Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 173: Dr Eliza Filby

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Dr Eliza Filby is a writer, a generational historian and mum to two children aged 8 and 5.I loved her book ‘Inheritocracy. It’s time to Talk about the Bank of Mum and Dad’ which came out in paperback last year which contains some fascinating stuff about money and the generations of today. We talked about how children often rely on a financial springboard from their parents these days, and how that dependency can make the relationship rarther complicated going forward. We acknowledged that the linear path we were sold in the ‘90s and Noughties - of education, university, buying a house, and then retiring - is now a lie. We also talked about the sandwich generation - people who are looking after their children and their parents at the same time. I shared with Dr Eliza that I once asked one of my sons if he would look after me when I get old. He replied: “Yes. But only for a day or two.”Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia L'Exta and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women, who also happen to be mothers, about how they make it all work. I'm a singer and I've released eight albums in between having my five sons, age between seven years old and nearly 22, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but it can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a little bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hey, this is Risky and I have to be quick. I'm in a playground. I've got two of my children here.

I'm visiting my sister and my baby niece. I found one tiny pocket of the playground where there aren't too many parents in here because I just feel like a bit of a wally when I'm speaking to myself. So yeah, I'm going to tell you about today's podcast. And then maybe in the outro, I have time for a little bit more chat. Dr. Eliza Filby is my guest this week.

Our chat was fascinating. Eliza really knows our stuff. And to be honest with you, I felt like our conversation just scratched the surface of things that I think we could have spoken about in far more detail for longer. But hey, we have an hour together. Let's go. So I started following what Eliza was up to when I heard about her book in Heritocracy, The Bank of Mum and Dad.

Because I was really intrigued. First of all, what does that actually mean? Dr. Eliza Filby is a generational historian. She has two children. They are five and eight. And she took inspiration from her own life with her book. She had done all the things she felt like you were supposed to do in inverted commas. You know, the education, the degree, the career trajectory.

Just felt like she wasn't getting anywhere. Why is this not leading to, you know, my first house and all the other tick boxes of the things I'm expecting to have around me at the time I get into my 30s? And it made her think about the way that generationally things have changed. So for the boomers, they could expect more predictable outcome like that. You know, if you went through the ranks, by the time you had your steady job at a certain point in that, you'd be able to buy your first property, you would sell that by your second property,

just, you know, get yourself into all the expectations of adulthood. With different nuances, different fluctuations in economics and job expectation and how things run, we're now not living in the same way. And so it becomes about the people that can have parents who support them into adulthood. That's what the thing that can make the difference to what opportunities you have. We also spoke, Gleiser and I am not massively dissimilar age,

and we spoke about how we are the sandwich generation, raising our children for longer, the slower trajectory into adulthood, the expectation that you will be financially involved in your child's life until they are mid-20, and beyond, and the fact that your elderly parents are going to live for longer, and there will be an expectation there about care and care homes and how we manage all of that financial spread, that financial burden.

So it was really flipping interesting, and as I said, Eliza, like, she's super smart, super well-informed, well-researched, so I was fascinated by a chat. We recorded just before Christmas, and Eliza was just the middle of moving home. So just sending a note out shout out to her and I hope everything has gone smoothly with your house move Eliza and family Yeah, it's a really interesting chat and I've managed to do all this in the playground without anyone near me So I don't look like such an idiot All right, thanks for finding us here enjoy the chat, the chat, yeah How are you? It's so nice to meet you. Thank you for coming over

So before we pressed record, I was saying this guy on January where you'll be the other side of your move which is a nice thing to think about in the future when you've got past the other side of the stress from moving. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, so apart from moving house, what other things have you got on at the moment? What's going on in your work life? I know we're just about to slow down for a minute,

but maybe what does next year hold for you? Yeah, it's been a really interesting year because the paperback of the book came out and actually the paperback got a lot more kind of press and coverage and conversation. were had sort of publicly online and with various kind of in various ways. It really felt like the book landed this year when actually it came out the year before last. So I've been doing a lot about the book this year.

And I also have my own business. You know, I hire five people and I run a consultancy business. And we've been doing a lot on kind of the future of work and doing a lot on kind of helping companies understand how the different generations are approaching work and career and how you fit life into that. So next year, I'm actually starting a new book, which I'm sort of gradually sort of, should I say this year actually? This year. It's very professional. This year I'm starting a new book. And that's going to be really fun because my happy places as a writer and borrowing away, kind of thinking and researching and reading and constructing a narrative that people, you know,

can digest and want us, you know, so. of spend time to read. And that's sort of where my focus is going to be on that kind of next year. Nice. So the book you're referring to the paperback is in Heritocracy, the Bank of Mom and Dads. And I actually was reading it. And then I read the acknowledgement at the end where you said that's where you start reading when you look at other people's books because they're nosy about their way they might write their books. So I think it did give a little insight into this little space you create around yourself when you're in that moment. of writing. But I think, well, I suppose I'm trying to think where we should start because I think

there's so many fascinating conversations we could have. And I suppose I want to start with the book because in the idea of the bank of mom and dad, we can straddle both things being the parent in the equation and the child in the equation as well. So why don't we, for people that aren't familiar with the idea of an heritocracy and your work as a generational historian, let me just give a bit of an overview of what that actually means. Yeah, I sort of around the age of sort of 35 realized that I spent a lot of my time in education. I was the first person in my family to get a degree. I went right through, did a master's, then did a PhD, then became an academic. But I was hitting my mid-30s, not married, no kids, really hadn't done sort of the adulting march. And

but I was very still dependent on my parents for a place to crash and live in London. And I was like, hang on a minute. Like literally, I feel like I've done this sort of educational track. And I thought we were living in a meritocracy where it's all about hard work and what you can build yourself. But actually, not just me, but the story of most of my friends increasingly is of an economy where the ones that are, sort of able to catapult into adulthood and do the adulting things are the ones that have had that step ladder or safety net or springboard from their parents and we're not just talking about you know deposit for a house because I think that's how people see the bank of mom and dad

there's lots of ways that the bank of mom and dad's not just my generation but the next generation and frankly the generation after that are helping their kids in a way that they themselves as parents probably never had. So obviously we're talking about help with education and just even the privilege of moving to a place where there are good schools. Yeah. It's like part bank of mum and dad in action. People are more likely to move for a good school now than a good job. Yeah.

You know, like you think about how the economy is so driven by providing, you know, that investment for your kids. And then we're talking about the rising costs of tertiary education. Then we talk about the rising costs of renting, particularly in big cities like London. Then we talk about how can you get on the housing ladder without the support. of mum and dad, and then childcare, you know. And so I think what I wanted to do was essentially write a book which explained that. Like how did it happen? How did that happen? Because, you know, it wasn't that long ago where people didn't need that to such a degree. Now, I'm not naive in thinking there's never, you know, that there's, the inheritance has never existed. Of course it always

has, right, particularly in aristocratic classes. But we are seeing the biggest transference of wealth. in human history. All of that money in property, chiefly owned by the baby boomers, and also their pensions, is cascading down the family tree at a time when the big ticket items in life, childcare, education, housing have become ever more expensive. So it's like at a time when the markets become dysfunctional and the state, you know, there's no, there's no council housing in a way there once was, there's no more free education in the way once was at tertiary level, the family have stepped up. Yeah.

And mom and dad have stepped up. And now increasingly, it's grandma and granddad are stepping up. And so I wanted to write a book that was frankly honest about my own situation. Yeah. Because I realized very quickly that if I was going to write about this, I had to be honest about my own help that I received. So it's part memoir, but it's also part sociological explanation as to how that situation came about. what does it, how does it play out in different families? Yeah.

We can get into that because it's not just my story. It's multiple stories that are told in the book. And then also like, how has that impacted how we now live and think about family, think about, you know, the obligations that come with maybe elder care and just the complications of having so much dependency on our parents if we have it. And then finally, that divide that is now obviously there between those that. have the bang of mum and dad, who by the way, you know, realise, but are potentially not very good at being honest about it, but also those that don't. And that divide that is inevitably

sort of revealing itself within society. I mean, it's absolutely fascinating because at first I was thinking, is this, you know, about when you are a young adult, but you still need financial support. But as you said, it's also to do with literally the way that our parents' generation would have prioritised what style of parenting, what became important. And also the shifts in what used to be the markers of wealth or what would be the things you despise, you know, I don't know, travel or eating a broad range of food or even the clothes you wear compared to what then where the prices really went up. So you could have the markers of that. style of life, you know, you go to nice holidays, go out for brunch, where the clothes that you

feel like, you know, but then you're not actually necessarily able to afford the bits that you think, hang a minute, where's the bit where I have the flats and then it goes to the small house and the bigger house and all the chain that our parents would have encouraged us to think was waiting for us. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's like, it's not that it was really easy for the baby boomers. I think there's a sort of a generational myth that they had it really easy and they brought houses, you know, every other, you know, every other year. It is true that it was more affordable

to buy a house in the 1980s. My mum bought a five-bedroom house in Teetting, South London, for, you know, less than 30 grand. But the real story is that she held onto it, right? And they appreciated over time. And to such an extent that we have a shortage of housing and it's somewhat corrupted the market and it's become more and more, you know, unaffordable. But it's also the fact that there was a particular time in the 90s and the naughties where we were being told, get educated, particularly young women. Like, I was a very conscientious girl. Like, I was very much like, okay, if I do my homework and I get my exams and I get to university. Like, I've made it, right? And you get on that professional track. And baby boom and women, by the way, did not have those opportunities

to the same degree. So it's really, really. But it's very much different. Exactly. And it is just that sort of idea, the education was the past year opportunity. And one of the things that we've seen in the last 30 years is more and more people going to university, the cost of that degree going up. But the value of that degree declining. You're so right. And so, but it's not that a degree is not worth it because, you know, I taught in higher education.

it's absolutely worth it. And an education is a good thing for us all. But it's also about just like the narratives we were told as to the linear path of life are being upended. They're being upended in all sorts of ways. You know, the career structure, for example, was not built for mothers. So there's all sorts of good ways

that we're questioning those career parts. But that truth of like get to university, get on the housing ladder, you know, this sort of retirement even. Yeah. The path of life. Yeah. The narrative we were sold in the 90s and 90s, I think, you know, we have to start

admitting is not possible in the same way that it was, even if you do have the bank, mum and dad, frankly. And I think, I think it's a, it's a reckoning. It's not about going, you had it all easy. You took all the opportunities. It's a zero-sum game, a war of the generations. Yeah. It's actually just kind of going.

we're now 25 years into the 21st century trying to repeat what our parents did is not going to work Yeah and actually also as parents maybe you're on Exactly emphasis you put on these milestones these goals Should just be like a conversation you just stop having actually Because it's no longer relevant And when I'm listening to you speak I'm thinking

You know even is the education system Keeping up with the realities of what's going on And how it's all work It's moving so far It's such a good question because I think inevitably, you know, I have an eight-year-old and a five-year-old. And, you know, I'm at that stage in my life where I'm going, okay, what's going to, what's going to sort of, you know, enhance their chances in life? And it's, it's, it's, I'm asking the same questions generations of parents have done. And I think one of the interesting things that I was, when I was researching for the book, I found that only 12% of,

of millennial parents want their kids to go to university. Now, that's ridiculously low when you think nearly 50% of people go to university. So why is that? It's not that they think their kids won't go or aren't bright enough to go. It's because they're questioning the return on that investment. Now, it is an investment because it's, you know, probably 20 grand a year if you want to support them. It's £9,000 a year tuition fees. So people are, with younger, kids questioning in the age of AI, what is the right education pass? Is it that we all need to force our kids to become plumbers now? You know, no, because we shouldn't be swinging from one extreme to the other. But I think our generation of parents are having a very different thought

process than our parents did about us. And it's also true that if you want to go into music industry, if you want to become a writer, it's very hard. Like, it's harder now than it was 30 years ago. It's harder for someone without a London base to do it. It's harder now to do it without the support of your parents. And so you have a sort of a kind of closed shop around certain professions. You know, it's not just, you know, life of a creative. It's also, you know, things like going into the charity sector.

you know, or even going into something like accountancy where it used to be like a really classic middle class profession. But because of AI, is it as stable as it was? So I think we're asking different questions and we're definitely asking different questions of the education system. And I think that was supercharged with COVID. I don't know about your homeschooling was. Yeah, right? So I was very fortunate not to have that moment with my kids, but I had it. with some of my friends' kids and I saw it through different lenses, my nephews and nieces, etc. And I think a lot of us go, went, I'm like, what education are they experiencing? This is interesting.

This is a real insight into school that I didn't have before. And so I think you're also sort of seeing parents going, oh, do you know what? Actually, my kids learn just as much when they're traveling with us. Or my kids are learning just as much maybe through gaming. You know, or it's not that they have to be sitting in a classroom and that being the only space to learn because it's not anymore. Yeah, that's so interesting because, wow, there's so much to unpack with the whole aspects of it really.

It's like when you pull it a thread and then suddenly it's like everything goes, there's huge, huge conversations. But I think some of what you're talking about really resonates when I see I've got two men in my life, you're much older than me. They're both like once 20 years, once 30 years, and they've had their children much later, and they're quite wealthy these guys. And they've, as you said, invested a lot in their children's education. But I can see there's an expectation of where this is all going to lead to. And it's interesting because first year as someone younger, but also as someone who's a creative where I sort of fell out of the expected trajectories of

things a little while ago in so far as, you know, hitting the milestones of, you know, okay, go to this uni and this is the expectation. I look on and I'm like, it's wild to me that you would have these children and see that, well, if I put this much in and this much in, it's going to equate to this and it's a strange thing. I've kind of, but it's, you've highlighted such an important point there, which is like, we use the language of finance to talk about our kids. Yes.

Investment. What do you expect with an investment? Return. I mean, I mean, I mean. I don't know about you, but I find I'm pretty confident that the whole point of motherhood is there's no return on that investment. Like, it's a selfless act. And the whole point of parenthood is actually to, and I find it fascinating in this whole process really, is that, you know, when you have a child, they are in you. They're a parasite inside you basically stealing all the goodness of your food.

And then they come out and obviously. And now my fridge is empty. Now my fridge is empty, right? And then, you know, they come out of you and you nurture them, you know, and you, you know, you provide that nurturing environment. And then they learn to walk and then they learn to, you know, and then they go to school. And then their peers become more important than their parents. And then gradually, the whole point of parenthood, you know, and this is mirrored in nature, is to shove them out of, you know, the nest. And I feel that a lot of modern parenting culture, is almost like keep them in the nest, keep them nurturing, keep them nurtured, keep them nurtured, and actually not create self-sufficient individuals. Now, the challenge of that, of course, is going back to the inheritocracies, it's really hard to be self-sufficient. What career now guarantees you a route to independence from parental help? Yeah. You know, is it banking? Not so much. law potentially law is one and private equity are the two that's kept to pace with house prices

probably going back to the plumbing a little bit here too but yeah but again it's like what's in 20 years time what what are those professions going to look like in the age of AI they're going to you know they are going to be disrupted and so I find that whole idea of if I do this and this and this and this and this is this is the path that my children are on and they yes and and you know the whole point of being young is basically to rebel against your parents right you know i mean preaching to be right i hope that right and you want them to just go now you're talking bollocks i'm doing it this way yes i think that's become harder actually it's a rebel yeah definitely because the generational gaps are smaller and actually but they're bigger because people are having babies

later that's true but i suppose in terms of our the cultures we can engage in. There's a lot more, the Venn diagrams overlap a lot more than they used to. And I agree that for some people, they have that idea about the investment of their children,

but I think it's also to do with these older, older generation, that for them, when they hit the milestones, it also made them feel happy and like they were doing the right thing in society. So I think it's like that idea of you want your children to be happy,

but understanding it doesn't have to be a happiness that is the same as what makes you happy. So for them, think they think if my kids can do these things so I can talk to other people and say, well, they're now doing this job or this is happening. It's like everything went right. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not inviting a misstep on the path. Yes. I know. Whereas actually now we don't, as you say, we don't live in the same way. It's interesting about the rebelling as well. Well, I think you're right about, you know, parenting as posting, you know,

that idea of, of, and no judgment, by the way, you know, we like. Yeah, we're all doing, the best we like, exactly, and we like to express what our children are doing, where our children have been, what they're up to as expressions of and evidence of our good parenting. And, you know, social media does encourage us to do that and then flex that muscle. By the way, that's a human desire to show pride in our offspring. But I do, I think the rebellion, rebelling point is a really interesting one because if you, you look at sort of, say, for example, the number of people in their 20s still living at home. One of the reasons why that's possible now is because of the shift in values.

So, you know, my mum did not want to live with her mother in her 20s because my grandmother did not believe in sex before marriage, right? That was one of the many different cultural breaks that she could see with her parents. and I didn't have that with my parents. They had a pretty liberal attitude to all of those things. And people in their 20s now don't have those, some not all, right? It depends on the sort of the values of your family. But like, that obvious reason for leaving home has stopped.

Yeah, that's true. So that's rebellion number one. Also things like alcohol consumption amongst the young, like traditionally a sort of area where the sort of exuberance of youths. you know, the medium through which it exhibited itself. You know, I spent most of my early to late teens drunk, right? So that culture of kind of Ladek culture of just, that was your entry point into adulthood was just like drinking copious amounts of alcohol. That is gone. I know. I think we've put them off actually, the younger generation, I think.

I think a smartphone has though, right? Because I think as well the fact that our, I mean, I know I'm like, I think I'm a couple of years older than you, but we've celebrated the alcohol culture so much. I think it's become like, I can't bother with that. I think it's also, I think you're right. I think there's some unedifying behaviors. But I think, like, having a device in your hand from the age of like 13 and being a Gen Zia who, every bar you inhabit, every beds you sleep in, every time you are out of control and not quite in control, it has the potential to be filmed, uploaded, and socially shame you. That regulates your behavior. And you stop wanting to be out of control. And that's where I feel like the sobering up of

that generation sort of originates from. But I think you're right, we've totally said bad example. We've made it look really uncool. Yeah, that's great. Why don't you drink with your mother did? Come on. Yeah, because I think the drinking culture and maybe, you know, drugs to a certain extent as well, it's, it's, it fascinates me now how culture is now intergenerational. Like you think of Gogglebox, right? Goggle box is so relatable and such brilliant TV because every other family is the same.

And I? You just, you sit in a, you know, multi-generational setup, sofas critiquing and experiencing those, you know, shared moments, shared cultural moments. And you may be double screening at the same time. But more and more people are living in multi-generational households. Yeah. Having those moments. And I think, you know, you think about, you know, the Kardashians. You think about, you know, succession.

You think about, you know, sort of dynasties of generations. now actually like pepper our culture and dominate our culture in the way they didn't in the 60s or 70s, you know. And I think that to me is really interesting because it tells us we're living in this sort of societal moment where the family is really important. Yeah, that's true. And, you know, people now have multi-generational hen parties, you know, and multi-generational holidays, which makes total sense. And as I said, multi-generational housing. And when you have, you know, that inevitable care shift that happens in the family, which I write about in the book, is that when your parents have supported you, there is, if there's not already, an obligation, obviously, to return that in kind when they need your care and support. And one of the things that came out of the book was this idea of that moment when you start to parent your parents.

and it becomes really quite challenging for women because women tend to look after the elderly, both their in-laws and their blood relatives. But it's also we're living in an ageing society where we're going to have to, that's going to be more and more part of our life. So actually living in a multi-generational household means that quite often you get that grandparents

doing the childcare and then, you know, the parents parenting the parents and sometimes the grandkids are looking after and caring for the grand parents as well. I wonder as well if some of this the way that the family economy is structured is also because we've got better awareness of neurology

and the fact that people's, we know that people are now not kind of reaching like their mental adulthood till their mid-20s. So the trajectory into adulthood is a slower expectation as well. And is it a, a problem. I mean, should, or should parents be just accepting that this is how it is and it's okay? Because I suppose it's a question I ask myself quite a lot. How much should I be prepared to be

financially helping my kids? Like, is it always a good thing? Is there a bit where I should try and be like, you're on your own now? I'm not really sure. I actually genuinely don't know how I'm supposed to do that. I think that's such a great question. I think the first point about how our brains are changing is really interesting because it used to be, you know, that an adult in medieval times like 13. Oh, you know, and, you know, then we invented this concept of teenagehood and adolescence. And that's a relatively recent social construction. But it's also, it's conditioned by what experiences, you know, if you go to war at 16,

your brain is being wired in a certain way as opposed to if you're just doing your GCSE revision at 16. So it's certainly you've seen. In recent years, the decline of people working in their teenage years, you've seen the increasing, obviously, emphasis on homework as the thing you should be paying attention to. Declining numbers of young people passing their driving test. Declining numbers of young people kind of being socialised outside of the family or school. So the decline of church, the decline of other forms of kind of youth associational culture. Even my kids talk about that actually, the older ones. They said there's nowhere really set up for them to go.

They don't know how to meet casually like that. So how are you encountering, right, experience, different people, risk, failure. Yeah. Right. So we're not, people talk about the decline of resilience in young people. And you could blame all sorts of things. But one of the things I think is really important is you're not getting that evolution of the self in the same way,

certainly if you're living a lot of your life on screen, but you're not encountering failure, risk, you know, in the same way that previous generations did at that age. Yes. Now that's modern life, and you can do things to perhaps sort of encourage a certain amount of risk and allow for a certain amount of failure, which I think is really important.

Yeah. I've got friends who insist that they're, their child gets job, you know, as early as possible, which is actually harder and harder because companies don't want to hire young people as much as they used to. I've got friends who, you know, are very careful about what pocket money they give to instill those habits around money and self-sufficiency really early on. But your critical question, which was so important about like, what is a good amount of money to give my kids? Yeah, how should I do? I mean, I should I expect to be doing that? Is that I know all right? I actually don't genuinely, I think haven't fathomed it. A great question because I think one's attitude towards money is shaped

between the age of seven and 12 really early. That doesn't surprise me. Yeah, so it's like, it's an emotional thing first and foremost. It's an emotional thing. And you see people around you, how they are with money. Exactly. And I also think, and I wonder if you've seen this in your kids, that you're born with a bit of a, a bit like you're naturally, someone who likes to sleep in late or go to read earlier, whatever you are, I think there's a similar thing whether you're a spender or a saver, if you're, you know, if you like to consume, if it burns a hole in your pocket, if you can squirrel it away, all my kids are quite different. I think money is very much linked to personality and you're absolutely right. It's emotion first rather than, and so as much as financial

education in schools is great. Like, I'd question whether that's, you know, necessarily going to change the person and how they relate to money. No, but do you think having to be a lot of an awareness of how things work. Yeah, oh, totally. Totally. There's stuff that everybody says they didn't get sort in school. I completely agree. I really, I think it's financial education is really important.

And I think actually genuinely, one of the good things about social media and even chat GPT, as long as you verify some of the information and misinformation, is actually it enables you to ask stupid questions or learn things that you maybe didn't get in school in a more entertaining way potentially than you might get in. school. But to get back to your point about like, how, how should I be thinking about supporting my kids? Now, if you look at the data, the average UK parent expects to be funding their kids until the age of 30. Right? It's quite a long time. Why, it's quite a long time, is it? Like, it's frightening the amount of time. Yeah. But what did they mean by that? What they mean is education, obviously. Fine. And now because of the amount of graduate debt, the average, the average, graduate is carrying around with them.

And carrying around with them is the right work because it's not actually a debt, it's a tax that now lasts 40 years and really disproportionately affects women who have children because you're just allowing that debt to increase. What do you want to kind of save them from that lifetime tax on their earnings? So that's question number one. Number two is when do I stop paying their cost of living? so like Netflix subscription, phone account, you know, all of these things that are really easy to set up and leave. And I do appreciate as well that I'm coming up.

This is a very middle-class question of me. Absolutely. And I think it's really important because actually less than I think we tend to think about the bank of mom and dad in the context of, you know, the middle-class sort of zone of how do I give my kids a leap up? And actually there are an awful lot of young people that are supporting their parents. Yes. And the money is going up the family tree, not down the family tree. And I think you're right in that it's there's no like, right, okay, cut the cord at 25. But I do think when the question that is really at stake is when is it advantageous to the

for me to help in order for them to get somewhere where they want to be. And when are they just a leak, a drain on me? And it's become a dependency culture that's really destructive to their self-motivation. Yeah, I think context is everything. That's the key. Having said that, one of the key things that I really found interviewing people was how, for example, someone I interviewed who changed careers, she went from being. on the corporate track to becoming a writer.

And she was like, I'm surrounded by people, writers who don't see this as a risk, who don't work as hard as me, because they're writers who can be writers without even thinking about I'm going to become a writer. They've not had to sacrifice anything. I just said the motivation isn't the same. Their workload output isn't the same.

But also their... the way they see this as a, as a, you know, they don't see it as a gift or a privilege in the same way that I do. So I think there's also about kind of like the privilege you have when you have the bank of mom and dad is quite often you can take risks. But you don't actually quite often have the same sense of motivation and edge as someone who hasn't had that safety net and has no choice but to take the risk. Exactly. And you kind of want the latter, because they're the people quite often, frankly, that are able to push themselves in the right way and succeed in the way that they want. It gives you a bit of grit and it also means that you've chosen it because it's the thing that makes sense to you in terms of how your soul works rather than just, oh, this is treating me well, the carpet's unfolding, on I go. You know, you sort of, I think it makes you not just a fair weather writer.

Yeah, and I think there's one guy in the book whose dad had given a deposit for a house. And he'd had quite a wayward pass. He'd fallen in with the wrong crowd and kind of moved to London and got into drugs and gone to rehab. And he'd felt he'd tested his parents' patients. Put it that way. So when it came to buying a flat in London, his dad gave him a deposit for the house for the flat. But it was a loan, not a gift. And he charged interest.

So it was this really interesting He said to me Yeah It is the bank of mom and dad It's a literal bank With interest And he said I cannot default on that

Every month I have to pay it Because I have to sit around The dinner table with them And my dad won't Put up with it If I default Yeah and it stills respect

Into the structure of it It gives some boundaries Yes Makes everybody behave like grownups Yes But I suppose you're also I think what you're really You know

the answer you've given is to do with a lot of common sense about the personalities involved, the context, what kind of help you're talking about, how, you know, I've had some really pivotal moments in my life when I have come up against it where it's like, oh, I actually haven't got anywhere else to turn on. I think it stopped me being as ghastly as I would have been if everything had always just been all spongy or soft edges everywhere, you know. I think grit is a really good word because I don't think life for anyone frankly at any point of the income and wealth scale it's not going to get any easier life is getting more complicated and by socially psychologically you know physically I think we we are going to have to instill a

sense of grit in our kids but I but to return to the point about you saying this is a very middle-class conversation, I think you're absolutely right. And it's really important to be open about the privilege that you have had. Yeah. And one of the things that really struck me writing the book and looking at some of the data was the ones that were least likely to talk about whether they'd had help from the bank of mom and dad were men working in London on over 100K because the perception was that they could carry them themselves and had earned their way and their place. And I think we do still struggle with this idea of being self-made, living in a meritocracy. And actually, we need to be much more open about the help that we've received and in many instances

in need of it. The kind of subtitle of the book is we need to talk about the bank of mom and dad because I don't think we talk about it enough. And I also think that help can come in many forms. and families are very complicated. So a family you may assume had a natural flow of money cascading down potentially doesn't because of divorce or blended families or because, you know, one sibling is favoured over another or because actually, you know, dad lost it all in the crash of 2008, whatever it is. You kind of, I think sometimes can make too many assumptions about certain, you know, certain families. certain individuals. But equally, there is no doubt, there is no doubt that there is a level

of disadvantage that is becoming ever more pervasive in society where you are not making it, quote unquote, in the same way, having done all the things or not making it simply because you do not have that access to parental wealth, that someone of equal education, you know, equal sort of status and in other areas of life, that is the leg up that is increasingly defining opportunity. And I think that that has to be addressed in our economy.

And it's fueling a sense of despair. It's fueling a sense of, frankly, national decline. It's without getting too political. It's fueling that sense of, I can't make it here, so I'm going to emigrate. You know, I think, you know, I've received so many messages in the wake of publishing the book from people who say, you know, gosh, for so long I'd internalized a sense of failure. I'd internalize the sense of I hadn't quite made it or the system, you know, I hadn't played the system well or I hadn't, I hadn't sort of. of tained the right opportunities and that was my fault and my failure. And actually what the book tries to explain is actually the systems let you down. It's not you that there's let the

system down. Which must be bringing about a big sense of relief and something that people kind of could have an idea of but maybe hadn't articulated it or harnessed it in that way. Yeah. And I think also it's not just the bank of mom and dad. It's also compounded by the fact we have an education system that is a sink or swim, you know, if you sink, you're doing well in exams and you go this way and that's for you. But what's left for those that don't do that? Frankly, not a lot. And we've spent 30 years allowing people to swim in an education system and not really provided anything in the place of those that haven't been able to achieve in that way. And so I think there's a really important sort of perspective for anyone under the age of 45 is to really think, you know, how is the bank of mom and dad sort of played a role in my friendship group?

And I don't want to divide friendship groups here, but I think it's really important to kind of go, okay, that sort of explains that. Okay, but I'm working towards this. Countless number of people I interviewed, and like, yeah, it was weird. Like, when I hit 30, literally house deposit would like literally falling from the sky because just parental wealth sort of came in to the equation, whereas we'd all sort of been mucking along in our 20s and we're all sort of semi-equal in that sort of way. We sort of knew who had parents with the big house and who didn't. But suddenly the leap happened then. And of course, if you get that gift early, you can then, you know, with time, sort of compound that wealth independently of your parents. If you only get, you know, an inheritance when your parents die, there's a disparity there. And if you get nothing throughout their life and when they die, then that's a huge disparity in outcomes and opportunities and options. Is this, were you sort of studying all of these things when you became a mother? Is this what you were working on at that time as well? Yeah. Well, I mean, I became a mother when I was, oh gosh, so my husband and I met

and literally within eight months being together. I fell pregnant, as they say, complete abstent, but definitely the right time. and when I was pregnant my father was diagnosed with cancer and he fought it for about a year and a half and then when my son was about eight months he passed away and for some mad reason I also decided to get married so literally there were three months in my life where I was organizing a christening for my son a funeral for my dad and a wedding for us like my algorithm and on my phone was like, hey, what life moment are you organising here? Because I was getting like adverts for baby rattles and, and sort of wedding DJs and, and, yeah, coffins.

I wonder if there's a reason why you did that though in some way. Just maybe it suited your, I don't know, emotions to be able to flit between all these spaces. Because they're all big things. They're all layered, aren't they? They are. And I think I write about it in the book because I, I wanted to explain how I'd had this, this period of my life in my 20s and mid, and really up until my mid-30s where I was, I described myself as a kid old. And I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of freedom. I'm so much more freedom than my mother or her, her mother.

And I think one of the sort of wake up course was when my dad sat me down sort of, I think it was my 34th birthday and was like, you really probably need to start. making some decisions because I'd like delayed all big life choices and options. Yeah, and probably some of your friends had too. It's not that unusual. It's not that unusual, but I think it was, it was quite interesting that I had the freedom to do that because I had the bank of mom and dad, right? And it was partly because I hadn't met the person I wanted to build a family with, of course, of all of that. But it was also because I wanted to like extend my adolescence for as long as I possibly could and indulge in a, career the academia that was really quite self-indulgent. Like I spent three years writing a PhD

and another three years writing a book like my first book. What were you studying with your PhD? So I was studying the sort of history of the 1980s and the sort of political upheavals of the 1980s. Wow. So so it was you know and I think that's a rich topic. The point I'm sort of getting to is that then I sort of fast forward big life things in a very, short space of time because I was like right I'm ready for being an adult and that's why I think I you know got married had a kid and and lost my father and was at that point you know where you're facing birth and death yeah literally within months of each other and and it was you know one of the most profoundly difficult moments of my life of course it was but it also um it also created this sense

of deeper prioritization, focus, and a sort of realization of, okay, what is it that I want to do? What is it that I want to write about? What is it? And I think, I don't know if you felt this, but when I had my first child, I was like, okay, this is what it's all about. out of that hospital and I'm really going to get what I want to get. Yeah, I definitely think it clarifies my brain a bit like that in terms of everything that gone before just felt like in the past. It was like, right, everything I do now has to really count. I was a bit leaner with how I would approach things. Yes. And I'm not, I'm not suggesting that, you know, child free women don't go through this realisation because I also think it's to do with age. But I also think that

if you are, it's why it's maddening that companies get rid of, or don't see the value, rather, of mothers in the workplace because there is a ruthless efficiency to being a mother that you just do not have necessarily before. So that for me was like, right, get me out of this hospital, I got shit to do. So I built a business and, you know, I built home and I, and I, and, you know, And I, yeah, eventually started writing this book. And sort of post-script to all of that is that during COVID, my mother moved in with us. And that was another, like, I turned 40, my mother was living with us. It was a sort of this multi-generational household where, to a certain extent, I was caring for my mother.

She would scream at me if I said that to her face. But what I meant was I could gradually see what was happening, which was my mother was a widow. I was now a mother and that care reversal process that naturally happens to, you know, with your parents is you start to parent the parents. And I started to sort of go, okay. So all that period of my life where I was massively dependent, you know, on you and going around for Sunday dinners and stealing toilet roll because I couldn't afford it, you know, like all of that sort of like kid old years. It's now in reverse and I have my mother living with me who was just wonderful and just refused to do anything domestic. Presumably just had a second baby then as well, right? So I had this

like, can you please do something. Yeah. It was brilliant because literally my hallway, it was quite a narrow hallway anyway, it was her shopping trolley and my daughter's pram and every morning I'd like clip my ankles on both of them and be like, like screw my life. And it was, just like, okay, this is, this is the care reversal process. I'm the sandwich. Yeah, you're really seeing real time. I'm in the sandwich. Sometimes in bruise. And I think a lot of, um, I spoke about this on a podcast a couple of weeks ago is that sandwich generation of looking after kids and potentially well into their 20s, right, as we've spoken about, but also looking after elderly parents who, you know, they are living longer. They are living longer with complex illnesses. There is a,

you know, ever expensive care burden, not just in terms of finances, you know, residential care is now more expensive than eaten, you know, but it's also, you need a medical degree to, to be a, you know, a good carer to an elderly parent or relative. It's a lot. It's also the headspace as well, right? Because you're thinking about, I mean, I've seen some people when they've gone through with their elderly parents and sorting out the admin of moving them and their care needs and And it's a lot. It takes over their brains. And if you think about all the admin you do with your kids,

and as you say, women traditionally take the lion's share of that role. The mental load. So, yeah, adding in that as well. And I think there's something about, you know, when we think about mummy influences and the evolution of the trad wife and the way that we now sort of romanticize on social media being a mother. and the way we portray it. You know, there's not elder care influences.

Right. There's not. There's not, we're not romanticising later life or end of life care. I don't even go up to when the kids stop being in like past age of like eight with those things either. It's all, I don't know. Look at the Christmas pyjama social media content. He doesn't tend to feature them their teenagers so much, does it? Or they do?

I don't know. But I think there's such. romanticisation of motherhood. Oh, very much so. And you think at the other end of the life cycle, it's not romantic. It's not romantic. It's not romanticized. No. It's not something. It's, it's, I described this in the book as when you are, you know, feeding a baby, looking after a baby, you know, cuddling a baby, there is, there is that hormonal sort of, you know, burst of joy. but also, you know, the agony and the ecstasy of early motherhood, right? And they can't answer you back. They can cry, but they don't answer you back. When you're doing end of life care, which, you know, I did with my father and me and my two sisters did it, he did answer us back. There was a lot of psychological complex emotions. It was really hard and it was hard and it was physical in a different way, but it was, it's the mental load, it's the psychological complexity of your relationship with.

your parents, which however good your relations is always challenging. And it's not glamorous. And yet, I think it's one of the most profound life-altering things I've ever done. And without doubt. And, you know, there is a great gift of doing that for someone. You know, death I describe in the book as is a humiliating experience for all involved, frankly. death is the final humiliation right and to see someone through that in a dignified way is such an amazing and I don't mean to kind of like say that in a sort of sort of a wrong way I mean like

genuinely the genuine definition of amazing experience other oh it's poignant and other it's an other experience and I do think it's that you know last act of love it's it's huge to support someone And that stops it being, I appreciate when you're saying about people needing the support that some people would really resist. But, you know, if they need extra medical care and, you know, losing control of themselves and that way it's awful for people to go through. But it's very poignant to be with someone as the end of their life. Yeah. And I think the rather tragic thing, two things that my dad said to me is he was nearing the end of his life. the first thing was I'm going to make this quick. Now he was ill, terminally ill in the hospice for six weeks, ill, ill for about four months,

which we all basically took time off work to care for him around the clock. Now, my sister is a doctor, so we've considerably, you know, privileged to have that medical knowledge in the family. But one of the things that he was, you know, he also said, which was also incredibly, so my dad, it was so sort of, you know, truthful and blunt, was like, I'm glad I had three daughters and not three sons. And there is still the societal expectation that elder care is delivered by women. There's lots of women in their 50s leaving the workforce because of this commitment of care, which is overwhelming. And, and, and, And I think there is, and has been tremendous advanced sort of gains made in the last 20 years of fathers doing more fathering and more of the parental load. We now need sons. And I'm seeing it more and more and more, actually, and it's coming out in the data, more and more sons to change as many cafeteras as nappies, you know, push as many wheelchairs

as brands. You know, right. And I think there's a conversation there to be had. But I think, you know, when I started interviewing people about elder care up for the book, one of the things that I spoke to this woman who'd looked after her mother for 14 years. 14 years. And she had two siblings, but the load had fallen on her. I was going to say some sometimes be more. It's never equal.

It's never equal. And she was because she was child free and because she had started to live with her mother for a certain point of her life, the burden fell on her. And she really, you know, she was honest with me. She was like, I really resented it. I resented my siblings. I resented my mother. I, you know, and I couldn't, I wasn't free until she died. And when she died, you know, she finally was able to move to Suffolk where her partner of over a decade had lived.

They'd had a long distance relationship because her mother was in Wales. But really, it was changed her whole life. Changed her whole life. She was in her 60s, and she'd, you know, she called it her lost decade. I mean, I feel like I've heard that things like that, similar things from, you know, anecdotally and people I know as well. I think, and it can go to huge tensions with, you know, the adult children when the parents passed and how they feel, what they, if they feel seen with all the things that they did and who sweeps in at the end to try and, you know, deal with admin. And I think it can be, I think those tension matchly, this. quite timely because my my mum, who's now 70, did an article like the other day that I read

through where it was all about having the conversations now with, I have two siblings, with the three of us about what she would want. Yes. When she gets older, does she want to stay at home for as long as possible? All these conversations actually. And to try and bring it into the part of what you're talking about now. I'm not very good at that socially, but I do think there's massive. benefits to be had from that clarity of thought,

and not what they want for themselves. But also siblings, the expectations within, you know, amongst the children. Yeah. And that's very difficult if one sibling lives abroad or, you know, or of different parts of the country. Yeah, all manner of reasons. And or just, you know, is dealing with perhaps other stuff in their family. It's often, like you say, lots of things happen unsaid, lots of resists.

lots of resentment builds and these are very difficult conversations as difficult as the ones we spoke about earlier about money and I think the the fact that we're going to all have to face is that we're living in an ageing society

elder care could be a huge lengthy part of our midlife, quite often on midlife it has to be said and that has to be sort of discussed, but it also has to be sort of allowed for, right? And that's really hard if you've got adult children that you're supporting or you've got a career in, you know, or a job that doesn't allow flexibility for you to take mum to the doctors

or to visit mum. And so that's where I'm like the structures of society are not built for this level of commitment in midlife for our elderly. The workplace is not built for it. Social services, adult social care, we know, is not built for it. The finances of midlife, when you're supposed to be funding your own retirement or you're potentially having to support adult kids are not built for it. Why did I start this?

This is really depressing. But you're the first person to properly ask about it actually. And it's really good to talk about the bank of mom and dad. Of course it is. But it's also really important to talk about the other end of it. Oh, no, it's vital. It's vital. I feel like it's the next thing, though, because, you know,

you mentioned earlier about the birth of the teenager, you know, with the boomers and I feel like with life expectancy changing and the conversations about around particularly women in middle age, I feel like the next thing is the sort of second moment that happens for people when their kids. have grown up and they are not the ones that need to be home at certain times and they can maybe retrain and they haven't got their parents in that stage where they're quite dealing with those things just yet. So between your, I don't know, sort of from sort of 40 to 60 being this new transitional phase because maybe a job you did for a really long time might be morphing to something else or you're thinking of retraining or you want to do something different.

So I feel with that there will be some really new unexpected things. I did want to ask, with your consultancy business, are these the sorts of conversations you're having with them about how to look at the workforce to support people's real 360 lives? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I think the architecture of life is changing. Thank you.

Yeah, it's all under control. I don't need to work about it anymore. But we work, you know, I work with companies, you know, from law firms to hospitality to tech firms right through to accountants. And the career ladder and frankly the workplace for professionals and, you know, white collar, blue collar, grey collar, whatever you want to call it, all work is fundamentally built, was fundamentally built for a man with no caring responsibilities, right? Even frankly, a male breadwinner, right? So, and Melinda Gates, you know, once said, we're sending our daughters into workplace. is built for our grandfathers.

And they're still, and I don't want to just talk about white collar professional work because actually it's equally true for, you know, low-skilled, you know, or manual labour. So it's across the spectrum, we have built a work culture that assumes you don't have kids and it assumes you don't have elderly parents to look after. And remote working is an interesting sort of. of element into the mix here because for a lot of women that's provided the space and the privilege to be able to have a bit more flex around the kids and certainly around elder care. But that's not a privilege that is open to the majority of workers, remote working.

So I think there's like a two-tier system now as well. But also, tech in the workplace has meant we are never off. You know, if you are working in a restaurant, you possibly do have the luxury, and it is now a luxury, to come home and switch off. If you are working in an office setting, effectively, you have always access to your email. Yeah. And so that capacity to just, you know, go in, go in, yeah, is actually increasingly difficult. So it's the blurring of work-life balance. Actually, not work-life balance,

the blurring of work and home because of tech means that actually it's ever harder to kind of be like, okay, these are my domestic duties and these are my work duties. I mean, even socially we expect people to be always... Always on. Communicating with us. Yeah.

Well, how have you... Do you think about these things with your... children or as this your workhead and analysis and your book writing but when you're at home you're not really thinking too much about their future no i'm slightly obsessed with this i wrote an article at substack um because um career advice for my seven year old he was seven then and i um really fixated with this idea of not just not just my kids but the future generation we know the the narratives and the scripts of the late 20th century are not working in the 21st century. And so what is the future of employment? We know, you know, my mom worked for one company,

her entire life. My nephew would probably have five different careers. You know, when I think about my mom and dad were married and that was, you know, the key relationship throughout her entire life. I live with two different partners before I then married my husband. You know, we're moving and shifting to a world of multiple cohabitations, not just, you know, meeting, living, marrying. You know, when I think of my kids have got a 50% chance of living to 100. Is it that high? 50% of living to 100. How many of those years, though, will be healthy years because increasingly, you know, Gen X, those born in the mid-1960s, 70s, will live 15% of their life in ill health managing illnesses.

You know, so I'm sort of obsessed with this idea of how... I'm only just... I think I can hear away from whatever that. I always get muddled up. My kids all talk to each other about generations. I've got two different generations of children. Yes, you do. You have Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Yeah. Or Gen iPad, as they call the small ones. Yeah. Yeah. I think they'll be known as Gen A.I. So I think that's. And I think the point is, is that we can't, and this is where I have to really like stop myself as a mother, but also as a writer, is go, okay, I can't think what happened before when Nestlery happen, you know, in the future. We can't be preoccupied with, you know, sending our kids to university, getting them on a career track.

even buying a house. Those rights of passage are changing. You know, even passing your driving license. They might even fancy it anyway. It might be, why would they, why would they want those things? Exactly. They're not as relevant. Then why are they?

But also, even things like retirement. Yeah. You know, I don't really think my mom retired at 61. That's young, isn't it? It is young. My husband's grandfather retired when he was 50 and lived to 95. He basically was retired longer than he worked. He was a farmer, so he, you know, his physical, hard labour.

But so you're thinking that's got a shift because the economics doesn't make sense. No. Right? So, so do I need to not be saving for my retirement, but saving for my social care from when my mind and body stopped working? You know, because the whole sort of financial system is built on retirement. And people don't want to go on cruises to places they went to, you know, in their gap years necessarily.

So that whole notion of how the life course. It's changing. And also, you know, people don't have the financial resilience to retire. So at the moment, we look at the gig economy and we think, oh, it's a load of young workers. Very soon, it could be the over 70s that are delivering. Yeah. Or, you know, maybe drones later on. But like, so it's also about how there's a lot of financial instability in the midlife generation now who can't afford to retire. So it's not just we want to do things differently. It's also the financing. of life are changing. So this is what I'm obsessed with, is this idea of the life I have led. Yeah. Let alone my mother's life is going to be so different to the ones my children lead. And how can I not sort of steer them incorrectly by going, you have to repeat, you know, or learn from my mistakes and do this?

So what does that, to your son, your seven, or did it say, whatever you do, have enough save by the time you're 50? I'm going to be 95. And you're going to have to look after me. I'm going to really need it. I'm going to really need you to, yeah, grow that pot for me. This is a map to where I would like my house when I retired. Yeah, exactly, right?

Start building. But I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's that whole premise of, you know, um, my kids is education. I'm going to be so disrupted by AI. You know, already my, my, my, my, my. My nephew's using a personalized chatbot to do his revision with. Yeah. My parents paid for me to get a personal tutor. My sister's not paying for a personal tutor for my nephew.

He doesn't need it because he's got AI. So, you know, just like little things that are different that will, I think, eventually lead to a very, very different life. And I think there's really important to be as much of an optimist as a cynic. and I think it's very easy in this world to be quite cynical and quite depressed at the state of the world and actually there are some really important sort of ways that we can think there's never been more freedom and opportunity for women

there's never been you know so much choice as a young woman and acceptance as a young woman I worry about young men but that's another conversation there's never been you know so much access to the world information, access to the world's marketplace, you know, the potential to grow your own business, build your own wealth, the capacity to do that has never been more, you know, available to you in the palm of your hand. You not just have access to the marketplace in the UK, but the global marketplace. There's never been such freedom of movement, like, you know, I mean, within reason,

that there are reasons to be cheerful, and I think that's as important as you're all screwed if you don't, you know, have the bank of mum and dad, or you don't have this and you don't do this and you don't do this. Okay, I do take a point. And I would like to join you in this optimism, but my brain is stuck on the, I worry about young men as a mother of five sons. So have you got a nugget of optimism for me there, please? Do you know, it's all I could think about. You said it. It's not so optimistic. So I have, it's amazing, by the way, that you've got five sons and you're still standing. I think the thing I think about with young men is number one, how domesticated they have to be, because no woman's going to put up with a non-domesticated male.

Number one, right? Because we're all in dual-income households where we need men step up domestically as much as, right? So number one, the domesticated male, as David Attenborough would talk about. I think number two is the social skills. that have been in decline really since the 2010s because of screens, the ability to look people in the eye, the ability to listen and read body language as much as project their own voice.

You know, I went on a lot of dates in my 20s where a man would speak and not shut up and never asked me a question. And guess what? I never married them. You know, like, the socialisation of boys around girls is I think really, really important. But just generally, in the workplace, you know, I think that's just the capacity to be, to have those social skills.

And thirdly, I think to be able to sort of feel, be, and project confident masculinity. Masculinity is not a dirty word, is not a negative thing. It's something that we should be championing. It's not something that's set. It's not something that looks a certain way. And it's unique to the individual.

But it's something that, you know, it's about being confident and happy within yourself and not to project that in an overbearing way or in a negative way and certainly not in a toxic way. And I think to recognise that you know, I have a girl and a boy and women need men as much as men need women. And at the moment, I find a lot of the conversation between the genders really, really negative. And we need to find a better way of having a conversation about how we need each other. And I'm not just talking about

partnerships. I'm talking about in the workplace. Coexisting. Coexisting. Listening to one another. Exactly. Yeah, I agree with that too. And I think that. And that's everybody's job to get involved with that. And we need to shed some of the traditional associations of masculinity that, frankly, are not an economic reality anymore. Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot of traditional things that need to be shed. Certainly, does that feel more optimistic? It's given me enough to build a dream on. Amazing. I can leave you with the fact that one of my kids, I said, well, you look after me when I'm old.

And he said, yes, but only for a day or two. So I've still got some work. A day or two. A day or two. I'm not sure if they're consecutive. so fat. I'll do my best. I feel like we should regroup in like 10 years and check in with each other about how we're getting on.

Thank you so much. Pleasure. Absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, thank you, Eliza. Yeah, I agree with her actually. It's good to remember that masculinity is not a dirty word. So yes.

Hope for our sons. People raising sons up there. But also, what a fascinating chat. It has made me think about things a bit. It really has. And it was so nice to speak to someone who knows their stuff so well. I just, as I said at the beginning, I feel like there were loads of other stuff we could have spoken about as well.

But that is a nice feeling, actually. I know I've mentioned this before, but being able to... Sorry, crossing road. Yep, okay, look both ways. Being able to have these really proper conversations through the podcast is literally my favourite thing. Always feel better after the chats. And so interesting, yes. Nice to wake up some brain cells or challenge things as well.

So when I spoke to you at the beginning of this episode, I was in sort of Hackney Way at a park with my sister and my baby niece and my youngest two. I am now, it's the next day now, and it's... I'm walking through the rain near my house. On a Sunday morning, it's not even 9 a.m. and I've just dropped one of the kids off at a party. And honestly, it felt like we were getting up at like 4 a.m. this morning, even though we weren't.

I had to really drag the little chap out of bed, get him dressed, and drop him off, he's off to a swim park. I think he'll have lots of fun, but it just felt quite a me. I felt like we were like, it felt so early and dark. Getting him up at, I don't know, 7.45 or something. Yeah, Sunday today. And I guess I better do some packing. I'm very, very unprepared for this trip that I'm doing on Wednesday

where I fly away, go to back to Australia, and then on to New Zealand and all that. And I'm just, I can't wait for the gigs. I'm really looking forward to seeing my band again. I actually have missed the band. We spend so much time together, and I haven't seen them for about six weeks. I missed them. That'd be fun, and all my crew, obviously.

But I also feel like, oh, it's been so nice to be home, and I'm still so happy, like, sorting things and bothering and organizing. And I kind of feel like I'm going to start this trip, and then I'm going to blink, and it's springtime, because I've got quite a lot of travel after this. But it's okay. It's okay. This is not a moan. It's just a way to process what's about to occur while I'm feeling all sorts of hibernatee. Yes, it's definitely a word.

Right. Well, listen, have a great week. I hope for other Londoners like me that this weather lifts a little bit. I'm walking in the rain. It's just a bit sad, isn't it? I just miss the blue sky, sunshine. Don't mind if it's cold? Just give me a little bit of something hopeful, please. and I'll back next week with another episode. Thank you to Richard Jones for editing the podcast. Thank you to Claire Jones for being such a brilliant cheerleader and producer. Thank you to LMA for the gorgeous artwork. Thank you for all else to, well, actually two people.

My guest this week said Dr. Liza Filby, thank you. And obviously you, you and your gorgeous ears. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful week. And we'll see you again for another one time. Let's laugh.