Woman's Hour - Joan Smith, Parenting adult children, Dolly Parton musical

Episode Date: December 30, 2024

‘Unfortunately, she was a Nymphomaniac’ – that’s the title of a new book written to debunk the misogynist myths of Imperial Rome and to put the record straight about the lives and fates of Roman women. Its author, the journalist Joan Smith, joins Clare McDonnell to give us a fresh perspective on the ancient world.Many people will have visited or been visited by their adult children over the holidays. Being a parent to adult children, as well as being the adult child, can be complicated. What are the pitfalls? How can we ensure that relationship stays strong? Clare is joined by psychotherapist Dr Julia Samuel and actor and author Helen Lederer to discuss.Nearly half the world's population had major elections in 2024, but it was also a year that saw the slowest rate of growth in female representation for 20 years. The BBC has crunched the numbers from 46 countries and found that in nearly two-thirds of them the number of women elected fell. BBC Population Correspondent Stephanie Hegarty explains the findings.New Dolly Parton musical Here You Come Again is packed with the biggest and most rhinestoned hits from the country legend, and is currently playing at the Riverside Studios in London before it heads on tour across the UK next month. Actress Tricia Paoluccio joins Clare to discuss what it’s like becoming Dolly in the show – and gives a special live performance in the studio. Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Lottie Garton

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Clare MacDonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour and a Happy New Year's Eve, Eve to one and all. Thank you for joining me. And now we are out the other side of the Christmas festivities. Did you welcome your adult children home or maybe you went to stay with them? Question is, how did it go? Well, today we're going to be talking about how to parent when your children are adults. They've already moved on to a life independent

from you. Question is, have you? We'll talk through that tricky shift from being the main event to being a supporting actor in their lives with psychotherapist Dr. Julia Samuel and author and actor Helen Lederer. I'd also love to hear from you on this. Are you the parent of an adult child? When has it gone well? When hasn't it? Whether it's from a parent or an adult child perspective what works in that relationship and what is more of a challenge these days you can text the program the number you need is 84844 on social media we

are at bbc woman's hour or you can send a whatsapp message or a voice note using this number 03700 100444 plus this year was a very big year in terms of elections, not just here in the UK, but worldwide as well, from Nigeria to the USA. How are women being represented in the new governments? We'll find out. And the music of Dolly Parton. She is the subject of a new musical about to go on tour.

Here You Come Again stars Tricia Poluccio as dolly and i am delighted to say tricia is going to be performing live for us right here in the woman's hour studio so all of that to come in the next hour do stay with me first though we're going to start with a woman who's made it her mission to set the record straight on women and their role in the roman empire because if i mention the roman empire you probably think maybe of a gladiator in armour or Julius Caesar or Roman armies conquering the world. But do you think of women? And if you do, do you ever think of them as anything other than wives or slaves of these powerful men?

Well, the new book, the title of which is Unfortunately, She Was an Infomaniac, by journalist and author Joan Smith, is hoping to debunk the misogynistic myths by giving us more accurate details on the 23 Roman noblewomen. It also draws parallels between violence against women and girls then and now, which we will get on to. But Joan joins me in the Woman's Hour studio now. Thank you for coming in. Thank you for inviting me. Let's start with these particular 23 women. Why did you choose them? Why focus on this particular time in history? Because they are

the first women in Western history whose names, faces and histories we know. So, you know, there are women like Cleopatra, but these are Roman women. They're the elite of the first century. And we can piece together what happened to them from the biographies of the men in their lives. But they've been treated very badly by history. And what I wanted to do was go back, translate the Latin text myself, and actually see what they actually say. And so there's all kinds of biases in the translations that we're used to, you know, talking about women being nagging their husbands and things like that. When you go back and look at the Latin, that's not actually what

it says. And it's actually, we've been given a false picture of these women which has been compounded by you know TV series like High Claudius. We'll get on to that because I thought that was a very interesting section in the book and an introduction to the Roman Empire probably the first for many many people in this country. Where did your love of Latin come from? Well I was a very fortunate working working class girl who went to a grammar school where I could learn Latin. I started learning it at the age of 12. And I absolutely loved it from the first moment. So from the age of 12 to 21, because I did a degree in Latin as well, I must have read Latin just about every day. And I loved it. And I loved this. It gave me,

it opened my horizons to, you know, a world that I'd had no idea existed. And it was 2000 years earlier, but here was a culture which valued literature, art, architecture. Obviously, there's a dark side to it, which is, you know, the colonization and so on. But it was fantastic and very beautiful and very inspiring. But even as a teenager, I could see that they had awful attitudes to women. And that that's sort of been in the back of my mind for many years. And then three or four years ago, I went to an exhibition at the British Museum about the Emperor Nero. And you know, the publicity for it was Nero, was he as bad as he was painted? And the answer to that is yes, probably worse.

Yeah, probably worse. And when I got there, I was walking around and there was a there was a caption and it said critics said that Nero killed his mother and two of his wives. He said they betrayed him. Who do you believe? Now, if you were a 14 year old going around that exhibition, you wouldn't have any access to the sources. You wouldn't be able to judge. But it's classic victim blaming because every man who's killed his wife or his mother has always said she drove me to it and I actually thought you know somebody should sit down and write about the you know do all the research write about these women and then I thought maybe it has to be me. Did that shock you that was only in the last few years? It did shock me yes yes but lots of things shocked me and one of the things when I started reading I thought you know it's a long time since I was a university by now contemporary historians will have caught up feminism will have you know influenced the way they look at this period and when I started reading modern histories what I discovered was it hasn't they're just repeating the old tropes about these

women they're frigid they're nymphomaniacs, they're scheming, they're ambitious. And what strikes me is that most of them wind up dead. And, you know, they're working within a very limited set of parameters. They're doing what they can. But as the regime, the regime starts with the Emperor Augustus, he's the first Julia Claudine Emperor after the after the civil wars that start with the assassination of Julius Caesar. So we're talking about a period from roughly 30-something BC to AD 68, when Nero, who's the great-great-grandson of Augustus, kills himself. And so this is the kind of formative period in the Roman Empire. And most of the women who are related to these men, I think, after the 23 women in the book,

who are lovers, wives, mothers, daughters, and so on, I think, after the 23 women in the book who are lovers, wives, mothers, daughters, and so on, I think only five actually died of natural causes. And the degree of malice that these emperors exercised against their female relatives will actually be recognised by a lot of readers who are familiar with what's happening now. Sadly, there are a lot of contemporary resonances in all of these really tragic tales but you mentioned the n-word uh nymphomaniac um and i think this is a salutary lesson for any tour guide listening you never know who you are talking to because this title came out of something that a male tour guide said and you were in the group so tell us the story. So I've been up and down to Rome quite a

lot while writing the book. I was lucky to be able to do that and I went to the Palazzo Massimo which is this wonderful renaissance palace which is now one of the national museums. It's next to the big railway station Termini in Rome and on the second or third floor they have a room which is simply the frescoes from Livia as the first empress, from her villa at Prima Porta, which is about 15 kilometres north of Rome. And they found an underground dining room there in the 1850s. That was to protect the family from the heat of the day. And it had these fabulous frescoes. They're called Il Giardino di Livia, Livia's Garden.

So I went to see those and an Italian guide came in, but he had an English speaking party and he sort of explained who Livia was and who Augustus was. And then he said said but they were married for more than 50 years and they loved each other very much and my ears pricked up I'm not convinced by that and he said and unfortunately they never had a child together and Augustus only had one child with his first wife and unfortunately she was an infomaniac and so I looked at him and I said, excuse me. And I said, first of all, Julia's mother wasn't Augustus' second wife, her first wife. She was his second.

You've missed out his first wife, who's quite important. And secondly, Julia was not an infomaniac. And he looked at me. He was affronted. And he said, it's in the sources, senora. And I said, yes, I'm familiar with the sources. So I said, I assume you're referring to Seneca's famous essay, De Beneficis, on benefits, where he says that Augustus' daughter, Julia, was so sex crazed that even though she was the most recognizable woman in the Roman Empire and was living in a palace on the Palatine Hill, that she went down into the forum every night and sold sex to every passing gladiator and barman and he said yes and I said do you think women really behave like that and this conversation went on for some time because I pointed out that Julia was famously fertile she had six babies five of whom survived and in this

period when when she was separated from her her third husband Tiberius she was supposedly going down into the forum every night and having masses of unprotected sex. She never gets pregnant again. And, you know, how did she do that? And so the guide then said, well, maybe the source is exaggerated. I realised by this time the entire room was silent and all the heads were turning. And I said, well, it's not just exaggeration, it's bias against women. And I eventually said, look, you know, I'm writing a book about this, I'll leave you to it. And through gritted teeth, he said, I look forward bias against women. And I eventually said, look, you know, I'm writing a book about this, I'll leave you to it. And through gritted teeth, he said,

I look forward to reading it. And I said, you learn a lot and walked out. I'll send you a copy for your next tour. Which brings us on to, you mentioned Livia and you mentioned I, Claudius, the BBC dramatisation back in the 1970s based on Robert Graves' book. Livia played by Sian Phillips.

That is, in the book, you say, not her performance, but how she is written, obviously, into the screenplay from the text. You mention this a lot in the book about how modern day historians are doing these women no service. And Robert Graves' name comes up quite a lot. So what are you unhappy about? So Robert Graves was living in Mallorca. And in the 1930s, he had shell shock from the First World War, we now call PTSD. He needed money, and he was a classicist. So he decided to write these two sensational books,

I, Claudius and Claudius the God. And what he did was he hugely sensationalized what was already a bunch of misogynist texts. So in the case of Livia, he accuses her of eight murders, and seven of those people were not murdered. We know that. You know, they died on military campaigns. Rome was very, very crowded. Fever swept through. We know that people died of natural causes. And the other person who was murdered, it wasn't on her orders either. So that performance has fixed Livia in people's minds. And when I said I was writing the book, people would say, oh, Livia, she was terrible, wasn't she? She was such a murderess.

And I would say, no, she was actually married at the age of about 14 to a rather unpleasant man who was then prescribed because he was on the wrong side in the Civil War. She spent two and a half years as a refugee in Italy, Sicily and Greece. She was nearly killed on several occasions, came back to Rome. Augustus meets her. He was then called Octavian. She's pregnant. He decides he's going to marry her anyway. I mean, she didn't have any choice in these things. And she had a very, she was married to a very difficult man, but she didn't kill anybody. And it just continues like that. So it's a misrepresentation that you hope by writing this book, that maybe new dramas can be written based upon the facts as you see them as you have translated them. Yes, from the original Latin. And you know, Messalina, the Empress Messalina,

who is kind of always described as a nymphomaniac up to now. She was probably married at the age of 15, 16 to a very unpleasant older man, the Emperor Claudius. He'd already got rid of two wives in rather unpleasant fashion. Didn't actually kill them, but he did order her murder. And, you know, she had two children with him, provided him with an heir, all of those things. She probably had lovers, but so did he. And eventually, you know, she goes through a bigamous marriage while he's out of town in Ostia. And she's just young and foolish. And she couldn't really have believed she was going to get away with it. But he comes back and he orders her murder. And she's run through with a sword by a centurion. And,

you know, that leaves two small children without their mother. And he then goes on to marry his niece. And he has horrible personal habits. But, you know, the leaves two small children without their mother. And he then goes on to marry his niece. And he has horrible personal habits. But, you know, the fact that you will never see the name Messalina without a reference to her as an infomaniac is really, really shocking. Well, we're making that, taking out a rubber, erasing that now. You have spoken, you just mentioned it there, about the similarities, excuse me, between the brutal life for women in imperial Rome and today, what goes on with women in society. You're known not only for your books and your journalism, but also for your campaigning and the work that you do regarding violence against women and girls. So we wanted to take this opportunity with you in the studio to talk briefly about 2024 and the significance of certain stories when it comes to women. And we have to start with the incredible Giselle

Pellicot. Just to remind listeners, she waived her right to anonymity as her husband was on trial for drugging and raping her and inviting others to join him. 51 men were found guilty of either rape or sexual assault and sentenced just before Christmas. The French publication Le Monde saying that 17 of those men are now appealing their sentences. Quite a woman. What is your reaction to that whole tale? I think that the last year has actually blown apart all the excuses that are made for men who get accused of rape or other forms of violence against women. Because, you know, Dominique Pellico himself actually said, you know, I am a rapist. He admitted that in court. But, you know, he could have said once he was sentenced, you know,

I'm not going to appeal. He didn't say that. You know, so these men, some of these men are still not accepting that they are rapists. And I think, you know, what I take from it, apart from her amazing courage, is that which I think is an inspiration, is this is what ordinary men will do if they think they can get away with rape. And if you look at what's happening elsewhere, so in Afghanistan, you know,

the Taliban are producing a series of psychopathic edicts about women. And you can see here's a country where men actually are in power who want to make women invisible. And again, that's what some men will do if they have the power to do that. And then the final thing that happened in 2024, which is very important, was the National Police Chiefs Council report on the extent of violence against women.

And they have described it as a national emergency. They've said that one in 12 women will be a victim each year, one in 20 people, by which they mostly mean men, will be a perpetrator. And we are walking around every day, walking past men who are prepared to commit violence against women. And, you know, the difference between now and Rome, ancient Rome, is that women didn't have laws to protect them. We have laws to protect us. They are not being enforced. And I think a lot when people read the book, they will see how one of the things that struck me is that, you know, the elite of this country, upper middle class men, have been educated through ancient Rome and ancient Greece for centuries. And they've absorbed these attitudes, this distrust of women, this lack of confidence.

You know, you can't believe what women say. Women will do men down. And I think it's still having an effect today. Well, I mean, the police, I guess, would have a lot to answer on that. We have the laws. Why isn't it being enacted? Just to say, Dominique has said today that he will not appeal his sentence. That is from his lawyer.

I want to ask you about rapper rapper sean diddy combs as well charged with racketeering conspiracy sex trafficking transportation for prostitution he's pleaded not guilty he also denies more than two dozen sexual assault accusations lodged against him fame has clearly played a role in that story now he he is in jail awaiting the court case. I mean I guess in a way you could look at a case like that and say the tide is turning if people are prepared and have the confidence to feel they can come forward and talk about something. I mean if he denies the allegations but that surely is a positive shift. That is a positive shift but what I want to see is the same degree of suspicion being used in ordinary cases.

You know, the women who are not famous, who are making an accusation against a man who's not well known. There's a kind of schadenfreude about these, you know, very celebrated men getting, you know, their comeuppance, if that's what eventually happens in some of these cases. But we actually have to believe that, we have to think that if these men are getting away with it, so are ordinary men. And I think the main, you mentioned the police, the police are not very good at what they do. And I know that from working with them. But what has happened for years is that when a woman accuses a man of rape, all the effort goes into disproving her allegation. Her past will be absolutely taken apart going back to childhood. The police would ask to see medical records from childhood, school records, all of these things. They don't do that to the perpetrators.

And what this last year has shown is this is how devious and manipulative and dishonest perpetrators are and yet the police have always assumed that it's the women, the victims who behave like that and that's the shift, that's absolutely the basic shift that we need when a woman accuses a man of rape you investigate him, you don't investigate

her. Well I guess there's many police officers listening in this morning who would say that the tide is turning on that one as well. And we are listening and we are acting on much more than we ever were. And the government has made it a priority to halve cases of violence against women and girls. But thank you so much for coming in, Joan. Joan Smith's book is out now. It's called Unfortunately, She Was a Nymphomaniac. A fascinating read. Thanks so much for writing it.

Thanks for dropping by the Women's Archive. Thank you for having me. You are listening to Women's Hour. Thank you so much for all of your texts that have come in so far talking about that tricky relationship it is when you're, you have rather, when you're the parent and your children are adults. And we're going to talk about this now how on earth do you do that one right when your children are adults it's maybe something

on your mind at the moment uh you might have had your adult children home for christmas or perhaps gone to stay with them for a bit uh how did it go being a parent to adult children can be complicated as can being the adult child. Lots of you getting in touch already, so keep your texts coming in, 84844. It's something that psychotherapist Dr. Julia Samuel often writes about. What are the challenges of parenting your adult children who've moved away from home and are living their own lives? What is the best way to go about it? Julia joins me now, along with actor and author Helen Lederer,

both of whom have adult children. Good morning to both of you. Good morning. It's great to have you here. And Julia, let's start with you, because everyone's just come out of the festive period. And this is a topic I'm sure that will be on many people's minds. So let's just start off. How do you define an adult child? It's an odd phrase, isn't it?

I think there are kind of different. It's not from those phases. There's like 18 to 25, 25 to 35. So I think it goes in decades. It isn't when you're legally adult, because I think young people mature much later than, say, my generation did. So I think there's a whole way of parenting children from 18 to 25 to when they then kind of more moving into their lives, forming strong attachments and having their own children. So the period up to 25, they still look to you a little bit more and you can still have that traditional parental role. Is that what you're saying? Well, I think you have to kind of reconfigure it

because you will have less control and less power. So I think all of life, we need to understand our sort of necessary losses of how we can kind of move in and connect and support. And when we have to stand back and let go you know giving children roots and wings but I think the level of it changes as they change in age. Helen that's an interesting phrase isn't it necessary losses how old is your daughter? She's 34 currently yes yes it's quite interesting being a non-expert, but you have to slightly fake it.

I'm learning how to not say things. I think maybe that's my new thing for the 2025 to just not say things. That would be a good thing, wouldn't it? Julia would counsel me that that's a good thing. You're a great actress. So you don't give away. Not that good. Because of course, the thing about a mother and child, I think is that you press each other's buttons and know each other so well. So that even though you could not speak,

the dynamic of the relationship is going to be acted out. Whatever. Your daughter doesn't live in this country anymore. No. So she lives in Ibiza. And so I've had to get used to I don't feel like a typical parent if there is such a thing in that I there are colleagues of mine whose child lives locally, and they might have children by now. And so there's a whole community that's kind of replicated in some way. So I don't feel the acting out option. But lots of WhatsApps and visits and things. So maybe that is more normal now about how young people, you know, move away and do more things. Try not to take it as a

rejection, obviously, Claire. She has left the country. Julia, so where should we begin with this then? So when they move into this adult phase and you know you're still so emotionally connected but in a way I suppose the hardest thing and I felt this when my children my eldest is 21 um and they start to have relationships and it's almost like being chucked isn't it it's like hang on what about me that's that's is that the big one that you have to kind of get over that their emotional connection, their first and foremost emotional connection may lie elsewhere now? Completely. I mean, as Helen said, that we never let go that our love for them is as strong as when they were five, as when they were 15. And that deepens and grows, I think, over time. But it's learning how to love them. I mean, I was still telling my 25-year-old daughter

to wear a coat when she went out in the weather and she kind of turned on me and said, Mum, I'm 25. I don't need to be told to wear a coat. And this year at Christmas, all my children are married now and they have young children. And I could really feel, you know, so much love and pride in seeing them with their kids.

But also I was in the background. I was kind of observing while they were looking after their young babies and, you know, they were screaming or laughing or whatever it was. But I was very much not the focus. And I think it's learning how to love and feel that deep love. And it is also, as you say, it's a bit like being chucked. You have to kind of deal with the pain of it. And I think learning, you know, pain is the agent of change. And if we can be a parent who could allow ourselves to feel that sense of, I'm really not the center of their lives anymore. You know, I am not the mothership. They don't turn to me,

they turn to their partners, they turn to their kids. They turn to their peers. I mean, they may well turn to me at times, but not to feel hurt and then not to act out on the hurt, I think, really matters. I love Julia's advice. Can I just say this is great. But what happens when you get when we are imperfect as humans and um I mean I still mourn the loss of my daughter's first boyfriend who I loved and I was most distraught when that ended um but that was like many years ago um but the the chucking thing everything you say makes such sense um but um the actual acting out of it um and and are young people more dependent or less dependent? I mean, I talked to my mother about anything and everything, but she must have been alarmed, probably, at the things I did, looking back. But I haven't stopped my child. I mean, have either of you said, actually, don't do that?

I don't experience myself as saying, do not do that. She makes choices and the choices are hers. So your question to Julia is, the bits you find tricky is you say you say nothing. Julia, is that the right thing to do? Because you must be like a Vesuvius there, Helen, bottling it all up. Burning. You've got to find a new way all up we've just had Christmas you know yeah so what would be your advice on that one well I think if you're really worried about something it's more collaborative so it's not like telling them what to do it's you know I see you're with this person or doing this job and

actually I can see you're really unhappy what's going on so you can kind of own it and ask questions and be although actually one of my children hates me asking questions so with him I don't ask questions so you have to kind of tune yourself to meet the child but also I think you know we have impossible dreams and impossible expectations for our children and they're often about the disappointments in our own lives so I think some of it is doing the work on ourselves about what is us and what is them but also to look at what are the fault lines that we've carried from our parents that we played out with our children that are going to play out again that we need to try and repair some of those mistakes. That's such a lot of work Julia if, if I may interrupt. I mean, I love what you're saying.

And I do notice that young people, I mean, young people, a lot of young people have had therapy and maybe the modern generation don't hold back. They're quite bold in their critique of us in a way that I probably wouldn't have mentioned to my parents. None of us are perfect.

So we know that every human being is going to make mistakes as a parent. So that's a given. It is a little bit, and we also have to live our own lives. And so that's quite a busy life to kind of therapize myself, therapize how I suffered at the hands of my own parents' weakness and how not to do that, or to do it in a different way. There is a lot of work. And I think that's a really good point, actually. There's a boldness, isn't there, in this generation, whereas previously we may not have had those conversations with our own parents, still not to this day.

So you maybe feel slightly affronted. Well, the younger generation, I mean, I know a lot of young people through my work, so I'm lucky. But then when you meet the partner of your child, that's a different relationship again because I haven't chosen you to be a friend. So I have to get my head around that. And there is a boldness and a new way of communicating that I think I have to catch up on. So let's put that question then back to Joan. What can you do when you feel uncomfortable about the way you're being spoken to,

either by your adult child or their partner? How do you navigate that one? I mean, I think love is work. Life is work. And, you know, if you think how much we love our children,

it's probably worth the effort if we put the time aside. Yes. And I think the big thing, rather than communicating, is becoming a really good listener so you know i think we always on transmit as parents but actually if we really listen and try and reflect back what we've understood then you can build bridges of

connection the way you can then have many differences and be as winnicott said a good enough parent we're never no families are perfect we're all imperfect so I'm not talking about kind of this kind of cookie cutter perfect parent I you know my children never stopped taking the piss out of me all the terrible things I did and actually you know they do skits about it so it's it's being able to navigate the difficulties and also the breaking of understanding so that you can repair and reconnect. There's so many texts that have come in and a question as well. So I just want to read some of these experiences out

because we were asking the listeners to get in touch. Christmas with our 30-year-old son was a success because we allowed each other lots of space. On Christmas Eve, he spent time with friends online whilst we watched old-fashioned TV. I had a quiet few hours to myself in the morning whilst everyone else was asleep. We go to bed pretty early,

and this is the time when our son enjoys a bonus Christmas sandwich alone in front of the fire. So there you go. This one, I have a weekly date night with my adult daughter. She's 27. She got married in September. But we go to an adult ballet class together another mum and adult daughter also attend as does the mum of our

29 year old teacher we all have enormous fun together but there's a question here uh joanna who's 27 here we go joanna who's 27 has said i've just had another christmas with my mother who's 64 and my sister both my sister and i are in long-term relationships and my mother regularly complains that we are abandoning her it is hard as obviously it's not true i want nothing more for her to to be happy for us and happy to see us spending christmas with our partners families but she can't help but feel sad and obsolete. I would love to hear your advice on this, Julia. Well, it is a loss. That is grief, isn't it? It's what I call a living loss. But I think interpreting it and kind of guilt tripping your daughter really creates a kind of tension in the relationship where the daughter feels blamed when actually she's doing what she

necessarily needs to do, which is get on with her life. And so you do feel the pain of it. But if the mom could allow herself to feel the pain, but also invest in other relationships in her life, join other classes, do other things, because the time that a, you know, an adult person has is never going to be as much as the parent wants it to be. So you need to find things that give you joy that isn't just your children, multiple sources of it, which Helen, for instance, has with her career and relationships with other young people. Yes, I do like young people, I have to say. But there is a sort of guilt trip when you look back.

And I'm sure a lot of us do because I had the kind of freelance career where you carried on. And that is normal for our generation, isn't it? But yes, but the fact, I don't want to guilt trip anyone, but people read each other. I suppose humour is quite a good thing to deflect it. That's what I would suggest. But I don't think I've behaved perfectly um but how is just just to finish off how is your relationship with your daughter now well I do love her so at least there's that um that's never going to change but um but I'm learning um as as has been said you know they go through different phases they have new partners and uh we just have to fit around each other you know and move forward

well what i'm taking i'm saying i'm sounding perfect julia am i perfect enough humor is an amazing catalyst for to allow you know humor is the other side of tears isn't it you know that you can really forgive a hell of a lot if you make each other i love so many of your phrases i was writing down julie during this interview and i the one i was taking was listen more don't transmit because i think we have to make that switch as parents don't we you know you're used to transmitting i'm going to be receiving from now on no transmitting for us. No transmitting. Shutting that transmitter down. Pulling the plug. No transmitting. Just transmitting less.

Excellent advice. Thank you so much. Thank you, Helen, for coming in. Lovely to meet you. Actor, author Helen Lederer and Dr. Julia Samuel, who is a psychotherapist. Thank you to everybody who's got in touch. So many texts coming in. I'm 53 years old and my parents

now late 70s have always treated me as a child. There is no adult connection whatsoever between us. They patronise me and I feel totally unheard. It makes me so sad and angry that I have chosen to see them very rarely. I also have consciously tried to treat my own children differently. So that is a very positive note to end that story on. And finally for now, Alex from Hazelmere says, as a mother of adults, I have long respected their independence. My roles are to pour out love, to listen and support and only give advice when asked. I think we're all nodding along to that last one. We are. You can keep your text coming in on that. Please

do. If you're a parent or an adult child, 84844 is the number that you... I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. Neat. Now, this time last year, we were looking ahead to a year of elections, people

heading out to vote from Taiwan to India to Russia to the US and of course here in the UK. Nearly half of the world's population had a major election in 2024. But BBC research has found that this year actually saw the slowest rate of growth in female representation for 20 years. BBC 100 Women has crunched the numbers. And earlier, I spoke to BBC population correspondent Stephanie Hegarty, and she began by telling me about what they'd found. We have had this big year of elections this year. Nearly half the world's population were facing elections. And in that time, we saw for the first time in at least 20 years that women's representation in parliaments across the world, which is from the Inter-Parliamentary Union, as far back as that went, every year we'd seen slow but steady progress. And this year, with so many elections at play, we would expect to see the same, if not more. And it was the

opposite, which was a surprise. I mean, where did you look? How many countries did you assess? And was there a pattern in this drop-off of female representation? So this is a snapshot of the entire world, but we looked especially at the 49 different countries that voted this year, only 46 of which we had the data in for. And it's a really diverse picture. I mean, there's certain parts of the world that are generally not doing as well as others, like Asia and the Pacific Islands in particular, and some parts of the world are doing as well as others like Asia and the Pacific Islands in particular and some parts of the world are doing really well like Latin America which is seeing almost 50-50 representation in quite a few countries and then Europe and the US actually not doing as well as Latin America but

still much better than parts of Asia so that's the picture on a whole. But this year, it was very different countries that saw a slight backslide. India, the US lost a few seats to women. France and Portugal, quite a significant number. Indonesia, South Africa, Pakistan. So all over the world in lots of different countries with very different political dynamics at play, we saw this backslide. In some, it was slight, and in some, it was much, much more dramatic. So it's really hard to find one defining feature for why this has happened. There's various well-known roadblocks to women getting into power, and those are women finding it more difficult to get funding, women tending not to run unless they are nudged or pushed or encouraged and actually the way

systems are designed so the system we have here in the uk the first past the post system is generally not great for women and not great for minority candidates in general or candidates that don't traditionally do well whereas proportional representation is much better but all those are not new this year. One thing that we did find, which was quite common in all of the places we looked at, there seemed to be an uptick in the amount of abuse online and offline that female candidates are getting. Whether that's discouraging women from running, we had a lot of anecdotal evidence that it was. There's not much research into that just yet. Did you look into whether fewer women are standing

or is it more that when women do stand, they're not getting voted in? It seems to be that women are facing roadblocks when it comes to standing because where women do run, they do do quite well. We saw that in Mexico. We saw that in the UK this year, where the Labour Party had a voluntary kind of quota system in terms of putting forward more female candidates, and they did do well. And that's across the board, where there are quotas in place, where there are quotas which designate a certain number of candidates must be women,

women do get elected. So it doesn't seem to be a backlash, or it doesn't seem to be a resistance to electing women, but just many different barriers in place for women running. We do have presidents, though, don't we? Two female presidents, well, we didn't have them before. Yeah, interestingly, there are some big successes in Namibia and Mexico were both elected their first female president. And Namibia also elected a lot of female candidates, a big increase in female candidates. We spoke to a senator in Mexico. Mexico also is one of the few countries that's reached 50-50 in its parliament. We spoke to one representative from there who was explaining how this was a result.

And in her opinion, it was a result of a decision made by the former president, Amman, that more women should be elected and a quote type system should be put in place. But she said the result of that was that though many women were in power, they were often in power in name only. And they still had to fight to get into those boys clubs. In her case, she really wanted to get into into these positions of power. And then they will be the ones making the decisions down the line and encouraging more women to run and pushing more women to run. So you've got all the statistics now and you've spoken to so many people. What are they saying to you about what needs to change? What would help them consider a life in politics? One thing that just came up again and again is this, the fact of abuse of women online and offline. And it seems to be increasing. In all of the cases, in all of

the countries where we spoke to female candidates, this is something that they felt was putting younger women off running. One of the candidates I spoke to said, I don't know if I could, in good conscience, encourage a younger woman to go through what I've been through. So essentially what you're saying is they do, there is an enthusiasm to join in the political debate. But what you get exposed to on social media, women are weighing that up and saying, can I really live with that? Absolutely. And it's it just seems to be increasing with very little policy in place in any of these places to tackle it. And it's something that female politicians are really concerned about. But there are other issues like funding. You know, every candidate we spoke to said they felt that they struggled to get the funding for their campaign more than men did.

And then there are simple issues like the lack of maternity leave in most parliaments. Only a handful of European parliaments offer maternity leave or paternity leave to candidates. So there are very obvious roadblocks to women getting in power. And then some really serious, really concerning social issues like this abuse that female candidates are facing. So we had a bumpy year of elections in 2024. What is this sort of, what is it signpost for the future, do you think? What can we be positive about? We saw a huge increase in female representation in the UK. And that is because of this voluntary quota system that the Labour Party put in place. And that just shows that these quota systems do work. And not only do they encourage women to run, but when those women run, they do get elected.

And where we do see increases in female representation around the world, they can happen quite suddenly and quite dramatically. And we saw that in Namibia. It can also happen the other way around around where I think women lost about 17 seats in Pakistan this year. So change can be dramatic and it can be sudden. But we know that there are tools in place to encourage women to run. And those are quotas. They're not always popular. And even for female candidates who get into power as a result of these quotas sometimes feel that it delegitimises their position. There are a lot of different issues with quotas, but they can be designed in different ways. But they do work. And we've seen that very clearly.

That's the BBC's Stephanie Hegarty speaking to me earlier. And you can read the full analysis by BBC 100 Women on the BBC News website. Really interesting look back at elections over the last 12 months. Thank you to everybody who's texted us about how you parent adult children of coming out the other side of Christmas. It's something that's on many of your minds. Neil says, my advice is make sure the fridge is super well stocked and leave a huge metal jangly bell alarm clock beside their bed.

And have a house rule that all phones be left on charge in the kitchen overnight. That's how it runs in Neil's house. Karen says, I have just sat down with a sigh of relief at being on my own without my adult children, who all occupied our house for most of the Christmas period. Occupied is a very appropriate word, like a foreign force. They took over our house, ate our food, generally acted with a sense of entitlement that has both saddened and angered me. Love them as I do. I'm giving up the idea of gathering us together as a family, as it seems we do all the work whilst they sit around complaining that we control them. Sorry

to hear that, Karen. And finally, for this moment, no name on this one but my two 30 something sons neither with partners at the moment always choose christmas day at hours both good cooks they have taken over the kitchen i am sent to the sofa with a good book i could pretend that after 40 plus years of doing all the christmas catering i find it difficult to hand over, but I don't. I lay the table and the husband opens the wine. A lovely, relaxed Christmas day. Thank you, boys. Thank you to everybody who's texted in. We can still squeeze a few more in

if you'd like to get in touch with women. It's our 84844. Now, I'm guessing that a few of us might have today stumbled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen this Monday morning. And some of us will be back working nine to five for the first time since Christmas on this Monday morning. Last week, you may have heard the iconic Southern American voice of Dolly Parton on Radio 4. She spoke to the Today programme guest editor, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, about writing children's books.

Safe to say he was overjoyed at getting to speak to her. We haven't got the real Dolly in the studio, but we have the next best thing, believe you me. I've seen this new musical of Dolly's biggest hits. It's called Here You Come Again. It's currently playing in London before it heads out on tour across the UK next month. So you all get a chance to see it.

And joining me live in the Woman's Hour studio is the star of the show, Tricia Palaccio. Good morning. Good morning. How wonderful to have you here. And honestly, I mean, I look at you now, that's Tricia. But seeing you embody Dolly Parton was quite something. But this is an artist you've been looking at and observing for quite some time. My whole life, I first heard the song Here You Come Again on the radio when I was a little girl. And my mom bought me that record, the record that you see on our show, on our set. And I listened to that record so many times. And I didn't know any better that you weren't supposed to copy so I just copied her little grackle and scratch and that kind of vibrato in her voice and so I've been

doing it my whole life I've been singing like Dolly Parton I just I adore her could we have a little blast of the voice then I know we're going to hear you sing well sure I'd be happy to talk like Dolly if you'd like and you know we could do this whole interview with me talking like her. She's much more interesting than I am, I'll tell you that. Oh, that's so perfect. But she has a voice that it's just certain people's voices you tune into. What is it about her? What is it about her voice, first of all?

Oh, I think she's beautiful musicality. I love the way she does her riffs, you know, the way she, you know, does the little notes in between. And I think she has, she really trusts a very soft, beautiful part. She doesn't try to blast out belting. And, you know, when she first came on the scene, people didn't really like her voice because it was so different than that kind of old-fashioned kind of, you know, hardy country sound. She had such a small, delicate voice. But now I think we've all grown to just love of, you know, hearty country sound. She had such a small, delicate voice, but now I think we've all grown to just love it, you know. She's singular, you know, no one sounds like her. Completely. And she is, as a human being, so much more than just a performer.

So tell us what, why you, I mean, we'll get into how you wrote this and how you came up with the idea, but tell us what it is about her that makes her so singular. You use that word. You know, Dolly grew up, she had a very difficult childhood. They were very, very poor, but she grew up with love in her family. And I think a tremendous happy, she had a happy childhood despite how hard it was. And I think it formed her outlook of life. And so she, I think she just has a lot of faith and hope and sees the beauty. And she's an incredible lyricist.

I mean, that's really what she wants to be known for is her songwriting. And so as an artist, I think she's created from her heart that is full of inspiration and love and joy. And so she's written these beautiful songs. And that's really her gift. I mean, as much as she is, you know, her gift is her performing and singing. I think it's her songwriting that we really, you know. She's incredibly philanthropic as well, isn't she? Yes, she is.

She's given so much back. But she manages to be apolitical so why has she chosen that path because someone as powerful as her could have said i'm going to stick my flag on this hill i think dolly's very humble and that she knows that her political opinion i'm sure she has one um that the world doesn't need to know that she doesn't you know, feel that egotistical need to put it out there. And I think, you know, she's also savvy in that she recognizes that it would really upset half of her audience. And her goal is to make people happy. She doesn't

need to be right. So or make people think the way she does. She's more humble than that. So I think she made a decision very early on to keep her political beliefs to herself, which is quite rare in America. Most celebrities really feel the need and are kind of expected to have a voice. In fact, you're almost criticized if you don't. She knows who she is. And I think people leave her alone and respect her choice. She's probably more conservative than most celebrities in America. She grew up in the South. But she's such a humanitarian that I'm sure she's not happy with any of the politicians right now, you know, no matter what her political feelings are. And this feeling of her helping, stepping into somebody's life at a moment of need and the music helping somebody. Yes. This is the basis for the musical. Yes. So tell us the story. I always thought the best way to create a Dolly Parton musical would be to see Dolly Parton in action. So our show is an envisioning of what we think she would really be like if this situation

could become true. The situation is that, you know, there's a man struggling with depression and fear in a very uncertain time of his life in isolation. But he loves Dolly Parton and he has all of, you know, her records and pictures all around And she comes to life in his time of need. And it's in his imagination, of course. But what I wanted to do was, I was so curious about what would Dolly be like if she was in all of her full glam, but entered your attic and helped clean your room up and serve you a little bit of food. And I wanted us to get to be with Dolly in a real life way. What would Dolly do is answered. What would Dolly

do? What would Dolly do is answered in this musical. Absolutely wonderful. And Tricia, just everything about this, how you look, your hair, your makeup. But what struck me watching your performance was your mannerisms as well. I mean, just everything about her. It's not an impersonation. It's almost like an embodiment of Dolly. Oh, thank you. How did you pull it off?

Well, I don't know. I just feel like I love her so much, and I've studied her my whole life. And I first played Dolly 20 years ago in Nashville at the Ryman Auditorium, which is the mother church of country music. I was in a musical called Stand By Your Man. And I had to play 10 different characters, but one of them was Dolly Parton. And I only got to play her for five minutes and I only had a few lines. And I had to say to Tammy Wynette, I said, Hey, buddy, how you doing? And I did it. And all the ushers at the Ryman Auditorium said to me, Tricia, you are the best Dolly. You know, there's a lot of Dolly impersonators in Nashville. And they said, you're the best Dolly we've ever seen. And it was ever since then I had this idea like,

oh, I wish I could develop a show where I could use this little talent that I have that, you know, I wouldn't call myself an actor that is, you know, I don't impersonate people. That's not one of my things. But for some reason, I just feel like I can just think of Dolly and I just kind of know how she'd tilt her head or her little gestures. And she's very specific, the way she walks and the way she dances and the way she, I don't know I she's just somebody that I I feel like I just get well you certainly do and I wouldn't say it's a little talent I would say it's a huge talent and thank you so much for coming in I'm so happy you saw the show and and you know we're in we're in London for two more weeks and then we'll be back on the road.

So I hope you'll catch us. Here you come again. You took the words right out of my mouth. Here you come again. Excuse me. Playing at the Riverside Studios until the 18th of January. Heading out on tour Glasgow, York and Manchester. Really worth a watch. Jordan, thank you as well. Fantastic. Join me on Woman's Hour tomorrow. I'm going to be talking to bestselling author Beth Moran about her latest book, It Had To Be You. And live music again, playing out 2024 with music from singer-songwriter Theo Bleak. Talk to you tomorrow.

That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Best medicine. Dissecting funny and fascinating medicine. I think pain management is the best medicine bibliotherapy therapy by books sleep well spot the comedian celebrating medicine's past present and future i think transplantation is the best medicine because it can completely change someone's life defibrillation oh defibrillators, okay. Amazing machines, that much is clear. Sorry, clear!

That's the new series of Best Medicine from Radio 4 with me, Kiri Pritchard-McLean. Available now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.