Anna Whitehouse

Well, last year, the science communicator Simon Clark broadcast his FaceTime call with Keir Starmer at the COP, uh, climate summit in, in Brazil to 73,000 followers.

Uh, Anna Whitehouse, also a campaigner who goes by Mother Pukka, she posted clips of her conversation with Bridget Phillipson about the inadequacies of the English childcare system to, uh, just under, yeah, half a million or, uh, so, so around that followers, uh, in July.

Now, it's fair to say, Sam, that this, uh, strategy had more than a few doubters.

Uh, and I think across communications teams, uh, the big one across, uh, government, uh, then headed by David Dinsmore and, and Number Ten.

Mm.

Um, you can listen to the holiday episode, by the way, by searching for CBeebies Parenting Download: An Essential Guide to Family Holidays with Anna Whitehouse.

Bathroom rave idea might catch on.

You could be like-

which is obviously not helping.

Yeah, I mean, Anna Whitehouse is doing amazing kind of work in terms of talking about the need for flexible working.

I've always held the view that if you give loyalty and extend loyalty to your employees, you will get it back tenfold.

And also, what I find is that like you know the saying of like give something to a busy person and it'll get done twice as quick like it's so true so the amount of times that I would you know I'd say to my team like I'm happy to be flexible with you like as long as you give me that flexibility back like that you know this is a two-way street but the amount of times like they'd, you know, be sending emails whilst sat in a queue of cars for the school pickup or, you know, they'd be like in the evening, like I'm just going to pick the laptop up and, you know, do an extra hour here and there.

Well, two of the strike's organizers are with me now.

Anna Whitehouse is the founder of Flex Appeal, a campaign organization calling for more flexible working, and George Gabriel is the co-founder of The Dad Shift, which is campaigning for better paternity leave in the UK.

Anna and George, welcome.

Hi.

In a nutshell, it's not even unconscious bias, it's conscious bias.

So I want to just see the whole landscape shift towards parents, not just mothers.

Thank you, Anna Whitehouse from Flexible-

Thank you

On the days I was not working, I used to call them mummy and the boys days, which sounds smalls, but naming that time actually helps me be in it rather than half present and half thinking about my inbox.

And there's a quote I love from Anna Whitehouse, which does a lot of flexible work advocacy.

She calls herself Mother Pooka, and she says, "Every bit of me wants to be with you, but equally doesn't want to lose me in the process.

I don't want it all, but this is my something, while you are my everything." I think that sums up the tension perfectly.

We get given this story that one person needs to carry everything, our happiness, share our moments, share our emotions.

And in this moment, I am joined by the brilliant Anna Whitehouse, also known as Mother Pukka, who shares one piece of relationship advice that completely changed the way she sees love, family, and what a happy ending really looks like.

We also talk about the reality of divorce, why it's one of the hardest things she's ever been through, and the powerful reframe that helped her let go of the idea that she'd somehow broken her family.

So whether you're in a relationship, you're navigating big changes, or you're simply feeling the weight of trying to make one person your everything, I think there's so much wisdom in this moment.