Power of the Parent 1: 1: Susie Lodge – Wiki Places For Kids

Episode Transcript

Charlotte Speak  0:08  

Welcome to the first episode of Power of the Parent, the podcast. I am your host Charlotte Speak. I’m a level seven CMI accredited coach, a strength scope Master Practitioner, Mental Health First Aider and a talent consultant. And I am also the face behind Power of the Parent. This podcast is all about speaking to parents in the workplace. Some of those in traditionally employed roles, others are self employed and running their own businesses. And we’re having some brilliant conversations about life in general, as well as sharing top tips and advice about creating better work environments and hopes for the future for parents in the workplace. We will be exploring the strengths that parenting has awoken for people, the value being delivered to the workplace by parents, as well as my guests very generously sharing their insights into their personal lives, and experiences of combining bringing up a family with everything else that life can throw at us. In episode one, I am talking to Susie Lodge, who is the founder of Wiki Places for Kids, the incredible online platform that helps all of us time conscious parents with figuring out where we want to go and what we want to do on our days out. We explore Susie’s why in her business, her hopes for supporting economic recovery, which is going to be no mean feat and the impact that the Wiki community is having more broadly. We also spent time exploring who Susie is, what she stands for, and how she’s grown as a parent. Susie is an absolute shining light in my eyes, both in bringing joy but also sharing the rougher times to inevitably we touch on our experiences of the last 14 months and all the reflections that that brings, it was an absolute pleasure to chat to Susie and I hope you enjoy listening in too.

So Wiki Places for Kids, I have used it so many times, personally, and I’m somebody that probably would fall into the category of having quite a few ideas in my arsenal about where to take the kids. You know that we are a big roller coaster and theme park family but it never ceases to amaze me how much stuff you have on the app and the website. It’s incredible. Where did the idea come from?

Susie Lodge  2:26  

Thank you. I’m so glad it continues to be helpful to you. I guess when I was on maternity leave with Matilda, which was in 2016, I was among the many many 1000s of parents who were looking for things to do. And I just felt quite underwhelmed with what was available to me at the time online, whether it was in magazines, it was just all just a little bit too much work and we are time crunched parents. So I just thought to myself, I was going from site to site, what we need is like a TripAdvisor for parents looking for things to do. And I was like, I’m gonna make one. So I did. And luckily, my background really served me with that, because I’d been 15 years in digital marketing at that time working in agencies in London, managing big projects, and big branded developments and platforms. So I kind of knew what I was doing and what I needed to do to get there to get the whole thing live. But yeah, like you say, the purpose was to try and find something that would serve time crunched parents who didn’t want to go from site to site to site, and there would end up being a shortlist of amazing places to go where everything on there was recommended by other parents who’d actually been so that you knew that the work almost had been done for you that it was preverified vouch for, but also that it wasn’t going to be that endless list of search results that you might find elsewhere, which then just leaves you more confused because you kind of, wonderful, there’s 600,000 results for Milton Keynes. Now what where do I choose and you know, right now more than ever, especially, I think, since the pandemic when restrictions start to be lifted, you know, people are more than ever they want to spend their money and their time wisely, people don’t have as much money in their pockets anymore. You know, lots of people have been affected in different ways. So you really want to make those decisions carefully. And what I love about it is that people continue to add places to the site so it is a community app really where parents can support the businesses they love by adding them and that way driving footfall and this is where the app really will come into its own and hopefully be a bit of a game changer once the restrictions are lifted because what it actually does is it will ping you to let you know that places near you within a certain radius of your house have opened and so it will help to drive footfall and you can support the businesses you love by adding them so if you know of like a small hidden gem that really might need that support and might need help to feel alive you know to keep going post pandemic and you can add it and this is what I think is great about the app it is it’s not just and the whole platform, it’s not just the obvious places that we all know about. We all know about Alton Towers, we all know about Chessington, and the big days out, and they really serve a purpose and support you in the summer holidays and on birthdays and things like that. They are great, and we need those. But you also need those everyday places to go, you need something that you can do, most weekends or that parents with younger kids can do on the weekday, you know, to keep them entertained to get you out the house, because I am a parent who has always been better out than in. I am just not that parent that is great with the domestic kind of indoor messy play with this, that and the and the crafting, and I just need space. You know, obviously, during the pandemic, I’ve struggled a lot mentally and emotionally because of the kind of being kept in and crammed in, what I managed to do, I suppose is evolve in that time and find new ways of being outside and not relying on these days out that I always go on, and finding new ways to be outdoors and enjoy it. I’m just so glad that you find new places on there all the time. And that’s what I love is that anecdotally I hear from my audience and the people who visit the site, that they are always finding something new that they didn’t know was on their doorstep. And that’s amazing because I mean, in fact, I went this weekend to a country park called Stanton Low which is 10 minutes drive from my house. I literally have never been there before and I’ve lived in Milton Keynes for 10 years. It’s just mad and that was on the site. And so I also I’m finding things all the time. And what I think is brilliant about it is that a lot of us do know our local area really well but we don’t know, you know, anywhere where granny lives for example. So say you’re going to eventually, you know, hopefully get to visit granny again. When those things happen or go to visit friends or you go on holiday to maybe the Isle of Wight or you pop to Norfolk for a weekend, you know where you’re going to stay, you know that there’s a beach there, for example, but you have no idea what else you can do. And that’s where the app really helps. Because you can’t rely on your aunt or your granny to know everything now, it’s just not in her interest to know that there’s Treasure Island down the road. So that’s where the app can really help you to find out just little things to plug your holiday with a few really amazing things. And that’s why I always wanted it to be a kind of shortlist of almost like a boutique list of amazing places to go rather than an endless list so that if you are going away for the weekend, you can go right there are 10 really awesome places to go rather than still having to go, oh, there’s 60. And I still don’t know what to do.

Charlotte Speak  7:33  

The thing that I’ve always found different about your platform is the quality and the depth of the information. So this isn’t just about, let me give places a five star review. Or at the other extreme, I’m just literally going to go and give like a one word answer or something. The people that use your platform are genuinely putting in a lot of time and depth to here’s the place where you want to take your own picnic, because actually the choice is really poor but you’ll have a brilliant day out or the baby change facilities are brilliant on this side of the park but if you venture out into this area, make sure you do your nappy change before you get there. And like it’s not just a great place to go, I had a wonderful day out with the family. It’s much more than that. I think it’s so reflective that it’s user approved, and like completely filled with the information you want. As a parent when you’re going somewhere.

Susie Lodge  8:28  

Yeah, you’ve reminded me I guess that being one of the original goals of the platform was that it’s meant to send parents to places and get their eyes open on things, you know, to open your eyes to the fact that you know that I’ve always said that cafes, for example, might only have two high chairs, and an expensive range of food and exactly like you say that might be the sort of place you want to take a cafe. And it’s not saying that the place isn’t a great place to go. But it’s just making sure that parents are really prepared for realities. Now I’m the sort of parent who doesn’t mind changing a baby on the floor with a bum out in public. There are a lot of people that don’t like that do not want to get their little ones bits out. And you know, on the restaurant floor. But that’s why I think, you know, knowing those things in advance, and especially now, I think because so many indoor areas are still going to be closed for some time, at least until we know May 17th. But we don’t know for sure whether venues are going to actually open their indoor exhibits or indoor cafes. Just because it’s so much for them to work out. It’s so much for them to figure out whether or not they can maintain social distancing, whether they can keep to the rules within those places. So more than ever, having your eyes open to the fact that the toilets might be shut for example, changing might not be available, or as you said, baby changing might not be there at all. It’s just really good to know so you can go and still have a great day out but be 100% prepared and mentally aware of what you’re going to find.

Charlotte Speak  9:56  

You have got a virtual army of people that do those updates, haven’t you because I know that we’ve had a couple of instances during lockdown when we’ve gone for walks, it places within the confines of rules. And if you Google that site, it is not accurate, saying things like the cafe shut, and then you get there and actually, it’s open just for takeaway or the toilets say that they’re open but actually, they’re closed and things like that. So because I think a lot of those pages are reliant on the venue’s doing a lot of the updates, aren’t they, whereas you’ve got a hybrid, your venues can update, and they can give their own information. But the fact that as a parent, you can go have that experience. I remember last year when it was summer and locked down had eased and we had a few days out, we did Paultons. And we did, we definitely did Alton Towers, maybe Chesington as well. And I remember walking around, and I was voice-noting into my phone, like making notes on my note thingy in my phone to update Wiki Places afterwards. Because as you’re walking around, that’s the time that you think another parent would want to know that, another parent wants to know, go this way around the park not that way because of whatever. And I think particularly at the minute, it’s the safety side of things, isn’t it? I know nowhere is open but the questions that I wanted to know, before we went to some of these places, was are there going to be loads of places to get antibac? Is it masks on or off? What are the rules around little kids and all those kinds of things? It’s the stuff that you want to know, not just opening hours, isn’t it?

Susie Lodge  11:25  

No, exactly. And I just love the fact that parents still really want to help parents out. It’s just really so reassuring, because there is obviously a tendency for people not to want to tell people about places because they want to keep them quiet. But actually, I found that with the audience that I’ve got that actually there still is that huge thing of parents wanting to help parents that the whole thing is parents helping parents have a great day out, it was pre COVID and now post COVID in a different way. It’s just got a slightly different angle to it now. But I think what I found is that over the years, I’ve created this sort of community, of core family data, and you’re definitely one of them! Yeah, and you just love to share. And that’s what people in this community love to do, they just really want to share other amazing places. Because I think that they understand that, that we don’t share these places, if we don’t support them, they’re not necessarily going to be there for us in a year or two, you know, they might still be there when everything opens now, but the hit that these places have had has been huge. And we’ll be the ones that will suffer it in a couple of years when we haven’t got the places to take our children. Already, It’s so sad that I know so many soft plays that just aren’t going to reopen. And, you know, we all might have a bit of a winge, you know, hate soft play, but we all know we need it on those rainy days in the winter, you know, and how much the kids love it and how much it was really gets out their energy, especially if you’ve got, you know, Tazmanian devils like I’ve got, I’ve got a little boy that needs to be run like a dog, you know, he’s just got so much energy. And on those days, that’s when you need these indoor play centres and those are the ones which I’m worried for, in all honesty. And so yeah, I just love this community. And we’ve already had over 5000 downloads on the app. So we hit that milestone, which is amazing. And I just hope it will continue to grow with more and more people wanting to find places. We’re also going to be integrating a discount code and things like that over the coming months, which will really help the community as well. Because more than ever, I think we all just need to back each other up and help each other out. If I can get families discounts to places and help them get back out there, then I feel like that’d be my job done.

Charlotte Speak  13:32  

Amazing what a job.

Susie Lodge  13:36  

I know. I enjoy it most of the time. I mean, the pandemic has been a little bit irritating. You know, it stopped everything in its tracks a couple of times, obviously, well, what is it three times now I suppose. But I have to say I’m becoming a lot more resilient to it.

Charlotte Speak  13:50  

One of the questions that I’m really interested to ask you about you personally, if I had a few words to describe you, or what you were about are like personal values, I don’t want to project them onto you. I could be totally wrong. But I would associate you with things like community, support, empathy, compassion, people at the heart of everything. Has that always been you? Or is that a part that has grown after having the kids or I am fascinated about talking to people about things that have changed positively and negatively for us once we’ve had children. That’s where the whole concept of Power of the Parent came from. And I suppose you’ve got a very strong brand in wiki and everything that that stands for, but what’s always been Susie and what has been Susie post Wiki Places?

Susie Lodge  14:42  

I think my goal, although I didn’t always know it, was to bring the light. If that makes sense. I love to bring the light and I think that before Wiki, that probably came through in party hosting, you know being the centre of the WhatsApp group or you know trying to pull people together into going here or going there, I think I might have lost myself for a little while at uni, when it all became a bit much and overwhelming. But I think pre Wiki, it was always there and wanting to be the gatherer of people. But Wiki just really allowed me to find a route and a bit of a groove, I think, for quite a few years. And I started in 2016. And it’s definitely been an up and down and a rocky journey and I haven’t always been able to focus 100% on it, because for a long while, I’ve had to support the growth of the business with other things like other contracts and freelancing. And also running, I also had almost a full time job, I suppose at one point while I was running it, what I love is, I suppose I’ve generated this huge community across social media. So if I add all my communities together, there’s about 30,000 parents who have in some form signed up to what we do, who want to know what we’re up to, who come to us for this advice and recommendations. And who look at me, and I guess what it also did with social media is it gave me a platform to be myself and to act the fool and, and to bring the funny side of life. And I think having been a parent as well. There’s obviously some hugely draining and exhausting and emotionally upsetting sub parts of being a parent, when you feel like you’ve failed, or you’re like, you’re not enough, but I just so often just try to see the funny side of stuff. I mean, don’t get me wrong in my house, it’s not always a barrel of laughs. And there was definitely some shouting, but I think I just try to bring some fun and lightness to it. And  I love it when I get some feedback on Instagram with somebody just, I love the laughing face. Basically, if I get the laughing face in response to my stories, I’m just like, done. You’ve brought something to that person today. And that’s what I just love to do. I like to bring the lights and kind of lighten the mood and show the funny side of parenting and show that I’m properly honest. So, you know, during the pandemic, this one that just gone. And so we’re now in March 2021, we just had a nine week lockdown. In the second week, I came onto stories, and I just started to talk about how tough I was finding it. Before I knew it. My voice had broken because you know, and you’re, you’re fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. But when you say out loud that you’re struggling, and suddenly I couldn’t speak and I was in floods and floods and floods of tears. I made a decision when the story finished. I thought, you know, you have the opportunity to delete or post, and I sat for a second, I thought, why are you going to post that you’ve just literally cried on, you know, for the last 20 seconds. And then I just thought, actually, hundreds of 1000s of parents feel like this right now. And maybe this will help to see that somebody who normally is bubbly and fun and tries to show all the great side of it is actually collapsed into a heap. Perhaps that will really help. And so that’s the other thing is I think I found a way of resonating really well with parents because I hate this whole thing of like I’m so real, I’m so genuine. Literally what you see is what you get with me. And sometimes I’ll disappear off of Instagram for a few days. And it will be because I’m struggling. And actually, if I can’t bring the light I don’t really want to show up on Instagram. And I don’t really feel like coming on projecting that misery onto everyone else. But sometimes it happens. And I think it happens at the right time. The amount of responses I had to that story, slightly made the whole problem worse, as I was already overwhelmed. And then I had two days of messages to respond to. Lots of people wrote a message and I’m, you know, showing her hands down here, but about 12 centimetres long on Instagram, that sort of message really detailing how they felt as well. And it just meant so much to me that what I was able to do was share an outlet they were able to respond to and really get something from. So I don’t know if I’ve asked the question here. But I think that the main thing is, it absolutely is community. And what I’ve loved more than ever is building a presence. And I suppose in a character around this community, where people feel like they can share where people really look at me and don’t think of me as somebody who is sort of out of touch with them. I’m actually just another normal mum with all the same struggles. But actually, we get to do this other stuff, which I hope helps. And as you know, because you’re part of it. I’ve also built this Wiki Mama network, which is mums in business. And literally I love it. I love love, love it. I get so much energy from this group from the chat that happens within WhatsApp of it with seeing all the growth and the wins and everything that’s happening to the women in the group. I just get so much from it. And I’m just trying to harness that and like bottle it because I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so positive and so pumped as I really do right now. And it’s the funniest thing because really, why should I because my business literally crashed and collapsed. You know, at this time last year, one of the ways in which I’m generate income is through attractions who have all been closed, you know, and the future does look a tiny bit bleak, because marketing budgets have obviously been slashed, as they’ve got no revenue to fall back on from the last year, pretty much they lost, they’re just about to lose Easter holidays as well, which is just yet another, you know, slap in the face against Christmas against the whole of the last, well, they had summer, but they’d obviously lost Easter before. Anyway, it’s just tricky, but I just have huge faith for 2021, I just know that it’s going to be okay, that Wiki has all the opportunities it needs. Once we reopen, I just took the opportunity, I guess, to grab hold of some other channels. So I’ve been running 1:1’s so I’ve got 18,000 followers on Instagram. So I’ve got something to talk about and to share with others who want to build a community or build a platform, you know, on Instagram. So I’ve been doing that. But also I built this network and have to say, I just feel just so pumped from it, I just love it proves that I’ve obviously built the two apps in the last lockdown as well. So I kind of got what I wished for, for a long while I had said, Oh God, you know, I just kind of need the world to standstill for a bit so that I can catch up. And, you know, the main thing is just be careful what you wish for. Didn’t necessarily want a global pandemic to come with it. And I’m not saying I obviously caused that. But

Charlotte Speak  21:34  

Yeah, if anybody, you know, legal is listening, Susie’s not owning up to anything here, and definitely not wishing for this ever again. 

Susie Lodge  21:42  

Absolute disclaimer, I had nothing to do with the pandemic. But I have to be really grateful for the opportunities it’s afforded me actually, because there are lots and lots and lots of negatives that can be taken. And I, you know, I don’t even want to start going into all the horrific things that have happened as a result of the pandemic. But in most senses, you can only control what you can control. And in my small world, I think I’ve a been able to, despite the huge downturn it had on my business overall, I guess from a revenue and growth point of view at that point, I managed to grab hold of these other opportunities with building the apps, building a network, getting onto 1:1’s and also enhancing the tech and the features I have on my app and platform to really take it forward so that when we all get to go out again, hopefully it will be the best it’s ever been. So I just feel really excited about that.

Charlotte Speak  22:34  

I think so much of what you said will resonate with so many of us. And I think particularly that the whole concept of we’ve had a year where joy and absolute distraught sadness and trauma have coexisted closer than ever before. You can’t liken it to many things, can you? So I think, yeah, we’re all going to be running towards, probably still in a socially distance manner, but we are going to be running towards the days out and making sure that we’re just getting that time back again. And one of the things I’ve shared with you previously is that relationship change that’s happened with me and my girls in particular, where I want to be a parent, I don’t want to have that role of parent and homeschooler and preschool entertainer. Touchwood, it doesn’t appear that we’re, you know, going back to that anytime soon right now, but part of the sources of joy that we’ve had before have come from the proper quality family time together. So there’s only so many rainy muddy walks that you can do and you just want some time you just want a bit more and and I know that sometimes that can feel like a first world problem to have, you know, it’s not the be all and end all but I think it’s when your world shrinks, like it has done for us over the last year. It’s really hard to keep walking through sometimes, isn’t it? 

Susie Lodge  23:56  

There’s a book by Glennon Doyle that I can’t think of the name of now, unfortunately. And she talks a lot about us as women, especially wanting more as if it’s something we should be ashamed of. And it’s amazing. It’s a realisation that I always want more, you know, I want more for my kids. I want more for us as a, for my husband and I. I want more, I want more success. And quite often, you know, we are almost brought up to just be grateful for what you have. And this is, you know, a massive thing right now there’s gratitude. And it’s, you know, there’s book upon book upon book, there’s podcasts on podcasts and everywhere you look every day on Instagram that will be about gratitude and gratitude is one thing, being ungrateful is a completely different thing. But also being grateful for what you have but aspiring for more, is just the way the world works. It’s why successful people get more successful. It’s inspirational. I think that one of the things that the pandemic has, and then being in lockdown has taught is 100% to be grateful for what we’ve got. I mean, I have spent so much time with my children. And actually, I really do see it as a gift, I would have never had the opportunity to have spent the summer that we just had with my children in that way. It was an incredible thing. You know, this time last year, the weather changed, didn’t it, and we will almost shone upon from on high, I’m gonna shut you in, I’m gonna give you the weather, you know, I’m gonna give you the sun. And it was incredible and 100% do see that as a gift, what it also did give us all was, you know that opportunity to sit and realise what we miss, realise what we want, by maybe gave us time and time to take stock of what we were doing and what we don’t like about what we were doing. It certainly did me, I came out with the first lockdown with a completely revised opinion on how I was going to run my business after that, and change things. And now, you know, I’m a lot happier about the way I’m doing it, there’s going to be a school of thought sure that where people are thinking when I managed without the days out, we managed to you know, we became very frugal, we did lots of things around the house, we did lots of things locally. But I also think that there is a huge community of people who just want to get back out there who love the adrenaline of the thrill rides, who love the experiences you can’t get just locally. And you know, what I do think is amazing is this new appreciation, we all have probably of nature and our surrounding area. I mean, as I just said, I found things on my doorstep that I didn’t even know were there. I found routes and pathways and, and walks and fields. And, you know, and a new appreciation of my own garden, which I don’t even think I had before, I think we’ve probably all grown so much in that way of seeing what was right in front of our eyes, in our own children as well we’ve give we’ve opened their eyes to really what was on their doorstep and to teach them an appreciation around that. But for so many of us, we will just be wanting to get back out there and ride the miniature train and get on the you know, on the slide and go for the top and get on that roller coaster. And again, it’s new memories, and it’s building memories. But also with that massive appreciation for it. It’s like, you know, sort of appreciating what you have. And in fact, you just said it before we came on about central heating and water because you’ve not had it for two days, it’s like, I hope, I think you know, having had the tap turned off for us on days out for a year, we would all fully appreciate what we can get from them. And certainly me who you know, you’re generally going on a day out every single weekend and at some points actually finding it a bit of a hassle to get back in the car and have to go here and here and here. And sometimes we were doing a big attraction one day after the other one, just to try and get in all the reviews for work, you know, during the holiday. And in the end, I don’t know that I was appreciating it as fully. Now I certainly will be.

Charlotte Speak  27:52  

So that leads me into a few questions that I am asking everybody at the end of the podcast. The first one is, what does self care look like for you?

Susie Lodge  28:02  

Now that’s a really interesting one. Self care was a big topic for me last week, actually. And last week, just for context, was a big week for us because children went back to school on Monday. I was pretty shit at self care, I have to say for most of my parenting journey. I’ve got three children, Jacob’s seven, Matilda is five and Lilly is two. So for a long while I’ve been pregnant, breastfeeding, bringing up a newborn, while also you know, like all parents during the dash here, doing a dash there, getting all the things, doing all the things. And actually I think I thought I was a better parent for putting myself to the bottom. I think I thought that being that martyr of going no, no, I’ll have the worst scrap of meat, you guys eat, you know, including my husband, putting it down and then almost giving myself a measly bit, you know, not managing a shower or not taking time for a bath or not doing exercise. I think by putting myself to the end, for some reason that made me feel like I was a better person, the fact that I was, you know, a really good mum for putting myself last. Do you know what, it’s absolute bullshit. It really is. Because the more the years went on with my treating myself like that, putting myself into that camp. And the other things I was doing, you know, just now I’m thinking about making sure that everybody else had a haircut every month or every six weeks and only having one once a year myself, you know all those things, making sure that everyone else had all the things. I’m still wearing trainers right now with holes in them and I got them before my, you know, my kids were born. It’s things like that, this isn’t answering your question about self care, but I will come to it. What I realised was the example I was giving my kids of self care was absolutely awful. And this is what I was training my daughters to do when they become mums. It just became horrifying for me that I thought that my daughters would see that the mum basically puts herself to the end of the pile that she’s the one that wears holes in her trainers. I have to say my trainers are so comfy that like a second skin, I just thought this is really awful. This is a terrible example of self care. And if I see my daughter’s doing this when they have a family, I have only really got myself to blame. I also have a son who I don’t want to see his mum living in a very stereotypical gender split sort of life where it’s, you know, where she gives the husband, the best slice of the, you know, of the meat, as I said, and where I’m running around like a bluearse fly, not managing self care things is completely against what I stand for. Not to say that I wear the trousers in this house, but I 100% wear a lot of trousers, and it’s quite equal. If not, I’m the one that calls the shots a lot. So I just thought like Christ, this is really bad. And what I was noticing is that my husband had a completely different view on self care. So he’s not a runner, or he doesn’t do exercise or anything like that, but if he wanted to have a drink at any point, or he wanted to stop and sit down on the sofa and put his feet up. He just did that. Whether or not I was still blue arsed lying around the house. Okay, so here’s the answer. I basically started to put myself somewhere on the list. What I needed to do during lockdown, even though I still worked it around the family. And I didn’t have to, but I did, true self care would be doing it when you need it, I do believe but I still had to manage this around the family, I was getting up now I started getting up at some six o’clock in the morning to give myself a full hour and a half or more of total me time. And that wasn’t to start work. That was to actually sit down and do what I wanted to do. Whether or not it was to sit and watch TV on my own with a cup of tea for an hour, or meditate. But I also started running again, in this last lockdown so this morning, I’ve been for a 5k on the weekend. I didn’t realise I’d done it but I’ve managed 9k. And that was because I’ve only ever run 10k is the longest distance before. I’m going to be 40 in April. And I’ve just made a bit of a commitment to myself that I want to be able to run 10k. But I also want to be able to run comfortably so that I can enjoy it. And I can get that headspace and you know, the mental wellness that I think I’ll get from it. But this last year, I started investing in things like good skincare products. I started looking after myself in a way that I, you know, looking after my hair, getting that haircut in, spending money on myself and making sure that that’s part of what I do. And also unashamedly making sure that my family could see that, making sure that my children can see that mummy has a value and that I’m putting a value on myself and I’m buying myself those things, and sometimes saying no to them. So they say mummy can I have, you know, no, you can’t have that. Mummy’s got to get this for herself this month, you know. So I think that self care is an enormous topic. And it’s become really important to me. And mainly, I think the pandemic and the lockdown has shown me that. 

Charlotte Speak  33:00  

Let’s hope that your approach to self care lasts so much longer than the pandemic, it sounds like you’ve got a really good handle on it.

Susie Lodge  33:08  

Well, I think as well, if I look at it, now we’ve talked about it, I wasn’t really thinking about it this way before. But I can see that my mood and my energy and everything I’ve created in the last maybe six to nine weeks has gone hand in hand with a revised attitude towards my own self care. 100%. I think that it’s so intrinsically connected, you know how you feel mentally, what you can then bring to the table.

Charlotte Speak  33:34  

So the next question is, if you could go back and talk to the Susie that was becoming a parent for the first time, what’s the one piece of reassurance you would give yourself? 

Susie Lodge  33:46  

The reassurance would be that you are actually pretty bloody good at doing this, you really are going to be and I never knew I was going to have three children. I kind of had this vision I suppose when I was little, I was an only child and my family, my best friend up the road. He was a family of three children and I always used to look at that. And think ah that’s what I want because they can play a board game we can’t and they’ve got almost like a full on football team in the back garden and we can’t and so I think in a way I manifested this three children thing. I really never thought I was going to be you know I was going to. The reassurance 100% would be that you’ve got this and you know it’s not a term I like to throw around all the time because it’s thrown around so much, but I really do have it. I’ve really got this in my own way. And what I wrote down actually before the call was that comparison is a killer. So it’s like in terms of advice. Comparison is an absolute killer. And my advice to my pre parent self would be just from the word go stop looking left and right at what everyone else is doing. Find your own parenting groove because you know you and your child better than anyone else, better than your mother in law, better than your mum, better than the midwife even, you know, better than the friend that’s had three kids, you know what works for you and your children. And I think we spend so much time as new mums looking left and right, looking at what the rest of the people in the NCT group are doing, how long is that kid sleeping, or what colour is her this and that it just doesn’t serve you. Because what we tend to do is look at it and obviously in a negative way. And I’m not saying you know, be ignorant and don’t learn, don’t take advice 100% do, but just do but be really picky about what you take on and what you don’t you don’t have to take on all the advice, don’t have to take on all the examples of what other people are doing. Quite quickly actually, I got into my groove. By the time I’d had my second child, I probably wasn’t listening to anyone. And certainly by the third, I haven’t listened to a single thing. And I look back now, Lilly is two years old. And I sometimes think crikey, I didn’t do that with Lilly. I didn’t do that with Lilly. I haven’t done that bit, just so many things. I think I haven’t done it. And I think it’s okay, because I’m in my groove, she is the happiest, brightest, loveliest, she brings the light like literally, I wouldn’t have been able to manage the last few years without her. So I must be doing something right.

Charlotte Speak  36:18  

That’s amazing reassurance both for, you know, previous Susie, but also, you right now and any parent listening to this. And finally, a bit more of a work based one: what are your kind of hopes or wishes for parents in the workplace now and in the future.

Susie Lodge  36:37  

I think that the lockdown has just afforded us this amazing opportunity to prove that you can balance it all. Had this conversation happened pre pandemic 100%, I’d have been saying that I want employers to see that we can work from home, to give people flexible working opportunities. But obviously, because of the lockdown, we’ve been forced into this position. And I would just say that, my hope is that it continues in that vein, that there is no U-Turn that people don’t like, try to drag parents and non parents back into the office. Because I think that that productivity has just soared and the work life balance that you’ve been able to afford. I think that that self care element will have come into play a lot more for parents, who now can feel that they can manage it all a lot better. This is the mental strain and pressure. I remember having pre Wiki when I was working in London, trying to get that train literally running pregnant most of the time, but like running so hard to get on that train, only to have it leave in front of me. Or even if I caught the train to be on the train and then suddenly it stops for a 45 minute break for no reason. And eventually there’s an announcement that there’s a signal failure somewhere like halfway up the country that’s nothing to do with you. And that whole stress of having to ring around on my friends to pick my children up. Or even if none of that happened, I’d still be the one parent screeching to a halt outside nursery to get them probably a few minutes after six worrying about late fees. Worrying about seeing my little, gosh it’s bringing that emotion to me, crikey. But seeing my little ones waiting with their bag and coat on through the doors, just heartbreaking. And that stress that you were having to live day after day, just to manage all the things, I just really hope that for parents going forward that the changes that have happened for the positive as a result of locked down and the pandemic just continue and that flexible working opportunities and employees continue to see the benefits that are happening for mums and dads I’m talking about here as well. You know, anybody with a shared ownership of the responsibilities of pickups, drop offs, you know, when the kids are sick, etc.

Charlotte Speak  38:59  

It’s understandable, isn’t it? It takes you back to a time that didn’t feel good. And it becomes a memory but it doesn’t always take away the emotional sting does it. So thank you so much for sharing so honestly, you absolutely do hit all of your personal brand promises without a shadow of a doubt. So before we go if people want to come and find you specifically, and also Wiki Places, where are we going for it?

Susie Lodge  39:24  

So you can find me on Instagram @wikiplacesforkids_official, you can download my app on iOS at the app store or on Android Play Store and it’s Wiki Kids but all links can be found in my bio on Instagram or wikiplacesforkids.com

Charlotte Speak  39:45  

So there we go. Episode one done. Thank you so much Susie for being part of it, sharing so authentically and for creating a platform that can really help us when it comes to all of these days out and places to visit that are obviously going to be vying for our attention and indeed do need our support, but it’s going to help us I think be really discerning and keep our boundaries in place and figure out what’s important to us and how we want to spend our time. Thank you for joining me today. It has been such a blast to start this podcast. If you have enjoyed listening, please do rate, review and subscribe. It will help other people find me too. If you’d like to get in touch then you can always drop me an email or come and find me on social media. Mostly Instagram is where you’ll find me hanging out. Until next time, take care