“I Miss My Old Self” : Reclaiming Identity In Modern Motherhood

Foreign.

Welcome to the Real Life Real Kitchen podcast.

Real talk for curious mums reclaiming food, family and community.

I'm Zoe F. Willis, English, mother of many, mentor to mums.

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Right.

Hello and welcome to this week's Mum Chat and we'll see if anybody's able to make it.

So the topic for today is I miss my old self, which is something that often comes up, usually first time.

Motherhood can pop up later, but is a bit of a theme and kind of modern motherhood, again, not for everyone, but enough that it warrants a mumchat.

So I kind of, I'm going to pull this apart a little bit, this idea of missing my old self.

And because of the way my brain works, I'm going to go back kind of historically, culturally, anthropologically, what would have happened?

So historically as a young child and then becoming.

A girl and then adolescents and then a young woman, you would have been part of a community, you would have been surrounded by obviously your mother, grandmother, aunties, cousins, older siblings.

You would have been living in an intergenerational sort of community and you would have seen babies being born, you would have seen women becoming first time mothers and you would have seen the kind of support they had during these important times of transition.

So, for example, towards the end of the pregnancy, the support they would have had there during birth, which obviously.

Hello, if I got a visitor.

Hi.

You coming in?

Coming in during the birth as well.

Local midwives who would have been sort of local, local older women that you would have known.

So there would have been a lot of people around afterwards.

You would have had your kind of lying in period where that you would have had six weeks or so of just rest and recovery, getting to know the baby and generally being looked after.

So what this meant is you could see your future.

You knew what was going to happen.

You knew what would be involved in motherhood and in many ways, particularly for the first time, motherhood, and then every time, subsequent time you would have a baby after that, there was, it was a rite of passage, it was quite clear what was going to happen and you knew what to expect.

Again, you're surrounded by babies, you're surrounded by women with toddlers.

You are helping the toddlers, you're helping the extended family.

Local, local children.

Women would have just been much more aware of what was going on.

More recently, certainly in a middle class context, you just quite frankly would have had staff helping you.

There would have been staff around to make sure that kitchen's still running, cleaning was happening, all of this kind of thing.

And it's really only been in the past 40, 50 years that there has been this kind of maybe 60 years post war, this real fragmentation of community.

And so women are now having to do motherhood on their own.

And what is also happening in our society is that people move away for the jobs, for the education and then the jobs.

So you will have situations, for example, where we are in the southeast of England, we've got kind of children, teenagers and then sort of nobody in their 20s or 30s really, and then some might come back in their late 30s and 40s is to have the children and the families.

But there is this big gap in the middle of people going off for where the economic opportunities are.

And sometimes it's even really hard for those who are local and who aren't looking for a university education or that sort of white collar job.

Those who are truly local.

Even then it's really hard to find somewhere to live locally and be around your family, which is meaning that mothers are.

Oh, I've got Nina coming in.

Hello.

Hello, Ms. Nina.

Oh, you're on mute.

You're on mute, darling.

There you go.

There we go.

Hello.

Hello.

I was just, I was just doing my mini lecture about historical context.

We don't have the community around us anymore.

No, no, no, not at all.

Motherhood is now very lonely.

But continue because I will interrupt your flow.

Oh, please do, please, anytime, anytime.

But yes, I was just sort of saying that, you know, historically you would have had not just the community around you, but you would have seen your future, you seen what it would be like to be a first time mum.

And preparations for the birthday might even have been helping the birth in some capacity, the laying in period afterwards.

You're surrounded by children, babies breastfeeding, you knew what to expect.

But now, excuse me, small child but now we're so kind of echo, we're so fragmented in the western society and people will move to where the jobs are and are just hanging out with other 20 year olds or other 30 year olds.

Women are at work so they only.

That is their community.

So they're not seeing babies and things.

And then all of a sudden you have a baby and you go, my goodness, that was intense.

And then you're just like out of.

Hospital, off you go, get back to work asap.

Get back in your jeans.

That's it.

And it's kind of no wonder, it's no wonder that women are really struggling with that kind of sense of identity as well.

And obviously you've got motherhood where you're like, I love this child.

This is intense and something huge has happened.

But the world around you, there's kind of no acknowledgement.

No, not at all.

There's no acknowledgement and there's no kind of celebration of motherhood.

It's just.

Yeah.

The sooner you can get back to work, the better.

Yeah, yeah.

To get back, crack on, crack on, get back to it.

But at the same time still need to keep the house running and everything and create a community so you don't go crackers.

Yeah.

So I mean I was thinking about kind of solutions, mini solutions to it, which run, run it a bit by you.

I mean there's two elements.

There's the, the hard work that I'm always talking about, which is getting out there, making community.

Because there's the problem.

If you were at a 9 to 5 before, all your friends are still in the 9 to 5.

But that's when you're out and about with the baby or that's actually when you would like to see people and you definitely can't do evenings when they're free.

So you really have to kind of get out there to create a community.

So that's the hard filling, yet challenging, yet hard.

I wrote a blog post about loneliness, I'll put it under this, which has got some tips on things to do.

But the second thing, which I think is quite important, we here call it my running away time.

A couple of hours a week where I just go.

It's better to kind of leave the house and just have a couple of hours.

We're sitting in a cafe, you're going for a walk, you go to the gym, you just do something that isn't.

Meet up with a friend, you just do something that isn't to do with the folding the school admin meal prep.

That the kind of the cuddling and all of that.

Just a bit of time out.

Yeah, exactly.

You just have a break, go and read a book or whatever it is that fills your shopping.

Whatever.

Whatever it is that fills your bottle.

Do you actually do it, they say, or do you end up.

I'll just pop into that shop or I'll just send that email, or I just do this.

No, I'm.

I'm pretty good, actually.

I mean, I tend to do.

I really enjoy the real life, real kitchen stuff.

So that's sort of.

And I really enjoy having, you know, three hours or so uninterrupted.

That, for me, is very filling.

And then sometimes I go, I just need to go mooch around Tunbridge Wells, sit in a cafe, watch the world go by, look at pretty things.

Sometimes I just need to.

To do that.

Oh, yes.

I feel that's actually quite an important thing.

And I see a lot of women who will just keep going and going and going and going and going and actually never have a pause, feel guilty about having that.

That very much backstory.

Yeah.

What.

What do you think about that?

Yeah, I agree 100%, I think.

Yeah.

That guilt, that mum guilt that you can't.

It's also.

Have you got support around you?

Because, I mean, to have somebody that you can hand the children over to or, you know, do the school run or whatever it might be.

Not all women, sadly, have got that, have they, on a regular basis.

Yeah, that's.

That's.

I think that's something within relationships with husbands and partners.

I think that is something that it does in some ways need to be fought for.

Yeah.

It does sometimes need to say, you may not understand why I need this, because to your mind, I'm not working, but I do, and you will see the difference.

So it's two hours.

They're your children, you'll be fine.

Yeah.

And possibly as a mum, you might have to prepare the food and the snacks and all the things before you.

Leave, or pick up the pieces when you come back.

Or pick up the pieces when you come back.

Yeah, but it is needed, that.

That headspace in that.

Yeah, it's very much.

Yeah, it's important.

It's important.

I heard a really powerful podcast.

I can't remember where it was, where I was talking about.

I think he was talking about attachment and connections between mums and babies and children and things.

And the question came up, but what about working mums?

What about single working mums?

And this couple of examples were given.

Say, yes, single and working.

And it's Hard.

But what that means is that all your time afterwards you dedicate to your children.

You kind of make that up.

And the example that was given actually was quite beautiful.

This lady, she was on her own.

I think she was a nurse or something.

Always back home with the children, very boundaried.

But she had.

There was a lovely lady nearby, an older lady that she became close to who would do things like the occasional school pickup.

Just these kind of things to take the edge off, you know, sometimes would make a meal and would give her that kind of gentle support.

Not necessarily on a weekly.

Yes, I'm doing Tuesdays and look, looking after the children.

But, yeah, enough to know there's somebody here.

There's somebody I could trust if there was a problem, to kind of look after my little ones until I could get broad support.

Yeah.

But she'd made the effort.

She'd really knew she was on her own, that I have to.

Have to do this.

Yeah.

As you say, community, kind of building that community.

It doesn't need to be lots of people.

It just can be, as you say, one person.

Even, like you say, you can rely on that person.

They've got your back.

So, yeah, to nurture those relationships is important, I think.

Bring back knitting groups or something like that.

Oh, I think so.

I think so.

And then we can knit little hats for other people.

Yeah, yeah, Things like that.

That's that sense of community and purpose.

And it's also very calming and meditative.

And so things like that would be great.

But I'm sure they're out there.

But there seems to be hubs.

You know, there's some areas where there's lots going on.

That's great.

And then there's other areas where it's really quite lonely and dead, basically.

Yeah, yeah, That's.

That's.

That's hard.

And then that.

That forces you.

Unfortunately, it does sort of force you out a bit more that you do need to really have to make this effort, particularly if you're an introverted type.

That's really hard.

I think also something that women, we struggle with is, oh, but they didn't like me.

They weren't my friend, they don't want to be my friend.

There is this sense of rejection.

Yeah.

But I do wonder if maybe in these situations we can kind of flip it and say, this wasn't the right person for this time.

Come by.

There's.

There's plenty more fish in the sea.

My people will be out there.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

There's always.

Do you know what.

As well, sometimes Give it time.

You might feel that I think sometimes.

You have an immediate sense that oh.

You know, didn't clear or as you say, that person didn't like me.

And then you kind of get to know them after time and then sure enough that isn't the case.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can find and I suppose your mindset as well.

I remember coming across a lady who was really struggling at a particular toddler group and she felt the other mums were judging her and all of this and then she went into actually what was going on in her life at the moment.

She had, you know, she was postpartum depression, child had colic.

You know, there was like she wasn't sleeping.

It was just like, you know, there's a lot going on with you at the moment.

You're not in a kind of whole happy place.

So maybe come back in a few, you know, few months time and then things will possibly lifted and feel that might be the right time for you.

Then maybe this wasn't the time.

Yeah, that's so true.

Depends what you're bringing to the table as well, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah, very true.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

I miss my old self.

Have you got anything?

I miss my old self because you are wise.

You have some grown up children.

So you can kind of, I think.

First thing that popped in my.

In my head, which is interesting.

I don't know who my old.

So I've always been a, you know, mommy.

Yeah.

So, you know, Rory was.

I had Rory when I was 19.

So yeah, I can't say that I do miss my old self.

If anything, I'm starting to like maybe a week or two.

So Rory, my eldest had surgery on his shoulder because he dislocated in.

So that mama instinct really kicked in quite strongly.

I need to be there, I need to cook for him, I need to make sure he's resting.

And he didn't need me at all.

He was fine.

But that really hit home quite hard when I left thinking he didn't need me at all.

And it was interesting, it was quite emotional.

It was that real sense of he's really grown up, he's really independent, you know, he's happy, which is great.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it was more, I suppose now I'm my old self was mum.

I mean, I'm still a mum.

That's never gonna change that sense of.

I suppose, who am I.

So in some ways it's kind of, you know, it's interesting.

I miss my old self.

It could be seen as quite negative.

It can be like there's a grief to it.

But I suppose another way that we can flip it is saying, I'm into a new season.

What's going to happen next?

I mean, the way you're talking, it's almost like a.

Yes, there is a bit of a grief, but well done.

He's independent and happy.

Well done, mama.

Yeah, exactly.

But there's the grief that, that, that.

That is your old self.

But now where is this leading?

And that sense of not being needed or not being.

Yeah, I suppose not being needed is a bit strange because.

Yeah, I'm not really used to.

I'm not really used to that and I've kind of, I suppose, built a bit.

My life around that, you know, that they need me and I have to do this and I have to do that.

Suddenly it's, where's this, you know, what, how is this gonna change?

Where is this going to lead me and what will it look like?

So, yeah, it's exciting.

Yeah, it is a new.

Definitely a new season.

We need a rite of passage for you.

Clubbing, champagne, sequin, miniskirts and then off.

Yeah, that was.

Yeah.

And maybe there was a brief.

That was the old me, but sure, sure.

Yeah.

So maybe that should be there, right, at passage.

Yeah, One night only.

Either that for a nice dinner and then you're home with a chamomile tea by 8 o'.

Clock.

Sounds much better.

That's out to us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's really interesting, this kind of the modern world in which we live.

It's almost like a flattening of female identity.

There's been some great.

I don't know if it's come up for you.

You know, things come up for different people on their reels on Instagram and stuff, but there's some really interesting men out there that are really celebrating women and, you know, it's really good to see.

I think it's, you know, it's not to disregard the men or to, you know, say that the, you know, the part that men play in a relationship isn't important.

But I think for a long time, yeah, we've been kind of not celebrated.

Certainly the mothers haven't been celebrated.

Yeah.

And this is.

Even women as well as in, you know, you know, they're what they go through every month and when they go through in pregnancy and so, yeah, I suppose more so motherhood.

But there wasn't a strong focus on motherhood and as in the busyness and what, you know, just us as a.

Us as Women, you know, what we, what actually we bring to the table and if there's that support around us of what you were saying at the beginning, how so much more we can bring, you know, if we're given the opportunity and that support.

So that's interesting, isn't it?

And I think also when women are in community and are support and that could be, you know, good family members, friends, literally your neighbors, that fills the bottles and then you bring that home, then the home life is lifted.

Yeah.

That has a huge, huge effect, really massive effects on children, husbands, everything.

And it might not be a consc.

Mum's gone and met up with her friends or you know, we'd been out and we'd met up with mum's friends as well as on a play date.

Look at the results.

I don't think there's that.

No, it's more of a ripple effect, isn't it?

Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly.

In the same way men also need to be doing things.

Yeah.

They go, yes, I've chopped down a.

Tree or I. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I've tended to the fire.

Yes, I've done something like this.

And again I get my generalization brush because there'll be chaps who are not that way inclined.

However, generally that is good for them and feeds them and for us we need that sort of community to carry us as we, as we go between these, these sort of seasons of life.

Yeah.

And just ignore what the world is saying and create our own.

It would make the transition so much goodness more seamless for so many if there was that support as well.

You know, we can talk to each other and just share.

Just conversation even whether it's on topic or not.

You know, just to be able to chat and share your point of view or get things off your chest or just listen to other.

Have that reassurance that it's not just you that's maybe going through challenges or.

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Yeah, it's so important.

So bring back the washing in the river.

Yes.

And the knitting and the ever else.

Yeah, all those kind of communal things.

They still have some villages in Portugal.

They would have these I think in the Mountains, they would channel the streams to go through a kind of a covered thing that would have stone washboards and there was channels.

So you do the soapy bit up there where it was.

There was two channels.

Soapy on one side and then rinse on the other.

They're all next to each other.

So you'd be there kind of chat.

Hello, Maria, how's it going?

I'm Julia.

You know, whatever it is.

So you'd have that kind of time together.

Yeah, yeah.

And cooking, I mean, that's another.

Another prime example, isn't it?

Yeah, I suppose.

This is also the thing I find very interesting.

Talk to people or.

I mean you often see it in kind of the Facebook groups and things like this social media.

You know, be it I feel lonely or this has happened to me or that has happened to me or I thought I was the only one.

And I do find this fascinating because I go there, like been a sort of, I don't know what, 20 billion people alive ever.

I'm sure this happened once or twice before.

We now have the Internet.

I could, I could understand even 50, 60 years ago where you go, it's this.

Yeah.

Don't know.

This is just me.

Yeah.

But.

But now my space people.

Yeah.

Go into that moment, don't they?

In dark moments that they're struggling.

They do.

There's that sense of, of, you know, that it's just happening to you, which again, in the light, in the world that we live in today, I suppose it's easier to fall into that mindset.

Yeah, yeah.

And particularly again coming back to the fact that sort of, as a lot of moms just on their own thinking we can just do this motherhood thing because everyone's done it before, but not realizing that the structures.

Structures aren't there.

So it's, it's an, it's an interesting one.

Yeah.

I miss my old self.

And also for a lot of women, there is also the kind of.

In work before you would have got a kind of well done.

This project was great.

You've got a promotion.

All of this sort of the equivalent of a gold sticker.

Yeah, yeah, I was talking.

No, I was going to say.

And you get a pay packet, you.

Know, you get paid for it.

Get room tea breaks with hot tea uninterrupted.

Oh my God.

I tried to explain to a friend of mine who, bless her, she hasn't been able to have children, but she was.

So she's in quite a busy, high powered job, which is fair enough.

But I was sort of saying it is different.

And, And I said, because you can kind of think in a straight line, you can have that focus for.

Okay, you are choosing to work 12, 13, 14 hours a day.

Fine.

But you can have focus and if you need a wee, you can go.

If you want a coffee, you can say, I'm going to go and get a coffee for 10 minutes and do that.

And she said, I can't, I can't.

If I get an email, I have to respond to it straight away.

Why?

But somebody might call.

I cannot just stop like that.

It's constant.

I was like, I care for you dearly, but I think it's anabolic.

Yeah, but that's the world we live in.

It's that, you know, expectation that emails need to be answered right now and the pace is just crazy.

Yeah, yeah.

Whereas I was thinking, I'm like, the email is not life or death.

Yeah, yeah.

You could be there when you gone and had your coffee.

Exactly.

The child who is kind of near the fire with the knife, choking on something, you know, that's a bit more pressing.

It's lives dependent on you in quite a different way.

So.

But I mean, what was also interesting there was the slightly competitive element, which I wasn't expecting.

Touched a nerve there.

But we shall shuffle on from that point.

So.

Yes.

No, it's.

It is, yeah, it is interesting.

How about you?

Do you feel that when, you know, if you were to answer that question, you miss your old self now?

What do I miss?

I mean, I'd probably like an hour or so more in the day of quiet.

That would be good.

Yeah.

When my brain is fresh.

Yeah.

Yes.

I'd like an hour of unfrazzled, uninterrupted time.

I don't, I don't.

It was.

Again, it was of its time and I'm here and we have so many.

Honestly every day.

It's so many blessings, so many blessings.

Hard work.

And yet you were setting up your own business or you were climbing the corporate ladder or you were going out and saving the world.

You would spend like this friend of mine, 13, 14, 15 hours a day.

Yeah.

Effort in.

So this is, this is a different, different calling.

But no, I, I don't.

I don't.

Would I even want my.

Because before children, Saturday mornings with my husband used to involve.

We'd get.

We get up, we go.

Go to the cafe and have a coffee and the brunch.

Now, do you remember the papers on a Saturday.

Leisurely time, all of that.

But even then I think I'm like, no, I Got other things to do.

I wouldn't want to.

Yeah, yeah.

The occasional situation like that, but as a daily thing.

No, it doesn't.

I don't.

No, I don't miss it.

I think it is gratitude for where I am at the moment and a bit of what you were saying.

You know what.

Not that I'm focusing on what is next all the time.

There are moments of, like, what, an adventure.

Yeah.

It's such a short period of your life when you're in the moment.

It feels like this is forever.

And then before you know it, they're grown up and you look back and you.

And people say, you know all the time, you'll miss it when it's gone.

And you think.

You kind of know that.

Yeah, you will.

But there's a part of you that thinks, oh, my life.

Yeah, you.

Yeah, you do.

My.

You know, Bertie's 10, so he's my youngest.

We were just looking at old videos and photos yesterday of when he was little.

Where has that time gone?

Flies by.

Yeah.

It's challenge.

There are moments where it's challenging and you kind of think, oh, this is so intense and takes up so much of your time.

But I suppose this.

This feeds back into the.

The running away time and community.

Yeah.

If you've got that, you just have so much more space for carrying the hard things.

Yeah.

My mum's just.

Thank you.

So.

So, yeah, I think that is something that.

That kind of needs to be factored in with a lot of mums.

But also, again, the communication with.

With husbands and partners, you don't have to understand, but this is something that.

That needs to happen at a convenient time.

Could be Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Sunday.

Could be an evening.

Maybe you.

You have the kind of children you could put down and they fall asleep straight away, apparently.

I've heard of such children.

I have none, but.

So maybe there is.

Or they do a school pickup and you have a couple of hours of an evening.

You know, something that just.

There is two hours a week.

Two hours I have to have that.

And that isn't even kind of admin time.

How much imagine you.

Yeah, just like, I'm going to go watch a crappy film at the cinema.

Yeah.

Do you know what?

There's always, again, it's the pressures of whether we choose to have it put on us or not.

But, you know, there's two hours that we need for ourselves, which.

Yeah, I agree.

And then there's the two hours or the evening that you need to give to your partner, you know, just Undisturbed time that you spend with them.

And then there's the.

You know, when there's.

There's this and there's that and there's.

And in the end, I think I'm just saying, oh, I can't do any of it.

There's so many things that I need to do, but how I manage to.

But I suppose it's that, like you raised earlier, don't have that expectation that it needs to happen on a certain day at a set time every single week.

Maybe that's the key.

Just to.

As long.

As long as you're able to have it.

Because then what does happen?

You just push your needs.

That one's fine.

Yeah, you do.

And then after.

I mean, it's quite noticeable with me, if I haven't had running away time for three or so weeks, it's like.

Yeah, I'm just quite scratchy.

Quite scratchy.

Really.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it is a challenging one, but I think a really, really important one because.

Because also if you're not having that and then you spend two hours with your beloved, you're going to be like, I. I don't care.

I'm not interested.

Your problems are trivial to me.

You don't have that love.

Yeah.

So that's a kind of.

If you want this time, and we will have this.

This kind of emotional and physical intimacy.

I need this because I don't like you.

This is it.

If you come from an empty cup, then you can't give anything to anyone.

You know, partners or children.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's key, really, isn't it?

Yeah.

Something, I think.

And I mean, the thing is, as well, when babies are really little, you know, that's often something.

You take them with you.

It just means being out of the house, though.

I think that's an important thing.

That's because when you're in the house, you don't stop.

Which is why it's also quite important to have the occasional.

If you can holiday away from home.

So you actually.

It is physically hard with children, but your brain switches off in some way.

Yeah, yeah.

No, it's almost a bit of a reset, isn't it?

I almost find, you know, it takes me a good couple of days to relax if we do go away, but then you do feel your body relaxing and then you actually then look forward to coming home and being back in your own kitchen and.

Yeah.

Whatever else.

Whereas it can become a little bit Groundhog Day otherwise, you know, a little.

Bit stuck in things.

So important.

Very important again, I suppose.

Historically, what would you have had.

There would have been feast days, there would have been kind of big events happening, which.

Which would have mixed things up.

So, yeah, you wouldn't have had.

And then seasons, just the seasons, doing different things, growing different things, doing different things.

So.

Yeah, that's so true.

We're kind of.

We're not in tune with our bodies, really.

We're not in tune with the seasons or, you know, sourcing foods locally and then the kind of almost the excitement of that season and what foods in the different working.

And now that's all gone, hasn't it?

Because you get.

Yeah.

Oh, I fancy strawberries in January.

And there they are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Whereas.

Interesting.

Yes.

Then the impact that that has on our bodies.

Not only just should we actively be eating strawberries in January because of where we live and how then it may affect the body or, you know, I don't know.

But just as you say that mundane.

There's no excitement, there's no kind of a.

It's all really flat and it can be just the same things again and again and again, which.

Coming back to the busyness and, you know, brain power and the overwhelm of modern motherhood, sometimes you just need that, the food to be really simple.

So, you know, people are getting fed.

But, yeah, we are missing something.

I mean, I was thinking about, for example, with a lot of the Catholic feast days.

Yeah.

You go to different countries, different towns even, and they will have different sort of sweets or meat dishes or whatever it is that is just for that feast day.

So once a year you get these particular.

Whatever it is on the feast of St. Martin or whatever it is.

Everybody's like, this is the one time we get these.

Yeah, yeah.

Amazing.

We don't have that here, do we?

No, no, we haven't had, I suppose, hot cross buns.

I saw some in the Marks and Spencer's petrol station.

Yeah.

Are already here.

And what are we now?

You know, October.

So they're there all year round on these.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It takes away from the kind of celebration and the excitement.

Yeah, yeah.

It's this interesting.

It's not a conscious one because it's about convenience, it's about ease, it's about making sure people can go to work, all of this sort of thing, and get what they want when they want it.

But it flattened.

It flattens things out a lot.

It's interesting.

I'm not surprised a lot of ladies miss their old selves, but, yeah, I think so.

In summary, running away time.

And if you haven't got a community.

To reach out and reach out.

Be vulnerable.

And it's really hard because you're already lonely and sort of vulnerable very much.

Comes from that vulnerability.

If you're brave, you know, you've got to be brave.

Put your big.

What do they say?

Put your big girl pants on.

Yeah.

Be vulnerable.

And so much comes from that.

You kind of almost embrace vulnerability rather than shying away from it.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously not kind of a complete life story of bleh.

All the.

But bit much.

This is England.

This is England.

Too much, certainly having, you know, a couple of friends.

Couple of points in the week when you can, you know that you're going to be doing things and seeing people and that just already lifts things.

Definitely.

Yeah.

So important.

Yeah.

Nina, have you got any other pearls of wisdom, thought questions?

No, no, I haven't got anything that springs to my mind.

I suppose there's.

I mean, let's see, when you're talking about community, I never.

I was never part of like an NCT group or anything like that, but I know there's plenty of women that really enjoyed that and they stay friends forever, that kind of thing, which is really lovely.

Yeah, the.

The sort of.

The prenatal stuff.

I mean, I had a group.

I'm not in touch with any of them because just paths went different.

But at the time it was just people that you could meet up with for a coffee.

Yeah, perfect.

Yeah.

That's all you'd sort of needed that first.

First year or so.

And everybody was.

Yeah, happy.

Happy for it.

It was good.

I suppose we're all in the same boat with the first pregnancy.

That tends to be where you make your connections.

It's when you start having, you know, baby, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Then.

Yeah, you kind of.

And then you just make.

You make your connections, don't you?

Then through the.

The eldest child.

And then at the same time they start probably having baby number two or whatever else they're immediately.

There's that community there.

And then obviously school.

If you decide to send children to school, there's.

You can.

I don't know.

I think some mums struggle and feel that it, you know, the school playground, the pickup can be quite cliquey and the pickup.

The week.

I found it very strange.

I had a moment.

I was probably two or three weeks in with my eldest when she started in her first year, and I remember thinking, this is weird.

I'm going to be spending like five, maybe 10 minutes with these ladies at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day for about seven years.

It's sort of.

It's a very odd kind of.

I don't know, social experiment.

I'm not quite sure how to describe it.

It's a bit of an odd.

An odd situation.

Yeah.

No, it used to be like, with my oldest, rare, I felt like it was like the catwalk walking down from one because there'd be one building at the top.

Yeah.

So if you had older children and then you'd walk down to the other one, or vice versa.

Well, it was always.

I don't know, it felt quite so whether it was my own stuff, but, yeah, it all felt a little bit judgy when I look back on it now.

And.

Yeah.

Crazy.

It's hard.

And then again, yeah.

The competition between women rather than necessarily.

Yeah, sadly.

Yeah, a lot.

There can be a lot of judgment, can't there?

And I remember that actually with the toddler groups, there would be the kind of well established peak that would dominate a particular area.

If you were worthy, you might get a smile from them or an invoice invite to join them.

But quite often it was.

Yeah, there was a real strong sense of not being welcomed just by that energy that they gave off.

So that can be quite challenging, can't it?

And then that, I suppose, again, that feeds into the.

Yeah.

Not.

Not your people at the moment.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And you still show up and you smile because then there's probably another mama there that's feeling.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Somebody else.

Peripheries.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Find it.

Find the peripherals.

Find the peripherals.

Start a knitting.

Start the knitting club.

Get the knitting.

Get the knitting going.

And that is what's missing, you know, knitting.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

All right, Ms. Nina, thank you.

That was a joy.

It's so nice to talk to you.

It was.

That's so lovely.

You run these little.

These little.

Little chests just to be able to, you know, immediately as a result, where he's taking himself off, it's quiet.

Wonderful.

Yes.

I'm going to.

We continue on with this.

Some of the ones where it was just me musing.

I'm thinking I'm gonna pop those up onto YouTube and so have that more as an accessible thing.

But, yeah, these ones I'll keep in the Facebook group because they're just.

Yeah, it's just a really.

It's such a privilege, really, to have people talking and sharing and it's.

It's wonderful.

And I really hope that for those in our tiny but mighty Facebook group.

Again, just taking that moment for me last night when I saw like, join the group, the chats tomorrow, I thought, you know what?

I'm doing it.

I'm just going to stop.

Just for half an hour.

I'm just going to stop because you can just keep going and going and going and going and as we said, it doesn't serve you, it doesn't serve anyone else.

So thank you very much.

Pleasure.

A pleasure.

Well, make yourself a cup of tea now and extend.

I know while he's, while he still thinks I'm on the call, I'm gonna just have a good night.

All right.

Lots of love, darling, and I'll speak.

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