Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - Life Begins at 30! With Sara Miller

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

Award winning designer Sara Miller join us this week to chat about the timeline pressure put onto women, her experience and tips for the juggle, having a second and mum guilt.We love to hear from you! Share your experiences with us at [e-mail] can find Sara @saramillerlondon---A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

well hello this is actually my first time back in the studio in well this year so happy 2023 even though i have recorded other podcasts since very nice to be back uh the maldives feels like a distant dream and even though i set out this year to take things a little bit slower, especially because I am now, I want to say, 33 weeks pregnant, give or take. If it had been my first pregnancy, I could have told you to the day. But it does feel very, very hectic. So I'm very happy to have been locked inside a studio with a brilliant guest for today. Oh, one thing I actually do want to say to you, by the way, is that Al slept the other day on Saturday night from 7.30 until 7am, which I think is an absolute record.

So given that lots of my podcast at the end of last year was dominated by sleep deprivation. I have a newfound hope. And that was because we took him to the soft play literally at 6pm or 5pm, it closed at 6. And so now Tommy has said that every single night he's going to take him to soft play for an hour in the hope that this may continue. But anyway, I digress. So this this week I am joined by someone who there's so many amazing topics that I want to discuss that I know you're going to love so she is a mum of two to a four year old daughter and an almost two year old son so it'll be a similar age gap from Alf and my daughter-to-be she is an award-winning British designer of luxurious lifestyle brand, Sarah Miller London. It's Sarah Miller.

Hi, Ashley. Thank you for having me on the show. Thank you so much for coming on. One thing I'm really excited to get straight into talking to you about is the fact that you say your life really began at 30, which is something really refreshing to hear because I feel like lots of us, especially as women, feel that we should have everything all figured out by 30. So could you talk about that to begin with? Sure. So I was 29 years old and sort of had been going out with my boyfriend and then husband for about 10 years. We'd been married for a few years. I was sort of faced with the reality that our marriage was failing and I was absolutely devastated. I didn't know what to do with myself.

I went off to India, this is in the December of 2012, for a, it sounds a bit cliche, but a sort of much needed trip of soul searching and trying to work out sort of my life. And at that point we were separated. It was trying to work out sort of how I would move forward. And I came back from India with a head full of the most amazing inspiration from that trip. a head full of the most amazing inspiration from that trip. Yeah, India was just the most amazing country and everything that I had seen there from the saris to the palaces and all the beautiful textiles and markets and everything had sort of been imprinted on my mind. And I sort of came back from that trip, went through with a divorce, started to reestablish my life, I guess, emotionally. And a couple of years later, decided I wanted to leave my job, set up a business.

And I pulled on all the inspiration from that trip to create the brand Sarah Miller London. It's amazing. And also, I want to talk about all the success that you had with it quite quickly, but for anyone that is maybe going through relationship troubles or thinking about maybe divorce, whether it's their choice or not their choice, what advice would you have to give from your experience? Because I do feel like lots of people, if they haven't found someone by 29, they feel like a sense of failure or time is running out. There's this sort of invisible timeline that's put onto women, but actually lots of people are also going through divorce who did meet younger. So

what advice would you give for anyone that is feeling like their world as they know it is kind of coming to an end? I think it's ultimately having self-belief and knowing it's a very difficult decision to sort of to end a relationship, especially, you know, I'd been in that relationship for close on 10 years, as I said. So it's kind of that, you know, you're in those crucial years in your life where you're going from, you know, 20 year old through to 30 year old, you know, it takes a lot of courage to, to be able to go through, but I think it's important to believe in yourself and value yourself and your happiness. And if you feel like you're not happy, then just have faith that if that relationship is no longer right for you, that if you sort of honor yourself and value yourself enough

that you will make good, strong decisions, that you will be able to find a future that does involve being happy again and sort of determining your own fate and all of that all sounds a bit cliche, but yeah, that's basically what I did. I just sort of determining your own fate and all of that all sounds a bit cliche but yeah that's basically what I did I just sort of dug deep had strength and and then went on and good things have happened since yeah and I suppose you're living proof of what it means to start

again and how amazing that journey can be as well I read somewhere that you took the trip to India which was a place that your ex-husband never wanted to visit was that part of the reason that you chose India? Oh definitely I mean I'm like I'd been always interested in art and design and for as long as I can remember so India was always on my top of my list to go but he was not so keen so then at the first moment I could it just felt like a um an obvious place for me to go so you set up your brand by the way it's an amazing brand for anyone that doesn't know uh Sarah Miller London it's got homeware home furnishings stationery and it is very colorful and vibrant you can really see that sort of Indian influence but you set up your own brand, I believe with 3000 pounds.

Yeah. So I went and did a, um, an exhibition in America, um, in the spring of 2015 and, um, literally put my designs at a show and, you know, there's nothing quite like as a creative person, the vulnerability you share when you're when you're literally putting your designs up and hoping that people will come and talk to you you know to be interested in working um with you and i did that show and it was that it was and that was the initial investment and it was the most amazing um reaction and i had lots of leads that followed and in january, I launched with a range of greeting cards and gift bags and gift wrap that sort of went onto the shelves in stores like John

Lewis and Paper Chase. And then sales just happened like really quickly. And within a few weeks, it was kind of the buyers of those stores were kind of like, who is this Sarah Miller? And we want more. and i had a vision for a much bigger brand it wasn't just going to be paper-based it was going to be a whole lifestyle brand and yeah and the sort of the two came together and i went and presented and presented and presented and yeah it just grew very very quickly so you launched in 2016 and I'm trying to do the maths you must have become a mum in 28 that's right yeah that's right so bad at maths that was like minus four minus four um so talk to me about that because obviously you found love again somewhere along the line it's so impressive to me for anyone to

be able to do the juggle but especially when you own your own business and it is your name it must have been a whole different kettle of fish but talk to me about becoming a mum again or for the first time yeah it was absolutely crazy I mean those first two years of the business I worked so hard I can't really explain to anybody just day and night and put everything into it and it was it was my baby um I signed two very big licensing contracts in 2017 um with big companies for handbags luggage jewelry and watches both of them wanted like 60 products in each range so like a massive range and then three weeks later I found out I was pregnant and And I was just like, oh my goodness, how am I going to do the next nine months developing like 120 products and going through a pregnancy and then having a child at the end of it.

My daughter was born in the summer of 2018. It was just life changes overnight, as you know. I had my team come to my house when she was six days old just to bring boards of work. And I was there feeding on the couch. And, you know, that was, in hindsight, absolutely crazy. But I think my business at that point was sort of my norm and something I had worked so hard for. And that was stable for me. And actually becoming a mum was totally overwhelming and really unknown and unfamiliar and actually I almost needed my work to sort of ground me um I relate I relate to that a lot yeah yes it's hard I mean being becoming a parent for the first

time is so overwhelming and um I found actually it all much easier the second time so you didn't really plan any sort of maternity leave I kind of could like I didn't really have the I had I had did have some support and at work but I didn't have like managerial support at that point to be able to like really step back so you know within seven weeks we did it there was 11 11 people photo shoot in my house for our new jewelry and watch range, you know, photographers, models, the whole works, you know, and I'm breast pumping in the middle of the day. I mean, it's just, it's a lot. And I remember my parents and all looking after her that day. They brought her in at the end of the day and she just went straight on onto my boob like for feeding I mean to be honest so I was in work uh very soon

after she was born and and then in and out kind of continually it's interesting though isn't it because I never really understood the need for paternity leave before I became a mum myself and then I was like hang on you have to go back to work after two weeks like but I'm still healing who's going to help me but there is I feel like this sort of judgment on mums who do whether they need to or want to go back to work that doesn't exist with the dad and also obviously not everyone has the luxury of being able to take the time to leave and um did you do things differently the second time around yeah definitely so um as it happens I felt I've actually had kind of some regret about that going back to work quite so quickly and I didn't really feel like I had a choice but yeah on reflection sort of in the years afterwards I always felt very bad about it I think just

probably mum guilt and um like I missed that time and you never get that time back and it's precious. So then when I was pregnant with my second and I had two additional lovely ladies in my team, amazing women who are also mums who just said to me like we can manage on the more senior management side of things and yeah and that was that was wonderful so I along with the other members that had been there in the team before managed to basically exit for for a good few months and just enjoy that sort of beautiful newborn baby bliss and not worrying myself with work, which I absolutely loved that time. And I'm so grateful that I had that time. Did you do kind of like the typical like baby classes?

Yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah, it was great. I mean, we were also doing house refurb at that time. This was all during COVID. So, I mean, there's still a lot going on. It's kind of, and I wasn't out of work completely work completely I mean everyone knows I'm there if I'm needed for anything yeah we were sort of in that COVID kind of coming a bit towards an end and yeah house refurb trying to work out you know like all the fixtures and fittings for you know for a whole

big project as I was launching fabric and wallpaper as well at the same time. But yeah, I did lots of the typical mum things with Covey, which was lovely. Because I'm still trying to figure out my own plans because technically I don't get maternity leave, but I would like to take it to an extent. But then I also have this pressure of not only the financial pressure

that if I don't work, I don't get paid. But also I worry that I'll miss out on opportunities if I go away for too long. But because Alfie was a lockdown baby, I didn't really get to do many of the classes first time around. And similar to you, I was back to work within, I think, five or six days doing shoots and various things. So it's interesting to hear from you. But I don't know if I ever really felt guilt about it either because I feel like I did what I had to do. And obviously there's lots of benefits of being self-employed

that I can be at home if I need to be. But I'm always really interested to hear about how people manage the juggle because especially now that you've got two it's something that even though I feel like I have childcare in place like you know you'll go to a child minders or I have my in-laws to help but I just always feel like I'm chasing my tail it's hard it's really hard what's your sort of tips for managing the juggle and what's your child care setup um so my daughter started school in september i decided i wanted to be able to pick her up from school and everyone thinks i'm crazy because that puts so much pressure on

myself so i was basically shrinking what was already a crazy hectic day down to a school day yeah so you know basically leaving leaving work by half past two but wanting to do that for her she's the youngest in her year I feel I guess like I wasn't able to do that from the work from when she was born so just her having her mum at home in the afternoons is um something I wanted to do I was doing, yeah, for only just at the end of last year and then hit a point of, oh my gosh, this is so much. I can't manage the intensity of work and everything that I'm doing, just shrinking down the hours and, you know, keeping my sanity. So I'm sort of re-looking at kind of what we do. I have a nanny for my son. He starts nursery next September or this September now so she's also on hand to help

but I am at the point I have an amazing team at work and they are very able um it's been I think having a team is um if you're if you work for yourself if you can um build it to that place where you can have other people to help is absolutely a life changer. Yeah. And are able to allow me to spend more time with the children. So, but that's taken years to build and, but it's, it's amazing. They're amazing. Do you know what I find? Like, I feel like pragmatically, it's really easy to say things like, yeah, I'm going to put them into, whether it's childcare, nursery, childminders, whatever it might be, from six months so I can go back to work or a year or whatever it might be. But

actually there's so many emotions involved in that. And even knowing if they're ready and obviously if you're breastfeeding, what was your personal journey like with both of them? Like, when did you feel like, okay, I can go back into the office now or when did you start to feel like you were getting actual work done as opposed to sort of not quite managing motherhood and not quite managing work trying to do the bow so today is my first day back this year my my son and I last week were totally ill so so even today I'm like I'm leaving him I've been with him for about a month um as yeah my nanny was off for a while but so even this morning I'm like, I'm leaving him. I've been with him for about a month as, yeah, my nanny was off for a while. But even this morning, I'm messaging her.

Is he okay? And how's the separation from me? He's got separation anxiety now. And so I don't, I still think about the kids, you know, a lot in and amongst my day. And their needs are always right at the forefront. It's just split with work and it does it's challenging it's you know we have different different heads lots of hats on at any one time and juggling lots of things um so i think it's not clean cut in terms of right now i'm ready to leave the children behind and go back to work i think it's just I think about all of it all around the clock yeah because I'm trying to figure out for my second of

when will she sort just when will she start child care and when will I be able to because with Alf he was breastfed on demand for a year and I'd never put pressure on myself you know that was just our journey a lot of it being because he didn't take a bottle so it meant that I couldn't really send him to nursery or the childminders but with baby girl it's I don't know if this is normal or if it's just the area I live in but you have to book a place for child care so far in advance that I've booked it but I'm like well I don't know if I'll even be able to let her out the house if she's still breastfeeding, which, you know, I hope that she would be. But there's just so much I feel like as much as you want to plan and be probatic, the realities and the emotions involved are so different. welcome to the train happy podcast with me tally rye this is the podcast that helps you have a feel-good relationship with fitness food and body image each week we'll be digging into an intuitive

and inclusive approach to our health and well-being as we're joined by leading experts, friends of mine and you to hear more about the journey of letting go of diet culture and feeling good in the skin you're in. It's a podcast for everyone no matter what body you're in. You can find us wherever you found this podcast. Just search Train Happy wherever you get your podcasts and hit follow what how did you prepare for the second knowing your experience of the first i looked after him i was his sole carer for nine months calling on grandparents were needed for sort of ad hoc and then when he was nine months old I or eight and a half months old nine months old I was looking to find a nanny to come in

and I guess that doesn't require maybe the same sign up and in advance like a nursery place or childminder might so that allowed a bit more flexibility and then yeah it was hard I mean that was a year ago I went back to work and in the January leaving him with a nanny for the first time but with my daughter I did long hours and she was at nursery for long days and I'm trying to just be a little bit more home a bit earlier in the day to so that they get to see you know they have their mum but I also feel like I feed off it like I love my time with them and want to make sure I'm going through the daily monotony of doing reading or playing games and reading books. It's basic stuff, but it's lovely

to do and I just want to be around and available to do that with them. Did you feel like you always enjoyed that side of parenting or did it take your daughter to become a bit older and I don't mean that in a judgmental way but it's because I am only not only starting to see the light I feel like from one year onwards it got better and better and better but I for ages especially because I always was a career person and I guess quite an alpha female I did feel like am I meant to be enjoying this I find a little bit monotonous whereas now that alpha is two I'm finding it much more fun because he's much more interactive but I'm apprehensive to think how it's going to be doing it all over

again yeah what was your own experience like definitely I mean at the beginning yeah it can it can be really I mean the days are long it's it can be really boring one of my one of my best friends has a phrase which is you know the days are long but the years are short and like I think at this point I'm looking back I can see the years are short and it all flies so you know holding on to that you know the moments now, like when I, my son who hasn't started nursery, like he is, I'm like, I'm his world. Like he, he runs to me, he latches onto me and it's the most amazing feeling. And he doesn't yet have, you know, soon they'll grow, they'll go to nursery and then they'll grow friendships and I'll have other relationships and more people in their lives.

But this is a really special little period where it's, um's precious and i yeah i don't know i guess i can sort of see that more clearly on reflection and and enjoy it but it's also more fun having two because then they interact and that's like the most joyful thing watching them play together so whereas when my daughter was maybe less one and a half or younger and it's just you on your own in the house, you know, it's, yeah, it's, it's not all fun. Like it, it can be, yeah, it can be boring. This is what I'd like to hear. How was the transition for you going from one to two? And is there any, like, what were the biggest challenges and what tips do you have for anyone who, like me, is about to welcome another baby into the fold? It's just it's busy. It's busier with two, obviously. But watching my daughter play with her or, you know, when we first introduced her to her little brother and just, you know, gently stroking his leg. It's the most heartwarming thing and watching their relationship grow

and her excitement as he first claps his hands and says his first few words and look, Mummy Kobe's doing such and such. It's so sweet. And I think that that interaction is just absolutely, as I said, heartwarming and precious to watch and enjoy. In terms of preparation um it's just it's just busy with when they were just the three of us you know me and my husband

and I could have a little bit of time out because you can take you know we could take turns of having our daughter and now it's just it's just always you know hands are full and um and also especially it changes because since kobe's been on the move like he's just everywhere and he's a boy so super physical you'll know um so having him as well just everything's a hazard that's where we are at the moment you can't you know and he's everywhere so it's just it's just intense but i think you know, we do things that they can both enjoy. We go to soft play a lot. I don't try and be too adventurous, always have these lovely ideas of like going a bit further afield and days out and stuff. But then, you know, we're confined by nap times and we've always done quite strict routine to the kids, which helps them sleep through the night.

They've been very good sleepers. Oh, that's good. What's your sort of nighttime routines? Because I'm obviously someone that hasn't really done routines yeah so um so we do six o'clock bath stories it's half six and then they're both in bed by seven and they generally sleep till seven and they both have wow um i mean my daughter slept through from about eight weeks old i'm like one of those people that no one wants to hear from. That's what I'm hoping for. It was amazing.

Yeah. And did you do anything in particular to make that happen? Or she was just naturally... Well, she really took to it, but we were just, yeah, very, you know, Gina Ford, very strict, you know, with the routines and naps in the middle of the day. And, yeah, and it worked and then um kobe took much longer to drop the middle of the night um nap oh sorry um feeds so that were so

he'd probably i was getting up with him until he was about a year old okay yeah or nine months old but he'd still kind of sleep till seven in the morning yeah yeah so last week was an absolute killer for me because I'm so not used to it and then it was I was giving medicine every three hours from 6 p.m 6 p.m 9 p.m 12 3 and 6 and I was sick and I just wanted to go to bed myself at like seven o'clock and then my daughter was coming in the room being needy and wanting to go back to bed much later I was just like oh this is this is tough you know what I um I can't wait for the day that 7am starts become the norm I even saw a mum today saying oh I've set my alarm for six in the morning so I can have a productive hour and I thought if I tried to have a productive hour before Alf woke up i'd be setting my alarm for four in the morning it's such a struggle so he up at five every day uh yeah i mean it was 3 30 for a long period in

november and december as people listening will know because it's all i could talk about because i was so sleep deprived trying to do pregnancy and not much sleep but i've kind of um i've weirdly i've been going to bed at 7 30 i don't know if it's jet lag or just the end of pregnancy tiredness, but he's doing better. Like, you know, at the beginning when we got back, it was five, which isn't terrible for us, but he was a bit jet lagged. And then it was six. He did one day seven.

Today was five again. But yeah, I dream of the day I can set an alarm to be productive. But I digress. So I want to go back to your business. So talk to me about where you are with it all now. and playful approach into everyday life, whether it's your morning mug for your cup of tea or more decadent velvet fabrics to upholster furniture in. We have a very exciting new range launching with Port Merion in March this year, which is very different to everything that we've done before. And yeah, we're just growing,

continuing to grow with all sorts of different product categories. And we've recently launched a range of scarves. I think I launched a children's book last year. I should have bought one actually. I have to check that out. And I did that with my my sister which we wrote over lockdown so that's called party parade we launched that last year and um and that sort of started the thinking for me about like looking at children's products and um and then we've done some fabrics that are so i've done both my children's bedrooms in our fabrics but they're not like typical kiddie kiddie it's a bit more classic that we'll see them through um you know longer years i'd love to see i'd love to see how you've done it yeah actually

my daughter's room is probably my favorite room in the house it's very it's pretty but um yeah lovely and girly but not but not too not princesses yeah. And finally, for anyone who is thinking about maybe starting their own business, because I do feel like lots of people become parents and whether it's that they can't get flexible working or their whole priorities have completely shifted because they do want to, as you were saying, spend more time with their kids, whether that's doing the school pickup or whatever it might be. What advice would you give to anyone who is hoping to be able to kind of emulate what you've done? I think it's exceptionally hard work. So I think it's about being realistic.

There's quite a sort of naive, I'm going to say narrative around having your own business allows you to do what you want and you know that you can kind of jet off here and there as you please and actually i think that the um it's all consuming and it is with me all the time i like i don't i really struggle to switch off like the bank holidays with easter and and Christmas are probably the days in the year when I properly switch off because there isn't an influx of emails coming at me. And I think it's about knowing yourself and knowing if that's something that you can manage.

And also if you're willing to work really, really hard. If that's a yes and you feel like that is you then it's an amazing thing to do um but i think it's it's very personal i don't think it's for everyone and i think it's um sometimes like glorified um to some degree and actually it's it's all consuming so i don't mean that to sound in any way negative it's kind of about it being realistic um it's all consuming. So I don't mean that to sound in any way negative. It's kind of about it being realistic. It's also different. You can do it at different scales, I guess. And it is wonderful to be able to have the flexibility with children and to sort of set the hours that you want to work. There is also something to be said for having a job and having sort of stable income and knowing your hours and how that sort of

looks in a week or a month or anything. So I have to echo that. It's funny because there is a sort of glamorization of being self-employed and I'm envious of my partner, Tommy, for getting to say, go on holiday and just completely switch off, like the thought of having an out of office. And yeah, I also struggle to switch off. so even in the night i'm thinking oh when am i going to do this and i think that's why i find the the juggle and you know finding the perfect child care solution so tricky as well but um so i thank you so much for coming on to chat i hope uh you guys found that really interesting and useful i i just love like i had mentioned at the beginning the idea of the mentioned at the beginning, the idea of the reminder, shall I say, not the idea of the reminder that life really can begin at 30. I mean, I feel like also on a very different path that my happiness and my own enjoyable chapters began at

30. I met Tommy at 33 and had my first baby at 35. So yeah, it's nice to hear uplifting stories from 30s and upwards. And please get in touch if you found that interesting. If you have any comments, I always love to hear from you. You can get in touch on WhatsApp where you can send a voice message for free. You can do it anonymously if you want or leave your name. The number is 075-999-27537. Or you can email me at askmumsthewordpod at gmail.com. If you listen on Apple, then if you leave a review there, then it means that I get to see it. Natalie actually emailed in this week saying,

I just wanted to drop you a message after listening to your Mums the Word episode with Laura. I think that would have been Laura Guckian. She said, I find your podcast so empowering. I recommend it and your page to any of my friends who are pregnant or have little ones. They will love it too. Thank you. You mentioned that you sometimes get comments about it being too negative. So I just wanted to let you and them know that it isn't about being negative. It's about equipping women with the knowledge of all possible outcomes so they can be prepared. Knowledge is power.

I do have one suggestion. I have a friend who has a tricky, who has had a tricky 20 week scan. And it made me wonder if you might consider interviewing a mom to a child with complex needs. It'd be so helpful to hear about the difficult decisions and experience around having a pregnancy and birth that isn't straightforward. Thanks so much. Yeah, thank you, Natalie. That's really interesting. Funny enough, my friend has just been induced and she had quite a worrying pregnancy with a tricky 20-week scan. So it's definitely something that I think should be a talking point and interesting around this idea that mums are negative because I don't know if you guys follow Danai Mercer I think that's how you pronounce her

name but she's recently had a baby and she's been really honest about her labour I think her baby's about three or four days old and she got mastitis yesterday so she did a video of her kind of like shivering with a fever and showed the temperature that she had like a 39 degree temperature and quite a lot of people commented saying this is really not good to share because you're putting off expectant mums or you're scaring expectant mums and it is this weird conversation about why are we expected to hide not even the negative parts but like the realities especially you know when there is so much set up against us like the cost of child care or whatever

at the drug or whatever it might be um she maybe is someone good to get on as well actually so thank you for messaging in to set that reminder that it's not about negativity it's about honesty with all the highs and lows and as always thank you so much for listening to mum's the world parenting podcast i will be back with another episode same time same place next week and i'm going to put all information to sarah in the caption below so you can check out um sarah middle london and yeah I'll see you next week