do that scare them and what about like how how's it with your partner is he really hands-on with the baby how's all that being because like in the first few weeks i didn't notice either but apparently isn't it like they always get really upset because they're basically useless

because you just have to breastfeed I didn't realize that there's nothing they always want to be really helpful and actually the mum's like get out yeah just leave yeah yeah he was just sort of cleaning the house for the first month which is great great loved it no he's great he's really hands-on and yeah I feel really lucky to be honest I feel very supported you know from my partner from my family my friends are all excited for me as well and I know that I'm really fortunate to have all of that support around me so yeah it definitely makes it easier I think and it probably makes it a much more enjoyable process and is he is he the same age as you or is he he's a bit older he's a few years older yeah and is he so his friends already started having kids or are they

a couple of them yeah so yeah there's like one of his friends has recently had twins and then there's a couple of older kids in the group as well but still not that many of his friends have yeah and what did you think like the gender decision was like when it happened we it sounded like you were both pretty in unison with your like reactions and like how you wanted to go through with it but did you find that when you were thinking about these pressures did he understand it or was he kind of like quite he was actually so supportive he was really he was really just like you know whatever you want to do this is your decision like i'll do it now if you want to do it if you want to wait then we could do that and he was yeah he was great really i couldn't have like asked for more that's so nice

yeah because i think like especially with me and my friends like when we were especially when i'd like broken up with my ex and some of my friends were getting married and some of us were single and then some of the guys are single and the girls we started having these conversations like right we're 28 so I'm 29 that's yeah so I'm 30 I need to have a baby if I want to be married by the time and then we're like doing all this maths in our heads and we were like okay so I need to have met someone like two months ago and then we were just speaking to the boys and they were like oh but we can just like go up someone that's like 23 and we were like because that we don't have that like time thing where not only can they like keep having

babies up until they're like 60s but also they all just could start dating girls way younger than them and then like again extend their like timeline of how long we've got to have kids and we were like this is so unfair yeah because all of us were starting i think it's like when you get to around 28 is the age when you're like because you're about you're approaching 30 or like really in your late 20s the fear does start to set in yeah even if logically or like illogically you feel like that it doesn't need to be there and then with man it's like 29 for man is the equivalent of being like 22 for a woman yeah i know it's true it's true and i think that timeline thing's really interesting as well and I think basically it's just like life throws things at you and then that gets completely like blown up where yeah you know I had this time I was like right okay so like we've been together for this many years and then

we'll get married and then we'll like buy a house and then I'll get a dog and then like you know like eight years later I'll have a baby and then all of a sudden I had to have a baby the next minute and it was like oh okay so like when am I going to do any of those other things and I think that that's just really like life doesn't end up in that sort of linear pattern where you end up doing everything on time but you don't have a five-year plan for for your life really and I think that it's really yeah we put so much pressure on ourselves to like hit all these milestones like babies yeah I've got so many friends that are ending long-term relationships now and are like moving abroad or having career changes and are doing all of these amazing things.

And it just makes you realize that like happiness and fulfillment has so many different packages. And it's not just being with someone, getting engaged, getting married, having a baby. Like that can be it for some people. And of course those things can bring you fulfillment, but it doesn't have to look like that.

It's not the only, yeah, it's empowering. Yeah. To think that think that like oh i haven't gone wrong just because i've not gone down that route yeah well that's a really nice note to end on could you what else i think the documentary sadly will already be out and done when this is out but what else are you working on is there anything you can tell us about but you can also watch it on all four oh yeah definitely do watch it in hindsight yeah yeah yes you can watch the documentary now on all four. Oh yeah, definitely do watch it in hindsight. Yeah, yeah. Yes, you can watch the documentary now on all four. It's called Undercover Sexual Harassment, The Truth. And I am working on a podcast investigation for Spotify at the moment.

Any more details? It's top secret. It's top secret. Okay. I can never give too many details basically until it's coming out. But I'm working on that. And then yeah,

hopefully got a few more projects lined up for next year. Amazing. Oh, well, it's been such a pleasure to speak to you. Thank you so much for joining me. You too. It was nice to meet you in real life i know not just instagram messages i know in your dm amazing well thank you so much for listening everyone and i will see you next week bye We'll be right back. Seventh best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Daily Jackpots. A chance to win with every spin and a guaranteed winner by 11 p.m. every day. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Or visit connectsontario.ca.

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