10 - It’s Not the Glass Ceiling Holding Mothers Back with Tamsin Broster.

In this episode, I’m joined by Tamsin Broster, feminist visibility and confidence coach, former Ministry of Defence leader, mother of two and all-round powerhouse. 

Tamsin shares her deeply personal story of stepping away from a 20-year civil service career to reclaim her identity, rebuild her confidence and rewrite what success means not just as a mother, but as a woman navigating loss, IVF, leadership, and the complexity of modern motherhood.

This is a raw, rich, and honest conversation about what it means to live through matrescence in its fullest expression. From navigating IVF treatments, perimenopause and sandwich caregiving, to ultimately choosing joy and visibility on her own terms.

Listen as we we talk about:

• The hidden toll of IVF while holding a senior role
• What happens when the "maternal wall" collides with career ambition
• Resentment, rage, and reckoning with identity after her second child
• The legacy she’s intentionally rewriting for her children

TAMSIN BROSTER

Tamsin is a feminist visibility and confidence coach who helps women
stop shrinking and become the face of their business. She works with
entrepreneurs, creatives, and leaders navigating body image issues,
impostor syndrome, and the pressure to look or act a certain way.

With a background in MoD Logistics and Commercial support, she
understands the leadership challenges women face and the work
required to shift identity from a long term career into entrepreneurship.

Her work is rooted in the belief that the world changes when women stop
waiting to feel ready and start taking up space exactly as they are.
Known for her warmth, humour, and straight-talking style, Tamsin brings
a powerful blend of compassion and challenge to every stage.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamsin-broster-1a66a8210/
https://www.instagram.com/tamsin_broster

MOTHERS’ HOOD

Work with me www.mothershood.co.uk

Come and find me here:

Instagram: @mothers.hood
Facebook: @mothershoodtribe

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-murrell-03966132/

Transcript

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Motherhood Podcast. I'm joined here today by Tamsin Bro from Bristol. Tamsin is a feminist visibility and confidence coach who helps women stop shrinking and become the face of their business. I'll put more. About Tamsin in the show notes because I want to get going and get tams in's voice in here.

So welcome Tamsin. Thank you for having me. It's exciting to be here. So. Let's dive in and we are going to take this story back to the pre, pre-child Tamsin. Take us on that journey. Just give a bit of color to who you were, what you were doing, what your career was, how you felt about motherhood and your entrance into that.

Yeah. Brilliant. So I worked for the Ministry of Defense for 20 years before I left. I had been there since I was 18, so this was like my whole life, career. This was a career that my family were proud of. Everybody was like, oh my gosh, you're doing so well, like getting promoted and doing all this stuff.

I worked in helicopters mainly. I did do a short, stint on a different program on submarines and I. I did so much stuff before I had kids, right? I had this whole career mapped out and I think I always wanted to have children, but a few failed relationships, which I won't go into on this 'cause we haven't got long enough.

But, I didn't really know if it was gonna happen for me. By the time I was thinking about it, I was 30. Three. I was sort of heading into the zone of having them when I was 33, and I think my life plan was to have them a lot younger than that, but it just did not pan out that way. I didn't meet my person until I was 27.

So, a few things happened before that, but I was always really quite driven. I think the. The military environment because where I worked, I was a civil servant, but I was surrounded by military Navy, REF Army. I think it gave me that vision that I could have this career, that I could climb my way up, I could work in different teams and everything was possible and people were so.

Used to moving on after two years and going into new projects, new jobs, that it became very normal for me to do the same. And I could tell when I was getting stagnant in a post, when I needed go for a promotion perhaps, and it was challenging in places because it was a very male dominated environment, but there was enough sort of female leaders, and especially in the military around me to show me there was, opportunities to go for,.

So I didn't really think about having kids for a long time. And when I was 27, I met my husband and within a year I had left the country and I'd gone to move in to America. I lived there for three years with a job that I had , with the civil service. And it was amazing. It was such an amazing opportunity.

And because we were. Sort of newly, you know, we'd been together a year. He had kids who I'd met and that was great, but I had nothing to tie me to the UK other than him. And we both decided this was too good of an opportunity. The money was amazing and I wasn't gonna let it go. So we decided to do long distance.

But all this time we were thinking about, okay, when this comes to an end. We are gonna start thinking about having our own family. So I was 34 when I had my first child. So before, up until that point I had been like open to traveling, opening to doing all this stuff. I had been a completely different person.

And then having kids really, really changed that. Thank you. So that was a really great insight into the beginnings, um, of, of, I mean, you know, life is obviously so complex and rich and it's great to pull out the points of that.

Did you have, many kind of role models or women, above you or surrounding you that had children, and had, let's call them high, a high flying career? If you did, how did you see,, see it working for them or perhaps not working and also, as a secondary Christian.

What was the messaging that you had received around motherhood and career? And sometimes it's subconscious, sometimes people pointedly say things to you. So, there's two questions there. Yeah, that's okay. First question. That's an easy, straightforward, no, I did not have role models around me at all that had children that were little.

Uh, yes, there was a women, again, it was a very male dominated space, and I didn't have loads of. It, you know, in that kind of that it's not that there wasn't women around, but they tended to be in the different jobs. They were working part-time or they weren't necessarily in the leadership roles. I was taking a lot of my inspiration and kind of steer from.

Men, which I think I was able to do 'cause I didn't have kids. And even when I met my husband and he had his children, they were my step kids and I saw them every other weekend, but not regularly. And they weren't, I wasn't thinking about what school they were going to or getting involved in, whether they had enough, PE kit or anything else like that.

I didn't have that kind of mental load. Mm-hmm. Outside of when we saw them on the weekends. And again, my husband had them himself for a while before we met. So, when he was going through his divorce, he actually had them at home. And he was telling me when we did meet, when they then.

Gone to live with their mom, and then he was seeing them every other weekend. He was talking to me about how much it impacted his career, which was really interesting. Wow. So I was having conversations about stuff like that and understanding the impact of having children and maybe the pressure that that puts on you.

But I didn't have many role models at all. And I remember vividly we had a team leader who would be, let's just. Say they were at the top of the chain of the office that I was working in and an office of maybe 200 people. And then they brought in a, they were interviewing for like a deputy for that role, so quite senior level.

And the lady that got it. She was pregnant when she interviewed for the job. And I remember the shock wave of conversations that were going around this like, oh my God, like she's literally about to pop. How are they, like how have they taken on this woman? And she was in the bad books from the beginning.

So I think that's subtle messaging. Was there and I don't remember really what I thought of it. I think I was just like internalizing all this information of like, well, yeah, like okay, that is quite a big deal. You know, she's about to go on maternity leave and she's applied for and being successful at this job.

And I think it was showing me what was possible, but also how I would be treated if that was me. But at that time, I dunno that I was still really thinking about having my own kids. 'cause I was like 27, 28. And actually I'd got that new job on the horizon. I hadn't really been thinking about it.

My family at that point weren't really putting pressure on me to have children because I had come out of a bad relationship. I'd actually lost a property in the process that was a bit messy, and then I'd had quite a long break and then met my husband, and I think they would just. Enjoying the fact that I was happy and in a relationship and at 27, 28, I don't think anyone was putting any pressure on me like, oh, you're running out of time.

'cause it didn't seemingly think that I was, and that's fine. So I think I was pretty carefree at that point. I didn't really, I'd never really had many conversations with my family about the, whether it would. Put an end to your career and think, 'cause my mum worked for herself. She would always talk about how she'd found that difficult financially, all of that stuff.

And, whether my dad was doing enough or providing enough. Those were conversations we had alongside growing up. My grandparents were probably quite a big influence on, what it means to have children and raise a family. Very traditional kind of men going out to work, women staying at home, doing all the cooking and cleaning.

Not having financial independence. That was a story that's played out right until now in my family. Very much so. So in terms of like role models and those, I think that answers those two questions, but, mm-hmm. Yeah, it definitely, wasn't on my radar at that point, but yeah, it wasn't a massive amount.

I think of the people that I'm thinking if there was women that were in those leadership roles, they either didn't have kids or their kids were older and quite self-sufficient. That's the, I think that's the impression I've got. People with younger kids who had a lot of responsibility were working part-time, and they were in the, you know, the, not in the leadership roles.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you Tams. And that's, that paints a really vivid picture of the landscape that you were in, both with work and also growing up. And I see this time and time again. The messaging we get is, is so conflicting. There's so, there's such strong messages individually of this is what it looks like to be a, a good mother, let's call it inverted commas.

And we live in a period of intensive mothering now, and that good mother conditioning, layers and layers of generational, I'm gonna say not necess, say trauma here, but in generational messaging of what it is to be a good mother.

And that is kind of almost over here. And then we were raised, you can do it all. You can have a successful career, but each one of those. Aren't sustainable on their own because we know that even people who have these successful careers, there's lots of burnout on overwhelm and the balance often isn't there.

And if you are this good mother, quote unquote, along these kind of restrictive lines, you are also in a, in a burnout, overwhelm scenario. So then put those two together. If you have , a career and it can be an absolute explosion, can't it? Because you're trying to do these two individual things and then you come into this career.

We, you know, we, we can cover to that in a minute. And you can just see how this sets the scene for so many women to to experience that burnout and overwhelm. And this what the hell's happened to me when I become a mother and, and as I said, we can come into that. Yeah, I think it starts before that as well.

I think that, I think the messaging starts before that as. Me and my husband got more serious, but even in the beginning, so we'd been together a year, I get this opportunity to go to America. And on the one hand there's a lot of people that are like, oh my gosh, that's so amazing.

There was a lot of people going, well, hang on a minute. What about Chris? What about your partner? And I'm like, look. I've spent enough time putting my life on hold all of my careers on hold, all of my promotions on hold to make someone else more comfortable and this guy's not like that.

And also I do, I'm a very big believer or became a very big believer in that hasn't landed on my desk for no reason. I. We will either make it work, and if we don't, then we don't. But I think if I stay here, I'm gonna fall into, we are just gonna take the next step and the next step.

Like everyone logically will think we're gonna take, and, you know, I've come out of a difficult relationship. I lost a bloody property and he's come out of a, difficult marriage and. Had been through a divorce, and he'd been going through all of that.

For us to just take those next logical steps and fall into just moving in together and it's very predictable. And actually what happens if we don't take the predictable route, just this once. And I was willing to take that risk and it was a risk, but the messaging was coming thick and fast and especially in the military world because a lot of the, when a lot of the women on the.

I, I, I dunno if everyone like knows what I'm talking about when I talk about a patch. But on the military patch where everyone, the court is where everyone lives, that I would obviously be up where my husband was living. We weren't living together at time. We didn't move in together until after I came back from America, like three.

So four years went by before we lived together. We actually got married before we lived together. Not because, not for the reasons people will think, but because I was living in a different country. But that was really frowned upon really like the looks that I got and I really didn't have that inroad into the, those military families because I was not seen as a, I wasn't just trying to make house, I wasn't trying to make home.

I was actually packing up my stuff, selling all my stuff and leaving, you know, and it was like, what are you doing? I'm doing what I wanna do is what I'm doing. Mm. So it, I think it starts a lot earlier, and again, with grandparents and stuff, my family were all really, really thrilled about me going to the States.

But like my nan, the reinforcement of those gender roles was subtle but frequent. And she . Would always say to me, if I was away with work, I thought, well, who's gonna get his dinner?

Who's gonna, I'm like, this guy's lived on his own and actually brought up his own kids on his own. For many years. Yeah, he's fine. Like he can cook meals in the middle of a field. He's fine. And she just could not get her head around it. And when we got married, she started writing.

She was always a big letter writer, which I loved, but I hated the fact that she would address her letters to Mr. And Mrs. Chris Foster. She would never, ever write my name. His name had to be on that. Like it was subtle, but it was bloody annoying. So I used to do my little things of counteracting that, and I would sign off all my cards.

My name first is because I had to have some sort of way of going. I'm breaking this cycle. Mm-hmm. I love you, but I'm breaking this cycle. So yeah. Some of the things come subtle. I. And then when we got engaged and then, we started planning a wedding.

That's when the like kind of discussions about whether we were gonna have another family or not came along. So that's when it started and I was open to it 'cause I wanted to have children, but it, so it wasn't a problem, but that's when it started. So take us on the next part of your. Your journey that that's such a way just fine, but let's talk about that.

So you said you had your first child when you were 34. What were the events leading up to that and, and how did that come about? So, we'd moved in together, got married. We were both then working in the same place. So I had got a job in Bristol because I knew that he was being posted back to Bristol and we were just like, right now's the time.

We need to start thinking about it. I'm not getting any younger. We knew already for reasons I don't probably need to go into, but we knew already we were gonna have to have some sort of fertility treatment. So a lot of the. Career building that I had done and he had done, had helped save and pay for that because , it's not free on the NHS.

We weren't eligible for any free treatment, so we knew we'd have to pay for all of it and we'd already been paying for quite a bit of it up until this point anyway. Because we knew, I knew when I got with Chris that we. Would need to have that. He'd already had a vasectomy. So I kn we just knew that w there was no other way of us having children together and I was actually open to maybe not having children together at one point because I was like, well, I love my step kids to bits.

They were seven and 10 when I met them. They're absolutely brilliant. But. There was still that kind of like, if I don't do it now, it's not gonna happen at all, so I need to crack on. So we decided we'd go ahead and have a baby. We were so lucky with our IVF journey really, really lucky. But I had been pushing to go as high enough, as fast as I could through my career because I needed to have that financial security because our maternity leave and civil service was amazing.

It was really good. But the more you earn, the better it is. So. I had been pushing to go as fast as I could through that, and that's fine, but I really didn't know what was coming in terms of having a baby. I think you have this idea that it's gonna fit in around everything you've already got, and that is not how that played out at all.

Maybe it did with my first, but my second, definitely not. But the first one was difficult because I was in a, leadership role. I had a team, that relied on me. I had a team that did not want me to be absent from that job, and I didn't want 'em to know that I was even. Thinking about having a baby.

Mm-hmm. And I'm guessing that they may be guess because that's what happens, isn't it? We just assume that someone's got married. They don't, they were making those calculations already. Yeah. Um, and actually they were brilliant as an organization. They were brilliant, but what they didn't know was the IVF that I was going through.

So I was dashing to appointments up the road in the hospital before starting work. So I started work a lot later than I used to. I was always a seven o'clock in the morning starter, and now this time I'm having injections. Blood work appointments at that time, so I'm not getting to work till at half eight, nine o'clock and then I'm having to work later to make up those hours.

But I'm going through something that's taking a massive toll on my body emotionally and physically, and that was horrendous in a leadership role. I just didn't want anyone to know. I didn't want my team to know, but. It was hard. I was knackered and I was also, I don't, if anyone's listening to this and they've gone through IVF treatment, I looked pregnant before I was pregnant because of the treatment, because it, it changes your body and it makes you start like, without going through all the details of it, they're making you produce more eggs, so your bloating is like tenfold.

So you just look pregnant before you are. It's horrific. No one tells you this stuff and I'm trying to keep it under wraps and not say anything. 'cause I don't want them thinking about it. I don't want them to know until it's happened. And also I had that anxiety of what if it doesn't work?

I don't want them to know. I don't wanna have to play out my heartbreak in the middle of an office when I am the leader. I am managing that team. They rely on me. And you are that bridge between the senior leadership in the team and the, the, the rest of the people working for you. You are that, that. But you, you keep them protected from the difficult conversations that are happening at the high levels, and you keep the high levels off their back.

So you're like that little like thing in between. And I loved that job. I absolutely loved that job. So there was all these things I didn't wanna be seen to be not being capable. All these things were happening and my God, the pressure was a lot. So much so that the second time when I went for IVF the second time, 'cause again, there was no other option but to go again for my son, I actually told them.

Yeah, and I was another level up by then, but I just told them, I was like, I can't do this in secret anymore. You have to know that I want another child. In fact, I didn't want to apply for the job. And I said to them, I don't wanna apply for it 'cause I want to have another baby.

And they said, no, just do it. It's fine. We want you for the role. But I really hesitated, but I had to tell them. And it was excruciating for exactly all the reasons I didn't tell people in the first place because they. Has it happened? They knew everything. All my appointments. It was so, oh, it was, it was horrific.

I just dunno which one was worse. There's so many things in there that I want to pull out and I won't pull them all out. We'll be here all day. But some of the themes that come out there of you and you actually address them is number one.

Is having to keep these things secret because Yes, and I think the world of work is this very much you have to keep this professional, in terms of what it looks like in a corporate or, I know you are in a military which has similarities to the kind of, to the corporate world of keeping this face of professionalism.

But actually, leaning into feminine styles of leadership and, bringing more feminine into it, I think that is the only way that we can really enable women and fathers because if you are , a man going through this as well, you're supporting your partner, not being able to talk about these things at work if you want to.

And I think there's that choice there, isn't there? Because you did say, actually it was really hard even when I did tell everybody, but being able to be open to those conversations, but you felt the pressure to keep it a secret because you didn't want people to know you're going through it because perhaps, there was some concern over.

Your abilities, and whether you were, focused on the job and determined, and then also the heartbreak. If it didn't go through. So yeah, there's so much there and I know workplaces can do so much more to support their staff and lots of lessons learning there. But again, a big part of it is that choice.

And then you said going, through it the second time actually was even though you felt you could, say what you were going through and they supported you in that and they knew that you were going to have a baby, which actually, sadly, as we know, is really rare that , when it, or even before organizations know somebody's pregnant.

I, I had the same thing when I got married. I just got married and then when I just got back from my honeymoon, I heard that I'd been passed over from promotion. 'cause apparently I was about to have a baby. I mean, you know, really. And I didn't have a baby till four or five years later. So that was crazy.

But, , all these threads and just build up to lots of secrecy and shame and not being able to be your whole self questioning brings in lots of feeling of not being supported. So tell us a bit more about your entry into motherhood and what happened to you because you did actually say that your second.

I think you did word harder than the first in some ways. So yeah, I'm just interested to hear about that because as we know that transformation and the matresses that we go through, and it happens again as we have more children and later on in life. But I'm really interested to hear how it was for you and what, changed in you .

And how that is different to the women you were before. Yeah. I think having the second, really, that was an absolute pivotal change for me. It it, you think you're just adding one more? Person you've managed to do it with a little one of so far. And like my daughter was, amazing and

there was things that were just different. 'cause I went back into the exact same role I had left and I went back from maternity leave to that same job. That option was taken away with my second because it was no longer that they had to keep that specific job open. They would keep that rank open for you that grade and you could go back in.

But it wasn't that necessarily gonna be that same job that was stressful. I did manage to, but that's not the point. They didn't have to keep it open for me. So that was interesting and that was a bit of stress. But even just going through all of that, again, going through everything I.

Like with a little one,, I ended up staying in hospital for a week. I had a three and a half year old at home. That's just, that was so hard to not be able to be there and be at home. And she was absolutely, of course she was well catered for and sorted. My husband was brilliant.

My parents came up to stay. No problem at all. But. It's the emotional, I think it's just so hard on you. And then I had a year off with both my kids. I was very lucky. Like I said, the maternity leave, the package was incredible. I can't fault that at all, but I think I just didn't have the head space for that job.

Again, I did, obviously, I went back and I made it work, but I kept juggling between well, maybe I should do this many hours. Maybe I should do that many hours. And I kept trying to tweak my working hours and my working patterns. To make it fit my new reality. And it just never seemed to quite fit.

And I think also what really changed for me with having both the kids was my ability to just say yes. I had no ability to say yes. My husband still had that ability to say yes, and this isn't, I don't wanna get into it's easier for them and it's not for us, but actually his career was bloody flying and he's able to say yes and just walk out the door without much thought about it still.

I used to have that and then suddenly didn't, and all of the things that I was like, oh yeah, I'll still, I'll still be open to traveling. I'll still be open to maybe working overseas. No, I wasn't, absolutely was not open to it. I shut that door massively as soon as my daughter went to school. You know, it's not even about her being a baby.

As soon as she went to school, I was like, well, I don't wanna upheaval, I don't wanna any upheaval for her. So the breaks went on. In so many ways for my career, but it still on paper, looked really good. 'cause it was , well, you're still in the senior leadership role. You're still managing teams.

But I couldn't just, I couldn't, that is the only way I can describe it. I couldn't just do it. I had to go Right. Who's looking after the, who's getting her to school? Who's doing, and then COVID d. You know, comes along. That was even worse. It was just like the breaks go on and you, you just don't have that ability to just react and be, you've got to think about these two little people that need the cover and you need to think about them.

And I think that was probably the hardest shift in my personality because it was like, right, okay, I can't do that. The next pivotal moment comes when,, I'm 38, I've just gone back to work. I've been off for a year with my son and I've been back a day and I get a phone call about my mum.

She's not feeling great. She's gone into hospital and that then rolled into, okay. She's she's got terminal cancer. I had been in the office a day and had I have not already gone back from maternity leave, I would've extended my maternity leave to sort out this next. Like I don't, I dunno if I've already sworn on here, but this absolute shit show that I am now in the middle of.

I've got two small children, one of them's, only just coming up one, and I now don't know if my mom's gonna make it to Christmas, and that just threw me into this spiral. And also I am still trying to deliver at a level. Of senior leadership that IJII, everything just imploded. And I spent the next sort of, you know, six months just really struggling, like absolutely struggling.

My confidence was gone and it wasn't until many years later that I realized that at the same time as all that happening, perimenopause was kicking in for me. And I didn't know, 'cause I thought, oh, I'm 38. I've just had a child in my head I was still fertile, but actually. If I had had the, logical sense to piece it all together, everything was changing in my body.

And I hadn't really kind of put that into my brain. I didn't know anything about perimenopause, so I just assumed like menopause happens when you're 50. I was way off that I was 38, so I wasn't thinking about that stuff. I know so much more now, I had all of this going on and everything just came to a halt.

I just CI literally couldn't function. It was just, it just wasn't happening. I was angry actually. I was really angry. I would go through periods of just almost like, just like pressing this like self-destruct button on my life in work and outside of work, with friendships with, my husband, um how I was showing up at work and then I would spend the rest of the month trying to piece things back together and cope.

And I was like, I can't go on like this. I can't keep turning up to work feeling like. I'm not good enough to be here. My head's not in the game. I can't keep saying to my mom 'cause So just to kind of touch on that story, my mom is still here so many, many years later. My mom is still here. She has still got it and she's still terminally ill on paper.

She is doing like, I just dunno what that woman's made of, but it's something magical. 'cause she is literally like flying. And to look at her, you wouldn't even know anything was wrong. She's still going through treatment. Um, and I'm sure she wouldn't mind me sharing that, but she's still going, she's still on that journey of treatment and she's still, she's just doing everything she can to stay here and she's doing a phenomenal job at being here, but not just being here, like functioning, like actually managing to live her life and, spend time with the grandkids and everything else.

But at the time, I didn't know that was gonna be the case. I was just so angry . My hormones were all over the place. Having my second child and going through yet another emergency c-section on top of just going through all that IVF again, I think it was just too much. , And meanwhile, my amazing husband had left the military and he'd got this new career , as a contractor and.

He also had like a side, not a side hustle, but he, he was also like expanding into a new part of like a reservist role in the army and he's like learning a new skill and a new thing and I was like, sat there with this baby going, I can't hold my life together. I was so angry and I just, I told him, I was like, I just feel really resentful because you are in this exciting thing.

You are training and doing this stuff and I've got a. Baby attached to my boob, and I don't know who I am anymore and I'm really jealous. And we've always been really good at having conversations like that. So he was really easy to talk to about that. I just said it. I was like, I'm just really jealous.

You just get to do this stuff and I can't do this stuff. And it's not that I don't wanna be here with the baby, and it's not that I don't wanna be supporting my mum. But I'm trying to make all of this work and I'm trying to give my mom enough time, and I'm trying to be a good mom, and I've got a child starting school and oh, and, you know, the, the, my daughter didn't start school full time until like two, I think it was like two months of part-time schooling.

And I was like, I don't know how to exist in this situation. Like, yeah, oh my God. And I can feel, when I talk about it, I can feel that level of stress just like, whew, you know? How the bloody hell I survived that. I don't know. Gosh, sorry. That was a lot. Oh gosh, cam, that is a lot. That was a lot. Gosh. And I just, I can really, yeah, I can feel that for you.

Just how all of those things are stacking on one another it just shows and highlights how we really need a village. We are supposed to raise children in villages. And you are carrying so much, and I'm not saying that your husband wasn't carrying it, but you know how much of the.

Aside from the physical load,, perhaps, you know, breastfeeding or, pregnancy and birth, the, emotional load that mothers carry and are expected to carry and how much also, then again, with your career , and how, we are conditioned into being successful and being productive and not knowing how to slow down.

And that isn't a criticism of you, it's. It, how, we are conditioned in that get your career and achieve and work hard. And then when we come into , having a, having a ba I, you know, the same for me. When I had had my daughter and I didn't have all these other things that you had going on, I just did not know how to slow down, didn't know how to ask help.

I didn't know where there was help and, and I had supportive family and friends, and you had all of these other things. So then the resentment builds, doesn't it? And, you are hitting what we call the maternal wall and we say more women. Hit the maternal wall before they hit the glass ceiling because ultimately it's these acts of caregiving in a society that doesn't value caregiving and we don't value it ourselves.

Yeah. Just so much in there. And I think it's hard to find the self-compassion because , probably for you, you were used to leading this team and a strong leader and all these people, and then all of a sudden. All of this emotional load is on you as well as the physical load.

So, um, yeah, and a lot of the unknown, I think it's because you can't control that. And know, there's so many unknowns with like my mom's illness and stuff, and so many things we can't control. But in those early days, it was horrendous. And again, everyone's supportive. And like you quite rightly pointed out my husband wasn't exactly like, dancing around, like nothing was going on.

Of course not. Yeah. He was in it too. But it's just like you experience it so differently and the level of pressure that I would put on myself is wanting to be a good wife, wanting to be a really good mom to my daughter who, you know, up until this point has been an only child. And yes, she's only three and a half, but she knew a time without her little brother and she was thrilled to have him along.

But you are always thinking like, how am I making sure I'm making the most of her before she goes to school? How am I making sure that I'm an active part of the school community? Am I making friends with moms? Am I still delivering at work? Am I breastfeeding my child long enough? Is he growing the right way?

Oh my gosh, is he growing too? Like, oh my God, the amount of pressure you put on yourself and then you do all this, and then I. You would say all those things that were going on in your life and then you go, oh, I don't have it as bad as everyone else. Like I can't really complain every time. And you just, you come back to that, get your shit together, you are fine.

You haven't got it this bad. It could be worse every time. And I think that's what keeps society digging over without, it's the silencing, it's the silencing of ourselves. Of course. Because you just think, I should have this together. I should have this together. Yeah. And it wasn't until, I really was saying to mom, look, I dunno how long you've got left and I can't spend time with you because all of my holiday is taken up with managing school term times and I haven't got enough to cover that, let alone just see you on a random Wednesday.

And I thought, do you know what? I've got enough savings, I'm gonna take a break. And I just took. What was supposed to be a, a three year break, and I was just gonna see where that took me. But within the first year, I'd resigned. And I'd found the love for what I do now in my own business. And that comes with enough of a load of pressure, you know, hence.

Today, you know, , it's quite often having your own business is seen as very, being like a bit optional. And like today, the school announced last week on Friday, that, we need to be at school between two and three. Okay. So I've had a meeting today that I have to cancel because.

Me and my husband are still playing top trumps with whose meeting is more important. And I wanted that to go away because this is the problem. When I was in my job, we were at the same level. He was in the military and I was c but we were the same level and we were constantly trading for, well how senior and important is your meeting and how senior is important as yours.

And I hated that game. Mm-hmm. But we're still playing it. It hasn't gone away. We've just recreated it in a new way. Not that I would ever go back to it, but you know what I mean? Like it's, yeah, it's a new level, new devil. It's not any different. We are still trading. Yeah, indeed. So what for you has if, or has it changed for you in terms of the way that you've view yourself and career and achievement and being successful in comparison to.

Those earlier versions of you, and it's not always clear cut exactly what it is, but where have you recalibrated now? Since I've left that job and I'm, this is not me saying, oh, everyone should do what I did. But since I left that job, and, I've set up, my business now on my own, I'm a lot better as a mum.

I'm calmer. I just haven't got the pressures about what other people think of me because it's really just me running the ship and it's really down to me, and I don't put as much pressure on myself. I am definitely a better mother for it, but I don't think it's just because I left that job.

I think it's because I've suddenly realized, actually, , having that time out made me realize we are under a lot of pressure in so many areas, and if it's not coming from one area, it's coming from another. And I went through a time when I thought the most pressure you could have is being a mom flip neck.

When you add into that, the sandwich, years of looking after, unwell elderly parents and we have gone through it all. So my daughter was two. We lost my mother-in-law very suddenly. Again, cancer again hate this. Like, ugh. And then we go through all the stuff that we are co we, it is just a constant living story with my mom.

And then we lost my father-in-law. Uh, no actually we lost my, my dad first suddenly three weeks gone, you know? And we've gone through all of that. And I think, actually, do you know what? I think it's made me recalibrate not just motherhood, but just life. Like life is just gonna keep lifeing in different ways.

And when you think you are one and done and you are over that like thing of it, you just get something else. And actually. I think I've gotten to this position now. I'm just turned 45 a couple of weeks ago, and I just think, okay, I need to prioritize joy and pleasure and being, enjoying being a mom and not just going through the motions and going through all this stuff, but enjoying also having my own things.

And I'm very. Conscious now that I want to see my kids see me, prioritize myself, and, I don't think I get any pleasure now out of just prioritizing, , everyone else around me instead of me. I want them to grow up knowing that a contented, relaxed mum means that she's actually prioritizing herself.

More and that actually it's not selfish to do that. It's okay if I don't cook them from scratch every single night, and it's okay if I don't have it all together at the school run. And it's okay if I go out the door and just go off for spa weekend by myself for no other reason than I need to.

And they are safe, they are cared for. I will always make sure that they are in good hands, but it's not always gonna be my hands. And I, it is given me the freedom and it's given them the respect to not just think that everything is, for other people. I don't want them to see women like that because that's how I saw it growing up, that women would just.

Lose themselves. In other people, they don't know where they end and other people begin. I do, and I've got boundaries, and I've got things that I will and won't get into and all of that stuff. Oh. That is so beautiful. I can't add anything to that, to the ending. 'cause I actually, that was the most beautiful way to end.

I feel quite emotional listening to that because really what a great gift to give to both yourself and your children. Both your son and your daughter. And I feel the I for the way that responsibility as well. But actually I think if the next generation can live and we could have done some of that work to unburden them from that.

Everybody will benefit, but. Really what a beautiful way to end. So thank you so much Tamsin. It was a gorgeous conversation. There's so much in there and I, we could have talked to you for hours. I'm going to put your socials and everything. Had to, had to find you on the show notes. So all that's left to say is thank you for listening and I will see you next time on the Motherhood Podcast.

Thank you.