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Alex Sinickas Australian engineer + designer S2 Ep76 Listen and subscribe on Spotify and itunes/Apple podcasts My guest this week is Alex Sinickas, an engineer and designer from Bright, Victoria, and a mum of 1. Alex grew up playing outdoors with her older brother, re-creating the achievements of her childhood heroes Indiana Jones, MacGyver and James Bond. She spent a lot of time digging up things and blowing things up, This sparked her curiosity of how to build things and how things worked. When it came time to go to Uni Alex studied engineering and also economics, She got into design a bit later, whilst working in structural engineering with architects, she wanted to be able to help people to be able to achieve their visions. 4 years ago Alex was breastfeeding her daughter and found herself on the end of a breast pump and found it to be quite a shocking and painful experience, needing to pump extensively for her daughter who refused the breast. This got Alex thinking about how she could make this experience more comfortable. She ordered some silicone and a robotics kit and set about creating 3D printouts of silicone cushions, which lead to Alex collaborating with a roboticist and a prototype coach, and her husband's insight as a GP also proved useful. They produced prototypes and each time Alex had to pump she would try them out, until they found the perfect fit. Thus began MilkDrop Pumps , a soft silicone pad that stretches over most brands of existing pumps. They launched in Australia in April 2021 and in the US in late 2022. Alex - MilkDrop Pumps Podcast - instagram / website What is STEM? ***This episode contains discussions around pregnancy loss, post natal depression and an IUGR pregnancy.*** If today’s episode is triggering for you in any way I encourage you to seek help from those around you, medical professionals or from resources on line. I have compiled a list of great international resources here Music used with permission from Alemjo my new age and ambient music trio. When chatting to my guests I greatly appreciate their openness and honestly in sharing their stories. If at any stage their information is found to be incorrect, the podcast bears no responsibility for guests' inaccuracies. Podcast transcript at the bottom of the page Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Art of Being A Mum Podcast. I'm beyond honoured that you're here and would be grateful if you could take 2 minutes to leave me a 5-star review in iTunes or wherever you are listening. It really helps! This way together we can inspire, connect and bring in to the light even more stories from creative mums. Want to connect? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram tagging me in with @art_of_being_a_mum_podcast I can't wait to connect. And remember if you or somebody you know would like to be a guest on the podcast, get in touch ! I love meeting and chatting to mammas from all creative backgrounds, from all around the world! Thank you! Alison acknowledges this Land of the Berrin (Mount Gambier) Region as the Traditional Lands of the Bungandidj People and acknowledge these First Nations people as the custodians of the Region. Ch eck out more episodes ..... Welcome to the Art of Being a mum, the podcast. It's a platform for mothers who are artists and creatives to share the joys and issues they've encountered. While continuing to make art. Regular themes we explore include the day to day juggler. How mother's work is influenced by the children, mum guilt, how mums give themselves time to create within the role of mothering and the value that mothers and others place on their artistic selves. My name's Alison Newman. I'm a singer, songwriter, and a mom of two boys from regional South Australia. You can find links to my guests and topics we discuss in the show notes. Together with music played, how to get in touch, and a link to join our lively and supportive community on Instagram. The art of being a mum acknowledges the Bondic people as the traditional owners of the land, which his podcast is recorded on. Thank you so much for joining me today. It really is a pleasure to have you. This Week on the podcast. My guest is Alex cynic s. Alex is an engineer and a designer from bright in Victoria, and she's a mom of one. Alex grew up playing outdoors with her older brother, recreating the achievements of her childhood heroes, including Indiana Jones, MacGyver and James Bond, she spent a lot of time digging up things and blowing things up. This sparked her curiosity of how to build things and how things worked. When it came time to go to uni, Alex studied engineering and also economics. She got into design a bit later, whilst working in structural engineering with architects. She wanted to be able to help people to be able to achieve four years ago, Alex was breastfeeding her daughter and found herself on the end of a breast pump and found it to be quite shocking and painful experience needing to pump extensively for her daughter who refuse the breast. This got Alex thinking about how she could make this experience more comfortable, not just for herself. But for other mothers. She ordered some silicone and a robotics kit and set about creating 3d printouts of silicone cushions, which led Alex to collaborate with roboticists and a prototype coach and her husband's insight as a GP also proved useful. They produce prototypes, and each time Alex had to pump she would try them out until they found the perfect feet. Thus began milkdrop pumps, a soft silicone pad that stretches over many brands of existing pumps. They launched in Australia in 2021, and in the US in late 2022. This episode contains discussions around pregnancy loss, postnatal depression, and an IUGR pregnancy. If today's episode is triggering for you in any way, I encourage you to seek help from those around you, medical professionals or from resources online. I've compiled a list of great international resources, which can be found on my podcast landing page, Alison newman.net/podcast. And while you're there, please take a minute to subscribe to my new weekly email, which I'm sending out at the beginning of each week. I'm a little bit conscious that we don't actually own all the content that we post on social media. And in light of Mr. Elon Musk's recent takeover of Twitter and the changes he's made. I'm even more aware than ever that things could disappear in the blink of an eye. So I'd love to be able to keep in touch with you before that disappears. So jump on and subscribe to my weekly newsletter. The music you'll hear today, as usual is from my ambient music trio called LM Joe. We are based in Australia and it's myself, my sister, Emma Anderson and her husband, John. I really hope you enjoy today's chat. Welcome, Alex. It's a real pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so you're based in your in Australia. Whereabouts are you in Australia? Yeah, I live in Brighton, which is about three and a half hours northwest of Melbourne. Yeah, I know. Right? Yeah. A lot of people when you say that, they say, Oh, I um, I went on family holidays there when I was a kid or something like that. Yeah, that's probably doesn't change that much. It's probably a little bit more popular now. And it's, you know, in winter, it's all about skiing. And in summer, it's all about mountain biking and road riding. And I remember the because I'm one of those people that not from family holidays. And the autumns are beautiful, which is stunning. Yeah, well, I'm I'm married to a Canadian and he reckons that it's the closest he can get to to Canada in Australia. So I feel like that's a nice, it's a nice compromise. We get to live here but you're Similar to Canada. Yeah, it's beautiful. It really is. And yeah, about three hours from Melbourne. Yeah, yeah. I have some great memories of that part of the world. Yes. Totally Beautiful. Very lucky. Oh, that's awesome. So you're an engineer and a designer. Can you share with us how you got into that field? I think I was just following my brother, actually, I might have a brother who's two years older than me. And through school. And growing up, he, he sort of involved me in all of his activities, really. So it was kind of just trotting around following him. And so our sort of childhood heroes were, you know, Indiana Jones and MacGyver, James Bond for that kind of stuff. So we spent a lot of time outside, digging up things and blowing things up, which is probably okay, these days. And so I just sort of learned about how to build things and curiosity about how things work from him, and probably my parents. And then I was always fairly good at maths. And so when it came time to go to, I knew I always wanted to go to uni, but not I didn't really know what I wanted to study, I thought, oh, maybe you know, medicine that's like what you do if that's what you're good at maths, which is a really strange concept, but that's kind of where it was at the time. But it just didn't really kind of make sense. And so I, yeah, I ended up doing engineering. And I did dumb economics as well, as my dad had said, like, oh, you know, I never really understood how money works and how businesses work. And I wish I'd known that. And maybe you might like that, too. So I was pretty, like, aimless. Although I was academically fairly, you know, good. But I really had no like idea about what I wanted to do. So that's how I ended up in engineering. And then, in terms of design, I got into that a bit later, one of the things you learned you do when you're engineering is you work in really big teams full of lots of different people. And I was working in structural engineering. And you end up working with architects quite a lot. And I loved what they did. Yeah, right. Grandfather was an architect. And I'd always loved design. And I'm probably not very good at it. But I know what looks good. I like being able to help people achieve that. And so I was always drawn to architecture and just, like, beautiful design, good design. Yeah. Right. So what sort of things had you been doing? Like you said, structural? Engineering, is that, like building bridges? And yeah, anything above the ground. So there's like a thing, you know, with engineering, there's lots of different kinds. My choice was, you know, electrical, chemical, environmental, and civil and so like, electrical seem too hard, I didn't really understand electricity, can't see it, you know, chemical like, I wasn't really that into chemistry, again, too hard to understand, can't see it civil, well, that's everything you can see. It's everything on the ground. So roads, rail, you know, it's water management, and then structural, which is things you can see above the ground. So buildings, bridges, anything like that. And so that kind of made the most sense to me, because I could see it, and I could understand how I, you know, I could make that. And so that's kind of where I ended up. And, yeah, luckily, I ended up working with this brilliant consulting firm called Eric, which is a, which was started by a guy who was an architect, also a philosopher, and an engineer. And he had this idea that if you worked closer with, you know, the designers at the very start, and with the people who were building it, you could create these really beautiful pieces of art. And so he started I think, in the 1960s. In the UK, he was Danish, and created this firm of engineers who were really oriented towards the dream of the architect, like, what did they want to create? And how could we bring the real world to that in a way that didn't like shut down their ideas, but was like, okay, yeah, you want to put, you know, some crazy structure up here that can't be built? Well, maybe it can be built, if we, you know, changed it like this. So use the physics in that way. And so, so he was, you know, he created this firm out of that and so I was lucky enough to fall into working for them, and that's where I learned about, you know, not necessarily being the artist yourself, but, you know, making art come alive. And I think architecture is one of those disciplines where, like, they can create some crazy stuff like, in the real world that exists, you know, and it's amazing to see what what, you know, what people can come up with. And I especially liked the kind of teamwork aspect of it, you know, you kind of needed a whole lot of things to come together to create these, you know, beautiful pieces. So, I didn't work very long in that, you know, as a structural engineer only a couple of years, but I worked in that firm for quite a while. Yeah, recently doing more research and development with them. Yeah. So up until that point, before this guy came up with this idea was this, was that a really sort of radical idea that people would work together in that way? Was it more like sheep would have an idea, and architects would just do their thing? And people wouldn't say, yeah. I mean, I don't know, there's probably historians, or people who were alive and working in that time, that would know better, it was always sort of shared with us, as part of the Kool Aid, you know, like about how it was not, you know, together. But I guess if you go back to like, you know, the idea of the Renaissance man, like art and science were very, very close, right. And I think as, possibly as you know, as society grows, and as disciplines grow you, you know, to be able to be an expert in your area, you have to get more and more narrow in your focus. And so it's very hard to be on top of everything anymore. Because it'll mean that you actually can't do that project, like you can't make it happen. So you get so individual people have to get more and more specialized. And so I wonder if like, you know, art fell off the way there. I think also, like, the economics of things changed. So the, the people with the power in the built environment now, which is what they call, you know, cities and things that get built. It's not necessarily the architect, I think it used to be that, you know, you might commission an architect to do a design, and then they might bring in like a bad engineer and some contractors to build it. And but the architect was like in control of the project, I'm not sure it's totally like that anymore. It's sort of shifted a little bit to the person who owns the property being the, you know, the person who's really making the big decisions. And so I'm not sure that we get quite as daring architecture anymore. Like, you know, would we have the Sydney Opera House? If it was 2022? Probably not. Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it. Yeah. Yeah. So I think like that, that's probably changed. But yeah, I'm not sure what it was like, before, but in my view, it's always good to have more people earlier on working together, because often, often, you can actually make the thing happen that everybody wants, if you're there at the start. It's just Messier. It takes longer. And it's got a higher chance of failure. So it's easier to like go with what you know. Yeah, that's what you're trying to do. Yeah, that's interesting. And you've raised a point there that I'll bring you back to later won't dive into that just yet. But I've written that down for later. But I want to talk about what you're doing right now. So you have used your extensive experience in your engineering and your designing background to create a business called milkdrop. Can you tell us about that, please? Sure. So, yeah, so I was working for this company. And I went on maternity leave for my daughter, who's now three, nearly four. And I found myself on the end of a breast pump to feed her, which I found to be quite a shocking experience, I think, you know, we had trouble feeding directly at the breast. And so I was pumping on a breast pump, like six to eight times a day, just trying to express milk for her. And I ended up with really damaged nipples. And I found it really painful. And it just like, after a while, you know, I dealt with it for a bit, but after a while, it started to really annoy me that this product had been made that it wasn't clear how to use it, and it was hurting me, but I still kind of had to. And I started to think about how I could make that different. And so I had seen these experiments that people had Um, it's soft robotics are like, robotic. Yeah, like robotic creations that were made of soft silicone. So it's like hands that could pick things up. And it's like, why are breast pumps made out of robotic hands? I mean, the reason is that it's really creepy. And people just wouldn't accept that idea is super creepy. You know, like, everyone's always like, why don't you just make it well, like a baby? And like, would you put a fake baby on your breast to express milk? Like, it needs to be a little removed? Since but, so what I did was, I ordered a kit of silicone and a robotics kit. And I started trying to build something that would feel better than a breast pump, but still work. I mean, within about one hour, I ran into my own limitations of like, how to use these things, because I have no idea about robotics. So I called a friend Daniel, who is a roboticist. And he introduced me to a friend of his who worked at Swinburne University as a prototyping coach. So basically, students in any of the design subjects who have their final projects and want to create, you know, a piece of furniture or a piece of metal or whatever, he's there in the lab, helping them make it so he knows how to make stuff. And both of these guys are lovely. And so we sort of started working together on creating prototypes of breast pumps, that would feel better. I'm also married to a GP. So we had all of this like, insight into how the breast actually works, from sort of a medical perspective. And so the four of us sort of sat around and just started pumping out prototypes. And then every time I had to press pump, I would use Yep, try it out. And then we go back, 3d printed another model, pour some silicone, try it again. And so we did that, like 20 times. That was like the creative bid. And then after that, it's all just been full on, you know, manufacturing, fundraising, websites, kind of thing. But yeah, so that's where I got to. So yeah, the products called what we ended up doing was actually just creating a soft silicone pad that stretches over most breast pumps, we didn't even redesign the breast pump. Because we figured this would, you know, help more people, they've already got a breast pump. And then you just, you know, get this cushion and attach it over the top. So that's what we've been doing. And we launched that in Australia last year, and just launched in the US last month. So that's pretty exciting, helping a lot of women with pain and discomfort. And then we're still also working on other products in the background as well, because it's all good on Yeah, that is such an awesome story. Because it's like you've literally solved a problem, not just for yourself, but for everyone. Like that is so awesome that you can do that. You've got the skin. Yeah, you can. Yeah. I love. Well, I mean, it's not it's not always so straightforward. Like, the first product that we did. You know, it worked for about 75% of people, which firm in the medical world is insane, right. But about a quarter of people were finding they were collecting less milk because the cushion was kind of dulling the sensation of the pump. And so then we were like, Okay, what can we do about that? So we created a cushion that was thinner, or had less material on it, you know, sent that out to the people it wasn't working for dudes were like, yes, great, you know, and then we're like, doesn't fit everybody's nipple size, because everybody's different. So then we added more sizes. So you're like, just constantly trying to find something that works for everyone. And I think it's really easy to be like, oh, yeah, you just like created this thing. And then it works for everyone is amazing. It's never quite like back lossy. Yeah, there's a lot to improve. And we, you know, we think we're sitting now at like about 90%. So we can help nine out of 10 women, and one out of 10 Unfortunately, we you know, we're still working on it. But you know, we can't help but what what we do instead is have free trial for 30 days. So you try it if it doesn't work, send it back, we'll refund you, you know, so we're not trying to add stress, but his you know, that's kind of our way of, you know, making sure that we're actually helping women rather than rather than sort of making it worse. So yes, yeah. Interesting process Yeah. When did you sort of first start this process? What year was Yeah, yeah, it took about six months to do the design, and then about 18 months to do the manufacturer. And really the holdup was not our design skill or manufacturing capability, it was money to be honest and time. So, you know, you've got jobs. Everybody's got jobs. And I feel like it's like, it was it. Who was it that said, like, you need A Room of One's Own? Is it Virginia Woolf, if I got the wrong English author, anyway, someone was like, you know, women will never be able to write until they have an income and space. And, you know, Shakespeare's sister wouldn't have become Shakespeare just by virtue of being female, right? Because women, you know, you, you don't have the luxury of being able to fail and have constant monies anyway, we all have jobs. And we had to sort of do it in our own time. So if we were employed by milkdrop, now, with funding, we probably would have only taken us sort of four weeks to do a design, and then it might have been like, nine months for manufacture. Yeah. So so we sort of had this process of like, you know, in our spare time making up these prototypes, testing them, redesigning them, you know, maybe we did like once, once a week, or once, once every two weeks or something, you know, then we'd go and try and patent that, and then take that around, apply for grants to get funding, and take that around to investors, or accelerators try and prove that there's a market without having a product to sell, you know, convincing people that this was worth investing in. And then, you know, finally, we managed to, you know, accumulate enough funding and investment to then manufacture it. So it wasn't that it took that long it was that it took that long to get them the money to pay for it. You know, the tooling just for these just for reference, it's like 40,000 bucks to make it all. Yeah, right. Like, if you're an existing company, that's fine. But if you're starting from scratch, that's a lot of money. You know, that's not, you know, you know, doesn't come pass by easily. And so yeah, so that's kind of what it took. So it was sort of two years from the idea to being in market. And then you know, it's really been a year and a half for us to even get enough traction to, for people to know about us, like the marketing is almost harder than the design. Yeah, it was like that was the I don't say that was the easy because, yeah, well, it's like, and then all this other stuff that has to happen afterwards. Yeah. Back when? And if this is appropriate question to ask. So you can you can say no, if you want, but because you've got money from other people, or then are you accountable back to them to show what you've made? And everything? And how does that feel really, like? nerve wracking? Sort of? Like, I don't know if that's the word. But yeah, I feel pressure from that. Yeah. You can make it feel like it's full of pressure. You know, like, It's always, it's always a challenge to report back. But, you know, we, we have really good investors, we, you know, we have mostly private investors, and then also the Victorian Government. And I think it's a challenge. Yeah, like, we read, like a monthly report back, right. And every time like, something doesn't quite go, right, you always find yourself wanting to put a spin on it and catching yourself being like, no, just tell it how it is. Because next month, you know, you're not going to be able to say this, I think actually, I've, I've been able to take a lot of the lessons from working in big teams on big engineering projects from that, that one of the good things about, you know, working in construction, or on big projects is that if it's a good culture, there's no blame, you just say what the situation is, you know, nobody's made a mistake on purpose, or like, you know, your prototype hasn't failed on purpose, you're not being lazy, you're not misusing money, you're trying your best to get something over the line, it's really hard to do if it was easy to be done. So you just have to kind of make sure you don't fall into that trap of like treating your investors. Like it's the media, you know, that it has to be a spin on a story or whatever. So yeah, I'm pretty blunt with where things are at. We share as much information as we can, as we have. And the usually the way it works is the investors are far less worried about the things I'm worried about than I am, you know, usually the, you know, usually they're saying things like, no, no, you got this just keep going, like, you know, tell us about your thinking about this. And then they want to talk you through it. It's not like a reprimand relationship or a bad boss. It's like a group of people who want you to succeed. You got to tell them what's going on if you if you want their help. It's kind of Yeah, it's almost that nurturing sort of environment where if you've got a problem and no, because I guess they've had many years experience in business or it'll the diary is they'd be like, well, actually, this isn't a big deal like you know, Oh, it is easy. Yeah. Have you looked at this? Like, how come you haven't looked at this? Like, oh, I didn't even know that was the thing, you know? So I think like, it's just, it depends how you frame it. And it could I think, if I was a little younger, and you know, hadn't learned all of those other lessons, it would be an easy trap to fall into, but I think, yeah, with a little bit of experience, like, oh, no, this is an asset. This is awesome. Just gonna, you know, be grateful that these people want to be involved in this project. And, you know, ask them for as much help as I can get and communicate as often as I can. So I think, yeah, we've we've been really lucky. I'm sure it's not like that with everyone. And I think also by the fact that this product is about women's health, which is, you know, notoriously under served and chronic pain for women is overlooked in or you attract, you attract a certain kind of investor, right? You know, they're already, they're already thinking differently. And they already probably really care about this. So it's a bit of a filter, as well, like, it can be frustrating, because like, oh, how come I'm not getting more investment? How can I seem like the same person as me, also called Alex, but a dude, you know, raising twice the amount and half the time kind of thing. And you can get annoyed at that. But then when you look at who you've got the quality's so good, that you think well, you know, yeah, so yeah, no complaints. Yeah. Good question. I know I sorry. That's okay. I didn't I didn't pre warn you with that. Well, I just thought of it as we're talking about, I thought, I wonder what's that? Like? Yeah, sounds like can be stressful. There's always there's always things that are going well, and things that aren't going well. And yeah, you've just got to like bite the bullet and talk about things not going well. Because if you were in that position, you'd want to know and help us. You'd want to be able to help to like having kids, right, because they don't tell you what's going on. How can you help them? Yeah, that's a whole new conversation. Oh, man. So speaking of children, you mentioned that you started this out with you when you had your daughter. So how old is your daughter now? She would be she's studying for next month or Yeah, right. Yep. And that's your only child. You've got one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we had. We have tried since but I just keep having miscarriages. Which sucks. I'm so sorry. Oh, that's okay. It happens to lots of people. So, yeah, it's just it's been a fairly big gap. Maybe we'll be able to have another one. Maybe not a I've got seven years between mine Never say never. Yeah, exactly. So just sort of taking it easy with that, I think, you know, the last few years of the pandemic and also trying to grow business and life's busy my husband just is just about to sit his final exam for for, you know, final final, the last one after, you know, 15 years of study. So that's all been pretty full on like, we're just yeah, just kind of trying to take it easy. What's your sort of your days look, like you said before about how you all had jobs? And that what is your main thing now? Yeah, so about a year ago, I moved to almost be more than that. Actually. I moved into full time on milkdrop. And, but most people working with us are part time. We have a fully remote team and I call hyper or extreme flexibility with hours. So we have some people, you know, brilliant people doing marketing and content for us. And, you know, two of the three of them are mothers. And, you know, my view is like you work whatever works for you. So if you need time off, you take out if you don't, whatever, if you want to work at midnight, that's fine. If you want to work at 7am that's also fun. No rules, and no requirements, as long as you're getting the work done. And as we all know my There's a total machines when it comes to getting work time because we don't have time for bullshit. Yeah, so like, you know, for the parents, that's what we do, and then we try to make sure that, um, for people who aren't parents that, you know, they are able to use that flexibility how they want as well. So it's not just sort of something that's provided to one group of people. Because they made a choice. It's everyone gets that. And it seems to be working quite well so far. But it's super early days. Yeah. So my days, I like to have a bit of structure, actually. So I'm Monday to Thursday, you know, nine to five. My daughter has daycare here, Monday to Thursday. And then on Fridays, I'll do I'll sort of do a few hours for sort of Friday over the weekend, like customer service stuff and other things that need to happen on the weekends. So I kind of break that up. But I try not to do anything too taxing. And yeah, the days like, I work best in the morning. So I do like the hard work in the morning. And then I moved to the kind of Bitsy tasks that you have as a business in the afternoon. We have our design meetings once a week, always. And that's with those same two boys that I was working with at the start. He Yeah, we basically try to either prototype, a design that we're working on during that week. So we've got something to report back. So we sort of operate on like a weekly cycle. But both of those guys are working in other jobs as well. But yeah, we that that seems to be working quite nicely and moving fairly quickly. Yeah, and then you know, it's a total mess whenever grad is sick, or were sick, or you No, okay, closers for some reason, or they issue random public holidays, you know, which is great for people with jobs, but not if you and your business. So I sort of feel like on average, we're getting about four days a week worth of work. So I've just tried to get really, really efficient. And some days that works better than others. Most of the time, I feel like a failure. And then every time, every now and again, something good happens. And like oh, maybe I'm not such a terrible business person after all. Yeah. But I did learn one of the great things I did learn from one of our investors and mentors is to print out good reviews that you get, or comments that people send you. And when you're having a crappy day, just kind of read through those. And yeah, that does make you feel better. Because it's kind of like, you know, the whole reason I started with because I was annoyed that women weren't being you know, that the, you know, this dis product shouldn't be hurting women, and we could do a better job. And so, you know, when you hear that back that you've changed, your product has meant that someone isn't having pain anymore, and they're able to feed their baby breast milk, which is what they really wanted to do. And you know, they were feeling awful, because they felt like they might have to give up and now they don't you know, that kind of stuff like, Oh, that's really cool. You know, it's nice to have that effect. Yeah. And never underestimate that. Because that I went through an experience with my breastfeeding journey, where at one point, I was producing so much milk that my baby couldn't latch, and then they suggested that I use a shield, which was great, because he could latch but then it decreased my amount of production because the baby wasn't touching my breast. So it was an I went through a lot of issues. And when things finally were good, you know, it changes your whole world. Like it literally changed everything, you know, so I can imagine. I mean, yeah, I was lucky. I never struggled with a lot of pain. But I had other issues. So yeah, it's, it's anything about like the context that you're operating in, right? Like you've got a woman here who got pregnant, stay pregnant, managed to have a baby. And then if things aren't going super well with feeding or any other part of their babies, like it is full on, especially in that first week or two after birth. Yeah. So no matter how you had the birth, no matter how the baby is going, something is going wrong, like nobody cruises through this period. And so this is the situation that you're in. And this is like, this is the point where we're kind of trying to help and so I think like, that always makes it pretty real. Sometimes, like you you kind of wish you were involved in something more fun. Like you know, when you go to do your marketing campaigns, you're like, Oh, I'm so sick of it being such a downer all the time and Be like, No, you just feel like that because you're four years past it. But back in that moment, yeah. Any help is good to help and numb. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because yeah, like when you. I mean, I had a lot of experiences with postnatal depression and I'm sure you know, all these little things that were happening but all all combining to make this a massive oh yes that's it isn't it I remember with my my second baby because he was born, he wasn't early, he had IUGR. So in my when he was being made, my placenta sort of stopped working about 26 weeks, but no one brought that up. So he was completely formed all these organs and everything like his lungs were mature everything but he had no meat on his bones. Basically, he was in a bind. So he was four pound 14, and he come out. And it was like, you can see every breath he took, you could see his diaphragm second, like it was, it was like I couldn't I had these ideas that I you know, I exclusively breastfed my first baby. And I said, Yep, I'm going to do this with my second. But right from the very beginning, he had to be on formula because he just had to be fed straightaway through this, like the tube, the gavel into his stomach. So they had me pumping. That's all I was doing was pumping. And luckily, they had an electric pump at the hospital. The only other pump would ever use was a manual one. And that was Yeah. Oh my gosh. Just not fun at all. Yeah, and it was like, they just like just just do it. And I was like, But how, like, she was just like, we'll the TV and and show you this video. That must be like 50 years old. And I don't know. And every time I'm not, I'm not begging, you know, midwives at all. But just about every person had their own idea of how to attach and how to latch and how to hold and how to listen. Oh, man like to listen to? Exactly, yeah. Yeah. You know, I was in the public system. So every time you rang that bell, you didn't know which nurse, you're going to say, you know, it's the same in practice sounds like, you know, it was the same credit. Yeah, it was just like, my head, I want to go home. I just want to go home and just do it one way, just pick away and do it. But then it has the questioning, like well, is one way that I'm choosing the right way? And like, this is the biggest consequence decision in my life, because I've got this baby I'm responsible for now. Like, if I do it the wrong way. Will they get enough food? Like, it's just, it's just, yeah, I Your story is not unfamiliar. Like? Yeah, we've spoken with a lot of women now. And that that whole, like, conflicting information? Thing is, yeah, it's everywhere. Yeah. And not always ending up with the best outcome for the for the mom or the baby. So yeah, that's it, isn't it? Yeah. They used to say to us, when we'd ask, what what do we do? What should we do with the baby? And they'd go every baby's different. And yeah, would drive us crazy. Good. We know that's true now, but at the time, when you've got no idea what you're doing, it's your first baby. And you just want someone to tell you what to do. Yeah, yeah. In the end, my husband said, If I hear every, every baby's different one more time, I'm bloody going like he was just like, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, find sites beautiful thing, but gee whiz? Well, you know, like, one of the reasons why we don't know that much is because we don't invest in the research to learn that much. So there's, there's, you know, good evidence base about skin to skin and good evidence base about a whole lot of things, but not, not everything. And so quite a bit of it is kind of left up to people's individual experience with what they've seen. Or just kind of intuition about stuff, and that's fine. But if if we researched the lactating breast, like we researched other body functions, you know, the same amount of money, we would know a lot more, there would be much more coherent programs, and you know, you wouldn't have be left feeling like that. So, you know, part of this is, is, you know, we have no problem saying All women should breastfeed and it's best for baby blah, blah, blah, but then, you know, where are the programs and funding to support having someone there in the hospital who's not run off her feet looking after all the other babies that just got born? You know, where's the funding to provide you homecare, like we do have these people who are super skilled and really good at what they do, but we didn't have funding for them, like, you know, so I think a lot of this is kind of see like problems around the places like, are these problems that can feasibly be solved, you know, in science are these like problems that can feasibly be solved with just a bit of cash? Yeah. And it's just you haven't chosen to put our cash in that area. It's a little cynical, but I think that's true. No, I agree with that. I disagree with that. Also something cynical, if it was a man's problem, like to put more money, we wouldn't even have to have to have babies, it will be done. Yeah. Yeah, that's another one. So what I want to ask, and I'm not asking you to give away your secrets or anything, but with the other you said you're working on some other things? Are they things that are born from that similar? Like experiencing something or seeing something that you've you've got this passion? Yeah. Yeah, it's all about breast pumps. At the moment. I'm like, we would love to do more products. Like one big area that I've been really interested in is incontinence. It's another one of these, like, everybody has it. You know, so, but, you know, what we're really good at what we've learned how to do is silicone products and, and things that have something to do with the human body. So yeah, so we're still working on breast pumps. And we're working on creating a, you know, these are just cushions at the moment, but we're working on a full breast pump. So that's what we're doing. But in terms of how that works, I'll probably keep that under wraps. It'll be a while before that. So yeah, that's what we've been working on. Which has been fun. Card. Yes. Fun slash card. Yeah. When you say about incontinence, it's really funny, all of a sudden, it's almost like it's cool to have the incontinent Sandy's and it's like, where were they 15? A woman who needed them. Right? Yeah. Another reason why we need more women in STEM, right, you know, that you have a habit of solving problems that you see if you don't see the problem, you know, and solve it. So I think, you know, the, this kind of world of these? Yeah, like, Where was that when I was, when I was pregnant or suffering from this, I think we'll see less and less of that as we go. Or, like, we'll start to see these problems solve more and more, as, you know, you start to see these professions that are in charge of designing things, start to have more women in them, or, you know, people who identify as women who are having those problems. So I think it's only gonna get better. But yeah, there's a lot once you start scratching the surface, you're like, oh, and that Oh, and that oh, you know, yeah. So on that, do you think that it's like, because I know, with the schools, they're always saying, you know, girls getting into STEM and all that sort of stuff? And at the other end of it having women who are the ones with the money, I guess, who are the investors? Is it sort of a bit of both? It's like, encouraging the girls to break through these glass ceilings, I suppose. Or the boys club or whatever. Yeah. But then at the other end, having having the women who sit who might say, Yes, I'm passionate about this, because it's a women's issue, and I want to support it. Yeah. It's like, my grandpa always used to say, like, follow the money. He was Lithuanian, adult, very thick accent and, you know, follow the money, where's the money coming from? And it kind of does make sense, like, you know, why aren't these problems solved? Because, like I said, before, you know, it could have taken us four, six weeks to make this thing and took us two years, because we had to convince people to give us the money now we were able to convince them. And that was awesome. Thank you. But there are plenty of people who aren't able to convince other people to fund to fund these sorts of things. And I think, yeah, well, you know, when you look at the proportion of startups that are led by women that are funded, it's a lot lower, like there's you can Google all of this, like it's pretty, it's pretty dire. And there's a lot of arguments why, like people say, Oh, well, there's not as many women asking and not as many women in technology. And so then you say, Yeah, but why, you know, I don't think there's anything innate about or girls and boys when they young about their problem solving abilities or their ability to design or do art or anything like that. I think it comes a bit later. Yeah. And so yeah, I think it's sort of, you know, what are we teaching them? What are we making look exciting and cool? Yeah. What? You know, you have a lot more often, people say they have more women enrolling in engineering disciplines, such as Humanitarian Engineering, and Environmental Engineering. And then we start putting all of these like stereotypes on women, like, they just want to work for their community, they want to work for environment, like, they don't want to do dirty stuff, you know, so that, that the, you know, they're a little like, flashes everywhere. I guess my point is that it's very complex. But it is, you know, multi multifactorial, which is like a fancy way of saying, we don't really know, and there's lots of things that happen. But you know, part of it is fun. Part of it is education. Part of it is society, part of it is, you know, when we're not putting enough effort into retain people, part of it is like the dropping out after having babies, because it's too hard to get back into work. Like, there's just so much stacked up. It's not really there to prevent this from happening. It's yeah, yeah, like, in a nice way, but we're living in that society, and the odds will be stacked against us, you know? Yeah. And I don't think anyone's doing it intentionally move to this new phase, where it's kind of just like, hung around. And those systems have been designed in a way that are like that, you know, no, one person in that system is like, I'm gonna push women down exam, but maybe they are, but they've never said it to me. And I haven't actually seen that. But what I have seen is, you know, maybe you go and pitch your idea. And they're like, oh, I'll just text my wife to find out how she found pumping you like, No, how about you go and investigate the market, and take a look at the opportunity. And think about this as a solution in the same way that you would investigate any other pitch or any other product, you know, maybe someone wants to auto turn petrol cars into electric cars, you wouldn't go and ask your mate who drives a car, whether or not that's a good idea, you would do your research at a, like, you know, market scale. So it's stuff like that, where, you know, it's not intended to, to be sexist, or whatever, but it kind of ends up like that way, because we have all of these biases. So I think, yeah, you know, it's hard to hard to combat but there are people who are trying to combat it, you know, there are plenty of groups where they're actively, you know, recruiting, not majority female investors, necessarily, but trying to find founders who have women, you know, running their companies or whatever, and presenting those to people who have the cash. You know, there's funds, government funds that are set up, to try to sort of make up that difference that women don't see in funding. So if they're, if they're receiving, you know, 50% of the funding or less of a man, you know, equivalent man, so like, a man is able to raise a million dollars, and the woman has to raise 500,000, or something like that, then the government's are stepping in to try to make up that gap. You know, there's plenty of people doing lots of good things. So it'll work. But, you know, sometimes it needs a bit of a kick up the bum to Yeah, but that is good that, you know, everyone's I feel like everyone's aware of, like you said, the systems that have are in place, and if we go to my hands, like, they're floating around us, it's not like someone standing there, you know, enforcing all this stuff. It's just the world we live in. It is and it doesn't make it better. And in some ways, it makes it harder, because you can't put your finger on it. Like, you know, I, I sort of, it's like, you know, back in the 60s, if you had a person who was working, you know, who happened to be a woman who's probably a secretary and, and someone hits her on the bum, like, clearly sexist harassment. Yeah, that never happens. It doesn't happen so much. These days, it's sort of all under the, you know, feels like it's more under the radar, it's not as easy to point to. Obviously, there's lots of cases where that's not the, you know, the case, and there's a spectrum and, you know, really serious stuff happening, you can see it all over the news. And not on the news. But but for the sort of like little tiny things that are happening during the day, like, you know, you can't call out all of it. But you do know, when you look at it empirically, the results are that women are getting funded, less women's problems are getting solved less. Women's pain is more overlooked. You know, all of this stuff on you know, when you look at it in the big picture is definitely happening. So, how do we go about addressing it? I'm not really sure. I'm sure there are much more experienced people who know more about what they're talking about. But you're part of what I don't see part of the solution that sounds like really And police, I think literally are you're in the trenches doing the work by creating these products. And by getting women involved in making these products funding these products. And I think that's fantastic. Because it has to start somewhere literally, like, it's what I always say, when I read things about how to make change, it's like, but where do you start? Like, really actually start, but I feel like what you're doing is, yeah, well, you start with what you can control, right? Like, you know, there are plenty of businesses that are aimed at trying to improve that postpartum experience or the fertility experience are plenty of them. You know, some of them are based on building up communities of women, you know, that's like what you're doing right? So that happens to be your skill, I'm not good at that. I'm not good at designing things. So this is the one thing I can change. So I think it's just, you just like, you know, you look at the all of the things that are in your sphere of concern, and you look at them the next ring down, which is your sphere of influence, you can't actually change it, but maybe you can influence it a bit. And then there's your sphere of control. So what can you do in that sphere of control that's going to have the biggest influence? And then maybe, over time, you can make that change? But I mean, it's hard. We've got, you know, cop 27, or whatever it is this happening while we're recording. You know, these people haven't been able to make change on like, such an obvious threat. So I think like, change is hard. Yeah, I think you've just got to kind of do what you can control. And hopefully don't go, you know, don't let it sort of derail you too much when it doesn't change as quickly as you'd like. Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it Yeah. So when you work before you had your daughter, were you working? Like full time? Or? Yep. And then how did how did you sort of feel about that change of them, becoming a mom and having you focus almost solely on your daughter? Did you go through any sort of, I don't wanna say existential crises. But how was that experience for you? Um, I didn't find out too bad. My husband is really involved in daughter like, we definitely 5050 Maybe he's 6040 We will also at the time of the she was actually my second pregnancy, I had a first and it had ended in a stillbirth at like, 20 Something weeks. And so I was quite anxious throughout the pregnancy. And so that was my challenge. It was like, am I gonna get through this? And so we'd moved back in to mom and dad's house. And we were just all living as I know, it sounds very old school. But I'm European. I don't know, but we loved it. So we were living in my parents house had the baby, and everyone was there to help. So I didn't, it was a shock in that year. Now I've got this child and feeding wasn't going super well. But once we kind of got through that. actually really liked it. I didn't expect to I thought that I thought that I'd hate not working. But I was kind of working on milkdrop Like I had things to work on. And I've always have you know, as long as Yeah, and I wasn't 100% on the baby. So it was sort of quite balanced. I probably not remembering a whole lot of stuff. But yeah, I guess we had three adults before adults for one child. And and we had help and meals and time to walk outside and you know, if I needed a shower mum or dad would take Grettir if Andrew was working like it just wasn't sort of as stressful. So I think I had a lot more community. And also all of my friends had been through it too. And I'd been kind of dealt a blow beforehand. So I'd already had Add that like, oh, maybe you can't have everything you wanted. And it's not all that easy. So when I did have that, when I did have Greta, I was just thankful that, you know, I could have a baby. So, I think, yeah, it wasn't such a big deal for me. I didn't like how when, before that, when I'd said that I was getting married, how I suddenly like people were saying, like, oh, when are you going to stop working or like, you know, or when you got pregnant, the first time I was commenting about it, and feeling like I had to go into a different part of the business to keep my job because you know, engineering can be pretty full on and so like, all of that sort of stuff. I just, again, it's like the unsaid thing, but that was more about a phase in life. And, you know, I did work in a company that really wanted women to stick around, and they really supported me and I, you know, felt very loved and included and all the rest. So it wasn't sort of that much of an issue for me, maybe that's just, yeah, maybe it's, in hindsight, I did find that I wanted to get back to working within about four weeks, as in not working, but like working on something. So I didn't, I didn't like, I'm just, you know, I didn't settle in very well to just being with my baby. Like, I found myself like walking down to the cafe, getting her sleep. And then, you know, getting out my laptop and investigating something that's silicone, you know, but that's just what worked for me. And so yeah, I was lucky enough that I could do that. And, you know, for maternity leave and all these other privileges. So, yeah. But, like, something that I do talk to moms about on this show is having that outlet, because we can't, I mean, I'm sure there's somebody that can but it's not may be 24/7. Thinking about my children, like, I'd go insane. Yes. Yeah, I think that that's normal. Like, I mean, we also I think when you, you know, you have Yeah, like identity is an interesting one. Because, I mean, I had Greta at 35. So you know, you've got your life, like, I didn't change my name in marriage, because I've always been called by my last name, all the way through school and uni. So I kind of was my identity, I had already worked for a decade, like I'd, you know, felt like I'd sort of fought my way through a fairly male, I wouldn't say I don't say dominated because they weren't aggressive. But yeah, majority male environments like so I sort of felt like I had, like, gotten to this point. And then actually what, what I had trouble with was, then all of a sudden, you're sitting on the end of a pump, you're like, oh, no, wait, I'm just a mammal that's here to be milked for the benefit of my offspring. That felt like shit. Sorry, that felt terrible. No, you can say that. Yeah, I think, you know, that's why I sort of started to design that because I felt like, well, no, hang on. Women who have been through this shouldn't be feeling like this, I think I did a survey at the very start to see if anyone else had these issues. And for every 10 women, seven had nipple pain or discomfort using pumps, and eight felt like a cow. So like, I expected the physical thing. But I didn't expect everyone to feel that way emotionally about their product. And the other thing that I didn't like was that people are on pumps, because they're trying really hard to feed their baby breast milk, because that's what they want to do, if that's what they want to do. So, but then they're kind of like, given this experience where like, this thing's wheeled in at them, they're not really explained how to use it. It's sort of like a punishment, but these women should be held up, you know, like they should be, they should be held up on pedestals, these people are sitting on the end of a machine to milk their breasts to give breast milk, like they've trying really hard, really, really hard. Especially, you know, some of them pumping like 12 times a day, they're up in the middle the night turning this machine on, you know, I think so that kind of bothered me. And I think, um, yeah, I did struggle with that. And that's why I created these. But I kind of didn't necessarily see it as just motherhood or my particular reaction to it. I saw it more as, here's another case of where women's experience is overlooked. And, and I didn't want to also, you know, be too critical of these restaurant companies, because they're trying to design something that is affordable, that fits lots of people, the human race is super diverse, like, how do you get something that works for everybody's anatomy and physiology? Like it's not an easy thing to do? And people expect a lot you know, off their products for a certain price. Like I get how they've come into being and I'm glad that they exist, whatever, but I just felt like, you know, we could we could do a better job. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now that's so good. Like, I can definitely relate to this the cow feeling and that then feeling feeling like literally like an animal. Like, like you said, you're supposed to, like if you shouldn't be revered if you're feeding your child and then you go out of your way to get the milk out of your body to continue feeding your child you should you shouldn't be held up on a pedestal, you know. And just like I saw, I see it all the time on like, people I follow on Instagram, but all these particularly in America, they've got an something's going on over there. With the they don't have as much maternity leave or any maternity leave. Like it's not set up, like here in Australia. Yeah, it's tied to their employment. Yes. Yeah. And, and the fact if anyone actually wants to pump, it's like, what do you want to do? What are you talking about? Like, it's not actually something that, like employers give any credit to. And I know from myself as a, as a musician, like, I've had to pump a lot of times, like most like gigs, when you're away from the kids for, you know, more than at least three hours, you know, you're gonna have to, and being in toilets or out in the car, and it's like, you just feel like you're like shamed, shunned away from everybody? Yeah. Oh, I don't know. It's just it's pretty rough. I think. I mean, America is a fascinating place, right? Like, they, they have these conditions, but then they also have, you know, there's an entire company set up there, they're called Minerva. And they create pods for lactation. So you can pop them in stadia, or you can put them in the airport or at university campuses, or downtown or whatever. And there's another one company called Milk stock, which will collect your milk pumped milk, like say you're away for work for a couple of days. And you know, you need like, you need to pump if you're feeling you need to keep that milk supply up. So, though, pick up your milk and send it back to your baby, wherever they are, like so there's all these like, it's, it's not like, yeah, the US is a very diverse and fascinating place. But yeah, they have terrible maternity like terrible government parental leave schemes and like people that kind of on their own, but it doesn't mean they have these other services around and businesses that kind of help them sort of difficult to grasp sometimes coming from coming from Australia, we've definitely learned a lot starting to sell these cushions over there. You're listening to the art of being a mom with my mum, Alison Newman. Something else I like to talk about is the topic of mum guilt. And I find this really fascinating one because some mums I've had on have actually had to google it to find out what it was. And I think that is brilliant. And I wish that was me. And what's your thoughts on mum guilt? What it is or how to deal with it? Like do you have you experienced it? Or did you have to Google it? Like, where are you at? Yeah, I mean, mom guilt depends how you define it. Like, do I think I'm being a good mother to my daughter? Yes. Have I felt guilty that I'm not around for her sometimes, but I'm not not around for her. Like she's, she's living her best life? For sure. Yeah. She has a lot of people looking after. So like I said, My husband is there a lot. You know, she's, she's got a lot of friends. And because we live in a small town, the community around her is quite strong. You know, she knows her friend's parents, that kind of thing. So I think, you know, she's having a good childhood, she's safe. She's learning lots. She's, you know, she's pretty lucky. So I don't feel guilty about my parenting. But I do have the mom guilt about work. So, you know, am I working fast enough? Am I working hard enough? am I delivering for these people who invested in us like do they realize that I am only working nine to five? You know, am I okay with that? Because there's this culture in that kind of startup world of, you know, working 100 hours a week, which you just can't do. You know, it also comes when And you know, my daughter is sick, and I can't work that day. So there's this like, constant feeling of never getting through the pile of stuff you got to get done. And I've had to learn ways to deal with that, and not get riled up by it so much. But yeah, I find that side of it really, really hard. But in terms of like, am I being a good enough mom compared with the moms I see on Instagram? Yeah, most of the stuff that I see on there is like material stuff. You know, like, are they dressed in the right clothes? Well, no, she's always filthy. But that's because she's been playing outside in the mud, which I think is a good thing. So I think I just, yeah, I don't really have that too much. I did feel guilty that I wasn't feeding her properly. But since she's gotten older, and, you know, we, I was sort of worried like, Oh, um, you know, breast milk is, you know, it says here that it's better for them, and you know, better for their development. And like, what if I'm stunting our growth or, or making a too big? Or like, what if, you know, she's not able to, you know, develop emotionally because she's been fed formula, all that stuff, like at four, there is nothing wrong with this kid. And it's, like, I think, I think I sort of, in the sort of emotion of that time, I think I took overall statistics, too seriously. And, you know, I'm sure there's cases where that's the truth, but you know, you're not looking at it holistically, like, you know, she's got, you know, she's lucky enough to have parents who love her and look after her and she's fine. So I think I'm, I'm much less concerned about that. And that that was like a fairly big lesson. And so, you know, when you go through all those milestones of kid hood, you know, toilet training, really, like we're going through breeding right now, like, I'm not too fussed about it, I just figure well, you know, she'll figure it out. When she's ready. We'll just keep teaching, she seems to like to learn. You know, the only time I get upset is when she's not nice to other kids. And I think I'm kind of a psychopath. But But like, you know, all of that is fixable as well. So I think like, it's not pretty age appropriate. Yeah, I just don't get too stressed about that. And I think she'll, you know, she'll be fine. She's, she's, she's not the one that, you know, we need to be improving things for. Hmm, no, that's really great answer. Yeah. And I'm wondering if I were going before when you talked about living with your parents and having perhaps that, that village that we don't sort of, say so much every day now. And you talk about coming from a European background? I wonder if that I'm not a psychologist, by the way, I'm just I have ideas and I say them out loud. I wonder if that's contributed, like that level of support has allowed you to relax and mother the way you want to mother and not feel any outside? You know, expectations from outside? Because you're really secure in the unit that you've got. Potter? Yeah, I think so. And I've never really been particularly like that concerned about peer, maybe peer pressure or like, perception of others. I think I the thing I do care about is if someone felt that I was being unkind or untruthful or mean or anything like that, I would be totally distressed. But in terms of like, someone judging me to be parenting the right way, or cool, or any of that stuff, I've never cared, and I don't think I ever will. And so, I think that really helps because going into parenthood, you're just like, well, this is, you know, this is what I think is good for my kid. And I just look around at the other parents and I see and I like, take what I like and don't do what I don't like, and, you know, every kid's different, every parent's different. Everyone's juggling their own thing. Like I actually think there's probably less judgement than we think and a lot of that actually, coming from ourselves. So yeah, I mean, I've got really supportive parents. You know, my mum's a super practical, like, pragmatic woman. And, you know, sometimes I'd go to her and say, How do you think I'm doing this? Right? She's like, after worrying about it's fine, you know? Like, she just sort of shuts it down. You're like, Alright, cool. And you're like, well, that's kind of drama. Yeah, that's, that's obvious. Yes. I think that's nice. Yeah. It's nice to have that grounding. Because I think if you're like on your phone, and you start Googling this stuff, you're like, Oh, my God, I'm doing all these terrible things. And I think, you know, you can't hear one thing that made me feel better was like, okay, You look at like Louis, for example, in those parents, like super involved in their kids lives and into their imaginations or whatever, but then you realize it's a seven minute episode. Seven minutes. So you've got like, 24 hours times, 60 minutes, whatever that is, like, you just can't perform to what's out there. So as long as you're keeping them safe, they know they can come to you, if they've got a problem. They get to try to do things and meet different people nurture their curiosity, like I just, you know, we're going to stuff them up in some way. You can't predict it. Like you just kind of wait to see what happens and try to build there. Like, I think you just got to build the sort of building blocks of coping and joy and curiosity and hope that they come to you when they have problems. That's, that's, yeah, no, I really like that. It's very, like I can, I can tell you a lot like your mom like that pragmatism and straightforward. It's like, Yep, it's fair. I mean, I'm not really Yeah, like, I still. So we live, like I said, we live in Brighton, there's a lot of people who are very good at sport here, I'm not one of them. But the kids around here are very free. You know, they're the bike track, they ski, they climb, they do all sorts of stuff. And they're very, I would say, like, physically aware, like, physically pretty good. And so, and some of the other parents are a lot better at this than I am like, they'll let their kids you know, experiment like, you know, ride down that steep slope that ends in a, you know, Cliff, and they'll be totally fine with that. And I'm like, Oh, my God, this is my group is child. I don't want to know how to self I just wanted to be competent, you know, so I definitely have issues with that. But I also know that if she learns her limits now, it'll be better for her later. So yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not perfect. No, apparently, is. It is that balance, isn't it? It's because that's the thing. We still have to sleep at night, you know, even if they want to do like, jump off the roof. It's like, well, hang on a sec. Oh, that's where I draw the line. You know? Yeah. You gotta hit boundary. Yeah. Like, my, my boys are so active in so into everything. And yeah, they're great. I just let them go to the point where I don't feel comfortable. It's like, yeah, I figure. If they think they can do it, they probably can. And if they're willing to give it a go, that probably means it will go okay. Yeah. And if they don't know, then like, I think where I draw the line is like, how they treat other people. So I think that stuff I try to come down fairly firm on. And sort of, yeah, treating other people with respect to being kind and all of that, but like in terms of everything else. Just go for it. We've met a few broken out. That's quite a lot, isn't it? Yeah. The Rite of Passage. Yeah, so I wanted to, I wanted to ask you, back in the beginning, we talked, you mentioned a little bit about how art and science used to be really close together. And you mentioned a little bit in your email that you'd send to me, and it really got me thinking, at what point did these two sort of practices for one of a better word start to go away from each other? You know what I mean? Because you're right rennet. The Renaissance period was massively, massively science, all of that. Yeah, no thinking. And then art somewhere has just floated off into this thing. That's, it's unnecessary for pretty much everything. Things need to be designed, like the designer of art, but then almost the I don't want to say the frivolous element of art, because it's not about probably seen like that, in terms of a capitalist society. So things sort of, yeah. What's your take on that? I think it's shocking that we don't fund it more like one of the sort of down point down. Down points for me, it was I don't know if it's last year, the year before when we started defunding, pure mathematics, and arts degrees and things because they don't have practical application. And as someone who is in the business of practical applications, I think that is the stupidest thing that we could do as a country. You know, our, our new ideas, the things we're going to be using in 30 years time come from people doing art, we're doing pure Mathematics or doing pure? You know, even studying history like these are these are things that, you know, don't have like a monetizable tangible outcome, yet they're absolutely critical, you know, yeah, they're so linked. The idea that universities have to beg industry to do research projects, because the only research projects that have value are ones that industry can use. I just, I just think it's disgusting. Into You know, we've, we are a country that has benefited off, you know, really strong science for such a long time. And then, I don't know, 2015 20 years ago, we started defunding it now with like, the lowest spend on research and development as a proportion of GDP in in the whole OECD, I think, you know, that is really short sighted to me, yeah, when it cut in. So that's just like the, that's just, you know, if you think about it as a spectrum from like, engineering, through mathematics, or applied mathematics, mathematics, and then you get to these humanities and art, like, you know, we're just, we're struggling in applied mathematics right now funding that. And to me, that's all wrong. In terms of, I think, you know, there are people who are mixing these together. And, but it feels more like a luxury than common place, you know, it might be like one artist in residence, might come in and do a few research projects or something like that, but it's not ever part of how we function so much. And I think that's a real shame. And I think it's going to bite us in the air soon. Maybe it already is. And I think art is really important for communicating, and exploring how we feel about things, I think that is responsible for, you know, going into the sort of imaginary world and dreaming up what things could look like. And if you can't dream up what they look like, how can you possibly make them? Yeah, so yeah, I think it's, I think it's really important. I used to I once had this workshop, a guy in, in our company was working with some city designers, and government, people who are in charge of designing cities. And he used to run these workshops for people. And on day two or three, he would put a creative writing piece up on the walls, like he would go home and write this story about the future of this city, from the perspective of a person, and then the whole exercise in the workshop would get these, you know, very pragmatic people to go and highlight the things in that story that kind of like, got them thinking. And then you know, and then the next the next part of it was like, Okay, well, what could we create today that would help us test whether that idea could exist? Now that whole exercise came from him being able to do some really, really beautiful creative writing that got people thinking, and so, yeah, to me, like, all of that is critical. And, you know, and yeah, just because it's not monetizable doesn't mean it doesn't have value. And you can argue that the case for so many other different things, like just because our ecosystem is not monetizable doesn't mean it doesn't have trillions of dollars of value in all of the things it does for us clean air, clean water, all of these, you know, safe climate to live in, you know, yet we devalue them because we can't monetize them straightaway. So I think that that's a real issue that we're going to have we're facing at the moment, and we're going to have to get our heads around, you know, the value of things that are intangible. Anyway, that's my rant on it. Ya know, I look honest, I don't know how to fix it. Yeah. Yeah, that's it, isn't it? Like it really frustrated? The hell out of me in COVID? And I know, you're probably in Victoria, you have a lot worse with the lock downs. And we did. But the thing that shocked me was that the sport kept going, like the all of the AFL footballers, could travel around Australia do what they want, but all of the arts like, at a very basic level, like I had gigs canceled, you know, and then you've got people like, more people traveling into state to do concerts, they couldn't do it. And then all sudden, you'd have 40,000 people at a football match. And I was like, What is going on? And Devin said to me, it's because it doesn't make as much money or you know, that's dumb, money stuff. But you look at this stuff that we look at the things that we identify ourselves as even as a culture like they're not, I mean, sport is a part of it, but it's there's a huge cultural value to these things. And even within the arts. Like I was listening to Richard Flanagan, the authors speak about the value of writing versus film. He's not saying that films would be de invested in, but he was just saying like, you know, Australian authors, like we have an enviable, enviable, you know, culture of writing here, which actually is a very, it sounded like it was a fairly new thing like Australia used to be looked at as like an outpost of British writing, right? Like, yeah, British authors will write, and then Australians will buy it. And then somewhere along the way, they started investing in Australian stories. And, you know, it's been remarkably successful, but we've had the any funding, and it's easier, just like, well, there's all these parts of the arts that are so critical to who we are and what we do. And I just, I think we've kind of like skewed over to this, like, you know, practical, which is great. I don't just obviously, I'm benefiting from it. But I just, it just makes me a little bit sad. And yeah, I sort of, yeah, remember this one? I had this friend at uni. Who's, who was? Who was talking to his dad? He was like, oh, yeah, I've got this friend Alex. And his dad was like, oh, yeah, what does she do? And he was like, A, she's studying engineering and commerce. And then his dad was like, oh, charming. And so my friend, my friend told me this, and I was like, super offended at the time, because like, today, you know, I'm doing all these great things. And then, as I've gotten older, I'm like, Oh, I get your point, like, things are not things are very practical things that are very useful, but like, what am I actually contributing to? Like, what am I really learning? Like, am I actually getting an education? Or am I just like, you know, learning how to get stuff done, which is a useful skill, but, you know, shouldn't be at the expense of people. You know, interpreting the world and thinking about how I'm, you know, telling stories and thinking about how things could be different imagining how things could be different, which is where I see, you know, arts or arts could be if they were funded better. Yeah, no, I totally agree with all that. It's just like, I think they cut the CSIRO. Like, they just was at the Liberal government that did that. I can't remember when it happened. Yeah, and I just think, oh, like you said, it's gonna bite us in the ass. And it might already be doing that. But there has to come a point where all of a sudden, they go off sheet. We've stuffed this up like, yeah, and this obsession with everything happening, like you said, the money, the monetization, if you can't make money out of it. It just diminishes the value of it so much. And that really, is something that really annoys me. Yeah, but I mean, I guess like the consolation is at the community level, people still love it. Like, I mean, you remember the first gig you played when you got back? Right? Where people crying, you know, like, I think, you know, it's pretty overwhelming and even even after you know, log, it's been what, a year and a half since lockdowns here. And anytime I see live music, I'm still super emotional about it. And everyone is. So I think at the community level, like people get it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, I guess it's easy to get down about I'm not in that position. But yeah, yeah. I just don't like the way that you write about, like, people. It's the people in front of you that make the difference. And then the people that make the rules and tell everyone what to do, especially with all that locked down stuff, it's like it just shows you what they think of it. And it's like, even the people that aren't the performers, you know, the people that were allowed to dance but a just like everyone was frustrated at how this whole industry was being judged. I don't know just anyway, I gotta stop. No, no, I can I can unless. With when you were growing up, did you have like your mum, your mum, sort of these cultural norms that are like to sort of look at about where you learnt your stuff. I suppose you have talked about how you mum, you know that pragmatic nature to sort of? Yes, yeah, that's fine. Oh, no, that's not did she work? Like after she had you or anything like that? To sort of show you how you could do it? I guess. Yeah. Probably not at the time you realizing that, you know, you weren't taking note, but you know what I? Yeah, I mean, so I mean, I was I was I had a mom and dad. So dad is a scientist. And so he's The opposite, right? It's super intellectual, very slow pace, slow thinking, precise, like, wants to get to the bottom of everything analytical. And mom is like, on the other end of the spectrum, like, get it done, get it done quickly. 8080 20 rule, like, just come on, you know. So the balance of those, you know, I sort of feel like it's almost a superpower. Like, who am I going to channel today? Like mom or dad? Because both of them are, you know, right for the moment. Hmm. Um, so in terms of like the family balance, I guess. It like on the surface, I guess it would seem very traditional dad worked a full time job. He was like the primary breadwinner. Mum is a physio and she worked locum jobs. So she just only it was kind of like being a replacement teacher equivalent. But she was a physio. And it was with the same group every time, she was really good friends with all the people she worked with. And if someone you know, someone went away for a holiday, or whatever, she might cover them for a couple of weeks. And she actually was kind of working full time. But doing loads of work. Yeah. And what it meant. And what I've learned since is that it allowed her to like, it allowed her to work, but not be emotionally involved in it. So she loved it. She loved helping people. She loved working with those people. And then but she had no like, she didn't have to do paperwork. She didn't have to do admin, she didn't have any politics. She had no commitment. It was just like all the good parts. And I think I remember thinking like, how could you do you know, like, don't you want to like sink your teeth in a bit more. And now I'm like, Oh, I get it. This is awesome. That is fantastic. So I think that's sort of how she made that work. Whereas dad was much more like, you know, I'm, I'm here working in this job. And, you know, he loved I think he loved the job, but there was much more sort of obligation and doing the right thing and Yeah, sort of a more balanced like, you know, slog slog like, yeah, yeah, I know, he loved his work and like the the work that he was doing, and the people that he worked with, and all the rest, but it was definitely much more like, I'm going to plod through here and this is you know, I need to do this and yeah, so I think, yeah, they were different. And in terms of home life, like mum basically just made everything happen. So, you know, dad's job was pretty full on. So he, he was working and then, you know, mum looked after us. You know, all the extracurricular stuff. Got us for school organized. All it just everything for mental load. Yeah. So yeah, but I think I learned a lot from them. They had a very even sort of even decision making it home so that, you know, the power dynamic was very even. You know, I think, especially when it came to discipline. Yeah, it was it was quite even there as well. I don't know. You only kind of like, Yeah, I think they did a remarkable job. I'm grateful that I was born into the family. Yeah, can't really can't really take too much. I was lucky. Yeah. Sounds very balanced. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't perfect. No family is perfect. Like, we definitely have our flaws. I'm sure if you spoke to my husband. He really thinks I think, you know, our two families are quite different. We're definitely more argumentative. We, but it's not like a mean, argumentative. It's just a question like, What do you think about this? So you're wrong? This is how it should be that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, but, you know, strong families are the way which is very lucky thing to have, I think. Yeah, that's for sure. That sounds lovely. You made the argument. My husband and I, we like to debate topics. Yes, we come from very different headspace and backgrounds. He's a financial planner. And yeah, I don't like maths at all. And we have different views when it comes to politics. So we'll often be having discussions and the little one will say, Stop arguing. And we'll both be like, but we're not talking about this and I'm getting passionate about. Yeah, yeah. So and I think that that's kind of like it's sort of like a, you know, you're not you're not gonna get in trouble. Yeah. Sometimes I find you need to sort of argue things out to understand what you think yourself as well. And so I'd agree with that. It's nice to have that space. Yeah. Less, you're less and less able to do that in public. Oh, or you basically get shut down for a while and I offending someone or saying the wrong thing or something. So yeah, you do need those safe spaces to debate things and to, to thrash out ideas and, and like my eldest child, he's 50, nearly 15. So he's asking some interesting questions and you want to be able to feel like you can ask them. You know, like I said before, you hope that your child does come to you. And he certainly comes to us with interesting things. And we're like, Yep, okay, we can talk about that, you know. It's good. I quite enjoy a conversation like that. I enjoy conversation. Can you share with us the website? Or any socials that you active on that you? Oh, yeah, sure. So, yeah, so milkdrop pumps.com. And in the new year, we'll be running a campaign. You know, I mentioned a couple times about how there's not a lot of research in women's health, or not as much as they could be. And one of the things there's not much research on is women's nipple anatomy, and lactating or otherwise. And that's a real problem, because it means when you're trying to figure out how to design products for women, you actually don't have the basics available. A lot of research on women's nipples is older research that was about nipple attractiveness. Where should the nipple be placed on the breast? How big should it be? What shape should it be? That kind of thing. Some of that was used for cosmetic surgery, some of it was used for breast reconstruction. And then, the other area of nipple research is for social media, identifying female versus male nipples to take down the female nipples, because it's illegal to post them not illegal, but against, you know, Getty policy to show a female nipple, which we could go into another podcast about that. And so what we're trying to do is ask women to measure their nipples to help us build up an understanding of what women's bodies actually look like, so that we can design things for actual women. So we've got our campaign on that. Coming up, in the New Years, watch out for that. Be on Instagram at milkdrop, underscore pumps, or tick tock, ah, your tick, DECA. I still haven't gone there. I feel like it's too much of a big rabbit hole for me to go down. It's pretty full on news. And I'll put hyperlinks in the show notes so people can find you. Yeah, thank you so much. It's been so lovely to chat with you and to you to your achievements. And thank you for for thanks for having me. I feel like a bit of an interloper in the in the art world. But who? Artists, hopefully Yeah, to hear from someone who appreciates it, but doesn't do it. No look, and I think that the things that you've shared are extremely relevant. So please don't feel like you're, you know, I don't know what the word is. But you're not. You're not and you know, you, you've seen it, you've created something amazing. I'm really, really happy that you did it. And I'm really happy for you for what you've done to say. Good on you. And stop blabbing now to say thanks very much. Okay. Awesome. All right. Thanks again. Thanks for your company today. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd love you to consider leaving us a review, following or subscribing to the podcast, or even sharing it with a friend who you think might be interested. If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the podcast. Please get in touch with us via the link in the show notes. I'll catch you again next week for another chat with an artistic mum Helen Thompson is a childcare educator and baby massage instructor. And she knows being a parent for the first time is challenging and changes your life in every way imaginable. Join Helen each week in the first time moms chat podcast, where she'll help ease your transition into parent called Helen aims to offer supported holistic approaches and insights for moms of babies aged mainly from four weeks to 10 months of age. Helens goal is to assist you to become the most confident parents you can and smooth out the bumps along the way. Check out first time mums chat at my baby massage.net forward slash podcast

Sami Lange US mixed media paper artist S2 Ep31 Listen and Subscribe on itunes , spotify and google podcasts Sami Lange is a mixed media paper artist living and working in Phoenix, Arizona, and she's mum of 2 children. Sami grew up in a creative home, and sees art and creativity as a fully incorporated part of family life, with her children having access to her studio. Her paper artwork is made of hundreds and sometimes thousands of paper circles and shapes stitched together. Each shape is hand-cut by Sami with scissors, dyed multiple times in water baths, and then dried, taped and stitched. Sami has worked with paper dyeing for over 14 years. She has also done furniture painting, drawing, collage and print making. After an evacuation of her hometown of Santa Rosa, California in 2017, Sami's family was blessed to have their home spared after the Tubbs fire swept through the city and burned down over 5,000 homes. This life changing event forced Sami to re-evaluate her art practice, reflect on what is truly important and what makes a thoughtful piece of art worth making. **This episode contains discussions about post natal depression and anxiety** Visit Samis website - https://www.samilangeart.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/samilangeart/ Frogmans http://frogmans.net/ Shop the art supplies Sami uses here Connect with the podcast - https://www.instagram.com/art_of_being_a_mum_podcast Music used with permission from Alemjo https://open.spotify.com/artist/4dZXIybyIhDog7c6Oahoc3?si=aEJ8a3qJREifAqhYyeRoow When chatting to my guests I greatly appreciate their openness and honestly in sharing their stories. If at any stage their information is found to be incorrect, the podcast bears no responsibility for guests' inaccuracies. Podcast transcript at the bottom of the page Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Art of Being A Mum Podcast. I'm beyond honoured that you're here and would be grateful if you could take 2 minutes to leave me a 5-star review in iTunes or wherever you are listening. It really helps! This way together we can inspire, connect and bring in to the light even more stories from creative mums. Want to connect? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram tagging me in with @art_of_being_a_mum_podcast I can't wait to connect. And remember if you or somebody you know would like to be a guest on the podcast, get in touch ! I love meeting and chatting to mammas from all creative backgrounds, from all around the world! Thank you! Alison acknowledges this Land of the Berrin (Mount Gambier) Region as the Traditional Lands of the Bungandidj People and acknowledge these First Nations people as the custodians of the Region. Ch eck out more episodes ..... Welcome to the Art of Being a mum, the podcast where we hear from mothers who are artists and creators sharing their joys and issues around trying to be a mother and continue to make art. Regular topics include mum guilt, identity, the day to day juggle mental health, and how children manifest in their art. My name is Alison Newman. I'm a singer songwriter, and a mum of two boys from regional South Australia. I have a passion for mental wellness, and a background in early childhood education. You can find links to my guests and topics they discuss in the show notes, along with music played a link to follow the podcast on Instagram, and how to get in touch. All music used on the podcast is done so with permission. The art of being a mom acknowledges the bow and tick people as the traditional custodians of the land and water which this podcast is recorded on and pays respects to the relationship the traditional owners have with the land and water as well as acknowledging past present and emerging elders. Semi Lang semi is a mixed media paper artist living and working in Phoenix, Arizona, and she's a mom of two children. Semi grew up in a creative home and sees art and creativity as a fully incorporated part of family life, with her children having access to her studio. Her paper artwork is made of hundreds and sometimes 1000s of paper circles and shapes stitched together. Each shape is hand cut by Sammy with scissors died multiple times in waterbirds. And then dried, taped and stitched Sammy has worked with paper dyeing for over 14 years. She's also done furniture painting, drawing, collage and printmaking. After an evacuation of our hometown of Santa Rosa, California in 2017 semis family was blessed to have their home spared after the Tubbs fire swept through the city, and burned down over 5000 homes. This life changing event for Sammy to reevaluate her art practice, reflect on what is truly important. And what makes a thoughtful piece of art worth making. This episode contains discussions around postnatal depression and anxiety. Thank you so much for doing this. So it's just lovely to meet you and to have you on so much for having me. I'm so excited. So you're in Phoenix, Arizona. So what's it like there at the moment? Is it is it cold and snowing or anything? Live it? So Gloria, so in Phoenix, it doesn't usually snow, I mean, not really a couple hours north it will. But here it's about 65 degrees in January, that's about 18 degrees Celsius. And it's just so glorious. It's basically the perfect time and weather. We've only lived here for about a year and a half, we essentially moved the day everything shut down when the pandemic started. That's when we moved out of state. Yeah, so it was a little bit of a wild ride. And it was very, very hot, like 120 degrees for what felt like two straight months, and that's about 48 degrees Celsius. But they always joke that the whole state is air conditioned. And you know, it was a little bit better this last summer. So we transitioned really well now, I think. So where were you before? Where did you move from? We were in Northern California, and I was there for close to 20 years. So as a little bit of a change of pace, but the fires hit where we were at. And so we just we kept having to evacuate. And we knew a lot of people that were losing their houses, and we just eventually decided that we really couldn't raise our kids there. You know, we just we just was really stressful. And so I was actually a tenured librarian there. And I decided, okay, I'm giving up tenure, we're just going to start over, we'll just do whatever. And so we put our house on the market even before I had a job. And then thankfully, everything worked out because then the pandemic hit, and then the job almost didn't come through. And so it was a little wild there for a while, but we're settled. And, you know, we're grateful that we've kind of had, you know, as much luck as we've had, but I mean, you know, it's been rough for all moms everywhere. Oh, yeah, goodness. Yeah, that sounds really scary. The fire's like, we've got like, we get quite a lot of bushfires here in Australia, so I can appreciate what you say. I've never been in that position personally, but I'd certainly understand what you're saying. We had to evacuate. We actually chose to be one day and then that afternoon all of the police came around our neighborhood and told everyone to get out. Well, there was one night where we were we were thinking about if we wanted to or if our home was going to burn down we didn't know and And we're kind of reflecting like what choices we wish we'd made. You know, that was 2017. So was the Tubbs fire. So I had a lot of friends and colleagues lose their homes in that fire and it just sort of hit randomly. Yeah, I remember that night thinking about the studio and thinking about my work and be like, well, that's okay. If we lose everything, you know, that's fine. We're safe, which of course, that's, you know, the truth. And then we got back and it just was this very surreal experience. There was ash everywhere, you know, and then I went into the studio, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, like, it made me question everything. And of course, the whole community was in trauma, and then it just kept happening. You know, it just kept like, every year we would evacuate and then someone else we knew would lose their house. And it was a really stressful way to live. I don't know how people do that year after year, and it dangerous things like that. So you are a paper artist, I've never chatted to anybody that does your kind of art. So this is cool. Can you tell me about what you do in the process and all that kind of stuff? I would love to and I it's so funny. I have such a hard time deciding what to call myself. Occasionally, when I'll send out emails, it'll say simulating paper artists. And then next week, I'll send you mixed media, paper artists. And then I'll say print maker and mixed media artists. You know, it's just, I mean, when I think of paper artists, I don't think of my work, but I'm making work out of paper. So I'm actually a printmaker, which is kind of where the mixed media piece comes in. I I consider myself conceptually a print maker by trade. And that was what my BFA was in. That's what I went to school for. And about 15 years ago, I did some assistantships at print and press workshop called Frog man's in the US. And it's this amazing workshop. And it lasts for two weeks. And I had gotten an assistantship for three weeks. And so you go and then you kind of help run a class. Yeah, so I had been in a class with an artist, Tim high. And he does these amazing screen prints. And what's so interesting is he basically takes like a wood stipple. So it's kind of as almost a sharp as like a very sharp pencil point. And he'll block out the parts. And he basically stippled an entire scene in a gradation gradient of screen printing, which is just insane from a technical standpoint. But he would start that by dyeing the paper, which I loved, because it's like, instead of being a white printmaking paper, you just went to pastel yellow, or you just went to PDH, or, you know, and he would kind of just let the process flow. And so that was the first introduction, I got to the paper, dyeing it all. And then I sort of like did that, you know, it sort of became this tool that I would use for, I guess, about 11 years, but I kind of didn't know what to do with it. You know, it's like I do a painting. And then there would be this cut shape that I like, glued on the painting. And then I finished me like, okay, but like, why is that glued piece of paper? They're like, what is? Yeah, and so then I then we had the fires. And then I had that night where I thought, gosh, you know, what happens if the studio burns down? That would be okay, so then when I got back, I just had this sensation of thinking, Okay, well, if I was okay with it burning down, then like, what are we doing? You know, at that point, I've been an artist professionally for about 13 years, but I was working in education full time. So it's always on the side. And I just, I thought, Okay, well, maybe this isn't me, it was sort of the first time that I'd ever questioned if I was an artist, or if that was my identity or anything like that. Yeah. And so I took a break, I took like a three month break. And that was the biggest, that was probably the only break I can think of in my entire life of not making art. Yeah. And then I've always had a home studio. And so I did at the time, my kids were really little, they were like two and three. And so we had a baby gate up on that studio, which was a room and I would just I would walk by like 30 times a day because I was always chasing them. And then one day, I saw a little circle that was on the ground. And it's like something clicked and I thought, oh my gosh, the work is the paper like stop putting in a drawing, stop putting in a print, stop putting it on painting, stop doing it. It's just the paper. And so it sort of was this avalanche of creating what I call the paper quilts. I don't really know what to call them but they're basically hundreds and sometimes 1000s of cut paper that I hand cut with scissors, and then I dye them 123 times in water baths I'm just using die in like jars with the shapes put in them and then I dry them. Thankfully in Arizona they dry really quickly. And then I tape them down and then stitch them and so they just kind of become On this piece that's created from, you know, white printmaking paper to start. So that's an incredibly intense, like labor labor intensive process, that's incredible. When it comes to like, choosing your colors, is it just a really intuitive thing, like when you're mixing up your dyes, it's a really intuitive thing. I, sometimes I wish I was a more organized, you know, methodical color picker, sometimes I have this vision that I'm going to make all of these color formulas and have this book and I go through it and I, but it never works. That way, there's something that's so that is so out of my control when I do the water bath. And I feel like the process in general is so controlled, that it's this way that forces me to not have control. And so I need to keep that incorporated. And there will be sometimes I mean, I kind of learned my lesson repeatedly with this because sometimes I'll do you know, a light read or kind of a reddish orange. And then I'll do maybe a deep dark blue purple dye, I don't think this will be so beautiful. And then it comes out and it's basically mud. It's like they died over each other and it looks horrible. And it's like, oh, well, they're just hand cut 100 circles, and then I killed them and that way around. Like, I know that. But there's something kind of exhilarating even though this is not a big risk. It's like this small risk way to have fun. And so because the process and the cutting and the dying is just so a part of our daily lives, I always have a home studio. So it's always like there's something in the die pads or something that I'm cutting. I think when I didn't, didn't do as well, with my time when I was younger in the studio, that would have bothered me. But now I just sort of embrace all the failures. It's almost like I'm trying to fail a lot. Because when I, when I feel big, sometimes I fail forward. And so that really helps my practice. And so even though the work is really tight, there's a ton of play, which is refreshing and you know, uplifting. So, yeah, absolutely. I love that. So does that challenge you like your own thinking then? Like, is that been a process for you to work through of accepting? When things don't work? It's okay, that sort of stuff. Yeah, I think I've had to do that for like seven straight years. I feel like my my youngest is, or my oldest is seven. And I feel like this idea I had, what being an adult was is hysterical. I look back to being a kid and thinking, oh, when you're an adult, you can choose everything. I feel like, you know, I had really bad postpartum depression after my kids were born. And so that was a real shocker. And that lasted for several years. And then kind of right when I sort of came out of that in the fog it cleared and I was feeling good, then the fires hit, then that lasted for like four years, then we you know, we transitioned to an out of state move, I gave up a job that I thought I would basically have my whole career and then a global pandemic hits. So it's like seven years of this like straight sort of, you never know what you're gonna get. And I would say in the past couple of months, it's been sort of exhilarating because I'm just like, Okay, we never know what we're gonna get let's just go for broke in the studio you know, it's like this safe space to just go why Oh, yeah, it's almost like it's just it gives this giving you permission just to just to just take the pressure off and have no expectations because you know, the unknown is there and it could happen at any moment. So it's like well, okay, let's just go for it. Go for hot pink in the water bath. So you've always been a creative person, like as a child and growing up you've always been making? Yeah, I would say it's a it's a serious core identity. I think I mean Some of my earliest memories were like looking at art books. My mom was primarily a stay at home mom. But until I was seven, she was a graphic designer. So some of my earliest memories are going with her. And I'm at the age and she's at the age where nothing was digital. So it was all storyboard. So like, I remember going into her work office and seeing all the transparent paper and the different layers taped down, you know, like, kind of the more old school graphic design. And so she was always doing art stuff with me, and she's more of a realist er. And then I got into I mean, I took art classes all the way up through high school, then I I was doing like furniture, painting and mosaics, I mean, just something always creative. And then college is really where a printmaking head, and I sort of happened into it accidentally, I didn't, I wasn't, I was not planning on being an art major. But then you go to college and things happen, and then I got a BFA so. I was gonna ask you about your children. So you briefly mentioned your oldest is seven. So how many children have you got? I've got two, I've got a girl that seven and a boy that six. Yeah, right. And they are yet the same age as yours. They're hysterical. It's a, I have to say someone told me years ago when mine were babies that these were sort of the golden years. And they were right. I mean, I just I absolutely love, I love that they can tell me what they want. I love that we're past potty training. I love that. They can hold a pencil and a paintbrush, like in a different way. You know, because we do a ton of creative time. I get up early before I go to my librarian job. And I'm in the studio every morning. And we just, I think, I think because I grew up with such a creative mom. And in such a creative household. I never sort of questioned that as, as how you live, you know, it's like, that was how we lived. And my dad worked full time in the government and then retired and became a teacher. And he was always writing, you know, it's like creativity was just the lifestyle. And so I never, I never had any other expectation of what I would be like and how I would raise my kids. And so and we didn't have kids right away. My husband and I, we waited like 10 years not not as a plan, just, that's when we decided we were ready. And you know, and so then I had always been art making. And so then my kids always made art with me. And I remember right before I got married with my husband, we were just talking about this the other day, and I said you remember, like the week before we got married, and we got married really young. I was 21. Or I thought that was young, because I freaked out. I'm like, we're too young. I'm like, This is crazy. We should do this, what are we thinking? And then I said, you know, I just I need to tell you, I'm never going to make less art. I said, I'm not going to get married to you and you know, clean or something like that. I was like, I just need you to know, this is who I am. And you guys I know, this is who you are like, we're good. You know, and granted, I will occasionally clean now. I did go back on that. But but as far as the studio time, it has never changed, you know, and so even when they were babies, it's like they were painting with me and they were in the studio and I've always had a home studio, which I have to say is really really important. I mean, that's just a total game changer. And so there's always we've always had a room that's been my studio, the dedicated space and that it's just super important. You know, we were talking about how you have all your kids artwork. I have drawers in my flat files that are theirs. It's like they know that those are their drawers and there's their paper and there's their work and you know, so it's just kind of how we live I guess which makes it possible to make the work and also work so I'm grateful for that so you get up early, you do some in the morning. Do you do do you then go back to it at night? I do. i i This is so I have this funny story. And it has to do with me wearing a bikini to work, and it will, like we're going on a tangent, but really, it's going to come back, if I can remember to get us back, it's gonna come back. So Right. So right after my son was born as a college librarian, you do a lot of teaching. And so I had gone back, and I had both my kids at my last job when I was on the tenure track. So I had, you know, I was trying to get tenure, I was teaching or student observations. And I was teaching a class and I was wearing, I remember this beautiful blue linen dress, it was so beautiful. And underneath that I was wearing a bikini, because I had just returned to work. And I had not done laundry. And so I remember be teaching in this class, and like, you know, pointing to something on the screen. And in my mind, I'm thinking about this bikini that I'm wearing, and the fact that I have no backup bikini. And it's not like it was a bikini that fit. It was like the pre pregnancy bikini. So it's like, dire, you know, and so I'm, I'm like, Okay, what should I do? I had to stay late teaching that I'm like, should I go to Target and buy a backup backup bikini, or should I, like I because I didn't have time to do laundry, like, forget that they were the kids are gonna be up all night. At that point, my son was five months old. And my daughter was 19 months. Yeah. And I was like trying to, you know, teach and all this stuff. So then as I'm trying to teach this class, I'm like, You know what, clearly, this isn't working. Like you need to figure out a way to change your schedule, cut stuff out, do whatever it takes, so that you're not thinking about backup bikini is like is your emergency work plan. And so I ended up just getting totally into productivity research, and like trying all these different time hacks and all this stuff. It got to such a point that then I started talking about it so much at work that then one of my supervisors was like, Could you start doing some productivity trainings, then I started making videos and classes and like kind of creating these mini cohorts. And so then I started doing all these very enjoyable, small groups about productivity and how we think about our energy and what choices we make. And that how much time and energy our decisions take us and cognitive load, and like, and all that stuff. And so that kind of helped me reset everything after my kids were born. So I started just really focusing on the art making, as opposed to worrying about this idea that the dishes had to be done, or this idea that like, there was one year where one of my strategies was, I thought, I don't need matching socks, who cares if I have matching socks, so I stopped doing all map all socks hurting, like, you know, but then I realized I'm like, You know what people actually can see your socks. Like, maybe that's not the strategy that you want to do, you know, like, a snowflake sock. And like, you know, like, so. So anyways, I tried a whole bunch of stuff. And I ended up cutting a whole bunch of things out. And then kind of over the last year, I realized that I had gotten really, really good about managing the time so that I could have studio time and Eve, like in the morning and night. But then I realized I was tired at night. And I was like, alright, well, what's the deal, like, You got everything down, you need to get down and you have this time. So what's the block and so then I just sort of started paying more attention to my energy. You know, like, when we're at the park, normally I'm, you know, talking to the kids and engaging with the kids and, and then I started taking more photos, there's some really beautiful photos on my camera, things like bark, you know, things that are kind of make, they're the textures, and colors and stuff that will eventually make themselves, you know, back into the studio and back into my water baths and things like that. And so it just sort of started checking in a little bit more about how I was feeling and how my energy was, which one makes me a lot more patient. And two, I feel like then it gives me that little push so that when the kids are asleep, then I can go in and do like 30 minutes in the studio and listen to a podcast or, you know, Pandora or like just a little music, and then I can go to bed. And then when I get up early, I'm ready to roll. You know, like that early time with coffee in the studio. That's probably my favorite time of day. Aside from the hysterical jokes and questions were like, I don't know how to answer that. And I know you're six. But I don't know how to answer that was like constant skill testing as a parent, like, what's the answer here? When when Diggs asked me he asked me really wacky question the other day, and I had I could not think of a thing and I said, Well, what do you think? Because I just thought, I cannot think of anything to say, Hey, this is ridiculous. And then he came out with this great big, long winded explanation. Excellent. That sounds good on you. So we're going to use that strategy. My daughter asked me last week, how was man created? She gets one question at bedtime. And I'm like, um, what was your other question? Oh, you know, using your strategy. It's dates, definitely. Because then the main probably bedtimes not the greatest time for it because it gets them thinking again, but Why is that at bedtime? All these questions come out? It's like I wrote this ridiculous Facebook post years ago. And I don't know how I can remember exactly what it was now but Digby asked, How do you make bricks? What is this thing happened where the colors come from? He clearly thought of the language why do we talk in this accent? All this stuff just one after the other understanding going tomorrow we'll do this tomorrow so I'm guessing the the, the key dyes and stuff that you use then like non toxic and stuff like were you able to keep keep doing that while you were pregnant? Like there was no sort of worry there. So I use red dye, you know that really, really common dye that you can find with fabric and at all the craft stores and, and I've used both powder and liquid but right now I primarily use liquid. And as a printmaker, you know, I just threw down the hours in the studio, I mean, I would go to the shop and be there for like 12 hours, and I would leave with these horrible migraines. And so when I graduated college, I just decided I wanted a totally non toxic studio. So after college, I transitioned to essentially everything non toxic, non toxic print inks, acrylic paint, you know, so, and that was kind of part of the plan with having a home studio was that I wanted everything to just be comfortable. And so I've never fortunately had to transition any of the materials when I was pregnant, I could just use everything. Yeah, so that's been really, really helpful. Just having the kids around, and they use all my supplies. I ran into a photo the other day, my son when he was two, and he had, you know, those little edges, sketch those magnetic things gone. So he was too and he hadn't shirt off. And he was so proudly holding up on his little belly, that I just sketch with, like some circles cut on it. And at the time, I was excluded or drawn on it. I was exclusively doing circles. So he was like, so proud that he had his circle. And then I started finding and we got them into looking back, probably they were really little we got them into using kid scissors really young. Yeah. And so I would find these really jagged edges, like circle square shaped things in with my servers. I'm like, Oh, he was contributing to my pile, like he got on scissors. And so it's nice, because they just think they make merit. And sometimes I'll find these piles of glue and circles. And they're mine on like, something I'm like I didn't make has been in here stealing my materials. But it's pretty, that's beautiful. Isn't it like that, obviously, it's, you know, they see it, and it's made such an impact on them and that they want to they're a part of it, you know, that's their way of being a part of it. And that's lovely that they're welcomed into that space that they they can be there. And it's not like oh, you have to stay out because it's either it's not safe, or I don't want you to touch or whatever. Like it. That's lovely. It's such a beautiful environment. They're like little human bodies of glue. It's like wherever you go. They go. Attached to I had a funny conversation with my daughter the other day. We have, I have these rules. Like one rule is don't talk to mom while she's in the bathroom. So that's to me, like even if I don't need to go the bathroom. That's a safe space. So I was walking to the bathroom. I've I like announced I put my arms up and they go, I'm going to the bathroom. My arms are up. I'm like announcing to the household. And I'm walking and she's finally and I'm walking and I go I'm going to the bathroom. She's following still talking. I go I'm going to the bathroom and she goes, Yes. And she stops and she kind of puts her finger up and she goes, but you're not in the bathroom. And I go you know what? You're ready. You are so right. Okay, what do you need so that I can go to the bathroom? Oh my gosh, it was so hysterical. That's gold and not bad. You're listening to the art of being a mom with my mom, Alison Newman. So if you don't mind would Is it okay if we talk a little bit bit about your postpartum depression? Is that okay? Talk? Yeah. Yeah, I can definitely relate, I had had it bad with the first one, but super bad with the second one. So. So did you did you find at that point that you are either ramped up or sort of went the other way and decreased? How did that sort of impact? Ya? know, I've always been pretty consistent with the practice, I think, I honestly don't even remember. I mean, that was such a dark time, but I probably leaned into it more at that, at that time, I wasn't doing the paper quotes, I was still doing a lot of drawing and a lot of hand printed printmaking. I do remember because I had kind of tried everything for the postpartum depression, you know, it's like, everything that you were supposed to do, I just, I feel like I was in a hole. And I was like, trying to climb out of it. And, I mean, I did the journaling, and I did the exercise, and I get I got a therapist, and I, you know, I did the art and I did the walking like, I just, I tried everything and, and for me, I just kind of had to wait it out. You know, it's like, I did everything so long, and so consistently, and then one day, the fog just sort of cleared. But it wasn't like a switch, it just was like, gradually, eventually, everything sort of worked. And I had a therapist at the time. And I use this a lot. So my work is so much about color, you know, it's so much about color, and emotion and color really brings out, you know, feelings. And so she would say to me sometimes she said, we'll just sit there, you know, because we would talk about my art. And she would say what color are you? You know, and I would have to think about well, what color do I feel like? Am I read on my, you know, what color do I want to be? And so I started meditating a lot at that time, too. That was one of the strategies. And so then when the fires hit, and we came back, and everything switched to the paper quilts, I used a lot of the quilting as meditations, you know. And so a lot of those blues and most common greens, that was kind of what I hit first, because it's like, I just needed the space to sort of watch my community heal, to see what was gonna happen, you know, was such a shock. So I, I really did make a lot of art, but not necessarily that much different. I've just been this massive producer, I used to try and recycle everything because I used to make a lot of really ugly, like a really hideous work. I mean, I didn't like it, but it was like I was trying to get to something. And so I'm finally at the place where I'm making what I want to make. But I mean, it was like, it was like 12 years of just junk. And I would put it in the recycling bin and I would like tear it off and throw on the trash. Like that was nice when I transitioned to non toxic because I feel like I could recycle more stuff. But, you know, it was a real push there. And I just kind of had to wait it out. Yeah. Good on you. You obviously had a lot of support that time. Yeah. Husband helping out a lot. Yeah, I'm an only child. And my parents were, you know, in really close with them. When we moved from California to Arizona, we actually said that I'm like, Are you coming? Because you know, we kind of need you to come like are you going to come in. So now and they came. They're now neighbors. So they knew Yeah, it's just amazing. And so they knew what was going on. And I had some really close friends that knew what was going on. And then my husband, I kind of hit the jackpot. And he's the Marriage and Family Therapist. So he like kind of had this language, you know, there's a sort of a therapist language that he has never he can help me identify things or talk to things and, and you know, therapy is actually really hard. I mean, therapy is really charged to especially if you're going through something like postpartum depression. And it's funny, but like, I basically found the therapist that I needed to help me through that time. And it was so hard that she was just an amazing person. But I think sometimes people need therapy and they try a therapist, and then it's not the therapist, they should do it. So then they think therapy doesn't work. Yes, I'm grateful that I had a husband who could be like, well, you need support. And so why don't you find a therapist, but then if you don't like that person, keep looking. And so even that is a simple idea. I have no I had never heard of that. I would have never known that. You know and so, so I kind of had everything going for me as far as like the support network, which I'm super grateful for. Yeah, it's hard. Like transitioning from motherhood and having postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety. It's hard. Yep, absolutely. Oh, yeah. Talking about that transition, like, did your identity or how you saw yourself did that sort of go through some some adjustment, then as well, I think mine was more of an adjustment that I will not be able to plan myself into a relaxed life. It's like I'm such a planner, in life in general, and I am one of the most efficient people. And so it's sort of like, well take that really nice attractive schedule to do you write that up, you throw it up in the air, and you see what lands a chair, and then that's what you're going to do that. So I think just that idea of being flexible, and now I've, I would say I'm very comfortable with it. I also think that now that my kids are a little bit older, and now that, you know, we do so much creative stuff that actually really helps a lot. There was so much diaper changing and breastfeeding and like, oh my gosh, what am I supposed to do with that? Oh, my gosh, what do I do with the crying or that this or that getting up, or those sort of walking zombie exhaustion in those early years. And my kids are so close that it was like, we had an under two for three straight years. I mean, they're 13 months apart. And so just the sleep deprivation, it was like a free for all, you know, it was just like, What day is it? Yeah. So I've really acclimated. And I've really, they're really good sleepers. Now, I kind of have one night owl and one early bird, which is okay. Because there's like a solid time in there to sleep. So I think just my idea of getting stuff done how to transition. But as far as the creative part, or, you know, I kind of never lost that part of the identity that just sort of carried through with me, yeah. One of the topics I really like talking about is mum guilt. And I'm going to I'm guessing that it's sort of, from who other people have talked to you from America, that it's something that's quite universal? Is that something you've ever experienced? Or sort of? What's your opinion on that? I love this question. And the reason I love it is because of course I listen to your podcast, and there's a couple artists and creatives that you've had on that say they don't have it. And then Mike, Ooh, what's that, like? Triumph on that idea. And I think no, can't even can't even put it on. It's like a try. And I just, I feel like I could sprinkle mom guilt across the world. And that's leftover like. So then after, after I hear all these other people say that they don't have it. I'm like, Okay, well, what is mom guilt to me? You know, because then it's like, kind of this really interesting question of like, well, what is that mean? And? And then when do I have it, and I never have it with the creative stuff. I think it comes back to you know, when I talked about sort of the core identity of being a creative and like, this is a lifestyle, instead of a choice. Yeah. And so I think where I have had the most trouble with mom guilt is, I feel like I always want to look at each individual kid, and try and make the best choice for that kid, you know, and in the pandemic, I feel like there were no good choices. You know, it's like we wanted to pod we moved here, one to get away from the bears, but to also to be with my grandparents and family. And, you know, we chose to pod with them during the podcast. Until then that meant online school. And we didn't want to do zoom school because we didn't think that would work for our kids. So then we didn't you know, so it's like you, you pick, you keep picking the best choice of all these choices you just don't want and so then we ended up homeschooling my six year old son in kindergarten, you know, it's like, it just gets to this point where you're like, Well, how did we get here? And it's sort of, I think that's where my mom guilt goes up, like, Okay, I want us to eat healthy, but I, I don't want to argue about this cookie or you know, it's like just those little things that then by the end of the day, you're tired. And so I'm always trying to tell myself well, that's okay. Because you're gonna refresh at night like get back, good sleep if you can, and then just start over and start fresh. So the module is more about just trying to look at every like, look at every like I have, like 10 look at each one of my kids. And just try and do the best by them. Yeah, if I had more or a dog, heaven forbid, like, I'm, I'm working on it to do. Yeah, I actually thought when I, when we talked, when I was leading up to ask the question, I thought to myself, I don't think you're gonna have any guilt related to your artwork, just because it's part of your life, your children are included in it. You're not doing your art at the detriment of anybody else. So I knew that was coming. Yeah. So it's so funny, you knew that because I had to process it. I was like, What would my answer be to this? Because in my mind, I'm like I've done so long ago. But then when I started noticing what it was, it was really those small individual things, you know, that just add up, and then you feel this collective weight? Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting, you say about, you know, resetting the next day. But this is, this is the same sort of topic that came up with another lady that I interviewed just the other day, and was saying the same thing. It's like, you when the kids were little, you always knew the sun would rise. And you could start again, and see what happens if you just wipe the slate clean and start again, the next day, and then you felt like you were doing that every day. You know, there's always hope, because you can have that time to reset and then off, you go again. Or there's a locked door to our chocolate, like whatever it takes. I'm here and yet. So have you got some projects that you're working on at the moment that anything in particular that you want to share with us about that up? Yeah, I have a magazine article that I'm working on. So I'm working on a feature article for women's artists magazine, which I'm super excited about. I just got invited last week to a local show, which I'm super excited about in Chandler, Arizona. And then last year, in the last quarter, I just got invited to practical art, which is this absolutely amazing and really neat community of artists. And it's like a gallery and a little art shop in Phoenix, Arizona, and they just love them. It's about 100 local artists. And so now I'm one of their artisans that's featured at their shop, and they're open, which is nice. And so they have like gallery exhibits all the time and sort of like wearable, livable art. So yeah. Oh, that's psycho. So you're very active in your, like, your local community with your art, getting it out there. And, yeah, I'm really trying to be you know, it was odd moving in a pandemic, and then trying to build an in person community. So we kind of, but now I feel like you know, we're almost two years and I am back physically in work at my library and job, which is just glorious. It's so nice to work with people in person. I've just been trying to make as many connections as I can in Arizona and in Phoenix, I want to start going to shows and, you know, just really trying to connect with this art community, it makes such a difference. As an artist, being a member of a community. It's so inspiring studio time can be really lonely, even if you've got kids in there. And you know, it's like, even if you have a ton of ideas, it's just so nice to see other people's work and their creative energy and support them too. So I'm looking forward to doing that more. Yes, thanks. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, someone else I spoke to talk to about how their art changes when they do when they're not in isolation, like when you're around other people. And even if you're not doing the same style of art, you can sort of feed off each other and someone might make a comment about your piece. And it's like, you can take it in another direction that you never thought of, you know, having a fresh pair of eyes look at it or someone that has no understanding of your what you do that, you know, it's can be really good thing. So 100% agree and a lot of my pushes have been based on just sort of one side comment or one observation and right now my stuff, I don't know where it's going, but it used to be behind the frame. And now it's out from behind the frame. And it's just sort of, you know, the open so you can see all the texture and nothing is protecting it. It's just hanging on the wall and then it sort of getting into these more sculptural pieces for the while and stitched in wood and so we'll see where it goes. We're still in experimental phase, but that was just kind of Based on one person's comment of how nice it was to see the texture, and sort of have more visual access to it, so it's always so interesting what creative juices are flowing from other people's comments and their minds. And yeah, absolutely, you put that very well. I couldn't find the words what I was trying to say. It's still early IV. It's not really bad. I'm, is it over there? Well, it's nearly 10 o'clock. But you know, it's early, let's do it. That's early. That first time that you saw that circle, and then you went into down that path? Is there anything you sort of find an imagery of the circle? Do you find yourself like, is there any deeper meaning in that, that circle for you? There initially was, you know, when I started doing the circles, when I started cutting the circles, it was only circles. I mean, it was only circles. And I was, in my mind, because I'm such a, I'm such a planner to the court was like, I'm going to cut circles for the rest of my life. And I will be a circle cutter. Like, I just, I go really deep in this stuff. Like, this is the plan. Yeah. And so, and I remember walking, I walk a lot with my dad. And I remember one day, he's like, Have you ever considered like, a square? And I stopped, and I looked at him, and I was like, why would I do that? Like, I cut circles. We have very funny conversations. And we're, he's a very enjoyable, and it's funny, because now I cut every shape, you know, it's like, I don't want to give him credit for that. But, you know, it's sort of like there was, there was something that was so meaningful about it never ending, you know, there was something that was very peaceful. And with all the meditation, when I first started doing all the circles and all the die, I had a totally silent studio. So I wouldn't listen to music, you know, it's like, I just used it as a full meditation. And so it's like, you could also because I was hand cutting these, and now the circles are really clean, you know, they're very circular. But when I started, I was making really bad circles, ovals. These, like lobby egg things, you know, it's like, it takes you a while to kind of clean up your, your free hand cutting. And so there was something that was so also freeing, where you could just keep editing, it's like, you just keep cutting that circle around and around and around until it looks like something that it should look like. And so I think that was really peaceful. And so it was just more sort of this personal process of meditation, and kind of getting, you know, back into the studio and back into making what I wanted to make. But there's not like a final symbol of it just being a circle. I mean, I know, there's a lot of, you know, like eternity symbols and like the circle of life and things like that, but not from a conceptual standpoint. And now I'm doing just all different shapes and trying out different dye techniques, and just sort of really experimenting with what imagery comes out. And the colors and the my palette is never consistent. I mean, it's like, it'll be hot pink and black, or you know, and I'm starting to incorporate a lot more of my printmaking. That's kind of the direction that I'm going and then doing a lot of hand printing now and then drawing the circles and then printing on top, and then taping and then stitching. And so just the processes the process, I guess that's lovely. It's quite freeing, isn't it just to be able to say, I'm going to do it this way? Or I'm going to do it that way. And that's probably probably you mean, you don't want to give the guy credit for it. But it's probably good that he said that, because it sort of gives you permission to say, well, this isn't what I'm going to do forever. I can fiddle around and and try different things and different techniques. So yeah, thanks. Thank you, Dan. So when it comes to retail, you've got all these these shapes, they're dyed, and they're ready to go. What's your sort of thinking or your process when it comes to laying them out deciding where they're going to, to lie on the paper. So there's a lot of decision, there's probably like 10 or 12 important decision points, but one of the most important is how big the final piece is going to be. Because because I don't use formulas. All the dyes are really specific. So it's like I'll die 400 things. And then okay, you have 400 things, so I didn't so I'm kind of thinking about how large I want that final piece to be before I ever even do it and then usually I'll make templates. You know, I'll cut out paper. I do a lot of drawing in my sketchbook that never makes it to Instagram because it's nothing that anybody wants to look at my guiding path and so I I kind of know all the shapes that are going to be and I Use color a lot just to think about the world. I, you know, I work in education. And sometimes education gets a little contentious people get really in, you know, rightly so about certain issues. And I've been in some very contentious meetings before and environments that are really stressful. And to try and sort of step back from some of that stress, I usually go to color. And so sometimes I'll just ask these not almost nonsensical questions of like, if that person was like, a blob of color, what would it be right now, you know, and so it's like, I'm constantly kind of drawing out these visuals or asking these questions are like relating things into shapes. And so some of that comes out into the work. Some of it is just that I'll be on a walk, and I'll see a visual or I'll see a gradation with, you know, a cactus, and then its variation with what's on the ground. And I'll take a picture of that. And then those are the two colors that end up in the work or the piece, and then part of that line, or that shape, or that feeling, then is the shape that shows up in the piece. So a lot of it is a reflection of what I'm seeing, and what photos that I'm taking or how I'm cropping things. Basically, I try and pull inspiration from everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, I will say to that, even though I'm super intentional, there's always an element of surprise, because when you dye stuff, you're putting it in the full water bath. So there's always two sides. It's like, I might, you know, do a pink and around, but then I pulled the water back, I pulled it out really quickly for half of the batch, and I left it in overnight for the other half the batch. Even though the overall shape might have been a circle, what I end up with is like a really beautiful, soft brown and pink combo, and then like an almost black and pink combo. And so then I might decide when I'm laying it out, but then it's going to be striped. Yeah, it's sort of like I'm making a decision every single time even though I have the templates, and I have the overall colors. And those are fixed. Yeah, then I'm still doing a ton of experimentation. And then I actually take the back of it, flip it over, and then I obviously am stitching the top. Yeah. Ben from the top. So what sort of material do you use to stitch with? Like, whoa, you know, I have a brand. Let me look, I think it's the Lisbeth I do used a lot of different threads. And I had a quite a bit of difficulty over the pandemic, finding some of the papers and threads that I was using, like with production delays and stuff. So I ended up switching to Lisbeth thread, which I pretty much only use now it's, this will sound funny, but it's actually super important. They, they treat it in a way I think it's something called gasps injure, it's some process that they do that makes the thread rounder. So when I'm stitching with it, you know how sometimes of embroidery thread when you stitch it on paper or wood or something and you stretch it out. It's sort of like it lays flat. I know that that's a very detailed observation. But I need it to be round, because the mark making is important. I choose the colors of the thread really carefully. If I don't have a color of thread, then I die. I individually hand die the thread. And so I want that crisp color. And it just needs to pop like that, because it's sort of like I'm drawing on the paper boats, but it happens to be with thread. And so that I'm I now just exclusively use that thread. Yeah, so you want it to sort of have that three dimension where it actually sits up a bit. It's not, it doesn't fade into the work, it's sort of up on top of it. So adds that texture as well. I just hope that people keep going, I think, you know, I think I struggled for so many years making such bad work for so long. Because I could have given up like at so many points. And I'm grateful that I did it because I I honestly feel like it took me 13 or 14 years to figure out the type of work that I wanted to make. And so sometimes I just I think people really have to be in it for the long haul and just sort of the eye on the prize is that you'll find your path whenever it decides to show up. And I'm so grateful that I kind of had the practice you know, the practice of just showing up to the studio and making really bad work for many many years. So that I could kind of come into this nice space you know, now like, not the physical space but just the emotional space with my kids. You know, now we can share it and now it's kind of this enjoyable thing. That and I just I'm so enjoying your podcast. So listen to other mothers like honestly It just being a mother being a creative is so lonely sometimes. And so hearing podcasts of other women creatives, it's just awesome. You're just you're doing such a nice job. I just love it. Thank you. I appreciate that. And that's a sentiment that a lot of women have said that it's like, it's so nice to hear that other people are going through the same thing. Because it like even a lady that I spoke to the other night both in Belfast, not Belfast, Dublin, in Ireland. And she said, it's lovely to hear that everyone around the world is going through it too. You know, it's just this universal thing that we're all struggling with. And yeah, it's that support in knowing that we're not alone is just so important. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, that's a beautiful night to finish our phone. Thank you so much, sir. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Thanks for your company today. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd love you to consider leaving us a review, following or subscribing to the podcast, or even sharing it with a friend who you think might be interested. If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the podcast. Please get in touch with us via the link in the show notes. I'll catch you again next week for another chat with an artistic mum.

Season 1 Special Season 1 recap Special Listen and Subscribe on itunes , spotify and google podcasts A look back at my guests during Season 1 and a reflection on the origins of the podcast. The seeds for this podcast were sown early in 2021 when I had a lot of time on my hands, and more than the usual number of children in my home. I was finding it really challenging to create the ideal space which I needed to be able to make my music. Realising that I needed a little bit of a shift in my perceptions, and perhaps a little help, I decided to reach out to an artistic mum who was a friend of mine and find out just how she was doing it. From them I thought, I wonder if other mums would like to hear how other mums are doing it ! Thus the podcast was born. I have thoroughly enjoyed my chats with creative mum, and a few dads too, over the course of these past 6 months. I have found it incredibly interesting and insightful, having learned so many new things about topics that I would never have learned about, and meeting some amazing people too. And I have managed to change my perception and shift my thinking on a number of issues, and I hope this has been the same for you. Here’s a little wrap up of some of my favourite quotes from the episodes which made up Season 1, 2021 I hope you enjoy. Connect with the podcast here https://www.instagram.com/artofbeingamum_podcast/ Music used with permission from Alemjo https://open.spotify.com/artist/4dZXIybyIhDog7c6Oahoc3?si=pTHGHD20TWe08KDHtSWFjg&nd=1 Podcast transcript at the bottom of the page Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Art of Being A Mum Podcast. I'm beyond honoured that you're here and would be grateful if you could take 2 minutes to leave me a 5-star review in iTunes or wherever you are listening. It really helps! This way together we can inspire, connect and bring in to the light even more stories from creative mums. Want to connect? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram tagging me in with @art_of_being_a_mum_podcast I can't wait to connect. And remember if you or somebody you know would like to be a guest on the podcast, get in touch ! I love meeting and chatting to mammas from all creative backgrounds, from all around the world! Thank you! Alison acknowledges this Land of the Berrin (Mount Gambier) Region as the Traditional Lands of the Bungandidj People and acknowledge these First Nations people as the custodians of the Region. Ch eck out more episodes ..... Welcome to this special episode of The Art of Being a mom, the podcast where we hear from mothers who are artists and creators sharing their joys and issues around trying to be a mother and continue to make that art. My name is Alison Newman. I'm a singer, songwriter, and mother of two boys from regional South Australia, I have a passion for mental wellness, and a background in early childhood education. The seeds for this podcast was sown early in 2021. When I had a lot of time on my hands, and more than the usual number of children in my home, I was finding it really challenging to create the ideal space which I needed to be able to make my music. Realizing that I needed a little bit of a shift in my perceptions, and perhaps a little help, I decided to reach out to an artistic mom who was a friend of mine, and find out just how she was doing it. And from then I thought, I wonder if other mums would like to hear how they're doing it. And also what other mums are doing. Thus, the podcast was born. I have thoroughly enjoyed my chats with creative mums, and a few dads too. Over the course of these past six months, I have found it incredibly interesting and insightful, having learned so many new things, about topics that I would never have learned about, and meeting some amazing people too. And I have managed to change my perceptions, and shift my thinking on a number of issues. And I hope this has been the same for you. Here's a little wrap up of some of my favorite quotes from the episodes that made up season 120 21 I hope you enjoy. What's interesting to me with hindsight, perhaps is that we'd hit this sort of point where our mothers had been the first generation of the second wave feminists. And so we'd been told a lot about what our expectations for our life could be, you know, what, that we could have it all, you know, all of those messages that that we were getting, and the sense of freedom and ambition that we all have, and should have. And then suddenly we have children and realize how compromised that can be. And that that is an age old problem and not really an easy problem to solve. So feminism or for you know, no matter how liberated you are. So the fact is we we love our children, and we want to be there for them. And our children love us and I desperately attached to us. And therefore finding space and time for something that we want to do for ourselves is incredibly difficult. Yeah, I don't know, I just it wasn't for me, not the newborn thing. I've loved their ages now, but would literally prefer to walk the depths of hell than have a newborn again. I'm not even kidding. Yeah, you can. I'd also think it's part of modeling, modeling behaviors around the things that you're passionate about. I think it's good if they can see that. Those things are priorities in our lives, that don't take away from their experiences. But in addition to that, it shows them how to care for that part of their life, the artists that they are. So yeah, I think it's important that the kids see that and see how that can happen if I really, really had felt that guilty, when I stopped doing what I was doing, deep down, I knew that what I was doing was giving me purpose and lining me up from within. And you know that old cliche making me a better mother. Deep down, I know that whenever things whenever I had a right to feel guilty whenever it really was affecting my children. I changed I let go of it. I moved away from it, I let it go every single time. So I kind of feel like you know I need with the time that I've got especially now I'm working full time. I need to be spending more time with my children now while they're young. Making sure I have that connection. But my husband always you know, he's really good. He'll go away. They love you. You know, they really love you. Remember when you weren't feeling well, and they were all worried about you. You know, they really love you don't worry. So my husband tries to sort of, you know, say no, don't worry, don't stress ratio are you here ratio me? Yeah Facebook keeps reminded me of my what my life used to be before Saturday nights at shadows or little adventures I used to do back in the day you know is a total lifetime ago for me. Yeah, and I guess when you do become a mom, you have to let go of that life. Yeah. You your your life comes second to your kids law. Development and their their health and well being is above above yours Yeah. But you do have to keep it leveled enough that you are your best self where you're at can't be can't be distant. You can't be unwell. You've got to be that for therefore them which I guess I've learned from the past that are needed for my kids first to get out of that for them. Yeah. Have you feel that mum guilt? Oh, it is real is definitely I observe it a lot with stuff. People around me say about others to like, Oh, she's doing his job. I was like, maybe she needs to do that. Like, I used to probably be the same in thinking that and it's taught me a lot that that might be her hour that she needs just to feel like a human and be a better mom. So it's been a lot lots of work to pick up on your own. Like, where you're being critical of others, where you like, oh, that's maybe I'm envious of that. Or, you know, I don't really know her story, but it's because they're like, We can't do anything. So you can spend too much time with kids and not and not do anything for yourself. I can spend too much on yourself and nothing for your kids like it's it's a losing battle the same time my writing have changed? Definitely. Yeah. I have a collection of songs I have a new body of work that I'm I've started recording. And it's it's very much inspired by motherhood and and relationships with my own mother and, and grief and, and yeah, identity and belonging and home. And I don't think I would have explored those themes. Pre children. I don't I don't pray children. My songs weren't all about love and breakups. You know, a number that were and then under that still I you know, but I don't think I would have been inspired to explore those really personal relationships, family relationships, had I not experienced that enlarging of your family, you know? To me, being a mum is the best thing I have ever done. It is just the biggest blessing. And I'm always it's always in the back of my head, that they're only this little months, like they're growing so fast. And it might not be everyone's cup of tea or how they want to do things. But I have just loved being there and doing that. I think. Yeah, I mean, I'd have 100 kids if I could. I'm not 100 Actually that that would. Yeah, maybe 90. If you were talking to me about an experience that you'd had, like, let's say, you were finding it hard, giving yourself time to do something. My advice to you would be Alson you're still the person you were before you had a baby. Get out there, you know, you need to spend some time on yourself. So I can give some great advice. But so I would like to say that I don't believe in mom guilt. But I've experienced it. So I think it's definitely it's there. I still have moments, even today where I feel like I could be doing better. I should be making a different decision. I think it's I think it's incredibly real. I think it would be great if it wasn't but I think we would be kidding ourselves if we said that it wasn't a real thing. Because yeah, I have felt it. I've probably even been in a category of martyrdom martyrdom. Is that what they call it? Where Yeah, yeah. Are you just real? sacrifice yourself, for somebody else. And yeah, it's really interesting because like, I've had an understanding prior to having jack of how important it is to look after yourself and to put yourself first and to know that that's actually not being. It's not being selfish. It's like, probably the purest form of self love, is to be able to put yourself before somebody else. But then falling into motherhood and, yeah, it's just a real, like, it just, it up ends that belief. And I think, for me, it probably just, it just happened. Like it was just, I think, a change of lifestyle, knowing that I had a little baby that was like, 100% reliant on me. And I felt I just sacrificed myself. I imagine for women, especially having kids, it's so important to nurture those kids, and you seem to be putting everything into the children, I know, from seeing it firsthand, through my wife that she puts everything into our kids and your wonder like, now I've you know, she's focused on going back to studying more nursing and, and, and that's something that she's passionate about, she loves, so we make time to fit her, you know, things that she needs to do to into into her life, if you don't have an outlet somewhere or a passion, and you've got nowhere to you know, to do it, and it builds up and you know, probably can end up being the falling down of your marriage because you just got no outlet and you feel like you're locked up with the children and just having this double life that you you know, that just ends up crashing around around you. If it doesn't have you don't have an outlet. And you know what, I had this conversation with Dan, the husband. And he said to me, Chanel, some people just don't get to he's he's seen the rise and fall, he's seen me get these opportunities, and then me crying a heat when they have just not gone the way I thought they should have at the time. And he said, some people just don't get to do their dream lobby, like and I and I, for me that didn't sit well. Because I was like, No, I'm going to because I need to do it for myself, what are we going to set up so I can see I'm having this premonition of me being 50 or 60 years of age, and kicking myself for not trying at least. So I said, he said, the kids, you're an amazing mum, the kids love you so much. And they will be proud of you if you just worked in a cafe or whatever. And I said, but I'm not proud of me. Because you can work in a cafe, absolutely, if that's what you want to do. But it wasn't what was in my soul to do. And I said, they need to see their mom chasing the path that is right for her, and then encouraging them to do the same thing. Because they're learning from me, don't just stand still, because it's easy to do. So. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, if it was easy, everyone would do it. It's something that women need to sort of let go of, and allow themselves to look at it in a way that if I'm doing something for myself, I'm bettering myself so that I can be better for my children. So if I have an art show, and you know, I gotta, you know, my husband has to put the kids to bed and they don't get me seeing them to sleep or whatever it's like, my kid is, is growing from that experience. They're not, it's not losing me for one night, and they're not going to be traumatized by that. I mean, they're learning to be adaptable. And they're learning that, yes, your mother has her own life and, and when you grow up and have kids, you're gonna have your own life too. And I think it sets an example for my daughter, that you don't have to give up your entire life and you don't have to martyr yourself constantly, that you actually deserve to have a life on your own and it's gonna make you a better mom. I didn't feel guilty about going to work because I knew in my mind that without all this external pressure and whatever else to be a perfect mum, because that wasn't around. You know, you just did the best record that I needed to go back to work for my own sanity. And I did not feel guilty about that. So that was it when Harry was 10 months old. I'm not a maternal person. I'll be the first to say I'm not a I'm not a A person who's in an apron baking a cake, breastfeeding their child at the oven. Like I am not that person. I work I thrive off work, I thrive off intellectual stimulation. Just being a man is not enough for me. So never once did I feel guilty to for going to work and making that decision back then. I mean, being a parent in general, but especially being a mom does not stop you from being an amazing musician and amazing artists and amazing teacher, whatever it is that you do. It's another thing in your life that is very, very important. And yes, your priorities change. But it doesn't stop you being amazing at what you do in that moment. And I've had people kind of, you know, second guests that I've had people be like, oh, so Oh, you're back at gigs. Oh, really? That's, that's soon? Oh, that's interesting. And you know what I just say to them, I'm like, why wouldn't I be? Actually, I think you'll find I'm playing better than I was beforehand, so that the mother guilt of putting yourself, you know, at head of your children, sometimes, I've definitely grown learned over time not to have that quite so much. I think as the kids were younger I did, but especially that like when my youngest son in high school, I was like, No, you know, what, I'm okay, I deserve to have some allocated time. And to actually let the whole family know, right? Well, this is actually something that's really important to me, and I'm going to make this happen. And it was actually really nice to see the support that they gave me to write Yeah, really, even my, my middle boyfriend, he would say, he was actually said to me, I'll be really inspiring me with the work that you're doing. And, you know, that's the biggest thing for me ever. And my husband's really supportive, as well just, you know, constantly telling me that he's proud of me, which is really lovely. That definitely helps with not feeling guilty. If I, you know, had some space and time through the week to, to focus on my artwork and to be quiet in the studio, then absolutely, that reflects in the way that I am with, with my kids in the sense that I think it helps me to be more present. When I am with them, I'm not so much thinking about that. It allows me time and space, I guess, to really focus on them. So I think they shifted from thinking that they all these different things take away from each other, but they don't they all support each other and work together. Like I said, as part of an integrated life. So that's been a big shift for me, and, and being able to shift my thinking around there. And I think it's helped me manage my expectations. I guess I have myself. And then when I found out it was twins, it was like, all the anxiety kicked in. Because I felt like, well hang on. What does that mean, for me returning to work can I return to I won't be able to return to work, you know. And then you have all the stress about how my, how's my body going to change with two it was, I felt great with one baby and I was happy with being pregnant. But then once I found out it was twins, it did really slow me and I had to really adjust to getting excited about it and not being too anxious. So I'm very lucky that I had twins. And I think that now and I love their bond and I love being a twin mom. But I didn't you know, I didn't initially I really I feel bad that I think that but I really was upset and I was really anxious. So I had pretty bad anxiety when I was pregnant actually, once I found out I think it's also about making a space for yourself. Like making art, or even just making stuff has just always been a way for me to take space for myself even as a child. You know, and I think that's just become more and more important. As an adult when you've got more responsibilities and have to divide your time more. It becomes more challenging, but then also probably more important to do as an absolutely it's like mental health you know, and it's and it's so connected with looking yeah looking after yourself. And so for me it's very much part of my identity I think when you have children you like if you're if you're a committed parent if you are completely into the next few years being, you know, in a state of creative upheaval If you commit to that, then you know it. It changes it changes everything. You know, you can't it's not possible to to have those those sort of positive relationships without making sacrifices. How do you feel about mom guilt? I think it's very alive and well and prevalence. And I, I guess I just had to decide that I didn't care about it. I have, have actually had a lot of flack. Over the years for I think I got, I got told at one point that I was handling my children to their dad. And yeah, so there was that comment? I think I've actually been pretty heavily criticized by other local museums as being ruthless and being overly competitive and quite a lot of other things. Because it seems like a lot of people, I guess, that's not just a mum thing. That's also a an Australian thing. I think we dislike anybody that plays a big, I had had an identity, I was a health care worker. And then I became a mom, and then I wasn't that anymore. And so you know, people would be like, Oh, what do you do? And I'd be like, Oh, I'm a stay at home mom. And so they would automatically say, oh, then okay, what is your husband do? Which I'm just like, it just felt terrible. To me. It felt terrible to me. I went through an identity crisis, really where I was just like, What am I besides a mom, like, it didn't feel good to me, I felt really, really lost during that kind of transition, because I didn't really know. And like, just, I mean, I'm not saying that, like, just being a mom isn't enough. But for me, it didn't. It just didn't. I just felt lost. You know. So yeah, I mean, it is really important to me to feel like I have something that is just mine. I spend a lot of time when I'm rehearsing and performing actually away from families. So that's easier for that in that regard for to be able to kind of just concentrate on, on the show that I'm doing with a foreign when now that I'm doing a bit more work here in that Gambia at home, and it's actually really tricky. When you when you work go to work during the day, and then you have to come home and can try and switch it off. So that's a real struggle for me, because I've kind of had and realized it was a bit of a luxury to be able to just get in that bubble. And, and kind of create and then not have to come home and parent that yeah, the really tricky part is trying to combine the two and pay. You know, I have huge admiration for you know, a lot of my working actor friends in Adelaide that have to do that all the time. organically, disclaim all that stuff is so much different for the mother. It's just this just the ladies thing for fathers, it does change. But nowhere near as much as a mother is going through all that sort of identity is just trying to separate motherhood, you can get lost in the water murky. But it's definitely very important to have those two separate because I think you're just running yourself silly and you lose maybe a lot of that passion that you might have wither away a little bit. Because you just feel like that you've got to put family as a priority. And then this is exhausting and draining. It's easy to just go in there. One day I'll get there but I think if you can find the time to even if it's a little bit just to separate them and educate that individuality neutrality variable. It's not just that monkey. It's like, it's the wife guilt. It's the brain guilt. It's the WHEN DO WE it's very hard to make time for everybody. I think now I think more so it's important for me to realize that not to think of it as mum guilt anymore, but, but realize that I think they need to have a better version of mum. And if Mum needs to be in that creative space, then they're gonna get a better version of me.

Suzanne Culberg Australian writer + coach S2 Ep65 Listen and subscribe on Spotify and Apple podcasts (itunes) This week I welcome Suzanne Culberg to the podcast. Suzanne is an author, coach and speaker from Sydney Australia, and a mum of 2 children. Suzanne is known as The ‘Nope’ Coach who helps over-givers and people pleasers learn to say ‘No’ without feeling like a Bitch. Suzanne is a memoirist, and she wrote her first book The Beginning is Shit reflecting on her experience with over eating and weight loss. The lessons she learned about why she was eating was the catalyst to drive Suzanne to help others. Suzanne’s passion for helping women is fuelled by her own experiences of over-giving, over-consuming, and over-doing everything. She’s on a mission to not only help women set boundaries for themselves but also to make boundaries normal. We should be saying ‘No’ more often. Through her signature online program Why W8? Suzanne has helped hundreds of women break the cycle of putting themselves last and instead build the confidence to set boundaries. Suzanne is a Certified Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic programming (NLP) and holds a Bachelor of Medical Science (Honours). She also has Certificates III and IV in Fitness, and is a Certified Sacred Depths Practitioner. Connect with Suzanne website / instagram / facebook Connect with the podcast website / instagram If today’s episode is triggering for you in any way I encourage you to seek help from those around you, medical professionals or from resources on line. I have compiled a list of great international resources here Music used with permission from Alemjo my new age and ambient music trio. When chatting to my guests I greatly appreciate their openness and honestly in sharing their stories. If at any stage their information is found to be incorrect, the podcast bears no responsibility for guests' inaccuracies. Podcast transcript at the bottom of the page Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Art of Being A Mum Podcast. I'm beyond honoured that you're here and would be grateful if you could take 2 minutes to leave me a 5-star review in iTunes or wherever you are listening. It really helps! This way together we can inspire, connect and bring in to the light even more stories from creative mums. Want to connect? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram tagging me in with @art_of_being_a_mum_podcast I can't wait to connect. And remember if you or somebody you know would like to be a guest on the podcast, get in touch ! I love meeting and chatting to mammas from all creative backgrounds, from all around the world! Thank you! Alison acknowledges this Land of the Berrin (Mount Gambier) Region as the Traditional Lands of the Bungandidj People and acknowledge these First Nations people as the custodians of the Region. Ch eck out more episodes ..... Welcome to the Art of Being a mum, the podcast that's a platform for mothers who are artists and creatives to share the joys and issues they've encountered, while continuing to make art. Regular themes we explore include the day to day juggle, how mothers work is influenced by the children, mum guilt, how mums give themselves time to create within the role of mothering and the value that mothers and others place on their artistic selves. My name's Alison Newman. I'm a singer, songwriter, and a mom of two boys from regional South Australia. You can find links to my guests and topics we discussed in the show notes. Together with music played, how to get in touch, and a link to join our lively and supportive community on Instagram. The art of being a mum acknowledges the Bondic people as the traditional owners of the land, which his podcast is recorded on. Thank you so much for joining me today. My guest this week is Suzanne Kohlberg. Suzanne is an author, coach and speaker from Sydney, Australia, and a mum of two children. Suzanne is known as the note coach who helps over givers and people pleasers Learn to say no without feeling like a beach. Suzanne is a memoirist, and she wrote her first book, The beginning is shit. Reflecting on her experience with over eating and weight loss. The lessons she learned about why she was overeating was the catalyst to Dr. Suzanne to help others. Suzanne's passion for helping women is fueled by her own experience of over giving over consuming and overdoing just about everything. She's on a mission to not only help women set boundaries for themselves, but to also make boundaries normal. We should be saying no more often through her signature online program. Why wait? Suzanne has helped hundreds of women break the cycle of putting themselves last and instead build the confidence to set boundaries. Suzanne is a certified practitioner of neuro linguistic programming, and holds a Bachelor of Medical Science. She also has certificates three and four in fitness and is a certified sacred depths practitioner. Please music you'll hear today is from my new age ambient music trio, LM Joe which is myself, my sister Emma Anderson and her husband John. And apologies for the quality of my voice at the moment. I do have a bit of a sniffle. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Lovely to meet you. It is lovely to meet you. So Mount Gambier in South Australia. Is it? Yeah, right down the bottom. We're about 20 minutes from the coast. So we're like south southeast corner really close to them. Yeah, we're about to you. I'm in Kellyville. So Western Sydney, an hour out of CBD. Okay. Yeah, right. I I've never been to Kellyville to the UK. What's funny, I only moved here three years ago, my mum grew up in Sydney. And then we moved to Tassie. My husband, I've moved around quite a bit. But anyway, mums like killer whales like farmland, and I'm like, might have been 40 years ago. But now it's very much suburbia. Right? And only 40 minutes from Sydney. So I'd like be pretty, pretty intense sort of building. Sort of, it's actually awesome. It's such a lovely kind of like suburbia plays. It's funny because I grew up in Tassie, and then we've lived in Kingaroy. So also rural. And when we first moved here, because I'm not much of a driver in traffic, and a friend invited me to drummoyne I didn't think to look where it was. And I was like, I assumed it'd be like this, but I had to end up going at the Cross city tunnel over the Harbour Bridge. And, like my anxiety was like, just not good. Yes. Welcome along. It's really lovely to have you and I I'd love you to just start by sharing about what it is that you that you do and what you create. Oh, I love this because I've never really to be honest, consider myself creative. And it was like, Yeah, but I've written a book. So I grew up in a very family that was kind of against the arts. It was like there's no money in that. And yeah, but I'm like closet creative. And I really love to journal and I write a weekly newsletter which you're technically supposed to be at my about my business, but usually it's just like a journal entry. Last week I wrote about my child's first concert in the choir. And I love the responses because like they're right there with you. It's like yeah, I am creative. All my life people said you should write a book So I eventually did and I self published that last year. And I have a few others in the works. But it's yeah, it's a it's a commitment to put a book out there. But I do. Yeah, I've written a newsletter every week now. Rain, hail or shine for five years. Oh, well done. Thank you. That's an achievement, isn't it? It's certainly yes. So you say that your sort of family were against the idea of being, you know, having making a career when you're a child, were you sort of, were you doing art and creative stuff when as you were growing up? I wanted to so I, it's funny. I'm an introvert and a socially awkward person. But at one stage, I wanted to be an actor. Yeah. My parents are like, so few people make it like, what's it's interesting, what's modeled to you. And I'm sure they had the best of intentions. But it was kind of like, if you can't do really well at something, why do it at all? So yeah, not the kind of attitude that I want to inspire in my children. But anyway, I remember at one stage, trying out for a play, and we lived really, and there was no bus service out to our house. And I got in and my parents were like, well, how are we going to? He gonna go to this? Because it was two weeks at the Playhouse Theatre in Hobart. Oh. And anyway, a friend also got in and her mom, they had four kids, what was one more, so I just lived with them for the two weeks that the show was on. And it was so fabulous for me because I'd always lived out in the country. So to live with this buses, and you can actually go to things instead of having to sit outside your parents work after school. It was just fabulous. And yeah, I loved I loved it, though, as I said, socially awkward, and that not really was ever going to be a career. But I do like to dabble. Oh, good on. Yeah. It's interesting isn't those blocks that we get from other people in our lives? And I mean, I've got a had an interesting one recently, with my husband regarding my work, and it was the same the words that just came out of your mouth literally the same as is like, well, how are we going to make that work? And it's like, well, can't we just be pleased that this is happening, you know, look at look at the achievement level of something. And then it's like, the rest can work itself out later, is interesting that like, that's the initial response. I'm always really fascinated by what's going on for that person to make them. That's the that's the first thing they say, You know what I mean? He will those his story I read once, it's like a parable. And it's about this gentleman who fishes for a living. And this like lawyer or businessman or something comes along to him and goes, well, you could, you know, get extra boats and hire a team and charter and all this sort of stuff. And he's like, to what end? And he's like, well, so then like, you know, you can retire and go fishing. And he's like, but that's what I'm doing now. So I think sometimes we get caught up in the hustle and bustle of, you know, how much is this gonna make or how's this going to support us or whatever, but we're miserable. And the thing is, we always tend to like make do not in a like, sad way. But you know, there's there's a joy that we miss when we're chasing $1 or chasing a certification or achievement of some sort. I definitely agree with that. I feel like our capitalist societies got so much to ask for in that respect is 100% D. So you mentioned that you've written a book and you've got more in the works, what does the sort of what are your books about? And then memoirs, and I laugh at when people say memoirs is in plural, and I'm like, it's never been official, but I love Glennon Doyle before she was going well, she's always been claimed or before she was famous. I came across her with her first book, which was carry on warrior. And then I read Love warrior and then obviously I've read untamed but they're all kind of memoir style, like the all little snippets of her life. And so my first book is a weight loss memoir. It's about my journey with weight and body image. And the second one will be a business memoir, like from one printer to entrepreneur, like the real thing, not the six months to six figures in six steps. Yeah, nonsense. Right. slogging the reality of final one I have in the works for now that there may be more because as I said, I've moved around a lot. So I could write about that as well. It would be a parenting one like my, I love the harasser gene and a few other people who write about like real parenting, not the thing. And my kids actually have, I think, a bigger following than I do. The number of people who like I follow you for your son. So yes, he's destined for the stage. But yeah, like, and people have said to me a number of times that I should write something like funny things my kids say, because I often put the little snippets on Facebook purely for me. So when the memories come up, I'm like, Oh, I remember that. But then they just have kind of taken off. I think the last thing I shared with him had nearly 100 likes so I was like something of mine. 10 likes something if my son 100. Let's go. Yeah, so you mentioned your son, how many children do you have? towards you? You have two children? Yep. So Xanthi is nine. She's a girl, I say because the names are unusual. And beautiful name. Thank you and Casimir. He is seven. Oh, that's a lovely name to what they like unusual names gonna say were they inspired by like literary or anything particular? Well, my husband and I both wanted unusual names. So not commonplace. So we like read through the baby book and highlighted ones and finding ones we both agreed on was the biggest challenge. And Santi We just liked them baby book. But then Casimir is also it's French was also polish. And in Poland, it's spelt Cazal own France is spelt kazimier with a K and is it spelled it with a C and S has actually been like seven King customers in Poland. But it was also a character and a couple of books that I've read. So we liked that name. And then they've both got like more traditional middle names. If for whatever reason they didn't like their first name, they could just go by their middle name. That's cool. It's funny you say I don't know how I fell upon it the other day on the net, as you do, you know, you just see these random stories, there was this lady that has changed her child's name. He's 18 months and she changed it because it didn't suit him anymore or didn't suit the child that she thought he would become. So she named him Aspen because she thought he was going to be like a outdoorsy kind of child and take after his father. And his clear opposite. So they've changed his name to Luke and sloth would like to start I don't know, I just don't I it's really weird, because I don't know I don't understand it. I think I just I don't know. James fascinate me. It's really interesting because mites of mine, I'm the youngest of four. My name is Suzanne, and my sisters all have names that start with C. And I was going to be Korean. But then my sisters are like, Oh, I know someone like that. And she's not a nice person. And every name my mum came up with one of them because they were all significantly older than me. And in the interest like, is it a boy after your father? If it's a girl after me, Don Oh, wow. So I was like, I just I know I wanted a name. But then I didn't want any of that nonsense of people telling me I didn't like it. So I didn't tell anyone. Neither my husband nor I did. And my daughter was not quite two. When Cassidy was born, she knew it. And I can still remember my family asking her but she couldn't quite pronounce it so that she was telling it was catch me. It was really funny. Oh, that's hilarious. On names, like my youngest is called DP, which is it's not unusual. It's just not very common. And I deliberately didn't test that out on anyone because I thought I might get a lot of pushback from that. And then I'll feel uncomfortable about it. So my husband and I sort of didn't say the same to anyone. But then when he was born, and we said, oh, well, it's a boy. It's Digby, the midwife said, Oh, I've got a friend with a dog called DB. And I've just got a Thanks for telling me that you know, like, it's not necessary. Listen to one of your episodes. You mentioned dig because one of my friends when we were pregnant, our children had the same due date. Her Yeah, how you give your baby a name. Fenty was just Jelly Bean. But her son was Digby while she was pregnant. And I thought that was so funny. I ended up calling him something else. Yeah, sometimes I still refer to him as Digby, the midwife he said a dog and Cassidy was born. And I said to the midwife, she's like, Oh, cashmere, like the sweater. But then I thought Oh, that'd be one. So After he gets a quite a bit actually cashmere, and he gets embarrassed about it like you can always correct somebody on the pronunciation like that is your name. So once you do it politely, yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh, yeah. And giving the children that, that empowerment to set their boundaries, I think from a young age is incredibly important. That's certainly not something I had as a child. So I think it's great to be able to give them give them that as their when they're little. On your Instagram bio, you've got there that you help women say no, without feeling like a bitch. Can you expand on that for you? You're allowed to work on the show wasn't sure? Sometimes in a way that feels good. So I'm like, okay, that just sounds nicer. So it's funny, you mentioned boundaries. Because growing up and I had never made this connection. This is why I love being on podcast, because the things that come up, the only boundary that was instilled in me was my name. Because my mother had the same name as me and stuff I remember at school. This teacher always called me Susan. And I always corrected her and said it was Suzanne. And when one time she's like, Well, I'm just going to call you Susan. And I'm like we can but I'm not going to answer. She called my mom, like the only time in my school history because I was a bit of a teacher's pet. When my mum got called in. And then she came, she had to leave work. And my mum was like, Okay, well, what's this about? And a teacher told her that my mum was like, I took time off work for this. That's not cheeky, that's her name. felt like the only time in my life and I'd forgotten about like, I remember, but I've forgotten to we're having this discussion. But ya know, I wasn't conditioned to have boundaries, it was children should be seen and not heard. And always be respectful. And, and the school motto, the school I went to was others first yourself last. Oh, like that's a bit much reflect the things that you just take as a child and you don't question. Yeah. So basically, I think that by saying yes to everybody else, and no to myself, is a what have led to me over eating a lot. Because it was kind of like food doesn't talk back food doesn't care. food's always my friend. And yeah, the less space I allowed myself to take up with my personality, because I couldn't say no, and I didn't want to be an imposition. The more I took up physically, because it just had to have an outlet. So when I originally went into business, I was funny, I was an accidental entrepreneur, I basically had issues at the beginning. I'm not creative. I started a Facebook page that was just chatting about what it is that I was doing a newsletter list that's just talking about my life. And then people were like, Oh, can you work with me? Okay, and then I got certified as a coach. And I had the most fun that first year of my business in terms of what lit me up. And then I was like, well actually should like make this profession and the business coach was like, What do you Nish and what's your people don't just ask to work with you. Like you have to make offers. Like that's been my entire business. Yeah, never made an offer. Yeah, um, so then I niched into weight loss because I'd had a big weight journey, but I must admit, I've never been passionate about weight loss because it's more about what's going on internally. The weight the number the size of the clothes. Yes, that is a big deal when you're struggling with it. But you can force yourself to lose weight and still be miserable and unhappy. So anyway, I recently I'm in the process my website's still coming have at the time recording this anyway. rebranding to the nope, coach and helping people say no women say no without feeling like a bitch. Yeah. Because you know, when we say yes to others, and no to ourselves, there's that that resentment, the seed of resentment, like and I just think it's so much better to say an honest no. Then a resentful Yes. And you're baking the cookies now do it and it's about how to do that in a way you know, without feeling like a bitch and in a way that honors both of your needs. Because I'd much rather if I'm like, Hey, Alison, I'm having a Tupperware party. You want to come and you're like, Suzanne, I can't stand Tupperware but if you have a I don't know. I'm not really into the things that I've seen and you can feed me come on over like that to me so much nicer then you saying? Yeah, sure. I'm going to come canceling on the day when I've cleaned my house and made all the food. So I think sometimes we think and they ended up The example of it wasn't I can still remember when I was growing up. I thought my mum liked white linen, the perfume, I saved up for it. And for every Mother's Day and I thought I was so amazing. And I eventually found out she's like, I can't stand it. Oh, I didn't you tell me yes ago like this was money and I thought, and then when my kids, I've got my own kids now. And my daughter bought me something for Mother's Day, it was like a hand cream thing. And I said to her, I love this. Thank you so much. Please don't buy me things like this again, because I've got a sensitive smell. There's some things that I like to buy on my own. And I remember my mom like raking over the coals and saying how horrible it was. And I said no horrible is accepting something for two decades. And then telling me you didn't like it. It's that fear of offending people, isn't it? It's, we've got a hold this, this is something that's become really evident that when we're recording this, the Queen passed away in the last few days. And I feel like it's brought up all this stuff about doing the right thing and be seen to be doing the right thing. So everybody thinks you're good. And I don't I just this that English, stiff upper lip sort of behavior that, you know, keep calm and carry on. It's like, No, you can actually be honest with people, it might be a little bit uncomfortable. When you first say actually, sorry, I don't want to go out for tea with you. Because I haven't seen you in 10 years, and I don't really feel comfortable reconnecting in that way. Everyone goes, Oh, that's like, well, that avoids uncomfortableness for everybody in the future. You know, if someone says, Yeah, sure, I'll come out for tea. And then next time, they say, oh, let's all catch up next month, and it becomes this great big thing. And you're going I don't want to say these people I've moved on I've grown or whatever it might be any situation. That's Brene Brown her quote, choose discomfort over resentment. So it's uncomfortable to say in the moment, no, or no, thank you, or not right now. But then there's the you know, the resentment where you get stuck, because the thing is, so like, it's say, the movies too, if you're like, you're gonna go see this. It's like, actually, I don't like horror, or I don't like whatever it is, but if it was something else, because then it's really clear. And another thing Brene Brown says he's clear, he's kind. So I would much rather like you know, and I think it also to the thing with saying no, without feeling like a bitch, a lot of us are over givers, like we give and give and give to others. And we're unable to receive. And I think that's why we over consume over eat over, stay up late over watch Netflix. And you know, it's kind of like, well, when we can actually say no, and not over gift to others, then we can start giving to ourselves. And instead of having passion projects, littering every available space in our house that we don't actually make time to do, we can do the things that we want to do, rather than doing the things that are expected of us. Because also to sometimes say I said to you, Hey, you want to go and see a movie and I'm actually not contributing worse. I honestly would not be offended. I'd rather that's I was talking to a client recently. And sometimes it just takes someone to point it out to you. She went to a friend's house, her best friend had just bought a coffee maker, the Caribbean best friends with her best friend would know. But anyway, I digress. She's like, do you want to a coffee or whatever? My client doesn't drink coffee. And she didn't want to offend her. So she says she draw. And then she's trying to drink it. Because she was I couldn't I couldn't drink was that bad? Yeah. And the person said, Oh, what's wrong? And then she admitted, I don't actually drink coffee. And she's like, why don't you say I could have made you a hot chocolate? Like, wow, oh, anywhere. And people say hey, do you want to drink? I used to in the past always say no, because we're conditioned. Don't take anything. Don't ask for anything or whatever. I say, What have you got? Yeah, the thing is, I don't want to be demanding and say like, if I'm a you know, I only drink hot chocolate. We don't have any. What do you have? Yeah, open it up. I don't eat meat. And I used to get really nervous and uncomfortable at restaurants, asking if thing was in particular things. And I got over that pretty quickly. Because I once had an experience where I'd asked what was in a particular source or can't think what it was. Oh, it was it a Thai restaurant, it was in some sort of like a soup, like a broth. And I didn't ask and as I was eating it, it was like, I am pretty sure this is like fishing or whatever. And I thought, right, this is this is a lesson G Alison that you need to actually open your mouth and say, so now I don't care. I just say a sheltered from the roof. And if there's nothing else I say, I'll just eat a plate of vegetables so you can stay with vegetables and that'll be fun. Yeah, but being scared to actually honor yourself. Like as a kid when I grew up, I was so afraid to even you know, I'd be at the back of a line waiting and sharp and I get to the front of the line and I'd be so nervous to even just ask for what I wanted. Like, just I've got my dad he pretty sure I got it from my dad. He would walk backwards and forwards past this little deli in this small town where he lived, waiting for them to notice him. So they've let him in because he was too nervous to go in by himself. So it's like, we've all got these little things that we're carrying around. And it's great that, you know, you're offering women that opportunity to do the work to move past that. And then perhaps not pass that on to the next generation. So we're breaking those those habits that have continuously come down. I think that's been what's the most important thing for me not passing my habits on to my children, because children learn through modeling, not what we tell them. So by me modeling having really clear boundaries and me modeling, asking for things, and then also dealing with the disappointment, because just because you asked for something doesn't mean it's going to be a yes. So it's funny with both my kids and my clients, I'm like, you guys can ask me for whatever you want. Don't expect to Yes, though, like, negotiate? Absolutely. So yeah. Yeah, I love that. That's really powerful isn't it? So in your experience, and what was it? How did that sort of play out for you personally, then through it through? Or how did it start for you to sort of realize that your behaviors were connected to the way that you were eating the way you were using food? How did that sort of spark for you? It? Well, they say hindsight, life's leap forward, but understood backward. So I'd been a lifelong Dieter, my parents put me on my first diet when I was four. Oh, that's spoken about in the book. I have to send me your address later, I will not post your copy. Yes. And so I knew how to diet and I knew how to lose weight. And I'd lost and gained in excess of 500 kilograms in my life. Like, I'm, I, I'm good at it. But I was like, there must be something else going on here. Like I'm a fairly smart person. Like, what, what else is beyond? Because the thing is, so many of us know what to do, eat less, move more. It's not that hard. But we just don't do it. Like, why do we eat when we're not hungry? What are we really hungry for? And if true physical body hunger, hunger isn't the issue foods not going to solve it? Yet we we go like most of us are really good all day. And then at night, especially once you have kids and the kids go to bed, start going into town, or for me now my tell is when I buy something for the kids. It's like, yeah, that's totally for you. But it's kinda like, when we don't do anything for ourselves. So like, we make the plans. So we've got a fridge full of vegetables that are wilting, while we buy cheap and cheerful because it's just easier to keep the peace, or we've got the gym membership. But we know that kids don't want to go in the crate, or they're going to cry. So we like just don't go. And, and I believe like giving and receiving. And like inhaling and exhaling, they're paired, you can't have one without the other. So over giving, saying yes to your kids, the school, your parents, your neighbor, your husband, your friends, is paired with over consuming. So so many people think I've just got no willpower, or I can't control myself or whatever. And it's like, it's because you say no to yourself all day, every day. That in the evening, it just levels out and the body is just like nope, so this and then with that then leads into this big shame spiral. So it's really how many of us do have passion projects and love. Creativity is one of them art or things that we've been conditioned as well because you can't make a career out of it. Why bother? Or because someone else's is better than yours. Like, I have my two children they're only two years apart. But my my son's still at the age where whatever he draws he thinks is the best thing ever. And my daughter's reached that critical age where she's like, but hers is looking better or the you know, that kind of thing. And we still have the part of his inside that wants to draw a purple horse with foreheads and glitter and that's it. But we don't indulge that because we don't have time yet. But then we have time to stay up to 2am binge watching shows and eating. So so often when I say to People like the secret not so secret is to actually indulge those passions. And they're like, Well, I don't have time, or money or space, or this or that or the other. And it's like, but you've got four hours to, you know, scroll Facebook and watch cat videos and boom, scroll. It's like, yeah, you do have the time, you just not purposing it in a way. And it's not gonna be like a switch that you can understand intellectually. But it's like actually making that time in small pockets during the day. Like, it was funny. This morning, I was in a funk. And I was like, I just want to eat chocolate, like nothing else. It's like, what do I really understand son, I just say, five minutes to breathe. I'm like my husband, he take the kids. And I come back here, and I'm ready to go. But normally, we wouldn't allow ourselves that. And I think the other reason eating is so easy is because we don't have to read or create or sculpt or paint, but we got to eat. So we tend to not have as much guilt associated with that because we need to survive. So once you you developed this understanding of how your behaviors or thoughts were affecting the way you're eating, you're talking about little changes, over what sort of timeframe were you able to sort of implement this, like, I've got this, I hate these, you know, six week gym, you know, come and lose so many kilos. And we're like, I just test them. I was involved in the fitness industry for many years as an instructor, and then I took a break, and then came back and instructed in a different way, which I loved. But I'm very, very aware of the way that certain industries will latch on to people's insecurities, and will make them think that if you go hard for this short period of time, sure you, you might lose a few kilos, and you'll feel really empowered and amazing. But then you can't sustain this, you cannot go to the gym twice a day, for the rest of your life. And it's not, it's not good for you, it's not good for your family, your relationships, anything around you. So was that sort of on your mind, too, that it wasn't going to be a quick fix. It was something that implementing your life and sort of see how it changed over a period of time. 100% Someone who read my book recently and sent me a message was like, the part I loved. Whereas you're like, I'd rather be fat forever. Then keep doing this to myself. Yeah. And it's like, it's it's hilarious, because now I have a program not targeted at weight loss. It's over consuming in whatever way we do it. Because anyway, I digress. But originally, I opened that as a membership for the very reason that you just touched because six week eight week challenges, like I was already dreaming about the Mac has been John is going to have at the end, and how you lose the weight is how you keep it off. And none of these things are sustainable, and they profit and benefit from the fact that you praise them. Like this thing is the best thing ever. When I'm on it, I lose weight. And then you self blame yourself. I'm the fat lazy fuck who can't keep doing it. Yeah, yeah. So that's what I'm from. And I never wanted my business being that way. But what I found, interestingly about having a membership rather than a program, is people would get to a point where it was time for them to move on. Like they had spent enough time they kind of just slunk out like there was guilt or whatever. Like no, let's celebrate. And like you know, and also to sometimes what should have been a graduation became a divorce when people stayed too long. So I actually re adjusted my business and now it is a 10 week program. I just delivered the last call of the current round today, where the difference in the in the last week we celebrate we harvest like what have we done over these last 10 weeks? And what I love it because every time I run it, we get to that point and there's a people who are always like, cringing or shattering or feeling so guilty because I thought I was going to and I'm like no, let's nip that go hard or go home stuff in the bud. Because I believe it's like you when you're a kid you play that game warmer and colder. Someone finds something and you go What am I what my heart heart? Well, if you are used to doing this challenge type things where it's all or nothing and you get to the end and you're like I didn't go hard. It's like colder, colder, colder, freezing like you're telling the universe Like, what's the point and then you're saying to yourself, I'm just gonna binge on everything and then get so sick of myself, I start again, like, that's not good. Whereas if you get to the end of the 10 weeks and you're like, Okay, you know, I listened to two of the 10 modules was eight modules. I turned up to a call I did one action is like warmer, warmer, warmer, warmer. And that gives us the momentum. So that you asked, and I got on a whole tangent, but releasing the weight took me three years. Yeah, right. So sometimes people will be like, Oh, that's so long. But when you're there, it's like, it doesn't matter. The time is gone anyway. And it stayed off. Like I'm a little bit heavier right now. I'll be honest, COVID hasn't been the kindest, I don't want any more, because I don't want any inanimate object telling me what I should think about myself anyway. Yeah, tell him my clothes. But it's kind of like it's you only ever hear now. Whereas when you force yourself to eat miso soup in shakes and go to the gym four hours a day, yeah, you're gonna shed a lot of weight. But really, it's water and muscle as well, anyway. But as soon as you actually eat again and calm, it's all gonna come back. And that's no way to live that's on or off. So let's see, yeah, this all or nothing approach? Yeah, no, I love that. And it's not. And when you're talking about, you know, your, the content that you're presenting to people, I'm guessing this isn't, you know, go for a run or do some squats or whatever this is all what's going on in your mind and working on yourself. I don't actually give them a prescription as in, here's what you do. I help them uncover what it is for them. Because I like that saying the same water that softens a potato hardens and egg. So whenever you do a program, there'll be some people who get great results, and other people who get nothing. And then some will be like, Well, you didn't cheat it or you didn't try hard enough, we did this, but your body is just not the same as their body. So it's about finding like the habits and the things that you want to cultivate that work for you. Like one of the people in my current round is a writer, like a professional writer who publishes books, like why and to, but one, I count myself as a writer for evermore, because I've done one, she's a traditionally published body of work type person. And the penny habit that we're working on for her is just writing for. Because the thing is, you sit down, you go, Oh, I'm gonna write for an hour, and then our half an hour, and then I'll do it tomorrow. So it literally she has to open her thing and write the date. And then from there, we can keep it going. Because what we tend to do is we like set our goal exercise, writing, meditating, whatever, like 45 minutes or nothing. And then six out of seven days a week, we ended up with nothing. Yeah. Whereas if you made it really, really small, like write the date, or for my walking on its go to my mailbox, which is 12 steps from my house, you usually keep going because you've got your shows, or you've got into the rhythm. So the the work we do in the program isn't like a secret thing. It's, you know, cultivating these habits that we do consistently and persistently, and looking at our resistances because we've all joined something, this is gonna be the thing. Two weeks later, you're like, No, next thing. Exactly. And I guess that the importance that you're talking about is you make it, you tailor it to your own life. It's not like you're getting these rules shoved out, you have to do this, you have to do this. And then it's like, Whoa, it just becomes overwhelming. It's like you look at yourself, you look at your life and where those changes and adjustments can be made. And that's different. We have different numbers of kids, we have different jobs. We live in different locations the world because the thing is my pet peeve, The Biggest Loser like I was always obsessed with going on the sharks, I thought that would change my life. Why did they not all but almost all of them gain weight when they go home? Like what is with that? It's because when you go into a show, or in my book I wrote about when I went to fat camp was a health retreat, but I call it fat power. While you're there, you've got no other responsibilities. You don't have to work. You don't have to show up. You don't have family, you don't have drama, you don't have internet, you don't have anything. He's just there to focus purely on you. And then you have this wonderful time and you go home and you're like, I'm going to keep this up. And then you've got real life. So the thing about the program that I run, like every round, there'll be people who are disappointed. It always pulls on my heartstrings. But we have life stuff goes on. And I've caught my program. Why wait? Because what are we waiting for? There's never going to be the perfect time. Oh, there's people who get sick kids who get unwell. You know, some people home away from home for the first time this round. We had somebody moving out and there's empty nest and all this stuff. That's life, but not as in like, let's just wait but as in like this, we are a cog in this and how can we make these things that become part of our life rather than putting your life on hold to fix ourselves? We're not broken. Yes, yeah, no, that's really valid. I think that's that's something that I spoke about on a podcast. I was a guest on it last week about we've all got this idea that, Oh, when this happens, we'll be happier or I have to wait for this to happen. And then I can do that and then I'll be happier. It's like, there is no perfect time. It's literally life is just rolling and it just keeps going and there's always going to be something like you say the kids get sick and throw things out the window and whatever it is there's always something happening. Yeah, and I guess that's the thing you touched on earlier about that horrible motto of your primary school where, you know, putting yourself last, like, as a mother, I feel like we're conditioned to do that. It's like, everybody else has to be happy before us, and our needs come last. And I, I, I hate that so much. And I find that talking to women on this podcast, it's, it's imperative and important and almost essential that they do put themselves first and think of themselves as worthy of, of their commitment and their time and with their art practice, you know, but I feel like women who feel like they don't have that something, that passion project or that whatever, can sort of get lost then about well, how do I put myself first, what does that look like for me? Growing up, my mom never had friends. She never had hobbies. Like, I don't want to say she was just a mom. That sounds horrible. But like, I remember looking at her. And I was thinking, I don't want to become a mom. Like, honestly, if this is what it means to be. Your wife kind of ends, you don't have anything. And it was interesting. I met my husband when I was 18. And we, when we got married when I was like 22. And we were never sure on the kids thing. I could be really honest. Like, I love my kids and everything, but we weren't sure. And then we decided or wait till I was 28. And then we would decide. So we had, you know, by the time I was 2010 years together, and then we were like, Okay, we have kids got pregnant the first month, I had a very lucky journey in that respect. But it was kind of like, I remember when we got the positive pregnancy test, he was over the moon. And I was just sitting there kind of like, whoa, because I didn't think you know, it's like, this is what we wanted. And I was like, yes, but like, there was a little bit of mourning there. Oh, and, and then I was like, I don't have to be the mum. But my mum was. And yeah, like, I have friends. I have hobbies, I have a business. And I model really good boundaries to my children. And some people think that I'm too harsh, or this or that or the other. But then other people like, wow. And I'm like, Yeah, because I don't stand for anything else. But also to encouraging them that their needs and their things are important. And that we all have time. So we have different games that different ones of us like to play and we have a little chart on the fridge when we take turns about who gets to choose and all that kind of thing rather than it's just kind of like I remember the the Goldilocks story and mommy mama bears porridge was always cold. And I had a story about that with my son recently because I always say to my kids, I like porridge. And like if your breakfast takes 12 minutes before I have it, do you want anything? No, I want it later today. And I'm like You do realize mommy's making hummus. Yeah, that's fine. He was like, Oh, mommy, but it's cold porridge. I'm like, Yeah, I mean, Damn straight. It's like you had the thing. You can wait. I think it's kind of like it's just learning. And in life, we don't always get our way. And yet we say to our kids, they're first but then suddenly, when you have your own kids, you've now got to go from first to last. It's really it's kind of like an identity shift. And even with choosing TV shows, it's funny. I live away from my family, my husband and I interstate. So we don't have we see them that often. But I don't really like kids movie. So it's funny. I was on a podcast recently somebody asked me about bluey because I'm Australian. And I had to admit that that's the show my husband watches with the kids. But anyway, I hired a babysitter to take my kids to the movies and other some people will like that's the best idea ever. Because I'm an introvert. I don't want to go out. I don't want to hire a babysitter and go out. I want them to take them. But I didn't have to see the kids movies. And I could stay at home. Like that was like just groundbreaking for me. The kids get what they want. Yeah, I get what I want. And we're all winning my husband I went to Phantom of the Opera in the opera house awesome. And my kids went to see whatever the latest 3d pet movie or I don't know, some super pets or so like everybody was happy. That it's almost like it's normalizing doing things differently. It's breaking down that what we think we're supposed to do, because that's what has always been done. I love all these posts at the moment. People have like normalized naps, you know, having a nap in the middle of the day, you know, normalize something like, it's just like, Why? Why are we pretending that life has to be perfect? You're listening to the art of being a mom was my mom, I was. You know, when you're talking about your porridge, and you know, the kids having to wait, there is nothing wrong with your kids having to wait, like, I have this thing that, that we've got that, you know, the kids want something. So we will have to drop everything and go do it for them. And the same with the games, like, my little one always wants to play the same board games. And like, I don't mind it so much, because I enjoy some of them. But my husband's like, I want to play this game, you know, it's like, well, let's say to him, we don't want to play this, let's pick something else, you know, they don't always have to come first. Yes, I think that's the thing, that it's been conditioned from previous generation, that the kids come first and we protect them. But then it's actually not teaching them the skills they're going to need when they're older. And that your parents are people too. And they have their own wants and needs and passions and interests that might not necessarily align with yours. And it's just yeah, it's modeling good boundary setting and the family as a cohesive unit. So we're going on a holiday for Christmas. And, you know, we each get to decide for a day what we want to do, rather than just doing stuff for the kids, because, you know, yeah, so because then it's like you're even on holiday, you're just taking your children on holiday. Yeah, I think that's the thing too, like so many times, you there's a difference between never doing anything, it's been I think so many of us are so fearful of being self centered, or self focused or selfish. And that actually, you know, self care and self first isn't bubble baths and this sort of stuff. Yeah, doing the daily things that we don't want to do. But then, you know, modeling that, you know, we all get, we all have to do things like my kids now with their chores. It's so funny. Some days, like, I just don't do this. I'm like, do you think I want to work or cook? Yeah, whatever. Like, left my own devices? Yeah, I'd sit in the backyard and sun or pay with paint or whatever. But you know, it's their life is, you know, 5050 or whatever balance it is. Yeah, you know, if we all do it, we all follow the washing or whatever, then we can go and play a game. But if it's left to mom, then you know, yeah, yeah, I love that my wonderful one. Boy can't be I don't, I'm so tired. I don't want to go to school. I said, mate, I'm tired. I don't want to go to work. But, you know, this is what we do. It's life. You know. That example of the holiday, we went to Queensland recently, and we did the same thing. We all wrote down a list of all things we wanted to do. The some of the things were aligned. So that was fine. Those days sort of suited a few people. But I desperately wanted to go away or watching and I was going to do that. No matter if no one came with me or everyone came with me. I didn't care. But in the end, we all booked a ticket. And unfortunately, my eldest son was too unwell to go. So my husband stayed with him. So I took the little taco. And he was good for a while until he just decided I just don't wanna do this anymore. And I'm like, we're in a boat in the ocean. Where would you like to go sort of thing. And I was getting pretty impatient. Because this was my thing. I was like, pumped to see these whales, and we'd already seen a few whales. So I think he was like, over the whole thing. He wanted to sit inside and I said, if we sit inside, we won't see them. And I said to him, I have waited to see these whales. I'm going to go and stand out there. And it was just, I mean, I could say, I'm just going to send out there. I'm going to look at these whales. And he huffed and puffed and he said, Well, I'm going inside. So I stood out there, took photos of the whales, and he went inside. We told this lady, this old lady that we've never met, Mom and I are having a disagreement. Dr. Leakey and I came back. I gave it five minutes. I thought I probably shouldn't even too long. But damn it, I would say my wife. And I thought we can't go anywhere. I'm not going to lose him. So I went back in and the lady said, Oh, you've got such a lovely boys come over and told me that you're having a disagreement. Thanks, Digby for sharing. But I was like, there was no, that was not the time for you to get your own way. dB. This was my thing. You know, I was letting that go. Yes. And I think sometimes to you, when we do give in and you know, put everyone else's needs first. It's another reason that we end up over eating or over shopping or over whatever, because that part of us that you know what's going on I get my way does in a way that's not nourishing for anyone. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? Yeah, it's good for you. I think that's the best thing ever. I think of a few times my kids have, but I love it like on a boat. Yeah, you know, like, you're stuck here. Honestly, they went through my mind I thought, am I being a bad mother because I'm letting my kid wandered around on a boat. And I honestly, it all flashed, I thought someone's gonna think I'm bad because I've left Makita on my own. I thought, No, dammit, he's fine. He's absolutely fine. I can see him. He's safe. I mean, I couldn't see him when I was looking at the whales. But I thought what's the worst that could happen? On here? No, he's not going to jump off the boat. Yeah, and I think that's the thing, too. It's our own inner talk or our own guilt. Yeah, some people might have thought you're a bad mother. And some people would have thought Look at that. Yes, yeah, that's what I want. And then the end of it, I thought, damn it, I've come this far. I'm glad you brought up guilt, because that is a big topic that I love to talk about this whole mom guilt concept. What are your thoughts about that? Though, very significantly, because I think it's something that we can't escape we all have. But it's just like for me, you know, when it happens, it's interesting. So like, you can say something to your kid and be like, I shouldn't have said that. And apologize. I'm all for apologizing when I'm wrong. Not as a way like, whatever. But like, you know, I shouldn't have said that. I feel bad. And then the kids can move on their merry way and skipping and happy. And, and it's I'm the one. So what's that saying that? Pain is inevitable. But suffering is optional. So the pain of like, oh, I shouldn't have done that, like, you know, but then the suffering and the stuff that we tell ourselves. So I can think of examples of like, when my son has hurt himself, like he's fallen over or whatever it happens. But then I'm like, well, I should have been watching him or I shouldn't have the room arranged like that, or it doesn't make any sense. Yeah. And then if I want to go to the other extreme, and I know I'm not the only one who does is a couple of 100 share this. But anyway, it's kind of like, Wolf, I really was. I'm not a bad mother, because at least I'm like, not burning them with cigarette butts or something like that. But like, it's sometimes like, yeah, if you really were a bad mother, would you be questioning? Am I a bad mother? Like, yeah, I think, yeah, you know, we all doing the best we can with what we have. And there are moments where we yell, or say something that we later like, makes us cringe. Like, you know, I open my mouth and my own mother comes. Like, I'm never gonna do this. And then you do it. You're like, Oh, yeah. And it's just kind of like, it's, yeah, it's all the skills, we want them to learn humility, you know, apologizing, being honest, sharing our feelings and not putting our stuff onto our kids. But yeah, kind of like, you know, so it's interesting. I I'm very strict in some people's rules, when I go out with my children. And I have a one warning policy. And I hold it. So we've literally gone out to dinner before ordered, and left, even though I've paid like, because the restaurants not missing out. And the kids think that they can get away with it. Because I've already paid like, No, we will leave we've left the cinema before. And it's like, I'm disappointed too. I wanted to watch this. But I would rather like take it to learn this. And anyway, some days, I'm just like, I've got nothing. So I'll be like, this is a no warning kind of day. Yes, you can go to the park or yes, we can do this, but everything is gonna go swimmingly. Or we will go home as soon as you poke prod breathe into the air. I don't know. It's like, I mean, it's just being honest with where I'm at. And also upholding that, because I think I know, my sister. She never she's like, I don't understand why my kids are so good because her kids are. Well, it's funny. She was just here this morning. Her kids are now in the 20s. And it because our age gap. But anyway, when I said if you clean your room, we can go the movies or whatever. If they didn't clean their room, we wouldn't go as as my own parent now my own children. It's like making sure I choose that not punishment, but the consequence. That's not going to be a detriment to me, because I remember a few weeks back, I was like, okay, no electronics for a week. And I was like, this was not a great idea because so it's picking up thing that but also to something because like if I sent my daughter to her room, she'd love it. Yes, like me, whereas my son, that's a punishment. He's like, I need to be around people. So it's kind of like, yes, it's gonna happen. Yes, we learn from it. And whenever we need to, like break that pattern so for me, for me, it's the cigarette butts story. It's not my finest moment, but it's just, it's just enough of ridiculousness for me to go Of course, yeah. In some out of it. That's viral. Yeah. And like you said, the mere fact that you that we are questioning if we're good enough, that's telling us that we're not good enough, you know, because we care because we're aware of stuff. Done and again, I just have all these thoughts, and I brought them down, then it's gone. All right, understand you're in the other thing I was gonna say that helps me with mum guilt, or any sort of guilt or times that I feel not enough yet, is I have a folder on my phone. It's called nice things. People say, whenever I get an email, or a text or a comment or whatever, I screenshot it, and I go and save it to that album. And when I'm having those things where I'm like, I'm the worst person in the world. And everyone hates me, because we all have that. I read back over it on my phone. Awesome. Yeah, I love that. I'm getting really used to the fact that mothering is not right or wrong, black or white? Yes or no, there's this this gray area, it's literally an entire gray area and this level of ambivalence of, yes, you can have a bad day and and yell at your kids because they misbehaved. But you can also love them so much, you would you know, throw yourself in front of a moving car for them like that. And I think some people depending with the, you know, left brain or right brain, how you your brain works need to have a yes or no, they need to have a straight answer. They need to know, was this right or wrong? And this whole motherhood conundrum just throws that completely out the window. So then I think for some people, it can be confusing. If you are and I've put this in air quotes, doing it right, from your own perspective, because there are so many gray areas. For me, there's something that another thing I think, is I always love my children without a doubt. I don't always like them. Yeah. So it's like, you know, I if something happens, like I love you, fiercely. I don't like this. So it's it's separating like the love is always, as he said, jump in front of a bus or take on a intruder or whatever. Yeah, you're not drawing on my walls. Okay, how pretty it is? No. Yeah, absolutely. That's a good one, actually. Because my background is in early childhood education. And something that I learned straight away when I started working at this particular center, about nine years ago was that we wouldn't use terms like you're a good boy, or, you know, you're being bad or whatever. Because it's the behavior that you're not happy with, not the person. Yeah. And I've been really, really, what's the word focused, or it's important to me that I talk to my kids like that, in terms of their friendships. Because there's a whole thing of kids of a certain age, I'm not your best friend, I don't like you're not my best friend, you're not coming to my birthday party, all this sort of behavior? Yeah. And it's like, yes, you you were frustrated with your mate is because he keeps your ball on the roof, it then doesn't mean that you're not friends, you know, just breaking things down separating an actual person to the behavior that you don't like, or, you know, I think that's really important to set up because that's not something I grew up with normally changing that, that thing is the way we speak to ourselves, too. And, you know, because the thing is, you can't be what you don't see. So it's like modeling it for you for your children. So my son, he sees a psychologist, he has autism. And they he calls her his emotions, doctor, which Oh, that's good. And she works a lot with him with how he speaks to himself, because he's got a very critical inner voice and anything that I think it's part of his autism to, doesn't take a joke. So like I'm very, very jovial and can take a stab, but I don't mean it, but he will take it to heart. Yeah. And it's the way he speaks to himself in any way I have. I use a Voxer voice messaging app for my business. And the other day, someone left me a message and most of the time I can listen to them in front of the kids and it's not a big deal or I don't actually I usually have my headphones, but I couldn't find him anyway, whatever happened, I press play. And the person's like, Oh, I'm such a dick. Like the message, you know, he was like, why would they talk to them about themselves like that? And I was like, see, we all do we all have our ways that I'm not good enough, or, you know, this is wrong, or I'm bad. And then it's catching that. And, you know, so it was actually such a great learning experience. I don't know, I told the person about and like, I've always wanted to be the reason somebody needed to laugh about it. But it's just kind of like our inner talk, like, you know, and distinguishing. Like, I, I made a bad decision. Not I'm a bad person. Yeah, the thing is, the message was that we're supposed to message me like two weeks ago, and I hadn't, so I've had to deconstruct sorry. And it was like, you know, life happens. I get it. But it was like, you know, I did a dick move or IV is not I am so yes, exactly. Yeah, I think that's a really important thing that self taught because Matt and I, we, we tend to beat ourselves up so much, and talk to ourselves, the way that we'd never speak to anybody else. You know, we're so so harsh and horrible to ourselves. A lot of the time. Yeah. And then who wants to hang out with somebody like that, and then we're stuck with ourselves all the time. So no wonder we end up in you know, behaviors that don't serve us because at least gives us a break or numbs it out for a short period of time. Yeah, that's so true. My website is Susanne kohlberg.com, which you'll probably spell in the show notes. Because it's an interesting I think I've ever had anybody get Kolberg. Right. Again, anything from Collberg to gold. It's about to be updated. I don't know when this show will end. So if you guys come across it as not quite yet, just put your email in there. And I'll let you know. I've been rebranding, it's been such a process, I tend to really significantly underestimate the amount of time things will take person who works long term on goals, but anywho. And it's got all about my program on there, it has the first two chapters of my book, if you do sign up for the first two chapters of my book, it doesn't automatically add you to my list. It's one of my pet peeves, so I can never get away from it because I just wanted a freebie. So it literally is just the two chapters, I send two emails, and the podcasts I've been on if you wanna listen to me anywhere else, and all that kind of thing. But my program, it's, it's 10 weeks, it's called Why wait visiting, what are you waiting for. And it's for people who are overdue us over consumers to kind of overcome our inner resistances and our all or nothing mindset and take small sustainable changes, and it runs for 10 weeks at a time. If you do at once, then you're an alumni and you get a significantly discount if you want to come back some people in my life is we come back every round, some people dropping once a year, it's you're always welcome. And it's about showing up as you actually are, there's none of this kind of pretense or whatever you can wear your pajamas, I really don't mind. Just kind of like what's actually going on, and a space to be seen and heard and witnessed. And then, you know, work through it if you want to, or just be seen because so many of us, we don't have a place where we can say what really happened. We have like the highlight role, which is Facebook or Instagram. And it's just yet about breaking these really big goals down into small ones. And, and starting out and celebrating the things we celebrate. And why won't you be humiliated to say anywhere else because it's just so small. But it's like, I'm so excited. I walk to my mailbox. Yeah, then that's that competence that's playing warm up with the universe and then that building excitement of others, rather than just kind of ho hum, I've missed my work like that. So it's about learning to witness the times that we're in struggle and struggle of others not wallow in them. Hmm. That's very important, isn't it? Like you said before about you know, we can choose to suffer or not? Yeah, pain is inevitable stuff. Stuff. Thumbs up. Like, it's interesting, every round, it's finishing now, but towards the end, we say like, you know, I have a list of things, how many of these come up that you weren't expecting? And because so often people will be like, I thought this would be the time I thought this would be the thing. And it was like, somebody's passed away. Somebody had COVID, somebody's moved, somebody's lost a job like all these stressor indicators. And then we're like beating ourselves up. And it's like, still in the room. Accounts. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Like that deserves acknowledgement and celebration. 100%. Yeah. Because I think as a society, as this capitalism come up again, but it's like, you have to meet some incredible goal, some massive thing, and then you're worthy of being celebrated. Yeah, and every quarter is going to be better than the last quarter. And that's the thing to like, because a lot of people do come back round after round for my program, and like this round might not have been a growth round. So I taught I teach it in seasons. So we start in an artificial spring, because obviously, a we're from all over the world. So some of us it is spring, and some of us isn't. But also it's the seeds. It's the planting, it's the initiation, a lot of us, especially your daughters, were really good at Spring. This is gonna be the thing. Oh, yeah. And then we move into the summer, which is the persistent and consistent action. A lot of yo yo dieters at all, and I think people were terrible at summer. This is where we go away, then we go into the autumn or fall, depending on where you are in the globe, which is the harvest of what have we done this round. And then the winter, a lot of people are really good at winter. So spring, winter, spring, winter, spring, winter, and it's like the break either between rounds or you know, a longer break the time for rejuvenation. And because we need to prune in order to grow in a capitalist linear society. We fear winter, because it's the end, like then it's over. Yeah. Whereas in a cyclical natural rhythm after every winter comes the next spring. Yeah. And I think with the power of the program, and the people who are coming back, you know, you can see like, some of it is disappointing. Sometimes you have around where everything's happening, and you're making so much progress. And other rounds, you feel like you just keep your head above water. And as a facilitator, I get it out. Because I teach the program live every time none of its pre recorded. It's like, what's going on for me shapes that as well as what's going on for the people in the container? And I think there's some power in that rather than us just pretending that everything's hunky dory all tile here. Absolutely. I was just this, this whole issue of, of being transparent and honest and sharing. When things are going bad. This is a thing that I feel like there's a movement happening. You know, and you talked about the socials where everyone just puts their highlight reel and people like, you know, people that are capable of it, I guess I able to share when things aren't going well. And then other people say that and go, ah, that makes it okay for me to say that this is normal, you know, it normalizes life. I think the big work of like, my life's work on my passion is teaching people and modeling how to sit with people when things aren't going well. Like, the first time someone told me I was a space holder. I was like, What is this space blank, and I was thinking about the hospital, bear hug up. And it's like, we aren't taught how to sit with people in their discomfort. We either taught to fix it, which is very masculine thing, what can I do? Have you tried? Have you tried keto? Have you tried paleo? Have you tried, which is like really frustrating. Or we're told to diminish? It's not that bad. It's not that bad. And people have it worse. actually sit with someone who's having a hard time and just listen. Yeah, it's the most powerful thing or normalize like, of course, this happens happens to everyone. I think, you know, the inner talk thing with my son, like he explained to him and normalizing we do all speak to ourselves in ways you know, but it's like having tools or things or just noticing it the power of noticing, rather than eating like that. For me, that's been the hardest thing becoming a mother. When my kids are struggling. I just want to throw food at them. Because that's what was done to me when I was a kid. Yeah, exactly. Same, same. Yes. Like food and alcohol were the common threads through every situation, you know? Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? But yeah, that I'm noticing a lot of posts lately about toxic positivity about calling out that behavior to say, Oh, well, at least you You should be grateful of this and blah, blah, and just that diminishes the actual problem, or the issue just skirts over it by making you feel happy. Like you know, and you complain about your kids are where you should, you know, you should be glad that you can have children. That's like that's not a helpful thing to say. No, it actually I think that that toxic positivity really increases mental struggles and depression, anxiety, because you don't have anyone to speak to. And people think that being helpful, but it's like struggle isn't a competition. Yeah. And then who do you turn to because the thing is, like, I was very fortunate that I didn't have any struggle conceiving. And it's like, oh, I can't talk about that because other people do it. But there's other things that I had struggle with that other people don't. And it's not like a tit for tat thing like, oh, well, I can't you know, it's just kind of like, that sucks. And all that's awesome. Because sometimes when you get what you want, like we were talking way back at the beginning, if this then that. So you were saying your once this, sometimes once you achieve the thing, it's not what you thought, and then you can't like so I dropped 78 kilograms. So like an entire person off my body. Yeah, the number of people who tell me how I must feel You must be confident you must be this, you must be this. And it's like, honestly, it was hard because I didn't have an identity like this. And people didn't recognize me. And I didn't recognize myself. And when nobody wants to hear that. They just want to life's perfect and you're confident. That's it. That's the headline, isn't it? That's click on on the internet, they don't click on woman loses 78 kilos and doesn't feel this way. Like, it's, that's not that's not what society is built to see here. You don't burst the bubble. And it's like, I think we should be bursting more bubbles and not. So it's not saying you don't do the thing. It's just that we don't set ourselves up. I think that's the reason so many of us want to avoid being disappointed. So we kind of live our life preemptively disappointed. But then there's other things like there's always going to be new problems. Like once you reach this goal, there's going to be another goal. So it's focusing on how much you've gained and how far you've come. But realizing there's always going to be a gap. Yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it? I feel like we could talk forever about this. So often not spoken off, because it's kind of you know, like, I remember when I first started coaching, I coached for an organization, they wouldn't put me on their website, because I wouldn't have my makeup done. Like, I'm always like, you know, Mumba. And this is how I am, this is who I am. And it's like, well, nobody wants to see that they want to see, you know, the after, like, you know, the fancy clothes and the makeup and hair. It's like, they don't get around like that. Like, for me, it's funny, if I see someone all done, and then I get a call with them. And you know, it's like, this is it as interesting. My first iteration of my website, it was Sue's professional. I didn't do full makeup or whatever. But I wore like nicer clothes. And I had my head straightened. But I don't look like that. So this part of my website, I showed my current clients and like what we love is you've got the ridiculous T shirts, and you haven't done your hair. Yeah, cuz that's how I am. We think, Oh, I can't go out like that. I can't be seen like that. And we kind of almost living two lives. And it's like, no, no, this, this is how I am but and then there's also with the kids like teaching them when it's appropriate to say certain things like I'm very much just very fairy, I will own that. And in the house. I don't mind so much if my kids do a little bit but in public never. And it's funny my books called the beginning you shit. And my son will either say the beginning is bad word. Or the beginning is sure. He knows as big it's kind of like, there's so much awareness there. And I remember at the therapy session thing will pint we play cards at the end and I get to come in, because we're teaching him about turn taking and whatever. And we've got this game called uno flip it. Oh, yeah, one year. Anyway, sometimes at home, I'll say let's flip this bid sheet. And pass music to the data therapist. My mommy says let's flip this bad word that starts with a beat I just think there's something about the realness as opposed to like I know growing up, it was like, This is who we are. Like when we go to church, my family's religious, or when we go here, and this is who we are at home. And I just didn't understand that. Whereas with my kids I explain you know, there are things that are allowable in the house of words, and these but not to be different. But to just be mindful of others. Yeah, that's it. Isn't it that respectful of others and other people's boundaries? I suppose. And yeah, that's good. Well, I do love playing that flip it sometimes I get confused. Because some of the things aren't really clear if it means it's going to flip Well, this summer. This one took me a while to work around the world one in five, nothing nasty, because we make it compound. So like for us one time and recently I did pick up 25 cards. Oh my goodness. I feel like we've got the core of the decade now, but he's a good guy. I really like that one. All right, well, have you got anything else you'd like to share? Sort of finishing up any sort of final thoughts that you'd like to tell everyone? For people, it's kind of you can listen to a podcast or read a book or whatever, and separate yourself into you know, me and them or I'm different because or things like that. And I encourage anybody who's listening it If that's the case for you, to look at how we're the same with the hotter and colder game of the universe, when we look at, well, she has two kids and I have four. Well, she lives here and I live, there we are, where we're making the distance greater. And it's kind of like when we look for, you know how we're similar, like, oh, wow, she was on her first diet at four, I went on my eighth or, you know, she lost and regained, like hundreds of kilos. I've done that, too. So, why not me is what I've been encouraging anybody listening to think, because we can think why me all the reasons I couldn't do this. But why not you? And I just, I really hope that that that really lands or resonates with someone because I know for me, for years, I'd be listening and reading and like I was obsessed with before and after stories, when I was losing weight, hence why I never found one like mine. They were always before my life was terrible, after my life is magical. And it was kind of like this Disney Princess story. Yeah. And I was like, whereas I felt more like the Disney movie that had multiple sequels. Something bad happened again, next book. And it's just kind of like, you know, this is life. And then also to, even within people being honest and transparent. There's the selectivity about about what we share, because sometimes to people like, oh, well, despite them having all this going on, you know, they've still had it or they've still gotten there. We all have our our dark moments are the moments that you know, we wouldn't share. And it's not that they disappear. It's that we know how to move through them. Or they go through them faster. Luckily, I still gone slammed entire packet, Tim Tams not proud of it. But less often or less amount, or I catch myself and go. This is really solving it. No, yeah. So those moments of awareness, it's, it reminds me of that. There's this model about how we learn. And it's like unconscious. Whatever, like you don't know that you don't know. So like my son. He didn't know he didn't know how to drive a car, because it wasn't his frame of reference. Yeah. And there was conscious not knowing. So like, my daughter's like, I don't know how to drive a car. And I want to. So sometimes when we go from Yeah, unconscious incompetence, to conscious incompetence. So when you first start making these changes, it's often harder, because you're aware. And that's when we can stop and quit and start and stop and whatever. But when you get through that, then you get to the conscious competence. But you have to think about it until you get to the unconscious competence, where you just do it. So like recently, I watched that. The other reason why Facebook memories instead, it comes back up my first Facebook Live. Oh my gosh, it's so bad. So often people take that stuff down. I leave it there because I watch it. And I'm like how far I've come. Yeah, literally breathe into a paper bag for nearly an hour beforehand. I couldn't go on without my own. So I had one of my kids in it. It was just, I had the dot points on the screen. And one of my friends was just like, you sound like you got to pull up your ass. But you know, it gets better. Your best gets to get better. But you've got to start to wear someone else's. Oh, yeah, that's a good point. Absolutely. Because we're all in different little ways. In long the journey. You know, we're different seasons. Nobody's ahead of you. You're not behind. You're just in a different season. Yeah. Now that I love that analogy. That's really, really cool. Well, thank you so much for coming on Suzanne so much for having me. It's been such a lovely chat. And it's a pleasure to meet you. And I'm thank you for doing the work you're doing and sharing what your experiences and I'm sure it's helping. It's helping people and it will continue to do so. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for your company today. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd love you to consider leaving us a review, following or subscribing to the podcast, or even sharing it with a friend who you think might be interested. If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the podcast. Please get in touch with us via the link in the show notes. I'll catch you again next week for another chat with an artistic mom

Janelle Thomas Dubai based singer + songwriter S2 Ep64 Listen and subscribe on Spotify and Apple podcasts (itunes) This week I welcome Janelle Thomas, a singer, songwriter and performer based in Dubai, UAE. and a mum of 2 boys. Janelle begin performing at the age of 5, at a ballet school in her hometown in Canada. She took piano lessons, and played in the high school Marching Band playing clarinet and trombone. Janelle spent her 20's deciding if music was going to be her career. She studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music at Concordia College in Montreal. Her day job wasn’t satisfying her, and fortunately, out of the blue, she was offered a lead vocalist gig in Oman for 4 months. Without really knowing where Oman was, she said yes! That was 16 years ago and she has performed overseas ever since. She met her husband Felix while on a short break back in Canada after that first contract, when he joined the band as the guitarist and they have been together ever since. Janelle and Felix have performed more than 2500 shows together throughout Asia and the Middle East since they teamed up in 2006. Residents of Dubai since 2015, they continue to perform hundreds of shows together each year, working as full time performers, while somehow remaining pretty happily married and parenting two wildly energetic small boys. Although they now mostly gig as a compact jazzy duo, they spent the first decade of their relationship fronting their loud, high-voltage 5-7 piece pop cover bands (as bandleader and musical director, respectively). Under the guise of "Lady J Duo" they combine jazz standards, blues and soul classics, and reimagined pop songs of any style to create a contemporary, good-vibes-only listening experience that is elegant, yet funky. In the Autumn of 2012 they released Noise Rises (Strange Cat Records), an album of retro-inspired funky soul, featuring ten original songs they wrote together. In the spring of 2020, during the Dubai Covid-19 lockdown, Janelle and Felix began live streaming as a way to connect with fans and keep their sanity, showcasing their favourite tunes, taking on-the-spot requests, and cameos by their firstborn Theo (a natural show-stealer). They continued these for 18 months. You'll hear Janelle's amazing voice through the podcast today, and her music is used with permission. Connect with Janelle website / facebook / instagram Podcast - instagram / website You'll hear Janelle's amazing voice through the podcast, and her music is used with permission. When chatting to my guests I greatly appreciate their openness and honestly in sharing their stories. If at any stage their information is found to be incorrect, the podcast bears no responsibility for guests' inaccuracies. Podcast transcript at the bottom of the page Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Art of Being A Mum Podcast. I'm beyond honoured that you're here and would be grateful if you could take 2 minutes to leave me a 5-star review in iTunes or wherever you are listening. It really helps! This way together we can inspire, connect and bring in to the light even more stories from creative mums. Want to connect? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram tagging me in with @art_of_being_a_mum_podcast I can't wait to connect. And remember if you or somebody you know would like to be a guest on the podcast, get in touch ! I love meeting and chatting to mammas from all creative backgrounds, from all around the world! Thank you! Alison acknowledges this Land of the Berrin (Mount Gambier) Region as the Traditional Lands of the Bungandidj People and acknowledge these First Nations people as the custodians of the Region. Ch eck out more episodes ..... Welcome to the Art of Being a mum, the podcast. It's a platform for mothers who are artists and creatives to share the joys and issues they've encountered, while continuing to make art. Regular themes we explore include the day to day juggle, how mother's work is influenced by the children. Mum guilt, how moms give themselves time to create within the role of mothering and the value that mothers and others placed on their artistic selves. My name's Alison Newman. I'm a singer, songwriter, and a mom of two boys from regional South Australia. You can find links to my guests and topics we discuss in the show notes. Together with music played, how to get in touch, and a link to join our lively and supportive community on Instagram. The art of being a mum acknowledges the Bondic people as the traditional owners of the land, which his podcast is recorded. Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast this week. It really is a pleasure to have you. My guest today is Janelle Thomas, a singer songwriter and performer based in Dubai in the UAE, and a mom of two boys. Janelle began performing at the age of five at a ballet school in her hometown in Canada. She took piano lessons and played in the high school marching band on clarinet and trombone. Janelle spent her 20s deciding if music was going to be her career. She studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts in music at Concordia College in Montreal. her day job wasn't really satisfying. And fortunately, out of the blue, she was offered a lead vocalist gig in Oman for four months. without really even knowing where Oman was. She said yes, that was 16 years ago, and she's performed overseas ever since. She met her husband Felix while on a short break back in Canada after that first contract when he joined the band as the guitarist. Janelle And Felix have performed more than 2500 shows together throughout Asia and the Middle East since they teamed up in 2006. Residents of Dubai since 2015. They continue to perform hundreds of shows together each year, working as full time performers, while somehow remaining pretty happily married and parenting to wildly energetic small boys. Although they now mostly gig as a compact jazzy duo, they spent the first decade of their relationship fronting their loud High Voltage five to seven piece, pot cover band as bandleader and musical director respectively, under the guise of the Lady J. God, Lady J. bein Janelle, they combine jazz standards, blues and soul classics and reimagined pop songs of any style to create a contemporary good vibes only listening experience that is elegant yet funky. In the autumn of 2012. They released noise rises through strange cat records are an album of retro inspired funky soul, featuring 10 original songs that they wrote together in the spring of 2020. During the Dubai COVID-19 lockdown, Janelle And Felix began live streaming as a way to connect with fans and keep their sanity showcasing their favorite chains, taking on the spot requests and featuring cameos by their firstborn Theo and natural show stealer. They continue these for 18 months. You're here Janelle is amazing vocals throughout this podcast today, and their music is used with permission. I hope you enjoy today's episode Gavin lane, got a fistful. Gonna run that bill will be the end of a long route backwards dad. No place my hands. Man and we're all gonna say welcome Janelle. It's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Thanks so much for having me. Allison. I'm excited. Yeah, so I can I can hear your lovely accent. You're from Canada. Is that right? I am. I'm from Canada, but I live in Dubai. Alright, so what how like, how long have you lived there for what sort of brought you there? So while the music Yeah. So my husband and I have been together 16 years. He's also Canadian. And we started traveling in a band. So So we were playing hotel residencies in the Middle East and throughout Asia. We did that for about eight, nine years. And then it brought us to Dubai. So we've been here since January 2015. And we're residents here now. And we've had two little boys here. So this is this is home for the time being. Yeah. So these are really hot there. Let the moment super hot. Yeah. I just got in from the pool. So I'm okay at the moment. But yeah, summers are very long they and very hot, especially with small kids. You really feel it so much more, because you're basically just inside for five months? Yeah, but it can get up to 50 degrees Celsius. Sand humid. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, the outdoors is kind of non existent, aside from if you're doing something in the water. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. With us being from Canada, we do have a bit of that experience. Because you'll have really cool times in the winter, where you don't go outside, you're not gonna go take a stroll or take your baby out or anything. But they don't tend to be constant, you know, you'll have cold days, and then it kind of warms up enough. And you pack on your layers and you go outside, whereas when it's hot, it's just hot. Yeah. Because you can't do anything you Yeah, yeah. So, um, so we used to find this. Okay. And since we had kids, we just find them brutal. So we're just counting down till October. Oh, my gosh. So what's like an average sort of when it when it's not so hot? What's the weather like, then? So lovely. You know, there's kind of six months of a year where it's gorgeous. And you kind of can't think about living anywhere else. So I would say sort of the coolest it gets probably in January, maybe days that are around 20 to 25. But Sunny, and gorgeous. It's perfect. Yeah, I mean, those are the times where I find it too cold to go swimming. I say that as a Canadian where I grew up swimming in icy lakes. But yeah, I get I get in the water now. And it's the season you sort of, you're sort of forced to do things that you wouldn't necessarily do if you had your own choice. If you lead with me. Love you. So tell me about how you got into music because it's something you've always done. Yes. And no, you know, probably like a lot of musicians always been a music lover. There was always lots of music in our house, my parents, neither of whom are musicians, but we had, you know, huge record collection. And there was always lots of singing and dancing that was encouraged. So, actually, I started performing. From age five, I lived in a really small town, and we had we had little ballet school. And that, for me was everything like those ballet recitals at the end of the year, you know, with costumes and makeup and lights. So I would say that that's where it all started was was there. So for the first few years, I danced, I took piano lessons, as you do. And then when it was time to go to high school, actually, I chose to go to high school in the big city, which was Montreal. My dad used to commute he drove back and forth. So actually I commuted with him like super early mornings and stuff like that, to go to high school. But I really wanted that school because it was the only one in the city that had a marching band. I was in the marching band and nerd for years playing the clarinet. And I played the trombone for a year. And then after that, you know sort of spent my 20s I think sort of struggling with am I going to be an artist? Can I be an artist? Or should I get a real job? You know, I did do a Bachelor of Fine Arts in music. Yeah, because when it was time for university, I thought I really like to do something I enjoy. I might spend three years enjoying myself and then need to become an accountant or something serious, but give it a go, you know? Yeah, and then just sort of bounce back and forth, did some contracts, then some admin work and then would be, you know, kind of happy with the lifestyle of neither. But it just kept pulling me back in I really was miserable when I was being an administrator even though I had some great jobs and lovely people. Have you know, and there was just a moment where I realized, like, I cry before I go to work every day at this very nice job. It's just such a nice job for somebody else. It's not for me, I can't do this. I'm only 26, whatever, to have given up. And so actually chance meeting with a musician I knew. And he said, We've just lost our singer. And we have a gig in Oman. And do you want to join our band and travel for four months? And I said, okay, and then said, Where's omen? While it's kind of next to Dubai, it was okay. But I never heard of it. So that was 16 years ago. Yeah, like when, and it was really different experience starting to travel then I mean, we had an app and there was no, YouTube, there was no Facebook, there was none of that kind of even the amount of information that you'd have was limited. It was people's blogs, and, you know, blurry photos and that kind of thing. So it was a relatively scary and endeavor to embark on. I think the thing that saved me is the four guys in the band that I went with, had all been there the year before. So they did have lots of first hand experience. But of course, coming from Canada and traveling to the Middle East for my first real big overseas adventure, let some preconceptions about how it's going to be and I thought, well, I'll just do four months, and then I'll go home. And then 16 years later. Still here. So your husband's musical as well. You guys played together? Where did you make the line? So I met him after that first contract. So actually, I did one conch. I did one more than he's done. So I joined here Monday. Oh, yes, we're totally keeping score, who's played more show? So I joined the band in January and somehow got asked to be the bandleader. I really feel it was by default, because everyone else in the band was French Canadian. And I was the only one who spoke English. And with my administrative background, I spoke good business English. So, you know, I would have the current bandleader coming to me and saying, Can you help me formulate this email? And I'm like, Yeah, you can't start it with Pedro. You know, it has to be a little more formal than that. So he kind of went, well, could you just do it? I was like, Okay, I guess so. So I certainly took on all the admin tasks, which also involves liaising with any of the agents or hotels that we were, you know, that we were dealing with, because these are five star properties, you know, the Grand Hyatt and Hilton and everything, like you needed to kind of be a little bit more on it than that it was the time. So we did the one gig. And then we went back to Montreal for this summer and made a couple of changes to the lineup, the guitars that we had was leaving. And so we went through about oh, my gosh, seven guitarists trying to find a good fit. And finally got Felix who was recommended by a friend of a friend. He was only 22. At the time, he lived in an even smaller town than the one I was from, like, 500 people. And, you know, 20,000 Cows was kind of where he was coming from. He'd never been on a plane. And so for him, it was an equally big adventure. And he, but he was kind of in a place in his life where he wasn't really happy and had just finished his musical education, you know, informally in college, and that, and he sort of same as me with, well, I'll do it for four months. And yeah, and then we got together pretty much right away. So that definitely helped us both feel like this was something that we wanted to stick with. And so yeah, so we've been together a long time. Oh, that's an awesome story. I love that. And isn't it just so typical in the music world? It's like, it's a friend of a friend or someone new this person or it's just the way it goes? Isn't it? Just this connection of people? Yeah. Yeah, it's funny, we're very lucky. But that and it's also funny, too, that there's, I'm, you know, the more that I have, the longer that I am a musician, the more I'm amazed by stories of bands who have that longevity, you know, like bands like YouTube, where they have the same members forever. Because I know even in a couple, it can be really hard to have exactly the same vision for the music and the same vision for the timing of how you want things to go. You know, when we had mostly we play as a duo now, but But we spent most of our time together playing with larger groups. And there were lots of fantastic musicians we played with, who would say I'm tired of traveling, I want to go home and be with my other half, or we had someone leave to go to med school. And it was kind of doable, but you're an amazing keyboard player, he was okay. But I want to be a doctor. So, so to realize that not only does the music have to work, but where you are in your life at that time. It has to work like that for people could do that for 30 years. It is it's incredible, isn't it? When you break it down like that you think of all the things that could have changed or gone wrong, or like it's, it's amazing, isn't it? Yeah. And it's still we actually liking each other and getting on like, right. I'm not saying that about you and your husband? I mean, I'm talking about you too. No, no, no, you can say it about us too. Yeah. Gosh. Adding up your misery causes in the shop, you've been dumped by text, then being slipped. You're wondering what's next, baby. Though life's looking great. You can choose not to decide. I have listened to some of your tracks online, you have got a powerhouse voice. I love your voice. It's I love a bit of built voice. It's so good. passion and energy. Yeah, so did you have like formal lessons for your voice? Or did you just sort of instinctively feel it out and work it out yourself? I've had very few, very few. So I went to university in jazz boys, but have had zero lessons. Before I started I had they went to Concordia, University of Montreal and one of the things I love about their program is they want it to be more inclusive. So unlike some of the other universities that really kind of only take you if you've been through the conservatory stream, or what have you, they just sort of said, if you want to play come audition, first, show us what you can do. And then we'll teach you all the back end, after you know, so. So I was kind of on the edge because I'd had quite a I had a fantastic teacher in high school, you know, but but wasn't quite there. So still needed to do more training, you know that you're training and theory and harmony and all of that to come. So they call that sort of like a zero level to get up to level one to be with everyone else. But but in terms of the singing, I did have contract wasn't really, it really wasn't much. There's only about two semesters of vocal lessons with Jerry Brown, who was their vocal jazz instructor. One of the things I'm really grateful to her for it is she she just gave me a lot of opportunity to get onstage, which I think I really I really needed at that time. As you can see, that's the part that I've hung on to like, gosh, don't ask me any harmony theory now that's long forgotten, but it's still performing. And, and then after that I did. I did a musical review from point and there was a really great vocal coach there as well. So she I mean, the coaching was quite specific to the songs for the show. But she was she came from a musical theater background. So that kind of helps with all that. Belting and being on stage and having to really, again, like project and in a very much like onstage performance way as opposed to recording or anything like that. Yeah, yeah. And it is so different, isn't it? It's yeah, two completely different things. Yeah. Yes. So in terms of the music that you do, I know, I've seen that you write your husband and yourself right together. And you do have this, but I think the way I can't remember how you worded it now on your website, but it was really clever. It's like you could take any style of song and turn it into your own basically, is that how you look at when you're, you're doing your comments. That wasn't how we started. But that's very much Where to now that we've seen too, just in general, I think I think YouTube has been great for for that for introducing the general audience to kind of the magic of reinterpreting you know, reinterpreting styles, so, especially groups like postmodern jukebox, and we're big fans of scary pockets who do funk covers of whatever, you know. So we've found in recent times, that's gotten a lot of traction for us. And it's also cool because when we spent a decade basically just playing pop music, and lots of songs that we love, and it was, you know, full on big songs, Sweet Child of Mine and Highway to Hell sometimes and all these kinds of things. And now we don't have to lose that repertoire because we can translate it. So we do funk version of sweet child of mine, we do a jazz version of, you know, you shook me all night long. And, and, and sort of, you know, all kinds of other things. And so it's a lot of fun for us, I find in that way, it's a more creative process than it used to be where we were just sort of the cover band who had to, as best as we could reproduce what was on the record. You know, that's what we kind of did for a long time trying to bring life to the album version, but but it was pretty much you know, in the box, and it's not so much now. Yeah, that is good. Because like, I don't, obviously, I don't know what the audiences are like in Dubai, I can only speak from my, my tiny little town, but my sister and I had a lot of experience singing in bands, my sister more than me, but, and I did a lot of covers as a soloist. And sometimes your audience just wants to hear the songs that they know, done in the way that they know. And it can be really challenging to get them past that, and to push them a little bit. So it sort of can be hard to know, like, unless your audience is ready for it can be really daunting to try and put in something else and even like putting in originals is like, you know, is that you can sort of relate to that very much very much. And, you know, the audiences in Dubai are high maintenance, I find that way. They're great. And they love live music. And we, I mean, we have a career as purely full time performing musicians, you know, we don't have other jobs we don't teach, we're so lucky. This is what we've been able to do for 16 years. But at the same time, I think that demands are such from us, the as you said, like if it's Hotel California, just play the solo, don't do anything else they want to sing along, maybe they know this solo, you know, they need to hear it as they know it. So there are some songs where we just kind of were like, we're not even gonna attempt that, that you guys just you need it the way you need it. So that's fine. But actually, it's been surprising that they've been as open as they, as they are to hearing different versions of things, we find there's very few opportunities where they're really open to hearing things that they don't know like in that sort of why we don't one of the reasons why we don't do more original music here. The other reason is we have two small children. We got like no time or brain space to write anything. But also there really isn't the opportunity for that you just and you know it's hard when you're playing and you see everyone's eyes kind of glazing over. Yes, I know that feels like you feel like I've got these people they go and really good and then you put in you think I'll take a chance now putting this out and then it's like dammit, I want to stop halfway through despite all the fire alarm. Oh, it's funny, isn't it it was the story that drew me in. Hell you were so inspired by the man with a Viking didn't know it was just you using views and trying to confuse So you mentioned that the two small children How old are your children? So we have two boys who is four and a half and Hendrix is two. Oh, I love it is a great night. Oh that's good. We figured we have to get away at least we're both your parents are musicians. Yeah. Do something a little little left to center it to each night. Yeah, it's almost like it'd be a shame if you did it. Right. So did they like they enjoy sort of hearing you guys playing the guitar or singing at home? You know what, it's funny actually, we don't do nearly enough playing at home. I think that that's one of the for us. One of the hard things about maybe gigging as much as we do you know, and I hate to say there's anything hard about it because I know we're very blessed but like we're we're tired during the Ha, we're good. So I know other people will say, Oh, you must just grab a guitar and sing along all the time. And I'm just, I'm just trying to keep it quiet. And I talk too much during the day, because I gotta go work tonight. You know, when we do, they love it, obviously, they're totally exposed, you know, there's instruments around, they can play what they want, they can sing a lot. We, during COVID, one of the things we did to sort of stay in touch with people is we started live streaming, it was new for us. But we were locked down here in Dubai. And like, when we had our lockdown, it was locked in a locked down, like we did not go outside of the apartment for 35 days, at one point, everything is very delivery oriented in Dubai, even before COVID. So it was quite easy. So you can still get, you know, your medication or groceries or whatever, it all came to the door. But so we were struggling with being trapped in the house at the time, I was four months pregnant and you know, being trapped together with your husband and your two year old. Boy, it was like, Okay, we were feeling really lonely. You know, so we thought, let's try live streaming. And it just got a great reaction. And we realized, actually, that we'd spent so long making music and traveling for people all over the world, but not are our families and our, our people at home because what we do go home for our one month of holiday. Most years. We're like we don't, we're on holiday, I know, I need a break. And I'm what we used to play in a band, it was always really loud music six days a week. And vocally, I needed a massage, you know, so I could do the next 11 months, that kind of thing. So, so those people just, they don't know, they don't know what we do. So our family and friends were just tuning in in droves, you know, and people also to have their own, you know, lockdown of whatever degree. So we found, especially people who are alone, so, you know, kind of in the moms category, but a lot of these are women who live alone, who were really, really isolated. So being able to come on and see us and and we started bringing Bo on and then it was like, forget it. Like we felt like we played a 55 minute, like opening act. So they didn't come on for the last five. You just have people chiming in, in the chat going to have the open arms. And other people like No, no, it hasn't come yet. Okay, like whatever, like we're just the warm up. But this was lovely. Yeah, it was great to see that, that he had fans. And it was a way to, for us to also share what we have, like it's so we kind of got released, you know, into the wild, maybe sooner than in Canada or the UK. So we were back out and doing activities. You know, before people there were. And so then actually, we sort of started this whole new feature of also just filming the activities that we did. So if we went we took to the or to the aquarium, or we went to the pizza or just rode the metro or whatever. We just filmed them. And it was just kind of, you know, life in Dubai, and he would come on and he would narrate the whole thing, which people love. So he tell him, you know, if we went to the petting zoo, and all that, so yeah, he was super into that. So it's a bit sad that now that we've gotten busier, we don't have the same kind of time to do that. Because I think it was a really special features special time that we ended up doing. Probably about 100, like full hour or hour, it became an hour and a half because an hour wasn't enough, you know. And we played games, we did like a quiz show, and we did all kinds of stuff. I'm disappointed because that would have been amazing. Our Australian friends did have trouble turning it because it was like 12 It was midnight or one in the morning for you know, maybe my nurse friend coming off shift at the hospital. So you catch a bit but that was awkward on is that oh, yeah, I could certainly relate to that. Like, you know, you're doing it for yourself because you need something to keep that creativity sort of going, you know, but yeah, like you said the the upside of that is people on the other end are getting so much out of it. So yeah, my news for Don Yeah, it's really valuable. Yeah, it was good. And it's it was really nice to that over the course of the probably about 18 months that we ended up doing it You had to it was kind of starting at just about two, not even two and a half. And so that for me now has been such great memories to preserve to really see him growing. And you hear him singing, and he's singing more in tune as the time goes along, and then his baby, and I'm getting more and more pregnant, you know, and then his baby brothers, and then his baby brother is coming now and singing when we do you know, the two of them sing together and all that. So it's been, it's been really nice to be able to share that with with people for whom it's that's also really meaningful to them. Yeah, it's a very small, but very important and significant audience. Yeah. Well, that's lovely. That is, it's a lovely little snapshot to have, isn't it of that period of time in your life yeah. How did you go singing when you were pregnant? Did you find you your breath was affected, like the diaphragm and all that from having this baby? Good times. For out of breath. And super out of breath. Like, both times, actually, I think I was more out of breath in my first trimester than I was at the end, you know. So that was, so when I was pregnant with Theo, we were actually still on our hotel are the very last of our hotel residency gigs. So it was here in Dubai. But it was still three or four nights a week, nightclub Smokies still jumping up and down that kind of thing. Still being expected to do shots with people like I just had to constantly be making excuses for why more I was telling people that I was pregnant, you know. So that would be jumping up and down still having to do, you know, Highway to Hell. And whenever that was tough, that was tough in that sense. And I think once you start showing and you're pregnant, it's, then people understand, oh, yeah, okay, well, you're going to take it easy, you're not going to jump around so much. So then just my feet were killing. But with deal I performed up until so this was 2017. So I performed up until two days before he was born. Because he came three weeks early. Yeah, I was it was supposed to be my last go. And, and even had my friend, our great friend who's the drummer at the time, and he said, you know, you better take it easy, because you don't want your water to break onstage. I think it's totally said as a joke. And it didn't, but it did 20 hours later, like it nearly did. And I thought oh my gosh, it just would have ruined that status. All the cables, like I could just imagine everything's covered in like goop, you know? Yeah, so I did my last show. And then he was born less than 48 hours later. Was it supposed to be like that, but anyhow, he had other plans. So that was, it was great. Like, actually, I love being pregnant and still singing, I felt really good. I felt really healthy. My feet were sore all the time. But But aside from that, the guys I worked with, were super supportive, you know, and, and people loved it, too. You know, we like we are played at Hard Rock Cafe at that time, which is a very, very much a family venue out here. And so you just have women coming up all the time and and remembering their pregnancies. And it just felt really wholesome, kind of like family, family values sort of thing. And that was definitely my plan being pregnant with Hendrix too, but you know, COVID can kind of hit when I was about four months pregnant. So So one of the things they did here in Dubai is in addition to the lockdown then even when we were, you know, kind of free to go out again, there were still really, really tight restrictions on entertainment for quite a long time. So. So even though I was ready, I was like, you know, we've been out of work, went back at it, even though I'm seven months pregnant now or whatever. I couldn't and so, so then with Hendrix, I actually was back on stage six days after he was born. Oh, we had a gigs that were waiting for us. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I'll be there next Monday. Yeah, I'm coming. That is incredible. That is amazing. How did you do it though physically like we did you you must have Like, good birth and everything like good after, or was it like really? I did, like I really, you know, I had great pregnancies and the actual deliveries were a little bit tough at times I have babies who really enjoyed their accommodation. So they kind of had to be like convinced showing us on this Friday, you know, but then once they were out, they were perfectly healthy. I was healthy. I was moving around, you know. That being said, like I had, I had said, I'm gonna be back on stage, everybody was going, Are you sure I was like, that is the wrong thing to say to me. I've said Hampshire, you know, I'm just going to do this. Obviously, the week between birth and actually having to leave newborn baby for, you know, the six, seven hours that is required when you're when you're doing again, even if it's in town. That week was just so stressful. All I could think was I just need to pump enough. I need to be ready. I mean, one of the things that made it easier is we've had the same nanny since Theo was born. So at least she was really ready for that, you know, feels perfectly comfortable with her. So there wasn't any of that kind of stress of who's going to mind the baby, like I had someone I trusted implicitly, but still. And then on the day of just, I was getting ready for work, and I didn't have a single pair of shoes that fit. My feet were so swollen. And I thought, you know, and it's a jazz gig in a nice restaurant, and I thought I'm gonna have to go there in like, trainers that aren't even done up because I literally can. Like, I was totally miss piggy. You know, I was just, I couldn't even put my feet in anything. And so I found this like, ghastly pair of slip ons that were really stretchy. And all I could think is, please, everybody look at my huge massive cleavage. Don't Don't look down at my terrible. Just keep it all up here and then the top half. I'll be fine. Yeah. But, but I got there. And I really, we, you know, we played three sets. And I really spent the first two sets thinking that I was gonna faint. Like I was on stage thinking, this was not a great idea. I maybe shouldn't have done this. And I'd had an episiotomy. So I was still healing from stitches. So I couldn't sit. Also, you know, sitting was actually really uncomfortable. So everyone was going to want a stool. I'm like, no, no, no stool, that's worse. So I've just kind of, you know, trying not to, like cling on to the mic stand for the first few sets. But you know, Felix was great. And the staff were great. It was a place that we we love we play there a long time. So everybody just welcomed us back with open arms are so happy to see as you know, we've been six months since we've been there. Because of COVID. And the audience was amazing. Like the audience were so ready for live entertainment to after COVID. So actually the third set, good. The third set was better and it was kind of okay, well, this is the power of music that what it can actually do for all of us. But oh, yeah, I was in like the fall on adult diaper for that show. Ah, I'll take my hat off to you. Honestly, that's that is amazing. Good on you. Was there ever any question in your mind that you weren't going to do it though? Did you ever think? No, I just No, I cannot do it was like that. I'm doing it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm doing it. It's happening. And you know, I will say that, like six months of unemployment is a really good motivator for that, too. You're just like, yeah, no, no, we need to start having the ball of finances you know, ball financial ball rolling, like ASAP so, yeah, I'm gonna get on stage. Now when I look at it. I'm like, that was kind of a terrible idea. You know, and I can't believe that all of you guys let me do you know, and my husband is just like, oh, yeah, like I'm absolutely not going to tell you that you're a crazy person. You know, you were doing it. So you did it. Good. Take up drinking is Elton cloud syncing, trial fun and give thinking, wow. Get out and founded by Anna less than wrenching. You go up to your head. Do them. How long did were you away from the station before you came back? Four weeks, maybe four weeks? Five weeks? Yeah. It took it took longer. I will say at that time. But I felt good. You know, I felt like I was ready to be back. But of course the first time. I just couldn't imagine the legit sticks of having to leave him like it wasn't even necessarily that I was nervous to leave him with somebody else. Because of course, like, free COVID, right, he was kind of everyone had helped him and everybody, you know, we used to just like people cough, germs all of our babies all the time. So, you know, that was okay, I was comfortable with that. But I could barely figure out like how to get out of the house, in under four hours, you know, when we would have a doctor's appointment? Like I would literally be preparing for that. Hours and hours ahead of time and still be late all the time. You know, I think one of the the differences too is I was breastfeeding exclusively. The he didn't do any auto feeding for the first two months. So that too, I was just kind of like, how does that work? How are they gone? So actually, the first gig that I did with Theo was one that had come in, and it was in our neighborhood. So it was like 10 minutes walk from the house, it just happened. And I thought this one I can do, you know, I can live and it was one that had a kind of a strange pacing for the evening. So in the middle of the evening, there was like a one and a half hour break. And I thought I can do that. I'll just run home, like in my show clothes, and then feed my baby and then run back to the gig and then come back after. Yeah, so it just kind of worked out that that was one and then you know, quite quickly realizing I have to make a compromise somewhere like I can't just be exclusively breastfeeding. If I want to also be on stage I have to be able to be away for four gigs. So but that's a hard, a hard, you know, thing to work out in your head the first time whereas then by the second baby, I was more comfortable with the idea of bottle feeding and then it was easier to step away. Yeah. Oh, good on you. That is awesome. Like, I'm so impressed by that. I'm gonna put a round of applause sound effect through that. But I will tell you on that gig, which was a bit of a venue that anyway, I was very dark for a reason, let's just say and I was literally in the bathroom, like, you know, pumping milk at one point and watching a cockroach crawling across the wall. And I thought, Here I am making food for my baby like I'm trying like I have the hand sanitizer I'm trying to keep everything is getting there's just a cockroach crawling across in front of my eyes. I thought oh my god, what am I doing? But having said that, yeah, exactly. You know that they they survive like, I don't know, I think we get really scared that they're not going to survive without us. And then when they do you go. Oh, actually, this is great. What else can I do now? Let's meet Well, I did anyway. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You're listening to the art of being a mom with my mum, Alison Newman. Sean. Stone, opposing forces. And predictable unknown. Is you the sound? Man, I'll see you on Monday. Was it important to you that you got back to your pre I want to say you pray baby life, because it's never the same, but holding the things that are important to you. You're performing you're singing? Was that like, the top of the list? This is me. I'm going to get back to this as soon as I can. Yeah, very much. I'm, you know, I'm a relatively old mum, as they you know, as they go. So, I was 39 when I had the Oh 42 When When I had Hendrix, and one of the reasons that I hadn't started a family any earlier was that I was the bandleader like I, and the dynamic I think in the band because Felix, the musical director, and I was kind of all the admin bandleader side of things, we were very much Mom and Pop, you know, in kind of the structure of whoever we worked with. So we'd work with basically like five to seven piece bands. And for the most part, like, I felt like those people were my kids, you know, kind of dealing with the feelings and drama and scheduling and making sure everybody had clean clothes and you know, that kind of thing. Because also too, when you're traveling that as a whole other aspect of you know, there are a whole other host of issues that come up where you're kind of like living with people and they're living away from home and all of this so sometimes it was a lot to handle and I thought there's no way I could have a real baby that I need to take care of where this band is my baby, you know, and I also for myself, I If I didn't want to not be able to do everything that I was doing, and, and I knew having a baby would change my life, and I knew that there would be compromises that had to be made, and I was just not in any way ready for that. So, for that reason, too, it was really important to me to perform the whole time I was pregnant, you know, kind of up until the bitter end, it was like, I'm still, I'm still doing everything that I could do, you know, with the exception of bending to plug in cables, to a point where I just cannot get down there. I and so then after baby, it was like, Yeah, I'm back, I'm back. Nothing has changed, you know, of course, everything has changed. But that I really kind of had like a death grip, I think on that element of my identity. And that is, the thing that I think I struggle with most really, is I still get really frustrated that I'm not able to do all the things that I used to be able to do, there was a moment where I was thinking maybe that I would have to even give all this up just because of so unhappy with how that all had gone, it kind of coincided with just sort of what happened in the market here in Dubai, you know, for such a long time, Felix and I had been leading a band. And then some of the people we worked with, left the band because they wanted to move on. And also just in the market, the budgets just got a lot smaller. So all of a sudden, there weren't gigs for five or six people, it was no Oh, to Navy, we can stretch to three. And so I was left feeling. And I know it's an all makes sense, but you know, really feeling that I took my hands like off the crank to have a baby. And it all fell apart. Just like I knew it would, you know, and and it was. And so I felt like a lot of that was my fault. Like, we would have still had van and we would have still had gigs, we would have still been just as like, busy and happy had I not done this, you know. And so that took me a while to get over and to sort of you know, it's not all about me. Like there were also other factors at work just like the economy, that's not all my fault. Yeah, yeah, how you would feel like that, yeah, it's very high. And it's having to kind of work my head around to, to appreciate and, and adapted to what we do now. So. So that was a thing kind of as things shrunk, you know, we sort of went six, five, all the way down to it just being feeling SCI. And and then the gigs changed, you know, and COVID was a big part of that, too, that we've, you know, we were lucky enough for most of the last two and a half years to actually have that live entertainment has been allowed, there was about 10 months where it was, you know, kind of band completely. But because Felix and I were now a small unit, we were more affordable. And because we also moved away from playing the pop music, the B student big band. And instead, we were doing these, like, Jazzy, you know, covers but still have pop music. We found that there were a lot of and also to one of the rules that they only brought back fairly recently is that there was no dancing allowed anymore, because they didn't want people kind of like being close together mingling. So restaurants were allowed and restaurants could have music with the tables had to have social distancing, you know, and all of that. But then actually, we found ourselves really well positioned because we could just set up husband and wife like in a little corner and play these songs that would still have people sort of dancing in their seat, you know, by not getting up it was all at a quieter value. It was actually really popular, you know, and the other things that came with being in a restaurant like gigs that start at 730 I want to be in bed before midnight. Definitely. Certainly, because you know, I have to get up at six o'clock in the morning. No, and there's none of that, you know, slip until all hours so. So I've worked my way around to really appreciate it but it mentally it's there are times there has been a really hard slog you know, and it's probably been about three years of lots of talking to myself and re The assessing if I'm happy with where things are and where they're going, yeah. Well, I mean, it's not to say that there were, you know, not moments of serious self doubt. And, and us really questioning things, you know, even even at the very beginning of COVID, where they were closing the airports, right, you know, and, and gosh, our prime minister on TV, say Canadians come home, that was exactly what he said. So, of course, our parents are like, get on a plane and come and, and, you know, and we're just going well, do we, though, but we have we live here, you know what I mean, you have an apartment full of stuff. It's not just, it's not like we're on a holiday, you know. So that was a hard decision to sit tight and say, Okay, we're going to stay here. And staying in a place where, you know, there's no, kind of like social safety net for foreigners here. So there's no employment insurance, there's no child, like, kind of welfare thinks that you're on your own. So we had to just try to, you know, tighten our belts manage our savings to make them last as long as they, as they could, you know, borrow money when we had to, to get through it. And of course, the whole time, you're thinking like, is this it? Is this just the end? Because that was one of the things that was so hard about COVID to it was, maybe this is the end forever? Have in person performances, like the repairs were like, is this? Is it just all gone now? And if so, what are we hanging on for like, then we need to be pivoting and learning to be accountants, like, this is what has to happen. And so if they're, there have had so many long periods of just not knowing what the hell we're doing and what the hell's going on. Now, of course, in hindsight, like we see, okay, no, we were, we we made the right call to is to stick it out. And stay here, I think, actually, one of the big factors that, you know, factored into a stain was that I was pregnant. Because it was also I don't have a doctor in Canada, you know, my doctor is here, the quality of care is, is excellent here, and it was still really accessible, you know, whereas in Canada, they kind of like, locked everything down. And my sister was pregnant at the same time. So we really, so I have a nephew who's only three months older than Hendrix. So we really were kind of, you know, compare and contrast, like through the whole thing. And she was having tele health visits, and I'm like, no, no, I still go in for my, you know, twice a month ultrasound. Like, I'm still allowed to do that. So you know, I think that live streaming was really great to show us that we have a another way of, of reaching people. But I feel like it's not over, I feel sort of that, like our deciding is not over, you know, we really feel like we're here. We're here for the immediate future. But also, I personally know that I'm left with a lot of anxiety and kind of, like a form of, you know, PTSD, almost just the stress of the insecurity of the last two years is, is something that I really struggled to shake, to, to feel secure. Again, in as secure as you ever feel when you're a musician. I mean, I've spent the last 16 years of life on contracts and having like, zero, real financial security, you know, as many artists, you know, that's our life. Right. But this has added a whole like other layer to it, which is kind of permanently stressful. Yeah. Yeah. And that's thing. It's so it's so unknown, because it's like, I know what you mean, like, it's winter, next gig winds, you know, in normal times, but then it's like, Will there ever be gigs? Like, it totally changes the whole way? That you think about the whole thing, so yeah, I can I can empathize with you there because that's, yeah, and that's thing. It's COVID Still ticking along like things are still happening. And yeah, we just we have no idea where it's going and what's going to happen and yeah, it's full on in it's been a really, it's been a crazy time to be alive. You know what I mean? Like it's it is one of those hopefully once in a lifetime occurrences, you know, like a war like, something like that, that this is is you know, the thing we'll talk to our grandkids about, basically. Yeah, and, and, um, yeah, I'm still not sure how we're the lasting changes, you know, that this This will make like, one of the things that I was sort of surprised at is how quickly kind of the online side of things really like online performances really dissipated once in person performances were a thing again. Which is great, because I mean, hey, we're like, that's our job is to be in person performers were in the room. But, and in a way, it's fantastic. Because it thinks that it shows me that there's nothing that can replace being in the room with the people making the music, you know, it's just, you can't put that on a record, you can, you know, put that on on a screen, it just you have to be there. So good for us. Because that means people still want to see us in person, but also to is kind of stressful, because it's like, well, then, is there ever really a plan B for for us? Or is it always because certainly when we were live streaming, we made a little bit of money, but it was, you know, dribs and drabs, it was not like enough to sustain us so. So that's kind of where I am now. It's just to feel that over the long term, not sure how much longer we'll be able to kind of get away with doing what we're doing, you know, because if ever to the market changes again, and we're now not so well positioned for what people want, then that's tough. So I mean, this is like a story of all you know, performance artists also sample if you lead with me, me, me love you you know, that I find it Oh, so hard to let go. Change my mind when you say in your sweet baby one of the topics I really like to talk to guests on the show is about mom guilt. And I put I put it in air quotes because I recorded an episode with an artist this morning who had to Google what it meant because she literally did not experience it didn't know what it was. And I thought that was awesome. That's the first person I've met that hasn't known. So I'm really that was awesome. So that just goes to show the broad range of experiences that we have with this thing. What's your thoughts? Oh my gosh, I'm the polar opposite of the poster child for Mom You're getting both ends of the spectrum today. Yeah, yeah, no, mom. Definitely. I mean, I have all kinds of, you know, anguish about things. You know, I have like, bandleader guilt and all this kind of things, too. So it's just another one that I add to my my collection. The mom guilt. Yeah. Where does it hurt? Oh, my gosh. It's, you know, I was listening to to yesterday, I was listening to the podcast you done with Ms. Coleman. And she was talking about it really for her seems to revolve around time. And I think that's, that's absolutely yet you know, feeling that that I'm not giving my boys enough time or feeling that I'm not giving them quality time. That one is, you know, certainly is trouble. I see. So I kind of the logistics of it. Right? You know that our gigs do finish even getting home at midnight, but you know, you're not to bed for 130 or whatever. So when someone comes because they've wet the bed and then the other ones crying the knees. So you know, I mean, there's lots of nights where we're still, you know, maybe up three or four times. So then starting the day at seven, it's like okay, well we've had like five broken hours of sleep, you know, and my husband and I share duties and he's up, you know, with as well. But still we both just find really, really tired in the mornings a lot and That's hard. So then I think I see too that with Hendrix, I don't spend the same time there's a lot more TV. A lot more TV. Do it would be like 12 minutes, one little episode, you know that we're trying to get off and we're working on colors and stuff to with Hendrix, I'm like, Dude, how do you not know any of your colors? Like how do you not know these animals? Right, because no one has taught us that that was the kind of thing with do that I would sit and I would do. And now with two of them, I'm just kind of like, oh, the TV's just gonna have to teach you something today, because I don't go to the realities. The reality but I feel guilty about it, you know, I feel guilty that I'm not kind of there for my second one, in the same way that I was for the, you know, for the first child. And, and it's, it's hard. When we get busy with work, you know, we're lucky to have maybe six or seven gigs a week, regularly, you know. So sometimes we'll only have one night off. And that's hard, where I'm giving them their bath and putting them to bed once a week. And just the feeling that like there's another woman who I love and trust, but somebody else does this all the time, who gives you nighttime cuddles. So those periods are hard, but they're also kind of necessary, sort of the reality here, like, in general, there are summer season, which is about five months long. workwise is quite quiet, you know, there's less tourists, a lot of the families that are here, if they can, they, they'll take their holiday, so they might be gone back to Australia or Canada or UK wherever for two, perhaps two months. So then they're not here eating in restaurants and going out. So we do have a lot less gigs in summer than we do in the over the winter period. And that's hard to the the feeling that we have to take all the work that we can get, you know, when it's offered. I don't find that we have a lot of balance, like either summer, and we're kind of, you know, to in our fingernails a bit going, Okay, hope we can we make it by the end of the month, or it's winter. And we're just like, you know, out every night kind of thing, just just working all the time not feeling dizzy the kids? And if so, and then I think it translates into other ways, right? You know, maybe there's too many trips to McDonald's or too many little presents, or little, you know, ice cream or whatever, because it's like, my, I feel like I don't see you enough. So I just want to just want to treat you. And there are other options. You know, like here in Dubai, there's quite a nanny culture, they don't really do babysitters, and of course, because all of us, like kind of the entire population are away from our families, right? You know, like, everyone has come from all over the world to work here. So you don't have sisters and aunts and uncles and brothers who can watch the kids, you know, so you have a nanny, and they're with you, all the time. And for many people, it's not our situation, but many people have many live with them that and we often have people saying that, but if you had your nanny live with you, she would get up in the morning with the kids and you know, hey, we think about it, but also to the Trade Office, then then I do lose that part, I do lose that access to my, my kids. And you know, there's a part of me, which feels like, if certainly if we had kids in Canada, we'd be doing it all on our own, you know, we would be up and we would be tired. And we would be just like everybody else, you know, and so trying to still may have that kind of Canadian life, but at the same time, the reality is like, I get to bed at two o'clock in the morning when I'm tired when I wake up at 630 So there's no escaping. Yeah, but that's the thing that I like. I haven't heard you say once in this, even though there's always stuff I mean, obviously thinking about, you know, the how the market is gonna go but you're not saying that I don't want to do this anymore. Because of, you know, the sacrifices, the compromises that I might be making with my children. You know what I mean? Like it's, this is what is important to you at the end of the day, you know, this is this is you This is in in your heart and soul and yeah, I hope I'm getting Yeah, yeah, it was interesting because I quite recently have asked myself, you know, if this is if this is right for if this is right for me, if this is right for us, and it's sort of that feeling of a lack of balance, you know, I would like to feel more balanced and and I mean, also to that logistically, the reality of it is just financially, it makes more sense for the two of us to be going out and gigging. And for us to then hire a nanny than for me to stay home. But that's not the whole story, too. When I see things like, Oh, my two year old doesn't know his car, you know? And I'm like, well, maybe I need to be here, and be teaching him those things. And, and is that what's right for us now? And also to in the sense that, you know, we think someday we'll move back to Canada, probably, you know, in the next five years. And we know, we can't do this, when we're there. So there's also that to have, do we need to be putting in place, whatever kind of work, things need to happen, you know, does it obviously involve some kind of retraining or something? And is that what I should be spending my time doing now? So that we're kind of ready for the next step. But, you know, as he said, it's kind of the, it has always pulled me back in like, I can't imagine not putting on the makeup and doing the hair and going out and, and making music with Felix, you know, it's the the reason that we're that we're together. You know, he'll he'll occasionally have other gigs with other people. And as much as I love it, and I'm happy for him. And he needs more variety than I do. Like, I'm like, No, I'm happy to just work with you to know exactly what I'm doing to have someone who I rely on 100% I don't need any kind of instability. In my life. I'm good. I got it. Whereas he'll go, he's happy to jam and happy to take on new projects and learn new things like No, no, I don't have any of that desire. But when he does things, I'm happy for him. But also there's part of me that, like, it really doesn't like that, you know, that he's gone off and is having a life without? Yeah, I mean, we literally in 16 years, like we pretty much, you know, kind of spent every minute together for that time. So yeah, it's if for better, it's far better for us. You know, it really it really is. No longer gonna backtrack, just exam that you chose wrong. Now you go back and get over it Yeah, was gonna ask you what you've got coming out. But I know, I've I don't know how to ask that. Because you've got gigs all the time, haven't you? Like? Yeah, yeah. So it's not like, because I had a look at your page of all your shows. It's like, oh, my gosh, you like that. And then, so like, it's just, it just flows on and on and on. Like you said, you have this portion of the year where it's full on full on full on, and then it's the little break time. So yeah, you just sort of ride the waves. And, yeah, it's like, you know, we describe it as a marathon out here. Right? You know, because it doesn't ever really stop. And which is great. Is you know, as you said, like it does have high season and low season to it. So, for us coming up we're getting into this season probably won't start really full on until October. Which is okay, because Theo is starting school in September. So he's never been to nursery, he was kind of about to go to nursery and then it was COVID. So then he stayed home for that two years with us. Which is a whole other like, Mom, thing my sister laughs at me, she's really okay with sending her eldest to school and I just choked all the time. I'm like, buying, you know, glue sticks and googly eyes, like crying in the grocery store. filling his school list. I, you know, he needs a uniform and I'm kind of dreading going to the store. I just don't I can't like deal with seeing him in that little uniform for the first time. So yeah. So I think actually, it'll be okay that he, you know, we'll start that and we're not super busy yet. So we'll have time to kind of transition him into that and transition us because he has to get up even earlier for us to drive him to school. You know, Oh, it's so I'm nervous about it. Because I think like, already, I'm tired. And already, it's not amazing for me, you know? How is that going to be when now we have to be up even earlier five days a week. And then when I have more gigs, how's it all gonna work? So I'm, I am really nervous about this fall season, coming in and figuring that we will just have to figure it out, as you know, as it goes along. But for us, musically, we have just started our first gig in like, four years with a full band. So that's been exciting for us to actually have, you know, bass, drums and keys again, because most of the time, and although we say most of the time as a duo, Felix is the band. So he is a guitarist, but he does all the drum programming, we work the drum machine that he plays Live, and then he does bass loops and guitar loops on top of that, and then he's doing back vocals, and he's saying the vocals, I'm just singing. I'm playing a little bit tambourine here and there. And then doing all though, like, admin stuff on whatever social media time. Yes, I do. That's all me. But, but so to have a full band is musically is really exciting again, logistically is difficult. It's kind of like, oh, yeah, and people's scheduling and issues and all this. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, so it's great that we're working on that working in a new venue to so getting adjusted to, what did they want? What does the audience want? What do we think is going to work? We've just been asked to perhaps put together a gypsy jazz trio, which would be new for us, we do a little bit of gypsy jazz, but not like full on things. So trying to see if that's something that we can that we can manage. And aside from that, yeah, just mostly have work either as a duo or as a trio. We do have a few different keyboard players that we that we work with. And yeah, most of most of our gigs are restaurant or kind of restaurant lounge, this new full band one is the first one that we seen a long time where people really there's sort of like a dance floor space for them, you know. So that too, has meant Okay, well, we kind of need to rework and bring back in some of that repertoire that we haven't really bothered with for last few years because they weren't allowed to. Yeah. Yeah, and it'll just lead up by Christmas. Usually our week of Christmas is absolutely nuts been rammed, which is I just find crazy challenging. It's with two kids. So also trying to find time to steal like, create the magic of Christmas and, and it's Theo's birthday, he's a Christmas baby. So he's also kind of like finding a way to make him also birthday, maybe birthday party and, and playing, you know, Christmas Eve, usually we'll do two gigs. And Christmas day, we'll do two gigs. And every night of the week and everything. So it is, it's a tough, it's a tough time of year for me. I mean, you want to talk mom gills is kind of astronomical and have our nanny, you know, reading the Christmas story, and I really struggled with that this last year, you know, that we, we move Christmas as we need to, you know, like we celebrated on the day that we don't have to get up and go to a gig. So we did it on the 26th this year, but that still meant that on Christmas night, like she's putting out cookies for Santa and getting them in their pajamas. And I was just kind of all over the place that night. Like it was to the point where Felix even said to me, he said, you know, do we cancel that gig like you're this upset, you know, in the weeks leading up to it that you're not that you're not going to be able to be there and you know, it's a tough call right like these well paid holiday gigs you know, they're not at our usual rate. They're better than the usual rate and, and having to and maybe it'll be different every year. You know, maybe I won't make the same choice this year as to am I okay with her just sending photos of look, they're in their Christmas jammies. I'm sort of toggling between sets and then going okay, here we go, you know, celebrating Christmas with other people who are there with their families also too, which is just like that. You know, really hard on my heart and, and I, you know, I think maybe in later years it if we're still kicking around and doing this, it will be the kind of thing where maybe they can come and be with us, you know, on the on those occasions just be at those games. But right now there's just so little that, you know, and their bedtime is still early and all of that. So it's, it's, I know that it's better for them to be at home where they're well taken care of and she's doing as much of the tradition is as I have, like, left instructions were hard to do. But, but it's hard like Felix and I both are moms or elementary school teachers. So they had summers off, they had two weeks off at Christmas. So we both kind of have these very strong like holiday traditions of the families always did this and that and Christmas Eve was this kind of celebrating and then Christmas Day was that kind of celebrating. And for us we're just absent, you know, on those times. So find hope Yeah, find the holidays hard. But you know, in the other sense like we're still financially recovering from COVID so it's work work work, work, work work, work much as we can Yeah, you just sort of do what you can at the time that you make the decisions as you go and like you said next year you might feel different and then a year after you might feel different so it's like Yeah, going with what you need at the time. Yeah. And trying not to feel guilty I really love talking to you today. It's it's such a routine energy and I like have you got videos on YouTube where we can watch you perform, I want to watch you perform like your vibe is so welcoming and energizing is like awesome to have a say on stage. You know what I mean? What if you do want to see the videos with feel of which honestly, I swear there's like at full length shows there but they're on our Facebook page. So you can feel free to like scroll through the years. Seriously, just check the last five minutes because that's the start. You can skip ahead. It's fine. We're used to everyone else like tuning out and then coming back five minutes to the hour. I'm University thanks for your company today. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd love you to consider leaving us a review following or subscribing to the podcast or even sharing it with a friend who you think might be interested. If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the podcast please get in touch with us via the link in the show notes. I'll catch you again next week for another chat with an artistic mum now tomorrow we live saw so simple if you lead with me love you used to be the one always man trying struggling still good seem so sad with you maybe. Monroe I love to also sample if you lead with me love me for me design but love you You know that I find it oh so hard to let go change when you say in your sweet baby start let's let them roll while we while we live in today in some some so simple if you learn to be with me they're gonna love you ever decide that you're gonna love you

Jessica Mendes Canadian watercolourist and illustrator S2 Ep28 Listen and Subscribe on itunes , spotify and google podcasts Today I chat with Jessica Mendes, an illustrator and watercolour artist from Kitchener Canada, and a mum of 2 young children. Jessica recently got serious about her art, creating a business 6 months ago as a result of wanting to have some fun and more positivity during the pandemic. She has found her niche painting portraits of homes, cards and creating keepsake art. We chat about how being a parent has influenced the way she approaches her work, how her children motivate her, how turning her hobby into a business has legitimised it for her and how your confidence levels changes through your life. Connect with Jessica's instagram https://www.instagram.com/kwgreetings/ Website - https://kwgreetings.ca/ Connect with the podcast https://www.instagram.com/art_ of_ being_ a_ mum_podcast Music used with permission from Alemjo https://open.spotify.com/artist/4dZXIybyIhDog7c6Oahoc3?si=aEJ8a3qJREifAqhYyeRoow When chatting to my guests I greatly appreciate their openness and honestly in sharing their stories. If at any stage their information is found to be incorrect, the podcast bears no responsibility for guests' inaccuracies. Podcast transcript at the bottom of the page Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Art of Being A Mum Podcast. I'm beyond honoured that you're here and would be grateful if you could take 2 minutes to leave me a 5-star review in iTunes or wherever you are listening. It really helps! This way together we can inspire, connect and bring in to the light even more stories from creative mums. Want to connect? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram tagging me in with @art_of_being_a_mum_podcast I can't wait to connect. And remember if you or somebody you know would like to be a guest on the podcast, get in touch ! I love meeting and chatting to mammas from all creative backgrounds, from all around the world! Thank you! Alison acknowledges this Land of the Berrin (Mount Gambier) Region as the Traditional Lands of the Bungandidj People and acknowledge these First Nations people as the custodians of the Region. Ch eck out more episodes ..... Welcome to the Art of Being a mum, the podcast where we hear from mothers who are artists and creators sharing their joys and issues around trying to be a mother and continue to make art. Regular topics include mum guilt, identity, the day to day juggle mental health, and how children manifest in their hours. My name is Alison Newman. I'm a singer songwriter, and a mum of two boys from regional South Australia. I have a passion for mental wellness, and a background in early childhood education. You can find links to my guests and topics they discuss in the show notes, along with music played a link to follow the podcast on Instagram, and how to get in touch. All music used on the podcast is done so with permission. The art of being a mom acknowledges the volunteer people as the traditional custodians of the land and water which this podcast is recorded on and pays respects to the relationship the traditional owners have with the land and water, as well as acknowledging past present and emerging eldest. Thanks so much for joining me today. On this episode, I chat with Jessica Mendez, an illustrator and watercolor artist from Kitchener in Canada and a mom of two young children. Jessica recently got serious about her art, creating a business six months ago, as a result of wanting to have some more fun and positivity during the pandemic. She has found her niche painting portraits of homes and creating keepsake. Today we chat about how being a parent has influenced the way she approaches her work. How her children motivate her how turning your hobby into a business has legitimized it for her and how your confidence levels change throughout your life. I hope you enjoy so you're in Canada that's pretty I am Yeah, I haven't spoken Canada yet. So this is really perfect. I don't have the lovely accent but all your other guests I love your I can give a town that you're in. What can you just tell me a bit about it? Because I'm really fascinated with like towns and weather and all that kind of. So I live in Kitchener, which is part of like Waterloo Region. So it's like Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, they're all kind of connected as one big city even though they're three. So we're about an hour west of Toronto, so, okay, yep. Yeah. More of a landmark for people. So yeah, so what's the weather like there now? You got snow? Yeah, not too much. It's about today was like minus seven degrees. So not too bad. But that that's pretty cool. Yeah. We haven't had like a minus 30 yet so. Oh, is that that's what's gonna happen? No, in recent years, but it definitely can happen. Oh, wow. I can't even imagine that. Because where I live, our coldest day would be like 11 or 30. Like, we don't we don't get snow we we don't get minus if it reaches a level and people are like in T shirts, they're so happy. Love that. It's nice to have a balance of both like summer and winter though. So Oh, wow. Have you always lived? Yeah, my whole life. Yeah. Makes you I've always lived in my little town I've done some looking at your beautiful artwork on your website. It's beautiful. Can you tell our listeners what you create the style that that you make and all that kind of stuff? Yeah, so I mostly use watercolor in combination with ink and then some just straight ink illustrations. I'm fairly new. I just started doing this maybe six months ago. So that's just what I've been working with. Up until this point. I started a small business and a website. Initially I started you know, doing greeting cards. Something I figured that would be something sellable. And then after you know doing it for a bit browsing Instagram and that kind of thing. Hey, I started trying a few other ideas. And I'm mainly right now have been working on the house portraits. That was kind of my biggest, like requests leading up to Christmas. And that has been really fun. I enjoy doing those a lot. So that's what I've been leaning towards mostly now. But yeah, yeah, they fantastic. Is this so unique? Like they're just Yeah, such as a special, like, beautiful thing for people to have. So yeah. And I think it's now kind of my ideas are morphing into more like keepsake art. So, yeah, things that people will hang on to like, even like pet portraits and things like that are very popular. So yeah, yeah, I think that's, that's really neat. That's lovely. So you say you've only been doing this for six months? So how did you decide to start doing this? Are you self taught? Or have? How did you get into it? Yeah, so I was interested in art quite a bit in like when I was younger, in high school, and that kind of thing. And then when I decided to, you know, study in university, and like, pursue a career, outside of the arts, I just kind of didn't really continue with it at all, like, into adulthood. I always considered myself somewhere artistic, but I just kind of let it fall away. And I kind of went more towards the science direction. And then after having children, after my second was born, during my mat leave, which I'm still on now, I just needed something to do especially like during the pandemic is there's no socializing, like, I don't know how it is there. But here's still very much not normal. So yeah, yeah. So I just, I actually decided, more that I wanted to start a business before I decided that it would be art related. Yeah. So yeah, I just wanted like the business aspect to be more of a project for myself. And then it took me a while to decide that it would be art related. I just, I wanted it to be something enjoyable and not something that felt like work so. Funny, now thinking about it, I don't really consider myself creative. I just, I have a really good attention to detail. So to me, it's why the house the house portraits are really good for me, because it's just copying and being able to see things in and copy from a reference. So I think in the beginning, when I first started this, I kind of had a hard time deciding what my style would be and what I would focus on and when I started to do those, it just felt so easy to say, I don't really have to think about what I'm creating. It's like already on a picture and I just duplicate. So yeah, that's kind of but yeah, I was always interested in that type of thing. And I took classes relating to that stuff in school and then just wanted a different direction and didn't really like make the time for it. in young adulthood and early, apparently. I'm not artistic. I mean, I'm not I can't draw. I do. I can do watercolor because it's just so freeform. So I like that but I can't. So when I see things like yours like I just, I'm in awe of it because I can't do it. I'm like, Oh, I just love it. This is so cool. Trying to use water to erase multiple mistakes you mentioned your children there briefly. Tell us about your kids. So I have two children, a son who will be three in a couple of weeks and then a daughter who will be one in also a couple of weeks. Oh, yeah, they must keep you pretty busy. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So do they sort of join in with your beauty creativity doing? Do you let them loose with the, with the watercolors? Um, my son does enjoy painting actually. Just like children's paints so far and not watercolor, but he's pretty interested in it. And if he sees me bring out my stuff when he's heading to bed. He's he's pretty interested in what I'm doing. But yeah, for the most part, I work on things when they're sleeping. Obviously, they're just too much into everything to try to deal with it when they're I can imagine you're listening to the art of being a mom was my mom, I was the name. You say you do your when they're in bed. So you obviously have some support around you to be able to do that. Yeah, so I think as of this week, I we're kind of transitioning out of a nap, daytime nap for the oldest, so I'm going to lose that kind of hour I had there. And I'm also going back to my regular job in a couple of weeks as well. Here we have a year long maternity leave a year, 18 months. But um, so yeah, other than that, I kind of have like a 730 to 9:30pm window to get things done. So yeah, my husband is really good at locking down the bed time to like, give us our evening because that's kind of our time, the kids are old enough now that they, you know, sleep in their own rooms, you know, at seven, they're in there. And it's our time. So that's really helpful. That's good, isn't it? Yeah. And yeah, you can, if you've got any ideas during the day, you can say, right, I know that time is coming up. So I'll keep that. Keep that. So you must be pretty good at working, like efficiently then like, it's like, right? Go. Yeah, sometimes I try not to, like sacrifice my sleep because that's just not good for anyone around. So yeah, I tried to buckle down if especially during Christmas, when I had you know, house purchase that I had promised to people for gifts and things I tried not to take on too many because I didn't want to turn it into something stressful. So but yeah, it's it's definitely hard to you know, by the time you bring everything out, you know, sit down you only have an hour and it flies by so yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yep. When you use talks about going back to work what what is your day job, I suppose. What's your so if I'm a scientific writer, so I work for a research company so basically my role is writing up the final reports of the results of the research for the client. Yeah, yeah. Very specific and not related to art at all Yeah. Will they be interesting I suppose being interesting. Yeah, definitely. Not very creative. But then again, I guess it goes like the structure of like copying and like you said that attention to detail so it sort of ties in with how your brain works I suppose. is a strength in my position in my day job and I get that comment a lot so I guess it is very helpful that's cool. Two of the big topics I love talking about and I say I love not because it sounds bad when I say I love it because I love talking about mom guilt. That sounds bad. I'm not I don't like knowing about people being guilty. You know what I mean? I just I find it such a fascinating topic. I just find it so interesting. And sometimes I think I should have been a psychologist because I love knowing about why people think the way they do and so mum guilt you is I think I think from what I've discovered with talking to other mums in Australia, and then I've chatted to some in the US, it's something that is quite universal. Is that something that you've you've seen over there in Canada as well? I don't know if it's like a newer term, or I hadn't heard of it, obviously, until I was a parent. But yeah, that's definitely a daily occurrence. I feel like for me, just, I mean, I think the definition of it would just be like, feeling like you're not meeting the standards that you think you should be as a parent? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, obviously, it for the most part is silly. Because if you care that much about your children and how you're raising them, you're doing a fine job. So I, in terms of like, my artwork, and my personal projects, like I don't feel guilty, relating to that, especially because I, you know, focus on that stuff in the evening. Like, it's not taking time away from my kids. So. Yeah, so. But I think, for me, the biggest guilt I feel is, you know, after attending to their needs all day, I don't, I might not have the energy to be like, as fun as I want. Or, you know, so that's like, the main thing that I don't know, the main issue, I feel. Especially with them being so young, too. It's like you, you're giving so much of yourself to these people. And then it's like, what's left for me sort of thing. It's just, you know, cooking and changing their diapers and like them, like, have I smiled at them. And then you kind of have to, like, put in that extra energy to see, you know, yeah, I can understand. Identity is the other big topic that I love. Did you did you go through a bit of a shift when, when you did become a mum, did you see the way that you saw yourself? Changing quite dramatically or had it? I think it was a bit of a shock. How are consuming like parenthood is, like, no one can really describe it to you beforehand. So yeah, it's kind of that. I'm the type of person that when I decide I want to do something, I act on it immediately. So it's that feeling of like, although you're caring for children all day, at the end of the day, you feel like you've accomplished nothing. So it's kind of like, frustrating, it's like, what is the point of this almost, even though it's super important? Like, I don't know how to really explain that. But yeah, it's kind of like you're just floating along and your day is so boring in a way. And so monotonous. It's like the same thing. Yeah, same thing every day. So and yeah, that spontaneity of being able to do something when you whenever you wanted to, or you said, you, if you want to do something, you want to just go do it. That's all sort of taken away from you. When you have the children I suppose. A bit yeah, just to I mean, really, the art definitely I like when I get an idea to its I want to start on it, I want to, you know, improve on it right away and have to wait all day and I only have an hour and it's that is probably the most difficult part of this whole business thing and this extra work that I put on myself. Yeah, but But saying that do you feel like it's really important for you to have that that outlet for yourself? That sort of feel feels that that need for you to make make or do something for yourself? Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, prior to starting Well, I started this more like I said, when like our evenings became our own again, like when my daughter was around six months. And at that time, I was just kind of like, use the time that you need to like clean or do laundry and just boring things or if I wanted to like sit down I would just you know like scroll the news which is so negative during this time, so I just, I just wanted something that was fun and more positive. And it ended up being like a really good thing that I chose to do. And prior to this, I, I hadn't used social media for probably three or four years leading up to this. So and I wasn't a fan of it. And I that was an aspect of it that I didn't really look forward to. But there is like a really big art community on there that is really positive and supportive, which is that was like a cool thing to discover when I started that. So. Yeah, that's, it's the thing I find. I don't know about you. But I really like Instagram, as opposed to Facebook, like I love. I love looking at me versus Yeah, and I, and there's doesn't seem to be as I mean, I don't know how I might use it different to other people. But I just love looking at things like I'm really visual kind of person. And I don't, I don't really click on unless it's something I really want to read. I don't click on everyone's comments and read heaps of comments. I just I'll read the person that posted it. And then I'll sort of keep looking at pretty things. Whereas Facebook, it's just so I don't know, everyone just trashy. Yeah, that's the best. Yeah, just kind of has become. Yeah. And that was more the more used, like, platform when I left social media. And so now it's it's so interesting to see how much businesses rely on Instagram and stuff now, which I said, like when I started this, that, Oh, I wish I would have, you know, continued on with this when I was younger, it would have been, what would it have been now if I would have kept with it, you know, 10 years ago. But at that time, you know, social media wasn't really the thing it is now so I don't know if it would have been anyway, it's kind of hard to look at it. Yeah, it's hard to know, too, isn't it? Because I often think about that with my, with my singing because I put so much stuff off until I'm, you know, I'm in my 40s now, and I'm finally doing stuff with it. But then I think I wouldn't have had all the material that I have to write about now. Yeah. So I figured things do happen when they happen. Yeah, try not not even, I don't even think I would have had the confidence to like have a business when I was younger either. And when you're older, you especially when you become a parent, you don't have the energy to care about what people think of you and you just do whatever you want. I'm going to take that, and I'm going to make it quite out of that. Because that is definitely say that the new episode. I love that. In a nutshell, though, seriously, isn't it? Like you've got you put so much energy into the important stuff in your life and all this other rubbish? She's like, Yeah, whatever. Like, it's just, it's background noise, like you just don't get caught up in. I guess most of your work now is you focused on creating your, your work for clients, I suppose. But do you do your kids influence your work at all? Um, I wouldn't really say so much like the actual content. I mean, I have been thinking about since it's like keepsake art, things relating to like, you know, newborn births, or like birth announcements and that type of stuff, which you would have never considered before. Yeah, and only consider myself a kid person at all. But I will tell you just more, you know, now that I've started it, and turn this into a business and kind of have like those, oh, it'd be amazing. This could become a real job kind of thing. I think they like motivate me in that aspect. Because if that were to happen, I think it would result in a more like a better, like family work life balance for all of us. So I don't know, I think that would be really cool. If that was something I I mean, being your own boss and be. Yeah, pretty nice. I think just instead of you know, working the regular nine to five, I mean, it's not too bad now, like, we're still everyone here is pretty much working from home. So that helps. But prior to the pandemic, I also had an hour commute to work. Yeah, so that took away a lot of time and it was really stressful when my son went to daycare and I felt like I only saw him an hour a day and that Marine, you know, so it's it's much better now. You know, it's funny a lot of people I talk to, and like not saying that the pandemic is good in any way, but the silver lining of that is been fingered have been, you know, so close to their families, like physically there with their families, and giving, giving your time to sort of put in perspective, like what's really important in your life, too. I think just saying things in a different way. It's like, just because we've always done things a certain way doesn't mean that's how we have to do things going forward. So yeah, definitely, I think that will change permanently for a lot of people like for my job as well, which I'm really grateful for. Especially with the age, like our children, we've been home, we have not gone back to work in person since it started and like, they have changed so much in that time, like they would have been in daycare for the majority of it if we wouldn't, if we hadn't been home. So, yeah. Think the fact that I decided to turn my hobby into a business, like as a parent really helped me to, like justify the time I'm spending on it. And I don't know if that's good or bad, but it works for me. And so it's kind of like, I treated the same way I would, as a request from my normal job, you know, so it's like, okay, I, I can't do the dishes, I have something to do. You know. And I think that's kind of like, oh, and or, you know, I have to do this because it's, it's gonna make me a little bit of extra money. That kind of forces me to put time into it. Whereas if it was strictly a hobby, and you know, I was just throwing my artwork in the cupboard. I probably would just choose not to do it if there was so many other things to be done. So I think for me, that's just a positive thing about it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's like it gives you that that legitimacy, I suppose in your mind. It's like, this is important, too. This is this is a value and yeah, yeah. Yeah. As long as I just I don't my husband always asked me like, is this feeling like a chore at all? Is it still enjoyable as I as I guess if it becomes like, too much, then maybe I have to take a step back and look at how I'm doing things. But right now it's so okay. Yeah, good on you. Yeah, that's great. I love it. Thanks for your company today. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd love you to consider leaving us a review, following or subscribing to the podcast, or even sharing it with a friend who you think might be interested. If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the podcast. Please get in touch with us via the link in the show notes. I'll catch you again next week for another chat with an artistic mum. Join Dez and Eva as to business besties. Building a global tribe having real world conversations about all things motherhood, in the mum bosses abroad Podcast, the podcast that empowers you as a boss to make confident and smart choices for you and your family. Whether you're staying at home, running your own business, pursuing a corporate career or working that side hustle, you are absolutely 100% A man boss. And if you're doing all this while living abroad, well you're simply fantabulous all the way un find the mum bosses abroad podcast, anywhere you get your podcasts

Radio Radio Eastern 13 June 2021 5gtr FM 4 March 2021 Plenty Valley FM 22nd December 2020 5gtr FM 30 September 2020 5gtr FM 15 September 2020 ABC South East 1st Sept 2020 Plenty Valley FM 24 August 2020 The Oz Effect Tribe FM 2 August 2020 5GTR FM 17th January 2020 5GTR FM 8th December 2019 ABC Adelaide Peter Goers 21 Nov 5gtr FM 23 February 2021 88.5 FM 4th October 2020 On Triple M Radio 10th October On Hit 96.1FM 9th October Live on Fraser Coast FM 27th September Chat on Fleurieu FM 16th September Live on Seymour FM 12th September 5gtr FM Nunga Radio 4th August 2019 ABC Sth East 2th July 2019 ABC Sth East 26 March 2019 Reviews The Bandcamp Diaries - August 2019 The Music Producer - Sept 2019 Podcasts GEMS Ep 396 - WATCH GEMS Ep 396 - LISTEN Always Meet Your Heroes Ep 14 Heart Songs Podcast Series SBS Music Blog Podcast LifeboatSE Podcast April 24th 2019 The Adelaide Show Podcast Ep. 315 The Adelaide Show Podcast Ep. 297 The Adelaide Show Podcast Ep. 286 Print media The SE Voice - 25 February 2021 The Border Watch 5th September 2020 The SE Voice - 1 October 2020 Lifestyle 1 Magazine - 25th July 2019

Scott Shriner Bass guitarist for rock band Weezer S4Ep102 Listen and subscribe on Spotify and itunes/Apple podcasts This Friday you can enjoy listening to 2 special podcasts to celebrate Father's Day in Australia this coming weekend. The first is from Scott Shriner, bass player in the band Weezer, dad of 2 boys, and husband to author Jillian Lauren who is a previous guest of the podcast! Scott grew up in a musical home and studied jazz from an early age. He played trombone, and then bass guitar. In 2001 he joined American alt rock band Weezer and has ben touring the world since. He is the dad of 2 adopted boys, Jovi and Tariku, and i am so grateful for him giving me this interview between legs of the band's current tour. If today’s episode is triggering for you in any way I encourage you to seek help from those around you, medical professionals or from resources on line. I have compiled a list of great international resources here Music used with permission from Scott and Weezer thanks to my APRA AMCOS mini online licence agreement. When chatting to my guests I greatly appreciate their openness and honestly in sharing their stories. If at any stage their information is found to be incorrect, the podcast bears no responsibility for guests' inaccuracies. Scott's interview with Scott and Ian that we reference a few times Podcast transcript at the bottom of the page Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Art of Being A Mum Podcast. I'm beyond honoured that you're here and would be grateful if you could take 2 minutes to leave me a 5-star review in iTunes or wherever you are listening. It really helps! This way together we can inspire, connect and bring in to the light even more stories from creative mums. Want to connect? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram tagging me in with @art_of_being_a_mum_podcast I can't wait to connect. And remember if you or somebody you know would like to be a guest on the podcast, get in touch ! I love meeting and chatting to mammas from all creative backgrounds, from all around the world! Thank you! Alison acknowledges this Land of the Berrin (Mount Gambier) Region as the Traditional Lands of the Bungandidj People and acknowledge these First Nations people as the custodians of the Region. Ch eck out more episodes .....

8 Britt Australian designer 8 Article # 18 August 2023 I started out lettering by accident. I was a very sporty child and genuinely believed I had not a creative bone in my body – to the point that I often got other classmates to help in art/sewing/woodwork classes because I despised what I produced. I was such a perfectionist. But I was guilty of often scribbling over my class books and diaries much to the teacher’s dismay, but if there was a sharpie around, I couldn’t help myself! In 2015 while going through a messy break up I decided to start scribbling quotes on paper, which lead to my first commissioned piece after I shared my work on social media. I was working in marketing at the time and was also responsible for a lot of the graphic design which became a big passion and the two just intertwined perfectly. This eventually led to designing logos, which lead to me now offering full blown brand identity packages. I am a sole trader working from home, which gives me the ultimate flexibility which is what I have been chasing for a long time. I never knew that scribbling with sharpies could lead me to where I am today – and I am glad I had plenty of ‘real jobs’ while I figured it out as I learnt so much from so many amazing people along the way. My mediums range and have done over the past 8 years – but when lettering I consistently use: Paint and ink markers Card or Canvas With graphic design, I rely heavily on: Illustrator Photoshop InDesign Canva I have a 2.5 year old son, Alba and an almost 1 year old daughter, Gia. After a hectic couple of years, I am really starting to find a little more rhythm and balance in work and parent life. Gia has just started two days childcare recently which has helped. Pre that, it was a lot harder to achieve much and meant I was often trying to squeeze things in at night or on the weekend when my husband was around. I genuinely didn’t mind as it was a high priority, I could keep her home as long as I could. When I was pregnant with Gia I would often wake around 2/3am and struggled to fall back to sleep so used to get up and do some work then. I’ve also done my fair share of late nights and weekends. What I do really doesn’t feel like work, so if I spent my entire weekend working, I was OK with that. However, it did eat into family time, so I would often feel guilty that the 4 of us weren’t getting chinks of time together. But then, you end up feel guilty about sending them to childcare to be able to work/create. There is no winning, I swear! Now I have 2-3 days childcare for both Alba and Gia, I have found the balance to be really good for our family. It’s much more clear cut – I work when they’re in care and when they’re home, I don’t. I had a minimum age in mind I wanted them to go to childcare which was my reasoning for holding off – and overall, I am glad I had them home with me for the period/s I did. Now I feel a lot less pressure to achieve anything while they’re home. But one challenge I still face when they are home is when I randomly come up with a new idea and I am not able to immediately execute/get the idea out. So many ideas have been lost because of this – but that’s ok, maybe they really weren’t worth executing in the first place. In regards to support – my husband is the most wonderful support, he is a very hands-on Dad and encourages me to have time away to be creative which means I am able to spend more time being creative if I choose. He is no doubt my biggest support physically and emotionally, and with him by my side I feel like I can honestly achieve anything. "I absolutely want to be more than a mother – not only for myself, my relationship with my husband but to also show my children, specifically my daughter – that you can be a loving mother that is present but also have your own interests and goals outside of raising your children. " Becoming a mother has absolutely influenced my work. I now find myself sharing quotes relating specifically to motherhood with its ups and downs. They resonate for me and often many followers who are in the same place. Sometimes I feel like it may be a detriment though, I do need to look at the bigger picture as a good chunk of my target audience is pre or post the baby days. And Mum guilt? Well, it exists whether you work full-time, part-time or not at all. Society gives us so many mixed messages. Gone are the days women stay home, and that was that. We are a generation that are choosing to live our lives how we please, instead of to please. But the comparison game is very real. We’re surrounded by all kinds of differences - there are mums choosing to work to fulfil their own needs and passions, and there are mums working because they don’t have a choice. Some mums are choosing to stay home, while others are wishing they could afford to the do the same. But it’s important to remember - just because someone is a stay-at-home mum, doesn’t mean that they are present in their role and their children are any better off. And just because someone works full-time, doesn’t mean she wants to be away from her children. I personally feel more mum guilt when I am working/creating as opposed to maybe catching up with friends – and I am not entirely sure why that is. What triggers my mum guilt specifically is usually people giving unsolicited advice. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The way our family is choosing to live our lives is about finding the right balance that works for us an entire family unit. This is why we shouldn’t judge anyone on what they choose to do. We’re all living our own lives, with our own goals and dreams, with kids that have very different needs – there is not a one size fits all approach. Less judgement, more support I say. I have a huge desire to be more than a mother – not only for myself and my relationship with my husband but to also show my children, specifically my daughter – that you can be a loving mother that is present but also have your own interests and goals outside of raising your children. But if I am honest, apart from my ‘work’, there isn’t a lot I do to try and encourage this. I know I need to get better and plan to in the coming months – starting with finally getting back to the gym (I joined today!) and also trying to arrange some kid-free catch ups with friends. It’s imperative I continue to be creative and have my own interests for numerous reasons. When you’re passionate about something, it can be very hard to just switch it off. I was raised to believe hard work and loyalty to your workplace comes first – even before your own needs. That didn’t resonate with me, and I found myself in some dark places because of it –stuck in jobs I hated or working for people I loathed. I wanted to find something I enjoyed doing, that got me excited to get out of bed and go towork for the day. Otherwise, life can become very mundane. It took me a long time to be able to follow my passion and I want my children to be able to see that work doesn’t just have to be something you do because you have to. We spend a huge portion of our lives working – I want to teach them to take the time to try many things and work out what they really love. "We’re all living our own lives, with our own goals and dreams, with kids that have different needs – there is not a one size fits all approach. Less judgement, more support I say." Another reason I have wanted to continue to work is to keep my finger on the pulse. I don’t want to fall behind in a world that’s ever evolving with technology and lose confidence to not return to the workforce because I feel out of my depth. It;s hard not to get caught up in the monetary value at times, but I for sure know what as long as I am creating – whether it be for money or joy – it’s extremely valuable to my wellbeing. But I admit I feel bad sometimes when I know I am creating for the ‘love’ and my husband has the kids, because I feel like if I am away from them then it should be to contribute financially – which even I know should not be the case! In terms of my own mother, I’ve been brought to know she was expected to be a stay-at-home mum, and it would’ve been hard for her to work even (if she wanted to) as my dad did travel a lot for work and could be away for a week or two at a time. But, it really would have benefited her to have her own financial freedom and to step away from being a mother. I often remind myself this in times of guilt. Unfortunately, society was a lot less forgiving 30 years ago. I’ll admit my childhood experience has led me to struggle in this department since becoming a mother – because I felt external expectation to also stay at home. Instead, I have chosen to follow my gut and navigate working with children home and in regular care. Admittedly, I struggled putting both into childcare for numerous reasons, but when I look at the bigger picture and the positives of me working/creating – there is no question it’s the right thing to do. I have a strong urge to feel like I am both contributing to our household financially, and also because my work also gives me so many ‘good feels’ - it makes me a better mother and gives my children a different outlook to what I had. Win, win if you ask me. Contact Britt www.wordshewrote.com.au or Instagram @wordshewrote I have a couple of branding spots open for the rest of the year and some regular client work available BACK

Madison Foley Australian trumpet player S1 Ep12 Listen and Subscribe on itunes , spotify and google podcasts Madison Foley is one of Melbourne’s most sought-after trumpet players. Madison began performing professionally from the age of 16 and Madison was a long-time touring member of alt-pop outfit Architecture in Helsinki and has worked with many of Australia’s greats such as Ash Grunwald, Jazzlab Orchestra and Big Scary . Upon returning to gig life after the birth of her son, Madison faced the pressures of not only performing as a new mum but the pressures of pumping breast milk during gigs. The immense challenges she faced were evident with Madison pumping in some thoroughly unsuitable locations and experiencing a lack of support from venues and organisers. She realised the best way to engage venues and fellow musicians was to create an infographic that highlighted the challenges. We also discuss the challenges of being pregnant and having a baby in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, and the judgement faced by gigging mums - that dads don't have to contend with, and why she doesn't get caught up in "mum guilt" Connect with Madison on facebook and instagram Read Madison's The Mother Lode article and infographic here Find out more about Madison's bands Fools and JazzLab Orchestra Connect with the podcast here - https://www.instagram.com/art of being a mum_podcast/ Music in this episode used with permission When chatting to my guests I greatly appreciate their openness and honestly in sharing their stories. If at any stage their information is found to be incorrect, the podcast bears no responsibility for my guests' inaccuracies. Podcast transcript at the bottom of the page Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Art of Being A Mum Podcast. I'm beyond honoured that you're here and would be grateful if you could take 2 minutes to leave me a 5-star review in iTunes or wherever you are listening. It really helps! This way together we can inspire, connect and bring in to the light even more stories from creative mums. Want to connect? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram tagging me in with @art_of_being_a_mum_podcast I can't wait to connect. And remember if you or somebody you know would like to be a guest on the podcast, get in touch ! I love meeting and chatting to mammas from all creative backgrounds, from all around the world! Thank you! Alison acknowledges this Land of the Berrin (Mount Gambier) Region as the Traditional Lands of the Bungandidj People and acknowledge these First Nations people as the custodians of the Region. Ch eck out more episodes ..... Welcome to the art of being among the podcast where we hear from mothers who are creators and artists sharing their joys and issues around trying to be a mother and continue to make art. My name's Alison Newman. I'm a singer, songwriter, and mother of two boys from regional South Australia. I have a passion for mental wellness and a background in early childhood education. Thank you for joining me. My guest today is Madison Foley. Madison is one of Melbourne's most sought after trumpet players. She started performing professionally at the age of 16 and has been a longtime touring member of alt pop outfit architecture in Helsinki. She's worked with many of Australia's greats such as Ashkelon world, jazz lab orchestra, and big scary. After returning to gig life after the birth of her son, Madison faced the pressures of not only performing as a new mum, but the pressure of pumping breast milk during gigs. The immense challenges she faced were evident with Madison pumping in some thoroughly unsuitable locations, and experiencing a lack of support from venues and organizers. She realized the best way to engage venues and fellow musicians was to create an infographic that highlighted the challenges. We chat not only about this infographic, but we also discussed the challenges of being pregnant and having a baby in the midst of the COVID 19 epidemic. The judgment faced by gigging mums that dads just don't have to contend with and why she doesn't get caught up in mum guilt. Welcome to the podcast Madison, it's lovely to have you today. Thanks for coming on. Thank you so much. I'm very happy to be very excited. So you played the trumpet. Tell us how you got into playing the trumpet. So my, my dad was a brass band still is a brass band leader in the community and Tom music at school. And so he came around to our primary school actually. And they had all the instruments out so they were starting a primary school band program. I was all of five years old at the time, I think maybe six. And I walk up to the guy, I'm precocious little six year old and I go hi, I want to know, which is the loudest instrument I want to play that one and so they had me a corner the rest is history. You know so going up through you know, started in primary school went through the local community bands and into high school played the whole way through. You know, I ended up doing it at university and you know, just never put it down again since I was five years old, basically from a couple of small breaks but yeah, that's pretty confident in my life. So what how many instruments do you play? Well look, well I played the trumpet Well, poorly a lot of them I can play very bad keyboard and very very bad bass. Nearly no mostly bad drums can play a little bit of trouble I can play most of the brass instruments I can play a bit of trombone a bit tube or a bit of French on although my trombone playing sisters would probably beg to differ. But you know, they've not none of them really get a lot of love. Now it's mostly just the trumpet. Because at some stage in your life, you kind of have to focus in on one thing which has never been my strong point. I've always been someone who does everything so well I can play the trumpet so I read that you started playing professionally when you were 16 So what sort of gigs we did you start off with what was sort of the stuff you were doing at that age. Um, so at 16 I was my mom would take me down to the pub to go and watch Friends of mine Johnny wonder Pat, who I still play with now all of what that 16 years later so that was they were some of my first gigs I go down to the pub and just sit in with them. I learned a few horn lines to some tunes. They just played covers on a Sunday afternoon and they you know, they thought it was great there was this you know little 16 year old super key and little Maddie going Hi, will you let me play with you. And then I also at school we formed a little jazz group and did you know gigs for like 50 bucks each or whatever, just whoever would hire us just playing some jazz standard. So which that group actually have gone on to all be quite prolific muses themselves. There's Cleo Rana, who now plays rock winds and tours around the world with Angus and Julia Stone as Nick Abbey who's over in mapa. Now and I think he teaches there and will Morrissey, who played He's with Vance Joy, and it's all just, you know, everyone from that little group just ended up going on to do amazing things. It's pretty cool to look back on that now. But you know, there those were mostly my 16 year old gigs either at the pub or at random corporate events that wanted to hire some kids really cheap, basically. Do you so what did that sort of been leading to? You mentioned other people that you've you were with did certain things What have you done then since since those 16 year old days. So since then, I, I studied at the VCA. So I did the improvisation course there, which is jazz. And, look, I'm basically, I'm a freelance music. So I will do literally anything that anyone calls me up to do so long as it sounds like a bit of fun, but there's a bit of money in it. So I've, you know, I've done small, small group jazz, I've done plenty of big bands. So currently play with the jazz live orchestra, and helped organize that one as well. Both Dan McKenzie big band, and a few others around the place. I was in the touring band for architecture in Helsinki for years and years, which was really, really fun, we got to play some amazing concerts to 1000s of people. And, you know, I've done plenty of corporate gigs, or a lot of corporate gigs. Plenty of them going around. My current my current project, which is probably the thing I'm most excited about, in all of my music career so far is a band called falls. And it's a 13 piece, Americana, pop, rock, everything. So extravaganza, it's just the most joyful band I've ever played in without any offense to any of the other major bands are playing. It's just, it's a, we call it the love cult, because everyone just loves each other and loves making music together. So that's been that's been getting really big and going really well. But of course, with COVID, a lot of our grand plans of keep falling away, we're supposed to be touring in about six weeks time, up to New South Wales and Queensland, to do Caloundra and, and a blues fest, and Nashville, but all of those things are not looking super likely. But hopefully, hopefully fools keeps getting out there and keeps getting some of those very cool gigs and planning tours overseas and everything. So it's exciting times for that. And that's nice, because that's something I get to be really creative with as well, all the other, you know, pop groups I've been in have been more, you know, this is the song, this is your home lines, play them now kind of thing. Whereas this one, I'm helping to write all the phone lines, we're writing songs off together. So it's a real kind of combined effort with 13 people, it's very, that'd be like controlled chaos, almost 13 People input. absolute chaos. It's hilarious, but it's just the most fun I have doing anything musically. It's so great. Oh, that's awesome. Because I guess you're doing a lot of corporate gigs, you'd sort of be doing the songs that people know you'd stick to your standards. And, you know, you'd be limited, I guess to what you could do. So this would just be like, you know, open the floodgates off you go have fun with that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, the jazz stuff is really creative as well. And, you know, if, if I was so inclined, you know, there's, there's plenty of creativity, I could follow in there, but I just don't have I don't have the focus to kind of sit down and write a whole set of tunes myself and you know, kind of get that all together. It just takes so much work. So it's something that I have done in the past, something I maybe would do in the future. But for now I'm kind of letting that one, you know, the the jazz side of things. I'm just doing the big bands and then letting the creativity come out in falls. Wow, that sounds awesome. So I've got to ask you, did you ever come to Mount Gambia for generations in jazz? Yes. As Gambia tragic I still am I've you know, I forced my school to let me take my big band there. That was like, now Gambia was a life that was I lived for me, you know, that early weekend, in May, every year, I went to Wellesley College, which was you know, a big kind of big band school, my dad actually took the band there. So it was all we ever talked about from like, you know, about October through to May everything was about generations in jazz and you know, going into there and getting like just getting exposed to all those amazing music shows on the stage was amazing. And then going back as an as an adult and as a teacher has been really lovely as well and kind of seeing it change and into something completely different now. It's been really nice to be part of that and share that with my students now and see them experience that joy. Pretty cool. It's growing so much. I remember mom taking me when we were kids, when they used to be Girl, I think her name was Kelly. And she played saxophone on on her head Sunday. And I remember seeing her play. We're only at this Robert Hillman Theatre, which I'm not sure if you're familiar with, but it's basically your normal size data. Yeah. And now it's grown to I don't know how many 1000s people, it's the biggest tent in the southern hemisphere. Like all this, it's gone bonkers. And it's so wonderful. We've missed a couple of years. I remember seeing Kelly early as well, I've played in a lot of women's section with her since she's one of the ways to play with the mice. So if you ever see her, tell her I remember seeing it when I was a little girl, I would have only been probably, I don't know, to 1213, maybe maybe a bit older. But yeah. It's such a generational thing. And my whole family are involved, you know, because my dad took the Wesley guy and now takes the St. Leonard's band, my sister was taking the law, the whole band, to just schools in Melbourne, my younger sister was taking the band from Caulfield, like it was you know, we had all of us there, my uncle was volunteering there. So when you you know, every year we get a family photo at generations in jazz, and just all have a laugh about the fact that the whole family is still there, we just can't get away from it. Just let me speak for union come together in my life, it's a real shame that hasn't been able to happen the past couple of years you been able to do any teaching during COVID, like you're you locked down in, in Melbourne, it's great. Because I've been basically I've been filling in for the girl that was filling in for me at the school, so I I've been able to, you know, do my teaching, go back look, after Sam come back, you know, do another class go back and kind of share those duties, which has been really nice. It's actually been quite handy for me in terms of the thing locked in. And, you know, I've got all my resources from last year. And I'm probably one of the few teachers who actually quite enjoys online teaching, I love the challenge of it, you know, having to find different ways to present it and different ways to engage students using the technology. And it's just incredible how much we can do from home, you know? Yeah, I've been doing a fair bit of teaching from there. And then all these other little bits and pieces of you know, everyone's getting into the lockdown recordings again. So I did one last week, I think, for all day for it, which is like a kid's band slash jazz band, which is pretty fun. Falls, we're doing another one this week. We were doing one every couple of weeks back last year, which was very fun. So you know, it's, it's kind of, it's nice to do things in a different way and just change it up a bit. So I like looking at the positives here. And you know, just different sets a different way of living, but I kind of like it. My partner and I were supposed to get married last year, and then we're going we're gonna go on a great European adventure. We put all this cash aside, we've been saving our butts off to, to do all of that. And none of it happened. So and then I was getting maternity leave. And he's, he's kind of back at work now. So we've been lucky throughout all of it that we haven't had to struggle with gigs being canceled and stuff. I mean, we've lost plenty of money. But yeah, it's we've been thought more fortunate than others. So you mentioned Sam then so tell me about your little person. Sorry, my little person he's about is just about 10 months old. He is the absolute life of my life is the best thing that's ever happened. You know, I was very happy and very fulfilled person before having a kid. But I always knew I wanted a baby. I always not always know so I was terrified of children until I was about 23. And then I actually looked after one of my trumpet idols Ingrid Jensen in New York. I actually helped babysit her baby a few times just through you know, mutual friends and I was there and I didn't have a job and ended up kind of nannying for a couple of weeks. And I was like, actually, I love children. This is amazing. And from then on, it was like, Alright, this is something I want to do in life. So then, yeah, being with my wonderful partner, Carlo. I mean, we knew each other back when I was probably 1718 Just hanging out in the music crowds because he's a saxophone and woodwind player. He does all the jazz gigs and stuff but more so now he does in musical theater. So he plays for all Big shows. So we just knew each other through mutual friends for years and years, and then actually, jokingly got engaged about 10 years ago, I called the bouquet and I said, I'll call I don't have anyone to marry. And he said, Don't worry about it, I'll marry you. And I know, okay, and then, you know, like another, like, five or so years down the track. We ended up, you know, finding each other and going, Oh, this is a pretty cool little thing. And, you know, as things went along, and you know, from the start, I was like, I want to have kids just so, you know, this is a thing, and we were both very, you know, by very happy with that path. And then yeah, we kind of decided to, you know, not stop trying, but you know, not prevent anything and just see what happens, just throw caution to the wind. And, you know, lo and behold it a year and a half later, little Sam came into the world. So we found out we were pregnant, just at the very start of COVID. So it was kind of pretty scary times. And, you know, it was a bit of a surprise, because like, yeah, we've been going along for however long and going okay, like, you know, it's not gonna happen yet. That's all right. And we've been planning our wedding. So at the start of last year, we actually went, you know, what, maybe this year isn't a good time, maybe we should like, wait a little bit longer. And you know, until the timings a bit better. And as soon as we said that, of course. They got me pregnant. And yeah, then had, you know, nine months later, we had little Sam and so he's, you know, he's crawling now he's walking. Now he talks a lot like his mum. And like his dad, really. But he looks like me. So he's, he's good. Because of the pregnancy found out on the first of March, which, you know, thinking back to the timeline, that was kind of when things were starting to creep out of China and into other countries. It hadn't quite come to Australia yet. There was only maybe a couple weeks shy of that. But it was on its way. I remember coming out of staff briefing in the morning. So I was working. At the time, I was working full time as a head of Performing Arts. And I was also studying part time, 20 hours a week and doing gigs as well. So I was pretty busy. And I just I just handed in an assignment on the day, we found out I'd handed in my second last assignment, so I was exhausted. And we came out of a briefing like the next day and, you know, our, our principal and said to us, Look, we have to start being really careful, this thing is going to come to us, it's going to get very serious. And I was walking with a colleague and she said, Oh man, my my sister in law's pregnant, how much would it suck to be pregnant right now, and I just started bawling my eyes out on my way to my house drove off is just cry. Because I just thought, this is such an unknown. We don't know what this thing is. We don't know what it means for pregnancy for you know, an unborn baby, for a young baby, we just don't know. And so it was a pretty challenging time, mentally and emotionally. You know, and then in the weeks to come, you know, I had a lot of gigs that I just, I was so scared of what would happen if I got COVID. And it turned into almost like an anxiety about you know, if I get COVID The baby's not going to be okay. So I had to cancel geeks, but I couldn't tell anyone I had to I was working from home for school well before anybody else was, but I couldn't tell anyone why I couldn't come in from meetings. I couldn't come in, you know, it was all very, like, keep me away from everyone. And my principal was really supportive of that. But I think my pregnancy was probably the worst kept secret in Melbourne. Everyone just just looked at me when I okay. Yeah, we figure why you can't come in, but nobody can say anything. Yeah, so it was tricky, because we had to like, you know, keep up pretenses of I've just got a pre existing condition, but everyone knew exactly what was going on. So yeah, you know, then moving along, it was it was tricky, kind of going through and not being able to have family around during the lock downs. I mean, my My poor mom, you know, didn't really get to see me pregnant very much. I just send her photos all the time. And that was that was really tough for her as well to because she lives all the way over the other side of town. There was no way we could even catch up for walks or anything like my sisters live close, Carlos family live close, but my parents live quite far away. And so just not getting to see them. I think I didn't see my dad through the whole or maybe once through the whole pregnancy. It was really tough and definitely took it out. I'll emotionally and in, played on those anxieties a lot. And then I've got a bit sick later on in the pregnancy I got had gestational diabetes, which was an it was a late diagnosis, and I had to be admitted to hospital. And it was all of these things, and it kind of all just snowballed. And, you know, it was, yeah, by the time he came, I was ready to not be pregnant anymore. But then at the same time, you kind of look back and you go, you get to those last few days, and you go, Oh, I kind of like him being in there. And like feeling the cakes, and I like, you know, not having a baby to look after 24 hours a day just yet, you know. But yeah, we ended up ended up getting induced because of the gestational diabetes. And they thought that he was already four kilos at 36 weeks old, or 36 weeks gestation. So they were like, We need to get this child out. Otherwise, he's going to destroy, he did anything. He destroyed me coming out, they had to use the forceps. And, you know, he was he was in all kinds of all kinds of stress and whatnot, but still managed to have a vaginal delivery, which was wonderful. And had the epidural already. So I was having an absolute ball in that room. I just like, I got in there. And I was like, put this thing in my back auto kit as early as possible. I just don't want to feel a thing. And I'll tell you what, we were sitting there. We had disco lights going. We had like people on FaceTime. We were playing games, we're watching TV, we're hanging out chatting a few naps, by the time you just like, ah, be cool, that's fine. It's great, I would highly recommend doing it. I want to ask you, I have never played a winning strip. I'm a singer. So I struggled a lot when I was pregnant, breathing and getting the air in the diaphragm. Really? Was that an issue for you like physically being able to play? Absolutely. I mean, I think in some ways, I'm kind of grateful for having been in lockdown for a lot of the pregnancy, especially the lighter part for that reason, because I didn't ever have to push myself to a point where I went, No, I can't do this anymore. Because all I was doing was, like I said, like ISO recording, it's kind of thing. And so I could do as many tapes of them as I needed, I could do them in a few shots. And I was like if you say that the law schools recording, I had call it pregnant Tammy and continue to be like I mean, it was hard enough, just going for a walk around the block, let alone getting enough air to play the trumpet. So I think if if I hadn't been in normal life trying to do that, I think there probably would have come a point where I just would have had to go no more. So it's kind of nice that I never had to make that decision and and push it to that point. I just got to maybe 30 about 34 weeks and I just mind you this column I can't do anymore. That's fine. I've gotten up I don't need to I was still playing for work up until that stage just playing along with my students and whatnot. But yeah, definitely the breathing thing is hard. Luckily, you know, as soon as the baby's gone, like that all goes you know, your organs move back into place, and it's like they're so similar singing and brass playing. It's all about the diaphragm and all about the, you know, the way that you use it air and the speed of the air and everything just would be really hard. But I've read about people playing trumpet up until 3839 weeks, you know, I think it can happen, but I think those people are very special. I first came across you on the motherlode website. And you've done this amazing article and infographic about the challenges of pumping while you're digging, and I just related to that instantly, and I was like, oh my god, I get this totally I understand. I've pumped in some wacky places and some weed times and I thought, This is wonderful. Someone's actually done something about it. So tell us how that came about. Well, I'm trying to do something about it. You know, it's it's such it's probably the biggest challenge I've faced as a parent. Which sounds like it sounds so trivial, but people don't understand how hard it is and how demoralizing it is to spend all of your break sitting in dingy toilet stall, trying to keep all your beautifully sterilized equipment still sterile when you know the pits all over the floor. And it's like, it's really tough. It kind of came about I have when so when I was pregnant through lockdown, I had to really seek out some opportunities to talk to people who are also pregnant. And it just so happened that there were seven other female users in Melbourne, who I knew who were also pregnant. And like so one kind of emailed me and then said, Hey, Maddie, I saw you're expecting a baby. So a week. And then another one that hey, Maddie, yeah, we're also pregnant. All right, like, and so it just kind of, they all started writing to me, and I went, Wait a second, maybe we could turn this into a group. So we started our, our, what do we call it music moms group. And it was a, like a Facebook Messenger group, pregnancy support group, we do zooms kind of every week or two, and just talk about what was going on how we were feeling shared, you know, experiences of pregnancy, all of our fears about, you know, post, you know, giving birth and what that would look like, how we were going, you know, everything and it was just the most beautiful group, and they still are the most beautiful group of humans who just kind of pump each other up and keep each other going. And so now it's turned into from a pregnancy group, everyone's now had their babies, and it's a, it's a, you know, parents group, and we catch up, you know, pretty locked down, we we catch up every so often we get our Barb's together, they have a play, we have a talk or a drink, or beer or whatever we can do. All the guys come along, as well. They're mostly musicians, as well. And so it's turned into this amazing kind of support group. So when I was, you know, early on, when doing lots of gigs, through that kind of, you know, summer, you know, February, March, April, May season when things were really busy. And I was going out, you know, two, maybe three nights a week, and, you know, pumping in all kinds of places. And it was just feeling so hard. I mean, I got to the point of wanting to either give up and just, you know, go with formula, or, you know, if I'm doing it felt overwhelming, you know, having to take all of the equipment, you know, you're in these, you know, you're in a nice dress for the gig and you have to get the whole dress off, you have to put everything on you have to strap the things in, you have to plug them in, you have to turn the thing on, then you have to sit there for 15 minutes, then you have to wash everything. And then you have to get all back into your little box and into the bag. And the whole process takes the entire break if not longer. And I just so I'd be writing to my news. Oman's groups just being like, guys, is anyone else finding this really hard? And it was it was a shared experience that we were all going? How, like, how can we make this any better? How can we then it's so hard to, you know, keep pumping and keep doing this in the way that we're doing it. Some of the mums are amazing. And they will just like pull out all their gear and pump in front of anyone and sit there in the front row during the set break or whatever, and do it for me. I couldn't I couldn't get across. I ran having like literally having my nipples out in front of people. I'm very happy breastfeeding in front of people because there's a baby's head there, you know, but pumping feels a lot more exposed. And so I tried to think about how we could possibly just inform people of what you know what, what it is why it's important how they can make it easier. I was inspired by a Linda chintzy, who's in our museum moms group. She's going back. She's the leading Moulin Rouge. And she was saying you know that the the company have made all these amazing accommodations. She's got a five month old, I think I'm really sorry, forgot that wrong. But she's got a little Holly rose. And they've made all of these accommodations to make sure that she can keep pumping and have Holly there to feed and have her partner there to bring her in and all of that. And I thought, you know if they can make those accommodations, maybe other people can do. So I was doing I did three gigs for four gigs for the mid summer festival in Melbourne. And I just put it out there and I just wrote to the people who are organizing the gig and said, Hey, I'm a breastfeeding mom. Here's some things that would be really good if I could have my own room to pump in or just a private room with a door that I could just say to people hey, I'm going into pump right now. You know if I could have a fridge to store the milk in if I could have access to a sink so these are just all the things that the the IDA or the you know, Fair Work actually say that you need to have in your workplace, but obviously it's harder when your work pace changes every week. And you know what? They came back and they said yes, and they they gave me those things and I went ah But this is possible. It's not always possible. But it is possible a lot of the time for people to actually organize these things. And they were beautiful about it. They had my name on the door and they have my partner's name. They'd put everything in there that I could possibly need. And I just, I thought, let's try and make this people know that they can ask for these things. And so I started to become more vocal about it. And then, using those new moms groups, I actually workshopped and found out what they were finding hard, what their suggestions are that we could put into it and came up with this infographic that basically just says, Here, here's a bunch of things you can do. Firstly, here's why it's important, we need to keep our milk supply up. And to do that, you have to pump every three to four hours, we need to be able to have a space to do it, it takes 25 minutes, at least, you know. And so here's a list of things that you can do as a bandleader, as a venue manager, to make sure that people who are pumping or breastfeeding can feel comfortable to do it at your venue or at your gig. And the the response when I put it out to Facebook was just amazing. Like I was overwhelmed, I thought a few people would sit and be like, oh, cool, that's great. I might borrow that and show it to some people like it got shared over to New Zealand, it got shared all around Melbourne and, and a bunch of different places. And I think people have really taken it on board. I know a lot of people that I work with have been like, you know, we're going into a set and the set time has been changed. They've been like, hey, Maddie, if you need to leave early to go and pump, you know, that's fine, but set time has changed. Just leave whenever you have to. So they're making those accommodations. I mean, I really do, but it's nice to just be considered in that way and know that we have the option to like, hey, if I really need to park right now I can just walk off and go kind of thing. So it's it's been quite a journey and then during the motherlode motherlode interview was amazing as well, Georgia fields is incredible. And you know, made it all sounds so lovely and succinct or my you know, ramblings but it's, it's been a real journey. And I kind of coming over the other side of it now, you know, being 10 months old. You know, he's he's getting to the stage where he only has like, a few feeds a day. And it's like, wow, I survived that I survived that having to pump and having to feed every three hours, when those days where I was out at a gig out of town, and I was, you know, out of the house for 12 hours. It's like, it's a lot. And I feel quite, I feel quite proud of myself and all the other moms that have done that and been through it and made it you know, made it work. Yeah, absolutely. No good on you. I was so impressed when I saw it. And it probably I can think of times when it would have come in really handy because I, I guess I never thought to ask it was never it never occurred to me that that I could ask it was just like, well, this is your thing. So you need to sort it out. I never sort of thought I never Yeah, it just never occurred to me. So well done you round of applause. On the interview with the motherlode, you said something like times when you've been pumping in a really yucky toilet stall and, you know, close to tears, and you wondered, was it worth it? Probably not at that moment, but later did you sort of you obviously thought that it was because you kept going it was really important to you to be able to maintain that milk supply for your baby. But also, you know, it was important for you to keep playing and to to keep that part of your life really active as well. Absolutely. I, I, I know that I'm a better mom, because I have my music as well. I really feel that deep down in my soul that they're having the music especially, you know, and like doing the corporate gigs and everything, it's a bit of fun, you get a bit of money, it's pretty good. But they're things like falls and those jazz gigs that really feed my soul. I come back home and I'm completely revitalized as a parent, you know, getting that time away from Sam, who is the most important and the most beautiful thing in my whole entire world. But getting the time away from him, actually makes me appreciate him so much more. I mean, I was he was six weeks old when I did my first recording session back. And they were I was out of the house for maybe eight hours. I mean, I hadn't been away from him for that long, obviously. And it was you know, I thought I would really struggle. But it was it was an amazing recording session, syncing south with falls and I came home and I just felt I felt like myself again. After six weeks of being completely attached to this small human and just being at his whim, whatever he needed. He needed. Get on that moment. And, you know, I got to go away, step away from it and come back. And I was so grateful for that time. And I'm also so grateful that my amazing partner Carlo, you know, does everything he's, he's not scared and looking after the baby out or you know, and he's been hands on from the very start. I mean, because there was no theater, you know, for the first eight months of Sam's life Carlo has been with us, aside from his teaching pretty much full time. So we've been able to really manage that between the two of us. But yeah, they're having the gigs to go to, I think keeps me sane. You know, before I went back to teaching, it was the thing that kind of made me feel like me again. And I think that's so important for, for creative parents to still have those things I, I was never going to put down my trumpet and not play as a parent. And also, I'm a really stubborn human being. And if someone tells me like, Oh, you're not going to want to play much once here, once you have your baby, you're going to want to just stay home. I was like, I heard shorts your show. Cool. Cool. Cool. All right, watch me go. And so now I'm gonna be a bit more determined than before, I think I've been practicing even more than I was, before I had a baby, because I'm just like, You know what, I want to go out there and show people that being a mum. I mean, being a parent in general, but especially being a mum does not stop you from being an amazing musician, and amazing artists and amazing teacher, whatever it is that you do. It's another thing in your life that is very, very important. And yes, your priorities change. But it doesn't stop you being amazing at what you do in that moment. And I've had people kind of, you know, second guests that I've had people be like, oh, so all your backup gigs. Oh, really? That's, that's soon? Oh, that's interesting. And you know what I just say to them, I'm like, why wouldn't I be? Actually, I think you'll find I'm paying better than I was beforehand, so that you've put so much effort into, like all the background, they just see you at the gig, they haven't seen you prepare everything at home, have the milk ready, you know, do everything you need to do to make sure you can do this gig, because the similar thing happened to me. I did my first gig that we did the when he was seven weeks old. And same thing someone said to me, oh, where's your baby? And I was just like, if you knew what I have, I've moved heaven and earth to make this day possible. So I was playing up at Coonawarra, which is about an hour away. And I was there for about five hours. So I was away from him for a while. thought you've got no idea. I That's my that is my pet peeve. And people ask it in a nice way. And they ask it with the most like sincerity and they go, oh, where's the baby? And that's one question that I just can't stand because it just kind of grates on me because it makes you feel like, oh, I should be looking after, should I be looking after the baby, we're like, you know, it's like the babies with his dad, he's fine. You've done so much to be able to, you know, go into a gig now isn't just like you know, or you've done your practice on the days before you just you know, get your tribe and walk out the door. Going to a gig now means scheduling time in for practice every day leading up to it to make sure that you're on top of it, which I reckon I'm more on top of my gigs now because I have to schedule things I have to make that time doing all the pumping, getting the bottles ready, getting the food ready, making sure the babysitters sorted, making sure everyone knows where everything is, you know, what's the bedtime routine? You know, have I fed the kid now? Should I feed him right before I go? It's such a different thing now. And, and for people to be questioning that and be like, oh, where's the baby? It's something that really great for me. Maybe I should make another infographic about not asking that question. I think I just I'm very passionate about you know, I am you know, Loki quite a feminist. And one of the things that really bugs me is, you know, when I think about would people ask a dad about that? Would they say do you know, is their dad guilt? Or, you know, Dad comes into a gig gig or goes to work and someone says, oh, where's your baby? That doesn't happen, you know? Or someone says, Oh, you're back getting already Wow, that's amazing, like, hold on you. That just doesn't happen. And so you know, the mom guilt thing. I think dad should be feeling it just as much and I'm lucky enough that my partner feels a lot of dad guilt. He comes home, you know, when he goes out to work and he calls me and he says, Can you send me a photo? I miss him? You know? And I think that the the feeling that it should be all on mums to be there and to be looking after everything. It's not fair. It's not equitable. Having said that, you know, we do of course, we miss our kids. Like, I miss Sam so much when I go out to a gig, I do miss him and I look at photos and I show everyone photos. You know, I miss him and I go, Oh, but no part of me ever feels like oh, I should be at home. It's not fair to him, because it wouldn't be fair to him if I was at home all the time, and I was a sad person because of it. And so that's why I just think you've got to look at the balance of things. Yeah, he's gonna miss me for a few hours, but I'm going to be a better mom because of it. And I really, truly believe that making, like doing the work that we do anything that makes you feel happy and passionate, you know, that makes you a better person and a better parent. And so you can't feel guilty for taking that time. And I really do I look at music completely differently. Now, you know, when I go out to do my gigs, it's not like, we're gonna go do a gig. Now it's like, this is my time, this is my time to do something that makes me feel really good, and nourishes my soul. And that's going to make me feel better about being at home. So, I don't know, if I answered the question at all, but my take on mom guilt, you know, don't feel it just don't cuz we're allowed to go out and do these things to our souls to, it's so important. I think moms often get put in until a man box. And people go, you should be looking after your kid, you know, you shouldn't be doing things for yourself. And that's that, that kind of thrown on my heart, like, you know, we completely surrender were expected to completely surrender everything about ourselves to be apparent. But it's just not feasible in the long run, if you want to be a happy and whole person. I am a trumpet player. And I'm passionate about that. I'm a music teacher. And I'm very passionate about that, too. And I'm a mom, and I'm very passionate about that. And I can still be all of those three things. And they don't have to, I mean, they're going to impact each other. Of course they are, but they don't have to cancel each other out. You can't only be one of those. I mean, you don't have to just be one of those things. And, you know, I think keeping my identity has, like I said earlier, it's kept me sane, it's it kept me feeling like parenting is the most amazing thing on earth. And it truly is. Because I've been able to keep that part of myself and share with Sam to like, he's coming out to a bunch of gigs. He's got his little headphones on. I think the first thing the first gig he came out to potentially was New Year's Eve, and myself and Carlo were playing together. So my mom and my stepdad came along and held sat there, and he watched us play. And he of course, would have had no idea was going on because he was only like eight weeks old. But playing for Sam felt amazing. It just felt like a completely different experience to be able to share my craft with him, you know. And so I want that I want him to grow up knowing that that's a part of me, and also having that be a part of him and want him to be proud of me to I want him to see me on stage and see his dad on stage and go, Hey, that's, that's my mom. That's my dad, how cool is that? I just really want him to think I'm cool. That's what? Well, my musicians as well. So you know, I always saw them on stage. And it was just, I was so proud. I thought they were the coolest people ever. I was like, Oh my gosh, look at that singing and dancing around. It's so cool. And, you know, I just think it's such an amazing thing for kids to grow up seeing their parents, you know, pursuing their like, the things that make them happy and doing it publicly as well as even better. Did it surprise you? You know, there's been so much change in terms of how breastfeeding has been accepted over the years. It's taken, you know, it's taken a while. But breastfeeding is commonly accepted pretty much everywhere now. Even if it might annoy someone. But Did it surprise you then that the pumping of the breast milk was just no one had any idea about it? It? It surprised me because I didn't know anything about it. Yeah. So I had Sam and I like I knew about breast pumps. And I knew that you you could pump milk so that you can feed them from a bottle. That's all I knew. I didn't know about maintaining supply I didn't know about you know the supply and demand part of breastfeeding. I just thought the milk was always there and you just get it out when you want it kind of thing. And so finding out that this would be part of you know, leaving the house and leaving Sam alone was that I'd have to be doing this pumping. It was actually quite upsetting. Because you know, when I started the pump, I was like wow, this is pretty intense. It takes a lot of effort to Get everything on. And then you know, when I first started pumping, nothing was coming out. And so I really had to work on relaxing and you know, looking at pictures of Sam to try and you know, get the letdown happening. And then getting out and talking to people and finding out then that they knew nothing about it too, I actually wasn't surprised that they knew nothing, because I knew nothing about it. I'd never seen somebody pump before. I'd never talked to people about pumping before. So me being the loudmouth. I am, I went out and started telling everyone all about it, I get to a gig and be like, right, guys, I need to pump it this time. I need to pump it this time. Here's why I need to do it. You want to see the equipment? Look, here's some of my milk. Isn't this amazing? Like, how cool was the human body? And you know, a lot of people just said, Wow, I had no idea. But it didn't surprise me because neither did I. It's not really talked about everyone knows about breastfeeding. But not everyone knows about the pumping side of it. You know, or Yeah, it's, it's kind of it almost feels like it's a bit taboo. It's in the background, it's things that people don't see. And, you know, I've got a great friend of mine who had to exclusively pump for six months. And she said, by the end, she'd just walk around wearing a pumpkin no matter who was around because you just have to when you when you're exclusively pumping every three hours, it just takes up so much of your time and so much of your life. So it'd be great for that to become a little bit more visible. And that was part of you know, me getting this out there was trying to help people make it feel more normal. Hmm. Yeah, that's great. When you did find out about the effort that was involved, did you ever have a moment where you just thought, Oh, it's just it's too much. I just did you ever have that moment where you thought now I can't do it. Like, it would have only been fleeting moments, I think, once I was pumping at and no human being to this venue in Melbourne, the night cat, it's known as one of like, the dingy highest venues, but also super fun. But you know, those are the nightcap toilets. So the way I used to go as a 17 year old when I was too drunk to like, you know, open a door and be like, you know, and I was pumping in there and sitting on the thing and just going, Oh, I can't touch anything. And I was like, this sucks. This sucks. Like, should I just do formula, but I really, I really just wanted to, and it was almost like a challenge within myself. I just wanted to see how long I could exclusively feed for and, you know, I just felt I feel so privileged that I was able to breastfeed, and not everyone can, you know, for medical reasons for you know, mental reasons, mental health reasons, there are so many people that just can't do it. And I you know, it came so easy to me, I was like, I'm not, I'm not going to take this for granted. It's amazing that I can give my kid the very best nutrition in the whole world. For him. There's nothing better than breast milk. I'm gonna make the most of this. And so I you know, I had my moments of wanting to give up, but they were fleeting. And you know, I kept going with it. And I'm still going with it now I still periods about, Gosh, about six times a day at 10 months old, which is a lot. But you know, we just do it. And it's, I've not ever been, you know, some people. You know, they say I love breastfeeding so much like it's a really beautiful bond between me and my baby. I'm not one of those people. I don't know why I didn't get that gene that was like, Oh, this is so beautiful and loving. I do it because it's easy and because it nourishes him and you know there are bits of it that I like it's just a lot easier mostly. You know, but we've we've kept going and I'm really glad that I did. Like you don't yeah. There's a Fire Island article on the motherlode of he's sitting on your lap, got the trumpet and it's absolutely beautiful. Well, my partner's in that photo as well. He was he was filling in with full so the two of us were at rehearsal. We were like What are we going to do we take the kid with us we put on his little headphones and he came into rehearsal. It was actually it was a pretty special moment for him to be you know, for my my whole family to be there with my full family. It was it was really lovely. And that's that photo is actually you know, the first one on social media of him is we haven't put any photos on but that just felt so special. We need it to share it. It is lovely to be able to continue that family tradition like your parents involved in their you and involving your son I think that's just beautiful, musics awesome. Always been such a such a positive thing in my world in every way possible that it just it feels like something that I want him to experience as well not necessarily to become a, you know, not to become a professional musician, but just to be able to have all of those amazing social skills that come from working in a team, you know, the the cognitive skills that come from learning music, and just the joy that comes from making music. I mean, if if you can, if you can do it, why wouldn't you? Why would you share that with your family around the piano when we were kids and dad would be playing, playing songs to us. And we just thought it was the most amazing thing ever. And I looked back at that, and I go, I'm so glad that we were introduced to music at such a young age and given the option and it was always an option, but we were given the option to pursue it in whatever way we wanted to. And we all ended up as brass players doing music degrees. Sorry, dad, he wanted doctors and lawyers. So he started the the trend of the brass in your family. Then my oldest sister started on the trombone. And then I did the trumpet. I'm the middle one. And then the younger one started on the corner as well. But I actually when I was in about year seven, I got the album's which is like the trumpet book. It's the book, you know. And I sat down and tried to play some of it with my poor little sister who was only in grade four at the time going, oh my god, I can't play there's nothing you just gotta you just play it you just do it like that. I wasn't a very good teacher then clearly. And the next day she put down a trumpet never picked it up again and picked up the trombone instead. I'm not playing the trumpet anymore, but it made me feel bad about it. Find matches a trombone player. Scottish philosopher have a lot of guilt about that. You talked about mom guilt. I've got sister guilt. Very good at the trombone now though, so it's okay. Maybe it was meant to be maybe that was her path in life you just had to guide her slightly she doesn't usually follow in my footsteps so you had to try other ones. Also want to ask you you said before about you, your muse Imams? Did you find because you were friends before you had children? Did you find them? Did you find that that there was little comparison with your muse? Oh mums group. Absolutely like that the museum moms group is super supportive. Everyone, you know, it's very real, we write about all of our challenges, you know, we write about all the really bad things, and we tell each other about the good things too. And everybody is like, there's no comparison, there's no, you know, oh, my, my child seems better than yours. Otherwise, I'd be losing pretty bad. I'm very, very high, you like it, you're right, like being already being friends. I mean, some of the a couple of the girls in the group, you know, I didn't know so well beforehand. And now we're also close, we, you know, text pretty much daily and just build each other up and just make each other feel like everything's okay. And everything's going to be okay. And I'm really lucky. Absolutely. My local parents group, there's a couple of girls in there who have become, you know, some of my closest friends, you know, and we, we really look after each other as well, you know, or living on the same street and, you know, supporting each other in that way too. So I think you can get lucky with the people you end up with, you can get unlucky, it just really depends. And I've had absolutely lucked out in finding, I even have a third mother's group. Another one. Everyone's just really amazing and supportive, and no one ever makes me feel like what my child is doing isn't okay. And I think that's such an important part of being, I think, especially among, you know, because we tend to be the ones kind of, you know, and this is generalizing, and it's not in every situation depends on your circumstances and the set of parents and whatnot. But we do tend to be the ones who kind of know where the milestones are meant to be. And we're the ones waking up generally every night if we're breastfeeding all through the night to feed the baby. So we tend to be the ones that end up getting sucked into those comparisons and those kind of competitions. And I think just being really mindful of making other people a never feel bad about what their child can or can't do. That be not, you know, not saying my child can do this to try and you know, show off but to be like, Hey, let's all rejoice in this together, my child can do this what new, you know, what is your child during this week that's really amazing and really special. Because I think it can turn into a bit of a competition. And that's, that makes me sad. But I'm so grateful that I ended up with all people around me who are just beautiful, and supportive and amazing, and I love them all so much. Life after baby really has made me kind of consider how much free time I had beforehand, even though I was working, like I was doing like 70 hour weeks, and still getting to the gym three or four times a week and still had free time outside of that. And now it's kind of like, probably the biggest surprise has been just how time consuming a child is, you know, I kind of thought you put them down for a nap. And then they'd sleep for a couple of hours and you get stuff done. And then you come back to them. And my child, beautiful Sam, he is the most incredible child on the world does not like sleep, I think he's allergic to sleep. So you know, his naps are sometimes only 15 minutes. You know, if we get really lucky, it's an hour, it really, really lucky. I think once or twice, he's done an hour and a half on his own. And I think, you know, the big thing as a musician has had to be prioritizing and scheduling. So sometimes now I have to practice the trumpet with a mute in at 11:30pm. Because that's the only time I get to do it. And I think, you know, everyone said to me beforehand, like you, you you weren't even know what you used to do with all your free time. And I was like, Dude, I'm pretty busy. Like, I know what it feels like to not have free time. Now after having a kid it's like, I know what it feels like to never have a moment to yourself. Because literally now any. And I say literally in the actual way it was meant to be used. If I have free time I'm off into the studio to practice. If he actually goes down for a nap, it's practice time. And so now I pretty much don't ever have any time to myself without the horn on my face. And that's been that's been a bit of a shock to me. I think, you know, I would I would have loved to know that beforehand that it really is that intense. And I'm sure it will get easier as we go along. And as he gets older, you know that then if we add another one to the mix, we go through the whole thing again, and then it's even more chaotic, I'm sure. But yeah, I think that's probably been one of the most surprising things as a as an artist and a mum, kind of just how much I need to use any little scrap of free time to make sure that I can still maintain my craft. Yeah, when I used to sit down and do half an hour of practice, I reckon probably 20 minutes of that was like looking on Facebook or, you know, rearranging my books or, you know, playing with a little thing on the trumpet. Now, if I sit down to practice for half an hour, I am practicing hard for half an hour, because I know that there's not going to be another half hour or if there is that I've got to use that half hour really well, you know. So it really does change the way you kind of focus and knuckle down things because there's just no, there's no room for faffing. You just can't. Alright, yeah, laughing is faffing is canceled the moment that child comes out of you. Sometimes my sisters come over to look after Sam just so I can go and practice if I'm having a particularly hard day they live close, which is lucky. But I'll just be like, Hey, guys, I haven't been able to get anything done today. And they will just come over, they'll sit with them. You know, for an hour or two, I'll get some washing done, I'll jump in the studio or have a shower or whatever it is and, and having that support has made it all possible. You know, you just need people you need, you know, you need a village to make it all work. I'm so lucky that I have an amazing village around me. You know, and I know it would be harder for people that don't and I know of people who don't have family here and it's bloody hard. And I just I don't know how they do it. You know, single parents, I am absolutely in awe of anybody who raises a child alone. I can't even fathom how hard that would be. You know, so I'm very privileged to be able to make it work. And I feel I feel very lucky for that. So there's some really exciting stuff coming up with falls. Hopefully we'll be doing a little mini east coast to the start of October may or may not happen. But then also we've got a gig in Maine in in mid October and another one in Brunswick, I think in November. So that will be very fun. Jazz lab orchestra is about to do recording for a new album, and they play at the jazz lab every month as well. COVID permitting. We've lost our first yard originally our last few unfortunately. But yeah, that's the main things coming up. They get on board. Madison, I've thoroughly enjoyed chatting with you. It has been so much fun. You've given me lots of laughs today. All the best with your full ski and well done again for opening people's eyes to the challenges of pumping and returning to gigs. So yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Alison. It's been an absolute pleasure to be on the show. If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the podcast, please contact me at the link in the bio. Or send me an email at Alison Newman dotnet

Sally Rippin Australia's highest selling female author + illustrator S2 Ep71 Listen and subscribe on Spotify and itunes/Apple podcasts Sally Rippin is a best-selling Australian author and illustrator living in Melbourne with her 3 children. Sally is Australia’s highest-selling female author and has written over 100 books for babies, children, young adults and adults. Her widely popular books are beloved across the globe, and have sold more than ten million copies in eighteen countries. Sally was born in Darwin and grew up in South-East Asia. As a young adult she studied traditional Chinese painting for three years in Shanghai and Hangzhou, which inspired her first novel Chenxi and the Foreigner. which she started writing when she was 19. Sally loves to write stories with heart and includes characters that resonate with children, parents and teachers alike. Sally has written and illustrated books for babies, children, young adults and now adults. Sally's books for children include the popular Billie B Brown and Hey Jack! series and the highly acclaimed children's novel Angel Creek. Sally's first book for adults has just been released, called Wild Things, it is about how we learn to read and what can happen if we don’t. Sally set out to write the book that she needed when her son first started school; a mix of personal experience, research and interviews with specialists, advocates and neurodivergent adults. When Sally discovered her child was struggling to read, she assumed it would sort itself out over time. She couldn’t have been more wrong. Her son’s dyslexia and ADHD went unsupported for years, leaving him further and further behind his peers, and labelled as ‘difficult’ by an education system that couldn’t easily cater to neurodivergent kids. By the time Sally learned how to advocate for her child, it was – almost – too late. Sally's hope is that this book will help readers understand and better support neurodivergent kids to thrive in a world where they may not easily fit. In September Sally released a picture book, co-written with musician, author and disability advocate Eliza Hull, called Come Over To My House. Inside, readers are welcomed into the homes of seven families who identify as Deaf or disabled. The first of its kind, this picture book is not only important for disabled people to see themselves represented authentically, but also to start useful conversations in the classroom and home. Resources for parents Find Sally website Podcast website / instagram Music used with permission from Alemjo my new age and ambient music trio. When chatting to my guests I greatly appreciate their openness and honestly in sharing their stories. If at any stage their information is found to be incorrect, the podcast bears no responsibility for guests' inaccuracies. Podcast transcript at the bottom of the page Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Art of Being A Mum Podcast. I'm beyond honoured that you're here and would be grateful if you could take 2 minutes to leave me a 5-star review in iTunes or wherever you are listening. It really helps! This way together we can inspire, connect and bring in to the light even more stories from creative mums. Want to connect? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram tagging me in with @art_of_being_a_mum_podcast I can't wait to connect. And remember if you or somebody you know would like to be a guest on the podcast, get in touch ! I love meeting and chatting to mammas from all creative backgrounds, from all around the world! Thank you! Alison acknowledges this Land of the Berrin (Mount Gambier) Region as the Traditional Lands of the Bungandidj People and acknowledge these First Nations people as the custodians of the Region. Ch eck out more episodes ..... Welcome to the Art of Being a mum, the podcast that's a platform for mothers who are artists and creatives to share the joys and issues they've encountered, while continuing to make art. Regular themes we explore include the day to day juggle, how mother's work is influenced by the children, mum guilt, how mums give themselves time to create within the role of mothering, and the value that mothers and others place on their artistic selves. My name's Alison Newman. I'm a singer, songwriter, and a mom of two boys from regional South Australia. You can find links to my guests and topics we discussed in the show notes. Together with music played, how to get in touch, and a link to join our lively and supportive community on Instagram. The art of being a mum acknowledges the Bondic people as the traditional owners of the land, which is podcast is recorded on welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. My guest this week is Sally rippin. Sally is a best selling Australian author and illustrator living in Melbourne with her three children. Sally was born in Darwin and grew up in Southeast Asia. As a young adult. She studied traditional Chinese painting for three years in Shanghai. And this inspired her first novel Chen Zhi and the foreigner, which she started writing when she was just 19. Sally is Australia's highest selling female author, and has written over 100 books for babies, children, young adults, and now adults. Her wildly popular books are beloved across the globe, and have sold more than 10 million copies in 18 countries. Sally loves to write stories with heart, and characters that resonate with children, parents and teachers alike. Sally's books for children include the popular Billy B Brown, and hijack series and the highly acclaimed children's novel Angel Creek. Sally's first book for adults has just been released called wild things. It's about how we learn to read and what can happen if we don't. Sally set out to write the book that she needed when her son first started school, a mix of personal experience, research and interviews with specialists, advocates and neurodivergent adults. When Sally discovered her child was struggling to read, she assumed it would sort itself out over time, but she couldn't have been more wrong. Her son's dyslexia and ADHD went unsupported for years, leaving him further and further behind his peers and labeled as difficult by an education system that couldn't easily cater to neurodivergent kids. By the time Sally learned how to advocate for her child, it was almost too late. Sally's hope is that this book will help readers understand and better support neurodivergent kids to thrive in a world where they may not easily fit. In September, Sally released a picture book co written with musician, author and disability advocate Eliza Hall called come over to my house. Inside readers are welcomed into the homes of seven families who identify as deaf or disabled. The first of its kind. This picture book is not only important for disabled people to see themselves represented authentically, but also to start useful conversations in the classroom and our home. The music you'll hear on today's podcast is from my ambient music, New Age trio called LM joy and that comprise comprised of myself, my sister, Emma Anderson, and her husband, John. Thank you again for listening. And I hope you enjoyed today's chat with Sally. Welcome to the podcast. Sally. It's an absolute pleasure to welcome you and to meet you today. It's really exciting to be here. Thanks, Alison. You're a best selling author. That's pretty exciting. And you've been writing for 25 years you've written 100 books. That's quite prolific, isn't it? Like? I mean, my max four books a year give or take? Yeah, well, look, there have been some really busy periods. But also, I guess what I probably want to say and I think a lot of artists out there would relate to this is that I've been published for 25 years, but I've been writing since I was little Yeah, I was a kid that was always in a corner reading books drawing, making my own books. So yeah, so I think I think I'm sure you imagine that that's something that a lot of us would say and I suppose it's the same for you too, is that it still feels a little bit surreal for me, and I don't think of myself as a six successful author or a best selling author because really, all I'm doing is exactly what I did when I was a little kid and I get paid for it and I can do it all day every day. So it doesn't Feel like a job. It just kind of feels like this incredible dream come true. Yeah, that is awesome, isn't it to be able to just literally live out your dream every day? And yeah, cuz that's something I do talk to my guests about, like, how did it start? Where did it come from? Were you influenced as a child growing up? Did you have people around you that were really heavily into pork? Yeah, definitely. So we moved around a lot as kids, because of my dad's job we moved about every two years. And we mainly grew up in Southeast Asia a little bit of time in England as well. But the most important aspect of that is that we would spend a lot of time in hotel rooms on airplanes in airports. And this was long before the internet, or iPads or anything like that. So my mom would have to give us books to read. And when we had run out of books, because they're heavy to carry around, she would just give us pencils and paper, and we'd make our own books. And I really credit that along with a couple of fantastic English teachers and art teachers as being the support that gave me the confidence to think that it was something more than just something I would do at my craft table. But something that I could protect, potentially do that other people would want to look at as well. So I think I was really, really lucky that I had adults around me that believed in me supported in me, teachers that would read my stories out in class or at teachers that would really push me to go further. So yeah, I think that was a huge part of of me just having the confidence to go ahead. Having said that, my dad wasn't so supportive of me turning out to be an artist. For him. That was a little bit like saying, I was dropping out. Because I was good at school. And so and he he went to a very, not a very wealthy school in Adelaide, you're in South Australia, I just saw and he was the only kid in his year level to go on to university was quite a rough school he went to, and he went on to be a civil engineer. So he worked really hard to put his daughters to a private school. And when I told him I was going to be an artist, he was like, he just couldn't believe it. It was like you're going to waste that private school education unbecoming. Inadequate him that was like saying I was just dropping out. But he's so proud of me now, you know, and I think, partly, it was encouraging courage meant of my mum that supported me. But I also think there was part of the grist to the mill. That was important coming from my dad, too, because I think I wanted to prove something to him to myself that, no, it wasn't just this kind of alternative way of saying that I didn't want to go and get a job. It was actually odd is that people that work hard, you know, they're dedicated to what they do. And, you know, and potentially they can make a living from it. So in some ways, maybe if I'd only had support, and no one kind of with some nobody to push up against. Maybe I wouldn't have driven myself so hard. Yeah, it's interesting. Isn't it like that balance between the two? It's almost like the devil's advocate sort of spear you on saying, oh, you can't do this. And you're like, hang on a sec. Yeah, I can. Yeah, I'm so stubborn, too. So if you tell me, this makes me want to do more? That's funny. minute talking about your art teachers and your school teachers, I've been reading your book, wild things, thank you for sending me the copy too, because I have really resonated and I will talk a bit more about that in the future, but in the future of his podcasts in a moment. But yeah, when you say you teach it, it was like she was with a capital A, it was like a proper subject, not something just to sort of bridge between, you know, science or maths or, you know, the serious subjects and putting them in air quotes. And that's massive, isn't it to have that support of someone? We can take it seriously, like you said, you can make a career out of it. It does take hard work like anything, but you know, to have that option, you know, presented to you in in your sort of formative years when you're so influenced by things. Absolutely. And I was very influenced by her too. When I look back on it. I think she was probably only quite young at the time. Well, there are when you're a teenager, anyone who's old. I think it was her first teaching year. And she was very alternative. She was quite tall and thin, and she was always dressed all in black. She was you know, quite goth looking. And she was a bit smelly and unapproachable. And so any of the students that did kind of just turn up to art class and treat it like it was just such a slack off period. She really treated them with a lot of disdain, but because she could see I was really into it. She really took me under her wing and she would take me to exhibitions of contemporary artists on weekends. Use me to Hockney. She took me in a hot me exhibition. Some other weird Melbourne artists with weird kind of colourful stuff with dead my stuck on the fact that she was so excited and so inspired by that, and also that she saw something in me as well, you know, she could see that, that that mattered to me. And so even though I was in this very conservative mainstream girl school, I think she just liked the fact that there was that little ounce of rebel that was just the, the grain of all good artists. Just pushing up against things just Yeah. When you were talking about your teacher there reminded me of I had two teachers, their husband and wife, and they were just the most laid back hippie people you'd ever made. And some of the most interesting music I ever listened to. Was in Mr. Vans class used to put on like, America, I think they were called like that. The Horse With No brain or whatever that we'd saw. And my son actually is just on his Spotify playlist, it popped up and I'm just like, oh, the memories. Back from the song. It was just, it was bizarre. But yeah, I love the horses no name. That's what it is. Yeah, yeah. It's funny. Yeah. You knew what I meant, though. So that was good lace. Kind of uniform better, actually. Me All right. Yeah. Yeah. And I also think, because there's part of going through adolescence that you want to separate from your parents. And so if you're lucky enough that you do have other adults around you, that are doing interesting things. They can be extraordinary role models, and they can really set you on to quite alternative paths to the ones that your parents had laid out for you. And so they're really vital having good role models around you at that age. That's a really good point. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Your first book was a book that was actually written for young readers a bit of a mishmash in the way I built my career. Because I guess, because I hadn't grown up around artists, that wasn't something that I had considered was going to be the direction I'd go down. And so I read a lot, I drew a lot, I had great teachers, but I didn't actually know any grown up artists. And so I've just always written and drawn for myself, but really, I guess I'd always kind of thought that that was just something that was my own passion, my own drive, but I went to live in China for a few years. So my dad got a job there. And I went to study over there while he was living there, studying traditional Chinese painting. And at the same time, I was writing lots of letters home to friends to really try and explain what this extraordinary city of Shanghai was, like, at a time that had just come out of the Tiananmen Square riots, it was transitioning from very conservative, communist values to more progressive values. And I was in the art school. So all the arts students were part of all those, those demonstrations, and they were the ones that were really out there, you know, pleading for change, and wanting to open up the country much more to the west. And so I was writing all these letters home, and eventually, you know, there, I started to find to make them into short stories. So I'd always written stories, but I found that this was a way that I could take all the things that were happening, but also kind of almost elaborate on them and, and potentially put in some history and some characters. And so this is what just in a really weird way, eventually became my first young adult novel. And I was 19 when I started writing it, so I didn't really know what it was going to be either. But once again, I would say throughout my life, I've been blessed to come across incredible mentors. And so I, first of all, how did I get into that? That's right. I thought it was going to be a novel for adults. And I went to see I thought I'll penguin publishing I've heard of them. I know what I looked them up and where they were. And I managed I don't know how I managed to do it. This was a long time ago, to get an appointment with a publisher there who's a wonderful woman who's now become a close friend called Erica Wagner. And she had a look at what I was writing. She said, I think this is young adult Did you know I don't think this is adult and first, I was bit insulted at all what you're telling me, I'm a teenager, I was like I was 22 or something. But then she gave me three books. She gave me a book called Sleeping Dogs by Sonya Hart that she gave me looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta. And she gave me peeling the onion by Wendy Orr. And I took those books, and I devoured them. And I thought, Oh, my goodness, this is young adult literature. I mean, I'm interested. And I realized how much it was pushing up against boundaries, and how much it really was exploring that really tumultuous time of adolescence. And it wasn't the teenage literature that I grown up reading, which was all about periods and boyfriends and pimples, that was really, really pushing the boundaries. So I was working on that. At the same time, I was still drawing and painting. And the first book I actually did manage to get published was a picture book. But in the background, I was working on that young adult novel. So even though that wasn't the first thing I had published, I was certainly that was the first thing I was writing. So everything kind of arrived in, in succession after that. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's an awesome story. And I'm sorry, I'm, I haven't read that book. I'm not actually, I'm not a massive reader. I just I don't know, I have, I find it difficult to sit for long periods of time and read. And I know, that's really bad to say, but I do make an effort when I, you know, really want to read something. That yeah, it's like, you've got the two aspects going together, like the children are becoming, you know, young adults, they're growing up, and then you've got that change of China at that time. So that's a really sort of awesome combination. Really, did you sort of realize that at the time, you're really onto something with that, I think I had a gut feeling that I was because my I had a couple of best friends at the time. One of them was a Chinese student, a man called Gen Z. And he was very politically minded. And he also took me into parts of China that I may not have been able to access on my own as a white Westerner. And then the other person who was a big influence on me, ended up becoming my boyfriend, and then eventually the father to my two older kids. And he was also very kind of rebellious and curious and seeking adventures. So I had those two really great role models to really push me outside of my comfort zone. But also, I was really able to see what it was like to be young Chinese person, particularly young adults growing up in China, as well as seeing the difference to how we were treated as expatriates, and the privileges and doors that were open to us. So I don't think I could have written that book, had I not had some really close Chinese friends and being part of the student body, had I only just mixed in the expatriate circles, I think it would have been very superficial. And so I was actually able to feel what the changes were happening in China from the perspective of other young people. And the danger that a lot of them were under even sometimes by just being friends with Westerners at the time was dangerous for them. So So those things I was aware of, and those things I tried to put into the novel, probably in a fairly naive way. But extraordinarily, several years later, I met another incredible mentor, the publisher text, Penny Houston, and she had read that book, and it had gone out of print. And she said, look, I think this was fantastic novel. And it's such a shame, it's gone out of print, why don't we give it another go. And so with her support, I did write another version of that book and went a little bit deeper. Now I was a bit older, a little bit more politically savvy, I was able to really understand what the situation had been like, with some perspective in the way that might have been. So I had the combination of both being submerged in it, but then being able to write it with a bit of perspective to later on. So yeah, I'm still really proud of that. You know, it's, it was you know, when I consider that I started writing it at 90. I look at that nothing. Yeah, well, you did that. Amazing. I did a residency in China, at a very prestigious International School. And the Australian librarian there just surreptitiously made sure that book was available on shelves for young students can change lives. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing in a country like that, where things are so heavily controlled, and, and, yeah, to be able to sneak something like that under the radar view. Awesome. Amazing. Do you keep up with what's going on in China now? Like having been, you know, immersed in it? Do you sort of keep an eye on how things are tracking over there? Do you still have friends over there? Yeah, less. So. For a couple of reasons. One, my dad lived there up until recently, so I was Background, visiting him quite a lot. And because all of the people he worked with were local Chinese, it was very easy to get an internal perspective of what was going on in the world. But since he's moved back to Australia, plus he is married to this fabulous Italian lady who speaks fluent Chinese. And so she was very much part of the cultural. The cultural hub of Shanghai. In fact, she had a newsletter that was called Maria's choice, and it would tell you which exhibitions you should go to which films you should go to. And she'd actually worked down now on film sets with Chinese film crews, as well. So for example, resolutie film The Last Emperor, she worked on that one. So both of those were people, my dad and my stepmother were a great source of information. I mean, obviously, it's not the same as being a Chinese person growing up in China, but everybody they worked with was Chinese. So it felt like it was pretty authentic. But they've moved back, Reg. More recently, I'm still in touch with Gen Z, but he lives in Australia now. And most of my Chinese friends, it's very hard to communicate with because I can speak Mandarin, but I can't read and write it. So unless we're phone calls, you know, having phone calls, which we don't really do more. It's really hard to keep track of where they all are, and where they're at what they're up to. But a couple of them I've kept in touch with. Yeah, that's interesting. It's like it's the country that's always fascinated me. And I had a friend that she was a school teacher here, and she went over for 12 months, doing like teaching in a what do you call them? An international school? Yeah. And she, she loved it. But it's the sort of place I think I'd get quite daunted by it. Like, I don't know, it feels a bit. Like, if you did the wrong thing, you'd feel like you're gonna get in big trouble or something, you know, like it feels. Maybe that's just for me, because I've never been, yeah, well, that that's the thing with the often those great experiences that you can have, like your friend did is that when you are employed there, and you're an expatriate, you do get to live and integrate within the country to an extent, but you're also very protected by your expatriate passport. And I don't think Chinese or I'm happy to be quoted, said, I'm wrong on this, but I don't think Chinese people will have anybody who was born outside the country ever recognized as a Chinese citizen, I think, potentially, maybe you're from Taiwan or Hong Kong, then that, obviously. But everybody else kind of has this very privileged surface existence. And we even knew that it students that, you know, when we're going out to nightclubs, or places like that, often, our Chinese friends wouldn't be allowed in these would be local nightclubs. And we were and so it's a kind of an fact, to my dad's credit. That's why he ended up moving us out of Asia, because we were I was doing High School in Hong Kong. And he didn't want us to live our whole lives, kind of having this sense of entitlement. I think just knowing that just because of the color of our skin that we've had become a bit untouchable. And then the rules didn't apply to us that they did for the local people that we, you know, we grow up often with mates. And he didn't want us to think that that was the world's normality. So he wanted us to have a much simpler lifestyle, you know, mind you, he still put us into a private school in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. But he didn't want us to think that, that we had this assumption that everybody lived this way. And then suddenly, as expatriates, most people do live a very wealthy protected bubble like life. Yeah, you know, and, and often, the darker sides of China are even withheld from locals as well, you know, often it's really hard even for locals to unless they make really good local friends. You know, a lot of that is hidden from them. And so a lot of their people with disabilities aren't allowed on the streets or a lot of crime is shut down very quickly to have very tough measures on crime. So if anything, you're safer there than you are in Australia, because they don't you know, Chinese are very proud and they want the country to appear a certain way to outsiders eyes. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I sort of didn't think we only want to ask you lots of other things, but I'm not going to become very politically, the Chinese if you get quite political so we'll just say thank you for sharing your thoughts. Sorry, your book wild things, which is awesome, by the way. And again, thank you for sending it to me. It's called Wild Things, how we learn to read and what can happen if we don't. And like I said earlier, I really resonated with this because my son, he's got some learning issues he hasn't been diagnosed with for ADHD, but the way they described him and it was interesting in your book, you've got to pick like a little thing about this describing the different types of ADHD. He's got the inattentive, distractibility type. So as I was reading this, so many times, I just went, Oh, my God, that's, that's how I felt, or that's what I should have done, or, you know, all this sort of stuff. So, rather than me keep blabbing on, can you share, in your own words, the inspiration behind your book? Yeah, thank you. It's lovely to hear how you've resonated with it. And that is partly why I wrote this book. So this is a scary thing for me to do. I've written for children for many, many years. Who am I to think I can write a book for grownups. But I, my son was struggling. And somehow, I let myself believe it would all kind of work itself out over time. So it was quite clear from regret about grade two, that he was struggling to acquire the reading skills that his two older brothers had easily been able to do. He did have a wonderful teacher in prep, who alerted me to the fact she thought he might have some reading issues. But I completely dismissed her I just thought, oh, you know, he's in prep, you know, they should just be playing with sand and water, what's the what's the issue here. And so I let it go for too long. And I kept thinking, Well, maybe he just won't be a reader. And so I'll write books that he wants to read. And so I wrote the Billy v. Brown series and tested them out on him. And then I wrote the hit page X series. And I figured, you know, they'll always be something that will engage him, I don't need to worry too much about reading, you know, my two older boys love reading, I love reading, maybe he just won't be a reader. What I hadn't taken to an account is how much reading affects everything. So if you can't read, there's very little in school that you can engage with, and you lose the capacity to express yourself to articulate your thoughts. And, of course, your self esteem becomes completely crushed. So within primary school, he managed to get by because he had lovely teachers who could see the good parts of him and make him feel okay about himself. But of course, once he got to high school, the wheels fell off. And it was really, really hard to get him the support he needed we'd up partly because somehow the school didn't want to believe that, that this was going to be an issue for him, that he'd got all the way to the end of year seven before I realized he wasn't even having working. So now we're in year eight, and his self esteem is worse. And so now, of course, his behavior is impacted. And so he's becoming a kid that has to get attention somehow. So He does it by by playing up or by doing dumb things to bond with peers. And so now he's becoming a kid, that's a problem in the class. So we're now getting up to year nine, and he has now completely disengaged from school, and also feeling like teachers and on his side. So by now I'm in an absolute panic, because I spend my life, you know, traveling around the world, talking to kids, and making them feel good about themselves and talking to parents about how we acquire reading, and how to get your reluctant reader reading. And I thought, I've obviously missed something here. You know, there's, there's a reason why my son has got this far. And he's going downhill fast. So I thought, I've got to research this. And so I just started asking people tell me how you teach your child to read, tell me what's going on for your child, I started tapping into support groups. And all of a sudden, I found this whole lot of information out there. And I couldn't understand how I hadn't been able to access it before. It's all out there. But it's really hard to find. And I was talking to lots of parents like yourself, who was who was saying, you know, my child struggling in school, or my child hasn't been able to pick up reading skills or, or whatever, and I. So once I tapped into these support groups, one of them suggested that I also had them assessed for ADHD, which is a very common thing among their children. And I really just took him to the doctor just to you know, write that one off, I thought, oh, no, he's not ADHD because somehow people have got in their mind that it's just those noisy ratty little kids that paid well wasn't like that. He was a daydreamer. Who was swayed he was, you know, wanting to please. And so sure enough, he was diagnosed with ADHD and so I just thought, how is this All coming to me now. And now he's 15, he's disengaged, he feels terrible about himself. And he's talking about dropping out of school. So then I went around to all my friends. And I said, Did you know this? So you've got to know this or, and I met more and more people like you that were saying, you know, wanting to share their stories, too. So I thought, I've got to put all this into one place. Not let everybody else I know, go through all the struggles that my son and I had to. And so I thought I'd go to my publisher, and I'll talk to her about this idea. I really didn't think that she'd take it on. And she said, Yep, we'll do it. But it took me two years to find the contract. Because I wasn't convinced I could do it. And the biggest part of it was just getting over that self doubt that I think a lot of us, do you know that? You know, who am I to think I can do this? You know, I'm not an expert in the field. So I did a huge amount of research, read some really dense books on neuroscience and a lot of books on how we acquire reading skills, or what happens in our brains. Talk to a whole lot of experts. The amazing thing about writing a nonfiction book is you can call up anyone, I'm writing a book, can I interview, you get my diarrhea. I spoke to the most amazing people, I spoke to this extraordinary woman over in the US who had actually changed, who had actually changed the schooling system that her child was a part of by just getting a whole lot of other parents on board. So when you tap into these support groups, they're extraordinarily powerful, and they're emotionally charged. So there were so many people wanting to support me in writing this book, that the days when I thought I can't do this, I've got to drop it. Let's just go back to writing for kids. I thought about those people. And I thought I can't let him down. All these people have already shared their stories, or these people have already given me their time and their expertise. I just have to keep pushing through. I did. And even when I handed the first draft to my publisher, I was sure she'd say are no actually look, you know, I'm not so sure about this. But she loved it. And the thing that she responded to the most strongly was the memoir elements of it. And she said, you know, all the scientific stuff is important. But the stuff that I really, that really sticks with me is all the personal stuff. So of course, that's where you feel the most vulnerable. And so I just kept expanding on those bits. And then in the very later drafts, running all of them passed my son to check that he was comfortable with all of them as well. And so interesting stuff came out of that as well. Because when I'd read something out that had happened five years ago, he was now older, unable to say actually, that wasn't my experience of it. So he was able to then share what had been like for him. So it became almost this beautiful combinate this beautiful moment where I was able to actually understand my son more by doing the research into this book. And this was all done during lockdown as well. So we spent a lot of time together. Had I not done the research for that book? I don't know where my son and I would be at now because we've become very disconnected. I had become really just full blown anxiety stressed out, not knowing what was going on what was normal, what wasn't. And now I've got this beautiful young man in my life who has this extraordinary unique brain. kooky? Yeah, is really beautiful, empathetic, and feeling good about himself, you know, after feeling so crushed by the system, I think, all that time working on the book and running lots of it past him. He feels good about himself. He knows that. Yeah, he's different. That's cool. Yeah. Does he does he kind of also think Can he see that by sharing like you sharing his, in your experience that it will help others? Is that something that he sort of takes in as well? Yeah, look, I think he's probably still a little bit young to really get the implications of that. He's only 19 and a half. So I have said to him again, and again, look, by us being vulnerable, and sharing our stories, potentially, we can, you know, empower people to be able to support their kids better. So they don't have to go through the same things as that. So he understands the intent, whether he really understands it in the way that I think, potentially only a really panicky struggling parent could really understand it. Who knows. You know, I think when you're a teenager, you're the center of your universe, you don't really know or under Oct nor should you know how your behavior is impacting the people around you. You know, I one of the things I recognized is how much I projected onto him, you know, how much I saw him as responsible for my anxieties rather than me responsible for my anxiety. And that was a huge sub. Most of the growth has come from me, letting go of who I thought my son was actually really working out who he is? Towards the end of the book, you've got a chapter called things I wish I'd done differently. But one of the points is, except your kid is different. So that's a pretty powerful thing. Like you said, you've got that shift, did you also find then accept yourself to in that you can only, like, he can't blame yourself, you can't beat yourself up. You can only do what you can do and accept that this is, it is what it is kind of thing without giving up, you know what I mean, but accepting that you can't go back and change things or that kind of thing. Was that something for you? as well? Yeah, I think that's a really nice way to put it. I, I know that I'm quite hard on myself about it. And particularly because it feels like and I might be wrong, that everybody else seems to know how to do this advocacy, parenting stuff. And in all these support groups, you know, they're really, it looks like they all know what they're doing. They're starting much younger than I did, people seem to be so much more aware and onto these things. And I felt like, somehow I just didn't, didn't get that memo. And so, I do feel like I could have done better. And I do feel like my son's trajectory would have been very different. Had I done differently. Having said that, I don't think I was very supported in the education system. You know, there were times when I felt like, the things that, you know, I was getting assessments done, and I would take them to the school, and they'd be filed away, and nothing would be done about it. Or I would say, you know, I'm, I have a concern here, and I kind of just be dismissed, you know, teachers and and, and it'll be fine. It'll sort itself out. And first of all, what I want to say is, that's absolutely not the fault of teachers is that one of the things that teachers who I've also interviewed for the book have told me is that, you know, they can't be expected to recognize and identify what kid needs, what you know, what issues they may have, whether it's they haven't had breakfast, or whether their parents are splitting up, they have a mental health condition or they neurodivergent you know, they're not counselors, and they're already under so much pressure. But I guess I had thought that that was something that the school will be able to handle and I recognize now that is, you know, as hard as it is, it really does fall back at least on the parent to be the advocate for the child and to educate themselves. So I definitely could have done a better job of that. But I also want to say that it's never too late and this is the thing I'm really proud of you know that there were times when my son was sneaking out at night and getting up to all kinds of stuff when and I was single parenting and making a lot of these decisions on my own. And there were a lot of times where I thought I can't do this I actually am not up for it I don't have the skills but there's no choice you no one else no one else is gonna do it for you. I just had to step up and I had to recognize that yeah, I stuffed up in the early days I hadn't done enough but today is the day we start work you know roll your sleeves up. Yeah, let's see. Skilled I read a lot I got a lot of support but I also did a couple of years of counseling costs as well and I learned to become a better listener so I learned to actually listen more talk less so I could get to know really what my son needed Yeah and he's so proud to put this young man in the world Yeah well that's that's so lovely yeah this with Alex he I feel the same in lots of different ways of your story that Alex he was always the kid that was like distracts others can't stay on task, you know, every single year level. Whenever we get his report or we talk to the teachers, it was the same thing and I kept saying to my husband, but what do we do? Like we've tried all these strategies about you know, different some teachers were really good at giving him more focus and they'd have put a special desk near them and, and sort of every now and then they you know, he'd be staring off into space and they bring him back and If others would just completely disown him, because they'd be like, well, that kid doesn't want to learn, I'm not gonna have anything to do with it, you know, and I can understand, you know, my backgrounds in early childhood education. I've been a kindy tech, not kindy teacher, but kindy worker and a childcare worker for nearly 10 years. So I get, I get what it's like to be in an educational setting, perhaps not exactly what schools like, but I, you know, I have a bit of an understanding, and I don't like same thing, I don't blame teachers, they've got enough on their plate as it is. And so I'm saying to my husband, we keep getting the same things, the same things like, what do we do about it? And everyone was like, oh, no, he'll grow out of it. Bla bla bla. And looking back. Now I know, there were signs they were all looking us in the face. But no one ever said, Have you ever thought about this? Have you ever thought about having intested ever yet, you know, and it was like you were just left to flounder because you don't know what you don't know. Being our first child, first child going into the world, you think people are going to tell you things, you know, people who know stuff should help us. But if they don't, then you have no idea what you're doing. And it wasn't till he got to high school. Same thing with your son, that literally the wheels fell off. And that's when we got the help we needed and we think started looking out for him. Because we actually have the tools and the people around us that could suggest things. So it's like, everyone just thought he just grow out of it. Like the little boy just playing around, he'll be fine. And he did to a degree, but also think he liked to hide it as well. I think he got really clever like your son, I think people that have have challenges get very, very, they're very intelligent people who are able to mask things and do things in other ways and teach themselves in other ways and learn other ways. Yeah, I think that's such a great way of explaining it. Because, you know, and this is why I think the more we talk about it, the better it is. And what we have in this generation that our parents didn't have, and certainly not before them, is social media. So now we have the capacity to hear marginalized voices tell their own story. So I don't know if you saw the Press Club talk that Mr. shiana gave me and that being a late diagnosed ADHD, I follow a lot of neurodivergent activists on social media, I tap into disability support groups. So we have that now we have the capacity to educate ourselves, and look at behavior as just being in information. Whereas before all these kids, like my dad also had a terrible time at school, he now suspects he's potentially neurodivergent himself, my younger sister as well, is really convinced she's dyslexic, they gave her glasses, you know, people didn't really know. So these people grow up feeling terrible about themselves, and some of them will go on and be resilient adults. Some of them don't, some of them end up in, you know, justice systems, because they can engage in school, they hang out with other people who have issues engaging with schools for a myriad of reasons. And they go down a really dark pathway, and often don't come out the other side of it, like our kids are lucky enough to do. And that's why if I have anything come out of having published this book, I hope that it starts conversations like already, you and I are starting to talk about the experiences that children have gone to through, I'm getting several messages a week from people I've never met, saying, This is my story, you know, or this is what's going on for my kid. And I think this is how we make change, we shine a light on all these things. So that then the burden is not placed on individuals, not just on the teacher or the parent. But everybody knows, ah, that kid, you know, maybe has this particular learning style. So let's find a support network for them in this way, or one of the most brilliant educators who was knighted for his ideas. So Ken Robinson has an extraordinary TED Talk where he talks about this young girl in the classroom. And this would have been back in the 70s, I imagine who couldn't sit still and everybody thought there was something wrong with her. And the psychologist left the room turns the music on and she got up and danced. And he said to the parents, there's nothing wrong with her. She's a dancer. And I think the next book I want to explore is also the idea of the artist as well, because the artist is most likely a person that hasn't connected with the mainstream that has found mainstream education, really difficult to engage them in certain ways. And so a whether it's unconventional people who are drawn to art, or whether we stay on conventional because we're able to express ourselves in a way that you can't do if you're a real estate agent. I'm interested to explore that further because I don't think that's a coincidence that that add us neurodivergent people, people who have strong feelings, you know, may struggle with their mental health. There's a lot of overlap with all of that there but unfortunately, schools are set up For one kind of learner, yeah. And that has to change. Oh, yeah. But this is a conversation, I could have 100 times over. It's just the frustration that you get, like just the simple thing. Like last night, my son, my little boy who's seven, he was looking through last year's school magazine. And he noticed some of the kids that were on a special page, and they were the ones that had won the academic awards for their year level. And he asked me what it meant, and I knew where it was going. And I said, these are the children that were judged in a certain way to be clever. And he said, Does that mean I'm not smart? And I knew where it was going. I could read it like a book. And I said, No, I said, it means that for the certain tests that they did, to work out who was clever in this certain way, these kids were the best at that. And I said, and there's other tests in the world. And it wasn't like a test it was more are other ways in the world, that you are determined to be, you know, clever in other ways. And he but he kept on with it. He said, Does that mean I won't win an award and I said, darling, you're reminding these already won some awards for being kind and you know, for, for perseverance and that kind of thing. And it just straightaway, just flashed in my head, like, this moment, I remember in kindergarten, when my my eldest son, who's, you know, Alex, who's got the issues, went to kindergarten for the first time. And this was before I was working in the Childcare and Education area. And I took him to kindy. And they all had to sit down. And they all had to sit with their legs exactly the same crossed in the front. And they all had to sit up and look at the front. And I just thought, it's like, I don't know what the rule is, I could, like I could see the light go out in him, if, you know, he couldn't even sit the way he wanted to, he couldn't express his himself in the way he wanted to just by being present. And I just, I walked away from them with tears in my eyes, because I thought you just squashing these little people right from the beginning. And now when I'm, like I'm working to kindy now, and there's some children that, you know, you can tell that they're feeling unsettled for the way they're being told to sit or whatever, and I'll, I'll bring him over. And I'll say, Just stretch your legs out a bit, you know, give them a bit of a shake, you know, and, you know, hiding sort of way, I hope none of my kindy cohorts are listening to this, you know, you should be able to sit however you want to see. So, you know, just breaks my heart. And that's the start of it, the very start of the conformity is expected for the next, you know, 1314 years of their lives. Yeah, just breaks my heart. And it's crashing, you know, your story breaks my heart too, because, you know, that's all of these brilliant minds, that are just kind of being pushed through this one system that was created 100 years ago to make factory workers, docile, factory factory workers. And so, you know, what I was stressed again, is there are extraordinary teachers working within the six, this repressive system. And if you're lucky enough, your kid will find a teacher that can just see something in you, you know, keep your self esteem intact. But you know, like, asking my book is this really the best we can do for our kids, you know, to spend 12, or 13 years of your most formative years of your life, in a system that makes you feel broken or wrong or a failure, you know, some kids will thrive, some kids will come through and feel great about themselves. But others will, you know, just be left completely broken. And so many adults, I interviewed about the book, there's a young, a beautiful man who I call Tony in the book that told me about his school experience. And it's so common, you know, just to feel completely, and some people never recover from that, just to feel completely crushed by that. So that's also where I feel like when we start to understand what my friend Eliza hull has taught me about the social model of disability, when we start to understand that it is actually a person's right, to be able to express themselves authentically, and to be able to set up their environments and they can thrive, then schools will be more accommodating towards kids that can't sit with their legs crossed, you know, and there are a lot of autistic activists, self advocating activists that are now really loudly and proudly saying, Do not shut us down, you know, we need to move we need to stim. This is how we emotionally regulate it, stop trying to make us not like us, we want to live full, authentic lives. And this is what we need to do all the kids coming through schools. And look, it's I don't know what that will look like. Because, of course, it's great to bombard ideas into the, you know, into the ether and not know how to put that into practice. Because, you know, like we were saying before, as a teacher working one teacher with 25 kids, each of them have their own specific needs. But a lot of the feedback teachers gave me is that even just lowering the student teacher ratio, just aides in the classroom, your more external things to be able to self regulate. So one credible school that I talked to has a massive what they call the shed. And it's a big workshop space and kids with difficulty in staying within the classroom neurodivergent kids or kids with learning difficulties have factored in spaces during the week where they can go and do stuff in the shed where volunteers come in, they did some cooking would work in a basket weaving whatever. And there's no stigma attached to spending time in the shed, because it's a cool place to be, you can go to the shed as well. So it's so tricky, because yes, sometimes it does require taking these kids out of the classroom and finding something they're good at. And all I remember myself, the kids that got taken out of the class, you know that there's something different about them. And there's stigma attached to that my son hated that, if that meant that he was stupid. So there's, there's got to be more creative ways of doing it. So that we can offer different ways of making our kids feel good about themselves. And that's where parents are really important to, to just to see like you're doing to see that it's a big picture. And all the successful adults I interviewed who neurodivergent said the one thing that got them through was finding something they were good at. And maybe that's art, maybe that sport for one guy was sailing, you know, Torian champion sailing, yeah, doesn't matter what it is, you've got to you got to have something that's yours that you didn't want. Alex is playing the bagpipes. He's like, Oh, my God, like the kid that like both my husband and I are musical and, you know, always had music in the house and sang and played. And for years, I'd be like, taught me to teach you this. Do you want me to teach that night night and I was I think it was, you know, out of, you know, rebellion against Moto and mom to teach me something, you know. And then all of a sudden, remember the that squid game that TV show that was big about a 12 months ago, the same song of that like the do do this kind of little tune on a recorder. So all of a sudden Alex decides he wants to play the recorder. And I'm like, Okay, that's great. So I didn't really take him seriously. So I ended up buying him recorder because the kids had a recorder when they were little. And I pulled it to pieces and hid the pieces around the house because I hate it. It's like there's a there's a keyboard here. There's a guitar there. Could you play something else anyway, so he loved it learnt heaps of songs on it. And I thought, I can't have this sound. It's issues with particular sounds, it really triggers me. So I bought him a tin whistle and Irish tin whistle so a nicer sound. It was in a different, like different key. So it challenged him but he loved it learn all these songs. And then one day he just says, I just want to play the bagpipes. And I've just gone up Jesus. Could you not pick something a bit louder? Like, anyway, so in 12 months this kid is, is he's joined the local band. They've been on blowies boat horn, but I will he's, he's they say he's got the most potential of any kid they've seen, you know, in a long time. He's picked it up so quick. And I'm like, I'm just so damn proud of him because he loves it. You know, he's always been a bit left of centre he like always like listening to Scottish music or something a bit different. And I've always embraced it. Because I'm a bit like that as well. So you know, and I just think good for you mate. Like he's found the thing he loves and he's the sort of kid that won't necessarily try hard unless he really likes something. So yeah, we live in the dream now. Because I see DC they have a bag. Yeah, the other day we're watching the I feel GranFondo and they had you know the the bagpipers coming out for your voice and it's like they go mate. And I've always I've also had someone online because we share a little video on on our Facebook, say, Oh, I'm getting married soon, I'm gonna need someone to play the bagpipes. Like, they go mate, you know, and people love it. Like, it's a sort of, if you hear it sort of off in the distance of bagpipe. It's, you know, you get the hair sort of, you know, you get it get goosebumps, whatever. It's amazing instrument. It's just not so amazing when it's literally just out the door. Well, I'm trying to do things in here. But anyway, long story short, He's found his thing and he's, he's thriving and good on you for being open to that as well. Because I think, you know, that that is really important thing that I think parents need to understand is it may not be the thing that you thought it would be, it might be something completely different. But yeah, if you can give them the space and the support to find that thing. And, you know, also be part of it. You know, I do that as well. I say this thing like oh, you know, I don't want to blow my own horn or, you know, I don't want to show off or anything but the kids that have had no successes, and then to be extraordinary at something it's of course we should celebrate that You know, so you know, I think good on it and yeah. You're listening to the art of being a mom with my mom, Alison Newman. We spoke earlier about how people connect with you people you've never met, you get the feedback that others are going through it. In your book, you mentioned about an experience where you were booked to speak in front of a whole lot of was it buyers? Buyers? book sellers, new sellers. Yeah. And you had, you know, your, your script, I guess that what you were going to say? And then you started to get these little nudges in your mind that you really wanted to share your son's story. And you did, and it went amazing. And, you know, the feedback you got from people afterwards talking to you for you know, so many hours. Like, it's, it's incredibly wonderful that there are people like you that can share, because I know there's a lot of people that can't but I just want to say how awesome it is that you are doing this, like it's it's just really great. Thank you. And look, I think I, I you know, you and I, we do have a platform. And as scary as it is to be vulnerable. I think that's also such a gift. Every time I've heard someone who has a platform, for whatever reason when they speak openly about something vulnerable. So you know, when I was a teenager, I might have been someone I'm famous coming out, or more recently, it's mental health, or even more recently now with somebody like em Oceana, spotlighting on ADHD, how powerful that is, and how connecting, and then how it does make people feel like that, that they can, you know, look at that person up there that looks like they've got it together so successful. They also have all this stuff going on, too. So I my case. You know, occasionally people say to be about my book horror, it's very vulnerable. For a lot of yourself out there and a panic, a lie awake at night going over bits. And I think, what are people gonna think of that fit? But I think what's the point of creating art, if you don't make something that matters, you know, there's so much froth out there anyway. You know, this is something that I hope would speak to you as a practicing artist and about your podcast being about practicing art, particularly as a parent, you have so little time to waste. Why why do frost why not do something real? vulnerable? Deep, authentic connecting, that's what art can do. Yeah, that's awesome. That is such a great way of looking at it. And I certainly feel that way. It's like, if you're going to do it go big. Before you get into clubs, I've had no pushback. That's the amazing thing. I thought that by now. I mean, it's only been a few weeks, but I thought there would be someone that would take me to task. But all I've got is people thanking me. And so I think it was worth it. It was worth doing that very thing. Because it was see that you're you're trying your best even if I don't get everything right. I'm just I'm trying my best. Right now in my stage of life. Yeah, absolutely. Now that's awesome. It's really interesting, your book. Now you've named it wild things as a reference to that amazing children's book where the wild things are. And throughout your book, you've sort of waved in these characters from other books, and then analyze them for one of a better word, brought them into the 21st century and saying, How would these children be the word diagnosed dying, that's a good way to be perceived in if they were here. Now. What would we say they had a better website. That's really interesting. What How did you come up with that idea? Because it's fascinating. And it's, it's really, it's really interesting, actually. I'm glad you say that. I think it's partly because partly it came from my own anxieties when I first started out writing the book that people would see my name on the book as a children's author and think why is she writing a book for grownups? So I thought, how can I connect what I do and have done for 25 years, this world, I'm passionate about children's literature with what I want to bring to an adult audience. And I taught writing for children for a long time at RMIT in Melbourne. And I always ask my grown up students to bring in a book from their childhood, every time someone holds up a book that meant something to them as a child, the reaction that they have to that, or the memories that are locked into that book, and visceral, you know, we have such a deep connection to our childhoods. We forget that sometimes. And sometimes just bringing an object or a book, or something from your childhood can trigger all these incredible feelings and memories. So I thought, all these books that we grew up reading, you know, we celebrate these characters, and we love them, they become part of our lives, they become part of our culture. So many of them are Naughty. Naughty, because one of the keys to writing good literature is you need conflict. You know, a story doesn't, you know, there's no such thing as a story where just everything happened, nothing happens. You know, the story is created by conflict. It's created by adversity, it's created by all these things, and your main character, you've got to give them some agency. And usually that happens by bucking the system, challenging authority, making changes. And that can usually only happen if you're a little bit of a rebel. So most of our most beloved characters are pretty rebellious. So we celebrate these characters in books. But when our children show the same traits, we really struggle with that like, oh, Ron, you're supposed to sit down and do what you're told, don't stand up and say, the books we're giving them are all about people challenging authority. And so I just wanted adults to, to want to think about that, to think about what it is that we expect from our children that's maybe unnatural, or maybe not even particularly healthy, but also to tap into our own childhood selves, because everything we experienced as a child work we're experiencing for the first time. So we see the world with eyes open and full of awe. And that's what you have to do as a daily practice. As an artist, you have to see the world as it for the first time every day. And that's why people when they travel, they often become creative, because they want to take photographs or write blog posts or lead us home. Because everything is new and exciting. That's what childhood is like. So we can tap back into that childhood aspect of ourselves. It's not infantilizing, it's actually portal into this extraordinary wealth of creativity, and hopefully, connection and compassion for our own children. Like we're looking at what they're doing. And I'm thinking, actually, you know what, I remember doing that myself as a kid, maybe I shouldn't be so hard on them. Like that was a massive tantrum I had as a kid, bend me into the Catholic to get me in. And yet, you know, when my child has a tantrum, you know, that's, that's intense, that's full on. And I had to try to remember how I felt to be able to have compassion for him and kids. To do that with me, it's a good reminder, isn't it? Because sometimes I think we expect so much of our little people, like we just think because I'm an adult, I expect my child to be in this world and engage in the same level. And we forget, you know, their brains are literally wired different to ours, you know, the, the certain parts of their brains haven't, you know, finished developing to, I don't know, till you're 21 or something, you know, like, it's massive. But yet, we just expect, like, perfect reminder for me, is like, I want my children to sit at the table and make their tea for do you think they will? Well, no one ever while the other one's not too bad. But it's like fiddle with every single thing that's on the table, try and hop off the chair 20 times. And so in the end, I just gave up but it's like, I don't, I don't want to experience this. This aggravation or this conflict at tea time. So now, the two of us sit together and have our tea watching the telly usually, and the other to sit up there and have a chat. And it's like, it works for us. And I hear these people say, Oh, we always sit around the table and have dinner together. I'm thinking, geez, you mustn't glue your children to the chair, or your children are not like my children, you know, and just except that, because when I was a kid, jeez, if we didn't sit at the table, you know, you know, we sat at that table, then I just accept, like, like he said, before any point, just acceptance, you know, and things don't always have to be perfect. And the way that, you know, we think they have to be. Yeah. And I think also it's a really good point is that sometimes we just have to recognize how much is unacceptable and how much have we just conditioned to think is unacceptable. And so the fact that you've gone with your gut instinct, and chewed into your child rather than thinking, Oh, this is how I should do it, because I got caught up in a lot of shirts because I had lots of friends with what seemed like perfect kids and doing everything in a different way. So I had to stop thinking that maybe there was something wrong with my kiddos just see these different and stop comparing myself to other parents or comparing to how I was, or even just the social conditioning rehab on what how kids should be. Yeah, that's a big one. That's something I've had to work hard on, I think. And also social media hasn't really helped that because you get to see, well, it's not really people's lives, it's the idea of the part of people's lives, they want you to see that, you know, it's like, oh, you should be doing this. And you should be doing that. And as a mother, you know, that's just like a minefield, find amazing people to follow, you just got to find the right people. Like, you've got to follow disability advocates like the two Ps, those two mums that talk about parenting and kids with disabilities for such no gravitas and humor at the same time. And so you just got to find your tribe, comparing yourself to other people that aren't like you. And that was exactly for me, as soon as I tapped into other communities. These are my people this is, yeah, that's really good. Before I move off of wild things in until the other book I want to talk about, I want to try and link this in, in my podcasts, I like to talk to my moms about the concept of mom guilt. And I put that in air quotes, because often I'll get a mom who just tells me, they don't even know what it is. And I had to google it. And I think that's wonderful. You know, like, it's, you know, everyone experiences things different and guilty or not guilty is one of those things. And I noticed in your book a lot, and you did talk before how you can be really hard on yourself. Is has that been a challenge for you? To not hold on to things? And yeah, you know, usually so and look, I think, I think the very first drafts that I wrote on my book, I just used as a blur as a cathartic experience to get out all the angst and all the guilt. And then I tried to pull it back more and more because it can become self indulgent, you know, and I felt like, Okay, now I've got it all out. This feels like my diary here. But now what's useful for other people? Is it still beating myself up? Is it saying what a bad person I am, you know, potentially what we can do for each other as my mother's is let each other off the hook, you know, you know, being open and saying, Yeah, this is where I messed up. You know what, that's just because I'm human. And so I think part of writing this book was also letting myself off the hook coming through that guilt. That I think so many mothers hold, potentially father's too, I haven't spoken to them to the same extent about that. But I, but I think we need to do ourselves a favor and just let each other off the hook and stop showing each other up and, you know, openly laughing about the things we get wrong and supporting each other when it's hard. I think that's building the tribe and the community and recognizing that, you know, we're really just doing the best we can. Yeah, absolutely. Because I actually think that women and mothers are really bad at doing that to each other, like we do it to each other a lot. And then we don't want it done to us. So I think if we could just stop doing it, it would be wonderful. But you can do that even in a conversation. Like I remember, in conversations I because I feel like I'm trying to be aware, I think self awareness is the biggest step. And you know, I would find myself in a group of other mothers maybe criticizing somebody or something. But we can be the person that just says, You know what, I do that too, or actually, you know, maybe she's having a bad day or whatever. And, you know, we can arrest that even if it does feel like a bonding thing at the time. It's not a really healthy thing to bond over. We can find other things to bond over. Yes, that's true. That's well said yes. The other book that you've recently released is with Eliza Holt, and you've mentioned Eliza and I'm having the lion's share on the podcast in a few weeks too, so I'm really excited about that. It's called come over to my house and can you share with us rather than me tell people you share again, in your own words, what was behind this book and how you came to be involved in the book as well? So I met Eliza through another one of your interviewees, Rachel power, who was A wonderful friend. And she interviewed me for the first edition of her book. The I think I don't know what the most recent one is. But it used to be called the divided heart. I think it's now the art of motherhood or something like that. Anyway, exactly what you're doing just finding other artists, mothers, how are you possibly doing this thing and actually having an artistic practice at the same time? Incredible book, and I give it to everybody who's a practicing artist, mother. It's a brilliant book. It is. It's a wonderful book, if you haven't read it, read it. In fact, to be shouted at it every episode because she's queen. And so she and I were on a panel with another couple of artist mothers. and Eliza Hall was in the audience. So it was years and years ago, before she even became a mother, I think she was thinking of becoming a mother. And she contacted me out of the blue, and we just started corresponding. And we became friends. She's an extraordinary musician, I downloaded one of her albums, and I had it on rotation in my car all day, every day for years, I think. And so, by absolute coincidence, after a few years, we both ended up in this mate, same small country town. So I was still living in Melbourne, but I had a bush block, just outside of Castlemaine in central Victoria. And she had not long ago moved to Castlemaine herself. So we just kept reconnecting because I really liked her she really liked me. And she had brought actually contributed a piece for the book, edited by Calif in late growing up disabled in Australia. And she also edited a book on parenting parents with disabilities and the challenges and the triumphs that many of these parents are happy to share. And she said that she had been thinking about writing a book for children, but it's wasn't an area that she was very familiar with, when I come on board with her. And being such a big fan of hers, I said, Yeah, of course, you know, I'd love to. And she is the person I credit to helping me understand how disability doesn't have to be a dirty word. So disability, if somebody owns that word with pride, just like indigenous and African American people are earning the word black with pride, or potentially pride with pride, with pride, then then, it becomes something that takes away the stigma around that word. So a lot of active self advocating people within the disability community will use that word, as a way of saying, there's nothing wrong with me, this is who I am, this is my community. But unless you create an accessible world, I'm not going to be able to be my reach my full potential. And she proposed that potentially, my son was also disabled by his environment, because if he was able to learn in a particular way, but the school wasn't able to support the way that he learned that he was also disabled. So that just blew my mind. He claimed that social disability. So we workshop, the idea of doing a picture book together, we're what the aim of it is to normalize disability, we just happened to be invited into I think, I can't remember now seven children's homes, the child might have a disability or the parent might have a disability, some things are done a little bit differently. Some things we do the same. But really, it's about just taking away the stigma around that word, opening us up into the world of these extraordinarily creative people who live with disability, and inviting into their homes. So there was a book I grew up reading in the 70s, by Dr. Seuss, called come over to my house. And it was, I remember, I loved it as a child, I read it again and again. And we were invited into all these homes of people who lived in different countries around the world than, you know, Japan, or India or whatever. Everybody had a slightly different house ate slightly different food, but they all like to play the same kind of games. So we've aimed to do the same thing with this book, we're inviting into these times. There'll be some similarities, some differences. But you know, there's nothing scary about it. Talk about talk about the similarities and the differences and normalize and D stigmatize those words, that fear is the thing I think it's people don't know what to say they don't know. I think what you've written in the beginning of your book about how people with disabilities like to be referred to whether I've got a disability, I'm a person with a disability. Now, I think we're scared of offending people or saying the wrong thing. And it's like, if we talk to people, if we talk to each other, and we say, How do you like to be referred to you? What would you like me to call you and lots and lots of listening? And that's where we do have access to extraordinary stories and people via social media, people who weren't able to access platforms to be heard before. And so you can politely ask if you can follow an activist on social media you know, Callie villa is a very outspoken activist that speaks very, very confidently in the area of disability and so there's lots to Learn from the stuff. That's just undoing all the conditioning that we've had growing up and understanding how, you know what, what the world is like for people that don't live with the same kind of privilege we do. And the best way we can understand that is just lots lots of listening. And there's a lot of amazing people to follow online that you can learn heaps from. We can all educate ourselves, it's you know, and, you know, that's where there is a delicate balance. Because, you know, there will be people that will say, well, it's not for us to carry the weight of having to educate everybody, you know, we don't want every single person coming up to us and asking, you know, how to lose your leg or whatever. So we're hoping this picture book for children is that it starts communication starts conversation, sorry, around different forms of disabilities. And also, the kinds of questions we can ask because children are genuinely interested, curious and naive. And so we can have these conversations and we can say our Do you know, do you think that men will feel comfortable with you just staring at him all the time? You know, how would you feel if you were invited to a party and you couldn't get in because your wheelchair couldn't get over the step in the playground or, you know, actually creating empathy, compassion, and the more we can hear the stories from people themselves, rather than people like me talking on their behalf. More important that is, and that's why of course, it's fantastic. You've got Eliza on your program, because I'm looking forward to that God. And she's a wonderful person. Yeah. And I Yeah, music like, I don't know how I didn't know. She also was a singer and a songwriter. And like, wow, she's amazing. Yeah. So if you're listening alive, so looking forward to chatting with you? So I want to go back to you, as a mum, do you feel like you want your children to see you, as Sally that does all these things, and you're not just their mom, and I'm putting that in air quotes, because you're never just a mom. But you know that your children see that you've got all these other elements to then the caring role, the mothering role? Yeah, I think that's really important. And in the years where I did carry a lot more guilt than I allow myself to now, I used to worry a lot about working a lot, because I worked really, really, really hard. And so often I might be away on tour, or I might have to, after dinner, go back into the studio to work or, and would sometimes mean that I'd missed some school things or, you know, and then I would feel bad about that. But I think all my working mothers can relate to that. But I guess what I hoped is that what I'm role modeling is that if they have a female partner in the future, there won't be an assumption that it just falls on one person to do the domestic labor or the childcare, that I can model what it's like to be an independent person in the world. I've always been financially independent, I've always, you know, worked really hard to forge a career for myself. And so even though I have sons, not daughters, I think it's as important to role model that for them, as it would be if I had daughters, and they're really proud of me now, you know, my oldest son's 29 Oh, my, oh, actually, not all my sons, my two oldest sons. In the creative arts, so the oldest one is interested in writing and filmmaking. The middle one is a visual artist, along with a million other things. My youngest son's into math, so I'm not quite sure how to connect. i That's pretty creative, too. But, you know, what they've seen is that you can be loving, you can be nurturing, you can be dedicated to your children, and you can also have space for yourself. And that's actually what it is to be a whole healthy human in the world. You know, nobody should have to completely sacrifice themselves for anybody else. That's not healthy. You know, we can be full people in the world and also be amazing parents as well. And so I just feel like I had to role model that to my kids, and get over that angst that I would carry about not being there at every assembly. Being really terrible at baking cakes. I'm just and that's okay. Yeah, exactly. And I was always good on You mentioned briefly earlier how that your son Sam inspired you to write a couple of the series is that your that you've written? Can you tell us a little bit more about that. So before Sam, it became clear that Sam was struggling to read, I wrote the kind of books I like to read as a child, so sophisticated, you know, plots, dense texts, you know, elaborate vocabulary, all of those things, because I was a very good reader. And I found reading easy and accessible. So they're the kind of books I set out to write, partly from my own ego as well, because I wanted to show off what a good rider so those weren't ever going to be books that Sam was going to be able to access. So and I call him Sam, he's not really called Sam. But for the purposes of the book and all the publicity, he said, yep. And to give him some privacy. And so the only books that he was able to read, we're the school readers, and they serve a very important purpose. They are there to teach kids to read, but they often don't have storylines or character development. And they're often a bit boring. I thought, the challenge for me would be to create books that would use that kind of language and vocabulary and sentence structure, but actually have proper character development and plots and so forth. And I tested them all out on them. So I would watch him. And if I lost his attention, I would short nerd or I would speed up the story or whatever. So they're all road tested with past him. And then because those books reach so many kids, what that message very strongly sent to me was, there are a lot of kids out there, like Sam, who may not be dyslexic, but just may find reading really hard. So everything I've written from then on has been for those kinds of kids, because not many other people are doing, I think there's a lot of humor around for kids. There's a lot of kind of cartoon comic books for kids, and they are really, really important too. But to explore something that goes into an emotional terrain, or perhaps, perhaps stories of friendships, it's hard to find those in a lot of the really, really fast paced accessible books for kids. So I try to do that and everything I write, to make sure that it works on lots of levels. So the poly investor series, for example, can be read on the surface as a story about rich and the monster playground story. But the further you go into it, and the more you want to explore it with a child, the more you can see that it's actually a story about apartheid. You know, it's potentially a story about the Trump era story about racism, you know, depending on how deep you want to go with your child. But I trust that children want complex stories, they may not be able to access them with their reading skills, but they have extraordinary minds. I mean, I remember, the Think of that I was as a child, that's the one skill that I've been able to hone throughout writing for children is that I can transport myself back to a six year old really easily. And I remember how I thought how I felt. And it's not less than we do now. It's not as sophisticated. But if anything, I think I felt things even more keenly as a child than I do now. And so I don't want to write down to them, but I do want them to have something they can access for themselves. Hmm, yeah, that's really thoughtful. That's really cool. That's very clever to to be able to write like that. And also, because your first will not actually your first book, but the book when about being China, about that was written for like, you know, the young adults, and then you can write for little people, two sets, and you've written for adults as well, like, that's very versatile. It's, well, you can play instruments, and I can't do that. Oh, I tell you what, I hold musicians as the top talent, as far as I'm concerned, as far as out of scope, because it's like musicians can hold a world in their heads. It's not just words, but it's all these different sounds that come together to create one sound. And for me, that is just like the epitome of creativity. It's I'd never thought of it that way. It's probably what I get so distracted. Oh, that's funny. I've always found this fascinating. And I have had many conversations with teachers over the years about how, how do we actually learn to read write. And I didn't actually really know there were these two clear different sort of forces of opinion working against each other. About, I always wondered whether you actually, like, picked up each letter and sanded down each letter. And that was how you got it, or whether you just recognize almost like, Hey, you recognize logos or symbols that you just remembered. That's how that word looks. And it was fascinating. When you write in the book that even now when we read, as adults, like fluent readers, we're still doing that, almost like the phonics way. In a while we're reading and I thought, gee, that's interesting. So rather than again, maybe try and explain, could you share some intelligent thoughts. So, so one of the amazing things that came up in some of my early research, and this sounds like such a simple thing, but it is actually mind blowing, is that while we are our brains, while we are born with brains that have the capacity for oral language, that is, while we're inside the womb, we are actually learning the tone. And we're learning we're developing the skills to be able to speak just from listening to our mother's mother speaking. So we have a French speaking mother will be attuned to Frenchmen were born, bilingual parents, children, attune to two languages, and so on. So we were born with the brains that have the capacity to be able to use our language, because our language is 100,000 years old. Written language, however, is only five and a half 1000 years old. So we actually don't have a space in our brain when we're born, that is set up for reading. So we have to actually rewire a part of our brain to be able to be a skilled to read and fluent reader. So the way that this is done is that part of the brain that is used for visual processing combines with another part that's used with oral and this is a very, very simple way of just describing very dense neuroscience. But essentially, it's recycled. So that we create what this very famous French professor has called the letterbox His name is Stanislas de Haan, you can find his talks online, He's extraordinary. We can now look inside brains because of neuroscience and see what's happening as we acquire reading skills. And so that's how they've been able to actually scientifically prove what happens in the brain when we learn to read. So before we were able to do that, like you say, there was a couple of schools of thought about how it might be that we acquire reading and one of them was the whole word approach that we do. We see a word like an image and we store it, and that then is retained and retrieved when we need that word. But we now know that in fact, what we're doing painstakingly as a child, is breaking words down into a code sounding out all the little pieces of the word. So pH sounds like, you know that oh can sound a few different ways. And so we do that painstakingly as a child, but the more we practice that the more that wiring happens in our brain, so it becomes automatic. But if we're not taught those skills, which the broad umbrella comes under the umbrella of phonics, but it's also thought of as decoding where we actually break the word down together to create meaning, then we can potentially get by for a while, because for a while, there will be certain words that we can recognize up to a certain extent, or we can guess by using the cues in the book by looking at the pictures. But once we get to that grade three, that's when we when you actually see that kids who haven't acquired those reading skills, really plateau and flounder, and that's what happened with my son. So some kids will seem to pick it up naturally or by osmosis by not being taught to decode, but some kids won't. So the the people who argue for teaching phonics from early on, the argument is that while some kids will manage to learn to read, just by doing some guessing and managing to create some kind of reading skills on their own without being specifically taught, there'll be many that aren't. So this is a way that guarantees that all kids will be taught to read. Now if you're dyslexic, you may need extra support and extra practice outside of the classroom, same skills, but you can you may need up to four times the amount of practice than a non dyslexic, but even Dyslexics can be taught to read if they're taught with this very systematic phonics instruction. So somehow it's you know, I didn't have a stake on either side and you know, Think about it or read the brain science. And it really just comes out time and time again, for people who know this stuff. I'm just sharing what I've learned that that is the way that we can guarantee that kids won't fall through the cracks. And somehow there are still arguments about it. But for me, you know, this might be controversial. It feels like listening to flat Earth as argue now, yes, there was a time, we couldn't know if the earth was round. But now we know what happens in the brain as we learn to read. And the best practice of teaching it, we just don't need to get on board. That's it will go through school like my Sam did without learning how to read and everything will fall apart there. So we're in a transition phase, there's a lot of extraordinary mothers that are lobbying to have screening done really early on to be able to pick out kids that are struggling to read, they're out, unfortunately, becomes political. But there are, you know, there are lots of people now who are advocating to have one form of teaching Trump taught across the board to ensure that all kids are taught to read, having said that, the argument against phonics is that people will say, Oh, it's boring, it's dull. It's like what was done in the 1950s. And it'll turn kids off reading. Yeah, it can seem a little bit boring and dull, like learning, you know, the notes for piano, for example, in the very early days, that can seem pretty boring. But meanwhile, you're playing music to them. So they're thinking, oh, one day, I'll be able to do that. So of course, while kids are learning to decode by using this explicit systematic phonics instruction, you read them beautiful literature, so they know what they're going to be able to access once they develop those skills for themselves. And that's what parents can do at home. So the worst thing that any parent can be told now, I realize is that if you read your to your child enough, they will just pick up reading, because that is awful for a parent that's done everything right to here, and their child still doesn't read. So they need to be taught. And you can support that at home by reading to them from birth, but it's not your responsibility to teach them. Yeah, that's it. And then it takes out that that horrible sort of the guilt ridden pneus that a lot of us moms feel when it's like, what did we do wrong? I thought we did what everyone said to do, you know, all that sort of stuff. Yeah. And it was interesting in the book to those example, those couple of examples around that phonics was a I can't think of the exact time period. But in America, at one point, they completely changed how they were teaching it my saying this right, and then all of a sudden, the decline, like was measurable of because they changed how they were teaching. Sorry, can you make sense of that? Yeah, lots of those texts coming out. Lots of those stats are coming out now about, you know, people are looking for all different reasons as to why we have a society that reads less of that kids are getting to the end of primary school and not being able to have basic literacy skills. There are lots of speculation around that. But all the research is showing that a lot of it is just because they haven't been explicitly taught. So I do give examples in the book of some schools that have changed the whole teaching program around and gone from the lowest rung of the NAPLAN results in reading to the top rep. And these are in disadvantaged areas and not ones that are getting tutoring outside school. So it's also a way that we can ensure that it's not just the kids that grow up in educated, privileged, financially secure households, like my son get the support they need. But all kids even in non English speaking background, in apartments, where maybe they're sharing one computer amongst, you know, five kids, or, you know, every child needs to be able to given the same stat in life. That's what our public education system is about. And so the only way to ensure that all kids can access literacy skills that they're going to need is by teaching them in this specific way. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Good job. And I'm doing it on behalf of other people, because obviously, I can't know if Sam would have been a fluent reader had he been taught differently. You know, it's not a sliding door situation. I can't go back and do it all again. But from every single expert I've spoken to and all the research has come out and all the books I've read. It points to that. Yep. There's a quote in there by Astrid Lindgren, who's an extraordinary Swedish writer, she was extraordinarily successful in her time. And she just has this beautiful quote that I put in the back of the book that give your children love, more love, and more love, and the rest will come. And I think, you know, it can be easy to project, our idea of success on our kids or who we think our kids should be. But I think in the end, if they can go through life, knowing that someone just loves them completely for who they are, that's about the best thing you can do for them. And I think that's the most important thing I tried to instill in my son is if he's a good and worthy person, no matter what he chooses to do with his life. Yeah, that's lovely. That's beautiful. And I'm going to add a quote to that. I can't remember who said it in the book, but it said, trust your kids, they will show themselves to you and be ready to love who you say. I thought that was a really good one. That was you that said, bravo to you. Well done. Well, thank you so much, Sally. It's been such a joy chatting to you. And thank you for sharing your story and your son's story. And yeah, being a part of of the chat today. It's been lovely. It's been really nice chatting with you. I feel like we could probably go on for hours. We probably have to break out the wine soon. All right, cyanide. Thanks for your company today. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to consider leaving us a review, following or subscribing to the podcast, or even sharing it with a friend who you think might be interested. If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the podcast. Please get in touch with us via the link in the show notes. I'll catch you again next week for another chat with a Nazi stick mum