Norwich: Meet Mother Pukka
When you meet someone (@mother_pukka) who inspires thousands and thousands of women daily for all kinds of reasons, it's a GOOD day.
Video by Dack Attack
Anna Whitehouse came to The Auditorium at The Forum, had a Nandos (remember Claire from the Scummy Mummies night?!), some vino from the Naked Wines bar, entertained and inspired us with her stories and made lots of women happy here in Norwich.
Lots of big stuff was discussed last night. From reminding us to step back and appreciate the family you’re building - watching your very own Netflix series unfurling over time. Trusting our gut as a mother, leaving the underbelly of the internet well alone. Remembering to talk to our partners, instead of shouting at them. Using the Moment app #thingskidssee.
From encouraging businesses to be creative in their employment (job pairing, job sharing, core hours). To maternity discrimination. Shout outs to grandparents (Grandmother Pukka🙌) and their role in helping us to work. Encouraging businesses to enable flexible working so caring for your children / parents / pets doesn’t mean running the gauntlet twice a day.
It feels like we (as in us women) get it, are ready for it, we want to work and we want to mother, we want our partners to parent. However intelligent women are unable to convince intelligent men that it’s acceptable and normal to do at least one nursery drop off - there shouldn’t be this fear of rocking the boat should there? Middle management and senior management are probably parents, right? We need to make an effort to ask our partners to at least have the awkward conversation, this is the new normal! If we don't ask, the businesses won't know it's needed.
Anna is going to the Welsh Assembly next week, she's continually talking to huge corporations who either want to accommodate flex or have to - either way, she is our voice.
I don’t think we can just leave it in last nights (beautifully decorated by @tanialeeds with play area designed by @playdatewithmycrew) room. What if, in our corner of the UK we could galvanise flex appeal??
1 - Please message me if your company does flex well, we can start to showcase what good looks like, which people can use to demonstrate to their own employers
2 - Men need to be in this conversation! As Anna said, she is preaching to the converted (Ben from Waterstones and Chris from Dack Attack were right on board though!) - imagine if @papa_pukka came to a room full of men for a discussion - would your other halves come? (Thanks for the inspo Jeannette from Birketts!)
We Got This (Sometimes!) donated £160 to charity Get Me Out The Four Walls yesterday - thank you!
All photos below, with the exception of Insta stories are by Emily Gray Photography :-)
Thank you, thank you to Lucy, Sally, Leah, Nicki, Gemma, Sophie and Jane for all your help!
