Power of the Parent 6: 6: Carina Tillson – Love Your Mealtimes

Episode Transcript

Charlotte Speak  0:12  

Hello and welcome to Power of the Parent, the podcast. I’m your host Charlotte Speak. I’m a level seven CMI accredited coach, a Strengthscope Master Practitioner, Mental Health First Aider and talent consultant. And I’m also the face behind Power of the Parent. In this podcast I’ll be speaking to parents in the workplace. Some of them are in traditionally employed roles, others are running their own businesses. And we’re having conversations about life in general insights about being a parent and having a career and exploring the strengths that parenting has awoken for people. We will talk about things like the value that they’re bringing to the workplace, as well as my guests very generously sharing their personal stories and anecdotes about everything life can throw at us.

Hello and welcome back to Power of the Parent, the podcast. In today’s episode, I am so excited to say that I am chatting to Carina Tillson, who has just returned to work after having her second maternity leave. Whilst on maternity leave, and this is a bit that’s really piqued my interest, Carina has started her own business, Love Your Mealtimes. Carina describes herself as a kitchen confidence coach, where she runs workshops and group programmes to help people gain confidence with their cooking, learn how to meal plan, like a pro. That’s something that I aspire to do, and just generally take the pain out of feeding their people. It’s a really big topic for me, personally, totally drawn to this as a busy working parent and all that wraps around this particular topic. So I’m thrilled that Carina said that she would come and chat with me. So welcome, Carina.

Carina Tillson  1:53  

Hi, thank you so much for having me, I’m so pleased to be here.

Charlotte Speak  1:57  

You’ve just returned to work from your second maternity leave, how did the first versus second return compare? Was there anything that you’d learned from the first time around that you took with you this time?

Carina Tillson  2:08  

Definitely. And this time, I’m returning to a remote team, I’m still in the same team and in the same role, so I have that consistency. But it’s quite different this time around, partly because I’m returning, you know, to a desk at the end of my kitchen, with my colleagues on a screen and still fiddling with the technology. And I’m still having to be told that I’m on mute something that everyone else has had a year to get used to. But the really big change for me, I guess that characterises this return compared to my last one is that I’m just a lot more relaxed, I’m a lot more relaxed about what will happen when I go back, I’m a lot more relaxed about my ability to cope, I think I worried when I went back to work after my first, after having my son, he wasn’t a great sleeper, I wasn’t sleeping a lot. And I was worried about my ability to cope and be back up to speed. But the other thing I think is really different with my return this time around is I’ve always been very career driven, and quite ambitious. And I’ve got things that I want to achieve for myself. And so I’ve worked at a particular pace, and then I stopped doing that abruptly to become a mum. And I had a year at home. And then I went back to work and I had to try and figure out who I was in that working world, because the mode of work that it use and the mode of operation I’d use is very driven and ambitious, it didn’t work for me anymore. And so I had to find a new way of doing things. And I think now that I’ve gone through that learning process, going back to that second time around feels more straightforward. I wouldn’t say easier. But I would say it’s more straightforward.

Charlotte Speak  3:40  

There’s definitely a kind of strength in knowledge isn’t there? And every return is different. I mean, you’ve just described two very different experiences, because your mindset is different, like straightaway. And I think obviously it’s a world that I live and breathe all the time. But I think you know, you speak to one parent and one person that’s returned, you’ve spoken to one person because everybody’s experiences are so different. Everybody has a different take on what’s happened but the thing that I find grounds every conversation when I’m working with people is what is your definition of success, what does good look like to you? What’s important to you? You know, a few different ways to ask it and I think there’s a lot to be said for making sure that we don’t feel like we’ve always got to be cartwheeling and jazz hands and incredibly you know like on it all the time. There’s a lot to be said for neutrality isn’t there? You can hear that in your experience. I experienced this when it was my first return and first becoming a parent and there’s a lot of value in being able to have that reflection time isn’t there?

Carina Tillson  4:46  

Yes, definitely. The other thing that I think I’m just coming to realise and I think I’m very happy to be open about this is my life as a working parent. I just bumped into a nursery mum so my two children go to a local nursery and I bumped into the mum of another child and we stood chatting for a few minutes. And I can’t remember what I said. But she just said to me, at one point in the conversation, well, you know, you’re always so together, you know, you just arrive at the nursery and I see you and you just look like you have it. And I said to her, everything is brown paper and string where I am like, you know, it might look very together on the surface, but underneath there is just as much, you know, just getting to the end of the day, or just getting to the end of the week as there is in everyone else’s life. And I think we have to be really careful that we don’t look at other people and think that they’re, you know, cartwheeling, and they’ve got everything together. And they know exactly what they’re doing. And they’ve got immaculate homes and beautifully well behaved children, who eat everything on their plate and go to bed at 7pm every day, because it’s just not true. No one has that life. And I felt a duty in that moment to be very clear that I don’t have that life. And my life is as complex and flawed and joyful and accidental as everyone else’s.

Charlotte Speak  5:56  

I absolutely love that. And I think we sometimes, I don’t know, if it comes from a place of, we just forget that emotions and situations can run concurrently, that you can be feeling the joy and also some sort of, you know, negative stress at the same time, or you can really love parts of what you do for a job. And also, you know, really struggle with parts of it. You can adore parts of being a parent, and then other times it can be incredibly hard. And we don’t have to be at an extreme, it’s okay to kind of flick between two. And I think I remember being on my second maternity leave, and my boss at the time ringing me to just, you know, like, have a general chat at some point. And she said something like, you’re making it look really easy, because she’d seen she’d seen me put some posts on social media. You know, it was a nice thing she was being, she wasn’t being horrible, or anything she was, she was saying genuinely, you make this look easy. And I remember being mortified, because I was like, this doesn’t feel easy in the slightest. And it kind of, for a while I was like God, what does that say about me? Am I painting like this really polished view? Do I need to have a bit of a word with myself about what I am putting out in the world, but it was on my private Instagram, that was friends and family and just you know, it really was snapshots of me and the kids. And yeah, that was what I was putting out in the world. And I kind of had to say to her, that you see a tiny element, a tiny bit of what I’m doing. And it’s lovely that you think I’m a natural at it. But actually, I’m tearing my hair out some days, and I don’t want to wear it as a badge of honour feeling, you know, strung out or anything but, but equally, it’s okay to feel both, isn’t it? 

Carina Tillson  7:53  

It is, absolutely. And, you know, that’s the place that growth and development comes from, isn’t it, you know, looking back on the things that, okay, you know, X happened, I reacted in a certain way, or I did a certain thing in response to that, and I think I’d do it differently next time. And this is my reflection on it. And that’s where growth and development comes from. So there are going to be those moments where you sort of think, Okay, I’ve been presented with a situation, I’m not sure what to do. For me in this last year would be my older one, kind of, you know, say two and a half approaching three, having a sort of, you know, big feelings moment where he’s perhaps having a bit of a bit of a meltdown. And the baby also needing attention as well, at just kind of six, seven months old. And at that moment, I’m dealing with things for the first time and I’m thinking oh, you know, okay, so I’m not quite sure how I’m gonna deal with this in this moment, but I’ll figure it out. And then the next time I’d be better equipped. So, of course, we all have those moments where we’re tearing our hair out, and hopefully we’re having those beautiful Instagrammable moments as well.

Charlotte Speak  8:50  

Yeah, definitely, it definitely co-exists. So your new business and your incredible project with, I suppose, it’s a huge topic that well I said before we started recording it’s something that I very much personally for me hooks me in as a conversation not just for my family but for me personally as well. And the complexities of working from home have meant that my eating habits have been shocking at times and I have always worked from home, well as in like for the last three years I’ve worked from home, but certainly in the last 15 months, it’s just been a very different relationship with food and the kind of the meal prep side of things is something that I’ve always had in my head and like to do, I am the person that goes to the supermarket and writes a list in the order that I walk around in. My auntie laughs at me all the time because she’s like, you need to get a grip. You need to push yourself out of your comfort zone and go one day, even if you just go with the list in the wrong order. Like how would you feel about that? I’m like no, I can’t possibly. Don’t make such daft suggestions. So talk to me about where love your meal times has come from.

Carina Tillson  10:04  

I love that by the way, and when I used to go, we get deliveries now, rather than going to the supermarket. But when we did, I used to do my shopping list in that order. So I hear you, like you’re seen. So Love Your Meal Times came from, I love food, I’ve always loved food, I’ve always loved cooking, the kitchen has always been my happy place. And I know that that is not the case for a lot of people for a whole host of reasons. And I really love and one thing I’ve really missed this year, and it’s brought home to me this year, how much I love this, and I’ve missed it is gathering people around a table and sitting down having a meal together. And there are so many things that conspire to create a situation where you arrive at that table, grumpy, disgruntled, exhausted, stressed, and it means that that mealtime isn’t fun. It’s not fun, because you feel your efforts in cooking are completely under-appreciated. It’s not fun, because the journey to getting food onto the table in that moment has been really stressful. It’s not fun, because it just feels like this massive burden that goes on forever. And you can’t imagine how you’re going to do this every day of your life for the rest of forever. There is so much that takes that joy away. And so I set out to fix that or to help people kind of fix that because meal times can be really joyful times they can be really happy moments, some of my happy moments in childhood are being you know, sat around a table or eating with friends and family. And I think it is possible to change that it is possible to make it you know, arrive at the table with more joy and to enjoy that mealtime more. And so that’s what I’m trying to help people do.

Charlotte Speak  11:44  

It’s amazing. So when we were talking before you’ve kind of got workshops and things that you’re running, what are the kinds of things that come up for your clients? What are some of their struggles?

Carina Tillson  11:56  

I think there’s a huge amount of pressure on people. And when you roll that into the pressure on working parents already, I think it creates a perfect storm. So you know, you’ve got all the pressure about what we feed our children, you know, we must feed them in a certain way. This starts from when they weaned, baby led weaning, was it purees? Or is it this? Or is it that? I remember that with my son being like, that was the point where all of my friends that I’ve met through being pregnant, and we’re having kids around the same time, we all had a relatively similar approach to parenting. But when it came to weaning the kids like that’s where everything diverged. And that’s when I started looking at other people going, what are you doing? What are you doing? What should I be doing? Am I doing the right thing? Are you doing the right thing? What’s the right thing? And so that kind of spirals and there’s a lot of pressure on parents to feed their kids, I think in a certain way. There’s a huge amount being said at the moment about food waste, food waste in this country is a really big problem, we throw away a huge amount of food every year, I read something recently that it amounts to sort of one and a half billion meals worth of food. And there are people in the UK who are struggling to get enough food to eat and there’s just something in that that doesn’t sit right but that’s an added pressure. You’ve then got you know, the mad dash to pick up the kids from childcare, leave work, pick up the kids from childcare, get home and then start cooking, finish cooking, feed the children, hope they eat you’ve put on their plate, don’t dodge all the green stuff, chuck it on the floor, you know, complain that they don’t love it, you know, all of that. I mean, I feel stressed just talking to you about that. Now I can feel it rising on my chest, you know, it’s a huge amount of pressure. And then added to that, you know, if you don’t love cooking, if it’s not something you’ve done much of, if it’s not something you’re comfortable with, that just adds an extra layer of stress. And so I think for working parents, it’s really tricky. I had one workshop participant say to me back in February, she said, you know, I feel after a day of homeschooling and working from home, I get to 5:30 and I feel a sense of relief and accomplishment that we got through another day. And it is almost immediately replaced by a sinking feeling of dread that I now have to figure out what to put on the table for me and the kids. And that made me feel really sad, because this year has been hard enough on everyone, no matter your circumstances. And we just don’t need that extra stress at that point in the day where you just don’t have a lot of energy left. Which is what I love about meal planning.

Charlotte Speak  14:24  

Yeah, I mean, I could be that woman. It’s hard. You would want it to be simple, our relationship with how we put food on the table and I say that as somebody that has a lot of privilege that doesn’t you know, I go to a supermarket and I am careful but I don’t have to overthink like what I’m getting particularly because I need it to last you know a certain number of meals or I need to get a certain number of meals out of it. So I say that you know knowing that it is a totally different story for literally millions of other people, but it is that that sinking feeling that you’ve just described of, like I want to enjoy cooking, I generally do enjoy cooking, but it’s like anything if I don’t have the time to think it through. Even if I’ve done the meal plan side of things, like we sit down as a team, me and my husband will sit down like we meal plan together, and we’ll write a shopping list together and stuff. Like, it’s generally pretty equal in that respect. There’s plenty of other things that are definitely not 50:50 in our house, but that is one of them. Because it’s really important for us, particularly because we’re working from home, that we’ve got stuff there that is going to fuel us as properly as we possibly can. But it can feel like a real marathon of a day. And like we use after school clubs a few days a week. And they’re the worst days for me because I’m like, right, I’ve got to finish working ideally, between five and half past to be able to go get both kids, one from school, one from nursery, and then by the time you’re back, it’s why I actually really love the winter, because I know that we shouldn’t reduce everything to slow cooker conversations. But my goodness, like that, for me, that goes on in the winter. And that just saves my evening because I’m like, I just want to put something in, I can just spoon out and just make it easy they’re the evening so I feel at my most relaxed and I honestly think for a little while I didn’t realise how disproportionately stressful I was finding that evening routine. I remember saying to a friend, we were talking about the transition to having children and how that changed our lives and stuff. And I said, you know, to be honest, I would swap you an evening routine for a morning routine any day. I’d rather have the, have you got your school shoes on question 15 times than that hole between, like 5pm to bedtime, because everybody’s tired, and you’re all a bit depleted. And you’re, what’s that, there’s like a meme isn’t there about it’s really unfair that the people who want to go to bed have to put to bed the people that don’t want to go to bed? And I’m like, yes, that’s it. That’s what we’re talking about here. And I think it goes back to the whole, for me anyway, that all these things can coexist. And it wraps around your whole experience as a parent that do you have to feel like on your game 100% of the time delivering, be that meals or entertainment or just general wellbeing, like the basics for your children, that it’s okay, and it’s alright if it’s a bit of a complex relationship with some of this stuff. But it’s about finding ways to keep it simple, I guess.

Carina Tillson  17:52  

You’re absolutely right, I think it is about making it work for you. And one of the reasons I set this  business up is because there’s a huge amount of information out there on the internet about how to do a weekly meal plan, right? But all of those things assume that one size fits all. And the truth is, it doesn’t, you know, one size doesn’t fit all. And it’s all very individual, and it’s about making it work for you. So for some people, like you said through the winter, what a good friend of mine calls a chop and chuck meal, where you chop it up and you chuck it in in the morning. And you know you come home or you finish your working day, you bring the kids back from childcare or they get dropped off and you’ve got a meal ready to go. And you can just spoon it out and you said. For me, I don’t like stews, don’t tell my mum, but she used to make a lot of stews when I was a kid and I can’t go there, I can’t do it. But I’ve come up with my own ways for how to achieve that. So you said oh, maybe that doesn’t work in the warmer months. But for me, on the nights that I know are going to be busy, I’ll try and make sure that I spend a couple of extra minutes the night before prepping something that I can almost just bring out of the fridge and put onto plates. For some people that will be too much because I don’t want to think about tomorrow’s food today. But for me, that’s what works for me because then I know it’s done. And it’s off my mental to do list. And I know it’s there. And I’ve got something to feed myself and the kids that is, you know, meets the basic requirements of a balanced plate. And people will hopefully enjoy it because as you know, small children don’t necessarily have consistency in what they’ll eat from day to day. That aside, broadly speaking, it’s normally something that we’ll all enjoy.

Charlotte Speak  19:30  

Something that you said that I think is really interesting, so my sister will not eat casseroles and stuff she hates them and that’s definitely from childhood. I think, she might tell me differently but that I think is interesting and something that I’ve had to work on. Being a coach I’m always about kind of what else is going on under the surface and some of my relationship with mealtimes and meal planning and food wastage and things stemmed from my experience as a child and the way that my mum in particular, but my stepdad as well, I don’t think either of them will be will be listening, my mum might, but I definitely had some habits to unpick, and I remember a friend asking, I’ve totally forgotten what the question was, but she was doing like a challenge thing. This is years ago, in a membership group that I was on with her. And she was asking about, you know, what is the best part of being an adult. And my response was, I can pick what I’m having for tea, I get to pick, I’m pretty sure it was pre kids, I’d probably pick something different now but I think that’d still be in my top five, I don’t know, it’s like it’s something for me that, when I really enjoy it, and I want to explore a new recipe, for example, I also like being cooked for like, it’s so much more than just eating. I think so many times I have treated and do continue to treat mealtimes as very functional. And sometimes that’s right but I know, there are plenty of times where I’ve gone too functional, when actually I should, you know, just enjoy it a little bit and eat a bit slower and listen to what the kids are saying and tune into what they’re enjoying, and, you know, all that kind of thing. And it’s something to take a breath on.

Carina Tillson  21:34  

And I think this is part of the message, you know, it’s that mealtimes can be really joyful. And sometimes that’s going to mean your kids, you know, as my son did last week picking up a green bean and pretending it’s a rocket ship now, would I like him to eat with his knife and fork? Yes, I would. Am I going to stop him in that moment, because actually, his imagination is really at play there and it was really funny. And we all sort of joined it and then my little baby daughter was sort of pointing and gesturing and, you know, no I’m not going to stop him. Because, like all things in life, I think we have to find a balance, you know, as much as you know, the table manners and being able to take him out to a restaurant or take him to eat with other people and that be, you know, a pleasant and enjoyable experience that’s important to me, but so is also letting him have that creativity and that freedom and having a laugh and enjoying it. And it being a happy moment. You know, that’s really important to me. It’s so interesting what you said about, you know, the freedom to choose what you want to eat. I think that is true for lots of us. I think pre kids, I’m sure a lot of people would have said, oh, you know, great, you know, I get to choose what I want to eat whenever I want. But then as soon as you have someone else that you’re responsible for, whether it is children, or whether you’re a carer for someone else, or however you might arrive at that situation where you’re responsible for choosing your food and often for other people as well. It goes from a freedom to a responsibility. And when it comes when it feels like it becomes that responsibility, and even a burden, that’s when you get that meme of you know, no one told me that adulthood would be choosing every meal you had every day until you die or something, you know. So for a lot of people that ceases to be fun, and it starts being a weight. And I absolutely agree with you that in terms of functional meals in terms of the making of them, I mean, I love cooking, I love trying new things. And I’ll happily spend all weekend in the kitchen if I could, you know, that’s my happy place. And there are times for that. But I know there are also times in the week for me to wheel out the much more functional stuff, the stuff I can make with my eyes closed. When I’m trying to cook a meal when I’ve got, you know, the baby crawling around on the floor and my son kind of playing with stuff and kind of milling around the kitchen. Like that’s not a time for me to be making really involved food, that is a time for me to be making something I can do with my eyes closed or just bring something out of the fridge or just popping something in the oven. And all of that is fine. All of that is okay. There is nothing wrong with that. You know, the point of Love Your Mealtimes isn’t to say that everyone should be making incredibly elaborate, complex, perfectly nutritionally balanced meals every day. It’s not about that, you know, this isn’t about perfection. None of us I think should be striving for perfection in this area, certainly. But instead for it to be fun. And that’s my goal.

Charlotte Speak  24:09  

I love that goal. And I think that it will be so important to so many people. I’m sure you’re going to have a long list of clients because I’m not a fan of putting a problem where there isn’t one but I do think that there are a lot of us that need to change our relationship with this whole conversation because I’m definitely going to be one of those people because it is about bringing the joy back into it. We’ll take your words and sum it up there that it is meant to be fun, and it will be different degrees of fun. Some days will be better than others and definitely some days, we’re going to be functional and other days. I get to pause and take that breath and you know try something new like it’s a privilege to be able to fuel your body nicely, isn’t it? 

Carina Tillson  24:57  

It really is. The other thing that clients sometimes say to me is they really resist the idea of meal planning, because they don’t want to be that person that writes out their meals for a week, you know, they don’t want to be that person. They don’t see themselves, their self image is not of someone who plans stuff like that. And that’s totally fine. Of course, it’s totally fine. You know, so maybe they want to be the kind of person who goes to the supermarket and buys the trolley full of stuff and puts it in the fridge. And then every night really enjoys that moment of like flinging the fridge open, going right? What am I going to make tonight? It’s a little bit like Ready, Steady, Cook in my house, you know, I grew up on Ready, Steady, Cook so I absolutely love that show, and there’s absolutely a place for that as well. But when  we think about reducing food waste, what I would say for those people is to say, look in your fridge at the end of the week, or you know, at the end of whatever period you’ve shopped for and say right, what’s left? What didn’t I use this week? What do I want to buy less of? What do I want to buy more of? So there’s still a degree of planning, if you like, involved in that, particularly if you want to think about our consumption and reducing the waste, reducing the stuff that we don’t get through. And that can be helpful as well. And there is absolutely a place for that. What I would say to people who are reluctant to kind of jump on the on the meal planning ship is, the thing about meal planning is you’re doing the same work as you would do, if you weren’t planning but you’re just doing it at a time that works for you, you’re using that energy, when you feel like you’ve got it. So you’re not getting to the end of a busy working day, or the end of a busy day looking after the kids or whatever it might be that you’re doing during your day, and then having to think, oh, heck, what am I gonna, you know, I’ve now got to summon the energy, the creative juice from somewhere to come up with something to feed everyone. If you’ve done that, at another point in the week, you know, three days previously, just after lunch in your lunch break from work or whatever it might be, then you don’t even know you’re choosing when you spend that energy and you’re choosing when to engage in that creative activity. And I think that is something that even the most reluctant planners can get on board with.

Charlotte Speak  27:01  

Yeah, I love that. And I also suppose it helps, if you have got more than one parent at home as well. That is a really good opportunity to be able to delegate to people and say, like, this is the plan, the stuff in the fridge type approach, if you’re needing to have that kind of conversation at home as well. Having a plan can help make sure it isn’t just falling to you.

Carina Tillson  27:28  

Definitely. And you know, it’s interesting, the way that people divide these things up is always quite interesting, because I love cooking. And because meal planning is definitely in my wheelhouse, the way that we’ve divided chores at home for my partner and I, is he does the dishwasher, and he does the laundry and I do the food acquisition and the food making, the feeding and that kind of thing. And that’s the way we’ve divided it. But I know lots of other people who, like yourself, all the adults in the household do the meal planning together. And that is also a great model. But you’re right, you know, there’s no point in having an idea in your head and then not sharing it with the other adults in your household about what you might make. Because they’re concerned that if they go and make a meal, they’re using up something you had in mind to use for something else. And you know, it’s really hard to share that load between you if you’re not communicating somehow about it.

Charlotte Speak  28:18  

So actually, this is something that could really help us underpin feminism isn’t it?

Carina Tillson  28:25  

I mean, I would go so far as to say that meal planning is a feminist issue in the sense that, and this is really interesting. I ask in the different Facebook groups I’m in and you know, in person, when we’re allowed to meet with people, like I ask people about meal planning. And it’s not all I talk about, but you know. But I ask people about meal planning, and I asked in a Facebook group of working parents, and it’s a brilliant, brilliant mixed group, lots of comments and engagement from the men and the women in that group. Brilliant. And I asked people what they found tricky, what they hated about meal planning. And within four hours, I’d had more than 270 comments and not a single comment from a man. And I don’t know why that was, we can all take a guess. Anecdotally, what my clients tell me is that those clients that have male partners in the household say, oh, well, you know, I’ll just feed the kids, you know, I’ll just get something out of the oven. My partner certainly isn’t isn’t as well acquainted with the guidance around, for example, like salt consumption and stuff for the kids. Because I was the one on maternity leave, weaning the children. So I did all the reading on that. And that’s totally fine. And that’s, you know, that’s fine for us. But I think as the kids are getting older, and he’s taking them for a day out or have them on on his own for a period of time, it’s more important that he learns that stuff and gets more more acquainted with what does a balanced plate look like for a child of, you know, whatever age and so it makes it easier to share that work, but it’s just really startling or whenever I ask about this, you know, very, very few men come forward and say I’d be interested in learning more about that. And so taking that for what it is, without thinking too hard about why that might be, if this is a burden that predominantly falls to women or, to rephrase that, if this is a burden that is felt predominantly by women, then that is something I feel compelled to address. And that doesn’t mean, we should also make men feel that same burden, it means quite the opposite, that we should do something, I feel I should do something to help those women feel that this is less of a burden.

Charlotte Speak  30:35  

Yeah, definitely. I really like that. And I think the whole kind of conversation around making sure that wherever we possibly can, it’s about sharing that load, we talk about the mental load so much, and I think we still will be for years to come. But if these are some of the things that actually can help unpick, eating is not going anywhere, we’ve got to fuel our bodies, it’s not something that we’re suddenly going to be able to outsource. I mean, maybe someday, if that lottery win comes in, I think one of the first things I would do would be to get some sort of private chef. To be perfectly honest, sod the holidays, it would be somebody come and cook for me. But that’s probably not going to happen. So it’s going to be a big conversation. And we still need to be able to have the conversation without reducing every woman’s role to being the chef of the house, don’t we? And that’s where this comes in.

Carina Tillson  31:34  

Definitely. So I come back quite often to that whole idea of do, ditch, delegate, right? So what you mentioned, is delegate, and we all delegate this to a certain degree, sometimes we we could delegate it to take away, you know, delivery companies, or we get like a meal box company, and we get your three days worth of meals in a box or, you know, sometimes you delegate it to other people in house or whatever it might be, but we know we can’t ditch it. It’s here, as you say, we need to feel our bodies. For those of us that are caring for those around us, multi generational households, we also can’t ditch it because, you know, we’ve got to make sure those people we care for are fed as well. So that leaves us with do and in that sense, I think it’s a really good idea if you’re going to have to do this task to make it as painless as possible. And even dare I say, a bit enjoyable.

Charlotte Speak  32:29  

I love it. And I definitely will be one of those clients. So thank you so much for sharing more about your business, I absolutely loved the sound of it. And I know that so many people listening are gonna feel the same. I would love to get your answers on a few questions that I’ve been asking all of my guests. So the first one is, what’s your experience of sort of looking after yourself and to use the buzzword of self care, what does that look like for?

Carina Tillson  32:57  

Very much through the lens of food because food is sort of a permanent lens in my brain. The thing I do to look after myself is I eat more like my kids. And I think this is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot, you know, I’m not getting a lot of sleep, I’ve still got a baby that wakes through the night, so I know that I gravitate towards boosting my energy with sugar and caffeine. And I also know that that doesn’t make me feel great. And so actually starting to think a little bit more like feeding myself like I feed my kids, you know, staying or staying a bit further away from, kind of priesing my fingers off the sugar and thinking about balancing my energy in better ways, is something that I know makes me feel a lot better.

Charlotte Speak  33:44  

Brilliant. I need a leaf out of that book. And if you were to be able to go back and talk to the Carina who was becoming a parent for the first time three ish years ago, what reassurance would you give yourself?

Carina Tillson  34:02  

It’ll come good. And this applies to so many things, it is the first thing that leapt into my brain when you asked me and this applies to so many things. You know with my son, with my first I was worried about his sleep. I was worried about his development, you know, is he crawling? Is he walking? You know, I was worried about going back to work, will I cope with this? When I got pregnant with his baby sister, you know, am I going to be able to manage two? All of this, I think I’d love to be able to go back and say to myself, it’ll come good. I’m not a big fan of it’s just a phase, I had so many people say that to me through some really tough times and they were right but it doesn’t make that any easier to hear. You know, trying to weather a four month sleep regression with wake ups every hour and people saying it’s just a phase and you think you’re wrong, they were right, but it doesn’t make it any easier to hear. So I think my preferred kind of reassurance would be that it’ll come good.

Charlotte Speak  35:01  

I like that. I had a deep seated anger for people that told me that it was just a phase. It doesn’t feel like a phase.

Carina Tillson  35:12  

It feels like it will last forever, you’ll be here forever or you will expire as a result of said phase. It is just a phase. But yeah, no one wants to hear that really.

Charlotte Speak  35:22  

And it diminishes the enormity of things in the moment, doesn’t it as well, like, just let me be angry, or let me be tired or pass me the caffeine and sugar. Finally, what are your hopes for parents in the workplace in the future?

Carina Tillson  35:39  

My greatest hope, I think for parents in the workplace, is for the people around them to recognise their strengths and the benefits that you bring as a result of your journey through parenthood. So I am a much calmer person than I was prior to having kids because my spectrum of you know, like, at one end, the things that can go wrong to the other end, the things that are so brilliant and beautiful and joyful in life has grown immensely since having children. And so when something happens in a work context, a deadline is missed, something isn’t done, something’s done wrongly, you know, that kind of thing. It just doesn’t cause me the immediate stress response that it used to. And that is just one example, there are so many ways in which my journey as a parent has made me a better person, a better colleague. Anyone who I think has raised or been around a toddler for any length of time will know that you develop the negotiation skills of a UN ambassador, you just find different ways to describe things. Because you know, as someone is learning their words, and you’re going on that journey with them, you do get better at that kind of thing. And there are so many benefits, you know, one of the things that you see written about working parents, sometimes this idea that they’re always desperate to get out, whether it’s their workspace, or get away from the work, you know, they’re sneaking in at past nine o’clock, they’re sneaking out before five, you know, they’re always off on a sick day with the kids or whatever it might be. And I’m sure for people who don’t have those reasons, you know, to get out of work on time, or to take that time out that can, I’m sure, sometimes feel unfair. But I think there are many benefits, there are so many things you learn as someone who has the caring responsibility of a small person, of a child, there are so many things that you learn that are applicable in a professional context or in a work context. And I would love for that to become more widely recognised and appreciated.

Charlotte Speak  37:56  

I could not have put it better myself. I think that is just brilliant. And yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with you. There’s a lot that we need to start valuing as a society. And that is definitely a few of them. So thank you so much for joining me today. It has been a pleasure to get to know you some more. I can’t wait to see how your business grows, and all the amazing work that you’re definitely going to be doing. Thank you very much.

Carina Tillson  38:23  

It’s been a real treat to talk to you. Thank you so much.

Charlotte Speak  38:25  

Thanks very much for tuning in to Power of the Parent, the podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please rate, review and subscribe. And if you could tell all your friends about the podcast that would be wonderful. If you’d like to get in touch you can find me on Instagram, just search Power of the parent. I’ll see you next time.