Mother Pukka Explains Her Version of Motherhood

0:00Hello and welcome to Made by Mamas the podcast. I'm Zoe Hardman and I'm Georgia Dayton and this is your parenting safe space where no conversation is off limits with five kids between G and I we have seen a lot we really have each week we'll be joined by some famous faces and experts and we'll chat about the brands and products that have saved us along the way in short we're the parenting podcast for you before we get started hit subscribe or follow so you're the first to know when each episode lands and they're on Tuesdays and Fridays and it really helps if you leave a rating and a review You can also find us on Instagram.

0:34We're on at Made by Mummers. But for now, George, should we get into it? I feel like the worst mum ever because it's Kit's nativity play tonight. And I'm hosting a book launch and will not be there. So part of me feels devastated. But then the other half of me remembers last year when they just banged these triangles for like 20 minutes. And I thought, kill me now. I know. You could just pretend you were there. Oh, yes. Yeah. I've got a friend in the opposite way. she pretends she wasn't there but she was there and it like because her son doesn't want her there right he's like do not come and then it suddenly dawned on me I was like oh so if she can pretend she wasn't there you could easily pretend you were there couldn't you you could do it you could just be like oh yeah I was there you know yeah sorry I had to run out because I had a call straight after but they think you were there.

1:29Georgia, you are an evil genius. So maybe you could try that. Because I do think there is like this whole narrative, isn't there? Like, oh, they're the moments you can't miss. They're the moments you can't miss. And I, you know, to a certain extent, I do believe that, you know, like looking back. But you're not going to remember 10 nativities. You're going to remember one, maybe two. But when he says swear on my life, what's the code to make it okay? Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed behind the back. Okay, great. George we had a really beautiful big conversation on the podcast today and I want to give this one the time that it deserves so stick with it because it was I mean she is so eloquent the way she formulates words and sentences her vocab is just next level and I just love the way she looks at life she's been on the most incredible hate using this word but journey since we last caught up with her.

2:20I was going to say, it must have been at least, what, five, maybe even six years since we've had her on the podcast before. And I think it's always really interesting when you leave such a gap because it shows you so much can change in that period of time, which on the surface, five years, you think, oh, you know, you blink and five years goes. But for this guest, everything has changed. She's literally at the start of a new beginning right now. And her life couldn't be more different in so many ways. Yeah, it's such a good chat. So much to take away as well. You're in for such a treat. Georgia, who are we talking to?

2:58We're chatting to Anna Whitehouse, but you probably know her as Mother Pucker. Can't bloody wait for this conversation. Podcaster, author, broadcaster, radio host, all-around legend, divorcee, new mum. It's Anna Whitehouse! Yes! I had to get that in. it's like top trump cards you know where it's like how many marriages two i don't think that would be that high i think that would that wouldn't be your top trump actually no no no set the scene for us we always like to ask our guests tell us about your morning what's been going on oh my god uh do you want you know instagram versus reality yeah well the reality right now is house being renovated I'm in a corner of the house um don't know where anything is you know when you get a call from the school saying uh your daughter needs her sports kick she hasn't got it and you're like well I don't even know where my car is right now if I can get out the drive and you just yeah state of chaos my phone being cropped up by 13 books right now you know like not not uh not the uh boss mom uh but we haven't spoken to you oh my god there's so much for us to talk to you about today but we haven't caught up with you properly for about five years and what no what a bloody adventure you've been on since then I mean firstly congratulations because you have got a new baby yeah I know I thought the shop was shut but um you know when you you think right we're done with that and now here we are circling circling back yeah I've got one year old and uh I have to say for all the fear and all the worry of being a sort of geriatric mother I think we're all geriatric mothers um to be fair I don't think anyone gets away with it but uh it's actually advanced maternal age now really but for all the fear I think and the scaremongering because if you think about it when we were sort of young girls we were really told 29 was cut off you know like tick tock mother nature's clock you got yourself a man you got yourself your baby before you're 32 well Jesus Christ I'm 44 with a new man and a new baby and uh that ship uh that ship has absolutely sailed back in the 20 when I was 29 so yeah like she's been the best thing that's ever happened to me um and I really feared the worst um I really thought oh my god is this going to be the straw that breaks the mother's back having a baby at 44 with you know in the let's say embers of divorce uh with quite a sort of erratic job that takes you anywhere and everywhere at a moment's notice with two little girls that I was navigating through divorce there was a lot going on and so I thought god is this is this the thing that's going to actually maybe push me over and actually I feel like it's gonna make me teary saying it but I feel like Lola was sent to kind of fix all the little maybe broken fragments um that were sort of left and she's uh absolutely healed me that is such a beautiful way of putting it because I know you know you and I've been friends for a very long time and I know what you went through during that period was so painful and it was so difficult and obviously you know having having the girls and kind of navigating motherhood for the first and second time you know it's a bit of a roller coaster isn't it and then maybe by the third one potentially it's with the you know the right person or it's it's it's the right time but actually healing those wounds that you had to deal with that's a big that's a big journey that's a big moment it is because we worked together when I was kind of in the depths of postnatal depression that's the truth and I think there's so many women and mothers who are highly functioning depressives you know because we don't have a choice to just not put the shoes on not put the coat on not get the kids to school you know like it's the wrong word it's the wrong word privilege but there is just no way out when you are a mum and you have dependents and so when I was working with you Zoe I was just a highly functioning depressive uh I was putting the lipstick on putting the smile on I think the more colorful the jumpsuits I wore and the more like the higher my eyeliner flick we all have our masks that we put on I would just put that mask on every morning and paper over the cracks paper over the maternal cracks and just continue because there wasn't an option not to and I don't think there's any one woman mother listening to this right now who hasn't had even a moment or months or even years however long where you haven't had the choice to stop the it feels like a luxury to stop and so yeah I had very there was a lot of scar tissue from my last pregnancy and I think anybody who's had a tough time whether that's with birth or postnatally you go into having a baby again oh my god you fear the worst um I feared the worst and in this moment I can say quite you know happily in this moment the best happened from what I thought would be the worst.

8:16Why do you think it's been so different this time? It's a very good question. I think I've made peace with the chaos and I've made absolute peace with mess. I've made peace with the fact that my highly organised and controlling almost way of parenting before was actually my um undoing right and uh I have just relaxed into it and I think that that comes with age you know like I'm like I say um I'm not a a young little fawn anymore and 44 look at though uh yeah yeah you do you look back you're like you're aging like a fine wine running on two hours sleep you know when the concealer like just can't conceal anymore um but it's a good question because I think it's come with making peace with myself like I learned to love myself and in loving myself I wasn't then chasing other people's dreams or other people's versions of motherhood like my self for my version of motherhood which is not always having the right lids on the right bottles and not always sometimes having matching socks and um and on some days I'm exceptional it can go from 0 to 60 you know but I've made peace with the undulations and the ebbing and the flowing of motherhood because if you're trying to compete with yourself which is what I was I was competing with myself setting the benchmarks of motherhood and relationships and friendships like that I was just consistently failing again so I've just learned to love myself, sit with the absolute chaos of my life right now with two stepchildren, three children, two guinea pigs, second husband, and like Zoe knows, a job that can take you anywhere and everywhere.

10:16And so to answer your question, I've made peace probably with myself. We'll be right back after this short break. welcome back to this episode of made by mommas now where were we we talk about you know you said the key the best time to have a baby is 29 that's what we grew up with that narrative but actually listening to you now it's it's almost a shame that our like body and our mind don't talk to each other when it comes to having a baby because maybe having a baby in your 40s is much better because you're more comfortable in yourself like you say like you don't have to live up to anyone else's narrative um there is actually a lot to be said said for it and anyone listening who might be worried then this is proof I guess not to be it's a I think it's quite a dark trope that we're kind of sold and we all had it quite misogynistic essentially tick tock mother nature's clock you know if you don't get married and have that baby by the strike of 12 on on x date you know you're somehow failing on your 30s it genuinely was we were probably i reckon guys we were probably the last generation that felt that overwhelming pressure because if you think about it now birth rates are the lowest they've been since 1923 because young mum well young women gen z are looking at us and going no flipping way mate i don't want in on that that looks a horror show do you think that's how far are they is that what they're thinking yeah and not just but not just because of children are great like children are like it's such a huge privilege to be a mother like children aren't the problem the system we're in the structure we're in that does not recognize what mothers go through and that we need proper support and that no you can't just uh expect us to pay essentially our entire salary, a second mortgage to go through childcare.

12:13Like, no, I think genuinely this generation of Gen Z is going absolutely not. And so birth rates are declining massively. And I don't blame them. No, I don't. I really don't. And I think we are the last generation that genuinely felt that like that vice like grit of our success as a woman was based on like who we married, when we married and when we had a baby. Jesus Christ that's not the case anymore I'm done with that as she said at 44 but I also think when I was 25, 26 none of my friends were questioning whether they wanted a family it was just a given it was more when you'll do it or if you meet the right person were you having those conversations though when you were 25?

12:58yeah because my best friend had a baby at 21 my best friend growing up from school Lucy she's got three boys now yeah she was 21 and I was married at 24 so yeah we were very much having like those conversations it was a split like there was half and half you know but it was what I'm saying is there wasn't like no one in our friendship group was saying oh actually I don't know if I want that no one like it was all just like a given whether you were with someone or not it was just like that you know that was just a given that everyone wanted whereas now I talk to people like mainly through work who are you know 25 26 27 and they're like oh I don't really know if that's what I want I'm not sure yet and I don't I never heard anyone saying those things but it must be so it's so difficult though isn't it because even if you're not questioning it at 25 26 27 but then suddenly by 30 31 32 you're hyper aware or what we've been fed anyway is that you know our egg um our ovarian count drops off you know suddenly we're going to be dried up dried our whole piece of meat on the shelf you know all that kind of language and then you're like fuck fuck fuck i've got to find someone to have a baby with it's it's it's it's it's just a complete shit show isn't it and i wonder and this is you know quite a punch thing to say i wonder how many women sort of when it bought a husband oh definitely biology you know i'm gonna say it like you know pre-hinge where you literally it was down to your colleagues that you know you had a pool of about really five vaguely okay people um actually yeah you just got the best snog and you could roll the dice and ritzy on a friday night if you wanted to but you know that was going to come with consequences so you really had a very small pool ironically uh zoe and i met because i dated one of her friends let's share this story oh do you know this no i don't go on anna oh so I was going out with this guy called Tom.

14:56He's lovely. To be honest, you know, like he was in the pool of five, I would say, just to say. He was not the random, he was not the roll of the dice in Ritzy at 2am. No, no. He was lovely. We were 18. And ended up, and as I think, I wish that I would actually say this, my story with Zoe is the exact story I'm replicating to my girls because Zoe and I genuinely just kind of fell in love as women, as friends. And I'm not saying I see her every day. I'm not saying that I am constantly messaging, you okay, hun, how are you? It's the least complicated friendship I've ever had because it genuinely was, it began with a man and ended with two women being friends.

15:39And I don't think, if you look at our story, so it's going to make me teary. I know. If you look at our story, the bit that really we should be celebrating in that is that Zoe and I have had a friendship that spanned 23 years it's so lovely that was introduced by this lovely guy but the real success story in this the benchmark of my success is the friendships I have with the women in my life and I don't think as we're talking about female biology weddings marriages divorces where actually is everything I'm seeing right now sat in front of me two women who met I think you both met on maternity leave right yeah in a coffee shop that's the love story we should be talking about my relationship with zoe that to me is one of the biggest success stories of my life not how i'm measured by uh the society's expectation of what i need to be as a woman it's who i am as a friend who i am as a woman to my girl who's in my tribe who's got my back who's in my tribe you know and I think that that's the bit I consistently say to my daughters and I've noticed it is whenever they see me uh you know on a hen do or my girls come around for dinner or anything I just go you know instead of like oh one day you know you might get married and we don't talk about marriage yeah I talk about the commune I talk about the women yeah that you're gonna have around you till death do you part because I'm living proof that my relationship was there for 17 years it was a beautiful chapter I have two beautiful girls I'm going into another chapter with an incredible man I'm so in love but do you know who's there throughout yeah the women I've had a longer relationship with Zoe than I have with any man yeah and one day we'll be living in our retreat in Ibiza all of us together because all the men will die first what more of a commune I feel like yeah I'm into commune retreat there'll be curfews oh there'll be curfews fuck that oh I quite like that oh you've got Georgia Georgia's soul do you know what it's really interesting how you said about you know the way you talk to your girls because I had a funny conversation with my daughter she's six right and um with this little chat about girlfriends and boyfriends at school like Axel's nine and he's very much like oh girls no no thank you and Gigi goes oh well you know I'm gonna marry Archie and I was like oh are you okay fine she goes yeah well she went you know I just think he couldn't find anyone else and so he picked me right and I said no no no no no no Gigi no darling he didn't it wasn't because he couldn't find anyone else I was like it's because you're great it's because you're funny and by the end of it I was so cross I was like who needs Archie you don't need Archie and she looked at me like oh no no it's just a joke in the playground mum but I felt like you just said to me he couldn't find anyone else so he just picked me but he's okay I'll marry him and I was I was like wow okay well it's interesting that you say that because um obviously I had six to eight months I think it was on hinge oh yes I want to talk about this yeah and my daughter asked a really similar question she said so how did you know like the ollie was like right how did you know he was the one uh and i was like that's a really good question because she obviously knows in the context of something that wasn't quite right you know and i have to be really careful how i talk about that but um i said do you know do you know why and i was very open i was like mummy went on lots of dates with lots of men and a couple of women when I was going through a bit of a phase and I said I went on lots of dates and do you know what like I was able to with absolute grace and kindness walk away from quite a few of them not because they weren't nice people they just weren't right for me and so I walked on away from a fair few dates with utter grace and kindness but just this isn't right for me this isn't good for me I never centered myself historically.

19:45It was always like, I'm so grateful a man has chosen me. This was a complete shift in mindset. I was rewiring age 42 on Hinge, rewiring what I wanted, who I wanted. And so I said, when I said that's not good enough for me with Grace, when Ollie came along, I was so wired to what was good enough for me. that as soon as he sat down I was like and there he is and um the shift there was I think again coming back to what we spoke about like feeling um that that tick tock of mother nature's fairly misogynistic clock age 29 all we really felt quite a lot of us was I'm so grateful like your daughter I'm so grateful a man has chosen me and that has to shift yeah completely on its head that that goes back to and I don't know if you guys have done this but that feeling of maybe being upset or angry with our partners holding it in holding it in swan in the water coming in not wanting to up tip the apple cart you know legs frantically underneath the water but actually reality everything's fine darling everything's fine darling you know I couldn't possibly raise something with my partner in case they got upset with me I held that for a really long time you know oh I don't want to upset them I don't want to piss them off so I'll just deal with it what and some of my friends don't want to seem and so you don't you don't want to be seen as difficult or mingy or moaning and I think it plays into our super mom complex where we kind of had such weird benchmarks of mothers that came before us who did that to you know on speed and so we we do not want to let anyone down we are playing this like super mom complex where it's like we have to be everything to everyone at any one time until we break and burn out and divorce you know like it's gonna come out somewhere and so I think you're completely right I don't think you're alone in that um but yeah it's mad what we grew up thinking yeah I remember at sixth form first day of sixth form we walked into the common room and boys held up a number when you walked in what did you get 10 I'm joking I'm joking it's awful what an awful no no no no I don't think I actually you can't remember that's horrific yeah but it was that whole thing of like girls are just sort of they're judged that was that's what I took away from it was just like you were just judged as you walked in straight away and no one said and no one got cross with the boys that's another thing I find really interesting like now why didn't we go off like piss off yeah like you know whatever I can imagine some girls that probably ruined their whole time at school listen to this because they would have been so hurt.

22:29On Valentine's Day, we had this thing. So Tom, I probably won't name the school, where we used to send carnations. So the boys would send us carnations on Valentine's Day and we would run back to our boarding house or run back to our day houses and then in front of everyone, someone would be like, I've got 10 carnations. And then there would be some girls that didn't get any or some girls that got one and then they're like, oh my God, we've got a company. It's that competitive from school. As soon as you're old enough the competitiveness starts and it's all driven in my it was all driven by a man choosing you yeah yeah choosing you yeah and suddenly you're like always on the back foot about it i mean talk about feeling like shit for the rest of the year well how many carnations did you get yeah that is wild isn't it i mean that is absolutely wild and you know i bet you haven't really probably even recognized how wild that is and first time i've spoken about it like yeah the things we used to just accept I know and then you wonder why we are where we are now like trying to unpick it all yeah exactly yeah it's and it's um I did a post the other day about my dad uh just saying that he was um you know I was like these are the things my high effort dad did that would put a low effort man into a coma and I think we accepted like the the low effort you know and we almost facilitated the low effort by not confronting it by doing what you said Zoe which a lot of us have done the swan the kind of absorb it all absorb it all I want to be the cool girl I want to be the breezy girl I want to be there's nothing breezy about pedaling underwater like a manic swan like there's nothing cool and breezy about that um but yeah I think that we really did go through a phase where we were just like how can I please him and now I think for the first time in like with a generation of utterly burnt out tapped out financially drained exhausted mothers who were going I do not want it all but good god have I ended up doing it all and I'm fucked off yeah I'm done and so we're probably that first generation that's kind of writing some of the misogynistic wrongs of generations of mothers that have walked before us and we're going it stops here yeah like and it's a hell of a lot of work to fight back against that but for the first time in our lives I think we're all having very uncomfortable conversations in our own homes I don't think we are accepting things uh the status quo is being completely rewritten and wobbled I'm taking quite a lot of enjoyment on doing this particular new thing that I'm doing at home where um and by the way as we know does it is magic and he's very very equal and we have a really great relationship when it works.

25:19But he does get quite angry and quite grumpy about certain subjects. So I've started meeting that grumpiness and that being pissed off with various tasks that I have to do around the house. So when he shows me that level of like, I'm so pissed off that I have to go and pick up the dog poo if I don't want to do the washing. I just come out and go, I'm so pissed off that I have to do the washing. And he stands there and goes, I go, what? I'm just grumpy about it. And he looks at me like I've done something horrifically wrong. And I'm thinking, but that's the energy that you meet. me when you're mirroring him i'm mirroring him but i'm actually really enjoying it like because i'm not pissed off i'm not grumpy about it at all i'm actually just pretending because we just crack on yeah we just don't moan about it exactly yeah but i'm not i mean yeah i'm not sure if i did that post about my dad but i um i messaged my mom saying mom you know that that post i did about dad was kind of really about you but we just don't we don't need the accolades anymore because we I knew uh you know like yeah that's interesting a sort of that you know I think there's also uh the celebration of uh men right now kind of doing the bare minimum as well because there's been such inequality for so long and like I'm really like lucky to have incredible men in my life I love men like we've talked about this before this is not a man bashing exercise but yeah it ain't daddy daycare it's not babysitting your own children uh and yeah like shit gets done and we we do so much of it you know it's a domestically loaded world we also have to um take a step back for being ultra controlled because i think for a very long time you know anna you're talking about the fact that we you know we have to do it all and we do it all but we also we we choose or we have chosen up until this this point to not put it on them for whatever reason i mean i'm only speaking from my experience but I'm absolutely okay now in saying no no this needs to get done you'll have to do it whereas before I'd probably be like oh no no no let me do it don't worry about it it's absolutely fine it's it's if we if we want the status quo to change who do you think's got to change it well that's the question yeah well we have the blueprint of our mothers I think that's the thing my mother wasn't the same as your mother she wasn't a domestic god no so to be fair I was I was just going to say, I think so much of it comes from your parents because I look at my parents and my dad was like the traditional went to work, that sort of thing.

27:43But he still did the ironing. He still did the cooking. He still did like loads of stuff. So when I met James and his dad doesn't even know how to boil pasta, I was like, what the fuck? That is mental. That's wild. But he's had to learn my, do you know what I mean? He's been brought into how my dad does stuff. My dad does quite a lot. So that has helped. But I can imagine if you've come from, you know, both of you have got those traditional. It is an unlike it is a thing. It does. You are just going to mirror what you've seen. But have you also have you done those days or weeks where you just you just do your bare minimum and then see what gets left?

28:26You know, it's almost like a jigsaw puzzle going, right. I'm going to do the bits that I know I've got to do, but like, let's just see how the rest of it. because it does look very seamless and very easy uh and I think the thing I um realized growing up like a lot of why I do what I do was because weirdly I saw my mum like crying by the dishwasher when she was maybe 49 going through the menopause and it's the first time I'd really seen her cry uh she she was of the generation where tears were behind closed doors uh arguments were behind closed doors which made it far far worse for children because you just assumed the worst when you heard them sort of rowing and I remember saying mummy like why are you why are you crying um and she said well I've realized at 49 that I can't do what I want to do and uh she was going through the menopause she had two young kids you know that she'd raised but she'd essentially it was a it was genuinely the driving force behind everything that I do now because what I saw was the generation of women who had kind of written themselves out but written themselves into the domestic load almost you know there was um it was sort of a very complex mix of emotions and feelings of the expectation of what her role would be uh and then the loss of self within that role and um yeah I remember just thinking I dedicated the last book to my mom in that moment because I think that it's about choice we have to have choice choice of where when and how we parent and work and the only way to have that choice is to have equal partnership yeah and like I am experiencing right now I think that having a partner who is so equal emotionally so equal uh if I'm being honest financially we both work you know and it's not that we don't come up up against each other there's constant like like niggling and working around how we both make this work but we are ultimately teammates and if I drop a ball I do know he will catch it it might not be uh within the time frame I need him to but I know that the balls are all over the place there's five children at the table here but they will be picked up by one of us and there's not going to be resentment over who does it right you know and I think that's the big thing or martyrdom on my side which I've experienced uh which is you know at Christmas where suddenly my mum's going everyone out of the kitchen I don't want anyone here and then suddenly she has a breakdown at the queen's speech or king's speech now uh because she's done everything but she doesn't want any help with anything so you're in like catch 22 uh so yeah I think the martyrdom of the sort of my the 80s version of parenting has to go I think that's what I was trying to say but you just said it so eloquently there Anna it's like the martyrdom you know you have to be able to say this is too much for me and also I don't want to do it yeah I do not want to do all of this you have to help me and be okay with that um and then those conversations are actually really freeing when you feel like you get to a point I mean listen some people listening to this might go I've had those conversations and the status quo still isn't changing at that point you have a decision to make right you either go yeah I'll put up with this forever or yeah or you get up with this I will not so I sat down with Ollie and uh the reason I did this was because this ain't my first rodeo uh but also I'm not going into this without very clear expectations from both sides on who does what who's got the capacity for what and how how we manage this family and that came from um not religious at all but uh my best friend 20 years ago got married and she laughed at the fact that the priest had asked them the vicar had asked them to go and meet him three weekends in a row to discuss their lives yeah my friend did yeah yeah yeah my friend said she'd had a vicar sit them down three weekends in a row and they were asked questions like how many children do you want i mean that's quite a big one um where would you like to live like who who do you feel will be the main breadwinner or do you both want to work and she laughed 20 years ago and I laughed 20 years ago going oh my god that's ridiculous so annoying but you have to do it just to get married I now look at that and I'm like Jesus Christ I'm not religious but I feel like we absolutely need that roadmap yeah and if no one's going to hand it to you you have to write it and you have to be explicit in it and it's not sexy uh but it's super important there's nothing less sexy than just kind of suck it and see uh excuse the pun um there's nothing less sexy than just waiting for it to happen and ending up in divorce what's on the road thing on the roadmap is uh okay whose job has flexibility and whose doesn't um and the cost of his job taking over time from my job so what does that look like because mine's going to flex consistently your job might flex consistently around your partners but just because i'm not remunerated as fairly as he is because of the gender pay gap doesn't mean that it's not important for me to be really clear on what i carve out and how important that time is and that if it's an unpaid podcast where I'm talking about my campaign that's just as financially and important as you know him doing a meeting at nine o 'clock on a Tuesday so we really like wrote out like our the way we work and also like what what our love language is in all of it yeah I've never ever ever explained to anybody or had anyone explain to me what my love language is or theirs What's your love language?

34:20Mine's like touch and like affirmation. And his is recognition of the fact that actually, and this is, I think, in men who are having to sort of work in the traditional kind of nine to five role, recognition that, yeah, it ain't a party. It's not just about, you know, having a coffee without the kids around, you know, it is a graft and the pressure and still the pressure men feel to earn that bacon. But then, you know, who cooks the bacon? Both of us. And we're both earning bacon now. So the world is just not set up for equal partnerships. So you have to build that equality yourself. It's the bricks and mortar of your relationship.

35:03And that is the biggest shift this time round, where instead of saying I do and merrily running off into the sunset in a white dress, I went, I don't on these things. And I will, if we consider this as a whole. And I love you very much. And that's our happily ever after. I love that so much. I love that. I wanted to cheer them and go, yes! yeah because I think that that's it guys I think um you know I I think that love uh is so complex in a world that has expectations on different genders different sexes and the real love language between two people is sitting listening and like duplo blocks building your life together in a way that works for both of you.

35:56It's not a dictatorship, it's a relationship. And I think for too long, the women and mothers of the past have been in a mild societal dictatorship. Not mild, you know, major. Yeah, 100%. This episode of Made by Mamas is sponsored by QuickFit. Winter is definitely here. The chilly starts, the frosty school runs and the mad dash to get everything done before Christmas arrives. Are you finished yet with all your presents? I am finished. All right, fine. I am finished now. Okay, good. I'm not wrapped. I know lots of people who are wrapped because that is always the bit, isn't it, that takes a long time.

36:33I hadn't even thought about that. Well, you can now. You've still got plenty of time. But we're like on the countdown now, aren't we? Till we can have a little rest. How is your mental load? It is a lot. And I don't like forgetting stuff, but I am forgetting things. It's a lot, isn't it? Yeah, and we say it every year. There's like nativities, there's Santa Dash, there's this, there's that. And it's just, it's so much to remember. Yeah, this time of year really makes you think about keeping everything running smoothly, especially the car. That's why it's great to see that QuickFit are offering a free vehicle safety check right now.

37:07It's one of those little things that makes a huge difference. Quick, easy and means you can head into winter knowing the family is safe on the road. And it got me thinking some of our best family memories have been made in the car on some fantastic road trips. Oh, definitely. I love a family road trip. It's one of the best ways to spend proper time together, even if it does get a bit chaotic at times. Yeah, some of my favourite memories and the most ridiculous ones happen on those road trips. I mean, one particular moment where we were driving to one of our best friend's wedding and we had Kit, who was only seven weeks old, in the back of the car.

37:41He screamed the entire time. It took us about four hours to get there. And I just kept thinking, just think, when you get there, you can be with your friends and you can hand the baby over to someone else. It's annoying how some kids love the car and some kids absolutely hate it. Do you know what? I actually had my first flat tyre recently. I can't believe I've got to now without having one. And it was a full nail. And I kept seeing the warning light come on and I kept ignoring it. And Axel was like, no, no, no, mum, that's real. Like, that's a real thing that's coming up. I love that your nine-year-old was telling you.

38:12But I actually, I had them change. And it's actually not that much of a bigger deal, like, to get your tyre changed. I think in my mind, I thought it was a job that you phoned your parents for or something. You're such an only child. I love it. I didn't have to. one particular time we were driving down to France going skiing we had kids in the back you know the car was packed full of our ski stuff and then the inevitable happened which was one of the kids got sick oh that is the worst I was just thinking not in the car do you remember when James and I decided to do that camper van trip around Scotland obviously it wasn't our own car either so we had to like navigate you know how the car worked on the roads and all that kind of stuff and Gigi was really young.

38:51And, you know, looking back now, I think we probably should have waited till they were a little bit older. You did bite off a bit more than you could chew on that one. We did. So guys, to avoid any of this chaos, you want QuickFit. With QuickFit, you can get that winter car check sorted, keeping everything running smoothly. It means more adventures, more moments together and fewer stressful surprises on the road. It's not just another thing on the to-do list. It's a small act of care that makes sure you and your family can enjoy those safe, happy journeys all winter long. So don't wait. Book your free vehicle safety check with QuickFit and feel good knowing you're all set for whatever winter brings.

39:28Drive away happy every time.

39:33And how is life now? You know, new house, new area, new everything. New everything, yeah. Builders here and everywhere. um I think it's really hard as uh women to own our happiness um for two reasons and it will make me cry because I'm so scared of being happy because I feel someone's going to take it away you know you just feel like these flickers of joy especially when you've gone through postnatal depression you think you are a corner a left or a right from going into the dark again and so I'm so scared and have been so scared to be happy but I'm really making peace with contentment I'm so content and I feel that maybe happiness was the wrong word all along happiness is fleeting and it's by the by sometimes it's aspirational and it's lovely but it's not there to stay contentedness contentment is the foundation for me and I can say that through all the chaos all the sleepless nights uh all the builders and mess and dust and frustration and guinea pigs that need feeding all of it the domestic load that's still loaded against us Through all of that, I'm finding increasing contentment and that is good enough for me.

41:07And I guess for you, it's been so beautiful to see you, Anna, kind of dealing with the pain, you know, finding love again, having a beautiful baby, blending your families, all of that. You know, it has been so monumental, you know, coming from the depths to see where you are now. And I can see that the emotion is so raw and bubbling away right at the surface, which is just brilliant to see. so well it comes from uh the love of a lot of women and friends uh that you've been there with me through that but also disney has a lot to answer for um that disney happily ever after i don't know as a little girl there weren't any fairy tales that ended with uh girl meets boy boy and girl divorce girl meets 500 other boys and girls on hinge girl then meets love of life age 44 girl has baby as geriatric mother and girl blends family with five other children and two guinea pigs like where's that story uh because it's not happily ever after again that's too utopian that's too fleeting that's too fantastical it's contented ever after uh there is such joy in the contentment of the beautiful chaos of all of our lives and I feel like it's within reach for all of us if we stop like I did at the beginning of this podcast explained to you stop setting ourselves wild benchmarks of what we think society's success is and happiness is it ain't just a wedding dress it's not about that one day it's about the hard moments where you worry if you're going to have a baby or the moments of anger between the two of you when one of yours jobs takes over another person's and how you deal with that with grace afterwards it's your child my youngest daughter being bullied and that sitting with you like deep within your soul every single day that you can't think of anything else and having your partner by your side holding you as you're sobbing not knowing what to do it's going at each other over dishwashers and then suddenly like repairing and repairing that rupture by the oven it's the absolute banality and messiness and stressiness of our everyday lives and how we navigate that that's love uh that's the joy and we've been sold a flipping Disney happily ever after that ain't it for me can we still have the the Cinderella slipper moment though because that was quite I did quite enjoy that like iconic it is quite iconic no and you know what you're absolutely right and I think I think the more that people talk about it in this space and actually we have to live it and feel it to maybe figure it out you know I think sometimes when you're in the mess and the chaos you can't see through it you just put up put up put up these conversations can really help because they make you think actually is my reality normal is it making me feel happy fulfilled am I actually in love with the person yeah and also for your kids or am I just chained to them like we don't want to teach our kids like to live up to the expectations that we've wanted to and to show them that it doesn't always have to be it's not one path there's like a hundred different paths you can go down kiss a lot of frogs yeah you just do what you want kiss no one if you want to it's so true and I think the only thing I would say is there's beauty in the grayness and the banality in the everyday and that is if you ask me you asked me at the beginning of this podcast like um how am I well do you know what it's in releasing those benchmarks of uh what I thought joy and happiness and success was and it's sitting on the sofa watching uh k-pop demon hunters with like my girls eating cheerios one stuck down my bra uh and uh I'm sinking into that feeling because um I saw something the other day where old women are asked at the end of their life like what would they go back to they will always go back to the moment of chaos holding their baby sleepless nights that's life this is the good bit and doesn't mean you have to enjoy every bit of it but this is the good bit and the good bit doesn't need to be massive holidays to Disneyland as you see on Instagram it doesn't need to be shiny kitchens with amazing islands it doesn't have to be like amazing mom mates it it can be just you centered on the sofa present with your children watching k-pop demon hunters for the five thousandth time with a bowl of cheerios and that's what i mean by redefining those benchmarks that's been my joy and that's been my contentment so obviously you've moved areas i'm sure the girls have had to change schools and stuff how have you been navigating that and how have you found I don't know whether it's activities or conversations to kind of bond you together you know during this period?

46:08So the big thing uh two big things have been I think like I said friendship like how important women are in their lives but also independence financially and otherwise like I never had financial education when I was a kid you know we we learned about how to make a tray bake or lasagna and yet I can't do can't do the tax returns do you remember the top shop store cards oh yeah oh my gosh yeah like free money yeah I mean that absolutely like dented my credit rating caused so many issues and I didn't feel genned up enough at school about these things like when we talk about female independence those things I really really struggled with and didn't feel we were educated properly on so there's two things I've gone right surround yourself with good women girls that's my first lesson not go off and marry the nearest man or someone who wants you don't marriage is not my benchmark of success it's the women who are surrounding you is my benchmark as your mother of your success are you surrounded by good women and do you know the basics of tax returns financial financial education do you know like how to yeah basic accounting yeah um and so I got them a little go henry card oh my god we've got them in our house as well all my kids have got them they absolutely love them do you know you're meant to start financial education at age seven yeah and they can design their cards themselves so that initially gets them into it and you can set them it's even better set them chores to do I just keep I just keep being told I'm I owe them money like yeah top up be like well you took this out of my drawer so you need to put it on my now there's no like oh yeah i'll put it i'll put it in your drawer don't worry because he knows i can do it instantly yeah yeah yeah and and you with the design element of it that was a really cute moment actually between because luna wanted the cat and kit wanted the footballs so we got to do that together but it comes really like love like the cards just arrive in the post that they look so grown up yeah it's grown up yeah it's and i think like uh the first time she used it i won't to forget uh because ultimately it's about giving them that independence yes you know and uh the first time like she she just sort of like tapped it and suddenly you could see there was she'd gone over the threshold from like being under my wing to like stepping from under that wing uh and it was really sweet to see and she just but now she's going i'm gonna take you all out for dinner yeah i was like babe you're gonna need to budget a bit and also i'm kind of paying for that dinner school so how about no on your chores yeah but yeah i think like financial education uh for specifically young girls it was just something we didn't have all we had was a house of fraser cards top shop cards told to get like huge overdrafts student loans but every color dot martin in our wardrobe remember the dot martins yeah yeah yeah using our top shop card to get them so my benchmark of success for them is if they've got an incredible group of women and they're financially savvy boom done done the best piece of advice and as we wrap this podcast up that you would give to anybody listening that's maybe navigating being an older mum or who's someone who's come out of a marriage and into another relationship or some maybe just somebody who's feeling maybe they need a bit of help a bit lost maybe I think it's very simple uh is it's totally changed my life uh it is to not feel overwhelmed when someone says you need me time because that just feels like another thing to do on a huge list of things to do um I don't need a spa break that would be lovely but I don't have time for that always but what I have done is I've complementalized my day and I will do the school run and then I take one minute between each activity to look up stretch but also think about something I was genuinely grateful for because I think so often we can rush through our lives and not punctuate it with moments of recognition that was hard appreciation god I love my husband because often those little moments those flickers of rage and passive aggression and frustration around the white goods sometimes can become quite big kernels of resentment.

50:34And so I take a minute between each activity and I punctuate my day with little moments of gratitude, time and space. And that, my friend, is so much more realistic than looming me time, which just feels like another thing on a huge list of things that I can't do. I love that. And products, because there's quite an age gap, I guess, and there's probably loads the new stuff out that you've come across this time around so what are you loving I'm loving the LV bouncer that turns into a crib oh literally it's amazing the LV bouncer any any new mums it's obviously incredibly expensive but it is the difference between sleeping and not sleeping so I'm like I will go without food if this baby goes to sleep so that's really really good um and uh freedom mom has been amazing oh yeah really love freedom mom you know those big postpartum pants yeah uh the ones with the big old weighty pad uh from like the nhs just to have some pants that look vaguely normal and not sort of neanderthal were quite it was quite a pleasant shift this time um and I would generally say peanut so peanut yeah yeah I think don't underestimate how somebody said to me the other day like when you go to war men go to war and some war tactics are to stop them sleeping uh to change their routine you know they're they're kind of like the things mums go through we're essentially at war you know like the same feelings come up the same things are restricted food community you're isolated and I think um peanut really does what it says on the tin it takes a village uh and I think don't underestimate sometimes those needs uh to be digital connections they don't just have to be in person yeah we had Michelle Kennedy on the podcast recently didn't we and she was just such a babe brilliant she's brilliant yeah you know she was do you know she was sat next to me at dinner when I matched with Ollie my partner who I'm getting married to in three weeks um and I was sat next to her at dinner uh this big dinner and I was like what do you think of this one um Michelle was like oh yeah he's great and she said do you want me to cover for you here because the starters had only just come out she's like well get rid of this chair you just go babe you go and a year later we were sat at the same dinner next to each other with oliver oh i love that yeah and i was like this is michelle she covered for me but she you need when i say she lives that brand you need those women in your life who go babe i've got you yeah i'll cover for you go get go get the guy just don't lose your slipper on route yeah the modern day cinderella where it's roles reverse Anna we could obviously chat to you all day long thank you so much for coming on the podcast keep doing what you're doing good luck with the wedding we love you so much Anna Whitehouse everyone yay love you guys I swear to god if she's not prime minister in the next let's because she's got a new baby let's give her a couple of years I mean she's too smart for that genuinely good point wow so much to take away from that actually one of the most beautiful parts of the chat I felt was when she was talking about her female friendships yeah Yeah.

54:09And also like the things that people celebrate in life, you know, like we're so conditioned to celebrate getting married, having a baby, getting engaged, all of those things. And yes, of course, those things are so important. But actually, it's that you like you say, it's the friendships you've got around you is that other things should be celebrated as well. And not just those milestones that we've sort of grown up thinking are the most important things in life. And looking at happiness and what that word actually means. And can we all be fulfilled by being content? Yeah. You know, rather than chasing that quick fix of happiness.

54:43I feel really happy and I feel really sad. It's like, you know, it's the drudgery. It's the mundaneness. It's the beauty of sitting with Cheerios down your bra watching K-pop Demon Hunter. Yeah, it's the, when someone asks you, like, how are you? And you're just like, yeah, I'm good. And you mean it. Like, it's not like, oh my God, it's amazing. or oh it's just yeah like in the middle you will always get nice highs and lows from me how is it is it just a story moving out how is it now we're yeah fine great we're really happy uh many thank yous to anna it was just wonderful to chat to her today and thank you guys for listening as always we'd love you to rate review subscribe and please give the podcast a follow yeah and if you've got any feedback on this episode or guests you'd like to hear from drop us a dm on instagram we're on at made by mamas and we'll be back on friday