Are we ignoring the non-parents? with Lisa Kissane

In today’s episode, I got the chance to geek out with a fellow youth professional, Lisa Kissane. Lisa is a website and sales page copywriter for service-based businesses that are dedicated to doing good for others. With her background as a social worker, we bonded over the importance of having a sense of purpose in our work.

Lisa shared her experiences of feeling unrepresented as a woman without children—in literature, community, and even in language. She took us through her inspiring journey of developing a book club for non-mothers and the wider community she’s building. She’s the founder of Flow: The Non-Parent Network, a business networking group for people who don't have kids.

Our conversation opened up intriguing avenues around cultural reference points, labels, assumptions, and the terminology we use every day—plus JD Vance's stab at childless cat ladies.

Join us as we dive into an exploration of roles, nuance, and the significance of community!

Follow Lisa on LinkedIn
The Full Stop Community
Childless Collective
Flow: The Non-Parent Network (sign up for updates) - Launching soon
The NoMo Book Club - shining a light on literature featuring (and written by) non-mothers

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Transcript

Peta: 1:20

Today, I got the chance to geek out with a fellow youth professional. And you all get to listen in. Lisa Kissane is a copywriter for service-based businesses. People who are doing good for other people. And she used to be a social worker. We bonded over the importance of having a sense of purpose in your work. And Lisa shared how she felt unrepresented as a woman, without children in literature, in community, and even in language. She took us through the story of developing her own book club for non mothers. And the wider community that she's building. Our chat opened up so many interesting avenues. Around our cultural reference points, labels, assumptions, and the terminology that we use every day. Oh, and JD Vance's stab at childless cat ladies. So, listen in for an exploration of roles and nuance and community. And hear Lisa get on her soap box. Lisa, thank you so much for joining us on the soapbox. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

Lisa: 2:21

Thank you. Yeah, it's lovely to be here.

Peta: 2:23

So, we connected through the wonderful world of online copywriters which is like this tangled web of wonderful people who all pop up at different points and I end up meeting fabulous human beings. So, but for those of you, for those of our listeners who haven't had the opportunity to meet you, can you tell them a bit about who you are, what you do, and how you got here? And

Lisa: 2:46

Yeah, as you said, I am a copywriter. I'm quite new to the world. So I am still meeting all those lovely people, but yeah, we are a really, really wonderful bunch, aren't we? So I worked in various different jobs over my life. I was a social worker for a little while and I worked in account management, but then I decided that I wanted to have my own business. I wanted to be in control of my own time. So I started my copywriting business about a year and a half ago, and then six months ago I went full time with that so that's now what I do all day every day and it's wonderful. Yeah, so I write, I write websites, mostly and it's for service based businesses, people that are doing good for other people. So things like photographers who are helping people with their confidence financial advisors who are helping people to get financial stability, anyone who's sort of improving people's well being in the not so obvious ways I'm here and I help write their website and get the message across. So that's what I do professionally. Okay.

Peta: 3:43

I love the idea that you focus on service based businesses who are helping people. And as someone who, um, who came from a youth work background, so similar to your social work one, I think, yeah, making that journey from something that's so vocational to something in the business space is often hard to navigate. And I love that you've kept that kind of sense of purpose.

Lisa: 4:04

Yeah, absolutely. My social work training you can probably attest to this with your youth work training, but it really took me apart and put me back together again. It was, um, it was a real watershed moment in my life where I turned into, I turned from sort of being a young, you know, quite arrogant person to being like a really well rounded empathetic person. So yeah, I've got a really, I think I've got a really good handle on empathy and helping people to feel good about themselves and wellbeing and that whole space. So yes, it's just something I really love.

Peta: 4:31

Oh, excellent. And so Lisa, you listened to the podcast before, we were just chatting about that before we started recording. So, you know, that the whole point is to get people to jump up on their soap boxes and talk about the things that keep them up at night. So they end up in the corner of parties talking people's ear off about for hours and hours. So can you tell us what is your soap box?

Lisa: 4:53

Yeah, so I should probably give a bit more background about that before I jump straight onto my soapbox. So it's about childlessness but it's much broader than that. So I met my now husband when I was in my late twenties. We tried to do all the things that, you know, you're supposed to do. We wanted to have a baby. That didn't happen for us. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with, uh, premature ovarian. Failure, which is quite the tongue twister, but it basically means early menopause. So, when I was in my early thirties, I was told that I was going through the menopause and that the chances of having a baby of my own were very, very low. So there wasn't really a defining moment. At which I became childless and I'll talk in a moment about the terminology around that. But it was more of a sort of a slow slide and decline into this really awful griefy place where society was telling me that the only way I could have value as a woman was to have a baby, and my body was just not not doing that. I wasn't able to do that. So I was, okay, I'm going to get tongue tied now because it's quite emotive for me that it's, it's, it's a difficult time of my life. That's really hard to talk about. But basically we eventually decided that we weren't going to continue to try to have a baby. We tried lots of different things and we decided eventually that Okay, enough is enough. I can't keep living in this horrible place where I just feel like I'm not good enough all the time. And things that I felt was supposed to happen, weren't happening. So we came out of that place and I, I was, I was searching for support. Basically I was looking for other people that understood other people that had been through similar journeys. And it wasn't an easy thing to find back then. And I'm talking, you know, Eight, nine years ago now the online space wasn't what it is today. And there wasn't lots and lots of people talking about this, but eventually I did find a place. It was called gateway women back then. It's now called a childless collective. And it's an online community space where people who are childless, not by choice, come together, talk about our experiences, talk about life afterwards. So it wasn't just about, I'd sort of transitioned from all of the Google searches I was doing were about how to conceive. What, what crazy things can I try to try and get pregnant to actually how do I live a life? without the baby that I wanted. So I found this space, I found this community and it was a real eye opener just to be able to be in a space where there were so many people that really understood the struggle that I've been through. So as I kind of climbed back out of my, my little greasy pit I started to notice things. I I've always been someone who reads lots and lots for pleasure. I love to read. I love to get a dive deep in stories and around about this time I started to notice a pattern and it was that all of the stories I was reading. either the women had babies or if they didn't have babies they were bitter spinsters or crazy cat ladies and all of these tropes that um, you're smiling because you know what i'm talking about

Peta: 7:57

Yeah, totally. Oh

Lisa: 8:00

so there was this there was this serious lack there was it was like a huge gap so either you were a mother or you were a crazy old cat lady there was no in between there was no nuance and so when i did find stories that represented me and people like me, I really shouted about it and I really got really excited about it. So I started an Instagram, Instagram account called the NoMo Book Club and NoMo is non mothers. And that was a phrase coined by Jodie Day. And I just started to talk about books where The women were living lives like I was where we maybe tried to have a baby and didn't, or often more often it was just about people that just didn't have a baby that there wasn't really an exploration of how they got there. It was just, you know, a 50 year old woman has an adventure, and she doesn't have kids, but they were so few and far between that it really felt like I needed to shout from the rooftops about it when I found them. And that community on Instagram became really popular. Within the first few months, there was almost a thousand followers. So I started to notice that people really wanted this. And I had lots of conversations. And that became something really special to me. It was around about that time that my dad died unexpectedly. Which just threw me right back into grief and pain and I withdrew from the community that had given me so much they were, they were amazing, but I couldn't engage with them anymore. I was dealing with a completely different type of grief. And I spent the next couple of years just sort of processing that, dealing with that. And I handed the book club over to someone else in the community. She's kept that going. She is amazing. We're still in touch. She's grown it to over 2000 followers. She's got side projects going on. She's incredible. So that's continued without me at the helm. But when I came out of that really griefy place after losing my dad, I came back to the childless community. I came back to the places that had supported me through. the pain of before. And I'll just mention the full stop, which is a podcast specifically aimed at people who are childless, not by choice. And they, during the time that I was away, they developed a community base as well. So there are podcasts or a community space. There's a couple of people in there that I'd consider really good friends. So when I felt able to, I wanted to sort of reenter society, I came to them and they supported me and they were incredible. So that was. Nearly three years ago now and in that time I'm having lots of conversations with people and I'm starting to see change and it's slow but it's happening and the representation of people who don't have parents is getting a little bit of airtime now. And I've made a note, I'm just looking at my screen because I've made a note to talk about the Taylor Swift article. And it's, it's interesting that we've booked this when we did because literally that's, that's happened in the last few weeks. So there was an article I believe it was a Newsweek in the US where a man said that Taylor Swift was a bad role model because she's childless and unmarried at the age of 34. And yeah,

Peta: 11:08

this thing made me so angry.

Lisa: 11:09

yeah, it's, it's. baffling. It's beyond words because she is literally one of the most successful people of our time. She's a multi billionaire. She does so much for charity. She's an incredible pop star. And yet her value in this article has been reduced to the fact that she's unmarried and childless. Now, I do want to talk about the labels because I've been saying childless throughout, but there's lots of, different ways that non parent can be categorized. I try to use non parent these days because, because of all the nuance, because of, you know, the reason that so many of us end up here. But just to clarify, childless is often used when it's not a choice. So for me, I wanted to have a baby. I couldn't because my body couldn't. So I'm childless and not by choice is the sort of no matter the case, I'm into that. And then there's child free. And that's a completely different movement, a completely different set of people, but I think that there's ways that we can all come together. So child free. sort of denotes a choice. They've decided that they don't want to have children. And there's lots and lots of reasons for that, of course. But I think it's a spectrum. So I I call myself childless, but there have been times where my husband and I have chosen not to pursue a certain thing or go down a certain route. And so there, I feel like maybe I'm child free because I've made a choice not to pursue IVF, for example. So I think that there is a spectrum and we change and we are needs and I want to change through our life. It's not as binary as childless child, free parent. So, yeah, non parent seems to be the terminology that's kind of coming out now to just differentiate us from parents in that we don't have children and that in itself gives us a different lifestyle, a different set of circumstances. Um, yeah. So, so it's a journey for everyone. Everyone who ends up in later life, either as a parent or as a non parent, it's a journey, right? So to call us child free or childless, I think is a little bit too binary. Our needs change, our wants change, our situations change, but they're, has been an assumption. If you wanted Children, but you didn't have them, then you didn't want it enough. So I've seen lots of things that sort of explain us as you're either a parent or your child free, because if you didn't have Children, you know, you didn't want it enough. There's always a way of having a child if you want it badly enough, and I just I strongly disagree with that. It came down to me. It was a choice between having a baby. and keeping my mental health and my sense of self intact. And I, I made that choice at that time. I made that choice that I was going to stop trying because I could feel myself just withering away into grief and nothing. And I needed to pull myself out of that. And I, and I didn't feel like, yeah, it might've been a choice, but it wasn't a nice choice. I've got friends who have Supposedly made the choice because of like diseases in the family that they wouldn't want to pass on to a child. So yes, that's a choice. They've, they've decided not to have a baby because they don't want to pass that on. But really, is that a choice? Is that, you know, that's not something that they're going to celebrate. That's, it's a really, really difficult decision for a lot of people. So, yeah, I guess my,

Peta: 14:23

Sorry.

Lisa: 14:24

no, no, go on.

Peta: 14:25

That

Lisa: 14:26

rest my voice. Mm

Peta: 14:28

even the language and the vocabulary around choice. implies, I mean, I mean, it doesn't obviously, it doesn't explicitly say, but it implies wherever we put it, that you wholeheartedly jump over one side of the fence on that choice. And that means that you, that you have no regrets, that you've, that you've kind of weighed everything up and that everything on this side of the fence is what you want. And that everything on that side of the fence where you've not jumped. isn't what you want. It also implies that there aren't any structural and societal kind of implications and, and things that weigh on your choice. But it's, yeah, so this idea that you have made that choice, and that means that you've rejected everything else. It's like, life is so much more complex than that.

Lisa: 15:20

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's nuance in everything, isn't there? And yeah, that is absolutely the case. Um, I think that the risk of divisiveness between people is quite high here. So as we were saying about the choice, people who you know, they see you as either a parent or not a parent and that's a choice. That's not accurate. And it doesn't explain people's individual and unique human experiences. We all have our own very unique journeys that we go on and to divide us like that, it's not helpful to anyone. You know, there are things about our lives that we can share with others. So I will talk to non parent friends and we will connect over the fact that you know, we don't have to get up for the school run. Whereas parents might connect over the fact that they do have to get the school run or that their children go to the same school or whatever it might be. And I think it's just the representation. I'm going to come back to my soapbox, which is the representation. It's about helping wider society be everyone for their unique stories and for the things that they bring to the world outside of whether they biologically have children or whatever. And there's, you know, comments that hurt. So people who say. You know, well, why can't you just adopt and that's that comes up a lot when I talk to other particularly childless people because that's that's often a reaction to someone being told, Okay, I can't, you can't have children. Oh, how am I gonna, how am I going to fix this, you know, because human beings we want to fix don't we want to correct and make things okay. And so comments like, well, can't you just adopt? Or, well, it will happen when the time is right. Those things are really, really hurtful, particularly for people who are in a position where they feel that they have to make a choice between having a baby and meeting society's expectations and living a life of peace and living a life of feeling Like everything's going to be okay. And I, I went through that stage and it was difficult and it didn't happen overnight and it took me probably a few years to get there. But the thing that really helped me was finding others who bought it. And when I say others that get it, I'm not talking about lots of other women who've gone through early menopause. I'm talking about other women who have gotten to the age of 40 and don't have children and know what that feels like. And the reasons I've said it before, the reasons we get there, are as varied as we are as human beings. So, you know, just, we need to just stop making assumptions about people. We need to stop assuming that all women are going to be mothers or that if they're not that their, their value to society is somehow less. And I'm going to come back to Taylor Swift how anyone could call her less of anything is just beyond me. She is a force of nature. She is just incredible. But she got reduced in this article to be an unmarried childless woman. And that just it's insanity to me.

Peta: 18:14

Well, I mean, yeah, I would quite like to give you a round of applause for that, but that doesn't really, um, go very well on a podcast. It just, it speaks to me of an inability of our society, generally, or mainstream society, to. to know what to do with women who do not fit into boxes.

Lisa: 18:35

Yes. Mm.

Peta: 18:37

And not only women, like we, they don't know what to do with anybody who doesn't fit into a box. But in this particular conversation, we're talking about women. And I think that if Taylor Swift had, I don't know, said that she, that she didn't want to have children and that she didn't want to be in a relationship and that she wanted to stay, stay, stay single in quote marks with her cat and be really rich and successful then I think probably they would have, I mean they would still try and tear her down because it sells papers and that's what they do but I think probably they would have been a little bit, I don't know, softer with it whereas because she's like, She's in a relationship, she writes about love, she does all these things she's not said that she's never going to get married, not said that she's never going to have children, she's not said, like, she crosses too many fences for them to know what to do with her, so their immediate reaction is, Well, you're not doing the things that we think that you should be doing and these are your only options and you've not chosen, like, one of your options. So, like, we have to make you choose or we have to denigrate you for not choosing. Um, yeah,

Lisa: 19:51

It's, it's that ambiguity, isn't it? I think the, the mainstream wider society, they don't like women who are ambiguous. They, they like us to make a choice and stick to it. And because like you say, she hasn't made a decision either way. It's kind of like people are just going, Oh, I don't know what to do with this information. Why can't you just make a decision and, and I really resonate with that because it took me a long time to make the decision to not continue to pursue motherhood. And actually, who has the right to To speculate over someone's decisions like that, it's one of the most personal things you can do. You know, having a baby is a life changing event and we shouldn't have to justify that to anyone. We should never have to justify that. And you know, people who don't have children, we're, we're expected women, again, men, this impacts men as well, but as women, that's my experience, that's what I can talk from. We're expected to be either like aggressively career focused. So, we don't want to have babies because we want to pursue our career. That's not me. I'm not, you know, I run a business. Yes. And I want to be successful in my business, but I also just want to live my life. I just want to potter around in my garden with my dog. I, you know, I don't need to be a CEO of a company. It's like, we can't have one or the other. There has to be a bit in the middle where people can just live their lives in peace, whatever that looks like to them.

Peta: 21:20

yeah, but that doesn't, um, that doesn't, uh, advance capitalism.

Lisa: 21:26

And pronatalism as well, which is another word that comes up is, you know, this idea that. The, the sole purpose of humanity is to perpetuate humanity. And yes, obviously the biology does indicate that but we are not animals. We have come such a long way. There is so much more we can offer the world than just more of us. And, and I'm not quite sure how to put that,'cause that sounds a little bit harsh, but there was a quote that I came across and I, I really wish I could remember who said it, but it was something along the lines of, there are a million things we can do in the world. Having a baby is just one of them. That, because that's it, isn't it? We, the advancements of science and medicine and all of the things like that, people can contribute to that, whether or not they have children, those are the things that are gonna, that are gonna perpetuate and keep the human race going.

Peta: 22:18

Yeah, it's interesting how because we have moved to such a kind of nuclear family slash individualistic idea of what society looks like in a lot of Western countries. It's so very different this whole village community based situation that it used to be, because in a village or slash like community, there were kind of more defined roles for women and men who didn't have children. Yeah.

Lisa: 22:53

Mm

Peta: 22:53

That would, that would still involve things that were integral to that community, whether that was, I don't know, being the village. I mean, I'm being ridiculously stereotypical because I'm not actually an anthropologist, but as much as I would like to be. But like there would be the village wise women or there would be, there would be like aunties or there would be people who are members of your community who are part of that, of your extended family. And they had. understood and defined roles, and they were as varied as they could be. But now we've moved to this very kind of specific, this is the only way that you can, that you can organise this society. And there are no defined roles for people who don't have children, other than being kind of like a ball busting career woman.

Lisa: 23:44

mm

Peta: 23:44

Um, yeah.

Lisa: 23:46

It's interesting as well that you've mentioned obviously we're talking from a very Western perspective here, and we're both in that space. I was talking to someone recently on LinkedIn who just highlighted to me the fact that in Eastern societies, they don't have the, they aren't able to make that choice because there is no other alternative in Eastern societies, you are going to be a mother. Yeah. And that's the end of the sentence that there isn't a or you could do this, or maybe you could do this, and I don't feel qualified at all to talk on this subject very much because it's not my experience. But I think it's really worth just highlighting the fact that in the Western world we are quite privileged that we have those choices, and not everyone has that. And if we think back to, you know, historical times, women were purely there to have babies that was that was our only purpose. We couldn't vote. We couldn't have careers often, you know, and in still in some places in the world, like this exists and we can't go to school and all of those things, because our only purpose is to have babies and give the man an heir. And that, that was the only reason we existed. And I think we are coming away from that here in Western society, but slowly. And yeah, some people just can't seem to let that go.

Peta: 25:04

And like, if we didn't back in those times, if we tried to try a different path, then we would have been executed as witches. So, you know, it wasn't much of a choice, really.

Lisa: 25:12

Absolutely. I wouldn't have hit 40. That's for sure. I mean, at the age of 32, I was told I couldn't have children and that would have been the end of it for me.

Peta: 25:19

Yeah. So in terms of representation for non parents in society, it feels like, it feels like there are more communities popping up. It feels like there, there is a, a better understanding of language that makes parts of that community feel comfortable and, and able to to talk about their experiences. But what about, business. And the reason I ask is because when you, when you pitch this idea to me, I was like, well, firstly, that's completely fascinating. I like talking about interesting things. But then I was like, but all of business is set up for people who don't have children. And that was my immediate reaction. And the reason that I went there was because Being a parent is a huge part of my personal brand. And the reason being a parent is a huge part of my personal brand is because when I started my business back in 2020, firstly, I did it as something that I could fit around my children because we were stuck at home during a pandemic. And like, I couldn't leave them on their own. And one of them was only eight months old. But secondly, because all of the business advice and the time management specifically advice that I came across while I was trying to build my business and to do it effectively and successfully was aimed at non parents. It was an all people without caring responsibilities, this idea that you could get up at 530 or 5am and do things or you, you needed to have a shut off space in your house where you could close the door and not be disturbed or you needed to have kind of set hours of your day where you work out where you are your most productive and that's when he needs to work. And I ended up getting really pissed off because I've been like, well. There is no divide between my children and my work because there can't be because like I'm, and, and I got really, really annoyed. And, and I wrote a blog about it and I ended up going on a podcast and talking about it and like it was, it's a huge, that was like, that was my personal soapbox for a while.

Lisa: 27:30

Yeah. Mm

Peta: 27:31

so I was really interested to talk to you about how obviously you've, you've not felt necessarily the business world is um, is completely aimed at people who don't have children.

Lisa: 27:45

hmm. Yeah, that's so interesting because I think in today's hyper connected world, we all see what we curate, right? So, you know, I, I curate my LinkedIn feed to see the things I want to see, etc. But actually, you're right that the, the business world, and I'm going to talk a little bit about pre and post pandemic because pre pandemic the business world was aimed at. Aggressive non parents. And it feeds into that stereotype that if you are not going to be a parent, you must be completely focused on your career. You must be getting up at 5 AM and doing all of those things. But actually there are people that don't have children that don't want to do that stuff. We don't want to, I don't want to get up at 5 AM, but it's rare that I'm up before 8 AM. But that's a privilege that I have because I don't have children. And so when I started my. So when I started to sort of explore the idea of going freelance, it probably was around about 2021, 22. So it was after all the, the lockdowns, but before we'd kind of really come back to how things are now. And I'd noticed that there was a massive influx of parents becoming freelancers. And I totally respect that decision because you're right. It gives you a level of freedom that you just simply do not get in traditional employment. Like there's lots of rules in place, obviously to support parents in the workplace, but they're all crap. And. So people, people choose to work for themselves when they're parents, because you get that freedom. You get, you can take your kids to school and pick them up every day and you can do all of the things and you can shut yourself. You know, you know, you can stop working to deal with your child or whatever you need to do. And so when I came into the freelance space, it felt like that was the that was the dominant situation that people were in. Everyone was a parent. And so when I started to go to networking events, things like that, there was very often, You know, when you're at a networking event, I'm sure you know this, Peter, that, you know, there's this slightly awkward sort of intros bit where you've all got to tell, say something about yourself, or you've all got to introduce yourself to each other and find like a common thread that you can then pull into a, oh, I can have a comfortable conversation now. And often that common thread was parenting. And I totally see why that happens because when you're a parent. The most obvious thing in the world to talk about is the fact that you're a parent because then you know that the other people that are like you are going to come to that, they're going to, they're going to immediately be part of that conversation. But as someone who was on the outside of that conversation, I often felt like I was just in the corner of the room, waiting awkwardly for the conversation to finish so that I could talk about my garden or my dog or something. And so in fact, this, this is what I'm going to. promote a little bit is that I've very early days of starting a community and networking group for non parents, because of these reasons because we are often the ones in the corner of the room, not really knowing what to say and not really having anything to contribute to the conversation. And it's not that. I mean, I I feel like I justify this too much and people always tell me off for justifying it too much because people understand the needs of the space. But, you know, we're not anti parent, we're not people who hate parents. Some of my best friends have got children and I love those children and, and it's not about that divide. It's not about feeding into that divide that you're either a parent or you're not and never the train shall meet, you know, it's like there is a place for all of us. But we also all need our own spaces. There are many, many groups that are for moms or for dads or for parents of teenagers or for parents who've got children with additional needs and all of the different types of parent you can be, but there doesn't seem to be a place for the non parents. And I think in business, it comes down to, okay, so we've, we've now got this faction of people who are parents who are starting to build their communities up post pandemic because of the influx of people working for themselves. But then what's left over is the Hustle Bros and the 5am club and like, I don't,

Peta: 31:43

Nobody wants to hang out with those, no.

Lisa: 31:46

only the other 5amers want to hang out with those and there's a lot of us that don't do that. And

Peta: 31:50

a really small window where you can actually hang out with them before they're, like, when they're not working out or going to bed at like half past seven.

Lisa: 31:58

Yes, absolutely. Exactly. So it's so it almost feels like over the last maybe five years. The freelance landscape has changed, and I can't really talk about before because I wasn't in it I was traditionally employed prior to that for most of my adult life. So, it feels like parents have come into the space. You've found your flow and you've found the places that you can connect with each other. You've created these spaces and that is wonderful to see. But once again, the non parents have kind of been left behind and the, the gap has established itself that either you're a parent or you're a hustle bro, and you're career focused and you're career driven. But I just want to write for five hours a day and spend the weekends in the garden. Like I don't want to do all of the, the horrible, hustle y things that people expect of me because I don't have kids.

Peta: 32:49

That's a

Lisa: 32:49

Don't want to get into like, I don't want to attack people. That's I'm really conscious. I don't want to, I don't want it to sound like I'm attacking anyone, you know, hustle bros. That's cool. They can, they can do their thing, but it's just not me.

Peta: 32:59

No, yeah, and that's fair. I think, again, it comes back to this idea of there only being a limited number of defined ways that you can exist in any category. Whether that's being a woman, whether that's being a business owner, whether that's, yeah, kind of being, being a non parent or being a parent. Like this idea that there are There's a, there's a defined number of boxes, and you have to, you have to choose which one you're going to sit in, and then you have to read the list of rules that's on the side of the box, and those are the only things that you're allowed to do. And I think, partly because the world is so much more connected now.

Lisa: 33:39

Okay. Wow.

Peta: 33:46

we're more educated, I think. Maybe we were like 50 years ago. Well, I kind of hope so anyway, but like the, the healthy distrust of authority and structures that we have gained over the last 50 years means that we are less likely to just jump in a box because somebody has told us that we have to be in one of those boxes. And I think as Gen Z and Gen Alpha, um, although it terrifies me that there's a generation younger than Gen Z because I'm now very old, um, so I've had conversations before on the podcast, but also like also in, in real life, um, with, with my mom and like, and my aunt and people from that, from other generations who are like, Oh, nobody wants to do any work anymore. And they're not going to work ethic. I'm like, well, no, they've just decided that the way that you think work should be. And the way that you think people's lives should be is not actually what they want. And so they found a new way of doing it. That's not, it doesn't mean that they're lazy. It just means that they value different things and that they are more confident in living those values and in communicating those values. And that as a society, we are beginning to make more space for edges and blurry bits and nuance.

Lisa: 35:09

Yeah, absolutely. We don't have to stay in those boxes. So it is almost like our parents' generation built the boxes, told us to get in them, but now the younger generation are smashing those boxes to pieces because who needs to be in a box? You know that I, I read something the other day that was. Something like our parents generation, and when I'm talking about our parents generation, I'm assuming you're a similar age to me, and I'm talking about people who are in their sort of 60s plus, who got a job straight from school or university, and stayed in, if not the same job, the same industry for the rest of their career, and then they retired, and they got a lovely pension, et cetera. And then my generation, which I millennial, but I'm sort of on the cusp, we tried to follow in those footsteps. didn't really feel it didn't really feel like it works, but didn't have an alternative. And now Gen Z are coming along, and they're the statistics say that they're having like five jobs in the first two years after leaving education. And that that feels a lot more like They're making those choices, they're deciding, they're not just flippantly jumping from job to job, which is what I was made to feel like when I was, um, I've had quite a few jobs in my life and they haven't all been of the same thing. And I was made to feel like I was really flaky or unreliable or like I couldn't hold down something. And actually, the younger people are coming up and they're saying, it's not that it's just that I want novelty. I want variety. I want to try lots of different things. I want to see what it's like to work in an office for a couple of years. And if I hate that, then maybe I'll go out and work in the community for a couple of years. And that means to be okay, because those young people, they're finding their way. In a very different world to where we were when we were their age and when our parents were their age and because that's what happens isn't it the world progresses and it moves on, and things change and we need to change with it and and stick into those really archaic views and expectations it just isn't helping anyone. Yeah,

Peta: 37:03

why you would stick. in a job or an industry for that long was because of company loyalty. Like you would be loyal to the company and the company would be loyal to you, but that company loyalty doesn't exist anymore. But you've got a whole generation of people who are still, still think that they have to be loyal and then like, they'll turn up to work one day and they'll be like, be given redundancy? Like it doesn't, it doesn't, so why, why would that, that next generation think that that company loyalty is is an important value when they've, they've seen it in their, in their parents and their aunts and uncles the people around them, they've seen that it doesn't exist. So like, why should, why should they give it back? Okay, so let's pull things back to this idea of representation of, of non parents and in, in the business space, because like the people who are listening to this podcast, apart from my mum, are business,

Lisa: 37:58

Yeah.

Peta: 37:59

um, she dips in from time to time, um, are business owners. And one of the things I thought was really interesting from what you from what we've been talking about was this idea of of nuance and language. And how that helps people feel represented. So if, if you are a business owner listening to this podcast and you are a non parents are in any way part of your kind of your audience, what are the ways that, that you can, what are the ways that you can help them feel more represented?

Lisa: 38:36

So I think it really comes down to knowing who your audience is. And that is something that in marketing, we have, you know, hammered into us often is be really specific know who your audience is. If you're talking about women, talk about women. Don't talk about mothers, if you mean women. Because that's not what we all are. If your ideal customer is someone who has children, because that's relevant to your service or product, be really specific about that. Be clear on that. Don't worry about alienating people who don't have kids because they're not your customers. It's okay to be specific. It's okay to be really, really clear. And I had a little bit of a, an example of this recently when I did a focus group for my non parent networking group that I'm sort of building. And I said to the people in the room I said I'm really uncomfortable with the word non parent because it feels like I'm immediately talking about what we're not and it feels quite negative. Almost exclusively everyone in the room said, no, that's what attracted me to it. That's what I wanted to see. So, you know, if you're talking to parents, talk to parents, if you're talking to non parents, talk to non parents, but don't mix up the terminology, don't say mother. If you mean women and don't say women, if you mean mother be really clear. And if your product or service is something that it doesn't matter whether someone is a parent or not, then take that out of your marketing. There's an example that I just wanted to share, which was So I think it was Special K, it was one of the Kellogg cereals. There was a big debate online recently because they used an image of a pregnant woman in their marketing. And then it got pulled, I think, because people said it was inappropriate, which is just bonkers. Obviously a pregnant woman is not inappropriate, ever. What, what got my attention was that people were saying, so, so the, the image ended up being on the box of Special K. And what got my attention was that people were saying, this is fantastic. This is amazing. It's so good to see like the pregnant body being represented in this way. And I agree with that, but only to a point because a, a good friend of mine said that if she'd ordered her shopping to be delivered. And this is a friend who is childless, not by choice, who has been through a very traumatic experience of IVF and things like that. Pregnant bellies can be very triggering for people, for me included. If we were to get a shopping delivery and my box of cereal had a pregnant woman on it and I wasn't expecting it, I would probably be in tears. It would really, I would really, really struggle with that. And so I said that online and a few people supported me. But. Majority of people didn't understand where I was coming from at all. And I think the lesson from that is just that if it's not relevant, it's not relevant. Everything doesn't have to be a statement. A cereal box doesn't have to be a political statement. You know, yes, a pregnant woman is a beautiful thing, something we should be celebrated in the right environment not on my cereal box. With all the respect that is due for that, because, you know, it is something that should never be. made to feel shameful. Um, but it's, it's about recognizing the audience and recognizing where this is being shared. Um, you know, if it was a, if it was a, I can't think of an alternative product that is just for the mothers or women.

Peta: 41:49

It feels like, um, So in terms of marketing segmentation like there is a segment of of people who would buy a cereal like that. Because it was a craving or because they were pregnant and like it was a, I don't know, a weird, only, only thing that they could keep down. It makes sense as a business to talk to, cause I'm, I'm a massive fan of segmentation. I'd like, it makes sense to businesses talk to that. But from what you're saying and, and yeah, that makes sense. It only makes sense to talk to that segment in a targeted way, like where they are. So like, I'd be thinking about putting like banner ads on Mumsnet. Or like, or, or partnering with, I don't know, the John Lewis nursery section or something like, it makes sense to, to speak to, as it does in marketing generally, to speak to your audience where they are, not to blanket kind of assume. So yeah, no, that's a really interesting perspective.

Lisa: 42:50

Yeah. And I love that. What you said about, you know, yes, use that image, absolutely celebrate that image, but do it in a place where it's going to be well received, where it's going to be where it's going to be understood and where the people that are going to see it are going to resonate with that. Slightly different example, but I went into the grocery shop the other day and I wanted to get a packet of Rice Krispies and every packet of Rice Krispies had a picture of the England football team on it. And I just got really, I got really angry. I said to my husband, I don't want to buy cereal. That's got the football team on it. I don't care what. Snap, crackle and pop with my little cartoon men because it just didn't appeal to me. And you know, I was probably having a bad day that day, but it is about talking to your audience and that segmentation is really important. You know, there is a niche for everything and you talk to that niche where they are. Don't put something specific in a generic place. It doesn't work. And, and we know as marketers that, that, that, that doesn't work. You know, if your message is too vague, then you're just, shouting into the wind. You need to be really clear about who you're talking to. If you're talking to parents, great, talk to parents. If you're talking to non parents, then take the parent your words out of it.

Peta: 43:50

That's true. Yeah, the whole England flag Everett thing, it just reminds me of companies jumping on International Donut Day. So that they can sell something, it's just very annoying. Thank you so much. That was so interesting. And I know that's given people an awful lot of thought in terms of how they, how they form their message, how they speak to their audience and how they kind of, they navigate yeah, better representation. So I, yeah, I know I massively appreciate that. If people want to kind of find you, if they want to find out more about the things that you're doing, you want to tell us a little bit about what's going on and how they can and how they can work with you or get in touch with you.

Lisa: 44:30

Yeah, so the best place to find me is on LinkedIn. It's Lisa Kassane and my company's called Silver Tongue Copywriting. I generally don't use any other social media which is, um, Quite liberating, I'll be honest. So yeah, LinkedIn is the place to find me. And if you go to my profile scroll down to the featured section, you'll see all of my links to my website and to the non parent business network, which is called Flow and there'll be updates about that very soon.

Peta: 44:54

That's fab. I'm, yeah, I'm really excited to see how that, yeah, how that gets going. Thank you very much, Lisa. It has been an absolute pleasure

Lisa: 45:02

Thank you for having me.