S1.Ep3. Missing motherhood narratives in the workplace.
With guest Julianne Boutaleb.
Julianne shares insights into the missing motherhood narratives in the workplace, exploring how societal myths and emotional shifts affect parents returning to work. This episode highlights the importance of understanding the non-linear, messy reality of parenthood and how workplaces can better support new parents.
We discuss:
The motherhood myth and its impact on workplace expectations
The concept of matrescence and its emotional effects
Birth trauma and its prevalence in the UK
The importance of flexible and supportive workplace policies
Peer support and modelling in supporting new parents
The societal shift needed to normalise parental transitions
The impact of disrupted rhythms on working parents
The need for honest conversations about parenthood in the workplace
Episode Transcript.
Rachael Jordan (00:00)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Parent Experience podcast. I'm Rachael Jordan and I'm here as always with my co-host, the wonderful Dr. Krystal Wilkinson. And today we are very excited to have Julianne Boutaleb on the podcast, who is a great friend of Krystal's and mine. And we are really, really happy to have you here. And today we're going to be talking about missing motherhood narratives in the workplace.
But first, I will introduce Julianne. So we are exceptionally happy to have you here with us today. You are a very, very experienced consultant perinatal psychologist. And this is going to take a few minutes for me to run through this intro because there are just so many ways Julianne that you support parents and people. So you're the clinical director and founder of the Parenthood in Mind Practice.
You have over 24 years in the NHS and private practice with parents, parents-to-be and their babies and their bumps who've needed support with a really wide range of issues. The ways that you support people are with anxiety and depression during and after pregnancy, miscarriage, reproductive loss, attachment issues and the re-emergence of childhood issues and couples issues.
You're a member of the Birth Trauma Association and specialises in working therapeutically with birth trauma, PTSD and tokophobia, which for any listeners who don't know what that is, tokophobia is the fear of giving birth as they impact the mother, couple relationships and the parent-infant attachment. On top of that, if that wasn't enough, you're also affiliated with the BICU, which is the British Infertility Counselling Association and you offer tailored psychological interventions for individuals and couples, including same-sex couples who are pregnant or are parenting following IVF, ICSI, donor conception, surrogacy or adoption. What a wonderful range of ways that you can help and I know that you've helped many, many, people over the years. So thank you for everything you do first and foremost.
We are here to talk specifically about missing motherhood narratives in the workplace and to give our listeners a feel of some of the things that we'll be touching on this episode, we will be talking about matresence and patresence. We'll talk about birth trauma, inclusion of different paths to parenthood and perinatal mental health. So Julianne, over to you. Thanks again so much for being here today.
Julianne (02:32)
Thank you. Wow, that that nearly brought me to tears. I was thinking, who is that person? it's me.
Rachael Jordan (02:38)
Well you deserve it.
Julianne (02:39)
Thank you. No, I I I'm really happy to talk about the topic that you've asked me to talk about because as you guys know, I work in lots of different ways with people in lots of different workplaces. And one of the things, you know, when you do a job as long as I have, so 25 years this year actually, is that I'm now able to see I would say probably generational and cultural differences coming through in parenting, couple relationships, how people conceive and have children. But the one real humdinger sticking point that doesn't seem to have changed in 25 years is what I call the motherhood myth. And it's most obvious in the workplace. It's this idea that you fall pregnant easily, you continue being pregnant without a hiccup.
You come through a birth, really, you know, without too much distress, and you turn back up after something called maternity leave, unchanged, and that is the biggest motherhood myth of all. And it's the one that's missing from the workplace. Because if I'm really honest, I think most of us as you know,
People who are in workplaces, and most of us who perhaps manage and lead in workplaces, and including young women at this stage that I'm seeing, still subscribe to this myth that it will be this very linear, very ordinary, universal journey that everybody will go through, and that everybody will more or less experience the same. Now, why that's problematic is because what we're actually asking the workplace to do, is actually not go along with this societal myth and hopefully imagine and understand motherhood in a different way. In other words, it's not linear. We know, you know, from lots of the stats that we now have that it may take some people who require IVF or ICSI to conceive up to seven years to conceive. And all of that is going on way before they come into your office to say, I'd like to have a word with you, you know. I've just found out I'm pregnant. So that's already a missing piece of the motherhood narrative. The other bit that's missing is, of course, the colleague that's come back from maternity leave. How much do you actually know about her birth?
Because what we now know, and this is unfortunately been rehashed publicly over the last four weeks in the Ockington report and the Baroness Amos report, is that one in three people going through birth in the UK at this current time are likely to be traumatised by their birth? Is that ever thought about or catered for within the workplace? Now, what that means is there are people who are coming to see me, lawyers, dentists, possibly school teachers, going back into workplaces where potentially they have sustained a really severe birth injury and may not be able to sit at a desk.
Or stand for long hours, it also means there may be partners of those who have given birth who have witnessed you know life-threatening difficulties in their partner and their baby, and had the first few weeks of their getting to know you in a NICU, or indeed, you know, with the mother being hospitalised for you know mental ill health. So I think what I'm saying is the most predominant missing motherhood narrative is this very linear, very you know, I push the baby out and I get back into my, you know, size 10 jeans. There is an emotional and a relational and the societal equivalent of that that we're still really predominantly peddling and subscribing to. And if anything, what I would really like people listening is to sort of understand that we need to start picking away at that narrative of motherhood because it's not really true for the vast majority of people who go through it.
Rachael Jordan (06:33)
And with that linear journey and that expectation of it being as you describe, you know, we see so often that if that is not your journey, then people can blame themselves and people can see it as kind of a failing in their ability to be a parent or a mother. And, you know, as we know that can then, you know, trigger other problems in terms of, you know, mental health and isolation and loneliness and yeah it's so true that somehow over the decades there is this expectation that's incredibly inaccurate for so many people.
Julianne (07:08)
Yeah, and I would say it's important to say not just some, but I would say the vast majority. And that's where, you know, the idea, the concept of matrescence that I've been talking about since twenty nineteen. We did a podcast way back in the day, before it gained popularity. That's where these words are really helpful. We now have a concept that actually says motherhood and fatherhood, parenthood is messy. It's all about change. You know, we now know that your brain undergoes vast changes. In very particular areas linked to threat. So the amygdala, which is an almond-shaped part of the brain in the midbrain, is really, really the active and it's heightened. And that's also the case. We now know over recent years, it's also the case for hands-on parents, regardless of sexual identity or the formation of the family unit. So you don't have to have actually carried the baby or birthed the baby. If you're a hands-on parent, you are also going to go through these changes as well. So that's one set. The other set is relationships. So the other thing around the missing motherhood narrative is that yes, this colleague has left and they're the most adept and the most active member of your team. They're the go-to member of the team that you know you can always rely on. But if she returns and she's been through all of the different changes that we know make up the crescents, so biological changes, hormonal changes, sense of your body having changed, not even to to rope in, you know, having a traumatic birth. And then relational changes, what we're effectively saying is that that colleague may now need something different from you in the workplace. And we know this is the bit, you sort of touched on it there, Rachael, where shame often comes in. Many of us who are successful in the workplace, regardless of the workplace, are often people who have a lot of self-initiative. They're often you I'll use the words hyper independent. So they're often the people that you don't necessarily need to lead to water to make them drink. They're often the ideas people, they're often the people that get things done. So when they come back to the workplace, you know, and they're perhaps greeted with a sense of another colleague's disappointment or indeed they're sitting and having a review with a partner saying I don't think this year is going to be the year you make partner.
You are effectively also activating a whole host of really unhelpful emotional states, such as shame, such as fear. Am I going to be good enough to stay in this team? Do I then have to overwork to prove that actually I shouldn't be passed over for promotion this year or being made a partner? And one of the things I'd really like people to know who are listening, both those who are impacted by these issues, but also those attempting to support them in the workplace with these issues.
Is that when we're in a shame spiral or indeed in a fear spiral in our brains, we're not going to be very good in the workplace. In other words, what then happens is we become very constricted. We become less creative when we're fearful, and when we're afraid of being shamed or disappointed in our productivity and performance, we end up not being able to, you know, get the big ideas that might prove that we're still.
Worthy to be part of this team. So what it means is I think it means the workplace and us as individuals going through these changes needing to understand that change is not an aberration or a you know, it's not a mistake in the design. It's actually what's supposed to happen. So, in other words, your brain is supposed to change and go through these changes. Your brain is supposed to be more emotional, you're supposed to be more needy and less, you know, less hyper-independent. Because actually, if you're able to lean into support at work around breastfeeding or around, you know, having a difficult day because you've dropped your little one off at nursery and it hasn't gone quite that well, then you're able to activate hopefully in a psychologically safe workplace, a whole range of relational and emotional supports alongside which you then get the feeling of, this is supposed to happen. Others have been through this, others have done this before me. And who knows, through that lived experience becoming integrated within workplace practice, you hopefully then are able to be pointed towards particular things in the workplace that might help. In other words, we need to start normalising and validating and usualising the fact that the transition to parenthood is about being different and becoming different and needing different things in the workplace.
Rachael Jordan (11:49)
That's so important and that different doesn't mean less than, it doesn't mean you finish this process as anything less than what you started. It's just a, I'll say the word evolution. You were different, you're not less than. And I think that is something to get your brain around, you know, as a parent, as a mother is, you whether you're expecting it or not expecting it in terms of the changes, still, you know, you have to kind of find yourself again and to an extent and be really self accepting, I suppose. I remember I had a tricky start to motherhood. I had two children with kind of less than 16 months apart. And at the time that I had both of the children, or had them very young. I was working in a marketing agency, kind of quite a high-pressure environment and also an environment where there's lots of turnover; you know, people leave, people kind of elbowed out if they don't perform to a certain level. That, you know, that pressure is there whether you're a parent or not. And I remember very keenly, you know, once I had two young children to manage and to navigate. I felt that pressure even more. That led me into that classic cycle that you mentioned, kind of overworking. I worked myself to the absolute bone, to the point where I couldn't even string a sentence together. was so- I don't know what the word, burned out, tired, exhausted. And I remember...that really been a big turning point in my mental health and the decline of my mental health because I felt like I couldn't accept the changes that were happening in me and I saw it 100 % as a fault and then I questioned everything. I questioned my ability as a mother, as a woman, as a wife, as a professional who had these big ambitions.
It took a long time to get over that. It is really difficult and I didn't have any support in the workplace, which is one of the many reasons behind the parent experience is sometimes small changes, even being aware of things and what can happen and not making any assumptions and that lived experience, bringing that out into conversation. Even simple changes I'm convinced would go a small way to, you know, helping people feel like they're not a one-off and they're not alone and this does happen a lot more regularly.
Julianne (14:13)
But what if the simple change, Rachael, was that we were more honest with parents?
Rachael Jordan (14:18)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Julianne (14:19)
I'm 25 years doing this job now, and I you know antenatal classes are not fit for purpose. They don't talk about a lot of things that actually happen in the transition to parenthood, such as you know, mental health difficulties or your relationship for a while being really battered and bruised because again, let's face it, in a city like London, and we saw this through the pandemic, you know, you're the village. That person is your village. That's it. Because often we live so far away from the people that ordinarily would be our village. So in many ways, going back into work, we're also looking for the village unconsciously. We're looking for someone to say,
Rachael Jordan (14:56)
Yeah, that's a great point.
Julianne (14:58)
How are you doing? Are you okay? Or how's the baby settling? Because that's the other thing that I feel we don't talk enough about. You are entering into a lifetime relationship with a small human being that for quite a period doesn't walk, doesn't talk, is extremely demanding, and you know, doesn't have any frontal lobes. So, you know, there is a lot being demanded of you as a parent. Now throw in sleepless nights, throw in a difficult birth where your stitches haven't healed and you're going back and forward to hospital, throw in the anxiety around whether or not your baby is gaining enough weight. And you're finding breastfeeding difficult. And for me, so part of my career, and and you'll see if you Google me, is about putting the baby back into the transition to parenthood. A lot of people go, what do you mean? But of course we're having a baby. No, but that's not talked about. It's as if the congratulatory, you know, messages and the the team card and flowers happen before you go on maternity leave. And then you're supposed to come back to work and really not talk about the baby. Definitely not talk the fact that the baby was in NICU, or don't talk about the fact that the you're really not feeling it with your baby, that you're really struggling to bond with this baby, which the majority of us do, because again the narrative is it should be instantaneous. It isn't.
We learn. As I always say to people, did you fall immediately in love with your life partner? Most of us don't.
Did you know instinctively when you sat down to dinner together? What was in his or her mind? No, you don't. And yet we take this really, you know, fantastical script with us into parenthood around who we're going to be with our babies. So I think the other bit that's missing from the workplace motherhood narrative is that there is another person in your house that wasn't there before. They've moved in.
They're not just there for the weekend, and actually they're really, you know, for a time difficult house guests. They're keeping you up at night, you know, they're keeping you perhaps from eating, they're keeping you from meeting deadlines. And I think again, that would be part of the narrative that I would like to have included in the workplace. I've had a baby. Not just I've become a parent, I've had a baby, and that baby and me are either getting along swimmingly, not getting along so well, and that's causing me sleepless nights, or is ill and I have to leave the workplace. Unless we start talking about that as the key central aspect of parenthood, then what we're not preparing ourselves for as parents, and what we're not preparing ourselves for in the workplace, is the disruptiveness that babies bring with them. You know, you can settle them all you like and you can hope that they're going to get, you know, going to get their temperature down on a given day so you can turn up and present that presentation with the team. But what if the baby's still ill? And again, most of this is gendered. It is mostly women, and we've had that in a number of reports recently, who feel that disruption. And unfortunately, it is mostly mothers who are penalised for that disruption in the workplace.
So what if we were to talk honestly about the fact that actually having a baby is probably one of the most disruptive life events you're ever going to go through? And that we need to factor that in to all of the changes that happen around us at that time.
Krystal (18:24)
Just chipping in at that moment, because I think we're doing a project at the moment on maternity management in the NHS. So it's NHS nurses, allied health professionals, people who are going on maternity leave. this, we're clinging onto this idea of like rhythms and rhythms that, you know, maybe don't match anymore. So you might have gone from being
Julianne (18:42)
Yeah.
Krystal (18:43)
a worker whose bodily rhythm, transport rhythm, everything,
Julianne (18:46)
Yeah.
Krystal (18:46)
you've arranged it around the rhythms of the work to be able to able to do that and then suddenly yeah you've got your body rhythm might be different because
Julianne (18:53)
Yep.
Krystal (18:53)
of physical mental health issues you've got a baby whose rhythms as you said is sleeping you know being ill
Julianne (18:59)
Mm.
Krystal (18:59)
might not suit the rhythms of your work anymore the rhythms of child care potentially
Julianne (19:01)
Hmm. Yeah.
Krystal (19:03)
all these different things and and the importance of acknowledging it is just as you said before that we can't anticipate exactly what the clashes of the rhythms will be but we should be anticipating that there will be clashes because there's so much so many
Julianne (19:15)
Exactly.
Krystal (19:16)
more spinning plates and trying to think about how do we educate women, the colleagues, to expect that and to think about how we manage that. The managers to expect that, the teams to expect that. So yeah, it really kind of chimes exactly what you've said, which is reassuring.
Julianne (19:30)
Sounds fabulous. I I I love that.
No, no, I I love that. And I think alongside that, I would say there is something in sort of psychoanalytic work and around motherhood that we talk about productivity and linearity. And of course, motherhood is one of those life events that really destabilises that linearity. You know, you're at home alone with a baby for the first time. It feels as if you're not being productive because of course you're not held within that workplace productivity linear, you know, narrative anymore. You're burping the baby, you're putting the baby down, and then you're doing it it all over again in four hours time or less. You know, so it it's also the ways in which, as you say, that we have to be honest about how the rhythm of parenthood is going to disrupt and destabilise and you know, delineate that for people early on so they don't do what you were saying, Rachael. You know, that's almost like trying to ride two horses. You know, you you can't do those. You know, you're trying to keep the linear narrative of work. I've got to do this, I've got to be on it, I've got to be, you know, on top of everything, with then a baby who's going, No, I'm going over here. And it is often very paralyzing for those of us who believe in the fantasy that we can do both. We can't.
Krystal (20:47)
Just to add as well that it helps nobody, this fantasy, doesn't help the organisation to act like there aren't all of these myriad rhythms and that somebody,
Julianne (20:55)
Yeah.
Krystal (20:57)
if we have a bit more honesty, as you said, I think it would just help kind of everyone to think about, how do we anticipate these clashes of rhythms? How do we work together to think about flexible solutions that work
Julianne (21:08)
Well
Krystal (21:08)
as and when they come and how might the rest of the team support in different ways?
Rachael Jordan (21:12)
And what do you think Julianne would be the positive impact on individuals should the workplace or should those conversations happen and that support be in place? In what way do you think that would positively impact people in their work lives, people in their home lives?
Julianne (21:28)
You see, one one of the greatest myths of all that I'm seeing, and and this is even since you know, we we've done a a 50-year look back at motherhood research with Annie Oakley and and I'm sure you're aware of them, Professor Charlotte Fairclough at UCL. And one of the things that's really interesting from grandmothers through to younger mothers now is that there was definitely a more laissez-faire sense of motherhood then. But you know, the baby fretted, it's fine, you know, just give him a second to to calm down. Whereas what's actually come up, and I do think it's to do with Instagram and sort of the rise of gentle parenting, is this very individualised approach. I work with so many mothers who tell me, no, they're the only ones that know their baby's rhythms. They're the only ones that can get this right. And within again, you know, I'm analytically and dynamically trained, we talk about something which is too good mothering. In other words, mothering that anticipates too much and too soon what the baby will need next. Babies are supposed to have a little bit of a gap between feeling the discomfort of a burpee tummy or being a little bit hungry or a little bit fretty, and the person, usually the mother or father that comes to alleviate that. It's important because that's the developmental gap. So a baby that sits and doesn't even get to point their finger with a parent that goes, I think he must be burpee. I know, I'll pick him up and burp him without waiting. Essentially, what we have is a misunderstanding about how babies develop. Babies need more than one person. And they need and they can very much survive when there are two people with slightly different ways of looking after them.
And in fact, if we look across the whole of you know anthropological history, it's really obvious that babies were actually raised in groups. And you'll still see these sorts of patterns, you know, when you go abroad, you know, in Spain, for example, or North Africa, that you'll see babies being tended to, not just by the mother, but by everybody in the group. And so I guess what I'm saying is.
I would love there to be a rewriting of this idea that it's all down to the mother. And that would mean also a sense, and again, don't get me wrong, at certain points in child development, it does need to be one person predominantly, but that lasts for a very particular period. We're parenting right across the lifetime of our children. So I think there has to be more flexibility around who it is that gets disrupted at work. You know, and who it is, you know, how that's understood within the workplace. This isn't somebody clocking off, but it is somebody understanding that you know we need more than one person to be around for the child. And I think that's the other thing I would say to mothers listening or parents listening, if you have some really good support around you, whether that's a friend, picking up your child, you know
or five or six and you're doing them a favour the other day, you know, the next day that you do it, that is really, really helpful. If you have a work colleague that you're able to talk to when you come in from a really flurried and difficult settling in at nursery that day or drop off at school, that is invaluable. So again, the other thing I would like to sort of hope for is that people with lived experience who are slightly further down the path from us. They're often the peer support networks that people find invaluable in the workplace. And it's about modelling. I know people say to me, as soon as my boss started to talk or you know, said in the meeting, Really sorry, we need to end bang on five because I'm picking up my child. Suddenly that made it psychologically safe for me to do the same thing. So it's modelling parenthood, it's being honest about how disruptive and you know, stressful parenthood can be at times. And it's about negotiating and I guess interrogating what support looks like in the workplace. Because if you have somebody that you know you can go for a couple with at 11 and talk about how difficult this morning was, chances are some of what I described earlier were you know the brain in a fear spiral or a shame spiral, that's the very thing, that connectedness with someone who's gone through it as well validates your experience can be the thing that resets you for the rest of the day and means that you can get on and do the presentation or be productive in the way that the workplace needs you to be on that given day.
Krystal (25:58)
I think that's really, really important there about peer support. And it's something that, you know, just come up in different ways in organizations. I was wondering what
Julianne (26:04)
Mm.
Krystal (26:05)
your thoughts were, you know, about kind of, you know, the organic peer support, somebody in my department, I know has had a baby recently, I should have a chat with them, versus, you know, it's kind of more spontaneous, I suppose. And some of the more formalized peer support networks, whether that be like a parents, parents and carers network, or some sort of group of people who have been through maternity leave at a similar time, do you have any thoughts on where organisations should be trying to cultivate?
Julianne (26:30)
I think different people need different things, you know, and in the same way that parents, different parents need different things. And I I think again this is about narratives. Workplace colleagues are not dumb. You know, you can have all the policy you like, but if they also have a story about the person who is heading up the team as being somebody perhaps who's quite unreasonable around parenting difficulties or someone who, you know, might be easily put out if you ask for flexi time, then chances are you can have all the policy in the world, but it's not good to get activated for the parent that needs it. So I think there has to be a sort of a more subtle layer of understanding of how we create, how we take dry black and white policy and actually make it something that people feel they can lean on and use as a buffer in the workplace. So I think the narratives around parenting, parenthood, what's allowed, what's not, the idea that others ahead of us, and that might be people in leadership. but I also think for some people, and and this might sound strange, it might sound like a contradiction to what I've said so far, for some people going to work and not having to think about being a parent and not having to talk about it is also important. You know, it it's it's a very important other aspect of self to be able to go to work. And I work with a lot of of parents that tell me that, you know, they want to have perhaps somebody at home rather than somebody in a nursery because for them they want to, you know, and they're able to financially hopefully, they want to have that space where they go to work and they're able to still excel or have the career that they thought they would for a period of time. And then you know they want to be able to be flexible. So I think really important that we don't hold a dominant, you know, one size fits all narrative. It has to be as tailored as the people that you have and the people that you are in the workplace. But I think where we're able to listen and we're able to have honest and open conversations with the people that you know we're in leadership's leadership roles with, that's ultimately about psychological safety. And the other thing I would say is just because somebody's locked into a particular mode now, the other thing about children is of course their needs change. So that might be what they need for the first three months after returning to work, and they might need to change it all over again in you know three months' time. So it really is about being flexible and sort of t starting to tease away or chip away at this linear, you know, either or narrative.
Rachael Jordan (29:05)
Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. You have such a great way of explaining things. Have you seen any good examples from organisations that you've worked with, workplaces that you've worked with, things that have been done really well and that you think should be reapplied to other workplaces?
Julianne (29:23)
Yeah, I'm not gonna name anyone, but it's a pretty big supermarket chain. And I've seen some really interesting work done with a solo mother and really attentive, really demonstrating to her how much they wanted to be supportive. And that support starting from probably about the last trimester, it's sort of you know four or five weeks before she went off and really thinking through together what her role would look like when she returned, what it is that she might need. And again, these are often difficult conversations because parents don't often know. You know, when you start the conversation that early, you're really just, you know, using a broad brush stroke approach. These are sort of the things that I think I need. And then what I saw happen with her that as she went through the different stages and realised what support was there, what wasn't there for her in in personal terms, there was a real what's the word, openness to changing things. And what I did then see, however, was that was often linked to a particular person. And when that person left, unfortunately, some of that openness and flexibility left with them.
And I would say that's one of the downsides of you know where policy gets translated into a personal or you know a relational sphere then often once that person leaves the policy can then become very dry again. So that's good. Where I've seen it really not work, and unfortunately I would say this is the majority of times, is women coming back with very, you know, very detrimental experiences behind them, whether that was their mental health or their physical health, often followed by several I would say demeaning experiences and work where again as you said Rachael it was they were sort of expected to internalise well you know others haven't asked for these adjustments and you know other people that sort of constant sense of this must be particular to you and I would say that's one of the ways in which you know really good policy goes down the drain when actually somebody's approach and somebody's attempt to get you to tailor make flexible working for them can then end up really being quite demeaning and and quite, you know, a shameful experience. and unfortunately, as we know, that often leading to mothers in particular having to leave the workplace. that is sadly still very much the case often in very sort of patriarchal systems like law surgery. they're the sorts of cases I've seen over the last twenty five years where there's very little bulge or leeway in the systems.
Rachael Jordan (32:03)
That's it.
Krystal (32:03)
So it's so fascinating what you're saying and it really does seem to be sort of multiple levels of issues that you tackle and to really normalise, as you said, these many complexities in these transitions and make it safe for people to talk about it, but also managers feel that they know how to support somebody. I think what's coming across in some of our research and some of the research that we've read and working with employers is that it can be problems with the policy in the first place. A lot of maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental leave policies are written very much with good faith based on let's make sure you know your rights around a risk assessment and making sure you're safe and making sure that you tell us in time so that we can make sure that you get paid for your time off.
Julianne (32:47)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Krystal (32:49)
And then it's almost like the whole, the whole messy reality goes on away from us over there and then manager you need to pick
Julianne (32:52)
Yeah. Exactly.
Krystal (32:55)
up, the return to work you know, maybe some KIT days, but, you know, but managers aren't necessarily being trained at all on this. They're given a policy. They're not really knowing how much they should ask, how much they should prompt, whether they would expect, I'll wait for the mum to tell me what she needs and then I'll accommodate it. So they're not even putting some things on the table for, you know, and then women look around and just say, if there's no examples of other people who are breastfeeding at work, or there's no examples of other people working flexibly, you know, this is harder.
So it seems to be, know, there's multiple levels. There's policy, there's potentially awareness raising for women and colleagues, men who are going through these transitions, training and support for managers, peer support mechanisms. I mean, I suppose, what would you say that your kind of top takeaways for employers are from all of your experience?
Julianne (33:45)
We need a societal shift, you know. I'm I'm a big thinker. I have been involved in activist roles over my twenty-five year career. There has to be a societal shift where we understand and take a lifespan approach in the workplace. In other words, this is just one of many transitions people from sort of eighteen till old age to retirement are going to go through. So, in as much as we're going to have a menopause policy or a fertility policy or a you know working from home policy for those who have additional carers responsibilities, the best way to get, you know, a productive, loyal, content workforce is to understand that human beings are complex and they go through a whole range of iterations across their lifespan in work. And that the transition to parenthood is just one of those.
And I really I guess sometimes you know you you hear of it's sort of a more competitive well, what about non-parents? Absolutely. And non, you know, people who've gone through lengthy fertility treatment and attempt to become parents coming out the other side not being parents, they may still have needs that need to be addressed in the workplace. So in other words, it it's important for me that we see this as a full-spectrum, intersectional lifespan approach to human beings in the workplace. And the transition to motherhood and parenthood is just one of those. And it's one that you know, we need to think about as outside of an individualised box. We need to think of it as a family perspective, and we need to think of it as you know, as a team perspective, and then wider. So I I often think of concentric circles of people needing support. And if we do that, I I would hope in my lifetime I would see a shift from what I'm seeing now, which is young women taking all of this on themselves.
I want to see that shift. I want to see partners coming forward and saying, Actually, I'd like to take up the parental leave, you know, for the first three months. Or can I look at a sabbatical because I I need to be there for our youngest who we've just learned has additional SEN needs, for example. But in other words, we don't just pile all the support potentially in that transition place more and more. We we need support when we're raising teenagers, you know, when we're when we're, you know, trying to get kids through adolescence, you know. So for me that would be my aim and my hope for the workplace and that this transition in particular that we've been talking about today would fit within this approach.
Krystal (36:33)
I love that because it does reframe it. A lot of the examples that you get there on menopause and fertility and pregnancy loss, we very much do situate
Julianne (36:40)
Yeah.
Krystal (36:40)
them as kind of wellbeing issues. And a lot of the way you look at policies and framing is around, how do you support the colleague? What psychological support do people need as well as physical things? Whereas I think with parental transitions, is largely still about policy and time off and pay and that's all great.
Julianne (36:58)
Yeah.
Krystal (36:58)
It's kind of downplaying that.
Julianne (37:00)
Exactly.
Krystal (37:02)
It's
Julianne (37:02)
We're not imagining it enough. Yeah,
Krystal (37:02)
difficult to change the people going through.
Julianne (37:05)
I don't think we're imagining it enough. You know, it it it's as if you were to draw it, it'd be like, you know, bump, flat, and then you know the baby disappears into the background. No. And that's what I find fascinating. When you actually meet someone with their child, you know, on a solo mother of a sixteen year old, most people don't get that about me. When they see me or know that about me, suddenly that can bring something into their minds about me and who I am. Likewise, you know, if you're a queer parent of twins and you've just come back from a really lengthy journey to, you know, become parents, hopefully that then can be kept in mind about you in positive ways, that we're not just turning up and leaving those aspects of ourselves at the door.
Krystal (37:49)
It really does seem to be something about parental transitions as well. know, with maternity leave, I was saying before, I get the idea that some organisations and managers maybe think,
Julianne (37:56)
Yes, yes.
Krystal (37:59)
you you've had nine months, there was all that time where other people were dealing with this messy middle. But we look at the maternity leave situation, you know, for partners, then straight back, and again, even though it's straight back, there still doesn't seem to be that workplace acknowledgement that something massive has just happened quite often. It's like you've had a two weeks holiday.
Rachael Jordan (38:18)
Yeah, you come back the same as you've left and if you haven't then there's a problem with you. Listen,
Julianne (38:23)
That's the myth. That's the myth.
Rachael Jordan (38:27)
Julianne, it's been absolutely fascinating talking to you and I really love that final piece around, you know, seeing the bigger picture and the fuller context that sits around a person and you can't ride two horses. I'm absolutely going to use that saying. It's been fantastic and thank you so much for your time. yep, I think that's a wrap for today's episode. Thank you so much. See you in the next episode.
