Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - The Childcare Challenge with Joeli Brearley aka Pregnant Then Screwed

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

The cost of childcare is at an all time high, but how can we rely less on the dysfunctional childcare system? Joeli Brearley, founder of Pregnant Then Screwed to chat childcare, judgement and discrimination towards mothers as well as the laws around this.Need help? Call the Pregnant Then Screwed Helpline on 0161 2229879.You can find Joeli at @pregnantthenscrewedGet in touch with your experiences at [e-mail]---A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well, hello. So I'm still here. I'm still pregnant. I've actually been thinking about childcare this week because we have Alf in an amazing childminders three days a week. And she has basically said to me that she is so booked and busy that if I want my daughter, who's not even here yet, to be looked after by her, which I do, then I need to let her know how many days and from when, because she amazingly left a space for me from September. So baby girl will be six-ish months old. My math is really bad. That's a guesstimateimate so I'm trying to figure out a if we can afford it and what we can afford which is quite hard when you're self-employed and don't

quite know how much you're gonna make especially whilst on a non-existent maternity leave um and second of all if I'm gonna be breastfeeding or not because then obviously I don't know if she even will be able to leave the house and or not so I feel like I'm back to the sort of stress about child care which I have to be honest I didn't ever think about until I had my first baby I felt like for somebody that considers themselves such a feminist, I really didn't realize how much internalized misogyny I had about mothers. And I feel like we all hear it a lot, don't we? Like, don't have a baby if you can't afford it. Don't have a baby if you don't want to look after it yourself. And I actually think that I was one of those people that said those things. And because I've always felt quite like alpha and like a career woman,

and I didn't have children and didn't want children, I think I did actually see it all as a sort of choice. And I didn't see it for what it is, which is actually discrimination against women. is actually discrimination against women and also the fact that even child-free women are also kind of tarnished with the same brush as us so I really wanted to discuss child care this week because I feel like actually it's a bit of a dirty word not just in politics and not just in society, but even amongst parents and mothers, because of the cost of it, it's seen as such a privilege that people almost pretend that they don't have childcare. You see it in the celebrity world and you think, you know, I follow some people on Instagram and I'm like, how are they doing it all? And they're probably not. They probably do have childcare, but they just don't talk about it because it's like this weird, dirty word. So I'm really excited to welcome onto the podcast today, the founder of the charity who,

if you don't know about, you need to know about, Pregnant Then Screwed, it's Jolie Brealey. Hello, thank you very much for having me and good luck with your child care challenges that are coming up i would love to say that you'd be able to uh help but um you are you're you're doing wonders can you can we get like take it back right to the beginning of when you found out you were pregnant and how pregnant then screwed started and kind of became the the machine that it is today. When I was four months pregnant, I mean, I hadn't planned to be pregnant. That's probably for another podcast, but I found out that I was pregnant and I was working for a children's charity in the Northeast. And I was working on this project that I had designed. I'd secured all the funding for it. And I was really excited

about it because it was going to benefit all these brilliant young people in a region that's often forgotten about, which of course you will know very well. And I informed my employer that I was pregnant. The baby would have arrived before the project had finished, but I had a plan in place. I'd figured it all out for them. So I said, look, I've got this plan. So there's nothing to worry about. Let's have a chat about it tomorrow. And the next day they called me. I was brushing my teeth at the time. So I didn't answer the phone. And then I listened to the voicemail and it was the CEO. And she said, I'm very sorry to tell you that your contract is being pulled.

Please, can you hand everything over immediately? Give me a call back to let me know this is okay. So I was, I mean, I was devastated at first. I just, I was so confused. I remember pacing the floor up and down and thinking, what on earth has just happened? And I called a few people. I called my mum mom who was furious on my behalf. I called my father-in-law who is a lawyer, but he's a housing lawyer. So he had no idea what to do. And I ended up getting a lawyer on it. And they basically wrote the CEO a letter that got thrown in the bin. That process cost me 300 pounds. And I had no idea where my next income was coming from. And I said, okay, what do I do next? And they said, well, you can take them to tribunal. I said, how much is that

going to cost? They said, well, it's quite a challenging case. So it'll be in the region of about £9,000. I mean, who has £9,000 just sloshing around in their bank account? I don't know anybody that does. And I'd just lost my job. I had no income. So I said, okay, let me think about that. And then I went for a routine hospital appointment. They said, look, your baby's hanging on by a thread. Your cervix is almost vanished. Your baby could come at any moment. And if the baby comes now, he'll die. So they rushed me into surgery, did this delightful process where they tried to bolt my cervix together. And when I was in recovery, they said, whatever you do,

don't get stressed because that's what will bring on early onset labour and genuinely the life of your baby is at risk here. And as you only have three months to raise a tribunal claim from the point that discrimination occurs, I couldn't wait until he was born safely. He's not a very healthy nine-year-old and then pick up the case. I was literally left with this choice between accessing the justice I deserved or protecting the health of my unborn child. And that radicalized me. It changed everything. And prior to that, I wouldn't, I would never have called myself a feminist, but it was as if a blindfold was ripped off and everything suddenly came into focus. And that was it. It changed me.

And two years later, Pregnant Then Screwed was born. It's interesting, isn't it, that you didn't consider yourself a feminist, whereas I did consider myself a feminist, but we both were blind to the sort of issues that mothers face and especially when they become pregnant and um you know both in the workplace but also the cost of child care yeah why does it feel like a mother's issue that unless you're a mother it's it's a bit like you know being a mummy influencer you know you're kind of shouting into a world of mums but you need the rest of society to get on board to be able to make any changes and for

people not just to say things like well don't have a baby if you can't afford it it's like when I talk about my traumatic birth people are like bad day early you're still talking about that you think you're the only person that's given birth before and I'm like no I don't I think loads of people go through this which is why I was so passionate about it. But you're always just sort of brushed aside, aren't you? Like, oh, another mum being negative. Yeah. Well, obviously there are many inequalities that women experience before they have children. And, you know, looking back, I can see so many things that were really obvious. So it was, you know, sexual harassment, all sorts of, you know, dark things that happened prior to me becoming a mother. But I think that extreme change from

being very independent, from sort of being in control of things more, to suddenly, it's when you become a mother, it's as if the rug gets pulled from under you very quickly. You are suddenly very dependent on a system around you because your whole body and being is about looking after this child. And so I guess that extreme change really opens a lot of women's eyes. But, you know, mothers are still, we are still expected that our priority constantly should be our baby. It's as if we aren't a person in and of our own right. We are a mother. And that's all that really matters, I think, from that point onwards. And we're judged through that lens.

And that goes back centuries. If you look at the way women were written about in the 16th century, it was all about whether we reproduced and our quality as a mother, how good we were as a mother. It wasn't about who we are as human beings. And that still prevails, I think, that attitude. is is there laws that protect us from pregnancy and maternity discrimination because i see it all the time in the press you know people taking companies to court like i presume it's still quite common that people are losing jobs when they announce that they're being pregnant which seems ludicrous that we're here in 2023 and this is still going on. The data shows that 54,000 women a year get pushed out of their jobs for daring to procreate. So that's a woman every 10 minutes in the UK. One in nine pregnant women lose their jobs for getting pregnant. I mean, that's massive.

It's an enormously high number. And 77% of working mums encounter some form of discrimination in the workplace. And those figures doubled in 10 years. So that same bit of research by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, you know, it was commissioned by the government. This is government data, was done in 2006 and it was done again in 2016. And over that time, those numbers almost doubled. So far from getting better, things are drastically deteriorating.

They're getting worse. And yes, absolutely, there are laws. It is completely illegal to push somebody out of their job because they got pregnant. What happened to me was entirely illegal. You know, the Equality Act does protect you for being pregnant or for taking maternity leave. you for being pregnant or for taking maternity leave. However, because the justice system doesn't work for women, it doesn't consider the lived experience of women and the way that it functions. Only 1% of those who experienced discrimination even raise a tribunal claim because it's so difficult to do. So many employers know that the likelihood of them being taken to tribunal is slim to none if they discriminate against somebody. But also there are non-disclosure agreements which are used by lots of employers to hide this bad behavior, to mask it from the public, to ensure nobody ever knows what's going on behind those closed doors. We just do not understand the scale of how commonly these gagging clauses are used to make women shut up and go away because by their very nature, they're not

disclosed to anybody. But these illegal weapons that employers are using all the time to hide this discrimination. Why would someone sign an NDA out of curiosity? Would it be that we'll pay you this much money to leave, but you need to sign this? Yeah. So, the confidentiality clauses include an unsettlement agreements. And so, what tends to happen is a company perhaps will say to a woman, because she's pregnant, right, you're off, see you later. And when she's completely confused, she doesn't know what's going on. She's really vulnerable. She's really upset. They'll say, okay, I'll tell you what, sign this agreement. I'll give you five grand

and I'll give you a really good reference. And so of course, when she's vulnerable and confused, she signs it, takes the five grand and it means she can never speak again about what's happened to her. But they're also used, lots of employers use them just before women get to tribunal as well. So they wait until you're very close to the tribunal date because they think you'll disappear before then. And then they offer a large lump sum of money, more than you would ever get a tribunal to make you shut up and go away. So they're used all the time. And I know of companies that win awards for being so brilliant for their female employees, but behind closed doors, they are treating pregnant women and mothers like absolute

crap, but masking it with these disclosure agreements. So part of Pregnant Then Screws, you do actually help people. So anyone listening who is feeling discriminated against, how does it work even with comments? Because I've got friends who've announced they're pregnant and they're like, oh, that's a shame. Basically explicitly saying, well, you're not going to get promoted now, are you? I mean, harassment and bullying is really common. It's probably the most common form of discrimination. And I've heard some shocking stories. I, you know, I've heard from women,

I've heard from literally hundreds of women who've told their boss that they were pregnant and their boss told them to have an abortion. I mean, hundreds. I've heard from a woman who said her employer told us to get a coat hanger for that baby colleagues who were saying they're going to put birth control in the water cooler um a woman who had very severe uh morning sickness i shouldn't say morning sickness pregnancy sickness you know hyperemesis the the really, really bad pregnancy sickness.

She was going to the bathroom six or seven times a day to vomit. Her boss thought that she was skiving. So he told her to vomit in a waste paper bin next to his desk in an open plan office of 60 people. You can imagine how utterly humiliating that is. There was a woman who was told by her employer that she deserved a promotion. She'd been working for the company for six years. He said, you're doing really well. You deserve a promotion. You have to go for an interview. It's just a formality. The job's in the bag. Before the interview, she told her boss that

she was pregnant. She didn't get the job. When she asked him why, he said he had discussed things with his wife and they had decided that her priorities would change. So there's such a big spectrum of experiences. In that case, you can sort of, I feel some level of empathy with her employer. I sort of feel like he was out of his depth and he wanted, he was worried about her taking on this extra workload when she was going to have a baby. Of course, that worry was completely misguided and misplaced. And the idea that you need to have a chat with your wife and then come back to them is completely crazy. But there's really extreme forms of discrimination and bullying and harassment and then sort of softer forms of it. And yes, it is discrimination. And yes, you could take legal action against an

employer for saying something that is harassment and that is either making it clear that you're not going to progress in your job because you're having a baby or that's going to make you feel like dirt so if you do experience anything like that then you should call us people should call us we have a free advice line and we can talk you through it what's the number it's 0161 222 9879 and that's like people can call that about any form of um like discrimination in the workplace basically or is it another service as well it's any form of discrimination we we help people who are experiencing pregnancy or maternity discrimination and if they have if they have any mental health issues as a result of experienced discrimination then we we can support with that as well and i'd like to sort of move on from pregnancy and maternity discrimination to

another great topic, which is, of course, the cost of childcare, because it does feel all kind of tied in together that I believe I'm right in saying we now have the most expensive childcare in the world. It depends how you cut the data. So this is data from the OECD, which is the richest companies in the world. And depending on how you cut the data, it's either the most expensive or the third most expensive in the world. It's definitely the most expensive in Europe. Potato, potato. Potato, potato. So it may not sound that.

Basically, we're either the most fucked or the third most fucked when it comes to childcare. or the third most fucked when it comes to childcare. I actually saw a reel that was trending this week about, I think it's an American lady saying, my German childcare bills come in. I don't know if you've seen this. And it said full-time meals. And I think she got a penalty because she earns over a certain amount of money.

So there was a little bit deducted from that. And it said 1, 1698 euros and i thought god that's not bad for a month of full-time childcare and it turned out that it was a year i was like what and i spoke to someone um who lives in norway um on the on instagram who said it's a thousand pounds a month from full-time childcare which they get from a year and I was like oh that's quite good and then she was like yeah but the government pays 700 pounds of that and if you choose this is the important bit the choice if you choose to be a stay-at-home mum you get to keep that 700 pounds so either you pay 300 pound a month for full-time childcare or as a stay-at-home mum, you sort of get a salary.

I mean, it's still well below minimum wage, but at least you have that money for baby groups or food or whatever it might be. So it's interesting, isn't it? Because I saw in January, there's a lot of talk at the moment about, you know, we need to woo back all these inactive economic workers. Why aren't people working? And I saw that the government had decided that they had a plan. They acknowledged it was a lot of mums, stay-at-home mums. We need to get them back in the workplace. And I thought, great, maybe they're listening to some of the work you're doing or maybe they're listening to some of the statistics.

And they were like, I know, we're going to write them a letter. That'll get them back into work. Because that's what they're all doing, actually. They're just sitting at home waiting for a minister to write them a letter. And then they'll be like, oh, OK, yeah, sorry about that. I'll go get a job. Because really, it's a bit of a double edged sword, isn't it? Because it's like, well, double-edged sword isn't it because it's like well is it

because child care is so expensive they can't afford to go back to work because like and you know I remember that my sister going through this she was like umming and ahhing like she needed to go back to work because she wanted to and for her mental health but she was going to be end up earning like 20 pounds a day max to be able to do the childcare. And I know that that's obviously not an uncommon story. Or is it that people aren't welcome back in the workplace because of maternity discrimination? So what is the sort of situation in the UK at the moment? Yeah, I mean, there's the motherhood penalty, which is something that, you know,

which is what Pregnant Lens Greed is about, is a really complex picture. And obviously, pregnancy and maternity discrimination is a big problem and it pushes women out of their jobs. It knocks their confidence. It often means that they start lower down the pecking order than they had done previously. You know, it has an enormous impact on mothers. enormous impact on mothers. But then we also have a parental leave system that favours women taking long periods out of the workforce to look after children. It doesn't enable men to do the same. And that's because we have a shared parental leave, which is a total nonsense. It just doesn't work. It was as if somebody drunk wrote the policy and only 2% of families, eligible families use it because it's just not worth the paper it's written on. And then we give mothers six weeks at 90% of pay.

We don't offer anything similar to dads. So it just makes more sense for the woman to take these long periods of time at work. So she takes this nine months usually out of work. She becomes the main carer then. She's doing the majority of the unpaid labor. She's learned how to look after a baby because it's hard. There's a lot to work out. And then she looks at returning to work and she goes, wow, childcare is going to be the same as my salary. It doesn't make sense. Why would I bother going through all of that stress, all of that pain and exhaustion?

You're probably still breastfeeding, you know, you're still exhausted. So hundreds of thousands of mothers, we know there are at least 870,000 stay-at-home mums who want to work but can't because of the cost of childcare. And then many return part-time, work fewer hours than they want to so that they rely less on this expensive dysfunctional childcare system. So there are 1.7 million women who work fewer hours than they want to because of childcare. And that would have an economic benefit if those women were working the hours they wanted to, of £28 billion. So this is a massive contribution to the economy. If we just fix this thing, you know, this thing that educates children, that is really good for children's well-being,

that if we get it right, will mean children do better in the education system, but also enables parents to go back to work if they want to. I feel like, maybe I'm wrong, but no political party seems to be jumping on childcare because it feels like it's kind of seen as a women's issue, but surely this impacts households, whether it's a dad, two dads, a dad and a mom, everyone has to pay childcare. two dads, a dad and a mum, like everyone has to pay childcare. And so presumably it's meaning that there's more single economic, single economic households. Is that a word? My baby brain is like. Single income. That's the one. Thank you. And, you know, I saw even the Tory MP, delightful lady,

Miriam Cates, I believe she's called. Never heard of her until yesterday. But basically, what was it that she was saying yesterday? I actually had it up and now I can't find it. She has said that we should do everything we can to get married, stay married and have children. She's also said that the only real measure of our success as a species is how much we reproduce and that women can't have it all and we shouldn't expect to have it all. Oh, and that also, childcare, she's refusing to see that childcare is even an issue for why we might not want to have babies. I've been talking about childcare for seven years now and talking to MPs about it. And three years ago, you talk about childcare and people would look at you like you were talking in foreign language.

There was just no interest, absolutely no interest in childcare whatsoever. It was not on the political agenda. And Onward, who are the right wing think tank who have where Miriam Kate said these words, they have recently published a big report on childcare. We had a conversation with Onward four years ago about childcare and the guy that ran it said to us, politicians are not interested in this. It is not interesting. Nobody cares about it. From there to now, we've seen a real sea change. It now is firmly on the political agenda of every political party and is being talked about in the same breath as things like the education system, the NHS. Most MPs have got the memo.

They get it. They realize that investing in childcare as being relatively 1950s. And the fact that we haven't funded the childcare system properly today is sort of this extension of the fact that we expect women to do caring for free. We expect them to do all of this unpaid labor without being recompensed. It very much feels that what Miriam Cates was saying is that, is that actually our role as women is to procreate and is to look after those children and to make them into really good, healthy citizens. And that's her opinion, right? Fine. But I think she's totally missed the mark. I think people will see that, the majority of the UK public will see that and think, you've lost us. We've moved on as a society. Women want more than that.

We want to be able to have children and a career. And I think our economy needs us to be having children and a career. So not only is it way off the mark in terms of where the public are, it doesn't stack up in the way our economy works. Well, this is another thing, because it kind of blows my mind that in the 1950s and before that, that people could afford to survive on a single income. You know, you had families, but these days, who is going to be able to afford to survive off dad's salary? And also, it's also completely overlooking, A, the fact that lots of women want to work,

but also lots of women are the breadwinners. Yeah, that's it. There are many women now that earn more than their partners. So, I mean, unless Miriam Cates is going to solve the fact that we have, our housing is like, what, 20 times more expensive than it was in the 1950s, at least, that food bills are way more, that electricity bills are way more. If she's going to tackle capitalism head on, if she's going to burn our systems, all of them down and start from scratch, great, you go for it,

Miriam. But I don't quite think that's what she's saying. And I don't quite think that's what the Conservative Party want. You cannot just shoehorn a notion that we want all women to stay at home into a system that isn't accommodating of it. But also it kind of is like so contradictory anyway, because she's basically saying more people need to have babies, but by saying, but you would have to sacrifice your career to have one. Of course, more women are not going to want to have babies because they're like, well, I don't want to give up my career, therefore I'm not going to have a baby and then you're like wait but but we need you to what was it bunk for Britain some Tory MP came out and said and it's like well even if we wanted to have a baby like how can we ensure I remember when I first had Alfie um a really good friend

of mine said to me oh I I haven't had I think the reason I haven't had a baby is because I chose my career and I was like oh I I think I'd like to think I've chosen my career and I found myself like feeling like really defensive of it and in my head I was like no you've chosen not to have a baby because you haven't met someone yet but you or you don't want a baby and both of those are perfectly valid reasons but it's not because you picked your career because I've also picked my career and I want to continue to pick my career, but it's this sort of like, it's built into us, isn't it? You don't hear men saying, oh, I've chosen not to have a child because I've chosen my career because it does fall on the shoulders of women to do that care work. And I think it's sort of even,

it's more, even more serious than that, that women think I'm going to choose my career over having children. And I think in many cases, many of the women that I talk to, they choose to keep a blooming roof over their heads than have children. We surveyed 1,630 women who already have children who've had an abortion in the last five years. And six in 10 told us that childcare costs were a factor in their decision to terminate their pregnancy. One in five said it was the key reason they terminated a one-tenth pregnancy was because they cannot afford childcare. And the comments from them were things like, if I had this second baby, I wouldn't be able to go back to work because I can't afford it because of childcare. I'd have lost my house. And so my first baby would have lost out. They wouldn't

have anywhere to live. We'd be homeless. We wouldn't be able to feed them. They're making choices that are that stark about their lives. And it's much higher for black and brown women. It's much higher for disabled women than it is for white women. And so, you know, this notion that for white women. And so, you know, this notion that women aren't having babies because they care about the environment, which is what we hear a lot of journalists say, oh, it's because we all care about the environment now. Yes, of course we care about the environment. That's not why we're not having children. We're not having children because we cannot afford it. It doesn't stack up because the whole system fails us. I actually had someone reach out on Instagram last week saying,

I actually told her that she should get in touch with you guys saying, I don't know what to do because I waited until my child was three before I decided to have another baby because of the free childcare. And I've just found out that the childcare is actually not free. And now I'm pregnant and I'm having another baby, but I can't afford to have this baby because I can't afford childcare. So what is the thing with the free childcare? Yeah. The not free, free childcare. Yeah, exactly. Well the this notion of free child

care has been invented by the government it's not free and anybody that works in child care will rail against you if you use the words free child care because they know very well that it's subsidized it's not free and it's subsidized so badly that it's underpaid by the government by almost three pounds per child per hour. And the childcare providers cannot make up that shortfall. So they're forced to pass the cost down the chain, which is why you have such expensive costs for one and two-year-olds, because it's providers trying to make up the shortfall of funding from the government that's been imposed on them. Yeah. So you have eight different schemes as parents that you can potentially access. I mean, that in itself is crackers. Like what is so complicated and so messy and fragmented.

And then you get to your child being three. Firstly, the 33, and I'm doing inverted commas here, 33 hours doesn't kick in until the term after your child turns three. So you have a bit of a birthday lottery where some people access more subsidy than others because their child was born on a specific date. And then providers still charge for food and nappies and things like that because they're trying to make up the shortfall. So there's those costs. And it only works in term time only. Like who works term time only? I don't know anybody. So the notion that this is for working parents, again, is a completely crackers one. So you sort of, yeah, you feel like you've been gaslit, don't you?

You get to three and you're like what what i did not know that that was gonna happen you're saying there's all these like clear benefits to the economy of having a funded child care but also um you know allowing women back into the workplace by reducing the cost of child care surely it's a no-brainer for any government, whoever's in charge, to take this on board. But you've been into Parliament countless times and still, you know, you still have people like Miriam Kate saying it's not to do with childcare costs or you have 30P Lee Anderson saying that, you know,

his assistant can survive on a 30 grand salary, therefore everyone should be able to survive on a 30 grand salary. And it feels like it's not clicking still. As I say, I think it is clicking for some MPs. They do now understand it. And that's partly because childcare costs have now got so expensive that this is really impacting middle income families, as well as low income families, which is a bit of a new phenomenon that wasn't really the case as much five or six years ago as it is now. And so they're being lobbied more by their constituents. But yeah, I mean, I am sort of sick of my own voice. I'm like a broken record talking about why this is good for the economy, because to me, it's really, really bloody obvious. Of course,

if you fund the infrastructure that enables people to work, then more people will work. I mean, how can anybody not understand that? It doesn't make any sense to me that that isn't really obvious. And we know that other countries that have done this, that have monitored what's happened, have shown that it has an economic benefit. Canada did it, they invested 30 billion billion and they did it because they found that for every dollar they invested, they got between $1.50 and $2.80 back into the wider economy. So, you know, it makes sense. Women's Budget Group has shown that if you invest in childcare, you create almost three times as many jobs as the same investment in

construction. There is other data that shows that for every pound you invest in childcare, you get £12 back into the wider economy over the long term. You know, there's so much data. It's just that there is proof of this everywhere. The reason why I don't think it's really penetrated before now is partly because the people that are making decisions don't have to deal with this. it's really penetrated before now. It's partly because the people that are making decisions don't have to deal with this. So it's most ministers and men,

if they do have children, they will have a nanny or their wife will do it. So they don't have to think about it. It doesn't cross their path. It's also a big expense to pay up front for the childcare. Obviously, we know you get the money back into the economy, but when they're looking at their budgets and they're looking at spreadsheets, I'm sure it's a bit more complicated than that for the treasury. It's not an Excel document, but then, you know, and you're putting in 5 billion expenditure, then they don't,

they want to do everything they can to avoid it. And I think really before now, the public haven't been behind this. I don't think it's had the public support that it should have done. And there was some data done, you know, the surveys that look at British opinions. And it's insane how many people think that women with children under the age of five shouldn't need childcare because they shouldn't be working. And it's insane how low down the priority list childcare always was in the British public's perception. But that is changing now. And the only way we get the government to commit to this

is by continuing to put pressure on them from the public to say, no, we want this. We get why it's important because this is a societal issue. It's not a parent issue. It's an issue for the whole of society. And not just because of the economy, but because we know that if you invest in early years education, it's really good for kids. This is education. It's not babysitting. And all of the research shows, and Princess Kate has been on her soapbox about recently, the first 1001 days of a child's life are the most important to their future. And so we have to create an environment in which those first 1001 days of their life include proper qualified education and care. When it comes to politics and voting, I know obviously Stella

Creasy from the Labour Party, that friend of both of ours, is always banging the drum around childcare. But is there a party that you would say is doing better or worse? Or is it just hard to say that? Because I always think childcare and and politics they're obviously very interlinked but it's hard it kind of a lot of it goes over your head so obviously when we think about voting is there a party that you would say the if you want your child care fixed these are the guys to do it the labour party have committed to radically changing our child care system they have said that they're going it's going to be like the creation of the NHS, but for early years education. What that looks like, I don't know yet. They haven't announced exactly what they're going to do and how they're going to do it. They're still working

on the finer detail because it is really complicated. So until they state exactly what they're going to do, it's impossible for us to comment as to its credibility and whether it will work and whether it has holes in the plan but they are taking it very very seriously and Bridget Philipson who's leading on this from the Labour Party I've had plenty of meetings with and I genuinely believe she really wants to get this right I know that she's been going to lots of different countries to look at their models, particularly Estonia, which has a very interesting childcare model. And she's been meeting with people from across the sector to try and make sure she really nails this. And she cares a lot about the workforce because they're the Labour Party,

you know, they should care about the workforce. And that is really important, in my opinion. So I can't say that it's a good plan because I don't know what the plan is. I just know that there is energy and motivation within the Labour Party to get this right and to do the right thing. The Liberal Democrats in their last manifesto pledged for free childcare from the age of two years old. And the conversations that I've had with them since are that, again, they really want to do something that will radically change the childcare sector and make it more affordable for parents. But there's no, there's even,

I have even less idea of exactly what it is they want to do compared to labour. I've had fewer conversations with them. The conversations I've had are me saying, you can't go from where we are now to suddenly a free childcare system for everybody. That doesn't work. It doesn't add up. We're in such crisis. It's in such a mess that you've got to understand the stages to fix it before you start going out with any radical plans. So I don't know the detail from the Lib Dems. And the Conservative Party, who knows, Ashley? Who knows? I was going to say, are there any reasons to be hopeful? And also for anyone listening who is going through this sort of hoo-ha,

I mean, hoo-ha, it sounds like a Boris Johnson term, doesn't it? Like a ding-dang, it's a ding-dang shame or whatever, but they are going through this stress of childcare. What, what can we do to help? And yeah, what, what do we have to be hopeful for? Yeah, I, it's, it's such a hard question to answer when people say, I'm having a nightmare with childcare. How can I make it better? Because we can only make it better by MPs and politicians getting behind it and investing in it. You know, there's nothing that I can do, sadly, right now to make things better or easier for you. I can say apply for tax-free childcare. If you haven't, make sure you

do because there are loads of people that are eligible for tax-free childcare that haven't applied for it. It is the most galling system in the entire world and it will make you want to throw your laptop out the window but do it because it gives you 20% of your childcare up to a certain limit. I would say the hope is and we will continue to campaign on childcare right up until the next election and so you know we need people to join us and to continue to bash that drum as loud as we possibly can because this is all about priorities and pressure. It's all about a movement without people shouting about this, it won't happen. Other things to be hopeful for. I don't know if you saw the working four days a week trial. Yeah, I saw it. Was it something like 91% of the companies who took part in the trial have

said that they're going to keep it. So for anyone who doesn't know about it, it was working four days, but with 100% of the pay that you would have had for five days. So what was the outcome of that? So it's 32, reducing the average working full time would now be 32 hours a week rather than 40 hours a week. And it was 62 companies that took part in the trial. And as you say, 91% said that they would continue it. There was a massive uptick in wellbeing among staff and also far less staff saying they've experienced burnout as a result. And one of my favourite outcomes was that dads did way more of the childcare. So it starts to redress some of that unpaid labor balance in the household. And now that that's been so successful and so many companies are going to adopt it

long term, obviously they will look at other sectors and trialing it in other sectors. And potentially if this all goes well, it's going to take a while, then, you know, hopefully in a few more years, four day working week will be the norm at 100% of salary. And that's going to benefit everybody, but particularly women that will have a really big impact on gender equality, because mothers tend to do the majority of the unpaid labour. We are incredibly uber efficient. But at the moment, we're trying to shoehorn ourselves into a system that doesn't work for us if you reduce the number of hours that you're expected to work and then productivity becomes more important than time than how often you're sitting at a desk mothers are really productive like really really productive so we become

really really imperative. Companies are much more likely to hire mothers than they were previously. So that's something to be hopeful for. There's the neonatal care leave bill that's going through Parliament. So if you have a baby that ends up in the neonatal care unit that's born prematurely or is sick, then soon you should be able to access 12 weeks of additional maternity pay and leave. So that's a great thing. You know, we'll have a really big benefit for many parents that have to go through that really traumatic scenario. We also have the redundancy protections bill going through Parliament.

So currently you have enhanced protection from redundancy when you're on maternity leave that will extend those redundancy protections to when you're pregnant and to when you return from work for up to around six months after you return from work. And then finally, the Flexible Working Bill is going through Parliament, which will mean currently you are legally unable to request flexible working when you've been in employment for six months. That will change it so that it's from day one of employment and it also changes some of the sort of messy stuff around it so that you there's less less ability on the employer to decline a flexible flexible working request so all of those should be gone through by the end of this year see that that is actually amazing especially when you constantly hear people like jacob reese mogg who sadly do not belong in the victorian times but in present day constantly banging on about how working from home is lazy it drives me mad because tommy always says

he actually gets so much more done at home but he goes to the office kind of to show face and because he feels like he has to but because he's always chatting to people in the office he gets like half of the work done so on the days he works from home not only does he get to see Alfie and be present and help especially when I'm heavily pregnant and also in cases like tonight when I have to leave work leave for work at 6 p.m it means instead of having to get a babysitter to cover that gap between him and getting home, he can actually spend time with his own son and we save money by not needing to fit that slot. It's so annoying, but again, they just don't seem to listen. I had Anna Whitehouse, aka Mother Pucker, on the podcast a few months ago. So we talked in great detail about flexible working then. So if

you are listening, then yeah, listen, definitely listen to that podcast episode because that's a whole other topic, flexible working, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It's a whole world. And actually, you know, I think the, I do think flexible working will change with that law, But I do think there's a lot of hope on the horizon in terms of the four-day working week. And I do think the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and what's the Hoover guy called? Oh, James Dyson. James Dyson, thank you.

Him, he's like, thankfully, people seem to just be switching off a bit and not listening to their utter nonsense and trying to drag us back to the 18th century. So yeah, there's a lot of hope with flexible working. So basically what we need to do is write to our MPs to let them know that childcare is important to us. Yeah, well, we've got a big campaign coming up, actually, that's going to be happening in March. We've got some new data coming out, which is really quite shocking. And we're doing a whole big campaign around it. And we're going to

be writing to the Chancellor and to Rishi Sunak and asking everybody to sign that letter so that we can try and put real pressure on them to do something before the spring budget, which is in the 15th of March, because we really, we need something now, you know, waiting until the next election. It doesn't feel like an option when we've lost so many childcare providers in the last year. And so many women are leaving the labour market because they can't afford it. So keep your eye out. No, but it's okay because they've written them a letter. I know. Well, they're going to write, they're going to write them a letter and they're going to do an advertising campaign. This was what amazed me.

The advertising campaign to tell women to get back to work as if we're just sitting at home, like not doing anything, twiddling our thumbs. Anyway, Jodie, I'm going to let you go. But thank you so much for coming to chat. And yeah, for anyone who is experiencing or knows anyone experiencing pregnancy or maternity discrimination. Then, by the way, I've just put a dried mango in my mouth as I'm talking. My pregnancy cravings just took over and now I'm like... But, yeah, I'm going to put your Instagram handle

and, of course, we'll keep an eye out for getting on board. Because you're really good at creating templates for us to write to MPs and, obviously, petitions and everything else. So if you don't follow Pregnant Then Screwed, then you need to. Yeah, thank you. I honestly bloody love Jolie. I got to meet her face to face for the first time when I went to her March for the Mummies back in October,

I think it was, where 15,000 women around the UK and men, I should say. It was called Mummies because of the Halloween theme as opposed to just mums. But yeah, we all marched through the streets of London and there were other ones going on all around. And yeah, hopefully she is going to help shake up the childcare system because let's be honest, it does need a lot of shaking up. So I hope that was useful or helpful

for anyone who is going through either pregnancy or maternity discrimination or childcare issues. Please let me know what you thought of the episode. I have an email. I'm still eating my mango, by the way, for really bad timing. I need to stop putting them in my mouth. I'll do it without even thinking. This week, I have an email from Eleanor who got in touch about her birth experience. She said, hey, Ashley, I'm a mom of two, a four-year-old boy and a one-year-old girl, and I love listening to your podcast. Thank you. I wanted to write you about my positive experience with the Plan C section with my youngest. This is great for me to hear. My labor with my first seemed to be pretty straightforward although i was planning a home birth i had to go into hospital as i was induced at 42 weeks however i suffered a three degree tear this was something

i was completely unprepared for no one had made me aware of the risk of this happening neither midwives or birth classes and i was in complete shock. The recovery was awful and I felt that I was still receiving pressure that I should be up and about. This mostly came from friends who already had babies sadly. However after physio and really looking after myself I've healed really well. I was told by my consultant that I would likely need to have a c-section for any other children which was confirmed when I became pregnant with my little girl. The process of a planned C-section was so calm and honestly very enjoyable. You can still make your own choices with music, etc. And you're able to plan for childcare.

My recovery was nothing in comparison to my first. Perhaps this has a lot to do with the fact I was prepared. My top tips are wear something loose and comfortable on the way home, have healthy and nutritious food in the house to aid your recovery, and really do your best as much as possible. I was fortunate enough to have my husband and mum's support. I'd also heard rumours of struggling to breastfeed after, but I experienced no issues.

And in fact, it seemed easier than the first time round. I'm wishing you the same enjoyable experience and can't wait to hear all about it. Oh, thank you, Eleanor. Do you know what's so funny? I've just actually posted on Instagram recently my hospital bag um packing list I've done one for mum and one for baby so if you are thinking about packing whether for vaginal or c-section birth then check it out but it's

interesting that people who have c-sections seem to be really split down the line on what to wear on the way home like some people are like wear leggings you want the tightness against your scar to make it feel like you're holding like you're keeping everything in and other people are like wear something loose and comfortable you won't want anything tight so it made me laugh when you said wear loose and comfortable because I feel like it's a bit of a silver dress blue dress do you remember that viral dress from like five years ago I don't know why that's my reference point. But yeah, it seems to be very different for each person. But I'm so happy to hear that you had

a positive experience, especially after prolapse, because that's obviously what I had, three third degree tear. Hence why I'm stuffing my face with mango trying not to get constipated um I've also been told by the way that c-sections make you really constipated um because of the pain medication so dried fruit and laxatives I've packed califig for anyone that cares but anyway I'm going to stop speaking about the pile situation but if you do want to get in touch like eleanor did i love hearing from you you can whatsapp me either a message or a voice message it's free uh the number is 07599927537 or you can email at askmumsthewordpod at gmail.com. I hope you found this interesting.

I've wanted to get Jolie on the podcast for so long. I just think she is such a force of nature and doing so many amazing things for us. And I'll be back with another episode, same time, same place next week, hopefully, if I haven't given birth.