Erin Thomas Wong (00:01)
Before we jump into today's episode, I wanted to tell you quickly about my free five day challenge starting on the 19th of May. It's called Kickstart Your Visibility. And we're going to be looking at why you might be finding it hard to put yourself and your business out there. I'm going to be teaching you my life-friendly approach to getting visible. And you'll also have the opportunity to come on a live hot seat mastermind with me. You can sign up at www.lifefriendlybusiness.com/kickstart
kickstart. Now before we go ahead and I introduce you to my amazing guest for today, I just want to give you a little bit of a trigger warning. We do talk about some quite emotional things during this episode, including premature birth, miscarriage, and also birth stories in general. It's such a powerful conversation. It's one that we need to be having. So I hope you enjoy this episode.
Erin Thomas Wong (01:50)
Hello and welcome back to The Life-Friendly Business podcast. We are going to be having such an important conversation today. I've got with me, Leila Green. She is a leading voice in the fight against mum guilt and a trailblazer in empowering working mothers to break up with the guilt for good. Very warm welcome to you, Leila. Thank you for joining me.
Leila Green (02:14)
lovely to be here thank you
Erin Thomas Wong (02:16)
And I just want to give you a heads up that this episode may contain some strong language. So if you are listening with any little ears, you may want to put headphones in, but I'm just giving you that little heads up. So Leila is a mum of triplets and she is also in the top 100 UK female entrepreneurs list through F-Entrepreneur and that's how we met.
And you have been getting a lot of national press, I mean maybe international, about your campaign to quash mum guilt. So why is this so important to you?
Leila Green (02:57)
think it's an invisible problem. Before I was a mum, even though my best friends, my old friends from uni were mums, they didn't tell me about it, they didn't talk about it. It's something that no doctor or midwife or health visitor ever had a conversation with me about. And yet, when I became a mum, I saw how deep this problem ran and how...
how much of a hold it had on a whole generation of mums and I couldn't really see anyone doing anything about it. And I think why it kind of triggered me, and I would say I was triggered into action, is because my mum and dad had quite a toxic relationship. So my dad had a narcissistic personality disorder, which meant he was a bit of a bully. He was controlling.
And over a period of time, I saw my mum shrink and I saw her lose her confidence in things that I knew she was great at. I saw her get cut off from her friends. She wasn't really allowed to leave the house to pursue hobbies. She had to give up a career because, you you didn't want her away from the house. And she lost her financial independence. And at 18, I was so... expletive determined.
I would never let that happen to me. I was gonna break the cycle, I was gonna go to uni, was gonna get away from this, never again, not looking back over my shoulder. And then I became a mum and I realised the same thing was happening to my mum friends, not because they had coercive controlling partners who didn't let them out the house, but because they'd internalised the bully and that really freaked me out because it felt like I'd done all this work for the last...
20 years to get away from the dysfunction that I grew up in and then I was doing it to myself telling myself I wasn't good enough, telling myself I didn't deserve things, comparing myself to others, saying I would never be able to achieve certain things, I was letting my babies down, you know all of this really really negative talk that was just the kind of thing my dad would have said to my mum. I was like why am I saying this to myself? What's going on here? And because it is so invisible
and silent and there's a kind of shroud of shame around the whole thing. I think people aren't really opening up about it and even within kind of mum friendship groups it's not kind of openly discussed and if it is it's sort of just kind of accepted as like normal like we're not going to do anything about it it's just what it is.
and I'm a really impatient entrepreneur so if I see a problem I want to solve it I'm not going to sit in that energy of just sort of moaning about it. So I felt very much triggered to try and change the mindset and the narrative because it's so hard being a mum anyway like why are we making it harder for ourselves?
by being so critical, by being so judgemental of ourselves and other mums, I feel like we just, need to kind of move past guilt because it's only hurting us. Personally, I don't see it as having any value. I think it is something detrimental. I know others have different views on that, but since I ditched it, honestly, I feel much better.
Erin Thomas Wong (06:28)
Why do we have such crazy high expectations of ourselves that we feel that we should be everything to everyone and do it with a smile on our face? Like, where has that come from?
Leila Green (06:44)
I don't know, I asked my mum about this because I was born in the 80s and I asked her was mum guilt a thing at the time and it wasn't. So that you know this is a relatively new cultural phenomenon and she said that when she was a mum there were walking clinics that you could go to in the community anytime you didn't need an appointment you could meet other mums there, there was no judgement even if you were on your third child you know you should
you might feel like you should know it already. There was support, like grass roots support in the community and that gave my mum confidence because you you've kind of always got someone keeping an eye or you can check and also she, well she had me in a very similar area of South London so I am now but at that point in time she said everyone was kind of in the same boat like you know you and your neighbours all sort of
probably have the same sort of prams, the same sort of cars, the same sort of everything. Whereas now we're looking to social media to see what good looks like because, you know, the hospital, the midwives, signed us off, kicked us out the door, maybe we've got a leaflet, maybe we don't even have that. And so we're on our phones in the middle of the night, you know, possibly while we're breastfeeding or settling a child back to sleep thinking, what's this supposed to, how am I supposed to do this? What's this supposed to look like?
And I feel like I've always had high expectations of myself. I've always been a high achiever. I went to Oxford. I'm hardworking. So that kind of perfectionism and drive had always been there. But then motherhood is like a shot of steroids.
Erin Thomas Wong (08:26)
I want to come back because I want to ask you about what it's like to have triplets because that blows my mind. But I also want to touch on what you just said, because in a previous episode called Supporting Parents in a Changing World, I interviewed a paediatric nurse and she helps parents with weaning and first aid. And she was saying that, you know, now there is no support for these new mums and they're turning to TikTok and Instagram.
Leila Green (08:31)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Erin Thomas Wong (08:54)
And the algorithm is actually feeding them videos of babies choking, of babies having allergic reactions. And it's just so hard because unfortunately there's this dark side. I mean, it's great that we've got social media where we can be connecting with people, but then those kinds of things she was just saying is creating such a level of anxiety in parents that she's never seen before.
Leila Green (08:58)
I'm tired.
Yeah.
Erin Thomas Wong (09:18)
So it's like, you know, and at the same time, the NHS, you know, the baby clinics don't happen anymore. You know, you're lucky if you get a health visitor, you know, there seems to be such a lack of support. And, you know, for me, think witnessing it in my own circles, mum guilt started to come in really when people started going back to work. And that's where there was the disparity as well, because you had some people going back to, you know, a corporate job.
Leila Green (09:39)
Hmm.
Erin Thomas Wong (09:46)
that they'd taken maternity leave from. And then for me, I started my own business at that point. And I started my business to spend so that I could have the flexibility. And so what that meant was is that I felt guilty when I couldn't work because I should be working. And when I wanted to work, I felt guilty that I wanted to work on my business rather than be with my child. And isn't that the worst thing that you can possibly think? And like, where?
I just don't understand where this is so deeply ingrained in us. Like you say, we're just stuck in between a rock and a hard place here.
Leila Green (10:23)
We are and I think it's probably linked to the myth of having it all and what is being presented as choice is actually compromise. You you can be here but you can't be there at the same time. I can be at home with my boys or I can be on a podcast. So I can't be, you can't be in two places at once and there's only 24 hours in a day and especially with triplets, especially in the early days.
That is a hard, that's a hard stop. There's only 24 hours in a day. We're trying to get so much done. And it's crazy. And we can't be in two places at once. And I think the kind of, the way to move through that particular guilt when we're talking about balancing career and family is that you have to do what's right for you and it has to be an aligned heart choice.
And I don't actually think there's enough diversity in motherhood that we're presented like this is the way, if someone's not doing it this way, they're doing it wrong. And you feel that in media, you feel that in society. And we should just let people do it their way. I do speak to working moms, but I don't place moms that work full-time in a higher category than part-time or contract or freelance or...
do their own business or perhaps they're taking some time to build a side hustle or perhaps they're taking a break from the whole thing. I don't think any one of those is any better than any other. It's just about letting mums say this is what's right for me and my family right now. And I've heard other people say the counter to the whole thing is just to own it. But I think the problem with just owning it is you can't just own it.
if it's not an aligned decision, like if it's something that you feel forced into, if it's something you feel like you haven't had time, and you know we're all so frazzled and sleep deprived, like you need time to make decisions, you need time to really kind of think about it. And if it doesn't feel like it's truly, truly what your heart's telling you to do, and often in the entrepreneurial community, people are creating things from the heart because...
they feel like there's a gap that they wish was filled or it means so much to them to share their knowledge or to give people an eco product or whatever it might be, that that is actually really heartfelt. So yeah, I think that juggle really comes back to making an aligned decision and also we need to just stop judging mums for making different decisions.
Erin Thomas Wong (12:55)
Absolutely. And you know, with the life-friendly approach that I'm championing, it is all about doing it on your own terms and, you know, trying not to compare yourself to what, you know, Jane next door is doing and the way that she's parenting and working and all those things. And like you say, it is about working out what feels good for you. And that's the thing with boundaries as well when it comes to running a life-friendly business is that...
know, it's going to be different for each of us, but sometimes you don't really know what your boundaries are until you feel like someone is impinging on them, or you know when you're feeling really overstretched because you're saying yes to everyone else and like we need to go through a kind of individual journey of
of exploration with that, don't we? I really feel like women for years can just feel like we're just in survival mode when we become parents. And where do we actually stop and think about what we really want and what's going to align with us?
Leila Green (13:56)
Yeah and it's a great chance, I mean not to sound like a cliche but motherhood is a reframe, like it was a huge step change for me, like I thought I have my life as an entrepreneur, I have 9-12 months out, I just go back to my life as an entrepreneur, like this is genuinely what I thought. I had no, and it was so naive like thinking now, like I had no idea I was gonna have triplets, I had no idea that I wouldn't be, I don't think I can go back, like I'm evolving into something else but back, you know.
The back doesn't exist. There's a quote from L.P. Hartley, it's like, past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. My past is so alien to me now. And I wasn't prepared for that huge, huge life shift. And I was very committed to my business, I worked long hours, I wasn't great at boundaries, my clients had my personal WhatsApp and were even WhatsApping me while I was on maternity, expecting me to solve problems.
Yeah, it wasn't life-friendly looking back, know, and especially, that was after 12 years, but when we were in the beginning, beginning startup, we were working all hours. We were like boundary free, you know, you're just scrabbling around at the kitchen table, trying to get something off the ground. And actually your kind of employment conditions are much, worse than they were when you were going into an office and being employed by a corporate. And that's...
That's only, we've only got ourselves to blame, haven't we?
Erin Thomas Wong (15:22)
Yeah,
and there's a lot of messaging in the entrepreneur world about hustle and grind and sacrifice. And it feels quite masculine as well. And I think that's where we as women, you we are predominantly the primary carers, whether it's for our children or our parents. And we need to change the narrative here and find a way forward. I just wanted to touch back to what you said about, know, you thought you would just like take six, 12 months off and things would go back.
So another conversation we've had on the podcast is about matressence and that is becoming a mother. And Amy was saying, know, we don't talk about this enough and actually it's a decade. Matressence is actually, you know, like becoming a teenager. It's going through this like hormonal change where everything feels up and down and where, you know, our identity shifts and all those things. And she was saying it's a decade and it literally gave me goosebumps because...
We are in a society where you have a baby and yeah, 12 months max, then you should be back to normal. You should be firing on all cylinders. And it's not like that. It will affect, especially for women, it will affect the next 30 years of your life having a child, even when they're at university. We're still in that motherhood mindset.
Leila Green (16:23)
night.
And I think that's particularly hard for mums coming back from mat leave where it's expected that they'll just be the same as they were before and they can just kind of slot in as if nothing's happened when actually they've been through this massive physical, emotional, mental, financial world change and then...
to just have to kind of pretend to be the old version of you results in a lot of masking. And I think, you there are stats on masking in the workplace. There are stats on women feeling alienated and isolated in the workplace. And it's because they're not coming back kind of authentically really, because they have to sort of fit a mold. And with the mums that I've worked with, there's often then pressures around things like not being able to do networking events in the evening, because they've got to do a nursery pickup or no longer wanting to be
doing overseas trips because they've got the kids now. And any time that you kind of say things are different, you're butting up against, that's not what we want. We want you to just be how you were before, okay? And I think 54,000 mums a year are leaving the workforce. It's an issue because we have changed. We have changed and if we're not in an environment that supports us as the new...
version of us with new boundaries, with new responsibilities, with new commitments, with new priorities and I think perhaps that's an elephant in the room because you know our kids are our number one priority. You know I spent lots of time in neonatal wards in Great Ormond Street Hospital with my boys and you can't tell me that any single parent in that hospital is prioritising work like they're just not like when push comes to shove.
Our career may have been everything and a big part of our identity before, but when the kids come along, especially if you've had kids that have had health issues, then just keeping those kids well is just number one. Like everything else takes a step backwards.
Erin Thomas Wong (18:38)
100 % and you know that does not make us any less ambitious but you're right kids come first there's no one else that's going to put our kids first. Could you share a little bit with us about what it was like to give birth to triplets and then the journey that that took you on?
Leila Green (18:57)
It was crazy. So I'd lost two babies before this third pregnancy and this was a high risk pregnancy so all the way through the doctors were very clear that this complication could happen, that complication thing could happen, this horrible thing outcome, you could have premature labour, they may not be viable, you may not make it to 24 weeks. So it was heightened anxiety all the way through and I was being scanned every two weeks.
And in the first kind of anomaly scan I had, which lasted three hours, I actually had a panic attack because when you've lost babies before, you know that every scan you go into, there's a chance that this is gonna be the one where they give you the bad news. And it's trauma, really. It's your body is going back to a trauma that it associates with a specific place and a specific experience.
And it's really hard, but I kind of had to get used to that because it was just so frequent but amazingly they all grew very well, and I had them at a planned c-section in week 33 which is a really big deal if you're carrying Twins or triplets the longer you can keep them inside you the healthier they're likely to be and So getting to 24 weeks is a real milestone because that's kind of a viability point
But even after that, like I had a major bleed at 27 weeks and they were prepping me for labour then. But I knew if they came out then, they just weren't ready to be here. You know, they would end up with complications and challenges that I didn't want for them. And I wanted to try and keep them in me for as long as possible. Because also once they're in incubators, they don't develop at the same rate. So, you know, they...
the fanciest equipment in the world can't replicate a womb. You know, the womb's just amazing, right? So the artificial version can't do such a good job, so I wanted to give them the chance to develop and be as healthy as possible, really, before they came. So yeah, we had 28 medics in the room. It was pretty intense. It all went to plan. I got to, they wheeled them past me in little incubators which have porthole windows.
So I got to touch two of them and one of them who didn't need oxygen support I actually got to hold for a minute. And then they wheeled them off to neonatal intensive care and they wheeled me off to recovery. And I knew that was gonna happen but it was still a wrench because we'd been together, like we'd been a team, like this whole way we'd been a team and they'd take them away from me. Like as soon as they've arrived and that.
It was something that I tried to prepare myself mentally for and I knew it was going to be hard but when it happened it just felt so wrong and then like my husband went with the babies and he was like WhatsApping me videos from the neonatal intensive care while I was in recovery and I was like I shouldn't be finding out about the babies I've just had on like a family group WhatsApp. I should be there. I should be holding their hands. I should see them wriggle and whatever they're doing.
but I knew they wouldn't let me until I was well enough to sit in a wheelchair. So by the end of that day, like I'm very determined. I spent all day like wiggling my toes, like come on anaesthetic, leave my body, I can do this. So I kind of just about managed to make it into a wheelchair but then pretty much passed out when I got to nicu because I wasn't really well enough to do it but it just felt so horrible to be separated.
Erin Thomas Wong (22:27)
cannot imagine the trauma of that. I had an emergency c-section, but this sounds horrific. And how did that, you know, those early days and obviously spending all that time in hospital, like how did that affect you? Like how were you mentally during that time?
Leila Green (22:46)
At the time, I thought I was alright. I think mums go into a coping mode, where somehow, whatever crazy scenarios and whatever really difficult decisions we have to make, we're just in it. We can do it, we can cope, can advocate for our children with that consultant, we can do what needs to be done. But that's kind of...
using up all of our energy, you know, we're sort of in that mode and you know when people say well how do do it with triplets and I think like you know a lot of mums could because you just go into that mode don't you where it's like lives are depending on me I'm not gonna moan about it I'm gonna get on and you know get what needs to be done done so I think at the time well that the first the first few days were really really tough
because I was in one part of the hospital in a ward where all the mums had their babies and my babies were in a different part of the hospital and I wasn't mobile. So I was dependent on there being a spare nurse and a spare wheelchair for me to go and see my babies. And you know what busy London hospitals are like, like the chances of these two resources being freely available are really limited. So that was really tough. And then they separated them.
So they were born on the Friday and on the Monday they sent two of them to another hospital. So me and one of them were in one hospital and two of them had gone to another and that was like the worst day of my life. I wailed in that neonatal intensive care unit. Like I just didn't even care. I'd lost all sense of, know, I think especially when you've just been through birth, like you don't filter your emotion. It's like you're around people who are just screaming and crying. And so I just, cried myself to absolute exhaustion that day.
I had no say in it, like you have no agency. They're just like, well we need the bed here, so we're moving them somewhere else. And it was harrowing. That day was absolutely harrowing. So they took one of my babies in the morning and I cried myself to the point of exhaustion, to the point that I just had to go and lie down. And then I got a message while I was in my bed saying I better run up and see the other one now because they were taking him.
and I didn't actually manage to hold those two babies before they were moved to another hospital in a different part of town and I felt guilt for that. So for me, like, you the guilt starts really early because if I hadn't cried myself to exhaustion, I could have probably been in the game a bit more and maybe advocated and found someone to help me hold my baby. So I felt really, really awful at that point. And then the next day we were all reunited again. So it was only one day we were separated, but honestly.
it feels horrific and people were saying you know it's just because your milk's coming in you're feeling a bit hormonal. It's like no it's not it's because they've taken my babies.
Erin Thomas Wong (25:35)
I'm so sorry that you went through that. It's heartbreaking. you can tell it's still so, these feelings, they don't go away. mean, maybe they get slightly less as the years go on. So the boys are five now, are they? Very good. okay.
Leila Green (25:41)
Nah.
Yeah.
No, there are only two actually. yeah,
there'll be three this July. it's, you know, it has been a couple of years and just kind of linking back to your beginning question, when I was saying mum's going to that coping mode, I didn't realise for over a year that I had PTSD from that whole, not just that, but the five weeks that they were in hospital of like, you I actually spoke about this last night and it's something I'm going to speak about for maternal mental health week.
that one in three women describe their birth as traumatic, but hardly any women that have maternal PTSD even know they have it. Like the diagnosis rates are really low and we're just kind of wandering around and no one and everyone's kind of, well the health visitors are saying, you're fine, pat on the back, tick tick tick, assessment, you're doing great job. And you're like, yeah, but I'm not okay. And they're like, no, no, you're fine, tick tick tick tick tick. And there's a lot of us, I think, that.
have struggled with what happened in birth and the early weeks that are just completely kind of unsupported and it takes time for you to even kind of process what you've been through and be like hang on a minute I don't think I'm okay about that. ā
Erin Thomas Wong (27:00)
I've got two things to share there. One is, so I did, I had two years of counselling stemming from my birth experience. And that's the only reason that I was able to have a second child because I was so scared of going through it again. But that I didn't start that counselling until he was almost a year old. So like you say, I was just trying to get on with it, but I did have the most amazing doctor.
Leila Green (27:21)
Hmm.
Erin Thomas Wong (27:25)
I remember, so I had an emergency C-section. We came home and I think it like we'd only been home a few days and I basically kept feeling like I was going to get paralysed and that if I fell asleep, I wouldn't be able to move. And we'd gone to the GP and I remember it's the first time we'd taken the baby out. So, you know, we'd loaded up the pram and all this kind of stuff. And I had my husband with me and I had my mother-in-law with me.
Leila Green (27:46)
I made it.
Erin Thomas Wong (27:50)
me and my husband went into the GP's office and he was such a lovely guy, he was a dad himself. And I said to him, I feel like I'm gonna get paralysed, like I've got this really weird feeling down my back and I'm wondering whether it's to do with the epidural that I had. And he just said, would you say that you're quite an anxious person? And I just burst into tears.
He jumped off his chair, knelt down on the floor and held my hands. And it was so amazing. And my husband, him, was sat there like, didn't know what to do. He was just like frozen. But this amazing doctor, and I called him Dr. Dreamy, he held my hands and let me cry. And then he said to me, I want you to come back on Friday.
Leila Green (28:21)
ā that's a lovely story.
Erin Thomas Wong (28:43)
during my lunch break and we'll just sit and have a chat. And how amazing, and I will never forget him, you know, but the problem is, is that now, like you say, the services are so stretched, you know, how many people have that experience that I had, just one person knowing that he cared and that he got how I was feeling. It was really special.
Leila Green (28:47)
was great.
Yeah.
And some people wouldn't even have the courage to go to the doctors because they might be thinking, I don't know, I won't be taken seriously or it's all in my head or, you know, there's a barrier before even an interaction with a medic and then once you have that interaction with the medic, whether you're bad enough or severe enough to then be put down a pathway or not is another barrier and I think then mums feel like almost that guilt. It's like, well if I'm...
if I'm experiencing this mildly, I shouldn't take up a spot for someone who might be experiencing it more severely than me. Where actually, you we're all deserving of support. I'm glad that you had such a lovely doctor.
Erin Thomas Wong (29:46)
Yeah,
we must advocate for ourselves. you know, we must, must, and with the NHS, way it is, we have to push, we have to push. And I think that, you know, it's, everyone says it's such a special time when you become a mum. And actually it's really flipping hard and it brings up loads of stuff. And if you're not feeling right, you need to speak up and you need to get that support. Like, you know, we don't need to struggle on.
Leila Green (30:04)
Yeah.
Erin Thomas Wong (30:15)
So tell me how we can break up with mum guilt. What can we do?
Leila Green (30:22)
Well, I've put a little four part plan together. And I think it's not something that is like a magic wand that you can just do it, you listen to this podcast and you'll be done with it tomorrow. But it's a practice, it's a mindset practice. And it is a choice. I experiencing mum guilt is inevitable in today's society. The judgment comes at us from all angles. And then what ends up happening is that we absorb that judgment. So even if it's not something we consciously believe.
Like I don't consciously believe that a good mum should have a tidy home. Somewhere in my mind, in my understanding, I have absorbed that and then I will feel like a failure when my kitchen looks like my kitchen does right now. You know? So there's just so much judgement. I think that's where all the mum guilt is stemmed from. And so the first piece for me is acceptance, not expectation. And we touched on that expectations. And expectations are often unhealthily high.
that we place on ourselves and colleagues, those around us might also be placing on us and rather than thinking I wish I would have been able to do baby sensory or whatever the thing is that you think I wish I'd be able to make organic food from scratch every day that was my expectation just actually kind of accepting where you are and your starting point today and this was really important for us with triplets because you you might have the expectation that you'll be able to do
all of these amazing baby activities and go to these amazing things but actually the reality is you can't leave the house, okay? So we need to accept where we are today that we can't even get on public transport because our pram is too massive. So all of those lovely things that you thought you'd be doing on mat leave, they're not gonna happen, you know? And actually kind of constantly harping on about that alternative reality that you thought was gonna be so great or that you thought you should be able to achieve. It doesn't actually help. It kind of makes you feel bad no matter.
what you're managing to achieve. I think those being aware of those unhealthily high expectations for mums and coming back to something that is more realistic for you in all areas is a really important one. The second one, this comes from kind of my entrepreneurial life and priorities not perfection. So if you've run busy teams, if you've been stretched, if you've been over capacity, if you've been managing projects, you'll know what I'm talking about. That sometimes
You just need to think about what's really important to you and it's what's aligned to you. So you're not going to be able to do everything as well as the Instagram supermummers are, you know. Because they're also not one person. know, the supermummer on Instagram that has an amazing interiors account and her home looks like a hotel is not the same one who's like the behavioral expert, is not the same one who's like the nutrition expert, you know. And we're trying to be all of these people.
We've amalgamated them into someone who's not even real. And I think it's really key to know what's important to you and actually being okay with ditching everything else. So for me, nutrition was really important because my boys were three and a half pounds when they were born. They were always really low birth weight. Feeding was a battle. And so when we weaned, I made all their food or me and my mum made all their food. And because that took a lot of time, I was okay with other things.
not happening, like the laundry, the general state of my house, the general state of myself, you know, because I'd made a decision to choose that one thing. And we have to do that in business as well, you know, what are we gonna do this quarter? There's so many exciting opportunities, but we have to actually think, well, if I'm gonna do the one thing I really want to do, I have to be okay with failing in other areas. And that kind of leads onto the next one, which is compassion, not comparison, because if you've decided that the thing you're gonna let go,
is not doing swimming. And you can't keep comparing yourself to all of the kids splashing around in the pool having a good time every time you walk past them at the gym because you've made the conscious decision that that's not your thing. So I think there needs to be a lot more compassion in motherhood generally, compassion to others, less judgment and compassion to ourselves and especially with social media.
it can be really easy, even when we're trying to be quite mentally strong, you end up slipping into that comparison. And I think this can happen on LinkedIn as well. You when we're starting businesses or we're doing something slightly alternative, you're comparing yourself on LinkedIn to people who are phenomenally successful. You don't have triplets. You've been doing this for like 10 years, you've got massive audiences, and you know this, consciously you know this, but somehow you just...
get caught up in the whole carousel of it again. So that comparison can come in in parenting, can come in in entrepreneurship, it can come in in earnings, in how many people are seeing your posts, and it's really something I think to keep an eye on. Have you experienced that?
Erin Thomas Wong (35:08)
Yeah, and I was going to say one of my favourite quotes is don't compare someone else's front stage to your backstage. Because, you know, that's what we're seeing on social media. know, when I really, I love seeing people that are actually authentic and, you know, sharing the real the realities of their life and business. But it, you know, even if you don't mean to, your life can look amazing to other people from from the outside. And
Leila Green (35:16)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Erin Thomas Wong (35:36)
Yeah, it is, it's really important that we try and kind of put our blinkers on a little bit to that and just get on. And like we were saying at the beginning, you you decide what's important to you. You decide what success looks like to you and you just go for it and try and put the blinkers on of what everyone else is doing.
Leila Green (35:49)
Yeah.
Yeah, because comparison is the thief of joy and no matter how good a job you're doing in any sphere of life, if you really want to, you can find someone online doing it better. It's a zero sum game, you're always gonna lose that one. And also with that, to give yourself the recognition for what an amazing job you're doing in really challenging circumstances. All mums are juggling challenging circumstances to one degree or another and we don't often kind of stop.
and recognise that actually, you know, we pulled off a lot like in the last month, week, year, whatever. And often other people aren't going to stop and pat us on the back. So we need to stop and pat ourselves on the back.
Erin Thomas Wong (36:32)
100 % as you know, that's the thing, isn't it? When
you're self-employed, you don't have a boss to pat you on the back. You don't have a family that necessarily that are going to reflect back to you that you're doing a great job. know, one of the biggest things I think for me was in my kind of journey of personal development has been about validation from within and taking that time to be like, do you know what? And I'd,
Leila Green (36:44)
and if it won't, we'll make.
you
Erin Thomas Wong (36:57)
I really love what you said earlier on about basically this is the situation you're in right now. This is a moment in time and we need to adapt and have acceptance over this is where we are. And of course, many of us are in a sandwich generation where our kids are going to start growing up and then we're to be looking after our parents. So it's about having that kind of flexible approach to what we're doing and giving ourselves that grace of
Leila Green (37:03)
Yeah, accepting business.
Erin Thomas Wong (37:24)
We're actually holding this massive invisible load right now that other people can't see.
Leila Green (37:29)
Yeah, and will probably not thank you for. And I think, you what you said about the sandwich generation there, that does come back to acceptance, not expectations. Because if you thought, I'd be able to do XYZ with my business this year, I'd be able to go to America and do a big talk and everything else. And it's like, well, actually I can't now because my mum needs me. There's no point thinking, it's not fair. All the other people, all the amazing speakers getting flown over there, look what they can do. They don't have my problems. They don't have my mum to deal with. Because you're then...
sort of too attached to that alternative reality which is not, it's creating friction because where you actually are right now is needing to look after your mum.
Erin Thomas Wong (38:08)
resentment and living with that feeling of resentment is toxic and so we need to release that don't we and because it's just not good for us you know it's we're sabotaging ourselves.
Leila Green (38:10)
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, it's not.
Yeah, and the final one, which we kind of touched on, is intuition, not instruction. So I feel like there are so many shoulds in motherhood. Like, you should do this, you should do this, the best way of doing that is this, you should do this. And people come at you from like all angles, you know? Like, before I was a mum, I didn't have to put up with this like feedback from society all the time, like everyone's got an opinion. You should breastfeed, you should bottle feed, you should co-sleep, you shouldn't co-sleep. It's like a people pleaser's nightmare.
because you literally can't keep anyone happy no matter what you do and when you're feeling a bit vulnerable when you're exhausted when you don't have much support and guidance as a new mum it's really easy to get swept up in that and to get fixed ideas like this is how it should be done because someone on Instagram told me I remember one particular reel I saw that said you should spend the first 40 days in bed lying down with your baby
And was like, not even gonna get out of hospital in 40 days. Does that mean I'm a bad mum? Like, who are you? Miss Instagram reel having a lovely time with your baby to tell me that that means my bonding is gonna be compromised. You know, there's so much out there that is not necessarily balanced information and we're vulnerable to it. And we don't trust ourselves, I think, in the early days. I didn't trust myself. I didn't feel like I knew.
how to look after very needy, incredibly premature babies, so even when they came home, it wasn't their due date. So they were still not really ready to be in the world, and they were incredibly distressed. And it was really hard, and I didn't trust myself at that point in time. I remember my husband actually saying, like, I think we need to call the hospital and tell them that they shouldn't have discharged these two.
Erin Thomas Wong (40:07)
right.
Leila Green (40:08)
out of our depth here, no, this isn't right, this isn't it, you know? And actually, if you kind of just sort of detach yourself and have a bit more faith that you know what's right for you and make that decision regardless of if you're mother-in-law or whoever says, oh, but you should be doing it this way, you should be doing it that way. So I say, you should listen out for the should show, you know, any time someone else says you should be or you start telling yourself you should be.
Like that's a little internal reference point to be like, hang on a minute, what do I really want? Like if someone's like, you should be going back to work full time, you should be doing part time, you should be doing that, you should be doing this. It's absolutely exhausting. And I think, you know, we really do know what's right for us, whether that's starting a new business or making a relatively controversial parenting choice, like my kids are pretty much screen free, which gets reactions from people where, you know, to me, that's not a big deal. It's just like, okay, this is...
this is what works for us. Like, I'm a vegetarian, I don't think that's pretty controversial, but my kids don't eat meat, for some people that's big deal. But it's all about just making these series of decisions that just work for you. And I think when you're making them from the heart, they're much easier to defend, You do have to defend them, because people come and challenge mums for some reason. We can't just say, okay, right, that works for you, get on with it. Like, we've got to stick our oar in.
and say, but you should be doing it this way, you should be doing that, and actually, we just need to give ourselves a break from all of that, I think.
Erin Thomas Wong (41:36)
I mean, what's coming up for me there is, and I wonder whether this is the hormonal thing as well, but like, I didn't trust myself. I didn't know what my intuition was. And I wonder whether, you know, in that first year as well, we're so consumed with all the hormonal stuff going on that it's really hard. you know, I, thinking about, you know, the word guilt as well, I definitely felt like a failure. I felt like a failure for having an emergency C-section because I thought I'd have a natural birth.
Leila Green (41:42)
Mm.
Erin Thomas Wong (42:01)
and all those things and then my milk
Leila Green (42:04)
Sorry
to interrupt you, that's the acceptance not expectation. We have the expectation of how the birth is and then the reality and we've got a conflict.
Erin Thomas Wong (42:11)
Yeah, and the expectation that I was gonna be an Earth mother and I was gonna breastfeed and I bought myself a scarf and I'd already looked up which cafes like, know, champion breastfeeding and then I couldn't breastfeed and I felt like such a failure. And then, you know, both my kids, neither of them slept through the night until they were three and a half years old.
So I would go to these baby groups and there'd be people there and know, subjects would sleep and there'd be these mums going, yeah, mine sleep through the night. And I would just be like, And it just made me feel like absolute crap. And so I think, I absolutely agree with everything you're saying. And I'm wondering whether, you know, it does take like the, if people are listening to this and they've got a three month old and they're thinking, I don't know.
Leila Green (42:47)
Yeah.
Erin Thomas Wong (42:59)
I can't trust myself. Maybe this is part of that, the matresence of becoming a mother, all the hormonal stuff, and that you can't see the wood for the trees. And so you're kind of like, you know, trying to grasp out for people's advice. And then you get to a point where you're like, do you know what? I can trust myself again. Maybe that's a process we go through.
Leila Green (43:22)
think actually that getting all of the people's advice and the Google noise and the TikTok noise and whatever else is not helpful. So if you are in a position where you're feeling a bit bamboozled, I felt bamboozled by all of the, you should do it this way, you should do this, this is, and also the product, it's the marketing copy is phenomenally well written. So you know, before you know it, you've spent thousands of pounds on John Lewis, because otherwise your baby's gonna die, you know? And actually, I think,
What I do is when I need to make a big decision or I really need to listen to myself is I come off socials. So over Easter I needed to make a really big decision about whether we're gonna move house and buy a house in a totally new area where I don't know anyone and it's gonna be a completely different life for my boys. And just so that I could concentrate on making the right big decision for us, I detached for a week and I decided to go for it. But sometimes you're just aware that you don't want to be influenced, you know?
And it's harder to trust that you're right if you're putting yourself in a room full of everyone saying, no it's this way, no it's that way, no it's this way, no it's that way. And sometimes actually just getting away from all that, even if it's well intentioned, because a friend or family member who's not been in your situation, like for instance, has never done a single day with looking after triplets, who pipes up with what you're doing wrong and what you should be doing instead. Really, they don't know and I think...
If you're finding it hard to listen to yourself, turn down the noise on the others.
Erin Thomas Wong (44:50)
Absolutely. So how can we keep this conversation going? How can people get involved with this campaign to break free of mum guilt?
Leila Green (45:01)
Well, my main platform is LinkedIn, so I'm Leila Green on LinkedIn. I'm sharing these wonderful t-shirts that we're both wearing. And I think it's really about conversations, know, getting the conversation going, know, sharing something on social media, tagging me into it, like having open conversations, because I feel like whilst it's lurking in the shadows, it's got too much power over us, and I feel a bit like a vampire that we need to kind of get it out in the open.
and I'm trying to get conversations going with all different types of mums, kind of really representative of people doing all sorts of different things with their life to say, yeah, I experience it too. Like I might be an Olympic athlete, but I experience it. Or I might be doing this and I experience it. To just kind of break the taboo really around the whole thing. Because whilst we're all at home feeling terrible, individually, isolated, lonely, you know, we're not really gonna change anything.
Erin Thomas Wong (45:55)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'd love those listening and watching to share this episode with people that they think need to hear this as well. And so you're also in a book with Stacey Dooley. So tell us a little bit about that.
Leila Green (46:01)
Yeah.
Yep.
So before I had my babies, my background is book publishing. I've been an editor and a book writing coach forever, but I'd never actually written myself. And then the opportunity came up to share, to write a letter to my children, which is an amazing thing to do. I would recommend anyone to do this as a kind of cathartic process. Write down what your motherhood journey was, how you felt when you were pregnant, how you felt when you were in hospital.
how hard it was in the beginning so that later on in life when they're adults they will understand. And I found it a really lovely thing to write so I just thought well I'll write it and see if they like it. And Stacey did like it so she interviewed me and then recently we had an event in London which was Stacey and Anna Whitehouse who has the Mother Pukka brand and me on stage talking about mum guilt amongst other things.
So I think it's great that more high profile mums can now be part of the conversation, because the way celebrity culture is, you kind of need them to lead a little bit. And they get a lot of flak. They get a lot of flak for working. They get a lot of flak for going away without their kids. They're trolled, really. In some respects, it's harder to be a high profile mum, because even your
average everyday mum is going to get loads of judgement and told what she's doing wrong and finger pointing and all the rest of it but if you're already like got your head above the parapet you basically got a target on your head so I'm hoping there'll be a kind of sea change where some of these some of these mums like Frankie like there's a few celebrities at the moment who have actually said no I'm going on holiday my husband is looking after my kids for the weekend
We're all good. I'm going on holiday because if I don't, my mental health will suffer. You know? And that should be okay.
Erin Thomas Wong (48:00)
Absolutely and this is where women supporting women comes in as well. We have to champion each other and lift each other up and keep this conversation going because it's so important. so the book is called Dear Minnie, I will put the link below the episode as well with your LinkedIn and also the, and so on Instagram, you are @tripped_up_mama with underscores.
Leila Green (48:22)
I am indeed, yeah.
Erin Thomas Wong (48:24)
and also the link to the t-shirts as well. So if anyone would like to buy a t-shirt and do their own post and tag us both in it, that would be amazing. Brilliant. Thank you so much and thank you for sharing your incredible story and good luck with the campaign.
Leila Green (48:31)
Yeah that would be really cool.
Thank you so much for the space to talk about something that's so important to me.
Erin Thomas Wong (48:43)
You're welcome.
