Balancing Business & Motherhood: Challenges and Solutions

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Don't miss out, get started for free today. Hello everybody and welcome to today's YouCan podcast.
I'm your host Sarah Charlie Jarvis and today I am joined by Grace, and we'll be talking all around the trials and tribulations of running your own business whilst having children and those challenges that come up, particularly this time of year, being some holidays, but also the sort of longer term and the view on childcare. So I'm going to pass over to Grace, who's going to introduce herself.
Julie. Hello, thank you for having me.
I am the founder and managing director of the Metamorphose Group, which encompasses, as I actually counted up today, 18 brands. Until now, I've just known it's got a lot, but I didn't actually ever stop and count them because it regularly changes.
So yeah, 18 brands underneath it, which range from e-commerce-commerce sites to community projects to social impact causes to um service-led businesses like you name it there's a brand under it that does something that you can think of um but all of them are built around three pillars which is about solving problems with mental health social equity or inequity whichever you look at it, and then entrepreneurship. So one of the brands underneath the group is the business that I've had the longest, which is Aphra, which I've had for seven years, which is a brand and campaign agency.
So the brand and campaign agency is effectively, has developed and built all of those brands that sit underneath the group.

Nice. And so I first came across you on LinkedIn, where you tend to hang out the most, I think.
Yeah, maybe too much. Never too much.
And, you know, you were talking around, you know, you're sharing the realities of running a business or running multiple businesses at the same time as having children. you've got a child one who's five and another one who's like less than a year so you're in the kind of real thick of it nine months so you're in the real thick of it right now and so that post was around the kind of realities of balancing it tell us a little bit about you know like your take on this yeah I mean at the moment I've actually got a campaign running that is aiming to lobby government around the lack of support in place for female business owners who have children um for the fact that it there's not the infrastructure isn't there for it it's been built for male entrepreneurs and um yeah you you know what I'm talking about you've been there as a mother I think anyone anyone that you know has gone through it definitely knows what I'm talking about but the thing is is that um I think that I mean what I was finding the thing that was like sort of drove me doing this campaign was that I'd had my eldest daughter five years ago it was a very different climate back then and it was almost like you just take the situation as it is and you just put up with it and it is is.
And I think the second time around, five years later, I was older, wise, a bit more confident. And I just thought, why am I putting up with this? Like, why am I accepting of this situation? It's not okay, and I'm not alone in this.
And I realised that, you know, if you're employed, although, you know, which is where a lot of the conversation currently sits around the topic of maternity and supporting women you know although there's a lot of work that still needs to be done in that space and we're making some progress it's even further back in terms of people who are self-employed and particularly women and you know they are open to discrimination they're open to effectively financial hardship and I think that has been my experience in terms of trying to balance the two is that I feel like the only reason I'm still sat here doing both is out of sheer stubbornness and you know refusing to fail or give up or whatever you want to call it but the dropout rate for women who decide to pursue entrepreneurial ventures is very high and is cited to as being connected to child care duties even though that's generally why they've gone into entrepreneurship in the first place and I just felt like you know I felt like something needed to happen and also I was getting so many people messaging me you know saying like oh what you're doing is really inspiring you know should I go into entrepreneurship and I felt like something needed to happen. And also, I was getting so many people messaging me, you know, saying like, Oh, what you're doing is really inspiring, you know, should I go into entrepreneurship? And I felt like I needed to tell the truth that, yes, it's an amazing thing in some respects, but also this has not been a particularly enjoyable experience in other respects.
And I felt like I would be disingenuous if I didn't actually tell the truth of what it's really like so for me the business and babies campaign that we're running is about changing it for the next generation hopefully also for our generation but you know ensuring that the girls and young women and people who are coming into entrepreneurship in the future don't have to go through what we've gone through um because yeah it's been very very tough and the thing is is that stubbornness and like you know i refuse to to give in you know that comes at there's only so much you can do and so you know the impact that that can have on you from a mental point of view from a you know from a physical from getting enough rest it is just there's a price to be paid isn't that and that's the thing is is it's a price that we pay that you know as as active as guys are that there is not the same level of expectation or mental load on them that there is on on on women when we choose to have children yeah 100 i am very open about the impact it's had on me um i had a mental health breakdown at the start of the year um as a result of having my daughter and the implications and the stresses that running the business had at that time um you know I'm on antidepressants daily and I I'm glad I am they've made a massive difference how I feel um although there is quite a large stigma around medicating with you know with depression and with mental health but at the same time I've tried to reduce that stigma by talking about it because I also don't want people to look at what I'm doing and be like oh look she's got you know she's super successful she's got this business with 18 brands and she's doing all these campaigns and like oh doesn't she look like she's got this idyllic life you know I don't want anyone to ever look at that and think that I'm somehow like I've got it all sorted because I absolutely don't.

And, you know, I put up a post the other week about the fact that I think I probably drink too much alcohol. In fact, I don't think it.
I know I drink too much alcohol. But it's like it's my way of coping with things.
And I think what I found, and I sort of acknowledged this earlier today actually when I

was talking to someone was that I give so much of my time to everyone else whether that's being a mum a business owner being a boss being you know for clients for my husband whoever it is and the person who is left with the least left is me you know I don't look after me at all so I think that that it's knowing like the penalty in all of this is myself and I do kind of keep saying to myself like I am going to have to change this at some point because if I don't am I actually going to be alive to see the benefits of all my hard work you know it's like it feels like it is such an extreme feeling but you know I feel like that's where I've got to where it's like I need to start looking after myself um but like you say there is so much pressure um the world is not set up to support dual you know parents families where both parents are out working um my husband works very long hours in London leaves at 5am back at 5pm obviously I'm trying to navigate running the business it's like it's so much stress and pressure and I think it's how do you how do you navigate that when you've got school um schools closing at 3pm you know and pickup needs to be done and you need to get into school in the mornings and the school holidays which we've now currently got of six weeks you know that don't the amount of school holidays don't line up with the amount of working days. So I think there's so many things that complicate it for us.
And obviously it affects dads too. But like you say, it's just not the same as what women go through.
No. And I think, you know, in that, I think there is an element of responsibility for ourselves, because what you're saying around that supporting nature, and self-sacrificing, and it's like, it's almost like, it's almost like a switch you know like when you when you have kids you go from it being about it before it was about you and maybe it's your hobbies and interests and things like that you have responsibilities but it's so different whereas all of a sudden it becomes all about it becomes all about everyone else you just become like a facilitator and you know it is easier to chip away at the focus on yourself and the supporting yourself than it is to do any of the other bits because everything else doesn't look like you can compromise where the only thing that looks like there's an okay compromise is is on it is is on things for yourself but you know the thing is is that people can say and there is the thing of like well why are we doing this to ourselves and like if it is this much of a toll what's your thought process on that have you had people say that or not um I don't know if anyone's overtly said it to me I think possibly because they know I'd probably like eat the head off if I was given to tell them my thoughts on it they're probably too scared to say it but I But I think that, I mean, it was in my in my marriage, it was never a question of whether or not I was going to do both.
You know, like my husband always knew that my career was a massive part of my identity. So when it came to having children, he knew I wasn't ever going to pursue the traditional like maternity leave approach.
And, you know, work was going to be a big part of my life um I think that um tell me the question again so why why do we do this to ourselves what you know what keeps you doing the business side of stuff as well because because for me that's like what you just said with identity that's what like that for me that's why I do what I do is I didn't want to I had people say to me you are going to give up work aren't you and I went I was in corporate so before I had the kids I didn't have my own business I start I'm one of that 76% who sets up a business to be able to facilitate it around their children um and then yeah during summer holidays you're thinking how how am I facilitating all this um but it is it is very much around me, it was about, I'd spent a lot of money upskilling myself, getting a degree, having all that experience. It was like, I've worked really hard for this.
And the thought of just then parking it, it just didn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense.
Yes, that was what was in my brain before it completely disappeared out of my brain so um yeah got babies to thank for that so yes that's that was my motivation um so when I was sort of mid-20s before I had my children so I um was always very ambitious and I did my undergrad degree and I got a first class in English and then I did I got a scholarship from Santa and Dad to do my master's degree and I got um a distinction I started in Singapore I worked at um British Vogue like I was very much like pursuing career in academics and um it kind of got to my mid-20s and I was a bit like so what happens when I have kids like am I meant to just stop like am I meant to just you know all this knowledge that I've accumulated like am I meant to just not do anything with it and I thought why have I spent so many years grafting to be this intelligent you know articulate person and skilled in what I do to then just stop so I think I became quite aware in my 20s about what I was what was expected of me um and I and I knew it wasn't something that I wanted to do and I think um you know I've got young nieces so initially it was very much I knew I was inspiring and empowering or motivating them in how they were behaving and then I've gone on to have two daughters and I think for me what I wanted was and I knew even before I had my daughters that I didn't ever want my children to turn around to me when they were older and say mummy I've you know I've got this dream to run a business or I've got this idea for a product or whatever it might be and me to be like oh yeah you can do anything you want to do kids like off you go like you can be anything and then then to have that moment where they look at me and go well why didn't you do it like I wanted to show them through my actions rather than just telling them you can be anything I wanted to show them with my actions you can be anything like because I've done it like go go look what I've achieved and I think that you know particularly with having daughters has really fueled me with with balancing the business and children I really don't want them to be defined by being a mother to the point that they lose their career identity so I want them to see that yes mummy has done both and they will also probably have their opinions on whether that was a good thing or not and I did it well but you know they will they will grow up they'll grow up knowing at least it's possible to some extent and I think that's the main thing for me is seeing is believing and you have to have role models that represent what you're trying to do and you know for me coming into having a business and having children there was no role models I didn't know who to be or how to behave or what to say or what to do and there were so many questions I had and I felt so insecure and I made some bad decisions as a result so I hope in that that you know yes okay I'm having to put myself through a lot that I don't want to but I'm hoping in doing so I can change it for other people to make it easier and also inspire them to then want to go into it too. Yeah I think I totally agree with you because there is that you know when you've seen that route you can then navigate that you know you can tweak that path and think well okay I'll do this differently or that differently in the workplace and and business is changing all the time but it is that idea that I'm very much like you my eldest is a girl and I didn't want her to think that you know that that she couldn't she couldn't do whatever she wanted to do or that actually we're going to spend all this time and money investing in our knowledge and our abilities.
And then for just to be parked because we have children. And, you know, that is a very clear signal that I am pausing my own personal development to develop someone else.
And that is not what our male counterparts are doing. And so, you know, it doesn't seem seem right I think I've read I don't even know where I saw it the other day but it was a few weeks ago now I saw something where they were saying that it's not the challenge is is that we're raising girls to be um to be different and to expect more but we're not raising boys who are able to support and live with somebody like that and I think that's where there is also that balance because we as women we do have that propensity to to to be that person who's supporting and and taking on those roles and self-sacrificing and it is a you know it is a partnership and it's more of a partnership than it has been historically which you know we are moving in the right direction but there is still all that social stuff like I met somebody it was a few weeks ago now I was out riding and on a Saturday morning and this lady said oh she was like oh she's got kids and she went oh is your husband looking after them for you yeah he's looking after his own children and when she said it she realized what she'd said and she was like oh yeah but it's like you know there is this whole thing still of oh isn't he good that he's he's doing his part I mean I've I'm very fortunate I said very fortunate I think there's been an element of molding shall we say over the last 15 years my my sort of creation I don't know but yeah um I'm very fortunate my husband grew up with a very strong female influences in his life you know he had sisters mum aunties like all female cousins he was very very aware of girls I guess and what we what women are like.
But he and he was a chef in before he became business director. And so he cooks all of our meals every night.
He's always been very hands on as a dad. Like he, regardless of the fact he's out at five in the morning, you know, he would do bottles with me in the night.
He is there for all of the school things like very, very fortunate. And I mean, to be honest, I wouldn't have it.

I wouldn't be with someone that wasn't like that.

You know, we've always shared all of our money, regardless of who's earning what.

Whereas I've had friends who talked about being on maternity leave and being given an allowance by their partner.

And I'm like, well, why would you get an allowance?

Like how much would they pay for childcare if you were having to pay for that?

Like you're doing a job for them. You're saving saving them money like why would you not treat them that way so I yeah I've definitely been very very lucky to have such a great support and I yeah I mean quite frankly I'm very firm in my boundaries of people and so I would not be with someone that wasn't willing to meet me halfway um I still think there's times where he has things he could learn as do as do we all as humans um but you know I think it was like yesterday I had this really interesting chat with my daughter because he'd cooked this beautiful salad it was like very fancy and I said to her you know that this isn't normal and she's like huh I'm like you know not like most daddies don't cook dinner at all let alone cook this lovely beautiful food for you and like to her it's just that's just how it is like she made a comment once we were talking about where's like what's our favorite place in the house and she said daddy loves to be in the kitchen like daddy's place is in the kitchen which I thought was really interesting because they always say that's where women apparently and she knows you know yeah she knows that mummy can't cook and mummy doesn't cook and she'll still say that I'm the best cook and I'm like I'll take that but I don't do it um but yeah and I think it's I think it's really interesting because I do sort of think for her growing up when she comes to the point of meeting her partner whoever that might be that unless they have been brought up to be like how her dad is I don't think they'll meet her standards you know I think she's she's been told you can be all of these things and I think this was I actually struggled a lot with this with some of my family when I first made the decision to work with my child was it was very much like this isn't this isn't the done thing why would you do this and I was like well what would you expect of me if I've gone and done all of these things in my career why wouldn't I now do this as the next step and I think what we've done particularly with our generation is we've said to young girls as that you know as we've been teenagers and growing up we're the generation of you can be it all you can do it all like you want to be an entrepreneur you want to go to university like the world is your oyster which is fantastic as progressed you know progressive mindset but what it's done as a barrier is we've not then created the infrastructure or the support to actually enable it so all we've actually done is said you can do all these things but you still also have to do all the other things that are expected of you.
So now you've just got double the workload. Aren't you so empowered? And it's like, no, no, I'm not.
And that is the thing is, is like, you know, my sort of ethos is that the whole thought you can. And it's like, you know, you can have it all, but you have to be aware of what all is for you.
And also the sacrifices you may have to make for the all is yeah you can focus on that but you can't it's it's like birthday lists one of my kids has got a very long birthday list and it's like you know you can have anything but you can't have everything and and i think that's the thing is this and it's understanding that yeah you know we are kind of dangling that fruit going you can do whatever you want you can have this you can have that you can you know really give the guys a run for their money but then oh yeah when you have kids that's that's a bit different and it's like that whole pressing the pause button is it's it's not acceptable and also from an economy point of view there's so many stats out there with actually the missing you know revenue that isn't being generated because women aren't in those roles and they're not performing in their in their businesses like they could be so what's your you know what you've put together what are you aiming to achieve with that so the business and babies campaign is kind of multifaceted in what we're trying to achieve um at the moment we've got a survey out we've got a few surveys depending on your situation but in general it's a survey to try and gather data to understand the situation so there's various reports and reviews that have been done over the years about female entrepreneurship quite a lot of them are now um what I'd class is out of date um but also they've a lot of them have been much more broad so it's been like one part of their research rather than like the sole focus of it. And they've not really sort of delved into the specifics.
It's been a lot more top level information. So I'm hoping to try and get some data to actually show the situation and show where we're at currently.
Also, it's just to create a community of women who have got children and are running businesses, which, you know, there are many communities now being developed out there for female entrepreneurs, which is awesome. But I find a lot of those are looking at things like, you know, from an investment point of view or how to get funding or how to just be a founder in general.
And for me, this is very much about focusing on that aspect of balancing the business with family. So it's about trying get that community so if you are going on maternity leave I say that you know like if you really get it but if you are planning on having it then you know at least you could reach out to people and say like oh what you know what top tips do you have for how to navigate this like how did you handle telling your team you're pregnant like all those kind of like practical things you need someone to talk to um about you don't know who to go to so that's kind of one aspect is just getting that community together um and sharing stories as well like putting human voices and faces to these stories so people can see what women are going through so we can actually raise that um profile of the problem um and then my hope long term is to enact governmental change.
So Labour seems to be making noises that would imply that this would be something favourable to them. So as a starting point, they've put out some commentary that they're interested in looking at.
At the moment, self-employed people are not protected by the Equality Act, which would prevent them from being discriminated against. And Labour has recognised that self-employed people need to be protected in the same way as employed people, which sounds very obvious, but until now has not been the case.
So yeah, so my hope is to enact governmental change. And what that looks like, I think is very multifaceted.
So, you know, there's there's so many parts in terms of having a child. So for me, I went through a very traumatic and complex fertility journey.
I had miscarriages that required stays in hospital. They had huge mental health implications that had a knock-on effect to my business.
You know, obviously, all the hormones that are going through your body as a result of all those things, particularly if you then go down the IVF route and all of the impact that can have on your I mean I didn't do that but you know the impact it can have on your time in the business um you know I think this I think we women are very very specifically and directly affected by conception in a way that men aren't so we need to think about like what support can be in place you know when I was immediately I had I ended up having a hemorrhage in one of my miscarriages actually both but the second one I ended up in recess and I was you know I was completely out for a week that's a week where my business has suddenly not got their lead revenue earner in the business and yet I still have to pay my bills I've still got my council rates I've got to pay I've still got all of my tax bills that need paying so there's an element of like how do we support women when they're trying to conceive then when they are pregnant obviously there's um all of the worries of them what do I now do um when I was pregnant I ended up under the perinatal mental health team because I had all the fertility issues and losses and um and I spoke to someone who was an NHS nurse like mental health nurse and she was effectively trying to understand the situation and where I was struggling and she turned around to me and said um well if you're clever enough to figure out how I've got a child knocking on the door it's the reality of business and babies you literally have both that's it it's kind of funny so we're renovating where we are i've taken the handle off the door so she can't actually get in yeah it doesn't stop the knocking though um anyway so back to back to my plan um so yeah so with the um the nurse said to you you're smart enough

yeah that's my plan um so yeah so with the um with the nurse said to you yeah the nurse said you're smart enough yeah if you're clever enough and intelligent enough to create your own business you're intelligent enough to figure out how to have maternity leave and I was like no that's not how it works um and then she said to me well I don't understand why can't you live off your husband's wage and I was like because my bill for my business every month is far significant to my husband's wage for starters but secondly

why would I need to like why should I have to and it felt like the supporting case to me was a bit

like why are you doing this like you don't need to do this and judging you you're not helpful

it was like clearly yeah it was like clearly you can figure this out like clearly you're clever

enough and I just felt like it was so patronizing and there was no you know I'm there saying like

Thank you. judging you you're not helpful it was like clearly yeah it was like clearly you can figure this out like clearly you're clever enough and I just felt like it was so patronizing and there was no you know I'm there saying like I'm really struggling my mental health and the answer was not like oh well let's champion you to keep you doing what you're doing because it's amazing and go you it was like oh well quit so for me it's like how do we continue to support those people through their pregnancy so they don't feel like they have to do it?

And then obviously postpartum. So at the moment, you are entitled to maternity allowance or maternity pay.
If you've worked a certain number of weeks, the amount that you're entitled to, whether you're employed or self-employed, is below the living minimum wage. it is you'd actually earn i don't know if earns the right word but you'd get double if you're on benefits um or up to double so it's like so so so abysmal it's unreal um but the the the system that has been created to allow you to have that if you're self-employed requires you to not work in your business the entire duration that you're taking it so you you know you ask any business owner can you go out of your business and do nothing for six to nine months the answer is no so if you want to stay on the right side of the law then you can't take any money so immediately you are at zero in terms of financial support but you've also got the impact of having had a child and that again you've got you know one of the key financial breadwinners of the company is not able to work legally.
You're not allowed to work for two weeks after having a child. So, again, it's like, what support is there in that place? Because my bills are not stopping, you know, and I this time around, I thought, oh, maybe I can take some level of maternity leave.
I've got a team. They can all take control.
Like, actually would be okay but the day that I was giving birth I had a cesarean planned cesarean um I had uh we lost a contract that we really needed to win like a pitch we really needed to win we lost a contract that was um it was a 12-month contract and they pulled the plug at six months because they had cash flow issues which you can't really argue with that but it's money gone from my um you know money too um we had um I had a client who'd left me with a very very substantial amount of money unpaid on his bill even though he was using all the work we'd done he decided he just wasn't going to pay so I had to then pursue legal action against him and one of my team was part-time and she needed a full-time job so she handed her notice in the day that I was giving birth but this is all the day that I was giving birth so like and then I was having a blood transfusion afterwards and I'm like going through my phone which I swore I wasn't going to look at like what do I do and I was so stressed and I remember just feeling so overwhelmed thinking like I've just had a baby I really really just want to be thinking about my baby but I cannot switch my brain off and I have no I you know I don't have any I've got some you know the team I've got are fantastic but not necessarily able to deal with such serious issues so it was like it was on me and suddenly I'm like well I'm meant to be having maternity leave and I'm you know not allowed to work but then I need to work and it just felt ridiculous and I was like so then you're it's adding even more stress and mental pressure onto me and you know what would have been fantastic is if I could have just had something or someone that could have helped me even just having a community of women to be like what do I do um and I think so I think there's I think there's so many implications in terms of what could be done financially grant funding you know tax breaks tax relief so there's all of that postpartum part and then if that wasn't enough in terms of lack of support you then also have what happens once you've got your child and you need child care so obviously we know that we're not particularly great as a country in terms of child care but um what I find particularly crazy is that if you run a business you can hire any number of people into your business you can have a chauffeur you can have a cleaner but you cannot have a child care paid for your business and you can expense so many things golf days football days like dinners travel you name it but you cannot expense your child care even though you are only getting that child care to attend said golf day football day etc um and someone pointed out to me the other day that they can expense a flight to go to say a conference or an event for their work but they can't expense their child who has to go with them because they are potentially the main child care person for that child so it's like why and the only plausible reason I can have is that whoever created this rule was a man who had someone at home and therefore it never occurred to him that we might need childcare and we might need to cover this cost so instead of being able to run it through my business I'm instead having to pay my corporation tax on my profit then I'm having to pay myself my you know PAYE tax to take the money out of the business as my own personal money so that's two two amounts of tax I've then paid on that money then I'm having to pay that money out of my personal money where I am then paying the self-employed as the PAY tax of my nanny who we are very fortunate to have but that's three times I've paid tax on that money so I'm being penalized three times to have child care so I can contribute to the economy and create jobs and support people and I'm just like it doesn't make sense to me so the there's like an absolute myriad of problems and it's like where do we even begin but I think part of it is that it's just raising awareness because so much of the conversation has not centered around self-employed women or business owners um and I think we just I don't think people realize just how bad it is and possibly because there's so few female business owners compared to male business owners it's just not been you know we're almost like oh we're so lucky to have flexible working we'll just take whatever because we're you know we're so lucky we can be around in the summer holidays and it's like yeah but that's not good enough like how many women are now struggling and burnt out because they're trying to do both and they can't do both so it's just it's even the data on business performance if you were to look at people's business performance over that period like yes okay you can argue that people are away anyway so businesses tend to see a dip but it's like that individual it's the knock-on effect of not them being present not doing their organic marketing not having things in place and you could be like well okay you need to be more organized but it's that position of always firefighting and i think that's the problem is is that these people are never given a break and i think you know you're you know even the conversation over having that sense of community and those people who have been there it can get really really lonely you know i'm surrounded by people who are business owners but then people who are business owners in that position i don't have any clients who are currently having a baby i've got people who have children um but like mine's one of the youngest out of the people that i'm around um as my youngest is um because i think there is that and it's like well so where are people going who's getting the support what's happening to people during that period of time and you know that is it is a very difficult thing to both plan for um and also to to manage in the longer term on balance yeah so I mean for me the the impact of all of it in terms of what you know if we don't support people what's going to happen is we're just going to create a mental health epidemic which is already we already know it's becoming worse as a situation so one of the brands that I've actually created is called Compassion Club and we're launching it officially in the next few weeks and it's compassion focused therapy it's something that I did after I had my second daughter as part of the mental health treatment I got it was something they were almost like trialing as part of the Essex service like it was being done by the university and I think they were trying to prove through doing it and getting our feedback that it worked in order to get more funding for it but it was it was initially I was a bit like I can do compassion like that's easy like I've spent my life in compassion for everyone else why do I need to go and sit in a group and talk about being compassionate and I was really dismissive of it at first um when it was suggested to me and the idea of group therapy I was like oh no I don't talk to everyone else about my problems but it was I did it and it was really really helpful and it was all about reducing that inner self-critic and being kinder to yourself and how do you you know when you feel that burnout like how are you supporting yourself and giving yourself that self-care and prioritizing yourself and when I got to the end of the course I just thought I need to roll this out as far and wide as I can and there was nothing like it on the market obviously you know you've got your headspace and all the different more generalized things but there was nothing targeting women and supporting women through this experience so we've just um been recording the episodes in the last week and I I basically created each of the the 10 videos per um series and I've created it around the different life events women will go through so we're starting with parenting in general so we've got conception we've got pregnancy postpartum and we've got birth trauma which is another bit you know big issue for a lot of women after they've had children and we're looking at IVF adoption so all of the different you know parenting just how to support women through these parts of their life, because it goes back to my mission about helping women become entrepreneurs in that we don't tackle the mental health challenges that are being created. How do we then expect them to go into entrepreneurship and to thrive when they're struggling so much? So, you know, the businesses and brands I'm creating are deliberately trying to solve this problem alongside all of the campaigns we're running um because I think we have to be very holistic about this you know we have to look at all different aspects of being a woman and the support we need um and like you said I mean for me it's six weeks holidays I'm actually very fortunate that we have a nanny because I actually find the six weeks holidays easier than any other time of the year because I'm not having to worry about getting her ready for school I'm not having to worry about you know has she got the right uniform has she got the right dressing up outfit has she got the money she needs has she like have I filled out the forms like everything goes a bit more quiet for me and the worst issue I have if it's an issue is she's around more so I get knocks on the door

when I'm trying to record things but I also get to see her a lot more brilliant um which is why I

work from home more in the summer so I can be around them but I um you know I know for so many

women it's the reverse and actually this is the worst time because they suddenly are out of pocket

um you know we we're already paying our care for my youngest so this is not any additional cost to us you know whereas a lot of people suddenly get hit with this bill of how do I cover six weeks worth of care when I'm not used to paying out for that and it comes into the thousands so you know there's so many there's so many implications I think for working parents and um the other thing I would add to that is also it's not just about supporting working mums but if we want true equality we need to support working dads because you know my husband didn't get proper paternity leave you know two weeks is not long enough it that in itself can create mental health problems for new mums when they're not supported by their partners um the pay that men get is as bad as the pay that women get for their paternity leave and maternity. And it's not sustainable for men to just effectively lose like a huge chunk of their salary for half a month when you have a baby that has loads of money.
So I think the whole thing needs rethinking and almost someone needs to look at the system and go, right, the world has changed. The world has moved on dramatically since we created all of this this like we need a fresh way of looking at this we need new ideas new system new setup that is actually going to champion and support parents to be their best selves and not just leave them tired and burnt out that makes sense that makes a lot of sense thank you so much for your time grace it's been really good i could talk about this all day long how do people get involved in your campaign yes i mean i could i could sit here for hours um on my soapbox so the website for business and babies is quite literally businessandbabies.co.uk so if you head over to there you can see the survey and fill all of that out and it will direct you to all of the different things that you can get involved in um if you want to learn more about me in general then you can follow me on linkedin at grace carter and i post very regularly there about all of the um trials and tribulations of of what we go through as as working mums but also um share about the different work that we're doing and the campaigns we're running so that's like the the place to for a first-hand insight um and then if you would generally want to just um have a snoop of the brands we've created and what we're doing then you can head to metamorphosegroup.co.uk and it is all there for you to see that is brilliant thank you so much grace for your time it has been really good to talk through and understand where you're coming from it and the steps that you are taking so that has been great thank you for joining me

guys on this week's episode and i look forward to speaking to you next time if you've enjoyed

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me guys bye for now