Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - Raising a Happier Mother with Anna Mathur

Episode Date: August 27, 2023

You can't think straight when your burnt out, and our amazing guest Anna Mathur reminds us this week that we NEED to fill up our own cup before anyone elses. In order to support our childs mental health - we need to support our own! It's ok that you are feeling like this, and its ok if you are BORED! There is no right way to parent, and we need to put any judgement or pressure we feel on ourselves to the back of our mind - if you are feeling down and in the need for a pep talk - THIS IS THE EPISODE FOR YOU!Get in touch with us at [e-mail] or on whatsapp on 07599927537.---A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome back to Mums the Word, the parenting podcast. I'm Lucy Fallon and I'm your guest host for this week. I became a mum at the start of this year to my baby boy Sonny and one of the most surprising things I have found since becoming a mum is how quickly things change. It honestly feels like about two minutes ago that he was just a tiny little potato that couldn't really do very much and now he is army crawling from one end of the room to the other and everyone tells you to really embrace all those moments because they go by so fast and they are not wrong. It is absolutely flown by. One of the most challenging parts of being a mum for me is how little spare time and me time you have. That's one of the things I really struggled

with at first, just finding those moments where I could just have a little bit of me time. And I will admit it does get easier as they get older, but I did find that super tricky at the beginning. And the most amazing thing about being a mum that I have found so far is how his face just lights up whenever I walk into a room. He literally beams from ear to ear and it's just the most magical thing. Now that's enough from me, let's get into this week's chat. On this podcast we've heard just how easy it is to become burnt out as a parent and if we can't effectively tend to our own needs how can we effectively tend to the needs of our children that's why it is so so important to fill up our own cup before we even think about filling up

anyone else's this week we are joined by special guest psychotherapist anna martha whose new book raising a happier mother how to find balance feel good and see your children flourish as a result special guest psychotherapist Anna Martha whose new book Raising a Happier Mother How to Find Balance Feel Good and See Your Children Flourish as a Result is out on the 31st of August and this really brings home the message that caring for our children begins with caring for ourselves and I am so excited to get into this. Anna welcome to the show. Thank you so much thanks for having me. Thank you for coming on how are you me. It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you for coming on. How are you?

Yeah, I'm good. I've just been out for a walk. Oh, lovely. That's my thing at the minute. I think it was the pandemic I've got to thank for that. Yes. Just going out for walks. And I told you about filling out your cup.

I remember saying to my therapist on one of these walks, as I spoke to her on the phone, and I said, it's like my parenting depends on me going for a walk. And she said, yeah, it does, Anna. Anna I was like it was this light bulb moment we need those little moments don't we well I I have to be honest I'm a little bit of a fangirl because I actually have your book the little book of calm for new moms um and I was gifted it at my baby shower. So that mom knew, she knew, she knew I needed that. And I have found that so useful and I still actually refer back to it now. My baby is six months old,

but I still refer back to it when I'm feeling overwhelmed or I just need a minute and I need to have a look in the book. So first of all, thank you for that. And your new book is coming out soon which is really exciting yeah well I do you know what it was my absolute dream to think of their little book of calm being given baby showers I was like I just thought it's a little kind of it's it's a book isn't it there's got a little chapter for each emotion and you just flick to that emotion and you know for tired minds and busy brains um because we can't always just read lots

and lots of words so it's just a few paragraphs to help kind of ground you and mostly just say it's okay that you're feeling like this because I think sometimes that's just what we need here isn't it and raising a happier mother um so if you look at the book it's actually it says raising a happier child and it's crossed out and it says mother so I think so often our focus is on like how can we improve like life for our kids and how can we I get so many mums saying I don't want to pass on my anxiety to my child I don't want to pass this on and I'm like do you know what the most powerful way that you can support your child's mental health is by nurturing your own.

So I've got a whole bookshelf here to my left of all these parenting books. And with the best intention, sometimes it makes me feel better just to have the books on my shelf, even if I've only read two pages. But I recognize that with all this wisdom, parenting wisdom, I cannot access it when I'm stressed burnt out tired you know all of those things we're just we're in survival mode like how can we think oh how would I like to respond in this moment when my kid's kicking off oh I remember that book that I read two years ago and I'm gonna do this we can't we can't think straight when we're burnt out. That's what I think is really interesting about what you talk about is that it starts with you. It starts with the mum. And it's about really checking in with ourselves and making sure that we are okay,

which I don't think a lot of people talk about. And I think the reason that people don't talk about that is because of the dreaded mum guilt. And we all feel it. And I mean, even I feel it sat here right now thinking about my baby with his nanny at home and then i i just want to ask what you would say are the best ways to combat mum guilt because we all feel it and i'm sure you have your own experiences as well but what would you say are the best ways to combat it? Oh my gosh, mum guilt. I just, like, we've just joked about it so many times as, you know, growing up,

when our kids are growing up, mum guilt, mum guilt, it's just a part of motherhood. And I think I just accepted that I was always going to feel guilty to some degree. And I remember in the pandemic, there were just another million reasons to feel guilty because I was juggling like work and the kids and the house and it was all just too much.

And I felt like I was failing on every different kind of sphere of my life. And I remember sitting at my desk feeling total guilt because I think I was working on a book or something whilst my kids were probably fighting downstairs. And I remember thinking there's got to be more to motherhood than this constant undercurrent of just not feeling good enough. So I devised a three-step technique to use purely selfishly for myself. And then actually I've shared it loads since then. And it's called the ACT technique, A-C-T, whatever kind of guilt you feel. So let's think about the guilt that you just mentioned. Now you're feeling guilty that you're six months old is at home with nanny. And yeah, you're sitting

here feeling that kind of undercurrent, a little buzz of guilt. So A is address, like literally label it. So we've just done it there. We've just labeled I feel guilty because, yeah. And then the C is compassion. Because if we don't add some compassion into guilt, it starts turning into shame. So we go from that place of I feel like I'm failing, but that's guilt, right? You're saying I feel like I am failing. That gives you something to challenge there's a little bit of a crack there that could be open to negotiation whereas if we leave it and it turns into shame it says I'm a failure I'm a rubbish mum my child deserves better I should be doing better you know and it's just these really kind of harsh critically just all

these statements that are actually really damaging to our self-esteem if we're oh for sure yeah and it turns into shame which actually is really just damaging to our self-esteem when we're repeating these massive statements over ourselves so I say right you have to inject some compassion into this guilt so what would you say to a friend if they said you know what I'm feeling really guilty doing my work today and the baby's at home you know what I'd say I say hey the juggle's hard like baby is really well looked after and it is so good for infants and children to have different caregivers in their life it's actually really good for their development you're doing something you love it's going to fuel you you're going to go back to your child feeling a little bit more yourself with a little bit more

to give so we can introduce some compassion just to kind of loosen up that guilt and that shame. And then at the end is the T and I call this tweak. So I say that guilt is there to prompt you, it's to prompt you to look at it. It's not there to shame you, say that you're a terrible mom, that your child deserves better. We're not going there. So if guilt is there to prompt you, what might it be prompting you to do and actually in this instance it might be that when you get home you think you know I'm going to put my phone in a drawer for an hour and just fully just absorb my baby like that's what I do I'm going to let it prompt me just to really have some gorgeous time

with my child or it might be that actually you think oh I'm feeling this guilt a lot what boundaries might I need to put in around my work you know and it might actually just be sometimes the guilt isn't even justified and we just need to let it go because actually not really doing anything wrong at all there's a lot in motherhood as well you know for sure sometimes I will literally have spent the entirety of the day with Sonny and I will just look at him and I will feel guilty and I'm like what am I feeling guilty over and nothing is even happening I haven't done anything I've been with him all day and I just think have I played with him enough have I given him the right things to eat and I think that we're kind of we're taught this mentality that we sort

of should feel guilty so I think that is a really like useful tool and you mentioned something there about me time and you know going to work and me being here today this is something for myself and I'm working and it's amazing and um I think it is and I do need to admit that at the start of when I first became a mum I knew that it was gonna I was gonna lose mom, I knew that it was going to, I was going to lose my independence. I knew that, but I didn't realize how much that would affect me. And even, you know, I am a girly that likes to go and get her nails done. I like to go to the salon. I like to sit there and I like to get my nails done. I'll be honest. And I feel like when that got taken away from me, I couldn't believe it. And, and I, and I feel like I've only just started kind of getting that back. And, and, you know, it wasn't even just that it's being able to just go in the shower and everything has to be so meticulously planned out. So if we do find those moments where we are able to have time

for ourselves, what would you say are the best ways to sort of really embrace those and make sure that we are really like recharging our own batteries? Yeah, I think first of all, that feeling of I feel guilty for missing this. I feel guilty that actually I've got a bit of grief because sometimes we can grieve what was good. It doesn't mean that we're not grateful for being a mom. We're not grateful for our a mum we're not grateful for our children we're not grateful for our baby it's okay to feel sad that you're not able to do some things that you love and I think often we really we have feelings as mums it might be boredom there's one that we feel in motherhood sometimes is boring sometimes it's monotonous

and the routine can just be a bit grueling and you feel like you're doing the same thing over and over and over again. And you think, oh my gosh, my life used to be so much more interesting. What have I become? I'm covered in puree and babysick and just I'm constantly on my knees cleaning the floor. And it's okay to feel boredom. It is okay to feel a little bit of kind of that wistfulness about the freedom. And I think what we've got to be careful to do is not assume that that's a statement on how much we love our child. Like you can feel boredom at motherhood sometimes. It doesn't mean that you don't love your child. And I think sometimes we caveat, don't we? We're like,

oh, I'm having a really hard time, but I love my baby and I'm so grateful. And I'm so, I know that loads of people want babies and they can't have babies and I'm so grateful. And, you know, it's, it's as if we, we kind of beat ourselves up with the gratitude stick. And I think reminding ourselves that you can feel bored and grateful. You can feel overwhelmed and joy, you know, and the, the and word is just the best in these instances it's acknowledging that I really miss getting my nails done I just want to get my nails done I miss that and I'm grateful for the reason that I'm not getting my nails done right now we can just hold both so I think that's really helpful is taking some of the shame out of

finding that hard and what we do in that time is kind of entirely up to us. And I always say when it comes to self-care, it's really not what it is, but what it gives you. And the most important thing I think is knowing that we love our children laughing. We love seeing them happy, don't we? It just gives us such joy. We love seeing them happy, don't we? It just gives us such joy. But there is nothing they love and benefit from more than seeing that sparkle in our eye and seeing us laugh and seeing us feel like ourselves. That makes them feel so safe.

Yeah, my kids love it when I'm just larking around and being me or sitting on the sofa and saying, you know, I'll do that in two minutes. I'm just having a rest. and being me or sitting on the sofa and saying you know I'll do that in two minutes I'm just having a rest I want them to know that I deserve rest rest doesn't stop when you're when you're you know growing up yeah oh for sure we all need our rest and I think as well like you said about becoming quite monotonous that is what I'm finding sort of at the moment when me and Sonny sort of are at home on our own, I'm finding that quite a lot of the time every day is the same. And I wasn't really blessed with the fact that my partner, just because of the nature of his job, he had to go back to work almost instantly. And, you know,

I think at the beginning of becoming a new mom, you sort of are surrounded by quite a lot of people, your friends are so excited and they're coming all the time. And then after a few weeks, that kind of like, that dies off, I'll be honest. And I think I found that super difficult. I was like, oh my God, I've not seen my friends who told me that they were going to come every other day. They've not been in three weeks or they haven't texted me to ask me how I am or how Sonny is. And I found myself feeling like is. And I found myself feeling like that. And I think what it made me realize is that motherhood can be really lonely. And even though there are thousands and thousands of moms that are going through exactly the same

thing as you, I think it can be, it can feel like you are the only person in that moment that is going through that specific thing. And what I actually want to ask is how you would say are the best ways to sort of help yourself when you're feeling like that? Because I even now still feel like that when those days are just the same and I'm thinking, oh, nobody else is feeling like this. feel super lonely um at home on my own with Sonny I don't know like what else to do how would you say are the best ways to deal with that when you are feeling lonely so first of all acknowledge that you feel lonely and sometimes I don't think we even realize that that's actually what we're feeling I remember one day on the school run I was just feeling really tearful and I sat in the car after dropping the kids off.

And so what I sometimes do and I encourage people to do is to ask yourself how you are. What am I feeling? Because we often do that for our babies and our kids. Are they hungry? Are they tired? Do they need a nap? Do they need a snack? And it's just turning that question onto yourself and saying, what do I need?

What am I feeling? And I start listing feelings. Like if I don't know the answer, I might. I sat in the car and I said, am I need? What am I feeling? And I start listing feelings. Like if I don't know the answer, I might. I sat in the car and I said, am I angry? No. Am I bored? Am I stressed? Am I lonely?

And I was like, when I said lonely, it just kind of got me in the stomach. You know, when you're, it just really resonates. And I started crying. I was like, oh my gosh, I feel lonely. I've just been around tons of people. I've got my kids with me. You know, I've just dropped them off.

And that's the feeling. And I think take the shame out of that as well, because sometimes we can feel guilty for feeling lonely because we think our children should feel that gap when actually our kids can't give us what our mates can give us. And they can't give us lovely feedback and kind and encouraging words and hugs and they can't give us lovely feedback and kind of encouraging words and hugs and they can't

mother us so sometimes I think we can feel a bit guilt a bit guilty that our kids can't be you know make us happy and meet all of our needs and actually it just makes perfect sense they can't so that's fine but the antidote to loneliness is connection so where might you be a bit disconnected who are you missing because sometimes we think about friends and we we just realize actually we're missing that we haven't spoken to them for a while are you being honest enough with friends are they saying how you're getting on and you're just sending a nice little picture of sunny like you know and saying yeah we're good when actually you're feeling a bit lonely and you'd really like a proper chat and maybe you can schedule in schedule in talks this is what I do

with my friends are you free at 1 p.m on Tuesday so that we can chat on the phone and I'll go for a walk and they'll go for a walk and maybe you go out in the buggy and you speak to your friend for like half an hour and you just have that time to connect so if you're feeling lonely it's often it's a you know it's a symptom of disconnection that you just probably need to be heard yeah I think I think I found as well that I was actually the first one out of my friendship group to have a baby so I felt like potentially at that time nobody else could relate to me in the past couple of weeks actually a couple of my friends have ended up giving birth which is welcome to the club yes i'm gonna get it we can chat yes now you're gonna talk to me all the time um but yeah i did i did feel like that and i think

people also make promises that they can't really keep that aren't really realistic i think you kind of get told it's the first baby of the friendship group and everyone's so excited. And then it does kind of wear off because people go back to their normal lives. Everybody's busy. Everybody has jobs and everyone has their own things going on. And then when you're off work, you're just solely a mom. That's all you are at this like present moment in those first few weeks. And I think that it can become it is just lonely and I think checking in with ourselves is a really it's a it's a very important thing but in your book you break down the six hurdles that we face or that we go through that prevent us from fulfilling motherhood a really fulfilled motherhood? What are they?

So you're going to put me on the spot here, aren't you? But I think some of the things, so this is basically all about those things that get in the way of us being the mum that we could be. And I'm not talking about being a perfect mum. I'm just talking about being a happier one. So it's anxiety is one of them. For example, anxiety goes up in motherhood, doesn't it? We've got a whole host of new reasons to feel anxious. And I have so many moms saying to me, that's just who I am. I'm just anxious. And I say, no, there's so much more for you than this. You don't have to just be anxious. There are so many things that we could do to help you take away. So it take away. It's exhausting.

It's exhausting overthinking every scenario. I remember my son having achy legs one day and I knew that it was probably growing pains. I don't know if you remember. My mum always used to say, it's just growing pains. Whenever I had achy legs and I thought it's probably growing pains. He's growing like a weed and eating all the food. But in my head, he got cancer. pain so he's growing like a weed and eating all the food but in my head he got cancer so that night I had to work really hard so that my sleep and my rest wasn't absolutely robbed by my brain going

out you know 100 miles an hour into a future that may not and you know probably wasn't going to happen so I think we can be so robbed in motherhood our headspace and our our presence because as soon as we start feeling anxious about stuff and as soon as we start creating stories in our heads we're not where we are are we so anxiety anxiety was one of the perfectionism is another one where are our standards where are we placing those standards what are we expecting from ourselves that actually is a bar that we're going to constantly be feeling like a failure because it's just not sustainable like how can we change our expectations and mend them to be a little bit more human i want to be a perfect mom well actually perfect parents don't prepare

children for to navigate a wholly imperfect and messy world we're going to mess up it's how it's what we do with it after actually. That's the real learning stuff for our children. So I think the hurdles are about removing and challenging some of those things that we often just think, oh, it's just motherhood, that guilt, just motherhood, that anxiety. It's just motherhood. The attitude to rest that we have, that we have to, so many people feel, me too, historically, and I still battle with it it that we have to earn rest we have to do all the stuff and then we we get to deserve to rest when actually it's a huge basic human need what are we denying ourselves mum's not drinking enough water not eating all the food i don't know about you now son is probably moving towards

weaning it's like well the bananas are the kids. Any nice berries we have, they're the kids. Cucumber, kids. Pepper, kids. And I'm there thinking this is the kids' food. I'm like, no, I can eat a strawberry too. I was like this last night. I made, and I felt like I was pretty proud of myself,

so I'm going to give myself credit for it. But I made these gorgeous little pastries with, like, strawberries and blueberries mashed up in. OK. And I mean, it was a roll of like puff pastry that I saw it on TikTok. So, but I made them and there was like eight of them. And my boyfriend, Ryan, was like, oh, hands off. They are not for you. They're for Sonny. And he was like, we can have one of the pastries. It's like there's literally eight. He's never going to eat eight. And I was like we can have one of the pastries it's like

there's literally eight he's never gonna eat eight and i was like right okay yeah that's fine but i was the same i was like no no we can't have those they are not for us and i find as well in the day i'm like i have to like my boyfriend will get home and he'll be like have you eaten and i'm like no i've not had anything actually i've not even had a drink of water. Oh. Oh, yeah. No, Sonny's had like absolutely everything. He's had 10 of his five a day. And I have eaten nothing and I've not even had a sip of water. I'm just living off a black coffee.

No. So I do. I need to check into that a lot more because that is my downfall. But you said then about the pressure and I I as well and I know that so many people listening will feel the same but I put so much pressure on myself at the beginning I feel like I have I have tamed it down now but at the beginning I put so much pressure on myself to be this like perfect mum that I had in my head and and my sisters are quite a bit older than me and and they're already moms and I see them and they are amazing moms and I was like I want to be as as good as they are

and I put so much pressure on myself to the point where I was kind of turned down help at the beginning and even with like breastfeeding I like really really wanted to breastfeed and I and I was so like passionate about doing it. And I was like, right, I'm gonna do it for six months exclusively. And then we'll introduce a bottle. I did it for three weeks and then we introduced the bottle and I did combination feeding.

So I was physically exhausted. I just couldn't do it anymore. And I just think that we do that and I don't know why. And it wasn't coming from anyone else. It was only coming from me. I was putting the pressure on myself. But what I found interesting is that we don't put the same pressure on dads. And I don't feel like the dads even feel that pressure. And I don't know why that is. Yeah. And I think sometimes we can look to social media because actually I've spoken to my

mum about this before and she said, Anna, you moms these days, you just put so much pressure on yourself. We never did this. We were never fearful of the same stuff that you're fearful of. We weren't anxious in the way that you are. And I think, do you know what? I think social media for all its wonderfulness, I'm sure that you'll totally agree, has a lot to do with this. And I think the fact that we do see the highlight reels and to be able to coach ourselves we have to rationally coach ourselves to remember that obviously all of these best bits

knitted together do not equal a real mum but we're hardwired to believe what we see which is why magic tricks are so astounding because but our brains just what we see. I mean, why shouldn't we? We know now that so much is filtered. And so we're kind of knitting together this ideal. And the other thing is that we have so much research now about different forms of parenting, what's best, why we shouldn't have done it this way. And I must say that my parenting has evolved in the last kind of eight years, nine years of being a mom because of the stuff that I've read. So the more information we have available to us telling us how to do it right, the more we think we should, that there is a right to attain to when actually in reality. And I love Dr. Becky Goodinside. She's from America. She's a psychologist and

she writes a lot about parenting and I've got one of her books and I love all of her stuff. And she often says, I don't get it right all the time. I do not get it right. I yell at my kids. I get overwhelmed. I mess up. And I love that because all the people in all the world that know the stuff about parenting and babies they'll write the stuff that research shows is right but they know most of them in reality that actually to live that out all the time it's not possible yeah and i think yeah i think often we're just there's all this information out there telling us how to do it brilliantly and not always accounting for the fact that we're humans we're tired we've some of us have had challenging upbringings some of us have been through trauma and loss and some of us don't have supportive partners and some of us

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wherever you get your podcasts from. One of the things that I have found helpful is to just know that everyone is winging the life out of it no one really knows what they're doing no one because you're faced with different challenges all the time like i was speaking before actually because um we put sonny in his own room a couple of weeks ago because he i have not been blessed with a sleeper he does not sleep and i know it's not great yeah i know and i just keep seeing on instagram all these people saying oh my baby slept for eight hours last night and i'm like hon where is this where is this energy from you um but he yeah we've not been blessed with a sleeper and um a couple of weeks ago we

put him in his own room and it was going amazing he was sleeping from like seven till two which was great for us and then we were getting him in our bed and then he was probably waking every couple of hours after that but um it changes all the time and like right now like last night he did not sleep at all basically at about four o'clock in the morning, he was just awake babbling away. And he was awake for like an hour. It was like he- Sending you coffee through the screen. Thank you so much.

And I've actually had two double espressos today, so I'm a little bit quivery. But it's like he had to go through his wake cycle at four o'clock in the morning before he could go back to sleep again. And I think we have to just sort of wing it because it changes all the time and you can go back and refer to every single thing every sleep book every sleep expert or whatever and it's just different for everyone

and i know i have to keep it in my head that it's going to change and in a couple of weeks time he's gonna come out of the other side and we're going to get a full night's sleep. We'll pray. Pray for me. It will come. It will come. And there is so much. I think this is one of the massive things

that we struggle with, especially those of us who are quite kind of driven or perfectionist, is the fact that we can't control half of it. And the books are kind of guidelines, but ultimately the books don't know if your kid's got a cold or if they're harboring are kind of guidelines, but ultimately they, the books don't know if your kid's got a cold or if they're harboring kind of fighting off a virus or, you know, they're navigating a new food or learning a new skill. Like I thought I'd nailed

it the first time around, if I'm honest. I'd read a book. My son, it seemed, had read the book in the womb. He was straight down the line. And I honestly thought it was all to do with me. I was like, this is amazing. I'm loving this motherhood thing. Let's crack on. So by the time he was one, I was pregnant again. And there began the most humbling experience of my entire life because I thought I was going to copy and paste what I'd done before. And none of it worked. None of it worked. It was a whole different experience. And he had reflux and he was up and he screamed for kind of solidly for about nine months. I was chronically sleep deprived, got postnatal depression, postnatal anxiety. It was

just, I was like you, I was like, no, I'm fine. I don't need any help. Thanks. I've got this covered. And I was totally humbled. I realized how much I needed people. I realized how vulnerable I needed to be with people. And it just showed me that there is so much outside of our control. And just as a sleeping baby doesn't mean that I'm a better mom. In the same way, a non sleeping baby with reflux who cries doesn't mean that I'm a bad mum and that's really what I believed I thought I was a good mum then I was a bad mum and I think yeah this is this is the risk when when we kind of make statements about who we are and how well we're doing according to how our babies and our children are and that's I think part of what I wanted to kind of strip away in the book is the power that it that it is when we make these statements about ourselves. I'm doing a rubbish job or and actually, you know, they're just little humans doing their thing and can't control half of it. They're all different. Every single one is different.

And, you know, we to be fair, we've been he doesn't really sleep, but he is quite chilled he will kind of be put put down anywhere and he will go to anyone he doesn't cry when i leave the room or anything like that so he is chilled so we've been blessed with that so so that is good you'll take it i'll take it i'll take anything to be honest but we actually have a question from the public which is amazing so i'm gonna read it and then we can kind of conflap so this is from nadia on whatsapp and she says hello first off i want to say i've been loving the podcast and have meant to get in touch for ages now but haven't had the chance that's motherhood right sure is yeah i'm looking for a bit of advice about judgy people as soon as i became a mother and especially breastfeeding in public i feel as if everyone has something to say about how i live my life

nothing i do is right the other day i was in the park and was breastfeeding my baby girl of course i expect the odd look every now and again but someone actually came up to me and told me that i shouldn't be flashing everyone in the park, even though I was out of the way and even though I was just feeding my child. I was ready to tear him a new one. I would have done. But then something took over me and I just froze up. It's one of those moments you think back to

when you're in the shower and think of all the different scenarios. How would you approach this? Oh, the judgment and the fear of judgment and what other people think and the things that they say and I think one of the most powerful statements I've heard that I've had to really kind of ruminate over to make sense of it is what people think of you is none of your business and obviously that was made her business but what is meant by that is that what people, how people judge you says more about them than about you. It might be that that person has had a negative experience. It might be that person's really angry. It might be that that person didn't get to maybe support a partner who wasn't able to breastfeed their child. And therefore, actually, they were feeling some kind of anger and frustration or grief in that moment. It might be that, I mean, goodness knows what.

And this, I think, is the fact that we just never know the reason that people are the way they are. And my middle child, he's autistic. So he's six and he often has quite public meltdowns where he is crying and thrashing around in shops and supermarkets. And I know that some people will be looking at me thinking she needs to control her child. She shouldn't have blah, blah, blah. I can just see it in some people's faces. But I must say, being his mom has been one of the most liberating things of my life because I've learned to deal with the fact that I just think, oh, you've got no idea, mate. You've got no idea. And I've learned to go to the people and make sure that there are people in my life who get it.

So for her, make sure that she has friends in her life who validate her choices to breastfeed her baby. I mean, I remember breastfeeding my kids in some really dodgy places, sat on the floor on a train because there were no seats, making my father-in-law rather uncomfortable at points because I just didn't I could never be bothered with a cover because he just put it off exactly and I think I just had to I've got a little anchor tattooed on my on my wrist and it's it's really just to mean anchor yourself in what you know to be true

that you are loved by those who know and understand you best and you are trying to do good things. And I just think sometimes just holding on to that truth. I am feeding my baby in the park. I have every right to do this. Those who know me validate my choices. I'm doing nothing wrong. And that is what I'm holding on to. And everything else is just subjective judgment and noise that says more about that person than it says about you so I think

sometimes it's about just putting choosing to put your blinkers on and yeah just thinking that's a shame that that person goes around feeling so angry because yeah she won't be the first person or the last person that's faced this wrath whether about that or something else i know i i actually didn't really experience that sort of judgment about breastfeeding not that i was completely aware of anyway but i just think that that says like you said that says a lot more about you than it does about anyone else because that seems like a you problem i think that's weird you're feeding your baby like if if you think that that's weird i think you're weird because that is definitely a you problem for sure so anna your book comes out on the 31st of august is that right it does indeed it does indeed on the

last day yes what what do you want people to know about your book before we wrap things up? So it's very much about you as a mum. And I think we mother all the time. We don't just mother our children. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people listening mother friends, mother, maybe elderly parents, mother other people's children. And I think we, us mothers, mother, but it's so important to be mothered. We need mothering ourselves and we need mothering from ourselves. We need mothering from our friends. We need to get to a place where we can allow other people to mother us. We've just been through a really, really tough time of grief as a family. And I must say, I have been so mothered by friends, literally held whilst I've cried. And I know that we all need mothering in motherhood.

And the more openness and honesty we can cultivate in time and find the confidence to be honest with each other, the more mothers we will have in our lives. And so the book's very much about you deserve happiness. All those things that you want to nurture in your child, the confidence, the headspace, the good balance with rest, the sense of identity and who they are and what they're worth. We deserve that too. So instead of just purely thinking about your child, know that if you nurture yourself, your child will automatically benefit. As I'm looking after myself, my kids are benefiting as an amazing side effect of that. So it's, yeah, it's about not just raising a happy child because it's not a parenting book.

It's a book to mother mothers and help the mother themselves. And then we can make more sense of and access the parenting stuff and we need it because we're less burnt out and less living in survival mode yeah that is amazing i actually can't wait to read it because if it's anything like your last one i know that i am going to find it very beneficial but thank you so much for talking to me today i know that all of the listeners will will really benefit from from this episode so thank you so much thanks for having me absolutely thank you thanks for listening to mum's the word the parenting podcast make sure to hit the subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode we love to hear from you so get in touch on whatsapp where you can send us a voice message for free, even anonymously if you want, at 075-999-27537. Email us at

askmumsthewordpod at gmail.com or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. We'll be back with another episode, same time, same place, next week. Bye for now.