The Netmums Podcast - S15 Ep9: Emma Barnett on maternity leave: The highs, lows, and everything in between

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

In this episode of The Netmums Podcast, Wendy Golledge and Alison Perry welcome the incredibly insightful Emma Barnett, an award-winning journalist and broadcaster known for her work on BBC Radio 4's Today programme and Women's Hour. Emma, a mother of two, shares her experiences surrounding maternity leave and the often-unspoken realities of motherhood. The conversation includes: - The Reality of Maternity Leave: Emma discusses the challenges of feeling both isolated and in need of connection during this transformative period. - Rebranding Maternity Leave: Emma proposes a new perspective on maternity leave, framing it as a time of service and kindness rather than just a break from work. - The Impact of IVF: Emma opens up about her IVF journey, reflecting on the emotional rollercoaster and the importance of community support during this time. - The Myth of Motherhood: The trio explores the romanticised notions of motherhood and how the realities often differ from expectations. - Finding Balance: Emma shares her approach to juggling work, motherhood, and her new business venture, Claire Your Streets, while offering practical advice for parents seeking to find their footing. Join us for a discussion that challenges the norms of motherhood and offers a fresh perspective on the journey of parenting. Stay connected with Netmums for more parenting tips, community support, engaging content: Website: netmums.com / Instagram: @netmums  Proudly produced by Decibelle Creative / @decibelle_creative

You're listening to the Netmums podcast with me, Wendy Gollich. And me, Alison Perry. Coming up on this week's show... Maternity leave is a time where you need people and yet you can't be without them, and yet you can't be with them either. It's an exercise in unfinished sentences, unfinished thoughts and sheer need for other people. But before all of that... Welcome back everyone to another episode. Wendy, how are you doing today? Well, I'm feeling a bit cheated actually today. Why?

So I had a friend over this weekend and her kids are four and six, so they're quite little, and she's in the bluey phase. She's fully in the world of Bluey. And because my kids were a bit older, I missed out on Bluey and instead we had Pepper, the pain in my neck pig. And I'm feeling like I've actually missed a really significant phase of popular culture in that I've never watched an episode of Bluey.

All I had was the crack pig, as she was lovely known in our house because she was so addictive. The tantrums so I'm feeling a bit sad but honestly Wendy I do get it because my six-year-olds love watching Bluey and I love watching it too but there's nothing stopping you just head on to like BBC iPlayer or whatever it's on do you not think that that's a line crossing that line of sitting and watching Bluey or myself might mean I've finally lost it it is so good and actually you just reminded me what about the news that mummy pig is pregnant have you heard this what yes that means she had sex with daddy pig

what I'm what I'm kind of really interested in is so I think Peppa Pig is about 20 years old, which means I think Mummy Pig must be in her 50s. So I'm quite concerned. Peppa Pig's really mean to George. So what's she going to be like to a baby? Anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Introduced our guest because she is basically journalistic royalty and I'm really excited. She is. I'm excited slash nervous. Today's guest is Emma Barnett, the award-winning broadcaster, journalist and presenter of BBC Radio 4's Today

programme. She's also well known for presenting Women's Hour and Newsnight and Wendy, no pressure, she was named interviewer of the year at the British Journalism Awards a couple of years ago. So I think we need to up our game today. Emma is also a mum of two and her new book, Maternity Service, is a celebration and acknowledgement of what maternity leave is really like. Emma, a warm welcome to the Netmums podcast. Well, I'm very grateful to be here. I did hear about Peppa Pig and the third child on the way. And so it's I've got to be across the news of all levels. Thank you very much. Let's jump straight in and not mess about, Emma. You think we need to rebrand maternity leave, don't you? I do. And I don't mean I'm going to do a campaign to actually rename it and sort of go that way, but more because I think the reframing of it would be really helpful.

And I found it helpful and others I've spoken to found it helpful. And the biggest celebration on my second tour of duty, as I like to call it, loving duty, was that I had this original thought. You know, to have a thought at all while you're in the sleep deprived trenches is great. But to have a thought about what you're in is, or to even have an original thought doesn't have to be about what you're in. It just delighted me. And then I did this quite crazed thing when my husband went on a work trip or a course rather for the week, I should say it was a heat wave I was doing pickups of our older child looking after our baby at this point she's about six months old and I decided around naps and pickups any time I got I would snatch it and try

and write down what I thought at this time which has resulted in a mercifully short book a mercifully short book I should say for women who are short of time. But I, in the middle of it, started thinking about service. And I think service, it's really helped me to, because service is something, you know, another word for it is kindness. Another word for it is duty. There's love baked into service and I really didn't know what to expect before my first experience and I feel even for my second experience I'd slightly rewritten it already in my mind you know the rose-tinted glasses had descended um I then obviously had all the mixed emotions about going back to work and I just kept notes walking around the park little observations and then this thought came to me and I I just feel it would really help when those moments come which they regularly do and you

can change your feelings like the weather or maternity service of when it's hard kind of digging deep and I don't think your maternity service or your maternity leave ends if or when you go back to work it's just a start it you know it keeps going and I and I think you're building something and you're doing something amazing and it just started to help me and I thought what if I could put that together and in a form of words I know that personally before I had my maternity leave I had visions of popping my baby in the pram and walking through the sunshine to meet friends for a coffee and instead I felt like I was very lonely and most

of the time a very sweaty mess and what were your own maternity leaves like in comparison to what your preconceived ideas had been before your first child? Well I think way back when I also thought that, but then because I had to go on another tour of GC. Yeah, totally. And there are cafes involved for those who haven't done it. They do see these things. And there are also pubs involved very much in my first one, where there wasn't a pickup to be done with another child where you had to be, in my case, sober to drive a car um but I I think I had this other moment because I had to go on a whole other tour if you like horrific tour of IVF before I could get pregnant both times and and and if I'm honest by the time I got to pregnancy

I didn't believe I'd get to birth and by the time I got to birth I felt like you know all my expectations had kind of gone out the window because I needed to just get to that point and I had to rebuild from there on in and I think the first time I had a baby I just left work honestly five minutes before I swear to god I gave I came to the most screeching halt and it was like one life ended and another life began I mean quite literally so I had exactly Alison the same expectations and then they went out the window because I didn't know if I'd even have a baby then they sort of came back into view and I remember I mean there was a terrible nickname for me at school that I loved sharing because I'll always take the mick out of myself I'm a Mancunian it's just part of who we are uh but I was called by one of my friends Commitment Carol and that's because I absolutely

loved getting involved with whatever was going on and just you know generally very curious so I remember two two weeks before I was to give birth and I'd finally accepted I was going to have a baby because for the first sort of honestly eight months I would just be like yeah we'll see everyone was like okay um but you know I think that's sort of the trauma of not being able to get pregnant and um when I finally accepted I saw my friend who was sort of three or four weeks ahead of me and the other thing is you make new allies if you're lucky on on this journey you only need one or two but I just met this woman quite recently and we didn't know each other very well we'd gone to pregnancy yoga where I'm terrible at yoga, but I sat there and did the

breathing. And I said to her, what's it like? Cause she was, I think she was three or four weeks into it. What classes are you going to? What things are you at? I've looked at this app called hoop. I've written down on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and she looked at me from the other side of the world. That's how it felt and was like I'm not going anywhere and I just was like what we can do this and to be fair of the group I then did assemble or was part of because my first tour I would say I was really lucky because I had NCT and I made a bit of a band of sisters whereas the second one was much lonelier because I had MCT and I made a bit of a band of sisters, whereas the second one was much lonelier because I couldn't, we had to have six rounds of IVF

and I missed when other people managed to have their second. So that's a whole other thing. But I did still have a couple of women and my God, they knew they were on maternity leave with me because I'd be coming up with things for us to do if I could muster up the energy. But I did get everybody to go to their first class sort of seven weeks in. But it was very, it was very different to how I thought. And I was like you

sweating. I had a baby that would not stop moving, would not stop pooing. Um, I, I, I just didn't know what the next thing was going to be, you know, that, that internal track and monologue, I had, I had no idea. and I was physically harmed you know I was I was very ill after the c-section I'd had to have and you know no other job or role do you start injured not really so true one of my consultants said to me not the consultant sorry then it must have been the midwife I was laying in the bed in the recovery ward and she said to me in any other situation in the world if you had lost this much blood even if you were on the battlefield you'd be given a blood transfusion but it's birth so you don't get one gosh did you not no you just have to eat some steak and replenish

your iron and she was really honest about it she was like rest because anywhere else you'd get a blood transfusion but here you won't yeah it's a pretty you know there's a lot of luck or however you want to view it involved in how you begin maternity leave and how that starts and you've then got to regroup and in my first maternity leave I do have a partner he is a man he had two weeks and then I remember waving him off standing at the door feeling like it was world war ii or something within my body. Yeah. And that, you know, we've been together since uni, and that was the first time, you know, we were really in a different space to one another

after what was meant to be, and it is, a joint initiative. Yeah, it's bonkers. I mean, yeah, but I think back to that moment that I experienced, I was just like, you know, like, come back. You have two. But first time round when, you know, when my teenager was born, I was like, I'm not ready to be left alone in a house by myself with this newborn baby. This is not happening. But why do you think, Emma, that so much of motherhood is romanticized like before we

you know have our first baby we all have this beautiful vision of what it's going to be like and then for most of us it is um quite different like as you've just described I mean I was talking about this and thinking about this yesterday. Perhaps it's protection. You know, the people you hear about it from are often your own parents or older people. And they love you and they don't want to perhaps say anything against you. And that experience, you know, my mum said it was amazing. It was just amazing. I was I was like what all of it you know and I know who I am and what I do for a living means I'm a second I'm essentially putting

maternity leave on trial there you know I've cut I've holding it to account as an experience I'm trying to remember it faithfully and I'm trying to prosecute it almost because I felt so under prepared so there wasn't just my mum saying all of it was amazing you were amazing it's amazing it faithfully and I'm trying to prosecute it almost because I felt so underprepared. So there wasn't just my mum saying all of it was amazing, you were amazing, it's amazing, even though her birth was hard and she had been honest to be fair about that. So I think there's that and I think in the book I quote the French author Leila Slimani who said women we just keep lying to each other, generations, but it's a loving it's it's imbued with love and you don't want to seem disloyal to your baby you know and there's this whole other thing which i

really want to speak against which is this group of um women who now seem to be blaming other women for being too honest to put for putting other women off having children i just simply don't buy it you you can rarely influence someone out of their own choice rarely you know that's where the let them movement from mel robbins has come from that's where you know learning to influence people or talk to them fair enough but our demographic problem in this country and around the world is not coming from women being honest so i think the idea they've got to shame women for saying the grays of it the lows of it the highs of it you know women still clamor to say i love my baby but when we know you love your baby we do it might not happen straight away that's another myth but i think i just i think it's protection i think it's love and i think it's rose-tinted

glasses which are well-intentioned and i think also it's nature we're perhaps our brains are changing and we're programmed to to keep going and to survive and want and want something to be to be good but we have flattened women's experience for so long into quite a one note thing. But you start the book with a note about how it's also nature that our brains are programmed to forget. You mentioned earlier that you'd kind of rose tinted it by the time you had your second maternity leave why do you like we all do it don't we we all kind of rose tint the second one and think oh it won't be as bad and we kind of forget don't we yes I think it's um it's loving forgetfulness and and also it's a highlights reel in your own mind

you know I made an album of that first year and there are some absolute crackers in there don't get me wrong you know after I've caught poo in a bread bag and after I've done various other good maneuvers um and I can see I'm sweating to Alison's point in quite a lot of the um I have both of my children in the depths of winter you shouldn't be sweating but you're sweating because you're breastfeeding constantly you're thirsty you're doing loads of things there's kit that I don't know how to use um and you get through it and it's a bit like anything you look back on it and you're like oh okay you know there's a sort of pride and there might be a wistfulness about parts of it but um the way we tell our stories to each other and to ourselves is with a positive bent that that that is often how we are programmed I am in the business

of helping people tell their stories and being specific is hard and saying things that were difficult makes other people feel uncomfortable including ourselves well this is it right how much of the problem do you think is this thing that we do of saying I'm fine when we're asked how we are do you think that we need to be more honest or do people actually want to know how we are as a new mum or does it just make them feel uncomfortable well there's the enjoy every second brigade that I do talk about as well in the book which is hard because i remember one of the women who said that to me really wanted to say something nice you know

and so it was kind but that is a pressure um i think there needs to be more room in that answer and because very quickly people will say well you're a bit you've got the baby blues or you're depressed and I think there's something else between you know do we really want to know the answer if you're with the baby probably not they just want to look at the baby or talk to the baby you know like probably not but certain people will and then if you find your people you know one of the people I spoke to a lot about motherhood was a colleague, a former colleague of mine at The Telegraph when we were both in the newspaper world, Lucy Jones. And we both together discovered matrescence. We'd never heard this word, this like adolescence, the process of becoming a mother. And she's gone on.

I joke, she timed her book. I said, please, will you look into this? But she wrote a book that was in time for this maternity leave for me and I said thank you very much that's very helpful and I thank you took it around with me in my nappy bag and could only read here and there and you know not much time to to think for myself although you have acres of it walking um and and just you know roaming the streets like audio books are the way forward aren't they yes I think they are and I didn't do enough of that um because I work in audio I think I try and but a book would have been good you're right I should have done that um but matrescence explained a lot for me especially on my first tour I feel it explained how my brain was changing and I think a loss of mothers would

benefit just even knowing that that your brain there is studies to show there are studies to show that your brain changes and that's okay yeah it doesn't mean it's easy and also the fact that that you know I don't I mean I haven't read the book about matriculants but I'm I think that it lasts quite a few years doesn't it it's not a case of oh your child's two, so you're back to normal. My twins are six, and I feel like it's only in the last year that I have come out of that, you know, the real being in the trenches period of parenting. Yeah, and also just because you may have gone back to work

or have more work on, I find the switch still between, you know, I've got to do this job for the home and this job for work and just the sort of you know even the balancing of some of that stuff away from how you might be feeling is still really hard for a long time and you're right I think it can last six or seven years. Yeah I totally agree with it when you talk about maternity leave as being largely unpaid work you're putting a shift in what in your eyes needs to change in terms of support for new parents within that mindset well firstly I would just say um I think a big step forward would be women being better prepared for what it would be like.

So that is what I'm hoping to contribute in the sense of when expectations are not met, you can feel even worse. So when you when you really don't understand, if you've not been around any babies, I've never been around any babies, like obviously in family circles, but I hadn't been close to a baby. So all of that was new and a bit like what Allison was saying I kind of thought I was having a bit of a break and I was gonna just frolic about with some new folks and fall in love with my baby and all of that would feel like my regular life so I do think as much preparation as possible that you can't really hear it till it happens but knowing that there are times ahead that you won't recognize yourself and you won't recognize the world that you find yourself in i had a

message from my mother the other day she's got a five month old and her husband has sent her to a cafe and she'd read an article about linked to the book coming out and she wrote to me she said you probably won't see this and i was happy i did but she said everyone says it's going to get better and I'm waiting for it to get better but it's not getting better and I was like it might not get better but you'll get used to it it will change I felt like at least I could say that to her so I think knowing that you can talk about that and being prepared I mean structurally the shared parental leave hasn't worked you know on a political level the numbers by definition the take-up numbers means it's a failed policy so i do think how you can share the load especially when you're injured in

the first few weeks really needs to be addressed not by me this isn't um a political book i interview sometimes a lot of the time for people who make the the decisions but we need a policy that works with this country need to stop hankering after what the scandinavians are doing or keep saying it works yeah although they've got the swedish soft girl trend on the rise over there which is women without children uh glamorizing having a soft life and being um and having a an allowance from their boyfriend oh I have heard about this yes so let's not you know my mother-in-law's Swedish I've got a lot of respect for the Swedes but they haven't got everything right and we've got you know we've got we've got a good history in this country of of of innovation when we get to thinking about

things when we don't always get there very fast but I'd love for that to work a bit better and I do think NCT of course plays a role that was the particular one I went to there are other groups available but I do think it would be amazing for there to be more accessible better community focused things where you could prepare and get into zone and then meet other people once you're done and there are initiatives I know but I do think support basically needs to be there and that the other main thing that I also think is postnatal care would give women a much better start and if you could just redesign maternity and paternity leave rights from scratch I mean you know you're saying let's not necessarily do a carbon copy of what Sweden have if you could do anything what would it look like in some ways you

know there are there are there are people much better placed than me to answer that question in that sort of way but what I would say is I do think if there was just a way and this is very pie in the sky thinking of having more of a structure around it that you know there was this sort of class on a Monday there was this sort of initiative on a Wednesday kind of almost a national curriculum for not and and also for helping you once the baby is here you know a lot of the advice comes before the baby it to learn to have community and to take people in who feel really lonely women who feel alone I would love that you know I I miss the structure of education and school and and things that can look after you and if there was a way of having that there there are things in your local library if you're lucky

but if there was just a bit more I'd love that I actually think that for me really taps into what I felt because often with your first baby you stop work a week before your baby comes and your society and your everything that you do is often really as a woman based around what you're doing at work I was a journalist I had lots of friends I did lots of stuff at work and suddenly I was back I was living in the suburbs with a baby and I didn't know anybody and it was the onus is on you to find those things to do and go and meet people and there's no structure around how you do that and so you I felt like a fish just flailing around not knowing where to go and one of my editors had said oh it's just

watch maternity leave is watching murder she wrote on the sofa with your baby and it was I just kept thinking it's not it's not this she won't let me do anything what do I do so I think you're right that structure that kind of path to follow would make it so much easier yeah I think that would really help especially because people often move out or they change their living arrangement or something changes around that time to have more space maybe so but of course I also think more support you know the shared the shared side of it if you have a partner is is key but But yes, something that got you beyond the six-week GP appointment and the house visit that happens.

You know, there's like two other things and then you're alone. Yeah, or one in my case because the second one just didn't show up. Oh, yeah, the second time around. They're just like ticking boxes, aren't they, and sending you on your your way and then you have to go to those weigh-in clinics where someone's like they basically you get told off if you're not breastfeeding you get told off if your baby's too light you get told off if they're too heavy you get told off if their poo's the wrong color you get told off and everyone's there comparing and that's where you meet the first woman oh little so-and-so is already sleeping through the night exactly i think true i there's a there's a story in the book about

this i tried to really you know you both can understand this like be specific right you know and in how important it is when you write and you share something and the minutiae of maternity leave service if you're on board with my name for it for me I had to not lose sight of that so when I reread it the other day I'd completely already forgotten that I couldn't wear my wedding ring the whole way through my maternity leave now I know that's a small detail but my hands had swollen so much in my second pregnancy and it really upset me every day like you look at your hands a lot during maternity leave. You're washing them.

You're changing nappies. You know, for me, I used to like having the occasional manicure. That was out of the window because I was doing all this stuff with my hands. My life became very manual, you know, in a way that as a journalist, it just hadn't been, okay, or as a broadcaster. My hands were literally getting dirty. And it upset me every day that a ring that I'd worn for 10 years that I happened to really like it was my grandmother's

ring I could no longer wear it so even that was just not there and it really upset me I'd completely forgotten that um and you fixate on things because you're in the domestic it's like when you stay in for too long and you look at all the mess you just need to go out you know well that was certainly how I felt and then I tell this story as well about going to meet my cousin and the thought that had to go into going to town and going into London going on the tube because I knew that my lift my local tube was broken so then being able to flex it so I could get into the next tube you know I was I was kind of, it was like a military operation to make sure we got there. And we managed to get there on time. And the entire time I was there, our daughter was just sick the whole time, burping up.

I was covered in it. She was crying a lot. I could barely hear my cousin. She was thrilled she got to see the baby. The baby then burped up on her, you know know and it basically nearly wasn't worth it but at the same time if I hadn't gone that morning I would have just sat on the sofa and watched at the time uh the morning show which I was so involved with I actually thought I worked on it and then I did go and say yes to working on the today program not long after so I don't know how influential that was but like I really thought I worked with Jennifer Anderson for a while that's how sleep deprived I was I um but but I tell that story because maternity leave is a time where you need people and yet and you can't be without them and yet you can't be with them either it's an it's an exercise in unfinished sentences unfinished

thoughts and sheer need for other people yeah that's so true um now you've mentioned already that you had IVF to conceive both of your children um I went through the same similar experience to um have my twins um so I know how hard it is how relentless it feels what do you think looking back was the hardest part of that that part of your experience yes I had one round for my son but I'd been trying for two and a half years didn't know I had endometriosis and endometriosis so that was that and we had this one round at the end of that hellish two and a half years and we got pregnant and it was just wow and it was on the NHS and that was my around and so when we came to trying for our daughter

as it as she became um I went in full of hope and hope is the stuff that will kill you and I foolishly thought it's worked before it will work again and that first round there were two points that were the hardest so the first round failing hit me like a train you know because well that didn't happen last time and I know the odds but actually I respond well to treatment and so that was really really hard and then lockdown again and all my next six five rounds after that I had to do alone so my husband wasn't allowed to come to any of the transfers and that made it a very intense experience with my doctor and I stayed in the NHS I paid because I'd had my free round but I it's that kind of stick or twist moment do I go somewhere else and I was, I'm going to stay with this team.

So I found the three parts to your answer. The first one failing, having to do it alone in that way, that was very unique to lockdown. And, you know, in a mask and everything being even more sort of medical and sort of scary. And then the miscarriage on round five, I raged. And again, the journalist analytical part of me knows the odds. I know that once you become pregnant through IVF, you join the general population of women who conceive.

I know then one in four pregnancies end in a miscarriage. But I stupidly went to an extra scan because I felt unwell on my own. And I can't relive easily the moment I was told there was no heartbeat. But it simply wasn't allowed after that number of IVF rounds for me to lose a baby. You know, the injustice of it on top of the grief, because I didn't know if I would go again. I didn't know if I could go again. I didn't know.

But it was the first round that had worked since our son. And my doctor friend, who was having IVF at the same time, she did eight rounds to my six. We went for a walk. And this is why having someone when you're in a tough spot who ideally has either been through the same thing or is going through the same thing is so important. And we were like IVF fairies for each other,

sisters in arms and all of that. We went for a walk and she said, this is great. I was like, no, no, no, it's not great. Nothing about this is great. She went, no, because you got pregnant. She could see that something had worked. And I was like, I'm not doing it again. This is horrific.

I can't go back in the ring. The gamble is over. It's five rounds. It's two years of my life. No. And she was like, if you you don't you will regret it you have to try again and I genuinely I think I almost said yes to make her feel better and then I went and bloody did it and we had I mean we genuinely oh

she did do a bit if I told you so I mean I mean thank god she could and I am the luckiest did she succeed did she get there with her eight rounds so she had a miscarriage on the same round as middle same she was a bit one ahead but the same transfer she had a you know horrific time as well and she won't mind me saying she got pregnant on the same round and our children were born three days apart. And we live on the same road. Wow. And, you know, we left pregnancy tests. She left a pregnancy test one morning for me

when you had to try and see if it had worked. This was not around which word, but she, I don't think I've ever said this before, but she left it in a flower pot for me outside her house. And I on air at 10 o'clock in the morning so I used to leave at six ish so I ran down the road at five o'clock in the morning to get a pregnancy test because I bought one out of a flower pot in her on her porch and her steps to her door and I ran back and my husband's like where have you been and I was like oh she's left me a pregnancy test she had a spare one and you know just this crazy shit that was going on and yeah she she was right

so do you think this experience this hugely all-consuming experience has impacted the way you approach motherhood well listen there is huge guilt for the women who will never get there and there is and i have done quite a few interviews and prioritized speaking and having people on my newsletter i have a newsletter called trying which started about this process but is just about people trying and in life which we all do every day day. I stay very close to those women in my heart. And I put their stories on my newsletter, on the radio, because what is your life like if you can't become a mother and you want it to be? I don't just carry guilt or a strong sense of feeling for them i i just want to remember them and think about them that means my motherhood is laced with gratitude it's it's it you know there's there's no

i still stare at both of our children even in a bad moment in all that they're here. Now, listen, everybody might feel like that, the sense of it's incredible to create, but that can lead to you then feeling like, you know, you can't have some of the natural responses to when something's hard because you're feeling so grateful. But of course I have the responses. And I've had to give myself permission to feel the feelings, you know, and have those responses. And, you know, I think it just means I'm all in. my hormones after that many rounds of IVF and having endometriosis and coming out of the back of breastfeeding you know I think I've physically and emotionally paid a high price to become a mother that I'm still grappling with yeah just to be very honest yeah no absolutely and you're very open about your experiences with endometriosis. And we know that there is a huge waiting list at the moment for any women to be seen by a doctor for women's health issues. What do you think needs to change to sort out this whole mess? it's very, very hard because the doctors don't know anything. They actually don't.

And I can say that now because I have seen six doctors in the last two years. They've got some ideas. They've got synthetic and bioidentical hormones. And you put yourself up for being a guinea pig. If you go for the surgical route, there's a huge waiting list, but if you get there, your hysterectomy won't be as good as the one in America because they're way ahead, I'm told. Oh, right. um and we need to treat endometriosis like an emergency it is not a quiet disease it is destroying women from the inside out it is a global emergency

and i haven't said that in that way before but that is what i think and i am appalled that the same number at least suffer from this and they suffer and it's the same number as people who have type 2 diabetes it might be more i wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't and we do not have a fucking clue totally agree so i'm going to change the subject slightly because you're a busy lady you work at the bbc you've got a book you've got kids you've got a husband but you've also set up your own business how on earth have you got the time to do all of these things well I think you're accurate in saying that I don't uh so thank you for that assessment um

you are a smart woman uh to to say No, I'm actually, I'm physically surrounded by these things. Piles and parts of colouring books. Yes, we set up Colour Your Streets 18 months ago and it was a very lovely, happy accident. And I will answer your question, but it was from our son enjoying our local park but asking us questions and we didn't know the answers.

And I thought, well, I'll just buy him a colouring book of the local area or a book and history books exist of course but we started trying to draw it and colour in Brixton, colour in Herne Hill where we are in South East London just didn't exist and the answer is my husband's done it you know I am very involved I have been very involved with the design. I've been involved with the editorial. I'm really excited about it. We've got more than 150 books now. We're mapping the whole of the UK. But, you know, he's now left his job. This is his job as of January. And we have this sort of force on our hands. People love seeing where they live in colouring form. And it's actually very joyful

and we've really enjoyed it. Colouring in itself has had a big resurgence hasn't it so it's kind of like you've tapped into two trends at the same time. Yeah and I think people apart from their football team or politics or whatever or their name get really excited when they see colour in Lincoln and there's not been a colouring book of Lincoln before or that where they live really matters and I actually think post-Covid you really got to know your area I mean you dug in I know every centimetre of my local park because I've done two mat services and however many lockdowns I think there are quite interesting parallels between lockdown and maternity service, you know, away from the seriousness of COVID. So I feel, yeah, there's joy in it.

And yeah, it's a very happy accident, but it definitely adds to the chaos of our lives and our existence. At the same time, this time of life life you actually spent a lot you spend a lot of time in you know and actually when my husband wasn't uh working on it full time we were both doing it around our work and although you obviously regularly and we do want to just crash in front of the latest thing you're watching on the sofa and it it was also counter-intuitively quite good for us to have this focus and have a project you know there was a sort of sense of purpose to being under house arrest with small children

yeah um now it's such a cliche to ask somebody how they juggle their career with being a mum it's a really lazy question and as I said at the start Wendy and I have upped our game it may not be obvious to you Emma but we really have upped our game in this this episode I'm loving it if you were to offer one piece of advice on balancing life what would it be somebody told me I mean there's there's I'm sure this has come up before there's the Donald Winnicott thing about being a good enough mother he was a psycho analyst in the 50s or 60s um and I really buy into that you know I try to buy into that I remember that I think of certain phrases almost every day like one of of my male friends, he's a dad told me doesn't do guilt.

And I do. I'm, I've got, I've got a total degree in guilt. Um, even before, you know, before becoming a mother,

I'd feel guilty if I forgot someone's birth that, you know, I have horribly high standards and I'm sure lots of women do too for, for kind of what I think I should be doing. Right. Um, high standards and I'm sure lots of women do too for for kind of what I think I should be doing right um I regularly think of him and then think he says guilt is a wasted emotion so I have these sayings or things I think about maternity service when I'm feeding my daughter and it's going all over the floor and she doesn't want it and then I think to myself she won't starve if she doesn't eat the dinner tonight because I used to have a pathological fear with my child that he wouldn't sleep through it's mainly about sleep um so I've got all these things going on but the other piece of advice that I live by and try and live by is now I have two because I

also being an only child I've been fascinated my whole life by siblings I simply don't understand them I think they are the most fascinating odd things that you would have another person and I've asked my husband so many questions because he has two brothers and all my friends they think I'm really strange about this but now I've got a front row seat to siblings but that also means divided attention and so I do 10 minutes with each of them every day of something so even if it's just 10 minutes of coloring or 10 minutes of listening to my son read and I honestly I look at the clock I see when it starts I might have to wait to when my husband is is then available because he does mornings typically and I do pickups because of

our schedule I've got such a strange schedule um I have to wait sometimes for him to come down to take the little one away so I can hear my son I'm very I'm still learning to cope with the noise of two children I know that sounds really weird but when you're an only child I grew up with one-to-one conversations and quite a lot of silence, which is probably why I turned the radio on and got obsessed with that for so many years. And I do 10 minutes. And I feel in everything else, if I get to do that, I feel that the day's like an okay one.

It sounds like something I might adopt, actually. Because I'm trying to juggle 13 and 9, and that's different. Is it? Really different. And you're trying to juggle 14 and 6, Alison. Yes, I am. And the needs are hugely different. And the 13-year-old probably needs me more.

Yeah. So that's a really interesting take on it, actually. I think I'm going to steal your idea. Yeah, I don't know how long that can last but at this particular point I feel there are two lots of activities you know and I really hold for my son because he was an only child for nearly five years and I can really relate to that so I do really watch what's not happening for him that might have been happening before.

And obviously he's got a whole other load of benefits by he's got a mate for life. You know, they sleep next door to each other. I know he really likes that, even though she's only two. She's got this great sort of personality. And I think the house, the benefits obviously massively outweigh the negatives. I really feel that but there are

things where you're letting something drop and it's just making sure I'm trying to make sure not too many things are dropped so you say that your book isn't there to offer advice for parents and obviously there are loads of trusted places to go like netmums but do you think we've reached peak advice from experts or do you think there's always a place for help and guidance i do think helping i you know i've trawled netmums late at night and seen things that were helpful and a different view or someone who's done it before you and i do love advice i have to say and that's why I'm not doing it in this I'm just giving a bit of a frame and a bit of an account that you might pull something from and there are a couple of tips in there like playlist and a uniform having your kit ready to go

by the door in the morning you know there's some stuff that I did sort of end up living by when I really looked through what I'd done a bobble always on the wrist if you've got long hair and breastfeeding and grabby babies things like that I mean but as a journo I really like advice you can't have too much of it but I do think we're all just trying to get through and I really appreciate the wisdom of other people and I actually take advice you know what I said before about you can't change people I don't think you can fundamentally change a big decision like having a baby or not because someone else found it hard but I do think you can influence people um and I think the wisdom of mothers to each other in particular, I know there are experts, is really lovely a lot of the time and helpful.

But I think there's a flip side in that I'm the kind of person who, when I was listening to Michael Mosley's podcast, Just One Thing, I couldn't, I didn't want to do just one thing. I wanted to do all of the things because that was, just one wasn't enough. And so when I went and listened to advice from parents, I couldn't, you're so sleep deprived. I don't think you can filter what's the right advice for you. And so I don't know I think that I'm personally really struggle with too much advice because then I just get confused and I don't know what to do yeah you're when you're tired and I say this is someone who now gets up at 3 21 for my job ow you um 3 21 that's really specific it's so specific it's my rebellion that one minute against the machine um I I can tell you that your feel your your ability to filter gets worse throughout the day

and that's why I have to have a nap on those days you know I've learned the hard way um and you get upset of course you do you know so I remember this from the early days of of mother. And I don't know, I think with a two year old, I'm still slightly in the early days of motherhood. I think I'm allowed to just still claim that. But, you know, I know what you mean. And I think it's very hard. For instance, we had some sleep regression. And I got a lot of advice and a lot of it was contradictory and in the end I wrote it all down and tried to understand what might work you know I did slightly go into journo mode of this matches with this this matches with that but that doesn't match our child you know it's it can be very overwhelming accept that. But that's why I also think the secondary layer of your own people going through the same thing at the same time has always been a quite a good filtration system. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Emma, thank you so much for joining us today. It has been absolutely

marvellous to talk to you. Yeah yeah thank you very much thank you i'm uh i'm really excited to see what the uh extremely brilliant and always with an opinion women of net moms might think of what we've had to say and the book they'll tell us they'll tell us don't you worry don't forget you can get in touch with us on all social channels instagram facebook tikt, TikTok, just type in Netmoms and you'll find us. And if you liked what you've heard today, we'd love for you to give us a five-star rating, press the follow button and share the podcast on all your socials.