Lou Beckett Reveals The Brutal Truth Given to Rob in the Delivery Room | No Parental Guidance

0:00Please welcome the wonderful Lou Beckett. Hello! Right, well we've got some quotes that Rob has said over the years and so this is your time to have your right to reply. Are you ready? Yes, I'm ready. Right, the thing I was most stressed about in the week before the big day was my job preparing a playlist for the birth. When you want your spring break to feel like... And your kids' pool day to feel like... And your hotel bed to feel like... Ooh, and room service to feel like... Because at Hilton, hospitality feels like... Your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels? It matters where you stay.

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1:28That's why Priceline is here to help you turn your dream trip into reality. With up to 60 % off hotels and up to 50 % off flights, you can book everything you need for your next adventure. Don't just dream about that next trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com and book your next trip today. Go to your happy price. Priceline. Oh, we never got to Playlist. I don't remember a single thing that was played so I don't know what was on it it'd be nice to see it keep bleeding keep keep bleeding I think and I imagine knowing Rob and his attitude to any sort of authority and the lady that was leading our NCT was a little bit mother earthy I'd say is to kind of question everything so everything this poor woman said he'd be like why why but we don't need to do that for why so I think probably playlist went under one of those things where he was like so I'd like to I'd like to see this mythical playlist nice I remember making a playlist and saying to my husband whilst I was in labor I was like can you put my playlist and like literally like during contractions he was like oh there's a really great new album by the Arctic Monkeys let's put that on I was like no no no no no read the room it's not a dinner party like I've specifically chosen music that's going to help me open up literally literally I played my hypnobirthing music the whole way through and I'd because I got hypnotized before each of my labors and I listened to the same music throughout the whole labor process and even for about three hours after I'd given birth and like even if I listen to the music now oh it's like such a lovely memory I know that sounds because everyone has a different opinion i'm gonna be like no no no i'm really not i wanted that kind of it's like a violin kind of i've never told anyone this before i still listen every night to the same hypnobirthing track every night i listen to it when i in my last um labor i still listen to it it's the most calming thing but obviously it's saying you know breathe deep into your baby yeah and you're now going to meet your baby and I still listen to it and sometimes I'm like am I wishing myself pregnant or something I might be one of those phantom pregnancy women that just basically has a bump but I listen to it every night because that's the one time in your life that it's like you need to listen to I just found it really comforting hearing this just hearing her voice oh yeah it's like having your mum in And your head just be like, breathe.

4:05It's so nice. And she says on it, and right now, nobody wants anything. Nobody needs anything. And I'm there going, mommy, I want to sleep. And that is like, no one is there. But it's just, I'm like, oh my God, this is, I listen to it every night. It's so weird. But it's the one thing that I know will just send me straight to sleep. Yeah. Okay. So being the father during the birth of your child, the experience can best be described as a spare at a wedding. hard agree hard agree I'll give him that one a pantless spare at a wedding at one point one of the midwives during our second birth I loved the midwives at the princess royal like I had a trainee uh in with her us as well and you know like oh do you mind if that and I was like I don't care what they're doing I can't feel anything yeah let everyone you're in your happy place I was fine I was like yeah crack on um at one point the main midwife just turned imagine rob i went no one cares about you in this situation you're not important to us here in like a nice way she was joking but i think rob had been talking to himself like oh i'll get

5:11Lou Beckett:myself a chair and again she just was like no one cares oh my god i love that and what did he what was his reaction because my husband was a bit like oh i was he was laughing he took it really well but um i i think i felt quite like i'm used to rob being the main focus in every room so it was when he's with me not like the main focus in any room he's in the community like that but it was yeah it was quite nice I was like everyone's on my side yeah it's nice that was really nice it was just when she just looked at me and went no no one cares about you yeah my husband said to me I was like I think I think the midwife hates me and hates men and I was like well are you surprised look at her job she sees women doing labour every day and the men are there like a spare a wedding yeah like i can't there's not much they can do when you get those guys like faint or they don't like blood or that i mean or they stop their turn they go oh that's so painful and you're there literally legs akimbo pushing a human being out of your body and you're like shut up get out yeah rob got halfway through a vague grumble so i first time i'd given birth we were at lewisham and they didn't have a bed for me up on the like ward bit yet so they pushed me into like the triage bit for surgery so i had a bed obviously because i was still on the bed but there wasn't a chair for rob there wasn't like a visitor's chair because we were in the pre or post surgery bit just while we waited for kind of the water to shift around and he got halfway through so am i just meant to lie on the floor and you could see the waiters kind of went you know i'm gonna be quiet i'm gonna be quiet i'm gonna sit on the floor and be quiet where it's like yeah you go so if that's what midwives are seeing all day maybe yeah his chairs are very comfortable because i I think they do it without realizing and you see them kind of clock the laboring lady in the room and go, okay.

6:59And the more experienced midwives are the best ones because they're like, listen, this is what's going to happen. Almost like to the guy like, it's not about you. Like, this is what's going to happen. We're going to give her the attention she needs. Zip and put your clothes on. But that's sort of like approach to it. If you can't be helpful, be quiet. Yeah, yeah. Go to M &S, off your f***.

7:17Lou Beckett:Go and get a tower. Yeah. Feed us all. Right, I've got another one. our first night at home was not to put too fine a point on it a f***ing disaster yeah fair I think I am I just wanted to leave hospital yeah at that point with our first like between the birth and I've massively overstimulated didn't feel like I've been listened to the midwife was trying to show me how to breastfeed but was like swinging my daughter's head around and she was like she'll find the boob and I was like everything I've read I don't know much but I know you're meant to hold the head and she was like swinging around and I was just like give me my baby and let me leave yeah like we'll sort this out at home we didn't sort it out at home she would not feed I pumped for three months and sent myself mad but I just wanted to go so I I will give him that one it was I should have stayed in for the day but in that moment when you're sleep deprived your hormones are everywhere if you felt like you weren't listened to and your experience maybe didn't go how you wanted it to it's very hard to go okay I'll just stay in the same environment with people that have made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

8:21Lou Beckett:I just wanted to go home and be in our space. It's animalistic, isn't it? You want to be in your own environment. And I was like, we'll sort this out at home. It'll be fine. Wasn't fine. But, you know. It was a disaster then. Yeah, it was a little bit. Okay. All right. Right, I've got one for you. Your life and relationship are now like an IKEA instruction booklet. Confusing, hard work and takes two people. Fair. What a great analogy. Yeah, I think that is. Yeah, that is good. Yeah, that is IKEA. there's always something missing though as well with ikea yeah no offense ikea or extra bits or extra bits yeah the irony of our partners here or what it's so true though i always say about andy where um i'm like oh yeah he doesn't do this doesn't do that and then i'll go to ikea and get like a a kid's kitchen set and it'll take you know four people eight hours i'm like oh babe i know we're going to your mum's for dinner in an hour but could you just put that together oh you know the night before birthday parties I'm like oh we can't even you know do the washing up but he's more than capable of building Ikea I do all the building do you?

9:24yeah I put together a Barbie dream house by myself oh yeah I put up four Ikea units the other day because the girls rooms would send it you know when you go like slightly manic 4.30 in the morning like we need more storage in the morning? this is I think I'd got my youngest had come in wanting me to go in her room I took a lot of stuff in the hallway there was like a collection of my mini babies and wrestlers for whatever reason, whatever combination was happening with that game on her floor that I trodden on. And I was like, we need storage. This is untenable. We can't live like this any longer.

9:55I saw actually something a few weeks ago and this little boy had taken a ring out of his mum's jewellery box. It was her engagement ring. He'd taken it to nursery, like it was like preschool kind of, and given it to a girl that he was in love with. So the parents are like, what did you take into nursery today and it's like you propose to your girlfriend and it's like oh my god he committed i mean he committed 20 grand ring or something oh my gosh it's like you need to put everything into compartments of your own stuff because otherwise kids just come and take stuff and i'll look in my middle child's bedroom i'm like oh my god he's got like some of my tampons in there like what and he thinks that the plastic um applicators are like guns and i'm like where's

10:42Lou Beckett:the tampon out of it gone like what's he done with that oh yeah there's nothing they won't cut up for a craft yeah you've got to be really really clear about what is not craft it's a rat's tail it's like it's not it's good it's good creativity though yeah so now with you and your career is budding and it's it's blooming and it's going to be brilliant because this book is going to be fantastic and your children eight and ten like is rob now kind of becoming more of the default parent like school run things and what i would say about rob is that to his credit no actually no i don't like it when people do that not to his credit because he's doing what he should be doing yes they are his children too um the amount of times you have like other mums i don't know if you've had it or go oh isn't he good i'm like no he's not good you're saying all the time just babysitting his own kids yeah they're not good he's just if he's at home there's no reason why he shouldn't be doing xyz um but like he whenever he's at home he is very very present and he wants to be involved our kind of default situation has come because of the the way that he works and it's a bit feast famine he's either there or he's very much not and do you have those conversations now obviously your kids are eight and ten but you know with we've been talking about tantrums.

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13:28Lou Beckett:As we're younger, what's your approach to it? I got very quickly on the Joe Frost algorithm of TikTok, a little bit of super nanny of I have a little mantra that I say in my head over and over and over again. And I think everyone has something different that they repeat, you know, and you just need to go to that space where you're ignoring them or you're trying not to lose your sh** in Sainsbury's. um i have a little buddhist phrase that i fancied a boy that was buddhist when i was younger so i did the only sensible thing and promptly got into it as well for that time period um so i i would have i would repeat this just over and over in my head to try and disengage from the tantrum that was happening around me and just try and ride it out with the joe frost like this is unacceptable what's the mantra oh i'm probably saying it wrong because it's obviously remembered from like 20 years ago.

14:20It's like nammyoho renge kyo. Nammyoho renge kyo. And I say over and over and over. I'm just like, you will not make me react on this train or I will not give in to whatever madness is happening. I thought you're going to be like, use contraception. My friend says, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. It's a phase. It's a phase. Everyone's got their own place that they go. When you go this, I just need to calm myself down to deal with this. I mean I've got in the car and cried when they've had a tantrum out in the park so like it looks like you're not ruffled I did that on Tuesday sometimes you get home, shut the front door and just go everyone leave me alone go to your rooms, go away I need to, I don't want to be the kind of mum that screams in your face but I'm working so hard to not do that because you're being awful a man told me on the train asked me if I could keep it down when my youngest was a tantrum she really wanted the train doors to open but we were between stops.

15:19So she was like pressing the button and she was having a complete meltdown. So I was trying to do what you're meant to do or not meant to do. This is the approach I took with it from Joe Frost of ignore them. Be there, make sure they're safe. But just she's two. There's no point wrestling with an angry octopus essentially on a train. Yeah, she'd only get louder and he kind of put his phone down. Sorry, do you mind keeping it down? And I was like, oh no. What did you do? Did you say anything? The immediate rage. I was like, sir, I promise you I'm having a worse time than you are. And actually I'm doing the right thing by not giving it.

15:53I'm not that I could have opened the train doors for her anyway. Jeff Ross told me. I'm not giving in and I'm not capitulating to this, which is the right thing. You should be saying well done. And then I went back to my seat. So I was with my mum and my sister and then I burst into tears. And I was so upset. And I was like, you know, you're like all shaky and thingy. And I'm glad I did say something.

16:14Lou Beckett:what did he say when he'd say he just looked a little bit shamefaced i bet everyone was looking at him thinking you what did you say that for i was like i don't know if he did but he looked old enough to have children yeah and i was like i bet you've never taken them out by yourself i bet you're one of those yeah yeah that's always just gone sort them out yeah sort them out because i was like he had no understanding that like this i don't even think she was two she might have been like 18 months you know when you go you just you cannot reason with them yeah yeah so i was just we're just going to ride this out I'm not going to give in I'm not going to try and bribe her with anything I didn't have anything to give her I thought I probably would have given her some sweets if I had them but you know I wouldn't have bribed her I would have I didn't have anything to give her but yeah it made me so furious but then I got really upset afterwards yeah no of course because you've let out that rage and the adrenaline and also the kind of like I don't want to be in this situation this isn't fun for me embarrassment and feeling like you're not doing it well enough and I was like I'm trying to take everyone for a nice day out I'm taking her to the Tate Modern I'm trying to improve her mind I don't know why we could have just stayed at home watch TV watch a bit of Peppa Pig and how would you say the girls are now because I'm in the tantrum bit tell me it gets easier when they get to 8 and 10 you know you can are they tantruming or attitude I'd say it's more attitude and emotions rather than tantrums when I go back to that sounding music phrase when God shuts a door, he opens a window.

17:44So the tantrums will stop, but the emotions will start. There's always something else to get your head around.

17:50Lou Beckett:And girls are quite highly strung. I'd say they feel things very deeply. Yeah, I would say that boys, in my experience, boys are very kind of like black and white and then girls are like, all these shades of gray. I found that teaching. When I say like I talk to teenage boys, people go oh god that must have been hard i'm like easier than girls are you kidding totally really they're louder and they're more physical they're like pack mentality if one starts shouting they all start shouting but they go off to break they come back they eat a biscuit it's done might have a fight punch each other yeah they're much much kind of simpler they are there's no men or boys no no no you are very simple they are that's really interesting and i never realized that when i was in my 20s and dating these men i always thought that they were so complicated I was the one that was complicated I was sending all these different signals they must have been like that, what the hell?

18:41It's very black and white and most of the time they just need to eat When you see these videos My behaviour management was tins of biscuits where I'd be like, I'm quite aggy, would you like a biscuit? Are you hungry? Do you need a poo? Do you need a nap? I've got a banana and a tub of biscuits, what can I offer you? It's when you see these videos of women and they're like, oh my god, what's he looking at on his phone and then there's a video of the husband just looking at someone playing football and kicking a ball continuously back and forth and it's like oh okay yeah yeah it's maybe not that complicated sometimes but that's really interesting about i've found them so much easier other than like the big fights but again i was like i'm a tiny little woman i'm not getting involved and you're strict with the girls with

19:20Lou Beckett:their homework are you like right come on we need to do i think a lot of homework's unnecessary homework's meant to either extend or reinforce what they've done in school so they shouldn't be trying to do something they've either never done or they can't do pretty much independently So if you're having to sit there and do it, actually physically do it with them, or be looking up how to do long division because they've changed it from how I did it at school. And they want to see the method, don't they? Yeah, you can't do it the wrong way. So I'm like, well, I can't help you then darling, because I don't know how to do this.

19:48And I don't know what a phoneme is, like a split digraph. Like you can read. Thank you. Oh my God, no idea. I feel like so thick when I'm trying to help my kids with their homework. I don't know what these words are. Do what you can do in 20 minutes. So if you need like the odd little bit of help, I'm like, actually, if you can't pretty much do it, if they can't, then the homework is maybe not

20:09Lou Beckett:the appropriate homework for them or that lesson or whatever. And when they've had a long day at school and they're kind of expressing all their emotions that they're probably held in all day, the last thing I want to be doing is nagging them, saying, do your homework. They need to decompress. Yeah. They need to go and play. They need to go outside. They need to eat. Sometimes they just need to stare mindlessly at the telly for a little bit. And you might need a drink just to decompress yourself after doing the school run. Do you know what I mean? And if it can't be done in like 20 minutes, stop.

20:32Lou Beckett:Yeah. Like there's no point. There's nothing to be gained after that 20 minute. They're just tired and aggy and you're tired and aggy. Stop. I feel like if my kids school teachers are listening to this, I'll be like, excuse me. No, that's not the approach. Yeah, we like it really. I was a teacher 10 years ago. I give you permission to stop. Love it really. Anyway, Lou, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much. It's been so nice to have you on. And for all the listeners and watchers, just for one more time, Lou Beckett's new book is out, lessons from a default parent. Thank you so much for coming in.

21:02Thank you for your book.

21:03Lou Beckett:Thank you. Bye. If you enjoyed this episode and felt seen by anything we talked about today, please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. It's the easiest way to support the show and helps other parents find this awesome community.

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