Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 29: Anna Whitehouse

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

Anna Whitehouse is a journalist, author and radio presenter and thefounder of Mother Pukka, 'a platform for people who happen to beparents'. She is a long-term campaigner in the fight for flexibleworking for everyone.We talked about the concept of family and how you can get trapped intobelieving that 2.4 children and a white picket fence equals happiness;we discussed flexible working hours and how other countries do itbetter (yes I'm talking about the Netherlands and Sweden again!) andwe agreed that it is time to end the 1950s hapless dad trope - or asshe put it, "men don't want to just spunk and leave, they want toparent!" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector 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 work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, 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 bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hiya, how are you? I'm sheltering from the rain. What is going on with the weather?

We've had a few days of it being a bit sunnier and obviously now that April the 12th has been in past we're allowed now to go out and have meals outside and to do more stuff outdoors and the weather is just laughing at us it's flipping freezing out there today um my kids want to see their friends and do stuff. And not only is it about, I don't know, seven degrees, but it's also raining. So thanks a lot for that, April, springtime. See you later. This is not a weather report. This is an introduction to a podcast.

How are you? How's everything else going with you? What's been going on this week? We've had some haircuts. That's quite exciting. with you what's been going on this week we've had some haircuts that's quite exciting uh my children can see again because they'd all got really quite extraordinary haircuts it was almost like i'm doing some sort of hair experiment just do a haircut last year and then just leave it to grow out as long as you like um there was just lots of visibility issues really but some of them look quite cool my eight-year-old

ray he really suited the slightly grown-out thing so now he's had a haircut we've kept that similar style similarly my youngest mickey he had such long hair beautiful actually and i'd cut a very cruel little fringe across the front but then my very clever friend Lisa, who is a hairdresser, came and did some haircuts for us in the legal way, of course. And she's given a very clever little haircut to Mickey, just soften off the sides so it now looks intentional, not neglectful. And raised dreadlocks have gone and Sonny can see again. And I've got a kind of fringy thing going on.

And today, Mickey, the two-year-old, is dressed in little tracksuit bottoms and a little sweatshirt, and he looks very much like his alter ego. I had on my baby name list, if he'd been a girl, the name Sue. So sometimes I say to him, you're right, Sue. And today he does very much look like a Sue, with his little hairdo and his sort of sweatpants combo. He looks like he's called Sue and he's in his middle age and he's living in Florida. Happy, happy Sue, but still Sue. That is the expert introduction to the podcast this week. I'm sure it had all the information you were expecting

and hoping for from me. I haven't really had a lot else going on. It's been pretty quiet this week, except for the fact that all the kids are off on Easter holidays, of course. And I just had some pictures hung in my house because there was loads of pictures. I kept buying things on eBay and I finally found homes. One of them is a comically freaky picture.

It's a sort of oil painting from, I think, the 60s. It's a woman, close of a woman's face wearing a bright yellow jumper i think it's pretty cool but when my teenager saw it he said to me mommy do you buy these pictures because they freak us out or is that just something that comes along with it i'd say it's probably a bit of both if i'm being honest this week's episode of spinning plates sees me talk to the way more sensible than me and a white house we had such a good chat you know when you speak to people actually i've been this week's episode of Spilling Plates sees me talk to the way more sensible than me, Anna Whitehouse. We had such a good chat. You know, when you speak to people, actually, I've been lucky with this. I think for a lot of the conversations I've had for the podcast,

when you speak to someone and the conversation just flowed, we were on a little bit of a time constraint because Anna had other things to do straight after. But I did feel we could have spoken for a lot longer. There were so many fascinating topics. Anna, she works as a journalist and broadcaster and a writer. She's written books about parenting and expectations. And she's very funny about all those things. She also is a presenter on Heart Radio. And she writes for various publications. There's lots of journalism.

But for the last few years, she's also been someone who's campaigning for flexible working hours now my brain went straight to oh that's great for parents because obviously a lot of parents want to be able to be flexible to make sure that we can curtail our working hours to make sure that we're in the right place at the right time with regards to our parenting responsibilities as well but she was very quick to point out that there's loads of people that can benefit from it as you will hear so we had a talk about that there's loads of people that can benefit from it, as you will hear. So we had a talk about that. She's very knowledgeable about her subject. She's got loads of really interesting bits of information about how flexible working could be something that would work for lots of people and about where the government have been letting people down

and where they need to be lobbied. So like I said, I feel like we could have spoken for a lot longer because she's a smart cookie and she knows her stuff. She's also mother to two little girls and you get the impression that she's doing what she's doing not just for her but for them so that they can turn around one day and say, I now can have the style of job I want and work the way I want to work it. And how brilliant is that? So I will pass over to her and to our chat and I'll see you on the other side. and to our chat and I'll see you on the other side and I'm just gonna enjoy my new haircut from the warm room looking out onto a cold and miserable April April will you lighten up please

apparently it's supposed to be much nicer next week so you've been writing about and thinking about flexible working hours. Is it right since about 2015? Yeah. Yeah, so it was 2015 when I came back from Amsterdam where I was living. I'm half Dutch and I'd kind of experienced a life over there where my boss would go home on time, you know, and would encourage everyone to go home on time. And I remember it took me sort of two years to really unlearn the ways of the UK there.

I just thought everyone was a slacker. Nobody cared about their jobs. And then I realized, actually, we got it wrong. And I came back to London and I put my flexible working request in. I was working for the L'Oreal group at the time as a senior copywriter and I left on very good terms we're still working together I didn't leave because I wasn't worth it um and I hadn't even thought of that line so it's good you said that now definitely worth it but I put my request in to come in 15 minutes earlier and leave 15

minutes earlier and it was declined like most companies did at the time because it would open the floodgates to other people seeking flexibility and I quit in that moment and that's when I launched Flex Appeal to question just what is the fear of allowing people to work around caring responsibilities. It just didn't seem like rocket science to me. And was this something that was, I mean, because most people that flexible working hours would, sort of people I particularly appeal to, I imagine, are a lot of working parents.

So was that in response to becoming a parent? Had you already had your first baby then? I think, do you know what it was in response to? Was I started out wanting to be a barrister and I was doing my mini pupillage at Devro Chambers on Chancery Lane. And I remember looking around and just going, okay, there's no women here beyond 30. And I remember curtailing my own career age 21 and moving to journalism because I could see some element of freelance uh you know capabilities around that and so it was kind of for that 21 year old girl

who and I know there were lots of 21 year old girls who were sort of looking ahead going how do you get beyond that motherhood point so yes it sort of started as I kind of hit motherhood but I was kind of aware of it at 21. And it's not, it was never for parents. And this is the biggest kickback I get is in the Daily Mail comments is like, oh, it's that mummy again, wanting to see more of her Weetabix matter children. And I'm like, no, this is for the guy who wants to bake a cottage pie for his dad who's got Alzheimer's on a Wednesday. You know, this is for those living with disabilities. This is for those with caring responsibilities.

It's for those who just want to live. Like the HR director at Virgin Media, she quite famously said, she said, I'm not a fan of kids, don't like kids. I like to go to V&A on a Friday morning between 9 and 11 when there's less people there so I go there and that helps me clear my head and I'm better at my job because of that so I think yes I hit this like big brick wall that I think a lot of parents hit but it really is uh for everyone and until it's for everyone um it won't it won't work no and it's interesting that it first occurred to you at 21 so just so I get something so you were living in Amsterdam for a while so before have you sort of split your time

then between the UK and Holland is that how it's worked for you yes so uh I've basically been betwixt and between so I've experienced both sides of the coin, so to speak. And I was working at Tommy Hilfiger in Amsterdam. And honestly, it was just my boss going, hey, guys, it's time to go home. I mean, I'm really doing a disservice to my people with that accent. But there was just a real acknowledgement that family, and that's family, not 2.4 kids in a white picket fence. That's humans, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your dog, your newt, whatever it is that gets you out of bed in the morning. They put family at the top of the tree. And that's something I could see working between the two worlds across the English Channel that the UK doesn't do.

It's business above everything else. And that's kind of what I wanted to question. Yeah. No, I think that's actually really, you know, worth making that distinction. As you say, family is a broad and amorphous thing. You know, it's whatever it means to you, however that resonates.

And being able to pick and choose the things that make your quality of life good. And also, if you're a happier person because your quality of life is better, chances are you're going to be a better employee anyway. You're going to work better. You'll be more dedicated. You'll set aside your time.

I think just having that trust that people can sort of delegate how they work best so long as they're still fulfilling the contract of how many hours they're supposed to work and the work that needs to be done. Exactly, yep. And while you've been talking, so you had the barrister and the journalism

and working at L'Oreal and working at Tommy Filfer. I've already counted four different sort of job things. Have you had lots of chopping and changing, the sort of thread of love of, I suppose, words and expression sort of running through it? Yeah, I think that's a word monger. Is that the word? I think communication. Is that the word? I think communication. I think I started out because I was hacked off about, you know, injustice. Like that's why you kind of go into law. And I fast realised that probably law wasn't always the best place to be for that. But I remember leaving my first job in journalism when I left the bar was on Practical Caravan magazine.

And I don't think, Sophie, unless you have been a tow bar expert on Practical Caravan magazine, that you can truly call yourself a wordsmith because I remember telling my parents when I'd left law and was like, but I've got my first job in journalism. And they're like, on what magazine? I mean, details aren't important, you know. And I think, you know, one also has to question, is there an impractical caravan?

You know, like, can you imagine impractical caravan magazine? Just, you know, a two-wheeler thing sat on the M5. Impractical, yeah, it's true. How long were you at a practical caravan magazine then? then i mean it was short-lived uh i i've fast got a promotion to practical motorhome uh and then moved on to horticulture week where in all you know in all jest uh all of the jobs i've had have all been to do with communication and i think um the best job in that was probably working for horticulture week where I would just ring up like Sid down in Bognor Regis and go mate um Frank up the road thinks

your slug pellets are shit what do you think can he be like you fucking bastard and that would be that would be my story which is far preferable to interviewing celebrities to be honest who have a sort of veneer and have people around them stopping them from communicating yeah ultimately so um you know it's uh yeah it's always been about communication so just sort of getting a bit of a timeline then so law was your first love and this sort of sense of injustice so did you sorry did you actually finish that then did you complete your barrister training no i i I stopped just after, just at the point when you would go to the bar. And that's when I moved into journalism. So I knew I always wanted to be a

mother. And I quite simply, I said to you earlier, the optics just weren't right in, you know, within law at that point. And I've had a lot of conversations with the marketing department at the bar since and they've said it has got a lot better you know things are shifting but they're not shifting quickly enough and I was interested in being on the other side where I could perhaps question and report on the issues that I have absolutely faced and the issues I know my children will face and how actually we can build a bridge between what's actually being said and what's being done. Yeah, and I think, you know, so many aspects of that sort of working life, it's ensconced in such

a lot of tradition, particularly I imagine when it comes to like the legal world where these things, you know, it's been done the same way for such a long time. so the little changes that they think are making big differences aren't aren't really getting to the nub of it and I think as well people forget to question a lot of things about how we how we live quite a lot of the time but actually I know I do understand why it's been really important especially with as you said this sort of daily mail comment thing to make sure that people understand this is not about working parents it's far far broader than that however once you've got the attention of working parents you have harnessed like quite a massive mob of people who really care about this and it affects them all the time and it for a lot of people it is the first time they've really had

to think about it in those ways because you feel like the work I had before it just doesn't fit anymore and sometimes your job tells you that and sometimes your heart tells you that. And so I suppose sort of working from the concentric circles or coming outwards of what your new job is and then looking backwards might make you think, actually, there's room for change there because I was actually really good at that job and I still like aspects of it and I miss aspects of it,

but you have to sacrifice so much along the way to make it work. And I suppose the big thing that's happened now is with lockdown, everything's been flipped. So how has that sort of affected the FlexiHours working campaign, what's been going on for the last 12 months? I love what you said earlier about a mob. I think definitely there's a mob out there, like a really knackered, slightly unhinged parental mob,

just wanting things to change. Just kind of walking around like slightly sort of eye twitching, but really angry. I think the big point for me was that, you know, the companies that were saying, no, it absolutely won't happen. It's not possible for our industry. It had to be possible in 24 hours uh in the context of a pandemic yeah there was no choice if companies hadn't logged on and zoomed in they'd have just simply had to shut down yeah and i think what is interesting is when cold hard cash is at stake what actually is possible for humans the humans that work there. And I think I saw a lot of kickback weeks before the pandemic and then literally those companies that were saying,

not possible, it was indeed possible overnight. And I think you've got to have a moment for how much of a slap in the face that is to a lot of people who are living with disabilities who had been told, no, this job is office-based, it's five days a week, you cannot have this job, I'm afraid, unless you can come into the office. And then actually to see those roles facilitated, I think is quite galling for a lot of people who refused any kind of flexibility for many reasons, not just parental reasons. But you know I think flexible working is nothing like working from home I cannot see uh that meme about Sir Isaac Newton uh coming up with like the theory of calculus in like 1665

in the bubonic plague you know I was like great good for him did he have a child uh hitting him overhead with a paw patrol spoon whilst trying to come up with that I don't think he did you know um you know well done for productivity Sir Isaac Newton really glad you sort of cracked on there but um you know he wasn't wrangling over a pink spoon and a blue spoon and I think um what uh parents went through within uh the pandemic was nothing short of traumatic in places you know having to be torn between your head got to earn money got to pay the bills got to keep my job and your heart got to you know teach this child compound pronoun and make sure they're okay,

disconnected from all of their friends. We were literally being torn in half. And I still think a lot of us are in a mild sort of PTSD space with that because you had men at the top, Boris Johnson saying, well done to all the mummies for doing all of the work. And it's like, I don't want to be patted on the head. I don't need all the, you know, patronising accolades from you and Rishi. I need you going forward to look into childcare.

I need you to make it part of our infrastructure, like roads, like railways, like signposts. Because without that that we're never going to have an equal society yeah and uh i think you know there was just a lot of a lot of uh clarity on the fact that uh we're not represented at the top and why is it still knackered mums piping up saying there are these issues that we're ultimately waking up in a Margaret Atwood novel at the moment where women are just stepping back from their careers because you know Sophie when you say well whose job is more important within a lockdown household it's ultimately a man's job because of the gender pay gap you know financially systemically they're going to be earning more so women are just stepping down so yes it afforded

a hint of flexibility in terms of we were allowed to work from home but that's not what that's not flexible working in its truest form but at the same time you know terrifying amounts of women have logged off from their careers so um it's been yeah it's been a fairly devastating situation for women yeah and I'm doing lots and lots of furious nodding with you there there's so many things there that I completely agree with I mean I suppose first and foremost the the PTSD element of what we've all been through this sort of trauma and I feel like the fallout of a lot of it is happening sort of the worst now in terms of people's mental health and sort of where we've you know now that everything is the adrenaline of that first bit of lockdown has

sort of gone and now we're left with this bit where you know we've been alone with our thoughts a lot anything that's made any sort of cracks in your foundations have had lots and lots of pressure put on top of it so a lot of that's got much more pronounced and I think some of the termology that's been applied for the last year has been really unhelpful. I suppose for me, it's always been the homeschooling one that I struggled with the most because it was only really recently that my mum and I were chatting about it and she said, oh, it's actually emergency education. I thought, you know, if they'd said that at the beginning, I think I would have felt better about not being that good at it because

I wasn't set up to be, if I wanted to homeschool my kids, I would have felt better about not being that good at it because I wasn't set up to be if I wanted to homeschool my kids I would have done it and also for all the people out there who are already homeschooling their children by choice they're going to have to spend a lot of time going no no not that kind of homeschooling I mean actual homeschooling you know we did it probably you know an hour away and we were actually trying to respond and absolutely they've been I know that I can't remember the statistic that's attached to it but yes it is primarily the women that have had to downscale their jobs and have had to step back and have had to pick up the slack with a lot of the family aspects and it sort of taps into a lot of things for me because when I first started doing this podcast and I was thinking about what talking to working women and then I suddenly thought oh hang on a minute you know my my being

a bit old school here is this is it still a thing that mothers feel like I do sometimes and I thought of course it's still a thing there's still so much so further to take things when it comes to our ability to assert ourselves the pay gap the ways we want to work um the opportunities we feel we have for ourselves and the support we give each other so there's lots of that that resonated with me and it also there's something else I read that you you'd written that really I thought I was again thinking that's exactly right is that we're encouraged when we're at the workplace to pretend we don't have families and when we're at home to pretend we don't have jobs and I think for me that came into such sharp relief when suddenly I was trying to work here and I realized I'd not really

given my work a whole lot of space in the house actually I sort of downplayed it a lot so it'd be interesting to see how we all emerge and what we've sort of all learned from trying to actually assert it a bit more and give it a bit more agency about the things that matter to us and not just needing to work on the money aspect but also needing it from how it makes you feel as a 360 person. Exactly. I've said over and over to close friends of mine, I am really not interested in having it all. That is, you know, a, I wouldn't even say it's a utopian vision for anyone. I'm not interested in that, but I do want something and I'm going to fight for that something. And I think it's very easy to, as we've seen in lockdown, when under pressure with emergency childcare, with emergency homeschooling, all of it was an urgent emergency situation. and the first to step back from work.

We know that. Like the Institute for Fiscal Studies saw that 47% of mothers logged off from their careers compared to fathers in lockdown. So it's not even a feeling, it's fact. And I think that we have a responsibility, and I say this, we as in everyone yeah to have hard conversations within your own household you know because the reality is things aren't going to change at the top for any time soon you know there are you can't wait for lobbyists or campaigners to shift this it's

going to take a long time but what you can do right now is have that conversation within your own home and say you know know what, systemically, you're going to be earning more because of the way this is set up. But in terms of our own relationship going forward, the resentment that is going to build by being forced to step away from what you want to do. Yes, money is essential, but hardly any couples did flexible furlough in lockdown. It was always predominantly a man continued working, women was furloughed. And so what you could have done in that situation has gone,

why don't we both furlough to an extent, hold on to the something that we both care about whilst both earning and share the care load, share the domestic load, share the invisible labour. But that didn't happen and i think um it's just testament to the fact that you know the gender pay gap reporting was scrapped entirely in 2020 yeah that was from the equality uh the women's equality minister she scrapped it so if she does if liz trust doesn't have our back you know that's kind of a fairly terrifying indicator of where we sit right now and this isn't about scaremongering but I think

that we can have these conversations in our own homes as to whose job is more important and why financially someone's job is deemed more important it It's not often, sometimes it is just different jobs, but often it's down to equal pay. And, you know, I don't want to raise my daughters for a fool. And that's why, you know, we won't stop campaigning to level this playing ground until they hit the workforce, to be quite frank. Yeah. No, it's definitely worth fighting for. for and I think do you find you often speak to people who you're surprised that they

they don't care about it more and then after the conversation they sort of realize actually this does affect me and this is something I should should be fighting for more yeah well I heard from a guy a couple of weeks ago lovely man who said he'd put a flexible working request into his boss. And his boss said, well, can't your missus do that? Talking about nursery pickup. And he was like, my missus is a brain surgeon, so you can decide which way you want to go on that. She's in surgery on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And it's that unconscious bias that

just sits at the top the assumption that of course your job's going to be more important than your wife's um and there's no acknowledgement of compromise or meeting in the middle um and so you know I think it's very real. That's an example. But I only have 4% of men following me on Instagram. You know, that gives some indication to, we're not ready for this conversation. I'm not interested in expanding my mind in this area. And so, you know, I wonder why I'm sitting in a kind of echo chamber of agreement when we talk about male allies. We do need men to step up, as that guy did, and message me saying, this is terrible that my boss assumed this. And I'm like, yes, it is. It truly is. And my husband uses the example of when you feel like like uh you know an eco warrior for having

recycled a plastic bottle um and you pat yourself on the back and you're like you know greta's going to be really proud of me i'm here i'm a champion and actually you need to look around the rest of your house and go what else can we look at here this is just the beginning uh and that's how i think male allyship needs to be considered is that yes it's brilliant to have done a few bits shout loudly about that but there is so much more to do if not for your wife if not for your sister for your daughters yeah absolutely it's funny because obviously you're the mother of two girls but I have I have sons and I want them to be it actually does them a disservice, I think,

to not be part of the conversation as well because I want them to feel that they have every option about how they, the kind of relationships they have, how the dynamic is, what they feel is important to them. You know, one of the women I spoke to, my podcast not long ago, she, you know, her husband had done all the childcare when the little one was the first sort of two years.

You know, and that's that everybody should be supported in those choices that they make. And what makes sense for you and your couple without, as you say, that unconscious bias that's just, it's so intrinsic, though, isn't it? So ingrained, it's quite hard sometimes to really, really get to the root of that. It does take so much time, but also the next generation, hopefully be part of that, that new way of thinking when they see how things can be. And think that's it is uh this kind of hapless dad trope of like the 1950s you know when men would kind of bring the bacon home and women would cook the bacon it's just so archaic and it is every man I know wants to parent you know I don't mean to be uh

brash here but they don't just spunk and leave predominantly you know like it's not a case of like right I've done my job you know David Attenborough filming could be like well you know the the male has done his bit you know just post ejaculation it's um it's it's the fact that we're doing men a disservice as you said we're doing dads a disservice in assuming well can't your missus do that well no I want to do it yeah it's about choice and I think you know this comes into plays into shared parental leave the fact there's only been a sort of two percent uptake uh and that's predominantly the system isn't working but also it's companies not really encouraging it and not pushing it. Only one in four, I think it's four in ten flexible working requests goes through for women.

One in ten goes through for men. So, again, the assumption that, well, we won't give it to you because, you know, your partner is obviously going to be able to do the childcare or whatever care it is. Yeah, for all the international women's days, sellotape together. This is not a man bashing exercise of anything. It's trying to just raise men's voices in this, I think, because it's not emasculating to care for your own kid. And I think the only starkest example I have of this

uh Sophie is when I was on a press trip to Sweden to interview lots of companies about gender equality over there and there was a journalist from the New York Times and she was looking around she's like what's with all these like male nannies everywhere? And I was like, they're dads parenting. Like, this is what it should look like. Wow. And that was two years ago, you know, and it comes back to the optics. You see dads at the school gates. You see dads on the nursery run. You know, it's a shifting world and we need the business world to catch up with that.

And it's woefully behind. That's very true. And I was going to ask you, how do we compare with other countries then? business world to catch up with that and it's woefully behind that's very true and um what was i going to ask you yeah how do we compare with other countries then where are we at i suppose you've got a lot of experience with how it is in holland but um do you it sounds like you travel and sort of see what's happening elsewhere as well well you know when i um when i've got my practical caravan towed uh and ready to. Tow bar. Tow bar ready to go. To check out, you know, the gender equal societies of the world.

So that's a caravan trip and a half, isn't it? It is. You have to just smash the patriarchy tattooed on the side of my arm and graffitied across my chassis. Yeah, so I i mean for example uh finland has introduced um a working hours act that came into um play in january 2020 that gives all employees uh the choice of working where and when they want for half of their working time oh Oh, wow. So that's enshrined in law. So, you know, we're scrabbling about here in the UK. You know, we've got 26 weeks you've got to get through

within employment to even ask for flexibility, to request it, so it's something you're lucky to have. And it's seen as a sort of bonus ball or kind of ping pong table in reception. You know, it's the equivalent of that. It's not seen as uh i think other countries see it as a fundamental shift in the fabric of how we work it's seen as a little extra it's like well let's give that one to the mummies because they want to see more of

their kiddies and it's not it's for everyone and uh i think the sc Scandinavian countries are steaming ahead on this. Finland is the third most gender equal country in the world. We're not even on the list. You know, we scrapped our gender pay gap reporting last year, you know, like, and we were, when we got it reinstated, we campaigned for months around reinstating gender pay gap reporting because we need to see where we currently sit right now and we were made to feel like transparency was a win well done ladies you've got it back you know that's to give some idea of where we sit right now um but you know things are moving forward and uh you know the like i said i i'd say holland isn't perfect but i bring it right the way back to the fact that this is about family and we need to be very clear

on family being people not kids not mums not dads it's about a boyfriend becoming perhaps engaged to not disengaged from his girlfriend yeah yeah uh it's about a guy who messaged me a couple of years ago and said he likes to pop back on his lunch break just to feed his newt you know called clive you know clive is no less important than your sons and my daughters you know it's for people to live and we know on a very basic uh if we're talking the cold hard cash level that treating humans in a humane way in the office is good for business it just makes more money so you can tell the business is where people are well treated because everybody just tends to be much easier to work with. It's like when you go into some business, you're like,

why is everybody grumpy here? And then you think, well, they must have a horrible situation. Situation, yeah. And I think, I don't know what jobs you've had in the past, but if anyone's listening right now, I'm sure everyone's had this experience where you have to get in by 9am and it's like this big block of must get in at 9am and somebody gets in at 8.59am and they're like good employee well done congratulate you someone

gets in at 9.02am because there were leaves on the line their child was screaming at nursery all kinds of human factors bad employee you know needs to be hauled in front of HR if this continues yeah and you're talking about three minutes and you're setting your employees up at that point for a massive fall you're pitting them against each other yeah it's just not a healthy way of working yeah and it sort of brings it back to what you're saying before of like what people scared about actually if they do have these conversations where what's the what's the fear here really um we've talked about your girls a couple of times so they are are they am I right they're about eight and four is that right yeah that's right yeah okay perfect so what was happening in your life when you had your first baby were you working then

were you in Holland then yes so I was working then and uh I had her so I've had one child in Amsterdam and one in London so we've really experienced the two sides of things. And my first, we had, we'd suffered quite a lot of miscarriages before having her. And I think I had sort of assumed naively that you kind of, you know, get your job, you find your partner, you maybe settle down, have a baby. And the having a baby side of it really, you know, broke us, to be honest. We had had three miscarriages before conceiving May, sorry, before conceiving my eldest. And yeah, it was, it was a lot harder than I ever thought it

would be. But my husband wrote a really heartbreaking and heartwarming blog post two years after we'd gone through everything and May was sort of safely here that just said, and it really hit the point for me, was you can't let trying for a baby stop you from living. And I think we had stopped really living for a while. We were just so consumed by this sort of failure to almost get on the road. You know, you sort of were seeing everyone else driving around and you're like, how can I not even pass my test? Like, it can't be that hard. And I had what was called a hostile uterus, which if we're talking about phrases, you know, it doesn't really help to hear that. You know, I was a geriatric pregnancy with a hostile uterus. I mean, that's a girl band if ever you heard one. Can you imagine that's going to be our girl band, Sophie?

It's definitely the band with the first single. Hostile uterus is headlining glastonbury this year have that on your camper van i'm ready but i mean it's easy to say oh don't let the trying stop living but how do you really do that because i think it's such as it can also be such a silent sort of thing can't it just between the two of you it's so private at that time if you're trying to have a baby and you know miscarriages if every everyone has their own emotions with that you know it's it can be really devastating but it's not something that everybody feels they can talk about and sometimes it's just the two of you in it together and especially for I'd imagine, for the dad, the guy, they don't

necessarily know where to place themselves in that because it's not physically happening to them. And so yeah, it can be really hard for couples, can't it, to know how to navigate that together. Yeah. And I think it comes back to this definition of family family again was I heard uh this vision of what a family was and it was it included children and actually when Matt and I I remember the time when we said look we need to stop uh it was becoming almost a vicious cycle of obsession around find getting this family we need a family we need a family otherwise you need a family. Otherwise, you know, we're not complete. And actually, when you ask how you can sort of ensure that trying doesn't stop you from living, it was in looking at him and going, you are my family. The two of us are family. You're right in front of me. And I am consumed by grief right now and it is breaking us

and we are losing each other in this and actually I need to be clear on who my family is and I reiterate like my sister she's her own family she was very happy, and was choosing to be single. That was her choice. And her family was herself, you know. And I think we are still embroiled in this 2.4 kids white picket fence equals success. You know, it's the same with work. Glass-walled office, red-soled shoes equals success. No, success, ironically to me is uh doing a lot less is being a lot more present for the people in my life um and matt and i wrote a book off the back of all this called

where's my happy ending and i think the biggest takeaway from that was from the uk's longest serving fisherman derrick west who'd been married for like 75 years. And he said, Anna, it was like, you gotta stop expecting your partner to save you. You can't put all that on their shoulders. He's like, when I'm out at sea, he's like, it's one of the lads out on the boats hauling in whelks who pulls me back on board. Not my wife, you know, she's not there. He said, it's my neighbour, Norman, who lets me in, you know, through his back door when I've locked myself out. He said, it's Anne down the road at the corner shop who lets me pay her back the next day for a bottle of, you know, a pint of milk because I forgot the change. He said, it's a community thing. And he

said, stop being so insular. And I think as a society, we've become so insular and I think as a society we've become so insular and so consumed by this small phone so looking down instead of looking up at who's around us and I think that was a very good lesson because actually I'm not interested in being together forever or you know him being my one and only uh I want to be together today and I will not take the rest for granted. And I think that has been where we've seen a real shift through the grief we've experienced with miscarriage, through all of Mother Nature's cruelest games of sort of snakes and ladders that you sort of get thrown at you along the way uh the only way I think to get through it is in acknowledging what you have in that day at that moment and not looking forward to this chasm of 40 years until

you know till death do us part yeah um so you know that's how we really started living again yeah was uh being each other's family yeah and I think as well that really helps harness you with a good sense of being quite resolved as the years go by as well because things do chop and change all the time. And if you've got an idea of where you're supposed to get to, even if you did reach that bit which you think, okay, now I'm living in the area I want and I've had the child I want and I'm doing the job, it doesn't necessarily equate to feeling

this pure sense of contentment. And actually the more you try and search for that the more chance you have of never really getting anywhere near it really and I think that sort of happiness and resolve in you know the person you're with and the love you have and the life you put around you is absolutely I suppose the only sort of things that can really trip you up um and this definitely so I felt like I had to sort of learn that can really trip you up um and this definitely so I felt like I had to sort of learn from a bit is the fact that there's a lot of casual things that happen around us in terms of what people feel they're allowed to talk about with you where you think they can really cut quite deep just the casual things the comments about

about your life and the bits where they think oh I thought you'd have um this by now and you don't so you know this awkward dinner party chat if you know what I mean like and that can be cruel comments about oh you've had one baby I expect you'll be wanting another when actually you are trying to have another or um I don't know asking someone if they're pregnant when actually they've recently had a miscarriage or uh making comments about the kid you have when actually you know they don't know what's going on behind the scenes or the sort of, I don't know why we feel it's completely normal to make comments about those things when we don't have a clue what's going on in someone's life, really. I think, yeah, and I think it often comes from a genuine place.

Yeah, that's true. I think there's, you know, I've had lots of chats with people because I think one of the worst things you can always say to somebody who's suffered a miscarriage is, at least you can get pregnant you know you wouldn't say to somebody who's broken their leg well at least you've got another one you know and I remember having those conversations but I also had great conversations behind the scenes from people saying but all I was meaning in that was trying to communicate maybe badly but I was trying to reach out to somebody and I think you know we do need to be aware of how we come across. But I think also we can't lose in that sometimes people's intentions aren't to harm

and I think aren't to snoop. I think it's just we sometimes are caught in this loop of questions that have been there for centuries, unfortunately, and lead to break out of absolutely but I think I feel more confident now being able to speak openly and say well it's actually quite difficult for us right now and I don't feel it's you know and it's filled by anger in any way it's not really even fueled by hurts it's just honesty and re-shift shifting the conversation to acknowledge that actually it is hard to have children yeah for some uh and actually those

dinner party chats then start to dissolve when I think you do respond with what you feel comfortable responding with but I've often had some of the most beautiful conversations with people where I have said well it's not really working for us at the moment. It's been hard. And then actually that person has come back and said, you know what? It's been hard for us too. I don't even know why I asked that. You know, like it's, yeah, it's often humans trying to communicate, but often doing it in a way that, you know, is it doesn't always hit the mark.

Yeah. And I suppose you're right. you know is it doesn't always hit the mark yeah and I suppose you're right it's the sort of living and learning that gives you that that insight really and that gentleness and wanting to say actually that's not how it is for us and then having that different conversation that's actually really nice and sometimes you end up thinking you know having a really lovely chat about something and you have a proper conversation where you properly interact is that is this something you've sort of um learned through your experiences or like what's your mum like has she been someone you that you think you're quite similar to in your parenting and your outlook on life well funnily enough i was gonna say that i had this conversation with a good friend

this weekend how deeply sad i am that my mum was of a generation that hid pain away, that didn't acknowledge things as basic as the menopause, that didn't acknowledge baby loss, that I have moments, quite chilling moments of thinking of the number of women mourning the loss of a child in an avocado or peach bathroom, you know, next to a bidet in the 80s, not speaking to even their husband, because those elements were seen as shame and failure. Whereas actually, I think we're now, you know, having these conversations right now, I'm talking to you about this in a way that I don't think our parents generation did. And it makes me feel very sad for the abundance of loneliness I think a lot of women felt in the past. And actually, baby loss isn't failure.

It's part of life. I think if my 21-year-old self was seeking to be a top barrister, my 40-year-old self is seeking to be a human, a flawed, messy, stressy human who is there, is present and has, like I say, not at all but something. I'm aware I don't have you for very much longer so I think I should probably just ask you maybe one more thing and thank you so much. I could definitely have spoken to you for longer. I feel like there's been so many things to chat about but I suppose with with your I mean

when you were talking about when you're 21 and you were near the law and then you could see that actually it's the words and expressing and communication that sort of pulled you the other side of the law thing but you know introduced it more to journalism but for some women when they have their kids it kind of shakes things up again and they sort of rejig it. But am I right when I say that it sounds like you kind of had a thread of what you were already doing and your kids have kind of been incorporated into the life you're already leading?

Yes, absolutely. Like, I launched Mother Pucker for people who happen to be parents. And I think it was not in any way to say that everybody needs to work around their children but it's about choice and that society needs to acknowledge that raising the next generation is a job it's an important job and it's one that businesses if they care about equality and it's not equality isn't something to just you know sweep off the table it's right at the center of everything we do so you know I think we need to recognize that there is for both men and women there are those caregiving roles around work and um so yeah I

think the fact that I've only just got I got my first radio show age 38 I've just got my first radio show aged 38. I've just got my first TV job aged 39. I think I have fought for that something for myself, but not at the cost of everything. And my children are my everything. And so I think it is important to acknowledge those two sides. And I have no shame in bringing my children if they want to Parliament, see what we're fighting for around flexible working because it's for them you know they've been to

parliamentary round tables they've been to hearings they've campaigned on the streets with me and they know why we're doing it you know because I cannot raise them to work hard in their ABCs their GCSEs their A-levels their university, to hit the same wooden door I hit. And I say that for your sons as much as my daughters, because the resounding message I am getting from men is, I want to parent. Please, can we stop seeing this as emasculating? Please, can we stop having bosses saying, can't your missus do that no I want to do it yeah yeah well I think that their daughters will benefit from that massively but also it sounds a bit like you see your kids the way I see mine which is that they are already

sort of the kernel of who they're going to end up being as adults but you just happen to be they happen to be children when you meet them and I think that kind of that way of seeing that through thread of like you know you're going to be I want you to be children when you meet them. And I think that kind of, that way of seeing that through thread of like, you know, you're going to be, I want you to help you get to that point where you feel your full self is actually really, really brilliant for them. So true. Yeah, and before you go, I do need to say though, my first boyfriend, he was obsessed with you.

And so there were like photos of you on his wall everywhere. And there were points where i told i texted him today saying just want to let you know uh i'm uh i'm gonna chat with sophie today and uh there was a point where it was either you or i and it was close to you know being murder on the dance floor so uh so you know i think you know I win is all I'm going to say well hopefully when you texted him to say that he didn't

text back something like I've gone off her now yeah no still fully obsessed then that gives my ego remains intact and how weird

for you that must have been are you still reading Practical Caravan magazine? Or is it still top of the list? I mean, those tow bars won't sell themselves, Sophie. You know, I have to say, it's... Like I say, I've moved on to Impractical Caravan.

Exactly. I prefer an Impractical Caravan. It's got my character. Definitely. definitely so that was Anna and I having a chat you see what I mean don't you about how we could have spoken for a lot longer I felt like there were loads more stones to turn because I knew Anna was going to be really interesting I knew she was whip smart and you have stuff so I've always got lots of questions and I love listening to people where they've really um got something to say for themselves and an angle to what they're up to and I like the fact that our conversation spanned yes all the campaigning but also the idea

of women through different generations and also so many brilliant points to make about dads and actually I think it's true when she said you know we're doing dads a disservice when we think that they don't want to be involved with parenting. Of course they do. There's so many aspects of, excuse me, there's so many aspects of society that are so endemically traditional. It's very hard to think about things objectively when so much is steeped in the way things have always been and what's passed down from before. It takes a lot to be able to step outside of yourself and say what works for me and what doesn't. It reminds me a little bit of when Richard and I

got married and we had an idea of what kind of wedding we want to have. And then you speak to people, I don't know, you might say, I'm getting my invitations printed up and they'll go, ah, you're having a wedding. In that case, you'll probably want these kind of fonts. And you have to say, oh, no, I think we could rope into lots of different ways that this invite could look. It doesn't have to be traditionally, you know, here's a wedding. This is a marriage. So I think it's the same thing sometimes with parenting, with how you and your partner are in your household. If you're in a couple, just all these things that there's so much expectation of what it is we go home to and what we find comforting and what is traditional

and the things that actually make us happy and make us function to the best of our ability and make us really sore. So I think it's really healthy for everybody really to have a little moment sometimes just to step outside of things and think, is everything I'm doing working for me me I guess we've all had to do that a little bit haven't we in the last year but maybe when we're all going back into work and back into a more structured predictable typical way of living maybe just pick and choose the bits that work for you because we've sort of proved it to ourselves haven't we that actually we can be put under quite a lot of stress and find ways some things do thrive and blossom in an unexpected way. But also, like Anna said, we've got to be tender with one another

because it's been quite traumatic. So yeah, lots of things to think about. And it was quite a serious chat in many ways, I suppose. But it's also something that's really healthy to examine and be passionate about. We all deserve to be doing the best that we can be in the way that works for us. We're all grown up enough to understand what having a job means and the expectations of that job but the way you might want to carry it out might be slightly different for each person. And actually while I've been talking to you and listening back the sun's come

out so I can bring it all back around to weather. Yes, the grey, stormy clouds have passed on, and I can see blue skies up ahead, people. I really can. I'm not just saying that for poetic license. There's a beautiful bit of blue sky on its way over here. And after it's passed me, hopefully it's winging its way to you. And I think this is the bit where I'm rambling too much. So this is what happens if I'm just allowed to talk,

essentially, to myself. I mean, obviously I'm rambling too much. So this is what happens if I'm just allowed to talk essentially to myself. I mean, obviously I'm talking to you, but I'm also talking to myself. If anyone was listening at the door right now, they'd think I was crazy. Is there anyone listening at the door? There's no one there. I've got a couple of people

I'm interviewing next week, which will be the final interview for the series three of this podcast. I don't really know which one I'm going to put out what a cliffhanger but I do know they're both really diverse really different and both will be really interesting chats so I promise I'll pick something I think is a really juicy way to finish series three and then the other one might be a really fantastic way to start series four which i'm already planning and doing interviews for so it's all rather exciting i hope you're excited to look out for that blue sky keep

safe stay happy Thank you.