Fun: why we've lost it, why it matters and how to get it back

0:08Welcome to Motherkind, it is me your host Zoe. We are proudly sponsored by Wild Nutrition Women's Supplements. And this is the show that is about you, the woman behind the mother. All right, so I'm very excited about this week's episode because it is definitely something I have not had enough of in the last decade since becoming a mother. And no, it's not that obvious thing. It is fun. Where the hell did all the fun go? The fun gap in motherhood is so real. I feel like it's so easy to just be facilitating the fun for everyone else. I create so much fun for my kids, but I am not having enough fun myself.

0:49And I'm not alone. When I asked our community, 87 % of you said that you don't have enough fun. And 93 % of you said you don't even know where to start. So I have brought in my friend who also, luckily for us, happens to be one of the world's leading play experts. This is the woman that Disney, Nike, Lego, McDonald's call when they want to inject more play into their products and their marketing. Emma Worrello is one of the smartest women I know and she is here to teach us why fun matters and how to have more of it. And before you think, but Zoe, there's no time. I get it and so does Emma. She has three children.

1:31She works full time and she still has a lot of fun. I would say, knowing Emma personally, she is the most joyful, relaxed, successful, inspiring woman that I probably know. And I think it might be to do with how much fun she has. Emma injects fun and play into almost most everything that she does. I've seen it firsthand. It is next level inspiring. So I am here learning from her. My notebook is out. My pen is ready. And I cannot wait for you to hear this one too. Oh, and if you haven't subscribed, then what are you doing? This is the podcast you need in your life as a mother. And I want to make this show better and better.

2:16But I can only do that when you subscribe because more subscribers means more listeners, which means a bigger show. That is the podcast game that I am in folks if you subscribe it signals to all the algorithms and all the platforms that this is a show that people want to hear and it shows the show to more people so subscribe and we can keep growing and getting bigger and bigger and better and better okay let's have some fun here's the episode

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3:59Just go to wildnutrition.com forward slash motherkind to get started. That's wildnutrition.com forward slash motherkind so you can feel a difference yourselves. Start 2026 rooted in wellness. T's and C's apply. Emma, I am so excited for this. And one thing that I know for sure is that this is so needed because I asked our community over on Instagram, who feels like they're having enough fun? And basically 97 % were like, no. And then I asked a follow-up question, which is, would you even know where to start? And 83 % said no. And I feel like when we become parents, especially mothers, what used to be fun is just inaccessible or just doesn't feel fun anymore.

4:43So help us. How did you figure out? You've got such an incredible story. Tell us about your journey with kind of parenthood and fun. Yeah. So I have a background in research and specifically in children's research. So I spent a lot of my career having to look at the world through the lens of a child. And when you do that, you have to stay connected to certain childlike qualities like curiosity, imagination, silliness. And I think when I became a parent, I noticed that it was very beneficial to have these kind of muscles trained and strong that I was able to take into my experience of parenthood.

5:29Now, it's something that I don't really hear spoken about ever. And you will kind of attest to this because I know you have gone far and wide in the experience of motherhood, but it's just something that never comes up. How are you going to look after your sense of fun as a parent and I think the fact that it isn't spoken about is testament to how much we undervalue the importance of that so these qualities that I was quite robust in were very helpful to me and I started to notice that some of the things that seem to give people in similar sort of circumstances to me a lot of stress and they would sort of spiral into I was actually quite resilient to that.

6:16And I became very curious as to, I wonder if that has anything to do with my ability to be silly, to be playful, to have positive experiences with my imagination. And I am someone that's like very well researched in the sort of science of play. And it would seem that there is definitely some kind of link between those two things. We have quite good research now that shows that people who have a high quality of the characteristics of playfulness tend to be more resilient. They tend to be quite good at solving problems. They generally have a sort of sense of everything's kind of, you know, figure outable.

7:02Yeah. And I think it's so interesting that because like you say, we do just completely deprioritize it. As you say, I've talked about almost every topic on Motherkind and not really yet sort of play and fun. So when you do that research and, you know, I know you're like one of the world's leading experts in this. tell us what did you find out like make the case because there'll be mums listening maybe all the mums listening who are like I've got the mental load I've got two kids I'm working full time I do not have time to be playful and be fun and be silly I'm just trying to get through the day and I feel like you are probably the best person to convince us of the importance of this and how it can help in all other areas yes and I think it's important to note that playfulness is not another brand of toxic positivity and it's not about mindless optimism it's actually much more helpful than trying to be happy than trying to find your cheerfulness it's something that you can chase very specifically it is a characteristic that is innate in humans so this is not a personality trait this is not something that oh just fun or extroverted people have this is something completely sort of woven into what it means to be a human now we all have this very organically as children this is how we learn we start off life playing as much as we possibly can you see this in babies you see this in toddlers you see this in children we are curious we explore we play that is how we learn is one of the truly most interesting special things about human and what sets us aside compared to other mammals we play in more ways than any other species on the planet but what happens is we train ourselves out of it so it's not that play is just for childhood play is for life it is as i said intrinsic to being a human but we train ourselves out of it And we learn how to devalue its importance because once we start to load our lives with things that are serious and things that require responsibilities and things that distract us, we become very rusty at those skills I spoke about at the beginning, curiosity, imagination, silliness.

9:30We just sort of stop using them, but they are there. They are there. They are still there and we can get them back. Is that why so many parents say, I just don't know how to play. And I think that's the first time I got this and I was like, oh, my God, I've forgotten how to play with my kids. And I know how important that is and I want to do it. But I just feel like actually I've got I'm going to focus on the washing up because it feels so awkward. Yes. And I think if you feel like that, do not feel any shame or panic. That's very normal. Children are experts at play and they play in a very different way to adults.

10:07They're very good at what I'd call blank canvas play. So they can make something up out of nothing. That is very hard for an adult to do that hasn't done that since the age of six. And it's possible that when you become a parent, you may be going from actually a state of play deprivation where you haven't played for so long. Suddenly you've got a little child in front of you who is actually an expert. And for a lot of mothers in particular, they can feel quite frozen and quite intimidated in that situation because they cannot come up to that level. But you don't need to. You absolutely do not need to.

10:45When you're playing with your child, often you are actually not at play. So this is quite important to kind of figure out because true play is intrinsically motivated. So when you play, you do it because you want to do it. It is self-directed. You choose how you go about it in your own way. And it's very personal. So what is play for you, Zoe, might not be play for me. When we play with our children, we do that for them. We do that because we want to have a relationship with them, because we want to communicate with them, because we want to get on their level, because we love them and we want to find out who they are.

11:23But there might be times. In fact, there will be many times when you're not actually in true play in that moment. but you can coax yourself into it if there are activities that help you get into a play state more readily I always encourage people to you know do those things with your children when you're co-playing because your role in the play is important to your child and the more relaxed you feel and the more comfortable you feel the more that they're going to enjoy that time with you. I'll tell you what's interesting I get this so my kids love role play and dress up and then I quite like that and I can see how that's probably part of my play style but when I try to enter the game and like put on American accent and start they're like no no no no don't do and they're like directing me so I can so see what you're saying actually that in that it's like that's not play for me that feels more like work.

12:15That is their universe children don't get to control their reality but they do in play they are the directors so if you have a child and you think my child is so bossy almost so mean to me in play good good that's what they're meant to be doing they are in charge that is their it's like their scene that they are directing and you're an actor in it so playing with your child you you can get a lot of joy and play from that but bear in mind it might not be true play for you because ultimately you're doing it for them so when we come into thinking about how do I get some fun that is truly fun for me, what I'd love to explain is the difference between play and playfulness.

13:00So play is an action. This is an activity that you do. And exactly as you said, I'd love every mother to have more time to find play for themselves, but that is not the reality of most people's schedules. But what you can go after is playfulness. Playfulness is more about a lens that you see the world. And this is something that you can bring into your everyday. And actually playfulness loves mundanity. It loves it because the true spirit of playfulness is turning something that is boring into something that is fun. And I'm sure everyone listening has had a moment where they're doing a boring chore.

13:41you've got the washing up to do you've got a load of toys to tidy away and you put music on and it changes your mood no one tells you to do that no one teaches you oh you know when you're doing something boring you should put music on it's a it's a reflex that we have and it's just about training that reflex in other moments how can you gamify things how can you add some spontaneity how can you kind of bring a competitive edge to something if that's what you enjoy it's like putting that into the everyday that's the spirit of playfulness and that is far more realistic for parents i love that i absolutely love that and if someone is kind of feeling like okay so i'm going through my tasks that i have to do and i'm feeling the opposite of that like maybe a bit like resentful oh my god i've got another load of washing to start but they want to tap into what you're saying they're like do you know what i think this could be more fun if i could be more playful how does someone start to make that switch I think you need to try and tap into your inner play kid so you could think about how you played as a child as a reminder that that kid is actually still in you so if as a kid you were actually very adrenaline seeking and very brave and very outdoorsy and now suddenly you're very timid maybe you don't go out that much maybe you've become a sort of someone that you don't recognize from that child that you were it's important to remember that you'll still be attracted to that way of playing and you just need to figure out how you can tap back into it it's not necessarily about replicating the same activities that you did as a child because they might not serve your needs anymore you might not have the needs for what you used to do as a kid but it's about trying to find that spirit that is still within you and how can you re-access it in a different way in your life now oh my god I absolutely love that that idea of like that spirit coming into this world that we're in now of responsibility yeah you know seriousness like feels really magical and also what I love that you talk about is that we don't do this because it's fun although it is and it definitely makes those boring tasks better there's also amazing research about linking playfulness to resilience There is.

16:02Yeah. I love a study that was done by the University of Oregon. It was actually done in COVID to see how people that had a higher sense of playfulness and were using that more were coping during COVID. And they were able to show that it was self-reported, but they were able to show that those who were more playful had more resilience. So the reason for this is because when you're in the spirit of playfulness, you tend to be more flexible and you tend to be more curious. So when you think about that from a resilience point of view, when you are coping with something, you're constantly looking for, you know, coping strategies or solutions or ways to just alter your perspective.

16:50And that is what the characteristic of playfulness trains you to do. So we tend to devalue it, especially here. We're in England right now. We don't have a great play culture in the UK and we tend to devalue it. you know we we tend to we're grown-ups we need to be serious it's not the time for silliness the world is very dark and scary but actually it's incredibly important because it has such a massive impact on how we are able to exercise our resilience and how we're able to solve problems yeah it's so interesting and you know I'm really into the nervous system and thinking about what regulates us and what flips us into the stress mode and I can actually I'm starting to think now about the links between kind of that regulation and playfulness and how regulating it is I'm sure that's a massive part of it as well massive part of it and I think I would love to see more conversation and representation of fun and play in the conversations around wellness around meditation because you know for a lot of people they don't get on with a meditation app and you can feel like you've almost failed at that but there is a very very close connection between what's called a state of flow which is what you're in when you're at play and meditation and there are further options to explore to get that sense of like grounding and that meditative state that we know is proven to be so important and you can do that through things that bring you fun and joy and that can be more active you know lots of people engage in creative pursuits for this exact reason for what it does to you know they would talk about like their soul or you know their sort of sense of self so I'd love to see more of that conversation around the nervous system I'd love to see kind of play being spoken about more there because it's a very, very efficient way of getting to those feelings.

18:55Yeah. And I think that sense of self is the thing that often we lose first. Yes. In motherhood. And I love you telling me the story of you postpartum with your first child 14 years ago. Yes. And how you kind of made that intention like I am going to keep play at the forefront of this. and you had a wildly different postpartum experience than me and I think a lot of us tell us about that and how that intention of like I'm going to play through this meant that you basically had like a really joyful postpartum yeah I mean I wouldn't say I was like immune to any of the the just absolutely crazy experience of that first year first time first year but for sure I did have good resilience and I was able to keep my sense of humor now when I know anyone who is a first-time parent and they ask me if I got any advice I go straight to sense of humor I say keep an eye on your sense of humor look after it like it is a fragile little creature or butterfly because it is so so precious to you right now and you need to keep an eye on it so I always advise you know new parents fill your content with comedians things that make you laugh make play dates with your friends like do fun things together if you don't get any joy out of going to baby groups and things like that you don't have to go to them I know they're very comforting and important did you do the baby groups started with all of that started going down the same kind of tropes if you like the things that you think you're meant to do went to buggy fit I'm so not a person I was like what am I doing here and then when you sort of give yourself permission to play and that freedom I'm actually an adult and if I've got some time I'm allowed to choose what I do with it and by the time I came around to my sort of third child I was you know I'd just go off on hikes on my own because you know the experience of awe and nature is very playful for me.

21:03Like I'm very explorer in my play personality. And if that's the thing that is actually going to bring you the joy and get you into that state, like you are allowed to just go and do that. You don't have to fall into these rituals. So I always say that make play dates with your friends or yourself, look after your sense of humor and then give yourself some kind of play project. Now there are rules to this. It has to be very simple, accessible, no time constraints. Yeah, because that sounds like, really? Yeah, yeah, you can't have it as something that, you know, is going to turn into a business or a side hustle, or it has, you know, a sort of time sensitive pressure to it.

21:44So my first postpartum play project was simply a blog. This was actually pre, slightly pre mummy blogging. So there was no intention, you know, to do ads or for it to be like my personal brand or anything like that. It was very much like a new chapter of MySpace for me. Like I used to love MySpace. So I wrote this blog, it was called Mission to Motherhood. And what I would do was I would take all of my firsts and I would rewrite them in a humorous way. So I would write about the first time that I went on a bus with a buggy, which is that's actually really scary I was living in London at the time also in London sorry to just say yeah they only let two buggies on at a time so if there's already two mums which obviously there's gonna be I remember stood there and clap them like 10 buses later like finally managed to get on no one tells you that it's full buggy wars yeah it's buggy wars yeah so I would write about things like that in a in a very like witty funny way so I think what I was doing there was sort of reclaiming the experience and actually I wasn't doing this at the time intentionally but now when I look back it's a very smart application of playfulness because you take something that is quite scary and was fearful and you're rewriting it with humor and with lightness and you're able to shift your perspective on it and I did that over and over and over again with just the smallest of things and the biggest of things.

23:13And it was a discipline that helped me. It grounded me. It made me laugh. I did end up kind of connecting to other people, though that wasn't my intention with it. And it just became a very, very strong anchor for me in that first year. Yeah. And I think what you just said is so powerful that it is, you know, that first time, first year feels petrifying. You're basically petrified most the time. You're also exhausted and broken and your you know this is what i talk about matrescence you know your body's changing your brain's changing your relationships everything before your eyes i love like this idea that you're offering us which is how can you bring some levity to it how can you bring some lightness to it and i wonder if that's why so many mums that in the mother kind community like start writing poetry yeah they've never written poetry or maybe they did when they were a kid and it's because that's part of us that's maybe like i know i need something to be this outlet i think that's really great insight because you're channeling all of this emotion and change and growth where do you put it and I think the other interesting thing for me is is really the only way to keep your mind youthful is to commit to a life of being an amateur so learning new things and being an amateur at things is where we develop what's called neuroplasticity this is what we get when we play and you can keep this going in adulthood and as grown-ups we tend to like to do things that we're good at we don't often tend to like to get out of our comfort zones you know we do the same exercises the same sports the same we go to the same places like we like to be have that sort of sense of being an expert in our own life and actually being out of your comfort zone being an amateur is where all the juicy good stuff comes and it's curious to me that obviously becoming a parent there could not be yeah anything you're more extreme amateur hour of your life than becoming a parent but because we are so laden with judgment and fear and you know all of the biological stuff that's happening as well I think without those outlets to process that we We don't always get to tap into the good stuff that comes with that rapid learning and growth and the fun and the humor and the silliness that can be in that because stress and distraction are huge barriers to play and a sense of playfulness.

25:47So they often get in the way of us accessing that.

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26:00yeah I love how you talk about imagination and having somewhere to put it as well because something that I don't know if you had it but I had it and it's really common actually like 98 % of mothers will experience these intrusive thoughts you know when you're in the shower and you hear the baby crying and then you dash out like the hair covered in shampoo and the baby is fast asleep or I used to get it where um I'd be walking down the stairs and I'd imagine dropping them. That is really common, those intrusive thoughts. And you've got such a body of research on imagination. And do you think there's a link between being more intentional about using our minds imaginatively and the way that our brain is becoming hypervigilant in early parenthood?

26:42Yeah. Imagination is one of the most interesting things about the human mind. And it is a free tool that we can train that can bring you more joy and freedom to your life the problem is when you become an adult become a parent or indeed you know have any sort of challenge in your life is we tend to become more familiar with using our imagination for what is the worst that can happen yeah and we tend to go down that path and it's it's the same part of the brain it's the same part of the brain where I might sit here and think I wonder what octopuses eat hmm let's think about that for a bit like what do they do where do they go like it's the same part of the brain that does that it's imagination and we can have positive experiences with it and we can have negative experiences with it and I think no one talks to you when you become a parent about your own imagination they would talk to you about your mental health they would talk to you about postnatal depression these are all very important but also very serious scary things and i think this is kind of my angle on it is we need to bring the lightness into the reality of the darkness in this time and i think often with things like imagination and play and thinking about fun we can start to assume this is only for happy people yeah this is only for when things are going right Yeah, all this feels so unimportant given everything that I'm facing.

28:13Exactly. But it's when we need it the most, when we are struggling the most is when it has the most benefits for us. So then we come back, I think, to your original point of how, how do we start? Yeah. And I think how we want to start is small. and as I said with the with the mundanity with literally what is under your nose I wouldn't advise anyone in their first year of parenting to be like oh it's really good I'm gonna like take up abseiling you know I've never done that before I'm scared of heights it's hard for me to get to that's not what we're doing here instead we want to go for simple things silliness is a really good one we massively devalue the importance of silliness it lets out an emotional release it's easy to do it's actually easy to reconnect with even if you think you are the most serious person I promise you if you spend a day trying to be silly at all moments that you possibly can and that is your only goal for the day I promise you within 24 hours you will have your silliness back you can get it through movement you can get it through language you can get it through um humor you can get it through hanging out with the right people you can get it through your kids you can start really small but I would start with silliness yeah I think it's so interesting and I'm absolutely just loving this conversation and your perspective because I think especially in you know so much of the resources that we're reading and the books that we're reading they are about those sort of heavier things and I think that's why fun just gets so de-prioritized doesn't it just gets so squeezed I really loved what you were talking about about not having to find extra time to do this that actually we can take this idea of playfulness and just infuse our whole days with it do you see that the parents that are able to do that what's the link with the connection that they have with their children yeah so parents that are able to engage playfully with their children are shown to have things like a deeper bond a greater sense of trust and disclosure so when you look at the research that's been done about playful parenting and adolescence for example there is more likelihood that an adolescent would disclose something or trust a parent if they have had experiences in play with them and that's because you know if you the biology and the the sort of science of of how we play it is a massive signal that I am safe so So when we're dating, for example, we tend to play more with our sort of partners.

30:56Yeah, we flirt. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. And we are exploring that. Is this a safe space? You know, if you even think about something like roughhousing or play fighting, we tend to call it here in England. This is a way of testing boundaries, testing. Is this person safe for me to be physical with? Are they going to look after me? And weirdly, we do that by roughhousing. That's how children do it. And I think that happens as well in early sort of dating. You do tend to be kind of quite physically playful with your partner. So this sort of communication that sort of takes place, almost kind of like these invisible messages are being sent back and forth when you are playing with your kid.

31:40I am a safe space for you. I am someone that you can trust. I am someone that sees you. That's another thing that happens when you're able to engage with your kid in play, because when we are truly at play, we are our most authentic version of ourself. If you are looking to rediscover what your kind of sense of play, your play personality is, you can ask your friends, ask your partner, when did you last see me most alive? And what they come back to you will give you a lot of clues about how you like to play. So that's what we are when we're at play. We're our authentic self. So when you are in that with your child, essentially what you're saying to them is, I see you.

32:25You know, I see you. I accept you. I love you. And I want to spend time with your true authentic self. And I can have fun with that person. It's so interesting. I was just thinking about what is that for me? Like, when do I feel that? And you know what it is? It's what you were talking about earlier. it's novel new things I've never done I love that feeling of like oh my god what the hell is this like one of my favorite dates that Guy and I ever did was actually in the first year it was postpartum and I think maybe my eldest was 11 months and we went on a trapeze circus date thing and I'd never done it and it still now will be one of the favorite things that I've ever done because I didn't know what I was doing yeah and then it was hilarious and then I cracked it and then I felt this like shot of esteem that I could do it and it's so interesting to I would encourage everyone listening to think about that question like when do you feel most alive because I think we need this stuff to counter yes the mental load and the pressure and the trust of child care and that and that and that and that we need it's almost like I'm thinking about scales in my head it's like what is countering that yes has your version of playing changed over the years so you've got 14 year old a 13 year old and a five year old so you got you got the ages covered spanning generation alpha through your three matricenses yes how has your playing changed i think there's some things that are consistent for me and i think everyone probably does have those activities that they keep coming back to reading and writing for me are true sources of imaginative joy and as a child I was such a bookworm I was always reading as a kid and I've continued that throughout my life so for me that is a very imaginative meditative activity and writing similarly I find a deep sense of a flow and sort of disconnect from writing and I continue to write for pleasure as an adult I would say I'm actually quite varied in other activities that I enjoy and I think this is quite an interesting conversation slash debate that I regularly have with my husband because we talk quite a lot about how I think you know you speak to a lot of grown-ups and if you say you know what do you do for fun it's an awful question isn't it what do you do in your spare time it's such an awful question a lot of adults will say oh you know i work out yeah exercise exercise and i think isn't that sad isn't that sad that that's fun zoe or get or drink or drink yeah yeah i think exercise is amazing i exercise regularly you get all the endorphins you should absolutely do it but it is not the same as using your imagination tapping into your creativity finding your silliness all of these things that I've been talking about you might get that from your exercise some people do and that's great but I think most people engage in kind of you know disciplined quite similar routine exercise they get the dopamine obviously it's very good for physical and mental health but then there's a space that they're not tapping into and that's kind of what I'm focused on today which is that inner kid release it's that it's that sense of it's that delicious mischief like that mischief that you feel as a kid where you're you're just slightly pushing the rules you know you're not doing anything illegal or inappropriate but you're just pushing at the rules you're you're stretching you've got that taste of mischief in your mouth like that's what i'm talking about that is often sort of lacking in our lives you know i think it's interesting with that exercise thing and you taught me this is that the moment you start measuring something it stops being playful yes that's right then it's work yeah it's like okay well I need to do a five minute whatever this is and then I want to get my 10k under 50 minutes and then the moment you start on the apps and you're measuring and you're tracking and you're smart watching it's not play anymore yeah so Dr Peter Gray who's one of my thought favorite thought leaders on play he breaks down play into characteristics one of those is it has no goal.

36:42And that is why a lot of adults really struggle with play because we love a goal. I love a goal. Yeah, people do Zoe, you're not alone. What do you mean there's no purpose? You know, people really struggle with that. And I think that's okay to acknowledge that. And I think it's okay if you need the structure around it, that can be very helpful to actually get you into play so a lot of people like lego for example as adults because you've got instructions you've got a map you don't have to think about it like i was saying comparing how a child plays that blank canvas of just from scratch it's too much for us like we're too we're probably too stressed and distracted to go there um so i think that's okay if you need to bring a bit of that into it to help get you there i'm not against that but true play has no purpose so try it out you know if you measure your run and you're very kind of you know quantitative in your exercise or whatever have a go at doing a different route where you don't know where you're going and you're not measuring it and you just put some different music on and you're just gonna see go for how long you feel like and just see how different the experience is it might feel more playful do you think this is why the adult toy market is exploding at the moment because i think increasingly people are recognizing the need for play and for everything that you've talked about here like the raise of ii you know what's going on in the world like and the adult toy market is now bigger than the children's toy market i mean that blows my mind tell me your insights on that and then how you're you've got this amazing new brand that you're developing i want to talk about that as well it is it's absolutely exploding i think partly it's a generational thing so a lot of us millennials and elder millennials are kind of obsessed with nostalgia and pop culture and that became a gateway into buying toys maybe that you didn't have as a child um collecting things that remind you and it's almost like a little a little portal to accessing your inner kid people use toy collecting in that way i think this has also come off the back of a very heavy period for the world and for adults in particular it's a very difficult landscape to navigate as a grown-up like jobs are massively changing having a child is so difficult is so pressured all of these things so I think there has become more discourse around joy in particular and going after joy as an emotion as a feeling and this spirit of playfulness has definitely come more into culture and has become more socially acceptable so it used to be very infantile or perhaps very nerdy it was nerdy it wasn't cool to be a collector now every celebrity is collecting the boo-boos that's right have i said that right because i'm not into it am i i'm always like emma talks to me about movies and i'm like i don't know what you're talking about yeah and things even like you know if you train sets and sort of hobbyists this is like very nerdy very male even like fandoms you know reading comics going to comic con this used to be very geeky and now it's very aspirational it's very cool it's like you know cosplay and being able to sort of show these different sides to yourself is much more commonplace in our culture and that opens a door to a lot of people to say actually I want a bit of that I want to feel that and social media has had a massive role to play in that because we have influencers who do show these very childlike experiences with their hobbies, with their passions, with their interests.

40:30And if you're someone that's looking into that, that is very play deprived, very disconnected from what you find fun, you're like, yeah, I want a slice of the action. I'm going to buy a Lego set. I'm going to do some Play-Doh. I want to do some whatever it might be because I want a little taste of that back. And I think that's sort of where we're at at the moment with sort of play in adulthood it's becoming yeah much more desirable and you've developed just this unreal and I absolutely love it called moodlings tell us about moodlings yes so I founded a play lifestyle brand with my friend it's called bow toys which originally stood for bold original women and we wanted to create a brand that's like a permission slip for women to play more.

41:18You shouldn't need a permission slip to play, but that's how a lot of people, that's how a lot of women in particular feel. They feel like they don't have permission to have fun or be joyful or to access their inner kid because they've got too many things on the go, too many things on their mind. It feels deprioritized. So that's what we want to stand for as a brand. Our first IP is called Moodlings, and we've developed a series of characters that are inspired by the shifting moods of the menstrual cycle. That's where the original concept came from. I was like doing a lot of research around my own moods and exploring these four stages of the cycle when I was like, I don't understand how I'm only learning about this now in my late thirties, early forties.

42:04And it kind of blew my mind. And again, it's something that's blown up, but in quite a sciencey, educational, almost academic way. And I thought, oh, there's a space for fun here. There's a space to kind of create this playful language around this that women can collect and share. And our aspiration is it for it to become an animation one day. But yeah, that's where these characters came from. I absolutely love it because like you, like I did not understand why my, you know, why I was so confident one week of the cycle. and then the other week of the cycle i literally would just want to hide under a blanket other times i'd be so short fused and other times i'd be more resilient and like you it was that book period powered by maise hill and we've got an episode with her i'll link it in the show notes but it was that that i started to realize oh okay this isn't me this is me moving through the phases of my cycle and i love that you've linked that to be more playful like it's almost everything that we've been talking about in this episode like something actually really difficult for most women yeah it is quite heavy yeah and you're bringing kind of fun to it and definitely like starting those conversations in a in a more joyful as opposed to like kind of heavy scientific way yeah and and there's space there's space for both and i think yeah so often we over index on one side because it's needed and it's important but there's always space for play i have researched some seriously amazing organizations who are doing activism in the darkest spaces that you can imagine and they are still bringing light and playfulness and imagination into those spaces so there's always room for it and I think with moodlings I knew I was onto something because one of the characters is called bloaty sophie and this is just like when you're feeling so heavy in body and in mind and you're just like give me all the carbs all the cakes and we created this character and my daughter actually had her first menstrual cramps and it's quite confronting the first time you have them like they're really like painful and it's a different kind of pain and I was away at the time and she was sort of texting me and I just sent her the image of bloaty Sophie and we were both laughing and she was like yes that is me today and we'd sort of I'd sort of met the brief if you like it was to create a playful language it was to have those conversations where you can say you know I'm just so prickly today and to have these characters to say yeah I'm actually pricky Nikki this week to just have them there where you know like I was saying with my blog you know it's what I was writing reclaiming those things that are challenging and difficult and bringing the light into them.

44:52I personally believe that there's something very therapeutic in doing that. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I've just absolutely loved this conversation and I just really hope that people take away from it that even when it's hard and heavy, we don't have to have extra time. You can just bring a little bit, even if it's 1%, 2 % of that playful spirit to it and it is going to shift things for you. I feel like so passionate about that message, Emma. I think that's a great way to end what you said there. It's just ask yourself, how do I make this 1 % more fun? I love it. Right, I always ask the same question at the end, which is if you could give just one gift to all the mothers in the world, what would it be and why?

45:32I would give them a regular play date with someone that makes them laugh. A weekly play date with their person, whoever it is that gives them that just, You know, when you're laughing so much, it hurts. I would give them that once a week. Oh my God, that'd be amazing. I love that gift. Well, thank you so much. Where can people find out about moodlings, find out about you? Yes, you can read my writing on Substack. It's called People Who Play. And I have a weekly podcast with my husband. You can also find me on Instagram. It's just my name, at Emma Worrello. And you can check out my new brand, Bow Toys.

46:11go and have a look at the moodlings under at Bo Toiko. Thank you.

46:21What an incredible episode. I hope you loved it too. If you've got this far, then I am guessing that you did. So make sure that you share it with a friend and subscribe so you never miss an episode. And I will see you next Monday and Thursday for more. See you next time.