School For Mothers (2025)

12/10/2023

Just dropping this here. Latest School for Mothers episode.

My honest & transparent look at what happened when I interviewed Katie Hopkins.

🙏🏻Listen to the episode before commenting [hold down yer knee jerks, if you have any]🙏🏻

In this episode you’ll hear:
> What happened when I made a tiny list of guests I didn’t want on the pod - and how Katie Hopkins (no.1 slot) became my guest;

> How the Katie Hopkins interview went and why it sat unpublished on my podcast shelf for so long;

>Moments from this interview that left me agitated - including how this sharpened my need to review who gets voice;

> How me ‘drawing lines’ on what can and cannot be said and what gets to be made public impacted my thinking;

> Why the distinction I explore between freedom of sp*ech and safety for women and marginalised people, is crucial;

> Why hearing from people with different views has nothing to do with seeking agreement - and how this matters for our children;

> How this process sparked the future of the podcast.

🎧

08/09/2022

R.I.P our Queen.
I had the pleasure of meeting her twice and cherished her humour, big heart and authenticity. What a reign.

28/06/2022

Love you so very much

There are people who truly touch the world in vast ways. That’s you.

Unforgettable. Magnificent in every way.

Thank you deeply.

25/06/2022

Right behind this sentiment by@hellicity_merriman

29/05/2022

Announcement: I’ve written a book due out tomorrow all about fathers, and fatherhood identity. This is so exciting to share especially as it involved research with 1500+ fathers, and is my second book in a year! Thank you to a wonderful publishing team and amazing supporters 🎉🎉 But before I get carried away - apart from the title which I’ve had many a man ‘mansplain the meaning of to me’, there might be something else to think on 😉

Data shows men are super reluctant to read books written by women. You read that right, men are disproportionately unlikely to open a book by a woman.

For the top 10 bestselling female authors only 19% of their readers are men and 81%, women. But for the top 10 bestselling male authors the split is much more even: 55% men and 45% women. Women are prepared to read books by men, but many fewer men are prepared to read books by women.

Does this suggest that men, consciously or unconsciously, don’t give female authors as much authority as male ones? Or that they’re making lazy assumptions that women’s books aren’t for them without trying them out to see whether this is true. 😳

But why does this matter?

For a start, it narrows men’s experiences of the world. And this has real world implications. As Bernadine Evaristo says, “If we’re writing women’s stories, we’re talking about the experiences of women. We also talk about male experiences from a female perspective. And so if they’re not interested in that, I think that it’s very damning and it’s extremely worrying.”

Continuing to see the world through an almost entirely male lens, with the male experience as the default gives men a narrow focus which affects our relationships with them, as colleagues, as friends and as partners.

If you’re buying Fathers Day gifts and would like to get the book of a woman into mens hands, how about buying .
Ps I’m a convent girl and I can’t quite believe I’ve written a book called S***K. Mother Superior must never find out!

10/11/2021

Loving reminder.

For many of us 2021 has been galvanising. Shaken us to our core. Maya’s right. Whatever the battle is for each of us, take it up.

I’ve found that taking up battles doesn’t always look the way we’re taught. To battle sounds like taking something on forcefully. Confronting, fighting + ultimately winning through.

I’ve done that many times like when one of my triplets looked as if he’d not get an EHCP. I took that battle head on. The fact that this hard won sheet isn’t worth the paper it’s written on is NOT the point. That was a battle to take up.

Then there’s another kind of taking up the battle. It’s the version where you take up the battle but set down anything that can cause battle scars. It’s intentional choice to not pursue what could be battled because the process of the battle is more harmful than the benefits of the potential positive outcome.

Taking up the battle can be quiet, intentionally self preserving and it might appear like you’ve chosen to not battle against something in that loud full pelt way we know.

I’ve taught myself to battle wisely. That includes listening to when to not engage in battle. I see this as growth after years of seeing this too simplistically.

What do you make of this? Maybe once upon a time I’d have thought it was a cop out to not battle for something if I could do. But now, not so much. As Maya says, this is your life. You get to choose.

24/10/2021

Huge congrats to for her first fab book out today!! Em shares lessons on not only finding more courage but also laughter!

Em’s a sparkling voice + I can’t wait to tuck into it. My advice: Don’t grab yourself a copy if you’ve not got a solid pelvic floor. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

So proud of my munchkin friend Em. Such a powerhouse.

24/10/2021

Congrats to for her fab first book! It’s out today and brings us lessons on finding not only more courage but also laughter!

Em is a sparkling voice and I can’t wait to tuck into a copy.

17/10/2021

ON THE FLOOR
From my tum this is my view. I’m in my drawing room. Sounds w***y - truth is it’s what this room is and sun shines in through three huge ten foot tall windows. I’m lying flat to take in the f.u.c.k.i.n.g privilege of getting through another week. Hands down a plain old miracle. It’s been a mixed bitch of a week what with letting go a nanny ‘cept she’d only just started 😳, + dog p*e on a couch cos he was excited to see me (phlease), but then amazing friends to stay + THE most gorge words from School for Mothers pod listeners that make it all worthwhile. The upsides middle fi*****ng the rest, right?!

How about you and your week, have you laid down recently and thanked yourself for getting through? Yes//No//Let me know what you do.

13/10/2021

Midweek Reminder. Hang out with people that want to be around you.

Are you putting unequal effort into friendships, business partnerships, family? Course it’s going to happen because sometimes circumstances mean one of us needs to hold ‘loving space’. But when it becomes a habit of chasing, of one doing all the energetic work and even the practical/emotional heavy lifting, what do you do?

Letting go can be hard, do you find that?

It’s not often talked about in motherhood spaces. When’s it time to let go (or withdraw) from a grown child who takes consistently or even doesn’t engage at all? We hear advice galore for the early stages, and increasingly for tween and teen but ever so little about the mother left standing when the child moves on.

The child who grows and for whatever reason is done with the mother. We hear a lot about the Mother Wound. For those of us raising kids now we’re that mother who presumably will be trying to minimise wounds. Of course.

And this is also a reminder that after all those years of raising, and trying, and soothing, and caring (usually at great cost to self) there are mothers left hanging as their children move on. There are many shades of moving on. Yet we don’t hear of many except a well worn narrative about mothers being too much/not enough/failing standards expected/caring too much for themselves/____fill the blank. We don’t hear the voices of those mothers left do we? It’s socially incomprehensible that mothers might have feelings and opinions about the children they cared for but who moved on, sometimes without a backward glance. Mothers must hold tongue and accept disposability as if this is part of a pact.

I expected the impossible from my mother given the inner and outer resources she had. I moved on. Karma bites though.

What about you?

03/10/2021

Curiosity didn’t kill any cats.

Which do you prefer? Or do you prefer IGTV or Reels? I’m posting this to my Stories as well, want to make sure people who don’t check the main feed see it too.

I’m a main feed with a side of Stories person. But lately that might be changing, which is why I’m asking. How about you?

27/09/2021

WET MYSELF or NOT because whenever I stay quiet followers go up. If I keep my mouth zipped, up the numbers go. It’s tempting to stay schtum.

Ridiculous though, right?!

And the other day I saw a brilliant post from waving goodbye to the people that leave whenever she posts. She made me laugh with her inimitable brilliant humour. A while back I saw someone else (I’ve no bleeding idea who!) say every time she shows her face + body people leave in droves. That gets on her t**s, which if I remember right we’re mighty fine.

To the clutch of you that left recently, Bon Voyage. To those who stick about waiting for me to make a mess of things, welcome to certainty.

I’m a huge believer in being human. A strange concept once we’re mothers. Because everything and their wife plus our own kids (once they’ve outgrown the ‘mummy is the best’ stage, and they do) needs reminding we’re human beings with our own frailties, doing our very very best for the people we adore, fight for and cherish.

I’m thinking up a Show and I’m looking for inspiration. Drop ideas in comments.

School For Mothers

12/10/2023

08/09/2022

28/06/2022

25/06/2022

29/05/2022

10/11/2021

24/10/2021

24/10/2021

17/10/2021

13/10/2021

03/10/2021

27/09/2021

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