Why Motherhood Feels So Much Harder Than We Expected (You're Not Doing It Wrong)

0:00Lucy Jones:This is a paid message from GoFundMe. Meet Juan Naula. When a son was hospitalized for a viral infection, Juan started a GoFundMe to pay for medical expenses. It was 5K to pay the bill for my son, and I needed only 22 hours. It was amazing. People really trust on GoFundMe. How did Juan raise$5 ,000 in less than a day? He posted a short video on GoFundMe, telling his story in 30 seconds. 30 seconds, be specific, be quick, and tell what are you going to be using the funds for. I was nervous to do it because it doesn't feel okay to ask money, but you shouldn't be nervous. Sometimes you just have to do it and see the results.

0:43We were able to save my son's life. Thanks to GoFundMe that we still have my son with us.

0:50Lucy Jones:Start your GoFundMe today at GoFundMe.com. That's GoFundMe.com. GoFundMe.com. This message reflects one person's experience. I saw how the world is not made for caregivers and not made for new mothers. The focus is very much on the baby and the child, which, you know, of course it should be. And the problem isn't the needs of the baby or the child. The problem is that we are putting it all on, most often, a mother. The dominant message is, you have a baby and then, you know, six weeks, bounce back, get back to yourself as soon as possible. I genuinely thought I was doing it wrong. Something wrong with me because I found it so difficult.

1:32As soon as I read that word and started to research and read and think about this transition, it was just completely transformative, as it is for many women who find this. Hi and welcome to this episode of Motherkind. It is me, your host Zoe. We are proudly sponsored by Wild Nutrition Women's Supplements. If you've been listening to Motherkind for a while, you'll know that I talk a lot about matrescence, that huge psychological, emotional and identity shift that happens when we become mothers. It's a concept that has helped so many women make sense of an experience that can feel confusing, lonely and overwhelming.

2:13Well today I am joined by the incredible Lucy Jones, journalist, author of the groundbreaking book Matrescence and one of the leading voices exploring what motherhood does to us, not just practically but emotionally, psychologically and culturally. Lucy spent years researching and writing about matrescence and she's really helped to bring the concept mainstream. So I know you are going to love this conversation. This is going to be one you are going to want to share. Share this with any mother, especially any new mother or pregnant woman in your life. Here it is. Lucy, this is such an amazing experience because I feel like I know you so well, but the truth is we've actually never met in person.

2:57I can't believe we've never met. I really feel like we have. Because we have this just most phenomenal thread that weaves through our maternal experience, which is discovering this word matrescence yeah and i think you were the first person i who interviewed me about my book matrescence i think you we talked before it even came out yeah because i was so excited yeah and i spoke to dr alexandra sacks in 2018 wow on motherkind yeah about matrescence i think i talked to her around then for the times when did you first hear the word then was it through her article no i first heard it at the start of 2018 from dr oscar sarilach oh yes who is that amazing australian doctor and i interviewed him funnily enough in my car because we didn't have any budget and i had booked a tiny room he was talking in south london somewhere random and i'd booked a tiny room and it had all fallen through so i was like well i'm not not doing the interview so we did it in this sweaty car because we couldn't have the air conditioning on must have been summer and he said da da da da da well of course you know the woman goes through her matricence and he said it like you would say a you know apple and I was like sorry what did you just say and he explained it oh wow and that was the moment and I viscerally remember every part of my body relaxing because at that point my eldest would have been two and I genuinely thought I was doing it wrong something wrong with me I was defected as a woman and mother because I found it so difficult and he said to me in this kind Australian accent he was like oh no it's your matricence yeah when did you first discover it through the TED talk was it Alexandra Sachs it was kind of similar to you I reckon our eldest are probably similar age my first daughter was born in 2016 yeah and i think when she was about nine months old i read alexandra sax's piece in the new york times birth of a mother similar to you read the word matrescence it was like a kind of paradigm shift just like everything changed uh in my body and kind of i was like oh okay this is a thing this is the big thing that i am experiencing um a lot bigger than our culture and society presents it as so i read that word in the new york times piece and then i went and bought the the text by dana rafael yes who was the american anthropologist who coined the term in the 1973 yeah in the 70s so it was a book called being female and it was it came out in 1974 and it's a collection essays and in that um i i believe that's the first citation of the word matrescence and she um was an anthropologist who was particularly writing in that essay about the tecopia people and she there were so many good lines in it but she talked about how the tecopia people have a sense of the newborn mother you know there's a newborn baby of course but there's also a mother is born and similarly to you I thought there was something wrong with me I thought I was defective I I was finding it so difficult and I just thought this thing has happened that I've always wanted having a kid and being a mother and every day is feeling so hard and then as soon as I read that word and started to research and read and think about this transition it was just completely transformative as it is for many women who who find this this literature crazy how it took your book really to make that word mainstream.

7:06And I don't even think it is yet, but you've done a phenomenal job. But I mean, imagine the millions of women that still don't know. Billions probably. Absolutely. I mean, there's lots of people who've done matrescence work. And I think it was Oralee Athan who brought the word back. And lots of people have been writing and making art about matrescence. and my book's just part of that. But I find it, you know, it's so interesting how invisible and how kind of hidden and obscured that transition is in our culture, in kind of Western individualistic culture compared with how it is experienced in most cultures and societies across the world, which is as a major transition, a transition which needs support, a transition in which you know if the mother has carried the baby there's obviously recovery from birth and pregnancy but there's also changes in identity relationships sense of self you know it's very existential it's very philosophical it's very psychological it's very emotional it's all of these things and yet you know the dominant message is you have a baby and then you know six weeks bounce back you know get back to yourself as soon as possible and you know the focus is very much on the baby and the child which you know of course it should be we live in a world where we know a lot more about what babies need and what children need and the problem isn't the needs of the baby or the child the problem is that we are putting all on most often the mother and that is completely opposite to our evolutionary history you know we evolved in these caregiving networks and collective groups um we are collaborative breeders we're not meant to be kind of breeding in isolation and with this huge amount of weight on on the individual often woman mother so it's been it you know from that moment of reading matrescence and I'm sure it's similar to you you know it took me on so many paths of you know trying to understand this current moment of modern motherhood and the institutions around it which are making it really hard that's what I love most many things I love about the word and the concepts that sit under it one of them I love the most is that for a long time you couldn't say I'm finding it hard because people would say well don't you love your child and there would be that sort of guilt and shame of even saying it out loud and I think that isolated us further what matrescence does just so amazing is it separates the two doesn't it there's like the love that I have for my child solid all there incredible and through my matrescence There's these structures and these institutions and these norms and the belief which make stepping into that role really difficult.

10:16And I love that we've got a word now to separate the two so that we stop shaming women for saying they're finding it hard. Exactly. And, you know, it's through language that we can connect and care for each other. And we can say, you know, how's your matrescence or how was your matrescence or how's your patrescence? You know, it's obviously a biological, cultural, psychological experience for men as well. Fathers, of course. And I really like that kind of complicating of the experience. And it reminds me of Adrienne Rich, who wrote Of Woman Born in the 70s. And she was a poet and an essayist. And I read of woman born in the first year of our first child's life.

11:07And that was another kind of transformative moment for me because she was describing her experience of becoming a mother in the 50s. And I could relate to so much of what she was saying about what it was like. But what she gives us is this distinguishing between the experience of motherhood and the institution of motherhood. which allows us to critique the institution of motherhood and the social systems and structures, which are not ideal and need to change, while also kind of separating that from the experience of motherhood and the children. I think that's really important because there's still so much repression and suppression and taboo around talking honestly about motherhood and early motherhood you know it really seems as though if you say anything negative or complaining scare quotes um for the who's listening you know an automatic feeling can be that you're not grateful for your children um and i think that you know that's really we need to move past that and you know that this language gives us a chance to talk about the whole spectrum of the experience yeah it's so true particularly I think if you've had a difficult journey to pregnancy I think that gets magnified then because people think well I've wanted this and I've fought for it in many ways and you know it's been years and that's self-silencing absolutely and I think you know there's partly a cultural kind of like a dominant cultural idea of the mother figure you know and a kind of romantic maternal ideal where we all want mothers to be perfect and to adore their children and the kind of ideal is this self-sacrificial figure who's kind of perfect and obviously fantasy but at the same time the patriarchal narrative denigrates care work and you know denigrates the work of growing and birthing babies and also the work of caring for infants and children so I think mothers are left in this weird kind of swamp of this you know it's a pedestal mother figure and then the reality of it being kind of seen as you know drudge work or I love when you talk about in the book there's two I mean there's many lines that I love one of them is that you talk about how maybe in your 20s and I would be the same you would think well maybe it's kind of boring to be a mum but actually it's like this socio-economic kind of spiritual awakening like the most exciting sort of challenging thing that's ever happened to you me too it's just phenomenal how like you say it's just like oh it's just she's just just the mum and the other thing that I love that you say is you know it's life and death work and it really is we give these women us mothers you know often injured from birth often traumatized from birth exhausted like I hadn't slept I did I had a home birth hadn't slept for 40 hours and then I get left on my own for like eight hours with this fragile it's kind of insane it's totally insane I mean it's for a social species you can see how kind of catastrophic something like that could be that we're you know we're not the individual independent kind of machine like citizens that you know we're told we are we are social beings and we need each other and the fact that you know that you could be left alone for eight hours after giving birth is just i mean what is that that's just crazy you know it's like a complete um like the whole system is is against our evolution and against the way our nervous systems evolved um but i think it's really interesting how um i mean i i think i was probably quite naive i hadn't really grown up around children or babies you know i had been you know privileged in a way to be um kind of educated in a particular way and given a lot of um opportunities kind of in my career and to travel and to you know be independent in a way but at the same and although I always wanted to have kids I when I became a mother I really realized I had this kind of internalized misogyny kind of internalized like matrophobia almost that the work I was doing was both like the most important work I could ever do and I I really had to get it right because if I didn't, she'd be in therapy for the rest of her life.

16:06But at the same time, you know, our political economy is telling me this doesn't, is not valued. You know, this is not even included in GDP. This is non-work, you know. So again, it's this kind of paradox and conflict. conflict but I found that really interesting and really illuminating and revealing of the social context I mean I guess I probably never you know in my life being as I've you know racialized white and middle class and like socially material privileged I'd never kind of experienced kind of any kind of oppression um and you know while I would hesitate to say that I have been oppressed obviously there is something about the class of mothers in our society which i think you could say there is a sense of oppression we don't have adequate maternity care you know the rate of maternal death is increasing um you know we don't have adequate postpartum care like the amount of misinformation and um kind of lack of research around how our brains change how our bodies change there's like a complete lack of public services around family and I know that they're bringing back child um sure start kind of children's centers but you know it was in those early months as I walked through the world with the baby that I saw with new eyes you know how the world is not made for caregivers and you know not made for new mothers the lack of step like lack of lifts at stations no areas in public transport for prams um you know lack of affordable high quality child care uh lack of paternity leave the whole system around having a family and becoming a mother is is so it's so lacking in kind of care and thought as you well know and how do you did you you've obviously had thousands of conversations at this point on this on this kind of subject how do we hold those two things right that we we know that we're in this kind of system that doesn't value non-paid work all the structures are against us and yet kind of here we are how when you speak to women that have read your book how do we I guess one is sort of we recognize that to take the pressure off ourselves right what else are the things that we can do to I don't want to say make it easier but I kind of do want to say make easier do you know what I mean yeah it's such a good question and yeah um I mean I think like you say realizing the social context of you know what maternity how maternity is kind of situated is is really important in taking the pressure off um and I think that's no small thing so in the you know I've been so privileged to hear from so many people since publishing matrescence and I always thought when I wrote the book um that I was quite particularly neurotic and um I've had quite a lot of shame you know and a lot of it you know I thought I'm just making kind of a big deal about all this stuff but what I've learned and it's kind of bittersweet is how much shame so many people carry and how silencing that is so a lot of the messages that I get there's a pattern which is and I'm sure you get the same um you know thank you for your book I feel very seen by it very relatable and I haven't been able to express this and I felt so much shame and it's you know been corrosive or or damaging um so my sense is that actually knowing the way that we are not centering care in our society uh makes it very difficult for like everyday women often in modern motherhood is hugely valuable because once that shame can be lifted you can say to someone at the baby group or you know like shall we maybe try and like keep the library open or shall we um write to our mps about kind of the maternity unit or you know those kind of little ways or even um can i help you like pick up your kid after school sometime you know it's a way of saying we need to kind of support each other and we need to create a different society but it's really difficult i mean i think i mean i think constantly what is to be done you know how can we how can we change this this vast system where you know profit is center rather than care or well-being it's you know i i kind of go between thinking you know i've just got to focus on the every day get my kids to school stay well stay healthy ish um you know and then thinking this whole thing is insane like it's bonkers what would you do what were the changes if you could make three kind of big structural changes what what would those three be i think um i mean i really like the work of economists like you know kate rayworth and donut economics and you know this idea of kind of putting well-being and health and care you know at the center of of how we organize society it feels that if care isn't valued and kind of reproductive labor isn't valued in a way that you know nature isn't valued or um then then it it it becomes a place of kind of where the economy can kind of free ride on it so it feels like it's extracted from um you know and i think that you know there's a similarity between and you know people have always said this you know planet women people of color you know this kind of move to extract as much as possible i don't know how we how we correct that but i think that um you know seeing it for what it is is probably a first step.

22:41And I mean, saying that, I'm also, I have this thought in my head, everyone's so tired, you know? Like, I would really like to do more, you know, community organising or volunteering or, you know, be out on the streets more, but I'm knackered. I think that's the thing, isn't it? I think about this idea of, like, building our own village, and I have done that, but it took me years because I was too tired to build my own village. yeah so tired exactly and then I guess you in a way I don't know how old your youngest is but my youngest has just gone to school so in a way I feel like I've built the village and I'm kind of I've gone through that kind of early matrescence although I wonder what you think about this but I imagine matrescence always is there and changes but you know I think then you have I mean you're not doing this because you're still working in this area but I think you might often have and lots of other people obviously too but who kind of go through matrescence and then you know life is really busy and then you're kind of past that point and so you know that that that really vulnerable intense moment of those early years kind of gets a bit forgotten or moved on from yeah you know and i think also there's probably a level of like so if people have experienced trauma as well you know birth trauma or it's like oh I don't even want to go there anymore it's kind of you know there's so many reasons why matrescence and early motherhood are hidden and disavowed and made invisible you know I feel like it's a constant work as you do to to look at that period and to look at pregnancy and to look at birth and to look at early years child care you know because it's so not a priority politically or um and there's and of course there's cultural reasons like you know people they look at breastfeeding in public like no one wants to look i'm very happy to look at breastfeeding but like lots of people don't want to see breastfeeding you know we still live in that world where like people feel like they can't even breastfeed their kids like out and about it's just you know there's so much going on there to hide it it's so true and it's fascinating to me how you know we've been in this kind of maternal motherhood world a while together now and it's like you know I'll see the new podcast and everyone's like oh have you seen the new podcast yeah but I think to myself I suspect that that will run for a season and then go away and that typically is what happens because I think you're right I think when you're in it or when you're just out of that maternity experience you feel very passionate right and that you know lots So the celebrities will write the books and then it's kind of, then you move on and the focus moves on.

25:32And I think that happens a lot. And I often wonder, what is it about me and you, right, that's kept us in this space? And I think for me, it's that there's always so much to learn. Like I've been doing this for eight years, week in, week out. I've never missed a week and I am not bored. yeah and doesn't that say so much about just how much there is to say and to understand and to unpack and every single time i sit down with someone i learn something new yeah but it's so um i mean a metamorphosis is just interesting isn't it like because it's a it's a state of change and transformation so that's just interesting like on a narrative dramatic level but then you also have you know the spiritual existential aspect you know the bodily aspects the politics and the economics of it yes psychology your your own childhood your your intergenerational stuff you know it's a really kind of under uh depicted under written under recorded experience i think and you know while it's presented as most often banal or mundane just just or boring like you know in like the films that we grew up in like the american films like thinking about like Beethoven or something I was watching Beethoven the other day with my kids like the mom is just like nothing she's just in the background whatever yeah just cooking but it's like becoming a mother and and being a mother and it you know it's so gnarly it's so grisly and it's so psychological and emotional and it's hardcore is what it is yeah it's not I mean I'm there's obviously been like a lot more um cultural depictions like you know Tully and um you know other things but I feel like we need a lot more of that but just going back to what you were saying about this period sometimes being moved on from I feel like for me it's opened up so many avenues of different types of of thought and learning and particularly you know the problem of valuing care i mean that's not going anywhere and that's very central problem in our in our society um that it's like a central question like how do we value care yeah and how do we you know it's the elderly as well isn't it exactly statistics around the unpaid care that our generation are doing for our kids and our parents yeah it's just yeah it's kind of the stalled i think it's ali hoxcar to call it the stalled revolution you know there's this you know um you know feminists have won so many so much for us so many rights for us but this area of care and reproductive labor is you know it's not solved that sounds too kind of mechanistic but the amount of women i know who are burnt out I mean literally it's like this cannot I don't want this for my daughter you know to be to go through kind of the 30s and 40s if she wants to have kids and to feel totally burnt out for like a number of years just it's not the thriving or flourishing of all people that have you felt burnt out did because I imagine the book took on a life of its own yeah definitely so after the book came out I um maybe it was a year later or so I had a period of of quite bad burnout and depression um I think it was like a couple years ago like maybe a year after my third child was born so I wasn't really expecting that it kind of came out of the blue um and it was yeah burnout I guess and I'm much better now but um yeah it was really hard Did you recognise the signs?

29:25Did you know what was going on? I think that I felt... I think since my first child was born, amid all the, like, abundant joy and contentment and reward, I think I have been basically in fight or flight, kind of constantly. with sleep deprivation and various like psychological stuff coming up um and then you know the juggle of work and motherhood and there'd been there were periods then it got a little bit easier when I had um um my other my sons but then I think when my youngest was about two I I think I was doing a lot of kind of um talking about matrescence in the book and I'm quite a shy introverted person yeah it just kind of took a bit of a toll the whole the whole time and I yeah I was I got quite unwell but I've had depression on and off all my life so I recognized what was happening and it took a little while to fully recover but I'd say for about a year I've been feeling much better and in terms of burnout I think that started to really lift when my child went to school, my last child.

30:52And he's only started sleeping through the night-ish in the last kind of few months. So I think for about a few months, I've had a lot more sleep. So you've had a decade of sleep deprivation, basically. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I actually feel okay though now. I mean, there was a time a few years ago I thought, is this life, like, am I going to feel this tired and kind of run down forever um but no it's so hard as well isn't it because you know most of the burnout i've had loads of experts and doctors in burnout and a lot of the advice is about stepping back taking rest it's like it doesn't work for mothers an amazing doctor who burnt out with two kids in her gym she she gave phenomenal practical advice right but in the general literature it's like step back take a rest get signed off sick you can't get signed off sick from looking after a two-year-old no exactly that's it you can't um there's not much you can do in my experience i mean i have you know my husband is like super there and supportive and you know i don't know what would happen if he wasn't there but um i think there's also a lot going on there isn't there like i found that i had like a b12 deficiency so as soon as i got on injections for that that helped I got PMDD after having kids like I'd always had quite bad PMS but it escalated so once I'd sorted that out with some like treatment that really helped there was just all this all this kind of mind body stuff which was also contributing so I had you know after my my third delivery was quite traumatic I had like really heavy periods for like a year or two and to the point where I became like almost anemic you know all these things which are so um so anathema to like the six week bounce back idea um it's just the worst gas light ever isn't it that we've given women just bounce back it really is and there's so many different things that can happen in kind of pregnancy and birth like I haven't really been able to exercise really since that third birth properly uh and like you know again that's like with burnout you get told like sort your diet out do your exercise rest or like chill exercise whatever uh you know step back it's very hard to do that when you're looking after young kids and eating whatever you can grab and have no time to exercise it's wild isn't it what what what we go through as women and i talk about this it's almost like we make it hard squared because it's really hard but then we make ourselves wrong for finding it hard yes and that's awful isn't it yeah i have a really good thing with um another friend which i started we started a few years ago called listening time where we when we were really in the throes of it we'd go for a walk with our babies in the pram and we'd have half an hour each I love that where we just talk it's been so good and we you know we on a whatsapp voice note did you get that from hand in hand parenting I think yeah it was her idea I think she got it from that it was so good yeah um and now you know we leave each other voice notes and stuff with whatever kind of things are coming up and there's so much of it I notice is just not letting myself feel the just the plain hardness of it yeah and or feeling like beating myself up for feeling like finding it hard or thinking i have so much privilege like how am i finding this hard you know it's you know and actually that's just so um counterintuitive all the time to myself you know i beat myself up that i haven't i haven't reached enough women you've reached so many women i beat myself up you've reached so many i'm like how maybe no i look at those male podcasts right who that reach like 10 million a week and I'm like you should be doing that for women that's where I'd beat myself up isn't that mad yeah but that's not you that I mean you could I don't think you could reach more you're you know you've done such a you're doing such a service but I guess there's something about motherhood which um you know that those those podcasts are much more I don't know kind of you know motherhood is still kind of hidden isn't it yeah that's right as a you know you should be on those podcasts by the way yeah they should be getting you on there well they tend to yeah they those big male podcasts they have like one or two guests on motherhood super polarizing i've heard unhelpful yeah i've heard those about like um guilting mothers basically shouldn't be using child cuts it's just yes it's wild it's wild that's but that's but i have to check myself a lot on that and it's like zoe what stop yeah but it's a soon you know if you can one of the things that i've kind of learned i think is as soon as i hear those voices coming in like just like try and just be like no yeah i'm even going to listen to that exactly right quick fire round that is actually not so quick fire because it's quite deep what's something that you use to value before motherhood that you no longer do so i wouldn't say i valued this but i clearly did because it was a part of my personality but i'd say my perfectionism so i used to think before having kids that it was it was a thing whatever art music whatever wouldn't be worth doing unless i was good at it and if i wasn't good at it it wouldn't be worth doing or it would be like embarrassing um and i've really let go of that through watching my children and through seeing them play and experiment with art and mark making so i don't hold myself to those like perfectionist stand i do with my work i do with my writing but i don't generally in life hold myself to those perfectionist standards anymore or i think i used to value kind of controlling for outcomes and I can I think motherhood has taught me that that's a fantasy and it's impossible and in a way I think I brought my perfectionism into my early motherhood experience because I I felt that anything I got wrong would be catastrophic I was very scared about getting things wrong and what you know the the damage that that could cause yeah me too um and I think i've i've i've loosened that you know obviously i try as hard as i can not to make many mistakes but if i do i can repair but i'm not thinking i can control outcomes in the same way as i used to think in a kind of from an anxious place it's quite freeing isn't it yeah and i'm making like i mean they're crap but i make like i love lino and making little art pieces and you know it's totally rubbish but um i shouldn't say that it's stupid but like it's play you know and it's fun and that's not something i would have done before if your first time pregnant self was sat here what would you say to her ah it's so hard that one isn't it i think i'd say something like it's going to be quite rough it's going to be really challenging but it will get better and you will find your feet you don't want to scare her okay maybe that's a bit well no i don't think that is scary but well i think what i would do because if it if i'm talking to myself i would like a ecology metaphor and the one that i you know use in the book and i love is i would say you're you're in a cocoon you're entering a cocoon and you think that you're a caterpillar and that you're going to sprout wings and that's not what's going to happen instead you are going to dissolve into goo for a while might be a bit longer than you expect for me it was about two years i'd say um but you will dissolve into goo but there will be things that remain of you and then there will be other things that come and then you will grow wings and then the you will come out of the chrysalis and you will come out uh and it will be okay that's really beautiful i think all pregnant women should know that which is what matricence teaches of course uh motherhood is teaching me dot dot dot i'm probably boring everyone about all my chat about capitalism and political economy but i do think that motherhood is teaching me quite a lot about politics and about kind of value and about the kind of insanity and inadequacy of our way of organising society and our kind of political economy.

39:44I think as motherhood, you know, my kids are nine, seven and five now, and as, you know, motherhood develops, I feel more and more that we need to create a society which centres care and nurture and thriving and flourishing of all life. So a bit of a weird answer, but that's probably it. And what's one gift you would give to all the mothers in the world and why? I really like this initiative that I've heard about in Bogota, Colombia, where they have this thing called care blocks so in shopping malls so I spent a lot of my early motherhood walking around shopping mall with my baby in a pram yeah and like really loving the library but feeling quite lonely and isolated and you know I found that loneliness quite cold and hard and kind of gnawing you know it was quite um you know no reason no surprise that loneliness you know can um lead to depression and these care blocks i think are just genius so they're a place in a shopping mall where caregivers can go new mothers can go you can wash your clothes you can even do a yoga class you can have a rest someone will hold your baby you can have a sleep you can eat something you can be around other caregivers so what I would do is give any new mother something like a care block something walkable in a public space free where they could go and be among other people and have that element of relief like to be able to rest because so many of us don't have our family close by um and it's really difficult i think if you've been brought up self-reliant independent to ask for help or to accept help um so yeah giving everyone a care block would be my gift oh i love that i'm thinking now like business plans for care blocks in yes do it get one in every westfield yes exactly it's gonna happen and whenever i mention care blocks people are like oh yes yeah i can't remember the name of the mayor of bogota who started it but it's so good it's so genius i love that thank you so much for coming on thank you i mean it's felt like known you forever you haven't known you for a while yeah thanks so much where can someone i mean matrescence obviously i suspect everyone listening will have read it but if not you have to and what else have you got coming up you've got any talks or um have i got on it i'm not i'm not doing so much at the moment because i'm finishing um a new book yeah i mean i'm a bit on instagram i try not to do instagram too much because i find it really addictive um same i just get really sucked in but i i do have an instagram and i have a website um we'll link all that below cool thank you that was the episode i hoped you loved it if you did please make sure you subscribe and i will see you next time