1. Please introduce yourself: Name, what you do & how many children you have.
I’m Anna Whitehouse, the founder of Mother Pukka, a platform for people who happen to be parents. I’ve got two daughters, that are five and nine. I campaign for flexible working with a campaign called Flex appeal.
2. How do you manage to juggle work and life balance as a mother?
I don’t think the words âjuggleâ and âbalanceâ are in my dictionary as a parent. I don’t know anybody who could effectively say they’ve achieved both of those things. I think itâs more sellotaping over the cracks, and theyâre cracks that aren’t really created by me or my family but feel more societal; the cost of childcare, the flexibility of our workplace, theyâre the cracks that I feel like we as parents are sellotaping over. So I never really put it on my shoulders.
I think I stopped saying âI’m sorryâ, a long time ago when I realised actually it’s not my fault. And so I don’t answer the question, how do I juggle or balance things? Because actually, it’s hard for everyone. And I don’t know anyone that can, but it’s not your fault, and it’s not my fault. So, I don’t have those benchmarks anymore. Just getting through the day is the way forward.
3. What top tips would you give to any working mum?
I think, first of all, it could be working parents. I think the tip would be if you are in a partnership, to have very clear conversations about how important your role is. It’s not a side hustle and perhaps the reason your partner â if he is male â earns more is because of gender inequality, because of the gender pay gap. I think setting your stall out early, and how important your time is for your something, your work, as well as your partners. As women, we know for a fact that in the pandemic 47% more mothers than fathers logged off from their careers. We always step back, because our jobs aren’t deemed as important, but they are.
So, I think that would be my first piece of advice: own the role you have, don’t feel that you’re going into that job and you’re lucky to be there. They are lucky to have you. I think that’s the way that I did it. You know, I went back to work thinking âI’m so lucky to have this jobâ. No, you have extraordinary amounts of experience. Multitasking as a mother/as a father/as a parent is next level. If you can organise the doctor’s appointment whilst making an apple puree for your baby, changing a nappy and dealing with a crying child at the same time whilst breastfeeding, I think you’re pretty prepped for any job that’s thrown at you from business.
4. Speaking of work, can you tell us a little bit about Haliborangeâs #HappyHabits Back to School campaign?
 Haliborangeâs #HappyHabits campaign celebrates the unique habits we all have as a family that make us happy. It really hit me because as a parent, youâre constantly in a cycle of habits/routines â bedtime, bathtime, mealtime. You know it’s good for them and it’s good for you, but sometimes in that cycle, you lose the joy, the happiness. But actually, a lot of that routine for us is fun-filled. Theyâre moments we have together as a family.
5. Do you have any particular habits you swear by in your household?
Yes, morning routine is key for us; you have to start the day, the right way.
When I was younger, my mum used to get me and my sister to make our beds and that gave us a sense of ownership of our space.
We love to start the morning by dancing around to Taylor Swift â we do a little kitchen disco and just Shake It Off⊠that helps to start the day off on the right foot.
We always take our Haliborange kid’s and adultsâ vitamins together in the morning, one for them and one for me. Then other daily habits for us are just making sure we repackage things like mealtimes or any of those other slightly banal moments and embracing them as moments where we can cuddle up, snuggle up and lean in.
6. What do you love most about London? Do you have a favourite spot with your children?
What I love most about London is, to be honest, just letting the children absorb walking down any street, because each street is so different. We sit on a tube and they are constantly absorbing all kinds of people, from all walks of life. There is an absorbance of a cross-section of everyone and everything I suppose.
My favourite place is free for anyone to go to. Most people go to the Natural History Museum but in summer, I love the V&A as it has a paddling pool in the middle of it. And the children love it. It’s got good coffee for parents. It’s not like some sort of hot, steamy, soft Play Centre from hell. It’s lovely, beautiful, surrounded by old buildings, and it costs nothing. And it’s in the centre of one of the most incredible cities in the world. I feel like when I’m there with my children, I am in the centre of the best city in the world.
7. How do you define quality âme-timeâ?
For me, it’s actually, ironically work. Because I have creative work that I love. My downtime tends to be writing. I write, and I write, and I often don’t post a lot of it, but it’s my own personal records, diary notes about children and just things that I just want to remember. Thatâs my downtime. And some of it makes it onto the public domain. Because I think, well, if I think that [coming back to my example of never saying sorry at work] then I’m sure other people were thinking that and that’s really, how I unravel my thoughts and process things and find, I think, not me-time, but just time.
8. What is your favourite & least favourite thing about parenthood?
My favourite thing is the spontaneous cuddles you get from your children when you’re least expecting it. When they just suddenly wrap their arms around your neck and say, I love you and you’re not expecting it. You could have been having the worst day ever, and it will fill your soul in a fleeting moment.
The worst bits for me⊠right now I’m in the quagmire of sibling rivalry. I can’t say anymore, âThat’s not your toyâ over a toy that neither of them cared about five minutes before the argument. I can’t do it anymore. Iâm done.
9. Tell us something people donât know about you.
A lot of people don’t know that I lived in Amsterdam for a lot of my life, and I’m half Dutch. I think people assume I’m from the UK. I’m very proud of those Dutch roots because that half of me is what’s driven me to change things in the UK for the other half of me. I have experienced something in the Netherlands that wasn’t here. Family is top of the tree in Holland, whereas I feel that we have it quite low down our priority list in the UK. That’s probably the two sides of me that I’m looking to address.
10. Given we are all about embracing Motherhood, what advice would you give a first-time Mum?
However hard it is. Get outside somehow. I holed up in the house for so long. I think that simple step out, even if you walk around the block, even if you want to post a letter, that simple step of going outside and coming back in, is so vital in those first few days.
I think just give yourself a break. Don’t ever say the words âIâm sorryâ unless you’ve done something catastrophic to someone. I think we need to stop apologising. Like âI’m sorry, I’m not ready for you to come round and visit because the baby’s got colicâ, âI’m sorry, I can’t get there today because I’ve got postnatal depressionâ, We donât ever counter it with the end of that sentence. We just say I’m sorry, I can’t do it. And it’s okay. You can just say âI can’t do it today, but how about next week or the week afterâ. I think remove the apologising, because women have apologised for things that aren’t their fault, that they haven’t done and they don’t need to apologise for, for too long.
Anna Whitehouse (@mother_pukka) is working with Haliborange on its #HappyHabits campaign that is celebrating all the family habits we do that make us happy. Visit the @haliborangeuk Instagram account to find out more and share your own happy habits.
Read more inspiring interviews as part of our online motherhood exhibition and get in touch to share your story with us. We would love to hear from you…
