The "Magpie Parenting" Secret: How to Divorce Without Traumatising Your Kids | No Parental Guidance

0:00Coming up, please welcome Anna Whitehouse. Yeah! I mean, the maths just ain't mathing. There's 74 ,000 mothers every year just made redundant on maternity leave. And I was like, no way. My daughter had her index finger and was gently circling his f***ing pot. Everyone else is going, I've lost a blazer. I'm like, I'm looking for a husband. Yeah. Telling my two little girls that we were divorcing was the hardest moment of my life.

0:49We always have a special guest on our podcast and today we're joined by a woman who has quite literally changed the game for working parents. She's a journalist, a Sunday Times bestselling author, and a force of nature behind Mother Pucker. Please welcome Anna Whitehouse. Woo! Woo!

1:15Anna Whitehouse:Yes, girl! Woo! Hello. Oh. Oh. See you, see you see. I needed that, this is my hug. Yeah, I just like grunted into your shoulder. I'm sure everyone just heard that. We're just going to go straight in. Did you or did you not get your tea and toast? I did. Did you? All three times? A little pot of jam as well. For crying out loud. Sorry, sorry, I know it's triggering. All three times? All three times, yeah. Which one was the best out of the three? I don't mean your children. Our favourites here, we all do. I did go straight to that. I was like, yeah, the second one's the best. It would be the first.

1:55I think your first time is always the best, to be honest. Yeah. The third time, I didn't get butter. Oh, boo-hoo. And sent it back. But obviously, there wasn't enough staff to tend to my needs. So I got told where to go. But yeah. So you got it three times. Three times, babe. I'm so sorry. Yeah, well, you should be. I'm sorry for your loss. You can leave now. so talk to us about your incredible flex appeal that you've been campaigning for eight years and on behalf of all of us here thank you yeah for everything that you're doing because you really are changing the law you're changing the way that we as parents are trying to work and be parents it's almost impossible thank you thank you it's just nice to see women and i think we were meant to be in rooms full of women.

2:46We were meant to do this together. What I've been fighting for is really more of a maternal hug for the woman I was who felt like I'd lost a sense of self, sense of purpose, hair, sleep. There's so much that you lose, but you gain this incredible little life. But it's almost like the mothers are left sort of in the wake, you know, with kind of a mum bun and a sort of cheerio stuck in your bra that you found from three days ago and you're like god I haven't haven't taken my bra off in a while um and so when it comes to fighting for flexible working a lot of that fight for flex appeal was for the mother I was who felt like I had lost so much when really I was absolutely more productive uh more effective uh I was brilliant and I was talent that was lost to a working world that I think needed to be grabbed by the bulls and told that we're here and we're great and you do not get rid of us.

3:47Amen. Absolutely. Because you put something out on your Instagram the other day and you'll be able to quote me on this where you'd said about the days of holiday that we're entitled to as like full-time working people and then the the amount of time that children get off school the school day times you know between like nine and three but the working hours are nine till five or eight till five you know it's like how it's just impossible I mean the maths just ain't mathing yeah you know it really isn't and I had one baby in the Netherlands and it was only when I experienced what life could be like for parents in the Netherlands that I fought for the UK and I came back hit that brick wall of inflexibility and maternity discrimination there's 74 000 mothers every year just made redundant on maternity leave and i was like no way sadly not for me but no way for my daughters uh i couldn't raise them to work hard in their abcs gcses and go darling you can do anything you can be anyone and then have somebody slam the door in their face when they have a baby it's like nah I'm not doing that so they're your motivation behind all the work that you're doing it's about you know raising three daughters yeah even when they're really difficult and annoying like this morning I was flapping to get here and I think the only only a mother understands the flap yeah you know I'm flapping and moist like all the time and I they were fighting over something and I lost it and I just said look I'm just gonna lose my temperature if you don't sort this out and they were like oh my god mommy's gonna lose her temperature I can't even argue did you laugh here away and I just fell apart laughing I was like you're right I've got nothing and they're like oh she's gonna lose her temperature oh god what are we gonna do on that note I mean that that what would you say are some parenting fails that stick out for you like maybe like years gone by or something that you just go oh god i can't believe that happened oh god it's a comes with a little bit of a sort of um uncomfortable it's it's an uncomfortable one good share it that's that's what we want that's what we want you know when you go to say it and you think oh god i don't think this is right but um my youngest first baby she was a toddler and i had a beagle called douglas and he was a rescue beagle and he'd grown up living on the streets essentially living outside McDonald's so he ate a lot of food and I put him on a diet when he came to me and he was a little bit like god this isn't much fun anyway Douglas and my daughter kind of were vaguely getting on but okay she was like 18 months and I for a second ran to put some washing in the washing machine and I came back and I could just hear Douglas whimpering and he He was like, oh, oh.

6:46And I was like, oh, God, what's that? I come back in. And my daughter had her index finger and was gently circling his a** off. And you know that finger that toddlers have where they sort of get it into Eric's thing? And he was lying there. And she was just circling it. And he wasn't moving. And I was like, I don't know what to do here. Do I disinfect first? and I do I tell him off it's not his fault I was just literally like I don't have the capacity for this right now so that probably is the lowest point for me that's brilliant oh my god what did you do like what did you actually say when you're like I don't know what to say in that moment what did you like take your finger out of the dog hole I was like who's wrong here I don't know I mean I was like why has the dog not moved he's enjoying it what I was going to say is that the noise of the dog he's not moved oh my god it's like the whole thing yeah you don't know where to begin I disinfected the finger I separated the two of them and then I just wiped it from my memory until this moment and how does that feel now parenting journey yeah it's triggering I'm not going to lie so yeah excellent that's a brilliant fail let's talk about your blended family because you recently had another baby yeah and did you actually before we go into that you had a your third at 42 43 did you find did you get like a lot of the like oh you're geriatric and did you get all of that nonsense that goes with it and i think i've had geriatric pregnancies for all of my children i think it's from very early on they've changed the the actual age haven't they a couple of times i think we're all geriatric mothers yeah one way or another the world is ages it's actually advanced maternal age now oh that's a nice word it's a little more palatable sounds better a bit nicer a bit more palatable yeah like uh i think i thought the shop was firmly shut yeah you know um and i didn't really get much discrimination or anything like that but there was a little bit of a fear of you know god we've been told tick tock mother nature's clock if you don't have to get pregnant by 29 and married by 30 who are you uh and i think i just thought of 42 i was like well done old girl jesus christ got it the sort of um boobs have started heading south a bit and then they perked back up again momentarily right and then they went back down again another centimeter or so but yeah i didn't really face much and I think um it was more just a recognition maybe that I had thought my time my biology was all determined by this slightly patriarchal tick-tock of mother nature's clock and I'm not saying it's not harder when you're older but uh I felt more in control I felt like less anxious I kind of had done it before yeah so I was like god I might get to actually enjoy some of this instead of sort of the white knuckle ride of well you were live on stage heavily pregnant doing your show which was incredible and i was like wow there she is yes i had to have the next day though so that was probably not the best place the next day like an emergency oh my god my waters broke the next day after that show and i sort of knew they had but i just put it down to me having myself yeah i was like it could don't we all i just thought i'm not gonna say that's water's breaking because i don't want to panic anyone so i went to the whole day with my waters having broken just in denial because there was so much to do and was loads of water coming there were uniforms the socks it was sort of back to school time there were pack launchers i was literally shaping my daughter's pack lunchbox sandwich into a pterodactyl with with my waters having broken and my gynecologist was just like my old son guy and he was like get here now i was I think I just wet myself.

10:50No, you're having a baby. Wow. Yeah. And how long after that, that day, you gave birth that evening? Yeah. Imminently. And my husband wasn't there, so it was looking like my father-in-law, who's wonderful, but the kind of guy who kind of asks about this flexible working thing I'm talking about. And I was like, oh, this is going to be a ride. I choose Douglas the Beagle over this situation. yeah it was something else wow so how how early were you then six weeks early are you really wow yeah it's uh yeah rip the plaster off rip the plaster off and then i want to talk to you about dating because um i have a great story about anna and i and i love this story but um she we were a an award ceremony together oh god and anna was up for an award and we were sitting next to each other and her category was coming up and she vanished and i was like where's she gone like she's about to get nominated for something and then like and the next award for the it was like the change what was it was like the best change in life and uh and uh and then Anna just rushes back to her chair and I was like Jesus where have you been she was like oh I've got a date here met him on hinge and I was like oh okay anyway Anna wins now the winner is Anna Whitehouse and she goes up on stage she literally like queen goes on stage thanks very much uh for this award for flex appeal yes i rock my date's here i'm off see you later and that was basically it and it was amazing and i was like it was our first date just happened was it actually it was amazing i was like what what just happened you just won and now you're going off with this really hot man yeah but he ghosted me after that i think it was it's probably a bit much wasn't it going come and see me win an award and then I'm going to announce it on stage that you're waiting for before we've had our first conversation come on in that was brilliant that was an era so have you got any other dating stories?

12:56has anyone been on hinge in here? one one over there I think the best strict lowest time was I went through a period where I lowered my age range I was like do you know what these guys post-war sheet I'm done with them like I want to try and fish in a younger pool and it was pure Mrs. Robinson vibes I mean literally cleaned up I mean completed hinge it was extraordinary it was like I didn't know I had to just put it down a sort of decade or so but it was always because it was not about the emotional attachment it was about the

13:36it was about the connection um and uh got it got it and this one guy honestly it was i still can't can't talk about it but you can do it you're gonna have to do it now yeah and he was like uh he was 29 and he got on the date and i was like um hi how are you he's a yoga instructors are very zen I was like how are you it's all great he goes yeah great I said have you been on many dates he goes yeah I've had lots of girlfriends lots of dates but kind of the problem I have is I get pedestaled a lot like by women I get put on a pedestal a lot um you know and it's a bit a bit like you have tonight Anna you know just put me on a pedestal and I was like whoa whoa whoa was sparky um at 42 with like three children out back two guinea pigs postnatal depression and the menopause in my arsenal i was like no i was like no you're not being pedestaled right now this is two people communicating okay very baseline like the debrett's guide to etiquette is saying just be polite yes this is politeness not pedestalling and i was like good luck with everything this saint for me and I walked out and he came scampering after me he goes I've never been so turned on he was like no no one no one has ever spoken to me like that I was like well they should have yes they should have and you know in all seriousness when my daughter said to me how did you know uh that Ollie my partner I found on hinge was right I was like do you know why little one is because I walked away from so many days so many moments where when I was 24 and I got married I I was grateful a man had chosen me.

15:19I was so grateful a man had chosen me. And this experience through Hinge was, I was able to walk away and say, no, sorry to make me cry, that's not good enough for me. That's not good enough for me because my little girls, they need to see a blueprint of worthiness and not gratitude for being picked. And so it was bigger than that. Absolutely, I mean, absolutely. Amen. and then when you met ollie yeah tell us that so you felt it was different at the time like what was it about him that made you feel more empowered he's kind he's so kind he's really fit all right love all right louise and on a base level he looked like his photos i mean when you've been catfished oh my god he's actually does what he says on the tin yeah i think kindness uh and eq they're so sexy and we're again just and did you just know you just knew straight away straight away and i um i don't think there's many disney happily ever afters that go with boy meets girl boy and girl get divorced girl goes on hinge completes hinge says no to a few kisses a few frogs meets new partner gets engaged within three months has a baby within a year you know there's no disney happily ever after that covers that but do you know what like i'm so happy that i found not just happiness i think that's fleeting contentment sometimes we're so accustomed to being like oh we have to do things in a certain way you know like you say get married at a certain age have kids at a certain age but actually when you feel you meet somebody that you're actually happy with and brings out the best in you then all of a sudden it's like you you are a better person for that it's not about petrol shot uh chocolates and like you know date nights even it's about being able to rupture have an argument all of us in this room have had a scrap probably lost 24 hours with our partners everyone's like yeah this morning yeah yeah who's had a slight like passive aggressive aggressive moment with their partner in the last 24 hours yeah yeah okay and then just today yeah and i think again i was i grew up in the 80s with my parents hiding their arguments behind closed doors i was like no we need to see out in the open how did you cope though with um navigating divorce with children and because i know you've been doing magpie parenting which i'd actually never heard yeah what is what is magpie parenting so magpie parenting in separation divorce is where you um the children stay within the home the nest and parents fly around the nest and come in so it comes from a place of privilege you've got to recognize that because it's relying on either staying with a friend you know in that time which is really unsettling or having two separate apartments you know realistically that's a lot of money so we magpie parented but with friends and family and had a tiny little um flat that saw a lot of things on a hinge on hinge yeah the hinge flat um and yeah so it was good for the children it wasn't long term because it was too expensive but it was the first six weeks when my ex and i separated we'd actually separated two years almost prior to that, but we weren't going to mention anything, so I was like, I don't really want to announce this, it feels very separate, but unfortunately, a lot of incredible women on Hinge thought he was having an affair, so I would get all the messages.

19:01Because they saw his profile. They saw his profile, and they're like, your husband's trying to have an affair, and oh my God, screen grabs of... Oh my God. And I was like, we've got to say something, because this is so messy. So we then announced it. But how lovely that these women are supporting him. Oh, so you know. You're like, actually, it's fine. yeah I was like god they're all quite hot oh geez but no and so that's what happened and then uh we magpie parented for a couple of weeks but nothing sorry a couple of months but nothing ever prepares you for telling your children uh I think it's the biggest fear uh and I am not here to advocate for divorce you know it is not to be gone in too lightly it's not some happy-go-lucky hinge story on the other side telling my two little girls that we were divorcing was the hardest moment of my life also it's probably the biggest love story again that no one talks about because my ex and I we stood outside the door and we anchored ourselves and were like we can't cry we're not the ones that get to cry here we have to be calm and we did it in a um we did it in the guest room because I didn't want uh them to recognize like the lounge as their space and Dr Martha the child psychologist I spoke to her beforehand and she said do it in a neutral place and we sat on the bed and uh we said you know for uh mommy and daddy are very good friends and we always will be but we're not in love and so we're going to have to live in separate houses so that means we're not going to be living together with you and they understood it and they said oh is that why you two have been arguing a lot like yes it's actually let's be honest let's have an honest conversation and it went on for about 20 minutes and we hugged them we didn't cry we held them and then my youngest said can i go and watch mama mia too now and you know you're sort of built for this like crescendo and then suddenly it's like yeah okay great so you're you two going separate ways where do i put my stuff thank you thank you so much That's very brave.

21:07And would you say that it's, since having a divorce and living in separate houses, would you say it's changed your parenting style? Co-parenting is really hard, you know, because you're parenting with a lot of trauma. It's, you know, it's not been easy, but the things I've done that have really helped has been making sure the children have enough stuff at either their dad's house or my house. they will not have to manage the admin like the minute they're managing where their sports kit is or where their blazer is like that's the trauma for them in their little world so i literally have like five blazers like you know three toothbrushes ready to go at any one point and it was one of the first people that i followed when i started instagram um and i remember seeing a picture of you pushing a pram and in the cup holder was a bottle of wine and i remember thinking that is who i need to follow on instagram so thank you for that inspiration um but how did the word mother pucker like when was the moment you're like you know i need to do something online i need to do something and mother pucker it is i mean it started in obviously a very uh sweary place and I had to water it down a bit because I was angry you know I think probably each and every one of you think right now of that moment that straw that broke the mother's back and I think it can be I'm joking about me losing my temperature this morning it can be a small moment that opens up a magnitude of stress and exhaustion and tiredness and carrying this kind of domestic load and for me I was doing the nursery pickup and I had said sorry at 4 59 p.m to my boss I'm so sorry I've got to leave to pick up my daughter sorry sorry sorry got on the tube praying to sweet god that there weren't leaves on the line or a red signal and I shoved myself into somebody's armpit to get on the tube to get to nursery I was six minutes late I was charged a pound a minute after six and then my little daughter was the last one there at nursery sitting with Paw Patrol backpack on, big bambi eyes and she was the last person, genuinely the last person I have said sorry to as a mother and I remember thinking I can't say sorry anymore for something that's not my fault, this is not my fault, it's not your fault, it's not her fault and I'm not raising her to apologise in the future for something that's not her fault and that's where Mother Pucker came from i was like i don't give a about nappy bags i don't care which one is better or you know which nipple teeth better i want to know what happens to women the minute that you get pregnant you get pushed out of the workforce the whispers like i said on maternity leave for she's probably not coming back do you know what let's lead with she is coming back how do we get her back how do we support her coming back how do we recognize the pain of leaving your daughter at nursery and going into a work meeting literally torn apart torn into and i think we've heard it many times we sort of have to parent like we don't work and work like we don't parent and it's tearing women and mothers still to this day right now in harm and i'm not having that no no absolutely can we just see a raise of hands of anyone here who has felt they were pushed out in the workplace or found it really difficult to go back to work felt discriminated about i mean there you go proofs in the pudding well thank goodness for people like anna who's going to hopefully change that and for our daughters thank you again yeah there is nobody that is going to work harder than a mum who has got two hours to do a full-time job i can do a full day's work in two hours because it's like mum power and i'll be sat on my laptop being like who needs this email right do this and then you think right and then i can pick the kids up from school they don't see you then going to log on late and you're in early there was just never a recognition of all the extra hours you were doing quietly around caring for a child and then I realized I was essentially earning about 50p a month after child care costs and I was just you can't even buy a bag of what is this you know in Sweden they cap uh child care 232 pounds a month regardless of income that's it Wow.

25:30Can you imagine? Again, this is not some utopian vision for mums. It's happening right now elsewhere. It's working in other countries. And I went on a trip with this New York Times journalist. We sat there and you can imagine it's in Sweden, Stockholm. And she lent over to me and she was like, what's with all these male nannies everywhere? It's so odd. I was like, their dad's parenting. This is what equality looks like, my friend. does anyone have any questions for Anna? Hi Anna, thanks for that, that was so interesting I was wondering what your take on this arbitrary 100k cap on the 33 hours childcare because it affects us quite significantly if you are looking to progress in your employment but if you earn 100 then you lose those 30 hours but if you you have to earn like 150 to make it even worthwhile i think it plays into the complete cap on women mothers specifically succeeding it's like a parental like block essentially to your career being furthered it's the equivalent of um anyone that works part-time does anyone in this room work part-time and how often do you get made to feel less than like a slacker like part-assed you know it's the equivalent of that I think the the minute you become a parent it's like we're being taken it's almost being um curtailed and capped at all angles and I think there's never a recognition with the cap the you know we we want to further our careers and yet what we're doing is hampering our careers to fit in with a governmental structure that quite simply wants us to do do less and learn earn less the whole structure that we're working in and i've existed in a different one in the netherlands so i know it can work isn't working uh to answer your question so we're working on it such a good question thank you any other questions

27:38Anna Whitehouse:um so obviously on your baby number three are you enjoying it a little bit more now than your previous ones and um in terms of breastfeeding how are you finding that if you do breastfeed so yeah i stopped breastfeeding at six months this time um mainly because um i didn't recognize my nipples i was like there's something going on very badly here so we're gonna have to just work around that um but yeah I've loved it I feel like my little baby Lola she's 16 months now I thought she'd be the straw that broke my back I was freaking out I was like I'm not going to be able to do this I don't know how to do this and I weirdly feel like she was sent almost to me to help me to make me fall back in love with the process of having a baby because I had so much birth trauma with my second I wasn't stitched up properly I had prolapses I went through and I think so many of us have gone through so many things through having a baby and it was like she went back in and kind of fixed everything and kind of gave me a hug so yeah really really enjoying it i'm absolutely knackered i'm like on the edge absolutely 100 on the edge but like also i think that there's such joy in also knowing that you're gonna be on the edge you're gonna be stood in tesco holding a pineapple and not knowing why you're gonna be sitting there questioning mind vagina and soul at any turn and finding your daughter uh

29:24just tending tending to your dog's hole and then going for a walk in the sun with your dog and your baby like nothing's happened i just think that for me is motherhood any other questions oh yeah another question um you're very inspirational um i've really enjoyed like listening to you today talk i just wondered what is your biggest highlight of your life so far career or motherhood it's a great question that's a really really good question um it's now isn't it it's right now right now this podcast right honestly i think uh it's i if you'd have asked me five years ago I was chasing this sense of purpose that had been fed to me through the press which was financial it was title it was a version of motherhood mum bossing that I actually realized with peace I didn't want so my biggest achievement is being a mother and really leaning in to the grey, nitty-gritty, everyday banality sometimes, where you are trapped within your own four walls, going out of your mind, and realising this is Mother Nature's biggest privilege.

30:53I've had five miscarriages, it's the biggest privilege, and it comes with tears and tantrums and tea and toast, and peaks and troughs and scars and leaking out of every flipping orifice, but good God, it's the best job in the world and it's taken me a long time to make utter peace with that because society doesn't remunerate us doesn't recognize us and will have us think that we're not succeeding so that's my biggest success story and the flexible working bill because that's to do with mothers and women and my little girls not going through what I went through

31:34any other questions yes i also have two daughters and a question i think about a lot is when my girls are older and they sit at somebody's table that i don't know and they describe to these people what it was like growing up with me as much as their mom and their childhood what will they say and I wanted to ask you what do you hope your girls will say about you and growing up with you and the work that you do what do you hope they will say it's such a lovely question for a long time I prioritized fighting for flexible working building a platform building building building purpose purpose purpose title title title money money money I focused on that and one day my daughter she was eight she said mommy sometimes I don't think you like me very much when you're on your phone and in that moment I think we've all had those moments I can't feel guilt for that moment because I'm also needing to pay bills I'm needing to move forward and I have every right to have drive and purpose and what I want to do but in that moment to answer your question I realized when I looked at my phone, you know, those accidental photos that are taken of five chins.

32:52And I was like, what my daughters are actually going to see of me, despite what I'm fighting for, is that. And it's not a pretty sight. And I think being present is a bit too pressured. It's a bit like me time and date night. I find it a bit pressured. We need punctuation points within our day of connection. That's all. And so I hope, through my openness and I cry in front of my children I'm messy in front of them I lose my temperature and temper I cry ugly tears I fight with my husband I repair with my husband it's messy it's stressy it's everything in between I hope they see a woman who tried her mother best and i need to ask you about the school whatsapp groups because we talk about the school whatsapp groups all the time don't we do are you in all the whatsapp groups what do you find irritating did i tell you the other week that um a lady messaged me to say i may have said it on the podcast so um a lady messaged me to say that a dad um in a whatsapp group at a school down south took a picture of himself in the bath, pleasuring himself.

34:07And he put it in like the year three WhatsApp group. Now I was absolutely howling. So I was like, can you imagine the, like, oh my God. So he immediately tried to delete it, but there was three mothers that saw it and screenshotted it. I was like, this lady was like, I'm not telling you my name. Please don't tell anyone where I'm from. She was from down south. but yeah this dad had literally sent a picture of his and apparently did it on purpose like hey i might have tried that when i'd completed hinge i might just be like anyone just pop it out in all my groups anyone lurking no looking for dads out there everyone else is going i've lost a blazer i'm like i'm looking for a husband yeah preferably a big but you know nice personality yeah has to be unmarried i got a message yesterday actually from a mum from the secondary school because I feel like the secondary school WhatsApp chats aren't as busy as the primary school ones and I did forget an inset day recently and then asked in the WhatsApp chat like is there an inset day even though I knew that there was because the school was closed and my son was there but then my daughter then got my phone and actually wrote in the WhatsApp chat love you to everyone and I don't know who they are but then I got a message last night from a mum who i don't particularly know very well at all and she just went just so you know there is an inset day on the 20th and i was like do you know what thank you because i would have sent my kid in so i was very grateful for that so i do hate the whatsapps but i do you do need them you do need them and i was a class rep i was a class rep yeah but other people not anymore directness for you weren't they yourself forward for yes like an idiot what was your thinking around that though were you because i'm an idiot no to be honest so much time yeah yeah no to be honest it was my daughter's class and it was my my third and final child i was like i've done this i know the ropes i know about swimming and pe days i can do this and and to be honest like no one else actually did step up so i was like oh i've got this i can do this completely messed it up it's so i just thought you know what i'm like ruined assembly for everyone no one turned up so i had to step away from it also the slight aggressive passive aggression when lots of brilliant parents have gone on all school trips in their high viz and you're just like head down like i haven't got capacity for that and they're like any other parents want to join us we've all been doing trips to the british museum for the last five years any other parents you're like no no no can't do that one busy that day and have you do you like reply to the whatsapp groups how do you find them do they irritate you or no i do quite like them are you quite active in there quite invested yeah no i am quite invested do you reply are you like a lurker are you there just for the drinks like what kind of whatsapper are you i think because i've moved to new area and i don't have many friends i think i'm using it a bit uh in an unhealthy way i look at it i'm like trying to it's not hinge yes i'm like hi guys hi guys so i'm like oh get involved in that so i'm very different now because i've moved to a new area that i'm quite over excitable like a sort of slobbering labrador looking for a tennis ball that's the vibe i've got in the in the whatsapp group which is not the lurker that i was of yesteryear i'm a bit more invested i'm like i'm in all the high viz on all the trips which are very stressful yeah they are you're just literally sorry i'm responsible for sorry seven children in london yeah that aren't What?

37:50What is this? There is a lot of pressure on that. Yeah. My friend went on a trip and one of the kids fell in the lake. And obviously she jumped in afterwards and got him out. But she was like, it's very hard to explain to the parents why he's so sodden. You know, you're like, oh, just a little paddle. And he's literally like head to toes, drenched. He just toppled in, was in just for a few seconds, nothing to worry about. Oh my God. That's what they say. It's cool. Nothing serious, but they've got a mark on the head. it's probably the size of a golf ball. Nothing serious. Yeah, nothing to worry about.

38:22They've already shot a cowpole. Don't worry. They took care of it. They lost that cowpole. And we filled in our form, so we're not liable if they die. Yeah. And you go. Like me. So there you go. On that note, that's all we have time for today on our first live podcast. So thank you, everyone, for coming. And thank you, Anna, the amazing Anna Whitehouse. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. And everyone, thank you so much for coming. this has been amazing and don't forget if you don't subscribe to our YouTube channel please do or get your friends to as well because we need we need to keep going with that don't we we need to keep going and if there's anything else that you want us to talk on the podcast or any guests that you'd like to have on just let us know happy tea and toast day everyone yeah