The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Katherine Omerod on letting go of guilt for child-free time

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

In this episode Anna chats to journalist Katherine Omerod about how she's taught herself to ring fence time and budget to enjoy time as an adult away from her children and how she's quite certain that everyone benefits from this decision.Katherine Ormerod is a writer, author and editor. You can follow Katherine on Instagram at @katherine_ormerodYou can buy Katherine's book 'Why Social Media is Ruining Your Life' here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Media-Ruining-Your-Life/dp/B07HHC1ZBZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2IWEH9BKIQQ7K&keywords=why+social+media+is+ruining+your+life&qid=1652269559&sprefix=why+soci%2Caps%2C69&sr=8-1You can also pre-order Katherine's new book, Coco Rules, Life and Style According to Coco Chanel here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coco-Rules-Style-according-Chanel/dp/1912785633/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Katherine+Ormerod&qid=1652269569&s=audible&sr=1-1-catcorr

Hello and welcome to The Therapy Edit with me, psychotherapist's mum of three and author Anna Martha. Every Friday, I invite one guest to tell me the one thing they would most like to share with mums everywhere. So join with me as we hear this dose of wisdom. I hope you enjoy it. Hi, everyone. Welcome to today's guest episode of The Therapy Edit. I have with me, Catherine Ormarod. Now, Catherine is a writer, an author and editor. She's got a book called Why Social Media is Ruining Your Life.

And it's really all about kind of reclaiming your identity on social media and online. Because let's face it, we all go there. We all spend probably more time than we would like to. And actually, do we really realize quite how much it infiltrates and influences the decisions that we make And our relationships with people, our relationships with money, motherhood, careers, a body image. And in her book, she just kind of unpicks all of this and helps us kind of regain and reclaim our autonomy in our relationship with the internet, which I just don't think we can avoid these days. So, hi, Catherine. Thank you so much for joining me. How are you today?

I'm really well. Thank you for having me. Good. Well, it's an absolute pleasure. I think we got in touch with you. you after reading something that you had written about going on holiday as a mum and without the kids and how yeah how you felt about that and where guilt sat sat within that or didn't sit and that's why we we wanted to get in touch and chat with you so thank you for joining us thank you for having me yeah so I guess that's my one thing is that you to go the game away I've given the game away haven't I so I'll ask you I'll do my my my formal question. So Catherine, if you could share one thing with all the mum's listening,

what would that one thing be? I think that we all need to take a little step back and re-evaluate our feelings of guilt around leaving our children to go on holiday or a little break or whatever that may be. And I think very much our generation has got so much pressure around it, that even if you do have the village and someone who is willing and able to take care of your kids, there's this sense that I shouldn't leave them because it's going to impact them either emotionally or psychologically, psychologically. And this is going to cause unknown hurt potentially in the future for them because I've gone away for a four-night stay in, you know, wherever you've gone, Crete, wherever you want to go for your holiday.

and I feel like this is really a very heavy thing with our generation that other generations potentially haven't felt as much because the idea that you would leave your kids with your family was so much more entrenched. The idea of like a village and a community and multi-generational raising of children was so much more, I guess, culturally expected and accepted. So yeah, I mean, my boyfriend and I very early into our relationship

with our kids, decided that if we were going to thrive, we needed to come up with some kind of plan. So we put together 50 weeks for them, two weeks for us every year. So two weeks and we split to either two or three ways for three trips. We go away and they get to spend time with either of their grandparents or, you know, an aunt, one of my great aunts. And, you know, they, we go away and we get on that plane and we don't look back and we have a wonderful time and it gives them amazing opportunity to bond with other members of their family and us a well-needed break and then you all come back together completely refreshed and ready to go for you know the next term until the next holiday really yeah yeah and and i think as you were as you were saying that i was just

my mind went back to memory and i don't know how old or i must have been about kind of five maybe and my grandparents coming and staying in a house for a few days also my parents went away and I don't remember that being a negative experience. I remember it being almost like a real treat to have someone else there doing the parenting thing. I was raised by a single working mum so I was raised very much by my grandparents and my aunts and you know that there was definitely a sense especially in the like summer holidays for example that you would go from one place to another place to another place we would stay over there for up to two weeks you know away from my mom and she wasn't going on holiday she was just working but i think for me psychologically i know

the richness that i gained from that time and things that are still with me today you know i can knit i can sew i can crochet i can make a carpet for crying out loud and you have to cook all these meals because i spent so much time with the older generation growing up And probably they didn't do everything the way my mom would have wanted them to do it. And potentially they might have said some things that she wasn't, you know, culturally or politically okay with that, you know, you've got to accept it. It isn't all pros. But generally, it was amazing.

And I had these incredible relationships with my grandparents. And when I speak to some of my friends and they're like, oh, you know, my mom says that she would take them, but I'm just a bit worried that she would. wouldn't be able to cope or, you know, I think that that's a big fear, isn't it, that you know, their older generation might not be able to cope because I think the pressure that we put on ourselves as mothers is so much more than the pressures that they had on them as mothers. You said a really interesting thing in our conversation around that the change from, you know, supervision and now it's stimulation, you know, and this idea that every minute,

you're meant to be fostering and nurturing your child for their future selves. And, you know, I feel like that just wasn't the case back then. So, you know, if you're leaving your kids with your grandparents, they might be putting them in, you know, in front of the TV for X amount of time. But that's all fine, you know. Yeah, so do you think part of it then is kind of just letting go of our own ideal, perhaps the parenting that we are trying to kind of just, keep so consistent and trying to protect them maybe from other influences and input when

actually that's part of the richness and accepting that someone else might do things in a different way to how you do it or they might do more or less of it. But ultimately if your kids are safe and loved. I think, do you know, a lot of it is just fostered by fear and I think it's like the fear that something there might be this traumatic experience that your kid goes through that they're going to be then forced to unpick throughout their lives. You know, this time when you left me, and that's where the beginnings of my abandonment came from or whatever. You know, we're all so concerned not to scar our children in any way

through our behaviours and things we do. And I think choosing to leave them with another caregiver is a very specific choice, isn't it? I mean, there's not much we can do about our internal, ways of parenting. We obviously try and better ourselves, but we are who we are. But that's a very specific choice. I see it very much as the oil that greases, you know, the rest of those 50 weeks, those two weeks where you get to step back and have an adventure, yes, but also reconsider some of the choices that you've made in the heat at the moment. Yeah, just to zoom out, I guess then, and to gain some really valuable perspective that, as you say, when you're in the thick of

it can be really hard to find. My husband and I often laugh because when we do take that time to go away and leave the children, there will be a moment where we look at each other and we say, oh, you're actually really nice. I actually really like you because, you know, we chose each other at some point. And I think sometimes when you're in the thick of it and it's, you know, life can so easily just become logistics and the interactions can just, you know, just purely become about facilitating life. And when you step away from that, that dynamic and that focus, actually just rediscovering

what's what everything is resting upon, which is your connection together. So yeah, I think it's so, it's so freeing and hopefully we'll prompt, we'll prompt mums listening to kind of reframe the way that they see that that's stepping away. Yeah. It's a gift to themselves and family. I definitely think so. Your article was just really, it was really powerful in that way. And I think I get a lot of moms, we talk about guilt a lot, but then people that feel guilty for not feeling guilty. So I love what you're saying and that don't feel guilty for not feeling guilty. And let, you know, let that guilt go. Definitely. I mean, I get on that plane and I get and drink my first class of rosé and I am, not thinking anything else except for, isn't this lovely? And, you know, don't I deserve this?

Oh my gosh. Yes, I do. Rather than letting that guilt kind of sabotage it, because I think there are other people listening saying, you know, we'll be thinking, when I do it, the guilt ruins it. You're saying, don't let the guilt sabotage it. You know, take it for what it is. Once you're there, don't feel like you have to, you know, check in every hour or every two hours, once a day. That's, you know, what your kids need and what you need, what your parents need, your friends need, whatever, fine. And obviously, always have your phone on you in case there were any emergency. But ultimately, you know, be present where you've chosen to be. Otherwise, there's no point going. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for inspiring that. So I've got some

quick-fire questions for you. What is a motherhood high for you? I'm going to going to be really surprising for people that know me, but I would say my second birth is a motherhood high. It was absolutely wonderful, transcendent, I would say, and I'd had a really very, very difficult first birth, and then I'd had to deliver a baby at 20 weeks who wasn't, you know, going to be able to be with us. So I'd had really difficult traumatic experiences around birth, and then my third birth, I suppose, but my second child, you know, it was the most wonderful experience. I've never felt better about myself, never felt, you know, more euphoric. And, you know, it was a water birth and I pulled him out myself straight onto the chest, you know, everything that you dream and

hear about. So it does exist. It's sometimes, you know, before that experience, I'd read all these things. I'd be like that people are, you know, writing this literally to torture me. But no, it does exist. It is out there. You can have these wonderful birth, even after you've had very difficult time. So that would be my best moment. What a gift in a balm to have had that experience. It was. It really was. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that with us. And what would be a motherhood low for you? Probably my first child's first 18 months, I would say. It was really really really really difficult and it wasn't just the change he was just a really really really really difficult baby um and you know he was six 60 times a day he would scream five or six hours

every day and it wasn't just me that found it difficult anyone that was around him found it difficult so when people ask me if i had postnatal depression i always say no it was just depressing it was depressing for anyone who got involved in the situation just incredibly overwhelming yeah it was really really really hard yeah as a fellow mom of a sort of a refluxy baby i uh i identify with a huge amount of what you said there and i think again you know your words are just about giving yourself permission to do what is right for you and yeah and shutting out some of that noise and those ideals that I think we go into motherhood with that we'd want to be around our kids all the time and that we'd want them with us all the time. And actually, yeah,

it's really, it's really permission giving. Thank you for sharing that with us. And then what's one thing that makes you feel good? Anything? Something just makes you feel. Oh my gosh. So many things make me feel. One of my favorite things in the world about motherhood is how you can do bath time, put a dress on, put some lipstick on, walk out the door, and no one knows you've got kids. You can just live a completely double life. I would say that my life after 7pm has not changed at all. I still go out for dinners, do my work, you know, and I think that the power of it is being able to almost do a Clark Kent, spin through the door, shake the day off, here we go you know glass of red wine red lipstick back oh i love that i love that oh wow yeah kind of

holding and just allowing yourself to enjoy being you exactly and whatever that means i'm going into london tomorrow night so i think yeah going to get the lipstick out in your honor the red lipstick in your honor thank you and then finally how would you describe motherhood in three words gosh it's so hard isn't it but i think the first one would be enlightening because it teaches you so much about yourself and other people. I also think that I don't know quite how, if there's a word for this, but in terms of like, I suppose, empathy increasing,

you know, it changes the way that you, even small things, like getting on the tube, you know, I used to be one of those awful people with elbows, and now I just am not, I look around, I see less able-bodied people, people struggling for all different reasons, and you realize that this is, you know, it's a two-class city, really, for the people that things that work for and things that don't.

And if I hadn't become a mum with a buggy on the tube network, I would have never known, you know, I would have carried on with my sharp elbows. And then finally, I mean joyful. You've got to say it, haven't you? And I mean it deeply, you know, as I mentioned before, my first 18 months of becoming a mother was not joyful. at all but overall four and a half years in it is a wonderfully joyful experience and you know

for all of its struggles and challenges it is the best thing I've ever done and I would go through everything all of the heart take all of the you know problems along the way to be where I am now it's worth every minute over thank you well thank you for your warm articular inspiring thought-provoking and affirming words. We really appreciate you and your voice in our social media space and how you encourage us to kind of reconnect with, yeah, our needs and, yeah, what's actually important and letting go of that guilt. So thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you for having me. Take care. Bye. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share. subscribe and review. You can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out my two books called Mind Over Mother and Know Your Worth.

I'm also the founder of the Mother Mind Way, a platform full of guides, resources and a community with the sole focus on supporting mother's mental and emotional well-being. It's been lovely chatting with you. Speak soon. Thank you.