Danae Mercer: Postpartum Bodies, Leaking Boobs & Lockdown Romance

0:00Honey, what are you listening to? Mom! Your teen might not share everything with you, but teens share everything with each other. And certain everyday behaviors, like sharing food, drinks, or kisses, could mean sharing bacteria that can cause meningococcal disease, known as meningitis. Although meningitis is uncommon, about 1 in 10 who develop it will die. Ask your teen's doctor about missing meningitis vaccinations. Learn more at meningitis.com. Vaccination may not protect all recipients. Sponsored by GSK. Trying to be a bit more mindful of things you buy for you and your family? Well, when it comes to laundry, choose All Free Clear.

0:39100 % free from dyes and perfumes. All Free Clear uses only essential ingredients that tackle tough stains and odors. And it's gentle on the skin. It's a powerful clean you can feel good about. So go on, pick up a bottle of All Free Clear for your next laundry day. Coming up, we are very excited to have Denae Massa. Welcome to the show. Your kids are **** blocking, aren't they really? That's the only way to describe it. And I look up and there's my ma. I was like, oh my God. I want to talk to you about postpartum bodies. This woman, she popped onto the screen. She's like, these boobs, these are French boobs.

1:18They're like chic French lady boobs that have a cigarette and drink a cappuccino. And I was like, oh, well, that's such beautiful rebranding of something that we're told as women is shameful when you're postpartum. For years, I tortured my body and I was told, you know, you won't be able to have children when you're older. The only thing that was on my mind was, am I thin enough?

1:43It's September. Do you feel like it's like New Year's Day for parents? Because it's like the academic school year starts. We're back at school. the year begins. I feel dishevelled, fat and knackered and fucking skint. That's how I feel. Oh my God. How expensive? All of the above. Two months, Louise, my kids have off. Yeah, that's quite a long time. Two months, it's excessive. It's a lot. And also, do you find that you do so much with the kids in a day and then they're still like, when are we doing our main activity? I'm like, we've done it. We did it. I'm bored. I'm bored like, I'm sorry, what?

2:21why don't you just stare at the raindrops falling down from the window when i was your age i'd have to entertain myself and here we are like snack bitches walking around what do you want what do you need yeah like trying to fill in every hour of the day of doing something like i can't it can't i'm not it's exhausting my mom didn't do that my dad when i was younger and also we work yeah can't do it all but we have tried and we are sitting here after the school holidays frazzled Yeah. What fails have you got, Louise, on the holidays? Well, I should know this by now because I'm a seasoned mother at primary school.

2:58Yeah. School shoes. Did you leave it too late? Last minute. Oh, Louise. I totally did that. And I was, the lady in the shop, just like, it's our busiest time of year. Why are you coming the day before school? And to be honest, I was like, I don't know. I've just been really busy doing all the activities with the children. Look at me, I'm like Mrs. Tumble.

3:23Savvy B. What are we doing now, mummy? Well, the children. I mean, we have now, they are now sorted. But the first day back of school, my kids were wearing last year school shoes, which are too small, got holes in them, like tattered, horrendous shoes. Sharpie pen covering the scuffs. Yeah. And I did feel like, how have I done this? The whole build up to the academic year has been like you say, shoes, uniform, cricket kit, swimming kit. I got a, Bradley had a swimming gala at the end of last term. All year he'd be wearing navy blue speedo shorts. And then the week before he had the swimming gala for school.

4:08He was like, mummy, I have to have the school swimming shorts. You're going to have to buy me some new ones. and I was like, uh-uh-uh, I ain't doing it. So I collared the teacher. And I said, yeah. And then he came over and said, I want to talk to you, yeah. I miss that accent, I love it. And he was just like, I said, because, and you know when you start doing that wobbly head thing, because I'm not buying a new pair of trunks at the end of the year, he's well the same. And the teacher was like, don't worry about it. But I could tell that he told Bradley has to have the right shorts. And so I said to my friend, I was like, listen, June, get yourself in that lost property box.

4:49If you find a pair of pants that Bradley can wear for the gala, nick them and then Bradley's going to lose them and put them back in the lost property box because I'm not buying a new pair. No, and absolutely fair play. That's just reminded me of a memory of when I was at school talking about pants. Did you remember like if you didn't have your PE kit and it was for you, you'd have to go in your pants? Yeah. How fucked up is that? I know, I know. Barbie knickers. Like, just go in your pants. Yeah. Just... Oh, you forgot your kit out of your dickhead. Put your knickers on. Yeah. On the field. 200 metre sprint.

5:23Like, what? In your school shoes. In your school shoes and knickers. In your pants. Can you imagine if that happened today? That would just... Teachers would get suspended. Yeah. I remember doing a 200 metre race at school against other schools in my knickers and school shoes. Wow. Honestly, I remember it, my Barbie crop top. And I was like, thank God I had my Barbie crop top on. That was when I was just allowed a crop top. It's mad, isn't it? Otherwise, they'd be like, get something out of the lost property bins. And you'd be like, I know that Rachel's smelly sugar puff knickers are in there.

5:59I ain't putting them on. I'd rather just, I'd rather wear my knickers on a field.

6:07Honey, what are you listening to? Mom. Mom. Your teen might not share everything with you, but teens share everything with each other. And certain everyday behaviors like sharing food, drinks, or kisses could mean sharing bacteria that can cause meningococcal disease known as meningitis. Although meningitis is uncommon, about one in ten who develop it will die. Ask your teen's doctor about missing meningitis vaccinations. Learn more at meningitis.com. Vaccination may not protect all recipients. Sponsored by GSK. Trying to be a bit more mindful of things you buy? For you and your family? Well, when it comes to laundry, choose All Free Clear.

6:46100 % free from dyes and perfumes. All Free Clear uses only essential ingredients that tackle tough stains and odors. And it's gentle on the skin. It's a powerful clean you can feel good about. So go on, pick up a bottle of All Free Clear for your next laundry day. We are very excited to have today Denae Massa. Hello and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on. We feel honoured. And how do you feel because you are kid free, you're obviously working, but you don't have a child attached to your boob. You have a handbag that didn't have much in it and you've had a hot coffee and you're wearing white.

7:27And I'm wearing white and I'm wearing jewellery, which all things that never, and earrings. I'm wearing earrings. Yeah, you forget about that. Doesn't that feel great? Do you feel like, oh, yes, this is who I am? It's very exciting. I mean, of course, I feel the mom guilt. I think that's cool. I know it's normal. Rationally, I'm like, this is unfair and this is conditioning. But I feel so guilty. And I'm also very excited. It's nice to have that space of time to remember who I am outside of children. So, Danae, you've got two kids. How old are they? I do. I have a little boy that's about 14 months now.

8:02And a little girl that's just over three years old. You know, I've called both of them this morning. And then after the calls, my daughter ran off. She's like, ciao, mommy. I'm going to say something silly. I'm going to say something silly. Dog butt. And then she clicked the phone off. And that was it. And I'm there like, oh, I miss her. I hope she's okay. Say it again. Say it again. Yeah, she's fine. She's running around saying dog butt. So they're okay. Dog butt, what a great thing to say. And you're still breastfeeding. I am still breastfeeding. So how's that been traveling and boobs leaking?

8:35It's an adventure. I was hopeful that last night I'd get a good night's sleep because I co-sleep with my, well, with both of them, actually. But especially with my little potato boy, I co-sleep. And so I was like, OK, he's not there in the bed with me. Woken up by then. You're wide awake, especially because it's, you know, the pump and you're attached to your body and there's milk everywhere. and it's it's been a bit of a logistical adventure because I'm I'm trying to take back as much milk as I can but not every hotel has a fridge certainly not a freezer and it's you know I've got like my my lunchbox with ice packs and there's a pump in my bag right now just you're amazing just in case I love that I love that you're in a pump and then send it back I just had visions of you going through airport security with your breast milk and they're like you can't take it through it's over 100 million you're like no it's yeah i know this is yeah this is precious yeah this is precious stuff this is like the amber nectar it is it is precious it breaks my heart to dump it out oh my gosh yeah you know what it's like siphoning from your body yeah to create that it's it's it is amazing i remember pumping and getting some milk and i didn't produce like loads and loads of milk like hannah actually donated her milk she had so much I wish I was that person, but I wasn't.

9:52I could breastfeed, but whenever I pumped, I just couldn't get enough. And I remember really pumping, getting some and being so proud. And I put it. Oh, no, Louise. Oh, no. What happened? Who was it? It was my husband. Oh, no. Donk. Knock. I was like, no. Slow motion. Oh, my God. I was like, that's just taken me three hours. Oh, no. The things we put ourselves through, because in five years time, you'll probably look back and think I tried my best and there might be a part of you I'm not saying there will be but you'll be thinking that whole trip all I worried about was my breast milk why did I do that it's okay to like pump and dump but you're in another country and in your head you are expressing and you are taking that back to to where thing we can never really we can never really unhook the mother connection like it will always be there and it's wonderful but yeah but have you heard that people are i mean if i was more of a more of a business woman bodybuilders are apparently paying like 200 300 i don't know how much hundreds of dollars for breast milk excuse me can we just get one of the producers to get all that breast milk out the bag please get it on ebay we're gonna sell it have a holiday are you serious yes yes it's true i'm hearing all right i've heard so many things now about the female body and like how what how much it's worth apparently a placenta it's worth 50 grand seriously yeah apparently oh i just uh read the other day apart from mine that's been freeze dried into the into love i brought my placenta in not my like cord yeah it was freeze dried and they put it into uh spell spelling love and it was like this long freeze dried a purple brown thing and i brought it in she brought it in i I like that they spelled out a word with it.

11:40I was quite disheveled. I'd just given birth and she's like, hey, do you want it? Spell that love. And I was like, yes. Yes, I do. And like my husband's carrying this yellow bag with my bodily like, all the blood splatting around to give to a lady at reception at the hospital to take away. But they are quite, because for Leo, I gave birth in a birth center and he he popped out in italian they say in camicia which means with his water intact oh wow supposed to be a good yes good luck my sister's baby had that yes it's very good um it's supposed to be good luck it is good luck yeah so and then afterwards with the placenta the the midwives were like do you want to see it i'd never seen the placenta before and they showed me absolutely it really is quite it's incredible an impressive organ it's because they say that you grow an Oregon but you kind of picture I don't know like the size of a tooth or something it's it's so hard to imagine and then you see the dinner plate it's amazing the only mammal that don't eat are all the centers aren't we like the you know they think of all the nutrients and like a baby survived off yeah right so how many meals are you getting out now I mean we could get that on a bed this is a well this could be girl's trip you're funding our girl's trip here this is great but also our menstruation blood apparently that is also now we realize that it's healing i can we sell that as well it is miraculous it really really is so the body just goes okay yeah i'm going to build a spine and some eyeballs and a nervous system no problem i can do that like it's amazing just give me a couple of days i'll sort that for you yeah do you know what i mean while we're just busy doing the school run and actually i want to talk to you about postpartum bodies because one thing that we love about your account is how positive you are about bodies how you show reality versus Instagram and you from that you've got such a huge following and quite rightly so you're really showing women out there how things really are and the reality of bodies I want to talk to you about your experience you became a mother your body changed when did you want to kind of show online the importance of the differences in bodies and why we shouldn't be taking social media so seriously and share the journey well there's there's a couple of things there i started sharing my like my cellulite which i've had since i was a teen but i was always so ashamed of growing up because i grew up in the 90s and no one had cellulite well you weren't allowed it we weren't allowed even though 80 to 90 percent of women have cellulite it's so normal but i was just so ashamed of it.

14:18And for a very long time, especially on social media, but also in real life, I would do everything I could to hide it. So I started showing that I had cellulite right before COVID hit. And to make a long story short, my account blew up. I think because there were so many women who, showing the cellulite hopefully made them feel less alone. They were like oh wait a second you have that I have that too oh my body's not bad and you're okay to show it then I can show it as well and not have to cover up like you said you did because it's so empowering when we feel when we feel that when we feel seen and not flawed and not broken and I mean I saw someone just the other day who normally when I'm not breastfeeding I have like negative boobs my boobs don't exist and this woman she popped onto the screen and she was she had done breast feeding and then her boobs shrunk right back down which I reckon will that will happen to mine they will be different but they'll be small again and she was like she's like these boobs these are french boobs they are french boobs they're like chic french lady boobs that have a cigarette and drink a cappuccino and i was like oh well that's such a beautiful rebranding of something that again we're told as women is shameful when you're postpartum is like what happens to your breasts and oh it's an embarrassing that you had babies now you don't and i was like that is that is what But there's such a power in that, in that rebranding of something we thought was shameful.

15:42So anyways, I did that with my social media, blew up, went viral. And for a long time, that was what I was talking about was how bodies can look very different based on the lighting, the posing, the angles, the things you mentioned. and then with getting pregnant and and talking about my body after that's been me learning in real time in very real time because you don't really know what your body will be like as you get pregnant what you'll feel like as you gain weight which all of us do where where that weight will sit how it'll be different your first your second like with my second my body with my first my body really just snapped back to the way it was before very easily very quickly I didn't do anything special that's the thing I but its genetics play a huge part I did I did nothing I did nothing it's just my body just went back verse no but with with Leo with Leo with my second it has changed so much in what way compared to your first pregnancy I held on to wait a lot longer and I don't weigh myself so I but I knew a lot of my clothes yeah you can tell my clothes I held on to wait a lot longer and then suddenly suddenly in like the last four months it has just all dropped off which has been shocking because it's it's such a rapid change that I have done nothing again I've done nothing to to encourage it and my tummy skin it's not snapped back the it was before there's a shelf it it's wrinkly it looks different so I feel like my tummy's different my feet are bigger yeah that's a thing yeah yeah if anyone wants some shoes my feet are bigger my boobs are huge they're a bit they're they're and shoes are just bras and shoes I've got I'll sell them with the breast milk start market stall over here what do you want for seven shoes bras french lady boobs isn't it funny how like before kids and it's really interesting you said about when you gain weight in pregnancy where that weight goes because i just thought when you got pregnant you just get a big belly i didn't consider i was going to get really big veiny boobs my nipples are going to look like beef burgers i didn't think my ass was gonna look like blooming cottage cheese with a tangerine skin on top of it like and then my stomach the skin when it goes back if I curl up like that it looks like a really angry deflated donut I really loved the way that my body was after I gave birth I was really fascinated at how my tummy would look yeah because you're right it kind of becomes this bit of a donut and it's it's just soft but I kind of really loved it I just really enjoyed it and I was like well you know lap it up because I suffered from an eating disorder I know that you've had your battles as well and I really felt that my the way that I treated my body in the 90s um trying to like be stick thin because I was in the modeling industry and I was literally told by grown-ups when I was 15 you need to lose weight like I don't care how you do it you need to lose weight and you did And I did, but I didn't tell my mom.

19:03I didn't tell anyone. I just did it the way that I thought would be the quickest way. And what was that? I was bulimic. I was bulimic. I was still living at home. So my mom was giving me these big meals and to kind of, you know, hide what I was doing. I would eat everything and then I would just go and throw it up. And nobody knew that you were doing that. And that was at the age of 15 because you were told to lose weight. Yeah. By adults. Yeah. By people that should have protected you. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But at the time in the 90s, it was the it was called heroin chic. And it was like a trend to be super skinny.

19:41It was like it was a trend. And I wanted to be accepted in the modeling industry. I really wanted to do it. You know, it was it was really cool. And so you kind of I was so young and naive. You kind of just did what you wanted to do. So for years, I tortured my body. And when, and I was told, you know, you won't be able to have children when you're older. But at the time. Because of the eating disorder. Yeah, but at the time I was 18 when I was told this. It wasn't on my mind. The only thing that was on my mind was, am I thin enough? And then it wasn't until years later when I met my husband and realized that we wanted to have children.

20:20I remember saying to him, if we can't have children, am I enough? Because I don't know if I can give them to you. So we had that chat. I did manage to have children, which I'm so grateful for. And it makes me so grateful for my body. And thank like I'm like, I'm like, thank you, because I completely disrespected my body in such a way for my body to then come back and say, I've got you like, yeah, we're gonna have a baby. Oh, so grateful. So when I so I was like, I'm embracing everything, everything like the good, the bad, the ugly, the squashy. everything I loved it did you feel the same when you it's interesting hearing you talk about how you felt such gratitude for your body I you know I've talked about my history with disordered eating and and what happened to me there where I lost a lot of weight and I was very unhealthy for a while and and what kind of triggered that for you losing weight like the eating disorder I think a lot of things my my mom was very sick for a long time and then my so I leaned into dieting as a way of control and way of you know it's it's that type a personality you're doing it to to gain control to gain approval because we're told that thinner is better especially as a woman so it's a mix of all those things but mostly it was a coping mechanism and then my mom passed away when I I was 19.

21:47And that's when my eating disorder really spiraled out of control very quickly. And again, it was just trying to handle a very turbulent, very, very difficult time in my life where I was very much alone and just dealing with so many, so many things. But when it came time to getting pregnant, actually with my husband, I mean, he knew about this eating disorder because I'm so open on social media about the journey I've been through. But we got pregnant and then lost it, lost my first, you know, but there was miscarriage with the first baby. And one of the things mentally that I struggled with was this feeling of like, you know, that guilt, like, did I do this to myself?

22:31Is this my fault? Is it because I didn't nourish my body when I was growing? Is it because I hurt my eggs? Is it, it's all that drinking in that guilt, the guilt again that us moms feel in so many ways. And of course we know with miscarriages, that's not how it works. But your first instinct is to be like, well, did I do this to myself? Because you are responsible for the growth of that thing. It must be my fault. It's my fault. It's my fault. But when, after the miscarriage, when we were able to get pregnant, I think I had, oh my God, I loved it. I had such a sense of wonder for what my body was doing this this miracle and still to this day I the one of the most beautiful times I've ever felt in my life was being pregnant I loved having the bump I'm the same I loved it I loved being pregnant even when I was throwing up loved it you know daily i'm so grateful when i was so dehydrated yeah i'm glowing blooming fucking massive over here um but it is an incredible thing um especially and it's so nice that both of you from the the stories of disordered eating you've turned around and gone actually i appreciate my body so much because there will be so many women that didn't that can't have that self-love for their body and struggle with the i say the aftermath postpartum because it some people can ping back some people can't some people never get back into their pre-pregnancy genes and it's the reality is is amazing as of what you're showing is people that still have cellulite after they've had a baby and probably will always have a pouch and their boobs have probably gone saggy and they might get some fat around their arms or they facially don't look the same anymore You know, pigmentation might not leave us forever.

24:22It's like the reality of that being okay, because what we've done is grown these incredible humans. One of my good friends is a fitness trainer and she got pregnant later in life and it was a real big journey for her. But she's, her job is fitness and she would train other women. And she said to me after she got pregnant, she was like, you know what, Danae? For a long time, I thought women moms, I thought women who were like, oh, I have kids or I can't work out today or I'm not feeling well or I'm tired. I thought they were just lazy. I thought they were just lazy. And then she's like, and now I'm pregnant and I'm tired and I can't train.

25:04Tell me she was sat at home with a tub of Nutella and a spoon having a time of her life. I think it's it's until you're in the thick of it it's so hard to wrap your mind around what pregnancy nausea does what a night with no sleep or multiple nights of no sleep absolutely like how do you juggle working and being a mum do you find it tough challenging I I think it's an adventure I think it's a constant struggle for balance yeah yeah I'm someone I don't know if anyone's ever found the balance yeah I don't think have you guys found the secret I don't think I don't know I was hoping you would be like do you know what I kind of had a look of desperation I've got three kids and I'm hanging on by a thread but I'm like how do you find it and every mum goes like this um well it's it's a balance we're figuring it out still but that's nice you know we're kind of all in this together and when we do make it work we make it work sometimes my daughter will wake up she'll be like because now in Florence the sun's getting up very early and the other day she woke up at five it must have been like five a.m she's like mommy mommy the sun's up it's time to get up and I was like oh it is not it is very cute it's so cute but when you have three of them it's like two hours to get my two-year-old to bed and then a couple like an hour to get my middle child to bed and then naturally my nine-year-old is delaying going to bed so then he wants me to lie with him and sometimes it gets to 10 o 'clock and I'm like I started the bedtime routine at six Yeah, that's what I don't like.

26:30I'm really struggling with that bit. Whereas now, I don't have an evening, just me and my husband. We don't have that anymore. It's hard. Yeah, and that's like... You need that time. You know now and again where you might do like Rudy's? You can't do it, can you? No, well, no. Not when they're like loitering. Especially because we've had to say to my 14-year-old, he just like barges in our room. There's no knocking. and there was one day one morning where we were you know gonna get you know down and dirty that's and then and then he walks and we're like oh thank god that we didn't do anything but he would be disgusted to think that his mum and dad are doing that how do you how do you like deal with that with co-sleeping i mean your kids are cock blocking aren't they really that's how the only way to describe it like how are you facilitating that oh goodness i mean it's a good it's a good question it's a good question i have a very romantic italian husband who is you know the italian man in general i think they're very big on amore and romance and so we've been pretty strict at every thursday is date time oh so we have date time we also have grandparents the grandparents live upstairs different flat different flat they live upstairs upstairs that's the dream that is the oh my gosh it's so handy it is actually is that quite an italian uh tradition or like is that how families work in italy it's very it's very italian to have a lot of family support not necessarily that they live upstairs i think that's particularly lucky but a lot of our extended family live very nearby yeah and how did you meet your husband through a friend in london really did you yeah oh my gosh amazing yeah so um and you know he He romanced me with like four perfect days in Italy with saying romantic words like pizza, pasta, vino.

28:28Oh, my God. You're like, yeah, you had me at the risotto. I'm like, you're the man for me. But it was so perfect and beautiful and all the things he had planned that after these perfect four days, I was like, this has been wonderful. I love the pizza. I love the risotto. I love you. I didn't say that. but he was out there in your wedding dress I know I'm like hi hi I don't want to be too

28:55but I I said I want to know the the real you I want to know what it's like when you know potentially a baby is sick or when we have to take out the trash or do the dishes the horrible mundane things that is life I love that you said that yeah it's so important and it is so it's so important yeah because we can all see the real reality yeah what you like when you're when you're ill yeah yes absolutely absolutely so what did you do just stage sickness and left the rubbish and bins everywhere just throwing garbage around no he he said to come back he was like well come come back come back to italy and stay longer stay a couple of weeks and i came back to italy one day and then the next day italy turned into a red zone where you weren't during covid during covid oh my god it's got it very badly first yeah and we weren't allowed to leave the flat for like two months do you reckon that was his plan second date and you're locked in we were locked in we were locked in i was wearing his clothes like we were just in the house we couldn't we couldn't go out for dates wow oh wow so you really saw the real man you you saw we saw the real each other i mean how awkward if you'd have been like do you know what he's a bit of a dickhead i want to leave it could have ended badly so you would like literally second date you moved in for two months that's like that's a long day speed dating like at full-on speed it was it was that's me and nico everything was speed did you guys get covid together in italy in those first like two months like did you really see like you were like this is your sick test this is your we you know we we did it because you were locked in your flats pretty much like i would go out to walk we have a sausage dog I'd walk the sausage dog and it would be the longest walk ever so that we would get as much fresh air as possible but you're really in your apartments and was his parents living above at this point my so funny story about that my first time meeting his mom because Italians are very especially Italian boys it's called mamone they're very attached to their mommies it's like boys and their moms in Italy and so I'd relate so I had met I'd met like everyone else in his family except his mom especially his mom and his dad and one day we were out on the terrace it was like a beautiful sunny afternoon we'd had some wine we're leaning on the terrace having sexy Italian kisses right beautiful kisses and I kind of knew at this point that his parents lived upstairs but I never met them beautiful kisses and then I feel a movement out of the corner of my eye and I look up and there's his mom and she she was not spying I think she was watering her roses she was spying babes she was a hundred percent spying yeah she was spying she was doing a full police check on you she was looking at your social media accounts yeah who's this woman yeah well in 2002 she went out with steve oh and she we locked eyes and i'm there like make it you know making out with my son there was definitely some snogging going on there was probably a little more than it was an intimate moment and I look up and there's mama I was like oh my god ciao and I think I just pushed pushed Nico off me and like ran into the house because I didn't know what to do yeah so so flustered so that's how I met my uh my husband's parents and what she like is a mother-in-law wonderful yeah and a good grandmother obviously she's your son now right yeah she's yeah and she's incredible they are I'm I'm very lucky because I know a lot of moms-in-law, you know, sometimes there can be tension.

32:29Although sometimes I do wonder if that's just like one of those patriarchal things that's women shaming other women or whatever. No, my mother-in-law is wonderful. We have this idea that mother-in-laws are awful, that moms are competitive with their daughters, that there's tension between moms and the daughters. There's this that women are competitive with each other. There is. Yes. But I don't think that's true. I like to really challenge that sometimes. I'm totally with you. Exactly what this whole show is about is like raising other women up, seeing other women, supporting other women. Actually, on that note, we ask every guest on our show of any parenting fails.

33:07Do you have any fails for us? Oh, my gosh. I think I probably have quite a lot of fails. Oh, boy. Do you have a parenting fail this week? I got a phone call this morning to say that my kids had taken in. it's like a tannoy but they have one when you speak into it it just makes fart noises and my kids had taken it to school and to breakfast club and the teacher was really pissed off because it was like like that and she's looking around like who's doing it so i had a phone call about that and i was trying to not laugh because it's not acceptable for them to me making fart noises but i bought it farts are funny and i thought it was hilarious but not to next week.

33:51Okay. Bring it in next week. I'd actually love to. We should do a whole show with farts. I thought of my fail. Okay. So my daughter, there's, okay, cacapuzzolente means like stinky, stinky, stinky poopoo, stinky popo, stinky poops. Cacapuzzolente in Italian, right? It sounds so nice, doesn't it? I know. I love. It sounds like a dessert. Cacapuzzolente. And so, she, cockapoo, beautiful dish of cacapuzzolente for any Italians listening. What? Okay, well, Well, it sounds bloody gorgeous. It's ice cream. Yeah. So she learned this somewhere. Somewhere she learned this. But it's quite like it sounds nice.

34:30Cacapuzalente. It doesn't sound terrible. And so for a day or so, she was running around the house and she'd be like, Mama, Mama, Vieni, come here, come here. Cacapuzalente. And then I would laugh because it's funny. Your little three-year-old is saying like stinky poops, stinky poops. Except she went upstairs to Noni. And my noni, the Italian noni, they're very elegant. They're like this very traditional, beautiful Italian couple who they say their son, my husband, he never was dirty. And he was always well-dressed and he always ate at the table with polite manners, which I don't know what's going on in my house, but it is not like that.

35:06My daughter's running around with a sandwich. My baby is smearing ketchup everywhere. So it's not that situation. And so she goes up to noni's beautiful, immaculate house and in this beautiful setting. And she's there and she just starts going to Nono. Nono, Nono, Cacapuzilente. And he's like Aurora, you know, in Italian. Don't you say that, Aurora, don't say that. That's terrible. Which just makes her think it's even funnier. She starts saying it more and more and more. Like you with the teacher at the school gate, I was beckoned over by the Noni after this. And they're like, Doné, you know, that is not a very polite thing to say.

35:41so now we've established if she sees port-a-potties what do you call them in in england they're called port-a-potties port-a-loo port-a-loo is port-a-loo is if she sees port-a-loo's she's allowed to say I don't know if your boys do this but my boys are going through a phase of doing really good fart noises with their mouth will be anywhere and they'll just go like anywhere to a point where I'm getting a bit angry I'm like can you just stop doing that now because people think that I'm farting and then you're like stop did I I remember when um Inka did her first poo in a potty I remember putting on Instagram stories and then like realized what am I doing and I have a few comments going we don't need to see that and I was like you're absolutely right I apologize like you down the actual picture that yeah I was so proud well I'll take a picture of like Annabelle's poo and send it to Andy and be like I hope your day is as good as this and he's like I'll be home at five babe sorry that was a proud moment from me sending your partner pictures of your nipple and a sexy bra to then pictures of shit in a potty are you private about stuff like that so private oh are you oh so if you needed a poo you wouldn't say I'm just going to have a poo do you have a poo in front of your husband god no no I don't either we don't have a door in our bathroom we don't and our friends come around so we have why don't you have a daughter that's the only time we can have a conversation is if he's having a poo and i'll be in brushing my teeth or or i'll have a bath and he'll come in and just have a poo oh no and i'm like oh andy like that's a bit much but you know i had a friend just visiting and she came she's from the u.s and she had brought this it's like a little spray and it says like potpourri yes yeah yeah and it's like before you poo yeah and you spray it i think that's genius that is that is the way i like to do the poop my husband a poo timer it's like an egg timer but it's like a poo timer they do disappear in there for a while they go into another dimension what are they doing in there we're sponsored by mamiya at aldi their high quality baby and toddler range designed for those perfect imperfect parenting moments which i know we all have them so from night feeds to nappy battles the newborn to toddler stage is full of emotional highs and lows and we've been asking you our amazing mpg community for your baby conundrums and calamities and you have not disappointed so we're going to go in with one right now my mum changed my daughter's nappy and didn't want to put it in her bin she wrapped it up so she could put it in a public bin hung it on the buggy and went to the park later at the park some kids thought she'd left her shopping on the buggy and thought they were going to be in for a treat but the treat they got was a pooey nappy oh god you know what well the kids were loving it yeah actually i bet they were like this is hilarious i bet the mom was mortified yeah no that's it's a poo story they're all they are all everything with kids is just we poo sick there's um a mom that messaged me the other day on instagram and i have to tell you this because i found it hilarious so i did like a bit of uh i'm doing it my comedy stand-up tour this year so I was like right whoever gives me the funniest parenting story gets wins four tickets and that's brilliant oh my god some of the stories I was sent I was like I feel I feel like a great mum I've heard some of these so I shortlisted it I got a few hundred and I was I sat there with a glass of wine and my husband was just going through them reading them out absolutely howling at some of these stories the person that won actually was a woman that sent me a video of her son aged about 18 months half submerged in a toilet so she walked into the family bathroom and he's just sat there like he's having a bath like waving at her oh my god and I was like that's hilarious and another woman had said that she locked her 18 month old in a car by accident and had to get the fire brigade oh my god to come and get the kid out unlock the car and another it was loads more but this other one I just thought was hilarious and would be quite relatable but um this mum was getting a daughter ready for nursery in a rush couldn't find any wipes got a toilet wipe to wipe her face what she'd actually used was a tan wipe on her daughter's face so she took her daughter to nursery oh my gosh and this this tan just developed throughout the day when she smeared it on her face and she went to pick her daughter up and she looked like an umpa lumper she was like oh my god what's happening nursery i don't know she's just been developing today that is brilliant tan wipes are like lethal oh i love i used to love a tan wipe then it's really quite orange yeah this is why we do this is why we have this space of just like yeah we're all figuring this out and it's bonkers and people don't talk about those bits either like the stuff that you talk about and you're with women's bodies and how we look and feel and normalizing it it's also that for for parenting yeah because it's just everything's portrayed it's like really perfect and you're like oh i don't when you go to the school gates everyone's like hi it's like you've just been wrestling three kids to get out the door how do you find the chaos in the morning getting the kids ready if you you know you're working it's like right come on we need to have breakfast get out the door do you find that stressful because you seem quite calm oh no it is stressful yeah you do seem really calm yeah people but people have a nice sleep though isn't she yeah i know yeah there's no baby like nibbling on me right now um no people say that though they say i seem calm but i feel like i'm like the swan right it's like calm on top and under the wall Oh, you're like crazy feet, crazy feet, crazy feet.

41:03So that's definitely me. It's crazy feet. Such a good analogy. Crazy feet. It is stressful. Absolutely stressful in the morning. Like trying to get out the door. We are always late. If you want to ask about a parenting fail, my daughter's teacher. And keep in mind, this isn't like school school yet. It is like where they go and play and learn their alphabets. There have been like whenever they have field trips or those sorts of things. She's always like, your daughter needs to be here tomorrow by 8. You know, 8.30 a.m. By 8.30 a.m. We are leaving. 8.30. remember didn't because we're always late we are always how late though like a couple of minutes are you talking like 15 20 minutes uh it can it can really vary it can vary and i don't understand it because even on days when we're up at 6 a.m somehow you know my daughter wants to go dress up like a princess and then the baby is he likes to play with the toilet brush he's got the toilet brush and then someone is that with kids it's all the forbidden things toilet brush all the forbidden things all the forbidden things i remember taking my um eldest when he was a toddler to soft play and it was like a like a bouncy castle and a few like uh things to roll around in in a sports hall and he went straight for the plug socket my son he is obsessed with plug socket yeah danger hazard why are you crazy baby and then he holds it up and like point at the plug socket like look mom what i've achieved oh my god stop it um it's a bit more of a serious question but it's actually something i don't know the answer to i was messaged yesterday by someone in my community saying her daughter is eight years old and came home the other day from school saying one of the girls at school had called her fat and so now she is convinced she's fat and she's been wearing crop tops under her school uniform now because she's so convinced she's fat she doesn't want to go to school and look fat and look oh my god like given that you have older children what advice do you have for women in that space well girls I've learned um can be really mean to each other at school this is something that I thought came later but actually my daughters experienced it from last year there can be toxic relationships between girls at primary school from quite a young age um what we did um is we just talk everything through I mean you can't stop kids from being mean to each other you can't you know we can we can try and teach them and be kind but you know sometimes people say things I just have to I really talk to my daughter because she has been the one saying things and also receiving them it's like they all they all seem to do it they're all trying to find their voice they're all trying to find their place in the classroom um and it's really interesting because I didn't realize that it happened as young as it does but the whole she's six oh god that's so young yeah she's nearly seven um but whenever something does happen I think the parents are on it immediately which is fantastic like I talk to other parents we talk to the teacher we talk to the children the children talk to each other and we all talk it out and we try and make it make sense and we learn from it and we move on so it's just communicating and talking maybe removing the shame removing shame and trying to just be positive I mean I think I can say I kind of went through female toxic relationships until I kind of you hit a certain point you're like okay well I know who has actually got my back and who hasn't um and I I've got that now and I've had that for quite a few years and it's lovely but you know when you've got little girls they're still figuring out who they are who their friends are who they gel with and when people don't gel I you know they're so young their brains are still developing they're like oh how can i hurt you i'm just going to say something and they're not really realizing how damaging it can be it's just it's just learning i mean you know we wouldn't now say to each other you've got big tummy just wouldn't do it it's true um it's just it's learning and it's you know it's amazing how boys don't actually i say that but then we have these online websites where women just go there to bash other women anonymously oh god no those horrendous and you're just like you're a grown-up and that's the crazy thing it's like we're doing some people do still do that to each other especially people that are online we're an easy target um but then maybe saying to their children be nice to everyone be kind and then you're doing it yourself it's yeah it's something this is something actually i'm really passionate about because i i am going into schools and talking to these girls usually 10 and up and i remember the first school i went into is a group of like 200 girls 10 to 14 and i had them all write down the first the worst thing they say to themselves but then the worst thing someone had said to them online online and they're 10 and they're 10 well this is the other thing is keeping in mind they are 10 11 12 yeah i had asked them how many of you have social media there are no parents and there are teachers but no parents in the room and over 80 raise their hands so there's that integration of social media so common way more than i think we realize but when they wrote down the worst things that people had said to them, I think I'd expected a lot of the body stuff because we're women.

46:29So then of course there was a lot of that, like you're fat, you have ugly thighs, you have hairy arms, that kind of thing. But it very quickly disintegrated into a lot of messages of no one will love you. You don't deserve to be here. Shut up. And that is something now that I've been to multiple schools, that's not a one-off. And one of the reasons I think it gets so bad one of the many reasons is look what us as grown adults what we say to each other online if we are sat there tearing down each other saying these horrific things you don't deserve to exist oh my god you're disgusting shut up of course they're gonna see they are seeing this they're learning from us in real time like we are their only example in this space yeah so if we are doing that of course that's going to filter down to these children i can't i literally i'm so shocked oh it made me cry it makes me cry how how how do you combat that like what do you say to the kids and how can we i mean it's a big that's a big quay so it's it's complicated yeah it's complicated i think one of the really important parts of what i do with that exercise is showing them how universal a lot of these things that they think it's only them right they think i am the only one that thinks such awful things about my body.

47:41I am the only one that's being told, I don't deserve to be here. My friends deserve to be here. She's beautiful. She's worthy. She's a great athlete. But me, I'm broken. Me, I'm bad. So I think just opening up that space where it shows how universal it is, how they aren't alone, I think there's real power in that. And the same with us, with adults. That's what I do on my social media, right? Yeah, exactly. Or trying to do. that's what I'm trying to do is is this I'm not alone you're not alone like we're all dealing with these things and that's what you're doing but in a funny way yeah you know you bring that humor that joy which is so powerful we had a previous guest on uh professor green who's this amazing rapper and he's um we were saying how without us realizing it how often we speak negatively to ourselves yeah and we have well and I was saying that I um got hypnotized to have a fear of spiders so I got hypnotized one of the things that she said to me was whenever a negative thought comes in you have to acknowledge it and say cancel cancel that and then turn it around and say something else positive so I've been doing that for well I mean for years I mean I'm still scared of spiders but I'm very I'm much better she's so positive I'm so positive I hate spiders oh my god it's gorgeous I actually did sell a car once because there was a spider in it oh bless you I couldn't get it out did you?

49:09yeah because you're here we have a gift for you this episode has been sponsored by Aldi oh wow and we have a few gifts for you from Mamiya from Mamiya which is the most amazing brand oh look how cute that is everything that you need I think Hannah you've got one too behind your oh my goodness some goodies to take back to your little ones Oh, they're going to love this. And there's this one as well. Good luck taking all that back with you. Small suitcase. Oh, no, but I totally will. This is fantastic. Thank you so much. No, this is great. Thank you so, so much. We've loved having you on. Thank you.