Woman's Hour - Listener Week: Leaving a legacy, Periods through history, Belly dancing

Episode Date: August 22, 2024

Listener Week is when all the topics, interviews and discussions are chosen by YOU!What is it like to parent a neurodivergent child when you are neurodivergent yourself? Anita Rani speaks to listener Rachel, who discovered she had ADHD after her daughter was diagnosed, and Jo, whose children have dyslexia.How one moment or person can change your life’s trajectory. Listener Bettie tells Anita how a childhood invite to a friend's house introduced her to a new way of life—one she says saved her. The menstrual cycle, periods, time of the month. One listener, Tracey, wanted to know what things were like for women dealing with this in centuries past. Anita finds out more from Dr Sara Read, who is a Senior Lecturer in English at Loughborough University, with a specific focus on women’s reproductive health and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.A listener asked us on social media: How can childless people leave a legacy? Statistics from the Office for National Statistics found that more than half (50.1%) of women in England and Wales born in 1990 were without a child when they turned 30. Whether it’s by choice or circumstance, many women don’t have children – what legacy do you leave without them? Anita discusses the idea with author Marianne Power and Nicola Brant who is Head of the Estates, Tax & Succession at the firm Thomson Snell & Passmore. As part of Listener Week, we discussed tummies and feeling confident about your midriff. One listener got in touch to say she’d started belly dancing to help with this. Belly dance instructor Leilah Isaac tells Anita why she finds it so empowering.Presented by Anita Rani Producer: Louise Corley

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, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour, but not as you know it. Well, if you've been listening to Nuala for the past few days, you will already know that this week is Listener Week. Every topic being discussed all week on the programme is an idea from one of you. So thank you for that.

And we've had some fascinating interviews already that have really got you talking. Tuesday's chat about tummies got such a huge reaction. We're continuing the theme today. How can we learn to love our midriffs, our lovely roles? I'll be chatting to belly dancer Leila Isaac later and we can all have a go. Also, we'll be hearing from two women, Rachel and Jo, bringing up children with the same learning differences as themselves. We also have a beautiful story from Betty about how your life can change

simply by stepping into another world and having your eyes opened and wanting more for yourself. And it wouldn't be Woman's Hour if we didn't have a conversation about periods. But how about the history of periods? What did people believe in the past? And how did women deal with their time of the month? Well, Tracy asked the question, and Dr. Sarah Reid will be enlightening us. But the one I'd really like you all to think about and send me your thoughts on, our legacy. We had a single question on our Instagram asking, how can childless people leave a legacy? So what does legacy mean to you?

Are you child-free? Have you thought about it? Is your legacy financial or is it something more intangible? And how about those of you who do have kids? Are your children your legacy or is it so much more education, values? Maybe it's not your children at all. Maybe there's a charitable cause that's close to your heart. It'll be fascinating to read what you have to say. So

get in touch in the usual way. You can text the programme on 84844. You can email us via our website, or you can WhatsApp us or even voice note if you like 03700 100 444 and our social media is at bbc woman's hour but first one of you got in touch and you simply wrote i'd like to hear about the dynamic of parenting kids who have the same learning difference as you my son is very dyslexic as am i we have the same triggers and the same deficit when it comes to understanding his work. I also know parents who are ADHD, parenting ADHD kids and finding it so hard. So what is it like to parent a neurodivergent child when you are neurodivergent yourself? Well, joining me to discuss this is Woman's Hour listener Rachel,

who got in touch after hearing us read out that message. She wanted to tell us her experience of parenting her daughter with ADHD whilst also having ADHD. And Jo, a specialist dyslexic coach and teacher whose son and daughter also have dyslexia. Jo and Rachel, welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you. I'm going to come to you first, Rachel. You're a successful lawyer, a senior lecturer at a university, but you only found out you had ADHD at 42. And that was after your daughter got her diagnosis. So before we talk about what it's like to parents knowing that, what was it like before? In terms of parenting before, we knew that either of us had ADHD, I mean, I would call it stressful.

Very, very stressful. I didn't have a proper insight to my own needs. I didn't have a proper insight to my daughter's needs. And so it just created a lot of friction, a lot of tension and just not understanding each other, really. Yeah. So a lot of tension and just not understanding each other really. Yeah, so a lot of arguments? Yes, a lot of clashes because we are so similar. And so when we get on and we bounce off each other, we really get on. But when we clash, it's quite explosive.

So, yeah, absolutely. Lots of tension. So when did you decide that you needed to get tested? How did that conversation come about? I think what it was is when I realised that my daughter had ADHD, I started looking into it. How did you realize that do you know what every time we'd go on a car journey we would say just can we have five minutes of quiet and my daughter just could not do it like literally we'd be like oh we got 10 seconds there and we jokingly I said I said she's got ADHD she cannot she cannot stop talking like she actually can't um stop and then I started looking into it in the car and like specifically for girls and I was like no she she actually does

she really actually does because I looked at it a few years ago for both her and for myself and I didn't recognize myself in any of the literature that I was reading, it was all very, don't do very well at school, drop out of school, have addiction problems, you know, have a very chaotic lifestyle. I didn't recognise myself. I did really well at school. You know, I'd achieved, you know, quite good things. And my daughter's exceptionally bright, like exceptional um so I started listening to podcasts about um other women's experiences and I was like this is me it was like a light bulb moment it's like it all makes sense but I had to listen to women's experiences because just reading like googling it I didn't recognize myself at all to the point where I dismissed it about two or three years beforehand. So your daughter got her diagnosis, you got yours. So then what did a

light bulb go off in your mind? And how did that then change your relationship? I just, if you're neurodivergent, you like to do deep dives, you like to hyper focus and find out absolutely everything about everything that you're interested in so that's exactly what I did and I read absolutely loads about various techniques so I could help myself it's a bit like the oxygen mask theory I thought I've got to be able to help myself before I can help her if I don't know and understand myself how on earth can I help her so that's what I did I worked on myself figured out what was working for me what wasn't and then broached it with her I told her that I had ADHD as she did and basically our internal monologue becomes our

external monologue so I will talk through I'm feeling really stressed about this. I'm really overwhelmed. It's so noisy in here. I'm really stressed because I've got phone calls coming in on that phone. I've got emails coming on here. I'm really overwhelmed. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go and sit down. I'm going to take a deep breath. I'm going to listen to some relaxing music. I'm going to go for a walk and then I'm going to come back and I'm going to deal with it. And so I just spoke through how I was feeling, why I was feeling it, what I was going to do about it. And she has modelled that. So it's basically being able to model strategies and she models them back to me now. So's made a huge huge difference and we have a lot more harmony in our home so give us an example take us into your home if you will rachel what would have happened before and what happens now a simple scenario sort of something that might

happen on a daily basis so say for example we're both really triggered by noisy eaters we're really triggered we're very very noise sensitive and we're both really triggered by noisy eaters. We're really triggered. We're very, very noise sensitive and we're both hugely triggered by that. So ordinarily, if someone might be eating really loudly, it could have looked like one of us just exploding and saying, you know, be quiet, why do you have to make so much noise? Which is obviously completely unhelpful. And also, you know that logically that's really unfair but you

can't help your emotional response it's like your brain and your emotions are colliding with each other and equally she would do the same and it would be door slam going into her room whereas now we will tend to say things like I'm really triggered by that. Can you just shut the kitchen door while you're eating? I'm going to go into my office and shut the door and put some music on. And then we can just regulate ourselves. And so we've got a strategy. You must take a lot of effort on your part, though, because you're still understanding how you respond to things.

So you're having to teach yourself as well as sort of explain that to your daughter. So how has that, has it helped helped has it made it harder to parent I think you have to reparent yourself to be quite honest um I think there is this perception of you know traditional parenting this is what you should do this is how you should respond in this situation and you have to literally just scrap all of that start again and do what works for you even though it might not necessarily be what the mainstream might do you know everyone's got an opinion when you're a parent about how you do things um but you just have to shut out all of that noise and just start again and rebuild and that's what we've had to do gonna bring if you want to live it yeah if you want to live in a harmony if you want to live in a harmonious home

i mean if you just want to continue to live in chaos and just keep fighting against what you're working with um i think it just leads to a whole host of stress to be honest joe i'm going to bring you in so tell me about your experience how did you find were you nodding along to any of that but also but how did you you're slightly. Yours is dyslexia, but explain. my strategy was I trained to become a primary school teacher so from from very early doors I was attracted to children that really struggled like I kind of made it my mission to help and support them and some of that was because my dad had had a really negative experience at school and I really didn't want the children that I worked with to have that same experience as him. And I didn't have children, obviously, when I was first a teacher. Children came kind of later in my career. But what actually prompted me to get my diagnosis was I retrained, again, very ironic,

as a specialist teacher of dyslexia. And I went away on the four-day residential at the beginning. And at the end of the four days, my tutor pulled me to one side and said, Jo, you can still do this course. It's not a problem. But I think you probably are dyslexic. And at the time, getting a diagnosis didn't feel important because I'd done A-levels. I'd got a degree. I was a teacher. Kind of felt like I was coping OK. The diagnosis didn't feel important. And it wasn't until I had children and my son started school that I kind of realised quite quickly that he was going to begin to struggle. By that point, I suspected that my dad was dyslexicic I thought that I was probably dyslexic I knew that it ran in families so I wasn't overly stressed by it because I felt like I had the skills to be able

to support him all very ironically so from the moment he started to struggle I was able to support him because I had the knowledge and I had the skills. How did you do that? Well, I think it's really tricky to actually pinpoint it because when you're like, one of the questions you asked earlier was, what is it like being neurodiverse, parenting a neurodiverse child? You don't know any different. Because let's be honest, when we're parenting, we're all kind of making it up as we go along a little bit anyway so I think what one of the really important things and one of the things that I try and help parents with now when I coach them is that there's a really fine balance between supporting your child and not allowing them to have the same experience at school as you had, but also not kind of projecting your experiences onto them because

they aren't you, they're only 50% you. And actually their educational experience and their teachers, you know, their difficulties and their strengths are going to be slightly different to yours. So I would say it's really been, I hate to use that word, a a journey but it really is kind of like a journey of kind of navigating it together so how how does your dyslexia present and how about your children because you know you said you've got your degree there are different ways aren't there is it spelling is it time management processing yeah so I think the thing with dyslexia is it can occur on its own or it can obviously occur with other things as well and I'm actually pretty sure that myself and my son also have ADHD but we're not diagnosed with that um but I think for me I massively I'm a massive overcompensator so I'm kind of average intelligence if we really

want to talk about that um and I can read but I really struggle to understand what I've read. So actually, on a day-to-day basis in education, I could function okay. It wasn't until I did my degree that I really began to struggle with the academic text because it takes me so long to read things and I have to read things many times. Before my diagnosis, I just genuinely thought that I wasn't very clever. It wasn't until I came out of education and into the real world that I would say dyslexia massively started to impact me. Because you have to remember appointments. You have to be at the right place at the right time. You have to kind of manage life admin as well as hold down your job.

So for me, managing dyslexia as an adult and in everyday life is very different to managing it in education yeah um and again that's advice that i give to parents that i work and support with you know we need to get them through school they need to survive school but we also need to be skilling them up for everyday life at the same time absolutely the two things go alongside each other rachel i'm going to bring you back in. So how have things changed since your diagnosis? Things like how you approach, let's say, a family outing, now that you know.

I think it links back to what I said earlier. You have to let go of what your perception of what your family life is going to look like, you know, when you're pregnant for the first time. You think, oh, we're going to go to the National Trust and we're going to, you know, have all these wonderful adventures. Because if it's not working for you, it's just not working. So, for example, we've just come back from holiday in Scotland and I choose remotest estates that have no people.

There is not a person in sight we are by water my daughter can she loves to have adventures she loves to climb she loves to be in water she loves to shout and shriek and just express herself verbally and she can do that without there being any onlookers, so to speak. She's not having to navigate people as well as the environment. We choose what we do. We love to go to the beach. We tend to go later in the day.

We go in the winter where there's less people. And so you just have to, you can still have those days, but you just have to adjust what you do and what your perception of what it's going to look like. So how important is what Jo was talking about, mindset? Absolutely huge. I would say mindset is everything. When you're dealing with neurodiversity, there can be a really deficit narrative, which I really detest. What do you mean so you know it will hype um adhd attention

deficit hyperactivity disorder i am not i don't have a i'm not don't consider myself to have a deficit i don't consider myself to have a disorder um actually the strengths of adhd are huge you know if you look at the innovators of the world um they generally have adhd because we are creative thinkers we think outside the box we same with dyslexia really joey because you have to think about solutions and figure out how you're going to get through it i think for me supporting my child from the very beginning with my son it's always been about what he can do rather than what he can't do so for sure you know we've we had to get him through he's now he's just finished a really successful gap year in Australia he'll be mortified that I've mentioned that but he has he just had an incredible time

he went away at 19 and worked in a school well done but I think it's amazing but I think you know yes we had to get him through GCSEs and yes education is important I'm not saying education isn't important but for him it was about being realistic and doing what we needed to do in order to keep doors open to get to the next step and it was very much about developing what he could do and focusing on what he could do and how he can contribute to the world and you know he was brilliant at music so we made sure we gave him lots of music opportunities it's fantastic at talking to people um not just talking to people but building relationships with people really quickly um i think i think what both of you have

said will uh i think lots of people will be paying close attention to it i want to thank you both for joining me fascinating to listen to you both and your to it. I want to thank you both for joining me. Fascinating to listen to you both and your experiences. And I just want to tell you both a little word because you were talking about the labels there, Rachel. A friend of mine who has a who is neurodivergent calls himself neuro spicy, which I quite like. There you go. We'll keep putting neuro spicy out into the world. Thank you both of you, Rachel and Jo. 84844 is the number if you want to get in touch. Now, has a significant moment or a person influenced your life that has diverted the trajectory of it forever? Well, listener Betty told us about her experience.

An invite to a friend's house when she was a young girl introduced her to a different way of life. One that she says saved her. I started by asking her why she wanted to share her experience with us on Woman's Hour. I was in education myself, I've just recently retired and I would often say to people don't dismiss those little moments with children because I guarantee you that you make a difference to that child, even if it's a moment. But I've never shared it with anybody why I knew for a fact that those tiny moments of tenderness, kindness, that thought, makes a difference.

So what was the moment in your life? I'm in my mid-50s, and so I grew up in London in the 70s, and I was from a very large family and I was a latchkey kid like lots of children. I lived on a council estate in Brixton and from a young age I fended for myself and life was very hard for me in my family, very challenging and I kind of had to kind of look after myself from quite a young age, from about five. But I was one of many children on the estate where we were out all day fending for ourselves. At school, I found it difficult to make friends. So I was on my own a

lot, heading a book. But a girl came to my school and she stood out as well. She was white, but she wasn't like the other children. I suppose she would call like a hippie, free-spirited child. But also her head was in the book all the time as well. So we became really good friends very quickly. Her mother invited me to come and play after school and come for tea. Now, as an African child, I had no idea what that meant. And I did actually expect to go and have a cup of tea. Now, as an African child, I had no idea what that meant. And I did actually expect to go and have a cup of tea. I said yes, because I didn't have to ask permission for anybody because

nobody knew where I was after school. My parents came home in the evening. And as long as I was there, by the time they got home, everything was fine. So I said yes. So I went to her house and it was literally like stepping through into sort of Alice in Wonderland in terms of difference you know her house was painted all different kinds of colours her whole family was there her parents were there and her siblings and they all played and so I kind of didn't know what to do um Her mum would say, oh, come and sit here. Come and do this. Why don't you play here? You know, and she was just so tender and kind. And that was the opposite of what I had experienced from adults, but mainly family. It was just a totally different experience than we had tea. What was it specifically about the dinner they sat at a dining table and i i had to actually be shown the only time i sat at the table to eat was at school in the dining hall so i'd never experienced anything like this before and they had this meal laid out

on the table her father said oh we're vegetarian i hope that's okay I just said yes no idea what vegetarian was I thought does that mean the country you're from I really didn't know you know it was so bizarre then when we said I was looking at this food and it wasn't anything I'd I ate Nigerian food obviously I'd had chips and things at school but this was a vegetarian meal it's a beautiful meal what was it can you remember oh yes it was a egg and cheese potato pie sort of layered and it was oh my god it was delicious I had had like a Nigerian egg breakfast which is mixed with rice so you don't actually see the egg it's all mixed in and obviously I knew what an egg looked like but to see it in that form

because when it's sliced into the pie you could see the egg so everything was very strange I've never had broccoli before I'd never had orange juice before but the thing that got me and I was about seven or eight at the time um the thing that got me was her parents were talking and chatting to the children and asking them about their day. And it just floored me. And I just was staring at them, how they interacted with their children and how they all interacted with each other. How did that compare to your own household? The opposite. The opposite.

I mean, you could actually feel the care and the love in the air. And being in that was quite overwhelming. But I just was watching it and soaking it all in. And I have a very clear memory of myself sitting at the table thinking, when I become an adult, I'm going to have a dining table. And when I have my children, this'm going to have a dining table. And when I have my children, this is how we're going to live. I'm going to ask them about their day. That was everything for me. You know, I knew that in that moment, that life could be different. Because as a child,

your experience is your normal. And the things that I experienced in my family home, I assumed everybody's life was exactly like mine. Well, if you don't know any different when you're a child, if that's all you've seen, then how would you know? And you've stepped into another world. Yes, I was a very unhappy child who lived in her head. And at that moment, I knew that my outside world could mirror my inside world in my head. And from that moment, I just made a vow to myself that this is the life you're going to have when you grow up. So you had something to aspire to?

Well, life was quite challenging right through. I had some difficult times as a teenager, quite severe mental health issues where I was making decisions whether I was going to continue living. But it was that moment of remember, you made a vow to yourself that you can have a different life. So when I got married to my first husband, moving into our first house, and we had a futon and a couple of broken chairs we went to ikea and i saw this huge dining table with six chairs and he said look we can't get that we we need plates and cups and i insisted and he just couldn't understand why we had to have this table so yes i bought the table. Oh, what was that feeling like when you bought your dining table?

Oh, it was wonderful. I just started picturing how my children, my family, the meals I was going to have, the friends I was going to have around. It was all my life was going to be centred around that dining table. And that's exactly what happened. Yeah, amazing. life was going to be centered around that dining table and that's exactly what happened yeah amazing as a family the dining table was was the center of everything we played games around it and so on I'm very engaged in my children's life they're grown now 28 and 20 26 my my son lives in Brighton and he just recently pulled a dining table and phoned me to say,

Mum, my flat is now perfect because I've got a dining table. And I just burst into tears. And that's when I shared the story with him. And he said, I knew that dining table was important to you, but I didn't know why. But it became important to me because that's where a lot of our happy memories, where we've been together. And that's where he said, I knew memories where have i've been together and that's where he said i knew always that you loved us and cared for us and that was another thing as well because

i didn't know if i was loved as a child and i didn't really experience mutual love with somebody else until i was an adult so to have my children say that to me, that to me, I thought, well, thank you. It's a beautiful story. I know you've gone through a lot of hardships and I know your childhood was very difficult, but what a story of something. It tells us a lot about you.

It really does. That as a little girl, you made this promise to yourself and you worked to get to where you want to be. Young people these days might call it manifesting, but you have to really put the work in to make it happen, right? You put one foot in front of the other to get it. The friend, what was her name and what happened to her? Her name was Love Day.

So obviously you can imagine in Brixton in the 1970s, I'm sure she was picked on as much as I was. I can't remember her surname. We've lost contact. We moved away in, I think it was 1979. And that was it. From that moment, I lost contact with her. Have you tried to track her down?

Well, yes and no. One of the details she told me was that her uncle was in tv and i i went to work in tv before i became an educator and i nearly contacted this person a couple of times to say do you have a niece called love day which i just but then when i said it out loud it sounded so ludicrous and and also this is huge and significant to me I don't think it would have been that significant to this family because I think they're just naturally beautifully kind people and this is something that they do like breathing but I think there would be something quite beautiful about them knowing the impact that they've had you know

so Love Day it's quite an unusual name isn isn't it? Maybe Loveday or someone who knows Loveday is listening. Well, I would love to say, it's more than thank you, a huge, incredible gratitude to Loveday and her family for befriending me and her mother taking me in. I suspect that her mother had suspicions that my life was tough because I looked a bit grubby and very underweight.

And I'm sure she was very happy that her daughter had a friend. Well, if they were standing in front of you, what would you say to them? Well, thank you so much. You have been in my thoughts, I think, nearly all of my life because I don't think I would be here today with the life that I've got today if you hadn't befriended me and invited me into your home. I wouldn't have the life that I have and my children, the children that I would have had wouldn't have felt the love from me. I think I learned how to be kind in that moment. It took me some time to do that,

but I learnt how you treat other people, how kindness is infectious. Wasn't that a beautiful conversation? Thank you to Betty, who I was talking to there, who got in touch with us and said she wanted to share her story. I'm Sarah Treleaven, 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. And if you or someone you know are having feelings of despair or are emotionally distressed, you can go to our website where there's a list of organisations that offer advice and support. 84844 is the number to text. Lots of you getting in touch about what we talked about at the beginning of the programme. If you are a parent who's neurodivergent,

parenting a child who's also neurodivergent, Louise says, the parenting discussion was wonderful and helpful. My mother, myself, daughter, and now grandson have dyslexia. We just have a different way of learning um adhd is a superpower i'm 57 and only just recognizing i have adhd and ocd tendencies i was speaking to a friend about this recently and she said it's my superpower so that's what i'm going with and another one here says i'm 62 i'm a 62 year old piano teacher who has

add without the h all my family um as it is so for us has always been it's always been our normal and we do fine being a piano teacher has been a privilege and as i specialize in the tricky kids especially in schools often i believe these students are neurodivergent and i get to make them feel valued through music as i teach them in whatever way works for them i'm a very lucky person Keep your thoughts and messages coming in on everything you're hearing on the programme. Now, the menstrual cycle, periods, time of the month, something so many of us deal with or have dealt with for many years of our life. Well, one listener, Tracy, wanted to know what things were like for women dealing with this in centuries past.

How did they deal with the blood flow? What did they do to keep their clothes clean? And how were they viewed while they were on their periods? Well, to discuss this, to enlighten us, is Dr. Sarah Reid, senior lecturer in English at Loughborough University with a specific focus on women's reproductive health. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you, Sarah, for joining us.

We know a little bit about what women dealt with in ancient times. Can you tell us, what did they deal with? Well, most of the information we've got about ancient times comes from text written by men who are not all that interested in what women might or might not have done to manage their menstrual flow. And but there are there are bits of evidence along the way. So, for example, in the Bible bible there's reference to menstrual clouds menstrual cloths quite a few times in fact in Isaiah he talks about our righteousness being but a menstrual cloud and it's like it's the worst thing you can imagine to compare fallen people to um so but picking that apart you can see that we're talking about rags and cloths and things like that.

And so we can pick up information in a roundabout way that's much harder to unpack. It's quite difficult, isn't it? It's quite limiting of our understanding if most of the writing was done by men. Absolutely it is, because it's just not something that would occur to them to write about. So we're going to move through the eras, I think. Can you take us to medieval times? What do we know? What we know about medieval times is that the influences of the ancient Greeks and Romans were still held for us. The Bible was still the main cultural text,

so biblical ideas about women being unclean carried some weight still. And you see, even in newly written texts, so texts written in the medieval period we've got a nun an abbess called Hildegard of Bingham and she wrote about health a huge book on health and she said that you know periods are normal to be expected you can't have babies without periods the intrinsic link was completely understood from the start but also she linked uh menstrual cramps to eve and and eve's care so in the bible it talks about how you know women will bring forth

in sorrow because of eve's fall um and she extended that to period pains as well um and so you have sort of this strange thing where periods are positive because we need them, but also they're a bit, they're dirty and the sign of corruption and the sign of man's fall. So these two things operate throughout history sort of thing at the same time. So men were feared periods? Well, you wonder, don't you, if that is, if this blood represented something so very powerful. But men on a physical level feared it as well because not only did the Bible say, you know, you can't have intercourse while menstruating, cultural texts did too.

And so you get right back to Pliny in Roman times, the first century. He was writing about the extraordinary powers this blood had. Oh, like what? Like you could stop a hurricane if you just presented your menstrual blood to the weather or a storm at sea. So it sounds like they saw it as very powerful as well as something to fear. Well, that's it. It comes back to this two-level thing all the time. So at one and the same time, in the same text, he's writing how, you know, if a menstruation woman walks into a field of corn, the corn will wither and die.

Wine will go sour. If she tries to make bread, you know, it won't rise. If a dog tastes menstrual blood, they'll go mad. And at the same time, we're hearing that actually she could stop a storm. So you've got this sort of juxtaposition all the time. Let's move it into sort of early modern times because Tracy, our listener, asked quite specific questions about how blood flow was dealt

with and clothes were kept clean. Yeah, I think the story really throughout history is cloth, linen cloths and people didn't

really like to use internal protection and you still see some of that overhanging today about, you know, before marriage

should girls use tampons, you know, compromise virginity and things like that. That's something that carried on. But in 17th century, early modern times, they didn't like to do anything that would stop the blood coming out because they thought that the, although the blood itself was thought to be clean and clear, it carried corruption with it. We call it toxins today. It carried these out of the body and you want them out. You don't want them bunged up and keep it in because they cause mayhem. So internal protection wasn't really a thing that was used in history. And so it is a question of the poorest women would bleed into their clothes.

Women wore lots of layers, remember? What did they wear? Yes. So everybody wore essentially a nightie, a shift or chemise every day and night. And layers. So, you know, on top of your shift that you wore all year round, you have layers of clothes and layers of petticoats. And in wintertime, people wore padded petticoats, sort of like our duvet coats.

I just wonder if you'd probably just down tools for a few days, wouldn't you, for a week? Absolutely, if you've got the ability. Yeah, if you had the ability to do that, that would be the most sensible thing to do because then, you know, it solves that problem, doesn't it? But again, I think it's all about layering and, you know, these linen cloths,

they were called clouts and there's some evidence that people call them double clouts because you fold them into a pad. They weren't sewn, but they certainly were folded. And've even got one source and it's actually from a trial at the old bailey it's it's quite a horrible story but the defendant in the trial talks about putting flour between the layers which would add to absorbency wouldn't it so yeah you know and i just think people weren't daft they were really inventive weren't they so i'm thinking about victorian women in workhouses who had to go to work what would they have done they would have free bled really yeah yeah the

the the poorest of the poor didn't have spare things they just didn't have access to that they would have had limited periods i mean in workhouses it's a bit different because the food is plentiful because they want you to work so probably women in workhouses would have a fairly regular cycle but the we've got evidence from like after the industrial revolution in some of the mills that the floors are lined with straw and sawdust and things and women bleeding onto that because don't forget people didn't wear knickers until the end of the victorian era in this country um really it's a victorian story But even then, they were open. You know, if you see Queen Victoria's bloomers,

they're open at the crotch, aren't they? So this is the thing. People freebred a lot more than we think. And what about cultures around the world sometimes treat women differently when they're on their periods? For example, the ancient Hindu tradition of women going into huts to menstruate.

Tell us a bit more about that. Absolutely. So it fascinates me that you see the same sorts of things in every culture, really, that I've seen, where women are somehow impure on their period. And across all the cultures that I've had a chance to look at, you see the same thing. And so Nepal's the most famous for these menstrual huts, a physical space where women go to to be separated. And of course, I think the authorities there have said, you know, these are not a good idea. It's even been outlawed, but people are still using them because of the cultural significance and the fact that they feel they need to do this to respect their faith.

So I personally, I keep seeing the same things in every culture. And it does make me wonder if it comes back to your point earlier about fear, if there's something about this very powerful blood that makes men fearful. And it's a conversation that we will continue to have on one more side. Dr. Sarah Reid, thank you so much for coming in to speak to me. Sarah is Senior Lecturer in English at Loughborough University, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and even a historical fiction author. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Thank you. We've just had a message in from someone saying, from Jules saying, oh my, and now you've reduced me to tears over my coffee with lovely Betty's story. Kindness to children is so important.

Such an amazing story. Thank you for sharing this. It's such a story of hope. Indeed it was. On to the next one. We had a message from one of you on Instagram, someone called Reach Positivity, who wrote, How can childless people leave a legacy? No elaboration on that. Just a question, but it's an important one.

And we thought we'd take the issue on. So figures from the Office for National Statistics found that 18% of women in the UK are childless at the end of their reproductive lives, whether it's by choice or circumstance. Many women don't have children. And from the number of articles written about this, it's an issue which chimes with our listeners, all of you. What legacy do you leave without them? Well, to talk about this, I'm joined by writer Marianne Power and Nicola Brandt, who is head of Estates, Tax and Succession Department atondon-based firm thomas snell and passmore

marianne nicola welcome to woman's hour i'm going to start with you marianne as you're sitting in front of me um you're a successful author of the best-selling help me you recently wrote a column on this very issue titled i'm a happily child-free best-selling author so why does society still regard me as a failure for not being a mother in my 40s? I sense your views from the headline, but can you elaborate a little bit more about your circumstances for the listeners? So I'm 46 now and there's still this idea, I think, that a woman's greatest achievement is to be a wife and a mother. And it's taken me a while to realise that's such a limited view of life.

And it wasn't that I actively didn't want children, but I also didn't want them. And I kept waiting for that want to happen. I had a friend in my 30s that told me I'd wake up at 40 and it would be like a bomb had gone off and I would suddenly want children. Someone told me the same thing. Yeah, it never happened. And I'm 46 now and there's absolutely no regret or sadness. Someone told me the same thing. in those situations where you'll get asked, do you have any children? And there's always a bit of me that goes, no, but I love children. You know, I feel like I need to explain myself.

And so, yeah, I'd love it if we could relax these ideas of what a good life is. So what about legacy? What does that word mean to you? It's funny that it's not something I ever think about. Like for me, when I hear the word legacy, I kind of was thinking of statues in my honour or it's not something I think about. And when I thought of when I did think about it, it was more I think we're impacting people around us in ways that we do not understand.

And we're doing that all the time, sometimes for good, sometimes maybe for not so good. And that will be a legacy of sorts. And it might be something that we are never aware of the impact we've had on people a bit like your earlier caller. And so I try to live my life, being as nice as I can, and you know, not always not always succeeding. But that's a legacy to try and live a good life as best you can, and be good to the people around you. I'm going to bring Nicola in on this, because Nicola, you work in a much more concrete world of legacy planning

as a probate and estate lawyer. What's the key difference between people who come to you with and without children? Well, I think ultimately it's all about wanting to make a difference and having a sense of purpose. So it's about whether you have children or not. It's about leaving a legacy which lasts beyond ourselves. And if those that have children, you know, their focus might be

on educating grandchildren or buying them houses, whereas those that don't, it's more around causes and, you know, charitable bequests and having an impact, a wider impact on society most often. And there's a difference between people who come to you who don't have children because they've lost them and people who've never had children. I think possibly the causes are different but yes I think it's important to remember that this discussion is not just relevant to those who haven't had children but also those who have had them and lost them they all have to consider you know what they're going to do with their estates and how they want to leave a lasting legacy so it's always an honour to be involved in that yeah do you feel that way is it satisfying satisfying for you? In what way? Very much so.

I think, I mean, one of the greatest honours I had and really made my whole career, you know, worth qualifying for was when I was involved in administering a legacy, which was to help women who were suffering from abuse and I started getting in touch with a local charity to say a very small local charity to say you know what would make a difference to your charity what could we do to make a difference and they said well if we had five thousand pounds we could train one person to go around schools for a year I said well actually you could think a little bit bigger about bigger than that and we ended up buying a home to to look after you know women that were suffering from abuse and there was enough money in the pot as well to pay for three people to go around schools indefinitely that's very good that's very good good for them and satisfying for you so there you go people are sort of thinking

ahead but for you that's not what it's about for me no no it's funny I suppose I live in quite a day-to-day way try try to be okay that day and do my best work and do the best I can by people and yeah beyond that it's out of my control I saw something pop up on Instagram that really made me think the other day that just said you know do you know your great-grandparents and what they did exactly great-grandparents so it's only gonna exactly a friend left me a message this morning saying just that because we were talking about this topic. And she said, how much does anyone know about their great grandparents? And in some cases, you know, some people might do, but I don't.

And often the figures that have had an impact on us from maybe 100 years ago, they're not people we were related to. You know, we do impact the world in all sorts of ways but i also don't think it's important necessarily to do grandiose things or big things to have an impact we you know i could have a conversation with someone at the bus stop today that impacts them in a way that i don't understand or see that they might not even recognize but that then contributes to something good we've had lots of people get in touch about this. Jacqueline from Liverpool says, as a child-free 70-year-old woman, happily child-free, I and my partner have made a will and left everything to charity that we feel is a positive legacy. Another message here. I haven't much considered my legacy. Perhaps when I'm older, that might be more of a concern.

I do have a son and find the idea of children being their parents legacy problematic for want of a better word my parents saw their children as their legacy as extensions of themselves and the pressure that put on each of us to do that view was difficult my son is his own person and we have our own interests i read i walk i write i study and perhaps these interests will result in some sort of legacy when i die i've got got to come back to you, Nicola, about children expecting to receive the legacy. Do you have to deal with that a fair bit? Yes, that's quite common.

And certainly I do have some parents who feel that once they've provided an education and housing, you know, that they've done their job and actually still want to leave something to the wider community. So, you know, they very often do that during their lifetime and will leave a charitable legacy later on. And you have to protect that. We have to protect that, that's right.

I'm going to read out some more because lots coming in. A message here. Having children is definitely my greatest achievement. Those without children will have their own greatest achievement. You've written a number of books, Marianne. You've got one out today. Congratulations. I've got my second books out today.

Isn't that a legacy? Perhaps. I don't know how long these books will be in print and I don't I don't like the idea that if we don't have children we have to be going off and doing something else that is that seems very significant and big I think that being a good human is enough so yes I'm proud of my books and my writing and I hope that sometimes they've had a good effect well here you are talking to us spreading what you have to say about this on on woman's hour and read it there's really good messages coming in so i'm going to read a few more i end up graham says i endeavor to leave no trace

on the world just good memories so future generations have less to deal with impossible maybe but it starts with not having children myself you're nodding away you can relate to that emma says my legacy as a childless cat lady who has helped bring up my nephew in a very hands-on way is his philanthropy and entrepreneurial contribution to the world i have been a successful music teacher and brought music to the lives of hundreds of people i'm also late diagnosis neurodiverse and this has enhanced my creativity um so lots of ideas there and nicola um we're a bit different here in the uk and that we have so much choice about what we can do in terms of leaving money and property if we're lucky enough

to leave that compared to other parts of the world don't we we do we have complete freedom although there are certain you know if you've got a spouse or your dependent children then obviously they can potentially claim against your estate so it's why you know you do have to do it properly um but yeah we can, we've got pretty much testamentary freedom in this country, which is unusual.

I want to thank you both for talking to me about this. Marianne Power and Nicola Brandt. Thank you both. And thanks to all of you coming in with your messages. I'm going to read another one out. Julie in Devon says,

I have suffered from depression for about 50 of my 68 years. I have three children who have told me they don't want children of their own because they have all suffered with depression themselves. They feel they've inherited their mental health issues from me and they've told me they don't want children of their own because they don't want to pass their problems on.

I was looking forward to becoming a grandmother, but I do understand why they've come to this decision. And Elizabeth in Shropshire says, as a childless woman, my legacy is a lifetime's voluntary work in my sports with young people and enabling participation in the most disabled friendly

of mainstream sports target shooting. Also hoping to set up a national museum of the Women's Institute to house in my collection, to house my collection of memorabilia. These are great messages. Keep them coming in, 84844.

Now, you may have heard our discussion on Tuesday about tummies as part of Listener Week. Carol wrote into the programme wanting to know why we still feel self-conscious about our midriffs when our curves in other parts of the body are celebrated. And Nuala spoke to IBS and body confidence influencer Lottie Drinan. If you want to listen back to that, please do. It's on BBC Sounds.

It's fascinating stuff. Joining me here in the studio is belly dancing teacher Lila Isaac. Welcome. You look incredible. Describe what you're wearing. Thank you. So I am in a typical two-piece belly dance set, which is what we nowadays dance in when we perform.

So you've got all these gems on what looks like a beautiful bra. And then at the bottom, there's a hip, it's like a hip scarf, but it's a belt. And it's got all of these lovely tassels coming down and then a long skirt. And your midriff exposed. Yes. What is it about belly dancing, do you think, that empowers women? Why is it so empowering? So this is a great question so belly dancing is one of the only dances that actually celebrates your body

when you think of other dances i'm not going to name names but they always tell you that you need to be slim a lot of them you actually have to diet and there's a certain look that's associated to it with belly dancing this is a completely different culture. We're working away from Western culture right now. It's a celebration of your curves. Where have we gone? We've gone, you know, North Africa, Middle East. Yeah, North India.

Exactly. It's a completely different world. This is a celebration of your curves. And really over there, slim is, it's not really that known. I think if you're going to go there in your very very tone let's say they'll probably try and feed you but here it's a celebration of curves and your belly is one of those beautiful curves so let's talk about your classes then tell me about what you see because you get women in all the time all shapes and

sizes do you see a transformation what are they like when they come to you? Oh my goodness. So I have women of literally all shapes, all shapes, even all heights, all ages. And a lot of them actually come in for the reason that they feel like they're not very confident. You'd actually have a lot of them, they stand at the back when they start and they're at the back

and they don't really know what they're doing. I'm telling you, a few weeks later, they'll be right next to me in the front doing all these beautiful hip movements, showing their belly. Some come up with a T-shirt at first. The next thing you know, they're wearing a sports bra. I'm like, yes. It's very sensual. Incredibly feminine.

It is. Exactly. And that's a lot to do with belly dance dating back to, it's very, very old. One of the first dances that we probably know of. It actually comes from women dancing with women. And it's about the belly being a place of fertility, of life. And it's a celebration of the belly. So we try to hide, you know, in other places, we're hiding our belly, we're hiding our belly. It's the first time, no, we try to hide you know in other places we're hiding our belly we're

hiding a belly it's the first time that no we want to show our belly so much happens in that region everything all of it like you say all of life so is having more of a belly better for the crowd where it can be the good the good news is if you have a belly you can really see a lot of the most beautiful intricate moves so there's a beautiful move an undulation where you have a belly you can really see a lot of the most beautiful intricate moves so there's a beautiful move an undulation where you have a belly roll just like the belly is doing a sort of snake you pop your belly out for this you know you want to look at the way the belly is doing the snake soft movement and my favorite move which many of you might know is the shimmy oh yeah the shimmy I don't have I don't have like sometimes I want more fat around my body she's got no fat

I try and have some because I'm dancing all the time but I feel when I have a bit more fat it looks much better how did you get into it it's a great question. I actually, I was at university and there was a belly dance society and I'd always seen belly dancers and I thought they were fascinating. How do they do that? I was a street dancer, very different. And I went to my first class at university and it was girls, all nationalities. And I felt like I found my people. All nationalities coming together for the love of belly dance, getting confident, very empowering. Leila did some in the studio before we came live and it was, you're incredible.

Thank you. I mean, it was just mesmerising. You will be able to see Leila in action with me on our Instagram afterwards. How do we encourage people who might be listening, who might have heard yesterday's discussion and are still thinking about their stomachs today, like to just have a go, stand in front of the mirror? Do we need scarves? Do we wrap around ourselves? What can we do? Yeah, that's a great question. Because watching you, I instantly want to learn now.

Oh, I instantly want to learn now. I want to come and join you again. Oh, I love that. Well, yeah, obviously I teach at Pineapple Studios. This is a class for everyone. And then I also actually have an online app. That's very good. Which is perfect if you want to start at home. So it's called Belly Fit by Lila if you wanted to start at home.

The plug is there. So what can women, what can people do? Women and men, all of us. Women can start. I always say we start with these hip kicks going side to side well you can actually do so they're called hip i call them hip snaps you squeeze your bum and you want to push your hip side to side and it's isolating so you're holding your chest in one place your hips are going side to side and you'll notice when you clench your bum if you clench your glutes it ends up adding a little shimmy just because of the technique of it yeah and then slowly we let

these soft arms come out and you can use your wrists to decorate the movement instantly empowering it's so empowering and such a celebration of the female form. Because I listened to yesterday's, Tuesday's discussion about tummies because it is fascinating. It got me thinking because obviously I've come from an Indian culture where they talked about saris on the programme. But also curvaceous bodies were idealised like in the Bollywood movies of the 60s and the 70s. Women used to put padding into their hips under their saris. Amazing. Yeah. So you kind of, and you know, that sensual movement

and stomachs are seen as soft and an important focus of the body. Yeah. And it's funny because I was listening to that show as well and it is really such a Western thing, this flat belly. I mean, if you're growing up, I think, in Middle Eastern culture, you will find that softness is very much there. You won't see much. Same in Indian culture.

And also just the love of food. We love food. We love food. Full stop. I love food and I'm going to love my belly. Leila, you're an absolute joy. It's been wonderful speaking to you. And you will be able to watch Leila belly dance on our Instagram page.

Joining me tomorrow, we are going to be doing more of your suggestions. Why do women's haircuts cost more? And listener Kitty Dowry wanted us to take a look at so-called risky sports and encourage us to look at them in a different way. Kitty's a climber. She's been doing it for 10 years and wants to see more women give it a go. Do join me then. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, lovely listeners. I know, I know you're busy.

Well, let me help you, my friends, with my brand new Friday night comedy, Catherine Bohart, TL. Too long didn't read. I'll be going beyond the headlines to get to the bottom of one big news story each week. You know that story that is huge and constantly being discussed but you miss the details and now it feels like it's too late to ask? Yeah, that one. I'll be speaking to people who know what they're talking

about, then we can pretend we know what we're talking about when it comes up at a family dinner. So join me for Catherine Bowhart, TLDR, a new Friday night comedy from Radio 4, available on BBC Sounds. 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 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.