Ambivalence and Time - Rebecca

The first of two episodes sharing our stories as hosts...

Dannie-Lu introduces Rebecca: 
"We thought it'd only fair that we put ourselves in the hotspot too, and answer the same questions we expect our guests to answer. So in this episode, I speak to my cohost, Rebecca. Social entrepreneur with a focus on community and comedian about her experience of parenthood as someone who thought she would probably not be a parent because of sexuality and circumstance, but has ended up on some levels, having what is deemed quite a conventional setup.

She talks honestly about the challenges and expectations of parenthood, as well as some of the unexpected small and joyous moments of it. We explore how societal assumptions about parenthood have evolved. Sometimes haven't and what it means to navigate these spaces while trained. We explore how societal assumptions about parenthood have evolved and sometimes haven't, and what it means to navigate these spaces while staying true to yourself." 

Transcript

[00:00:00]

Rebecca: So much of it felt really alien and. that's why I described myself for a long time, and I still describe myself as an ambivalent parent because I felt like it changed my whole identity and it really curtailed who I was and what I was doing, and that felt really difficult.

I think I never felt like it completed me and I felt like I was, there were things that I was meant to feel and I dunno where they came from, but there were things that I felt I was meant to feel and I wasn't 

hello, and welcome to It's a Bit More Complicated Than That, where we are listening to all the fascinating, sad, joyful, messy answers that follow the question, So, do you have kids?

I'm Rebecca.

Dannie-Lu: I'm Dannie-Lu,

Rebecca: I'm a parent.

Dannie-Lu: and I'm not. But it's a bit more complicated than that. And that's the same for pretty much every one of our guests. 

Rebecca: Every episode, we ask one guest whether they're a parent or not, whether it's a bit more complicated than that, and a few other questions about their journey. we see where it 

goes.

Dannie-Lu: And to finish, we give them a magic wand and ask if there's anything they'd change about society if they could. 

dlc_6_02-21-2025_163742: Now it's our turn. We thought it'd only fair that we put ourselves in the hotspot too, and answer the same questions we expect our guests to answer. So in this episode, I speak to my cohost, Rebecca. Social entrepreneur with a focus on community and comedian about her experience of parenthood as someone who thought she would probably not be a parent because of sexuality and circumstance, but has ended up on some levels, having what is deemed quite a conventional setup.

She talks honestly about the challenges and expectations of parenthood, as well as some of the unexpected small and joyous moments of it. We [00:02:00] explore how societal assumptions about parenthood have evolved and sometimes haven't, and what it means to navigate these spaces while staying true to yourself.

I loved talking to Rebecca about this, and I hope you love listening.

Dannie-Lu: Do you wanna go first? Should I nominate you to go first? Is that helpful? Okay, fine. Yeah, so how 

How would you describe yourself? 

Rebecca: So I think I definitely describe myself as a parent and one of the things this made me. Remember is how important it was to me many years ago. So my daughter's nearly 14. Many years ago that I described myself as a parent and not a mom, I felt really important early on.

And obviously 14 years is a long time and it's a long enough time for anyone to get used to anything, but it took quite a lot of getting used to. So I think I would describe myself for sure as a parent. And I guess the complicated part for me is how I got to that. But also how important I think that I see it as a job of parenting and not, as a life of being a mom.

Dannie-Lu: I was gonna ask you why you preferred parent to mom. Are there any other reasons

Rebecca: It's helpful for me in talking about this topic to try and think back to 14 years ago. 

Because I think there's been huge changes, but I also think that how I felt 14 years ago is really valid. How I felt 12 years ago is really valid. How I feel now is really valid. It's all valid, man. 

and it also is quite interesting that, because a lot of people tell you,when you've got a very young, oh, they tell you two things actually.

They tell you, this'll all go. All go too quickly [00:04:00] and they also go, oh, it's worth it. So this is, I, this is like my most hated phrase certainly was early on, I call, but it's worth it. And I'd love to unpick more of that, like 

What does that mean? 

Rebecca: It's interesting because 14 years in, there are a lot of things that are far more worth it to me than they felt a year in.

So that's. but, you were asking about the parenting, but to me it always felt important that,it's a thing you take on, it's not a thing that necessarily has to happen to you. And that thing you take on is about, making another, A good friend of mine once said, making a good human.

Yeah. The job isn't being female and making a good human. 

Dannie-Lu: I see. I love that. The job 

Rebecca: is making a good human. I love that. I think that's how I felt because I entered into this. With a co-parent who is my partner, who is male. It seems to me that if I give myself this kind of hallowed mum job, or not job.

'cause that's not, it's not a job, is it? that's a who you are thing. That's how I saw it 14 years ago. If I gave myself that job, then what job does that give him? And immediately he sidelined and I really needed him to take the job on. 

I love 

Dannie-Lu: that. That's that's quite refreshing to hear that.

'cause often in society, although it's changing, that if it is a heterosexual arrangement, then it's often taken that the woman takes on the, even now the woman takes on the bulk of the road, the load and the guy doesn't. And that can be difficult for everybody. 

Rebecca: Yeah. But then when you talk about parenting then it just automatically feels more equal, I think.

Yeah. I think that's 

Rebecca: how I felt about the word parent. And then, and as things have moved on and I've thought more, we do, I live in a, intentional community that's a little bit more fluid than. than an ordinary village. Yeah. So there's a lot more kind of ins and outs, and I've always felt like what some of my ambivalence of [00:06:00] parenting was around the nuclear family.

Like I've always felt like I've been looking more out. 

And I 

Rebecca: wanted to have a way of bringing up my child that still felt like that. I think that when you see it as parenting, there's so much parenting that can be done. By, or you've talked about mothering. We've talked about mothering and that's the third.

Yeah. You can do that with any word you like. Yeah. Yeah. But like parenting is, it takes a village. And that parenting to me also feels like it's less of a hallowed one person job. I think that's how I feel, the way that the word parent felt to me. And I just felt really uncomfortable with being a mom.

I still do. It's really odd. and I do think it's odd,I think it comes from me not thinking I was going to be, so there's a time that I thought I was going to be 

When I was 12. Me too. 

Dannie-Lu: I think a lot of how many you have girls? I was gonna have three. I was gonna have three.

Yeah. I was gonna have three and I was gonna to be honest, I was gonna be married with an amazing house by the time I was 30, Okay. 30. Nice. I'm so glad that didn't all happen. I, that's another conversation. 

Rebecca: I definitely don't think I want to have been where I thought I was gonna be when I was 12, which is five kids.

They were all gonna be boys and they were all gonna have Jay names. 

Dannie-Lu: Isn't it interesting? 

Rebecca: Yeah. really interesting. I had forgotten that until I was just, I feel like we, that's where I was when I was 12. 

Dannie-Lu: But that leads us really beautifully onto, described how you got to this point. 'cause we're at 12, so you don't have to go through every year, but maybe that's a good starting point.

Rebecca: Early so that I think I was about 12 when I decided that's how it was going to be. And I think I have this really weird memory of imagining myself at the back door of a lovely big garden. 

Calling 

Rebecca: them all in or something. And I. somewhere along the line I decided that was definitely not gonna be for me, and that was very much connected with two things really.

One was the fact that my, my mom would spend a lot of time telling me, you don't [00:08:00] have to have kids. Bless her. You don't have to have kids. You don't have to have kids. The problem with it 

was that when you tell your offspring that they don't have to procreate, it feels a little bit like they didn't want to.

Have you 

Dannie-Lu: Right? Yeah. Don't do what I did kind of thing when you were a kid. 

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. And I do think she had regret some regrets. There was a lot of stuff. And she had a lot of stuff. And, we have time and I haven't got the editing capacity to go through my mom, but her message 

Dannie-Lu: was you don't 

Rebecca: have to have them.

You have to. You don't have to. Yeah. so that message got through. also it got through that I. Felt like it had changed her. I felt like parenting, being a mom had changed her. And I don't think she was a hundred percent happy about the change, and I don't think she felt comfortable. So I also internalized this idea that if I became a mom, I would go bonkers.

Like I, I was like, if it just turns you mad. And I don't wanna be turned mad. So there was, it was quite a binary thing in my head of I don't wanna be mad, so I'm out. And also, I came out when I was 19 and then later I. So then life changed. The nineties weren't the nineties anymore, but I also, when I was in the sort of age where you were going, I probably won't be doing this or I probably will be doing this with my life.

That was a definite decision that was like, I probably won't be having kids because I'm gay, 

and 

Rebecca: that's too hard. For me, I don't want my personal life to be political, so that's too hard. So the notches kept stacking up. 

And that felt really comfortable to me. but then I met somebody that really wanted to have a kid and I really liked him.

and there was a point in our, I just wanna say friendship there, which is interesting 'cause it's, it is a relationship. Yeah. But there was a point where I just thought your wish, your certainty, all these stacks. That [00:10:00] made perfect sense. at some point in your life, they make a lot less sense when you're looking at the fact that you actually really want to spend your life with this person as you.

If that's what they want, then why keep holding onto that big stack of arguments against? 

Dannie-Lu: So it sounds like you went from, It's like you used the word binary yourself, which is, it is just such a, it is such a big concept, particularly now, isn't it? 'cause we can be binary in so many different ways, but 

that, for you sounded like you were like, I'm 12 and I'm gonna have five boys and call them in like Little House of the Prairie and then you came out at 19 as gay and then you. A male partner who, so it sounds like you had this discovery of it is more complicated than that, in fact. Yeah, absolutely.

It's way nuanced. Totally. 

Rebecca: I was just thinking, 'cause I can't help but tell my story to you looking at your face. Knowing what your story is. And I was just thinking how, the, oh, the beautiful luxury of me being like, oh, and then this happened and I made, I came to this realization and then the easy part was that without either of us quite being at the ready point.

Yeah. there we were. Yeah. so then the easy point. With it is essentially what the story is for a lot of people. Yeah. Like the interesting point for me was how I came to be doing this thing that actually I wasn't a hundred percent into. 

because actually it came really easily to us, and then there we were, we had a kid and then I had to deal with what.

You know where we were, and I've been dealing with it for 14 years. So there's a lot of dealing. 

Dannie-Lu: A lot of dealing. But actually 

Rebecca: that bit was 

Dannie-Lu: really easy. I think that's the thing that unites everybody wherever you are at, right? Whether you are a parent, you're not a parent, whether it's by choice, by circumstance, by something else.

there's a lot of dealing. For everybody because that's life and there are always unexpected elements and there are always even things that we expected to get on how we expected them to be. So it's, [00:12:00] if we could all just be a bit more honest about that, I think it would just make all of this conversation just so much easier for everybody and the expectation so much less.

but hey, it's absolutely part of the reason why we're doing this right. 

Rebecca: I need to open the door so the cat can get out. That's 

Dannie-Lu: fine. 

Rebecca: That's so annoying. 

Dannie-Lu: I'm sorry, we're just getting into a flow. No, it's fine. 'cause I was gonna, let me ask you the next question. Tell us what feels good about it, what's challenging so we can really get into this and what people can get so wrong about the reality of your life in particular.

Rebecca: So again, I think this is, I think the things that feel good and the things that are challenging are, have changed over 14 years, like massively. And I still think it's really interesting to remember how I felt at the beginning. 

it took me ages to find my identity of who I was after I'd had a child.

So much of it felt really alien and. I, that's why I described myself for a long time, and I still describe myself as an ambi ambivalent parent because I found the whole process of having to. be the sole kind of person for another human. really hard. And I felt like it changed my whole identity and it really curtailed who I was and what I was doing, and that felt really difficult.

And yeah. People would say, oh, but it's really worth it. So all the other things that happen are really worth it. I think I never felt like it completed me and I felt like I was, there were things that I was meant to feel and I dunno where they came from, but there were things that I felt I was meant to feel and I wasn't uncomfortable.

I think that's a really uncom female uncomfortable thing. Uncom 

Dannie-Lu: a big female thing. Maybe guys have it too, and maybe, maybe everybody has it right, but there's definitely a thing [00:14:00] with when you are born. assigned female, there's definitely a whole lot of stuff that gets thrust on you like that.

Rebecca: yeah. And I think it was the thrust in a way that I didn't like less than, the physical, but actually the physical reality of parenting early on is it's just relentless. It felt relentless. And and it was quite a few years later as well that I used to have a couple of days off. And then I'd come home and I'd feel this.

Sort of heaviness, reappear. And I think, huh? Yeah. Yeah. No, this isn't a hundred percent me. and I remember describing it to somebody and them looking, somebody I trusted who's lovely. Yeah. And them looking at me a little bit like, huh, that doesn't happen to me. And I was like, oh, okay. That's interesting. So it is slightly different. For me. Okay. And then not that long ago, because I feel very different. I now have a human in my life who is amazing. it's great that I can say that. Because, this is hopefully gonna be something that's listened to by lots of people.

I don't dislike her, but you know what, I could very easily dislike her. Some people dislike their children. Yeah. I don't, she's amazing. There was a point in time where we were driving and listening to, it must have been Mary Poppins. it was Mary Poppins and I was singing along and she was probably about five or six at the time, and she said, you sound a lot like Mary Poppins.

And I was like, oh, this is what they're talking about. This is what they're talking about. Ah, when they say in that moment, it's worth it though. It's worth it. And I'm like, if I'm gonna procreate a thing that then grows up to tell me I sound like Julie Andrews. That's worth 

Dannie-Lu: it. I agree. 

Rebecca: I'm in.

Dannie-Lu: Definitely. 

Rebecca: So I discovered that's, it is worth it. Turns out it is worth it. That's [00:16:00] actually 

Dannie-Lu: the thing. 

Rebecca: Yeah. So after that, like years after that, in fact when you know, I have this human, I. That I know and love and I've actually, quite grown into this idea of being part of a unit. Like actually this is coming.

Covid helped with that. Like I was forced Yeah. For two years to actually spend an awful lot of time with my nuclear family. 

Dannie-Lu: Cool. They brought up 

Rebecca: lot people force us to. But I still found myself, I was away. I was doing something else or doing something that was entirely me, or, I could really get deep, I could focus into it and I could become a thing I was doing.

And I remember coming back and that feeling coming back and me thinking, huh, yeah. Like it has, it will always be ambivalent. And I just quite like the idea of. That being fine. Like the, yeah. Me being able to say to my teenager, adult, that stuff, I feel like my mom maybe could have said in a slightly more tactful way.

yeah, I, the whole idea of this as a job is quite ambivalent for me. And And I really love you. Like I really love you and I want absolutely the best for you, it's not a hundred percent me. 

Dannie-Lu: There's an honesty to how you talk about it. That is so refreshing, I have to say. And this is one of the No, it's true.

And it's one of the things that I wish people were more honest about. that it's, there's an ambivalence to it and otherwise we hold ourselves to these impossible standards, whether you have children or not, and that's very damaging. 

Rebecca: I guess we're gonna find out, Danny, are we?

Because, if, if we have a podcast where people keep coming on going, no, that's a hundred percent me and I'm really happy. I, yeah. No, totally. 

Dannie-Lu: but also great. who are we to say, I suppose 

Rebecca: Yeah. Is that Of course we did a podcast. It turns out everyone's happy. so we're just gonna do podcast episodes of people being really happy.

it's 

Dannie-Lu: just one episode of us. 

Rebecca: Yeah. We're the only ones we just. [00:18:00] Couple of little old witches. 

Dannie-Lu: I'm happy with that though. I'm good with that. 

Dannie-Lu: ​​

Rebecca: We love hearing these stories, right?

Dannie-Lu: Yeah.

Rebecca: and we want to hear more.

Dannie-Lu: So if you have something that you want to share about your story, your complicated journey, or anything that you feel belongs in this conversation, then get in touch.

Rebecca: You can go to complicatedpod. co. uk to find out more about the different stories we've already told and to let us know why you want to be part of this excellent cavalcade of stories.

Dannie-Lu: There's a contact form just to fill out to send in your submission and we can take it from there. 

Dannie-Lu: so one more thing that I wanna ask before we get onto the final question is,what can people get so wrong about the reality of your life? Do you feel you've answered that or do you think there's something we haven't said 

Rebecca: as I've.

As I've grown into being long term married, but looking at things in a different way, being bisexual, exploring other different kinda ways of having a relationship. 

And I feel like I don't like the fact that the headlines seem to define everything. 

Dannie-Lu: Yeah. 

Rebecca: I also don't want to be the kind of person that comes with, a kind of two-sided, laminated a four sheet that's oh, in order to understand me, you need to read all this.

Yeah. But I feel like there's something about the headlines getting things a bit wrong that, yeah. And it could just be me. And if I can define myself, then it doesn't really matter what other people think. Perhaps that's, perhaps that's something around my, me and my identity and whatever, but that's the thing that I think that the reality of my life is more than whether or not I'm a parent, whether or not I've got a male partner that you can see standing in front of you right now.

And then [00:20:00] when the three of us go and we do a thing, there's this amazing, there's this amazing teenager, and then there's this lovely guy, and then there's me, and then there's the three of us. And I just feel like because of the way that our whole society is, it's like everybody goes, all right, done.

That tick that box. There we go. And I think that's the thing that I feel like people get things wrong because so much of that is hardwired to be, oh, okay, that means x. 

Dannie-Lu: Yeah. and I dunno, I humans, we all do it, right? The assumptions and the labeling for, is it 'cause we're lazy? Is it 'cause it's quick?

I don't know. But it, we definitely are waking up to the fact that I think as a society, bit by bit that things can look like any, anything. Yeah, things can look like anything and be anything. They're not always what they see. there is an old adage, don't judge a book by its cover, but we still haven't really quite understood what that means, have we?

I guess, 

Rebecca: do you know what, maybe that's my, maybe that's my magic wand thing. 

Dannie-Lu: If you could have a magic wand, what would you change about society? Yeah. 

Rebecca: I wonder whether I'd like to just change the phrase, don't judge a book by its cover too. Something that isn't a negative. Read 

Dannie-Lu: the book. 

Rebecca: Read the book.

Read the blurb on the back or read the blurb. just read the first chapter. Yeah. 

Dannie-Lu: I dunno. Read the co. Read the covers. 

Rebecca: Read the inlay. Yes. I like that. Actually, before you judge the book. There we go. That's Read the inlay. Read the inlay 

Dannie-Lu: before you judge the book actually. I love that. There's a lot in that.

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. don't maybe flick through to the photos in the middle.

But yeah, I think that's what I'd go with. Nice. Because I think that's the, I just want people to know just a little bit more. and I also would really like. For people not to judge whether I've done well in the world according to the two humans I'm standing next to. Yeah, [00:22:00] that's, it seems 

Dannie-Lu: fair to me.

I think there's a lot in that. Amazing. 

Rebecca: That was good. Thank you.