Keeping Mornings Flexible with Penny Wincer | Before the Work Begins Podcast

And did you have to change your identity around that and the way that you see yourself and your flexibility? Or was it just you said you were quite flexible before? Was it just a natural progression or did you have to make like a conscious change in your identity around that?

I mean, in some ways, yes, and in some ways, no.

I mean, I think I'm also the third child in the family.

I feel like younger kids and families are probably also the ones that kind of, because they just like have to fit into the family when they arrive, right? So in some ways, maybe I always had that role in my family.

And my mum was really unwell when I was a teenager.

I sort of had a childhood that was in a little bit of two halves.

The first half of my childhood was very stable, very loving, very fixed.

Everything was like super secure.

And then the second half of my childhood, my mum was really unwell, mentally unwell and was in and out of hospital a lot.

My parents were divorced and we moved multiple times and there was a lot of uncertainty.

So I think I learned a lot of flexibility as well during that time.

And then I went on to have a career that was also like required complete flexibility from me.

I worked in photography for a really, really long time.

I was an assistant first fashion photographers and then I became an interiors photographer myself.

So I never had a corporate job or like a nine to five or anything like that.

It's funny in some ways that set me up really well for being a parent carer in many ways.

But at the same time, I sometimes look at my son and I think, oh, he probably could have done with a parent who was like, I don't know, a bit more of a tiger mum

than me sometimes.

But yeah, I don't

know, I don't know.

But in terms of the identity stuff, I think the thing that really was tricky for me was the freedom aspect.

After being a young carer when I was a teenager, I sort of went very hard into my independence and freedom.

I travelled a huge amount.

I really have always enjoyed a lot of time on my own, for instance.

I've always reveled in time alone.