Woman's Hour - The Politics of Motherhood, Big Night Out Reading, Women and environmental art.

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

You may have visited Kew Gardens and seen the incredible gallery of botanical art created by Marianne North - she is one of several female artists being featured at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum as part of Coventry's UK City of Culture Celebrations. The exhibition, called UnNatural History, explores not only the historical role of artists in the science of natural history - but also contemporary artists addressing the current climate crisis. But with so much focus on the environment how effective is art in grabbing the public's attention? Alice Sharp is the founder of Invisible Dust who have curated the exhibition and Frances Disley is an artist who examines the medicinal properties of plants and healing power of nature. Why, after decades of social progress is motherhood still so much harder than it needs to be? Why aren't we honest about the realities of being a mother? These are just two of the themes explored in a trio of books about motherhood that have just been published. It's not as if these questions haven't been asked before. There is a rich vein of literature from Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex through to Adrienne Rich's classic study Of Woman Born, Juliet Mitchell's A Women's Estate , Jane Lazarre's The Mother Knot and many more. And many second wave feminists fought hard for the rights of mothers on both sides of the Atlantic. And yet very little, if any progress, has been made according to this new crop of authors. Elaine Glaser author of Motherhood: A Manifesto and Pragya Agarwal author of (M)otherhood: On the Choices of Being a Woman join Emma. A few weeks ago as meeting up began to look possible again, we asked you to tell us about who you were desperate to see again and why. Last week we heard from Chris and her mates in Cardiff - this week listener Sally-Ann from Reading wanted to nominate 'the girls' - she's had a tough year and not seeing them face to face has been hard. Our reporter Jo Morris spoke to Sally-Ann as she prepared to host a garden get-together and popped into one of their regular Zoom chats to eavesdrop on their banter and memories. Boric acid is a white powder that can do everything from get stains out of your clothes, to stop your fridge smelling, to acting as a pesticide. But apparently there's another use for this chemical remedy, and mentions of it have been popping up lately on social media threads and message boards: it can also be used as a treatment for chronic bacterial vaginosis. However, it is also being used for less serious vaginal infections. Dr Jen Gunter, American gynaecologist, obstetrician and author of the Vagina Bible says she has seen an increase in the use of boric acid vaginal pessaries among her patients over the past few years, paralleling an explosion of new over the counter boric acid products and heavy marketing from celebrities, influencers, naturopaths, and functional medicine providers. She explains her concerns.

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 Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to today's programme. A question for you. What have you wanted to say about motherhood that you don't dare? After a year like no other parenting, I want to invite you to say it here on Woman's Hour this morning and know that you're not alone and people will be listening and they'll be getting in touch.

But even if your children, if you have them, have grown, what do you want to say about the experience that perhaps you felt you couldn't at the time? Two writers who have felt compelled to put pen to paper about all of this will kick us off. But they're part of a group of women who feel the pressure to be perfect mums has got worse. And despite us living in a greater era of openness, we're more closed down

and also can't say anything without reminding people how much we love our children. You can text Women's Hour on 84844. You can charge, it'll be charged at your standard message rate.

You can check with your network provider for exact costs. On social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour or email us through our website and leave your number so we can get you on if you are available and up for that. Three and a bit years on for me on this motherhood journey. I do wonder when life will get back to how it was pre-baby. And what I mean by that is when will I feel like I used to?

There are decent glimmers, but after the year we've just had, I suspect you will have more to say. So do get in touch with me and share what you're feeling about this and perhaps how maybe you thought these conversations were done and now you hear that they're not and we'll hear why they're not.

Also on today's programme, the women artists who shaped the science of natural history and how influencers are changing the make-ups of our vaginas. All to come here on Woman's Hour. But why, after decades of social progress, is motherhood still so much harder than it needs to be? Why aren't we honest about the realities of being a mother? These are just two

of the themes explored in a group of books about motherhood which have just been published, and after a year like no other in terms of parenting. It's not as if these questions haven't been asked before, though, is it? There's a rich vein of literature from Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex through to Adrienne Rich's classic study of women born, and Julie Mitchell's A Woman's Estate, Jane Lazar's With a Mother Knot, and many more. You may have read some of them, one of them, you may be thinking, hang on, I need to read these. And many second wave feminists fought hard for the rights of mothers on both sides of the Atlantic. And yet very little, if any, progress has been made, according to this new crop of authors.

Where is the Me Too for mothers? Asks Eliane Glazer, author of Motherhood, a manifesto. She joins me now with Praga Agarwal, author of Motherhood on the Choices of Being a Woman. Eliane, if I start with you, good morning. Good morning. You write about Adrienne Rich's distinguishing between motherhood as an experience and motherhood as an institution. I thought we could start there. Can you explain what you're saying with that and what we need to understand? Yes, and this is from her 1976 book of Woman Born. And it was a really important distinction. She said that motherhood as an institution is how it's organised and managed by society

and the ways in which society makes motherhood harder than it needs to be as an experience. And I think that that's still the case. In fact, motherhood is, if anything, even harder now than it was in the 70s. So I'm talking about all the different ways in which women are policed in pregnancy, their choices are not respected in childbirth, how they're isolated after birth, and how they're often forced to give up their ambitions when it's impossible to reconcile motherhood with work. So I think it's important to separate out the experience and the institution because that actually enables mothers to challenge the conditions of mothering without that being read as a criticism of their children

or an erasing of the joyful aspects of being a mother or not appreciating how lucky you are to be a mother and you know and that really I think silences mother's complaints but if they can say look I love being a mother at least you know most of the time but that's separate from how motherhood is managed by society then it enables women to make those complaints and challenge the conditions in which motherhood is organised now. Which is also what I was alluding to when I said, you know, we talk openly, but not perhaps openly. And we have to always caveat how much we love our children, if you're going to say anything at all. Do you feel when you say, what about a Me Too for mothers? Is that what you're talking about?

The way that our systems are organized because i'm thinking about the pandemic yeah i think that really you know we think about motherhood as being you know the subjective um experience that you know mothers are so isolated going through the experience of motherhood um within their own four walls but actually what i really wanted to do in this book is to join the dots and and look at the real patterns in terms of the way that mothers are so badly treated in this in a society which supposedly values mothers and after all these decades of feminist campaigning and also how how sort of punitive we are to ourselves as mothers how how we feel guilt and anxiety for all the decisions that we make.

And, you know, and that poor treatment of mothers in society has been exacerbated so much over the last 18 months, you know, women have been made to give birth alone or miscarry alone. And, you know, the pandemic has really shown up the inequalities in terms of childcare and the domestic load. Even when men have been at home, dads really haven't shared the domestic load equally. And that's really showed up very ingrained patterns of inequality in parenting. Brangham, let's bring you into this. Good morning. How do you feel in terms of the freedom that women have to say what they really feel are the tough bits of this? I think there's a lot of pressure on women to be

perfect in most of the things that we do, that we cannot show failure, that we cannot say I'm struggling, I'm finding it difficult. But motherhood is one of the things where there is a deep-rooted kind of a social norm that it has to come at the sacrifice of self and at the sacrifice of your own identity. So there is this ingrained belief through history, if you look at history, that women's main function economically is to give birth. And so the role of mothering is often dismissed and its value and it's often dismissed, which means that also women have this pressure to conform to the view that it should come naturally to me, that every woman is nurturing, that every woman is caring, that motherhood has to come at the sacrifice of my own identity. So how can I say that I'm struggling or I'm finding it difficult? And I think a lot of the women conform to this myth of perfect motherhood,

which makes it very difficult for us to say, actually, it's not a binary thing that either I love my children and I do not find anything difficult or I do not love my children and I find things difficult and I'm struggling. It can be both as well. Yeah, I mean, I remember when I first got into this line of work, should I put it like that? And I remember looking up thinking, I feel like I'm the person to discover this. You know, why has no one told me certain things are going to feel exactly how you you've just said? And I think there's also a perpetuation through the ages around also you look at how you were mothered. You then think how it should be for you. And I notice in your book you say, Pragya, that you never actually wanted to become a mother when you were younger.

You write, I thought I had this choice between being a mother and being myself, my complete self. Now you are a mother. Have you managed to find that balance between being you and being a mum? I think slowly, gradually. I think when I first became a mother, I did conform to a lot of those beliefs and internalised a lot of those pressures. And I was a single parent, so there are those additional pressures. And that is why I wanted to write this book from an intersectional perspective, because I think a lot of those pressures are also based on around the social and environmental and cultural context of the woman as well. They are either exasperated by it or actually diminished by it or whatever, balanced by it. So I think we need to have an intersectional discussion around this as well, about how certain your identities, your multiple identities, depending on your sexuality, on your gender, on your socioeconomic class, on your cultural context, on your race, ethnicity, how that can also impose more pressure or less in certain contexts. So yes, I think I am slowly finding my own

identity. I've got five-year-old twins now, but also I think we need to think about what is our own identity sometimes. There would be a change and we have to accept and acknowledge that yes, our lives change with motherhood and that we change as people and person as well. But it doesn't have to be either or. It can be both. And I think the important thing is we don't have to conform to any kind of societal model of what motherhood should be like or what mothering should be like. We can define our own way to mother.

And until and unless we do not erase and eradicate some of these social norms, we cannot give women the freedom to choose, the autonomy to choose whether they have children or not, and how they mother or not. Eliane, I've got a very powerful message here that's anonymous. And I should say, and I meant to say this at the beginning, if you don't wish to give your real name, you don't have to. And the message will still be shared. And it will be an important one, I'm sure, because you felt that you need to get in touch and not share your name. You don't have to. And the message will still be shared. And it will be an important one, I'm sure, because you felt that you need to get in touch and not share your name. An anonymous message from Glasgow. It says, this very question has brought me to the verge of tears, what you're discussing about here on the programme. After a three year wait for a second baby, homeschooling a six year old and pretty much a year of lockdown has made me question the decision to have a second

so many times I've imagined my child-free life most days and then feel incredibly guilty I'm due back at work very soon and after trying to squeeze a normal mat leave into a matter of weeks I'm completely exhausted this is on top of caring for my own ill mother I'm on the edge but I'm looking forward to going back to work for a rest Eliane you know there's a lot of guilt and there's a lot in there which also speaks to what you were talking about, which is people feeling like they have to be able to say, and I could talk about this having gone through IVF to have our child,

you must feel grateful and you mustn't speak out. Yes, and you must just get on with it, keep your hair down and get on with it. I think these very normal feelings of questioning you know, that questioning whether you actually wanted to become a mother, talking about the downsides of motherhood that all mothers experience, you know, these are incredibly taboo. And actually, I think a previous generation of feminists

were much more open about the choice to remain childless, but also, you know, the very mixed reality of being a mother mother that motherhood is incredibly joyful at times but also you can get ambushed by changes of mood in your children if they're hungry or tired or if they're bickering you know the boredom of motherhood the wish to be doing something else but then you know when I'm away from my kids I always miss them terribly and look at photos of them and and want to buy them presents and and so on so you know I think that motherhood you know that it's just such a mixed experience and yet

society can't tolerate this mixed reality and these mixed feelings because it's as if if we if we admit that that mixed reality exists then that means that mothers will somehow be selfishly focused on themselves and their own needs and desires and and not on the child and that this will damage the child but actually psychologists and psychoanalysts from a previous generation and also now are much more tolerant than the parenting advice industry about acknowledging that reality and saying well actually if mothers you know feel that they're not alone and having these normal feelings, then that will take the pressure off them.

And actually, that will allow them to relax into their relationship with their children and feel more confident. We're getting quite a few messages about the perfect, the word perfect here and how that fits in. Pragya, to come to you, you've written about falling into that trap of wanting to be perfect. Yes, yes, I have. And I think this notion of perfect motherhood is a myth and again, a pressure that we put ourselves on. And I think it is linked to the kind of status and role of women in society and about how, I mean, motherhood is not that separate from womanhood, really, about how women are seen and perceived in society. And this guilt that we always carry, that we are not doing something and that we are made to feel, I mean, I went through

infertility treatments, many of them, and you're made to feel like it's something that you've done wrong if something is not working on. So when motherhood, when you feel like this, and you're made to feel like it's something that you've done wrong if something is not working out. So when motherhood, when you feel like this, that you're struggling, it's always like, I wish if I could do something different, maybe it wouldn't be like that. If my children are watching Rescue Riders at breakfast and eating cheese crackers with Nutella rather than something else, I'm doing something wrong. It's always like I'm doing something wrong. That is why things are difficult. If I could do something else, or if I was better, then I wouldn't find it so difficult that I'm struggling. But also, I think it's only recently we've started sharing these stories of

that we are struggling. I mean, especially during the pandemic, when there was more talk about emotional and mental load of motherhood, about domestic labor, about homeschooling, that people are sharing stories. But I think it's, unless we share these stories, we always feel we are alone. We are the only people who are struggling. We are the only people who are lying awake at night worrying. We are the only people carrying this guilt. And yes, we should talk about the joy. But why can't we talk about the notion that we are all trying to conform to this idealized notion of perfect womanhood, perfect motherhood, perfect everything? Many messages, as you would expect.

Let me come to a few that maybe the pressure on motherhood is about the commercialization and perfectionism, social media side of this of motherhood. I had everything, nice pram, cute clothes, nice Christmas birthday present. But there was no love or emotional nurturing. We all live in a world where we're made to think we need things to be happy, but love, emotional maturity and acceptance is sidelined. For those asking, which I believe I asked, when will I ever be me again? Tracy in Manchester says, you won't. It will never be the same again.

You can be even greater, but it will never be the same. Another one here. Why does society continue to expect women to have children? Not everyone is cut out for parenting. I've had several friends who had no practical experience around children, yet felt they needed to have a baby to be real women and then struggled and regretted their choice. But one here, I never thought I wanted kids really. Isn't life strange? P..S. parenting is by a mile the hardest thing I've ever done, ever. And one more just to share from Anne on email. He says, my son now has his own family.

But when he was small, I remember the wife of an older colleague of my husband telling me it doesn't get any better. You just change one set of problems for another. I think that's as true now as it was then. Eliane, are you in a place now where you feel having looked at this and the need for people to share and the need for people to say what's wrong, that you feel any better about this? I mean, where are you in your own road of this, having written a manifesto? Well, I found babyhood and toddlerhood quite difficult. And I know that teenage years could also be difficult and maybe I'm in the sweet spot now but I feel that for me motherhood

has got better that I've learned how to be a better mother and my children have have become you know more well-behaved citizens and it's a virtuous circle but if I feel that that often that reality of things getting better is concealed from mothers that actually if you give them an inch they'll take a mile and that sort of comforting reality and the nice reality is actually kept from from mothers I mean I feel that while researching this book I found a real variety of historical and geographical parenting practices that, you know, we're told that there's one universal constant norm of how to bring up a child perfectly. And actually, that's a very contemporary Western elite model. And there are so many different ways that people

have brought up children in the past, you know, everything from bringing children to work with you to wet nursing, controversial practice perhaps, but a much more tolerant attitude towards play, you know, the expectation that mothers should play with their children is actually very modern. And actually, that really took the pressure off me in terms of thinking that there's only one correct way to do it. Also, just reading the insights of all these psychologists and psychoanalysts, you know, like Donald Winnicott, who wrote about, you know, what the good enough mother really means that actually a perfect mother or a mother who tries to be perfect is not good enough, because that mother puts the imperfections into her child.

So actually, a good enough mother has to be imperfect to teach the child the lessons of imperfection and how to deal with disappointment. And also this insight that a mother's interests and a child's interests are not opposed. they're so often set up in our culture as as sort of enemies of each other that what's good for the child is is a sacrifice for the mother but actually it's not a zero-sum game that what's you know a happy mother leads to a happy child so you know I think there's a there's a positive message there. There is indeed and and as I say so much engagement on this stay with us for moment. I want to bring Atlanta into this, who got in touch with us. Atlanta, good morning. Hello, it's Atalanta.

Oh, Atalanta. Forgive me. I'm just reading names here and seeing messages. Tell us what you wanted to say about it's really tough and relentless and boring sometimes. If you've worked and, well, even if you haven't worked and you're at home with small children, it's really, really boring and lonely. And we don't talk about that. But I would say that I got my solace from other women, talking to other women, seeing other people who were struggling as well. And we would share it and, you know, and end up laughing. But it's not easy. And we're not valued in society. You know, I've brought up two absolutely fabulous men by myself.

And yet, you know, there's no recognition. Well done you. I want to say that. Well done you. If it means anything at all, I feel like I should say it at that point. It does. Thank you. But, you know, there's no recognition. It's really tough. And although, you know, their father was financially supportive, there's no emotional support, you know. And day in, day out, you've got to get up and do it.

And particularly if one parent's abdicated, you know, you've got to do it. There's no choice. And people used to say, oh, I don't know how you do it. And I said, do you think I had a choice? And I wouldn't have given it up for the world, but it was really tough. And I'm really glad I've got, you know, nice men who take me out to lunch now because I'm in my 60s, but it was a long path. Yeah, I was going to say, Atalanta, looking back on it now

and hearing what you've just heard our guests talk about from their experiences at the moment, is there anything that you would like to see change and you want to see change that hasn't changed yet in terms of society and how we recognise motherhood? Well, I personally would pay people who stay at home i would pay them a wage um you know because they're doing a job for the whole of society i would make it a valuable um choice you know that we value and pay um that that has been argued over the years in in in many many texts it's an interesting

thought atalanta good to talk to you have a nice lunch when you next go out with those boys now men uh ellian you nodded at that i could see you on the zoom the idea of of salary here what do you make of that or what does your research show well it's interesting that um you know feminist campaigners like selma james the Wages for Housework campaign, that these campaigns have been made in the past, and it's strange that they've been almost forgotten, really, now. But actually, there are interesting initiatives like the Marshall Plan for Mums in the US, you know, calling for mothers to be paid for their childcare and domestic labour as a way to rebuild after the pandemic. So, you know, I do think there are interesting ideas out there, but what I really want is to have a

concerted campaign to kind of look back at some of those great ideas from the second wave, feminism, but also apply them to the modern world and say, well, you know, everyone is rethinking work after the pandemic. Well, how about a shorter working week for both men and women? I was going to say, because for a lot of women listening to this, they wouldn't necessarily want to be paid to be in the home. They would want to have a life that they could still work and have childcare that's affordable and be able to be present, as well as, of course, dads. You know, we had a father on yesterday who's found a lot more of the responsibilities gone to him during lockdown because his wife was a doctor, depending on where you worked or how you worked during the pandemic. Pragya, to bring you back into this, when you're hearing ideas like

that or about how to value motherhood in our society, what does that prompt in you and the research that you've done? I think for me, first of all, we need to think about a societal change where we don't link the woman's identity to mothering or to giving birth or to having a child. And when that becomes not the norm, then we can allow women to choose whether they want to have children or not, first of all. We need to talk more honestly about mothering, about what it entails, so that people can make this choice with full autonomy and agency. But also, I think we need to have a free and affordable childcare, which is really important, because unless that happens, women do not have the freedom to be themselves, whatever that might mean, to go out and work, to contribute in other ways, and to not feel that they have this pressure to leave

the workforce and stay at home because there's no other option and alternative. And I think we need to move away from these kind of typical feminine and masculine stereotypes where mothering or child care it becomes only a woman's role as well because unless we have shared parental leave, unless we create a societal discussion around parenting, we cannot move away from that where mothers or women feel that it's their job and their job alone. And when we do that, we put all this pressure on ourselves to be the best mothers, to be the best perfect mothers. We carry the mom guilt. We carry all those kind of notions of, yeah, pressures and guilt with us. And so we need to have a wider societal discussion about what it means to parent

a child, to bring up a child. What value does it have to society and what does society have to do in return but have you dealt with the guilt have you managed to get rid of it i'm asking for a friend here some top tips not always i still have that guilt i don't think we are ever free of guilt and i don't know how to do that but it's a waste of energy isn't it it's an emotion devoid of any value a lot of the time. That's the problem with it. It is. And there is no productive outcome of it, but we still carry that.

And I don't think children, as they grow older or as teenagers, it becomes any less. I used to think parenting becomes easier when children grow older, but I don't think it does because you never stop mothering. But I think it balances out with the joy. And I think we can teach ourselves. We can unlearn some of those internalised beliefs. And I think I have done that over the years so that I feel less guilt now.

Eliane, in your book, you also talk about the red mist and the rage, which I do want to come to with you in a moment. But something caught our eye this morning in the papers. Marina Fogel is on the line. She's got a podcast called As Good As It Gets. And she's been talking exactly about that and the role of anger in parenting. Marina, good morning. Good morning, Emma.

Lovely to be here. What role does anger play in your parenting? Listen, I think as parents, we're always told, don't get angry with your children, it makes you a bad mother. But ultimately, if we're passionate about something, we'll get angry about it. And so to tell parents that you shouldn't be angry is actually then, you know, setting them up to fail, because all of us feel frustrated, frustrated. And, you know, if you care passionately about something, then that's inevitable. I try not to get angry very much. But occasionally, I find myself, I'm mother to a 10 and 11 year old,'s inevitable. I try not to get angry very much, but occasionally I find myself, I mother to a 10 and an 11 year old, you know, I'm trying to

increase their independence. I'm trying to give them that sort of sense of autonomy. And I'll tell them to do the same thing again and again and again nicely. And they won't listen. And sometimes I do lose it. It's rare, but sometimes I do. And I do feel guilty about that. But actually, sometimes it's a really effective way of getting the message across. But I also feel back to, you know, the work of Donald Winnicott, it kind of plays back into that idea that we are modeling to our children how you should behave. But it's also really important to model to them how you shouldn't behave. And when I do lose it, and sometimes I lose it too much. And I'll say, guys, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that I shouldn't have sworn when I stubbed my toe, I shouldn't have, you know,

hassled you to get into the car a little bit more quickly than you'd wanted to. Because also, then you're modeling how to behave when you have messed up, and all of us are going to mess up in life. And that's arguably a really important thing to teach our children, you know, how not to behave, you know, if you're the perfect mother, or if you're a perfect parent or if you're a perfect parent and you're always showing them that you're perfect the whole time, eventually they're going to go out into the world and realize that people aren't always nice. On social media, people are mean. They say horrid things that maybe they don't mean. But if they haven't had any experience of dealing with that, they're going to have a much tougher time than if they've had little insights into the imperfect

person, which ultimately we all are. And so you're kind of letting them, you're teaching them to be stronger and more resilient member of society, I think anyway. And when we're talking about that red mist, I mean, what sort of stuff are we talking about? Do you absolutely lose it? And then they see that they shouldn't have pushed their mum to do this.

I mean, you're trying to show them, as I understand it from what you were saying, you're trying to show them that their actions also have consequences because it's not just about, you know, making them feel okay during this. It's, as you say, teaching them how to be an adult. Absolutely. I feel as parents, we sacrifice so much to them. You know, I'm their mother, but I'm also their PA. And I, you know, pack their bags for school. And sometimes you feel really taken advantage of. And it's one thing doing that for your three year old, but actually, once they get to 10 and 11, they need to do their own thing. So I think it's

showing them, you know, we were taken for granted as parents by our children. And actually, as they get older, it's important for them to understand that they can't take people for granted that, you know, things that they say and do can be really hurtful. And so it's little things like, you know, getting them ready for school. I asked them to get ready and they go upstairs and they're not getting ready. They're doing a little dance and playing with their Lego. And I say, you know, it's so important for me that we are ready. Very often, I mean, I'm going to go to work after I've dropped them at school.

And I say it's really important that I'm not late. Please respect my feelings and my needs. And, you know, and occasionally it's too much. Sometimes it's really effective. Like yesterday, we actually went to swim with some friends in their swimming pool and there's some other children there. And my children were just not very friendly. And the other people left, the lady who hosted us said, well, you know, I felt that you weren't at all inclusive. And when I got them home for dinner, I said, I was really disappointed by that behavior. I'm really ashamed to be your mother today. And it was quite punchy.

But I felt very strongly that kindness is very important. And if you're in a bigger group, you can feel powerful. And in the end, actually, my son was was quite tearful. He felt really terrible. But you know, he then said, I'm going to write an email and apologize. And I said, listen, learn, use this as a teachable moment. Use this as an opportunity to learn how not to behave. But I think my emotion and how I articulated my disappointment, even though it was really punchy, it drove it home. And for them, that's a very valuable lesson. It's something I felt very passionate about. But Marina Fogel, thank you for your time. I mean, the striking thing there, still guilt after it. I have to say guilt is a constant theme along here with also some reassurances I can see in our messages. I will

just come back to those in a moment. Eliane, you do talk about the red mist. There's some really good examples in the book where I actually laughed out loud at the thought of what you'd been driven to. But I was also very, you know, just snapping, you know, those moments where you just snap. But I also thought it was very striking that you talked about how much praise we're expected to put onto our children. But where are the ladlefuls of praise for mothers? You just get left with guilt, however you respond. I thought you could just give us an insight on that. Yeah, and I try to be really honest in this book

about my own failings as a mother, just to try and increase solidarity amongst mothers. Because I think that when we think it's just ourselves losing our rag, then it actually makes us behave worse because we think oh god it's all ruined you know and aren't I awful um and I and I think it's self-reinforcing so um yeah I mean I find you know as a mother my buttons are pushed in a way that that I haven't felt since my own childhood and yet you're supposed as a mother to be the mature responsible one at all times and stay calm.

And, you know, I think that this just doesn't fit with the reality of, you know, midweek in the witching hour between five and seven. Your partner is out. The kids are fighting. And yet, you know, times when I have lost my temper and I've gone online in a kind of self-punishing way. I didn't think it was a helpful strategy, but you go online to those forums and parenting websites. The forums are full of experiences like my own. So that was comforting in a way, but, you know, I felt sad that actually all these mothers were turning to message boards to try and find advice and reassurance. And because the parenting advice

doesn't provide that so that the parenting advice is all positive reinforcement and leading by example and yes a ladle full of praise is actually a quote from one of those experts that that you're supposed to praise your children for good behavior at all times and I just felt that when I read that that just wasn't realistic. It wasn't even helpful to the child. You know, when they're just behaving well and things are calm, to praise them all the time, I think the children would actually come to expect that. But also there was a resounding silence about what you do when,

firstly, your own buttons are pushed, but also when your children are playing up. I think in the past there was a language and a strategy for dealing with problems of discipline, and yet now, even though those disciplining methods were very harsh, I think today there's a lot of language about respecting children's rights, but actually nothing to say to parents or mothers in particular who are pushed to the limits and very unsupported and isolated. And I think that we really need to

normalise that reality. I'm sure there'll be some response on that particular point as well. There's been a huge response to this already. and I want to come to those messages again in just a moment. But Eliane Glazer, we have to leave it there in terms of talking to you. Motherhood, A Manifesto is the name of the book. Pragya Agarwal, thank you to you as well, author of Motherhood on the Choices of Being a Woman. Just one here, please tell the mothers an email that's come in who are having a hard time at the moment to keep on in there. Your kids do not want perfection. How scary would that be to have a perfect mother? Thank you for that message and lots of nods going around on our Zoom call to that message. Now, a few weeks ago, as meeting up began to look possible again, we asked you to tell us about who you were desperate to see and why.

Last week, you may remember we heard from Chris and her friends in Cardiff. This week, our listener Sally-Anne from Reading wanted to nominate the girls, as she calls them. She's had a tough year and not seeing them face-to-face has been hard. Our reporter Jo Morris spoke to Sally-Anne as she prepared to host a garden get-together and popped into one of their regular Zoom chats to eavesdrop. Sally-Anne starts by introducing her friends. Gemma, Lindsay, Charlie, Andrea, Mandy.

Why do you have to say it in a certain order? Because otherwise I won't remember. So, like, I might say, oh, the girls are coming and somebody will say oh who and i'll go uh well lindsey uh mandy what are the other ones called and then i just have to say nope jemma lindsey charlotte andrea mandy that's the way that's the way it is and they're the girls they're the girls yeah so are you gonna dress up this saturday or are you like me finding it hard to peel yourself out of your joggies at the moment it's gonna be down to what the weather's like because we've still got to be outside haven't we it is sunny 13 on saturday oh that's nice that's balmy

we've got blankets and rugs and yeah what about you charlie have you got plans wearing anything just the tassels yeah i will be going very sensible lots of layers so you met at school what were your first impressions of each other can you remember actually i remember charlie being really shy amazingly i was i was extraordinarily shy in fact i didn't speak to any of you for about six years so and now you can't shut her up. I know. I'm making up for lost time. I used to sit in front of you and I just remember you giggling so much and me being really jealous about the fact that I wanted to be in on the giggling.

And my mum still says now about how much me and you, Sal, used to giggle down the phone at each other. Spend all day long with each other and then phone each other and write to each other with actual stamps yeah we did what you wrote to each other even though you kind of lived around the corner from each other yeah who we loved who we didn't when was the last time you were all together we worked it out it is about eight months ago such a long time not to be with each other on our birthdays, not to see each other through the rough times, not to see each other when we need a good rant. Always pretty much been in your life, these women there.

Yes, all women. It does sound weird to say that. We're the girls. But when talking to other people, we do have to refer to each other as women because we're 40. Odd. Is there a sense with your friends or this particular group that you get to be your true self or a side that you don't always get to share everyone? There's no mask. There's no I'm trying to be work, Sally-Anne. There's no I'm trying to say the right thing, Sally-Anne. And I don't care. I don't care that I might have said something silly.

I don't feel like they're going to judge me. when you're with them how do you feel like I don't want to be anywhere else really yeah what do you normally all dance to together I tell you what is always a winner is if anything by Gloria Estefan comes on. 80s in general. If 80s comes on, yeah. We're in. Yes, just yes. We're there. Have you always got on? No, no. We've all had our little fallings out at one point or another,

but they've not been for very long, probably a couple of days at most, I'd say. And that was during school, wasn't it, in the main? Oh, yeah, not since school do you remember chucking that glass of jd and coke over my head in washington heights i knew you was gonna say that yeah yeah no i do i do and i'd do it again you wait you wait my girl i don't even know what that was about do you i think you're just being really annoying you'd been upstairs in washington heights the r&b would be playing you were trying to bogle and sales was having none of it and i need to go or something you'd be like no get out my way yeah go and put some clothes on

can you imagine if we had a falling out now it would be absolutely catastrophic it would actually it'd really hurt to fall out of any of you lot it's the only place where i feel completely confident apart from family where someone can take the mick out of me and i don't care i've just remembered you all taking the mick out of my mum when i'm on the phone as it goes get off that phone do you make each other laugh? Honestly, I don't laugh as much with anyone else as I do with the girls. I think we've got a lot more banter than men, to be fair. Got it all going on.

Do you know what I always find quite funny? It's the other halves. They always turn around to us and sort of say, good God, I could hear you girls from upstairs. How do your partners feel about the group? Do they sort of understand it and know what's going on? Do they feel a bit left out, do you think? My partner, you know, he's all for it.

He really likes all of the girls. I think we all get on quite well with the other halves. I think they kind of want to be part of it and then they try for about 15 minutes and then they're just like, yeah, no, just no. I don't understand all the jokes. What do you think, Charlie? My other half detested it so much he left, so.

I'm a single Pringle, so I don't have to clock in with anybody else. What have you found hardest this year about not being able to see your friends in the normal way? My father died in November and normally I would have gone to the girls I know they would have dropped absolutely everything and of course they all knew my dad he loved all our friends actually but they all thought that they were really special because he used to call them curly but actually it's just because he couldn't remember their names he called all of them curly Curly. Yeah, yeah, Curly, all of them. Have they got curly hair?

No. Not any of them. What was your dad's name? Jerry. Jerry. Yeah. Next Saturday, we're just going to get together and have a good old chat and a cry, I'd imagine.

Love the fact that your dad called them all Curly. Bless. Very special man are there some conversations you can only really have face to face I mean other things that happened this year that you've needed to talk about face to face yeah obviously with Sally Ann when she was with her dad and he was really unwell I would have loved to have actually been able to spend proper time with her and then also after he passed away. You don't want to be at the end of the phone, you want to be there and I wanted to hug her. She gives the best hugs and I hope I give a good hug back and I think that's what she needed. I found that difficult. When it's something that difficult, that loss that she was going through, text messages and a call on Zoom, it doesn't cut it.

How does it feel hearing your friends say that, Sally-Anne? It's really lovely. Have that big, massive support network in person. But seriously, girls, you really did, did all of you really pull out all the stops and you all pitched it perfectly the flowers to my mum i know she was very touched with that that meant the world to her and and all of us and i know how much my dad loved all of you. See, now I want to give you a big hug. Yeah, exactly.

I'm feeling it. And a wet kiss. Oh, no. Oh, dear. No, just move. You ruined it. Hi, Jo. Today's the day the girls are coming. The bunting's out, the birds are singing, the sun's out. Fantastic.

Hello! Hello! Thanks Gem, lovely flowers. Gem, turn around and go, I'm not for you. Thank you, I'm beautiful. Hi Charlie! Hello Gorge, how are you? I'm alright, are you?

Lovely, you're dressed. Hi Charlie! Hello Gorge, how are you? I'm alright, are you? I love your dress! The girls are here, they're in the garden, we've had lunch, a bit stuffed. We've had a few glasses of wine and we've done a lot of cheersing, a lot of reminiscing. I just feel comfortable in my own skin and able to chat about anything that's bothering me for the first time in a long time. Gemma, Lindsay, Charlie, Andrea, Mandy. Woo! Woo! Thank you to Sally Add for letting us eavesdrop there with our reporter, Jo Morris.

And that need and that feeling to be able to talk is incredibly important. So many of you doing it with us here this morning. A message I just wanted to read in light of our chat about mums and motherhood, which I'll come back to again shortly. But the guilt point, my son's just turned 18. I'm wracked with guilt that his childhood is gone and I wasn't good enough. I was a single mum. I worked. I tried to be the best I could. But every stupid tear I cried over a useless boyfriend, every time I was too tired or cross haunts me.

I wish I could do it all again and be better. He's a wonderful boy, but that feels despite me, not because of me. More messages as well around perfection and also society not accommodating mothers let me read you this message around that point i had so many problems when my children were of junior school age trying to work there was no work flexibility from employers not even from those who had older children themselves this forced me to only be able to do cleaning jobs as it was the only way I could take control of my work hours, something I'm still doing at 58. Keep those messages coming in on 84844. You're saying what you feel you need to about motherhood at a time when perhaps we're told we're

more open than ever before, but maybe we've gone backwards in that respect. And certainly the institutional most of motherhood within society doesn't feel like it's working and it's not working for you with what you need to be able to do to work. And actually a point on that, which is from Megan, who got in touch to say, can we please start with changing the narrative which states work and a job are only by definition carried out outside the home. The implication that being at home with the children is not work is a societal undermining of the reality, which it is bloody hard work and the hardest job most mothers have ever done. Indeed, Megan, thank you for that message. Keep them coming in. Now, you may have visited Kew Gardens and seen the incredible gallery of botanical art created by Marianne North. She's one of several female artists being featured at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum as part of Coventry's UK City of Culture celebrations. The exhibition, called Unnatural History, explores not only the historical role of artists in the science of natural history,

but also contemporary artists addressing the current climate crisis. Alice Sharp is the founder of Invisible Dust, who've curated the exhibition, and Frances Diddley is an artist who examines the medicinal properties of plants and the healing power of nature. Alice, good morning. Tell us about the role, first of all, of women in the science of natural history. How important were they? Well, I think that the great thing for us is that it's been a real opportunity to look at some of the leading figures who are both artists and naturalists. So the thing that's really interesting here is they were both scientists in their own right, as well as artists. So Marianne North, she travelled the world firstly with her father, and then on her own and created over 800 paintings of these amazing landscapes and plants. And she was particularly looking for certain species. She was actually a friend

of Darwin. She did some of her paintings for him. And she was actually looking at how we explore nature and how we learn about the world as well as doing her paintings. And the other artist that we're about to talk about, Angela Brazel, she also was someone who actually is no much better for her children's novels. But actually, it was a fantastic uh naturalist she was a part of the field studies group in in wales and went out with her sister and did a lot of note-taking and um it was really important to her to understand nature and i think if you know her books and look at them again you'll really realize that the nature features very strongly in those do people not know about her environmental work as much as they do they don don't, actually. And interesting enough for us, our starting point for the exhibition has been the Herbert Art Gallery and Museums collection. And when we were going through the collection, we found these Angela Brazil paintings. And Fran is about to tell you more about how they inspired her.

But we were very struck by the fact that people didn't know about these paintings. They weren't something that was um sort of popularly known i think marianne north is a lot better known but certainly with andrew basil it's not been part of her you know her sort of celebrity status is more to do with her um her writing yes well let's let's bring you into this francis tell us about those those diaries of angela owned by Herbert Museum they were the starting point I believe for your work yeah I was really fortunate enough to um have a look through one of the diaries with the curator from the Herbert Ali Wells and um we're just trying to think about like you know what what the parallels were and what was interesting in them and they're basically these amazing diaries that that span like 20 years um so the one that

we looked at it's like and the diary entries kind of skip you know between 15 20 years and they're literally a noticing you know everything going on wonders and noticing all of the weeds and the plants and um the birds and the animals and and you can really tell that they're not necessarily made for the public. So you can tell there's not a consciousness in there about how they're going to be perceived. So they are like this tracking. And it's kind of, in a casual way, it feels like it's not got this kind of imposition of being um scientific so in there

are these amazing entries and which really just chimed with me because you know looking through them it's you you jump to the month and you're seeing exactly the same thing so it felt like um i could go on this journey with angela you know um even though they were kind of the day that we were looking at in particular was 1927 and the same things are there. And because the other, you know, the other sort of elements that would normally be in there around the situation, the time, I felt like I could really connect with her experience.

What's your favourite? Have you got one that sprung out to you, these beautiful watercolours of everyday plants, everyday scenes? Yeah, well, she went on this wander from Crackley Ward. So she was in Gibbet Hill in Coventry. So she kind of had this big meander on July the 19th, 1927. And she noticed rock gloves, meadow sweet, yarrow, hill um and all sorts of plants and ali from the herbert just found that there was a set of watercolors that actually related to that journey so we've got

those on display at the the herbert but but yarrow is yarrow and um ribwort plantain are the things that really kind of chime with me and i've fallen in love with over the last year and my with my local municipal park and well that's amazing little weeds that have like sorry no go on go on these amazing weeds these amazing weeds that have these amazing properties um and like as Alice said what invisible dust do is um match you up with a scientist and look at your own practice and think you'd be relevant so I got to talk to this this wonderful woman called Rebecca Lazarou who's a medicinal plant scientist and Michael Smythe from Phytology who runs this amazing space in Bethnal Green and it's all around those little plants and found out about all of these things around these these weeds that are everywhere that I've played with as a kid but I didn't really

notice what they were doing what I was going to say was obviously you know with people being outside perhaps more this year and engaging in a much more local way and looking at things differently. Do you think, Alice, that there is an opportunity now for people to engage and learn in a way that perhaps they might not have been open to? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the important points of the exhibition is that we go from the past of natural history through to the present, to the future. So if you look in the past, that point we were talking about earlier one of the reasons that artists are so important to nature is they were the first people to draw nature and right back to the renaissance you know Leonardo da Vinci we actually artists were the way that we as as a world understood nature because we didn't have photography we didn't have all the kind of microscopes we have now and I think that the

interesting thing is now that bring it to the current day we also have the ability now to do citizen science projects and we did a really fantastic project up in Scarborough which was on bees and we got local families to go out with my you know with their own little um um phones doing little videos of bees and understanding them and I think there is a real as you say from from Covid and lockdown people are looking outside their windows they're looking at birds they're looking at their gardens and I think people have really connected into it and I feel very hopeful because I do feel connecting to nature is your first step to understanding climate change and that's one of the points of the exhibition is these artists are have got lots of ways in for people and climate

change feels very overwhelming to a lot of people but actually when you can go in and look at something for example like a drawing of a plant and kind of understand that that plant you know isn't around anymore because you know the conditions have changed and pollution or whatever and you can actually sort of understand actually if I do something differently that plant will be around in the future you know so that and the same with animals so I think nature is a really important way in for people and we've done that in the exhibition we've explored things like extinction we've got an artist called Tanya Kovats done this beautiful piece and we just heard a lot about motherhood well Tanya Kovats has done this enormous cabinet you might coming up to it

you might think it's got some sort of a specimen inside. Actually, it's got her son's shoes. And she collected her son's shoes from age eight to 18. And they put them in a long line. And as you come in and you look at these shoes, they're scuffed. There's a bit of mud on them. You get this real sense of a childhood, of a child growing up. And where is your role in that? And a sense of loss as well as, you know, obviously there's some political things you could bring in there

about children having to emigrate. I remember when I went to Ellis Island island there's a lot of a lot of shoes but i think that that personal connection with climate change with extinction you're you're coming into it on your own level and finding yeah finding a different way in well thank you for talking to us alice sharp the founder of invisible dust who've curated that exhibition which is called unnatural history at the herbert art gallery and museum as part of the coventry uk City of Culture celebrations. And we're also hearing from the artist there, Francis Disley,

returning to our discussion about motherhood. So many powerful messages. Listening whilst at work, I just want to read this before I speak to one of you who's got in touch, one of our listeners. I've had this conversation many, many times over the years. If I could go back and be braver at saying no to the demands of work, I would, in a heartbeat.

I worked far too much missing out on forming solid relationships with my children as infants. They're now 25 and 26. As a result of working excessively, as the money was needed, they had to endure the breakup of their parents. My daughter now has a beautiful five-year-old girl. She's taken my experience

and evolved into the brave person I wish I'd been. Saying no to certain types of work to ensure she is there for her daughter, Lisa being incredibly honest there, listening in Glasgow. Good morning to you. Shireen is on the line. Good morning, Shireen. Good morning. What did you want to say when the line. Good morning, Shireen. Good morning. What did you want to say when we were talking about candour and motherhood? Well, I think that we've got to take responsibility a bit ourselves for how we view our role as mothers.

And I certainly bought into a Country Life magazine dream and believed that my children would be magnificent all of the time and I would never be cross, I'd never shout. And I take full responsibility for that delusion. And I found it incredibly hard. And I do remember soon after my son was born, I had to dash back into the house to get something from his bedroom and saw him sitting in the car waiting. He was just a baby.

And I did think, God, I could just walk away now and leave him there forever. And that sounds a terribly radical and irresponsible thought. And maybe social services at the time would have said, you've got postnatal depression and everything. But actually, I don't think it's an uncommon thought. And a friend of mine once said to me in my kitchen, she said, do you ever wish you hadn't had them? And I thought we should go into a cupboard and hide and talk about it because it sounded so radical and unacceptable. But there are those times when you just, you know, like a job, you think, oh, this is really the job I wanted,

but actually I don't want it. This is the man I wanted, but now I've changed my mind. And these are the children I want, but it's very, very hard. I remember my daughter locking me out when I stood outside the kitchen door to have a cigarette. She was about four. She locked me out and I banged on the door to ask her to let me in and she told me to F off. And I was terribly upset that I'd failed as a mother and immensely proud of her and felt that I had succeeded. So, you know, it's the package that we want to buy into.

And I know this is woman's hour, but I think men are victims just as much as us. And we have to try and be brave and say, yeah, I want them, but it's not going to be great and it's going to be fantastic as well. And it's going to be extremely hard work. Shireen, you don't know how many people I'm sure will be nodding along with parts of that and

also thinking about their own experiences and perhaps what they've never said aloud before. Shireen, thank you for getting in touch with us this morning. Good to talk to you. And a message here, especially in light of the pandemic. I tried to work from home at the start of the pandemic, but couldn't do so with a two-year-old. It was humiliating and nerve-wracking to do Zoom calls with a small child, throwing things and shouting, which wasn't his fault because he was two. My husband's work basically didn't recognise that he had a wife who might need to work too. I was furloughed eventually and felt great resentment towards my husband when he disagreed with me that I had given up work to allow him to work

because I was still getting paid. What I'd given up was my freedom, time alone, identity outside the home, and I'm still angry he couldn't understand that. An anonymous message there of someone feeling they need to get something off their chest. Shireen, thank you for your candour there and coming on the radio. Of course, apologies if anyone heard that bit of language, although bleated out by Shireen and was offended by that. Another one here just to say, don't forget it never stops.

I still feel responsible for my grown up children. Perhaps I look back with rose tinted glasses. Thank you so much for your candour this morning. We'll be back tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. The System. A new six-part thriller from BBC Radio 4. What do you want to do with your life? Do you want to spend your time glued to a screen, feeding the dopamine addiction you don't even know you've got, looking at pictures of things you'll never have, places you'll never go, and people you'll never meet?

Or do you want to exist in the real world? Do you want to be part of something? Do you want to use your body, the only body you'll ever have, gifted to you by millennia of evolution? Do you want to use it for something other than swiping and clicking and tapping and eating donut holes? If so, we may have something for you. The System, a new six-part thriller from Thriller from BBC Radio 4. 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.

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.