[00:00:00] Julie: Welcome to Edwin Talks, an education podcast for leaders, teachers, school, and trust staff, bringing together influential voices from across the sector for honest and thought provoking conversations. I'm your horse, Julie Liddell, and today I'm chatting to Lucy Norris. Lucy is a primary school teacher and a trained nurture neuroscience practitioner.
[00:00:21] Her work combines her background in education with the science of early brain [00:00:25] development and nervous system health. Lucy facilitates circle groups for mothers and their babies age n to three, supporting moms to understand their nervous systems, navigate the transition to motherhood and build connected relationships with their young children, drawing on both her professional training and lived experience.
[00:00:43] Lucy is passionate about helping parent teachers better understand the unique challenges they face using [00:00:50] neuroscience to offer practical, compassionate support. It was great to chat to Lucy in this episode. I talked to her about mattress sense, the significant but often overlooked transition that happens when people become mothers.
[00:01:02] We explore what happens to the parental brain, the impact on identity, and the transition back into work, and what this understanding might mean for leaders in education. We also discuss flexible working [00:01:15] psychological safety and how creating more supportive cultures for parents could help us retain experienced and talented people in the profession.
[00:01:30] Welcome to Edwin Talks. Thank you so much for joining us here today.
[00:01:34] Lucy: It is lovely to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:37] Julie: I'm really excited about our [00:01:40] conversation. Lucy, I know you and I have met previously and it's a topic that I'm really passionate about that we're gonna discuss today. But I want to, before we get into the episode, could you just give us just a quick potted history of your career, how you came to combine primary education with the work that you do now?
[00:02:01] Lucy: Yes, absolutely. So I have been a [00:02:05] teacher now in the classroom for very nearly 10 years. And a couple of years ago I became particularly interested more in the kind of behaviour how children were presenting outside of the, just the ac outside of the academics, the more pastoral support. Through that became more interested in doing some counselling training.
[00:02:27] So I started alongside my teaching [00:02:30] career a couple of years ago, undertaken counselling training, and then I paused that to have my little boy, um, and then have had been on maternity leave with my little boy. And through that experience, became very interested in attachment and infant biology, infant neurobiology.
[00:02:50] So kind of combining all the things I was interested in before becoming a mom [00:02:55] that I now became very interested in, now that I had this little baby in front of me. So through that I kind of did a lot of my own research, a lot of my own learning, really fascinated by all this stuff. And then I returned to work and my return to work with returning to the classroom was a little bit stressful for different reasons.
[00:03:15] Got on maternity leave from one school and I joined a different school after. And then as I [00:03:20] was having my return and getting back into the classroom, I found out about some training to become a nurture neuroscience practitioner, which linked together all of the things that I'd been really interested in, um, on my maternity leave with a lot of kind of psychology coming into it.
[00:03:39] But that was focused on new moms. And was focused on those years with [00:03:45] baby naught to three. So because this was relevant to my life at the time, I decided, yeah, this kind of fits everything. I'm really keen to learn more about this. So undertook the training, which was amazing. So this is training by a scientist called Dr.
[00:04:00] Greer Kirschenbaum and Dr. CIO Zini. Then after undertaking the training, I had a lot of connections personally that I [00:04:10] felt there's a lot here that I think is relevant for teachers in the classroom. So this is not only relevant for mothers, but a lot of this is also relevant for people who are in the caregiving role of a teacher and became through my own personal experience, particularly interested in the group of teachers who are also moms, especially those early [00:04:35] returners who.
[00:04:36] We can struggle to be keeping within the education system at the moment.
[00:04:40] Julie: That's amazing. And I suppose when you think about, you know, the, the context of education, as you rightly saw that sort of retention issue, our demographic across education is predominantly female. And particularly in those supporting roles as well, that demographic is even higher.
[00:04:57] It's over 90% in those supporting roles. [00:05:00] So I suppose what we're talking about here is, you know, maybe it's multifaceted, but, but what does it mean? What does it feel like, what does it look like for a mother returning to work? And I suppose, and I'm sure we'll get to that, what, what kind of the work that you are doing maybe could help support or ease that journey or maybe, you know, just what do we need to be thinking about both as, you know, as [00:05:25] mothers, but also as organisations and leaders as to, to what that looks like.
[00:05:30] So I know that one of the things that, um, comes into the work that you've been doing as a nurture neuroscience practitioner, do you get called NNP for short?
[00:05:41] Lucy: Yes. Yes.
[00:05:44] Julie: Just 'cause I can see myself stumbling over that one, but I wanna start with the kind of concept and, and I [00:05:50] hope this is the right place to start.
[00:05:51] Tell me if it's not, but maybe start with a term that I suspect many people haven't really heard of it. Um, and it's the term tres essence. Now from our research, it seems that it was a term that was coined in the 1970s and it kind of is similar to thinking about mothers [00:06:15] in the same way that we think about that transition through adolescence.
[00:06:19] Um, so I hope I'm pronouncing that right. So what does it mean? What are we talking about when we're talking about mares essence and why is it really important that we understand it?
[00:06:28] Lucy: So yeah, absolutely. You've mentioned that it's kind of linked to adolescence and that's not a, um, a coincidence. The name is very similar for that reason because it's describing a very similar process.
[00:06:39] [00:06:40] So in your life there are three times within your life where your brain is subject to the most neuroplasticity. And that's in infancy, which is the years of zero to three. It is an a adolescence, which kind of starts from around nine. And then, you know, researchers have different endpoints for when they believe adolescents would finish.
[00:07:00] Um, but we talk in the teenagers and then the other is trece and [00:07:05] trece. So that is when tres essence for when women become mothers or when men become fathers. The interesting thing with tres essence and Petre is that it is not as widely recognised as the other two stages. So society, um, knows a lot about those stages and often in adolescence we.
[00:07:27] Give teenagers grace for that [00:07:30] experience, that transition that they're going through as education staff, if you are working with teenagers, there's often that training and that awareness of what those people are going through during those time. Um, hormonal changes, physical changes, emotional changes.
[00:07:46] However, with mires or scent, and I know we're particularly today talking about Mires essence, um, but this is a major developmental [00:07:55] transition that. People aren't talking about in the same way, and therefore we aren't giving mothers or fathers, we aren't giving them the language to understand that experience that they're going through.
[00:08:08] And then that can come into the workplace as well where people, because it's not a transition that we are talking about or that we are understanding enough as individuals, as mothers, as fathers, we don't understand it. [00:08:20] And then as leaders, teachers in the workplace, we don't understand exactly what that transition looks like.
[00:08:26] And that can make the process quite tricky if we don't fully understand what's happening for us.
[00:08:31] Julie: Yeah, I think, you know, I'm looking back to my own experience having, um, you know, gone through the process twice of having children. And actually I think when the language isn't, yes, there's the physical changes.
[00:08:43] Yes. There's the [00:08:45] kind of the research that you do around that whole experience around giving birth and uh, and all of that sort of as, not to say all of that sort of stuff, but that's kind of minimising the process a little bit, isn't it? But I suppose it can be a bewildering time. It can feel like a seismic change.
[00:09:05] And I think stepping outta the workforce and then trying to step back in and that [00:09:10] bit in between what feel, I mean, you feel like a completely different person. So I suppose having that language and understanding what has happened, what has changed, could actually be incredibly powerful. Are you able to give us sort of any insight into those changes?
[00:09:29] You know, what, what's actually happening in the maternal brain? Maybe it's either during pregnancy or after [00:09:35] birth. Can you just give us a, a little bit of an insight?
[00:09:37] Lucy: Yeah, of course. So there's some fantastic and really interesting scientific concepts that are going on. I'll just caveat this with, and perhaps we can talk about later, that there are other changes that happen to people who become parents not through pregnancy.
[00:09:52] Um, but for this particular example, we'll talk about mothers who become mothers through pregnancy. So when we become [00:10:00] parents, um, we experience significant changes in parts of our brain, including our amygdala, our hippocampus, and our prefrontal cortex, and lots of other complex network networks involved in emotional intelligence.
[00:10:13] And there's a really fascinating concept around grey matter in the brain. So when people become pregnant, this is associated with a loss of grey matter in the brain. And when I say that, it sounds [00:10:25] really negative, it sounds like. We're losing some kind of cognitive ability because we are now becoming pregnant.
[00:10:32] And there may be listeners thinking, yeah, I can relate to that of the whole pregnancy brain, mum brain. And that's its own thing as well. Um, but for the example of grey matter, this loss in grey matter is actually not something negative, but this is a type of pruning to [00:10:50] result in the brain networks working much more tighter together, a bit like a specialisation.
[00:10:56] So it's becoming more, we are getting rid of certain things that aren't gonna serve us during this time, and we are coming tighter together so our brain can work more efficiently. So it's a loss, but it's actually a specialisation in, in terms of that loss. And that's to help it become more efficient and better adapted to its new [00:11:15] role.
[00:11:15] And this reduction is so distinct that in research, a computer algorithm has been able to support brain imaging into parents and non-parents, um, which I find fascinating because that's a huge, for a computer to be able to sort that. We must be seeing something really significant here in the brain. And on this as well, there was, um, a research study where participants were [00:11:40] showing pictures of their own babies.
[00:11:42] And the more grey loss, grey matter loss was correlated with stronger neural activity to pictures of their own babies. So we can see from that that this is a positive thing and that it's not something negative. So that kind of, um, debunks the part of the membrane. Myth or analogy that actually this is something really positive and amazing that is happening.
[00:12:04] And [00:12:05] similarly, these things happen through hormonal changes as well. So throughout pregnancy we see progesterone rise dramatically about 20 times more than non-pregnant levels, um, estradiol as well. And then these hormones, um, during labour drop drastically. And it's these hormonal shifts that are part of priming the brain in order to take care of baby when baby's here.
[00:12:29] [00:12:30] So these amazing things start to happen in the brain throughout pregnancy, which is getting somebody ready to become a mom first time, second time, third time, subsequent time, however it is then baby arriving as well. And through all of that sensory feedback that the brain changes start to happen. So it's a combination of hormonal, hormonal surges and changes throughout pregnancy as well as the [00:12:55] changes that are then happening once baby is here as well.
[00:12:58] Julie: I think it's interesting what you said there at the beginning, Lucy, the, the, it's kind of that baby brain, that mum brain. And I think, I think there is a fear amongst women that it is seeing that they are less than I think maybe some people own it and can style it out and people are understanding. But I do think that there is that, you know, have I [00:13:20] lost my ability to think and process and my memory's not sharp?
[00:13:23] And, and I think for some people that can be quite overwhelming and can lead to a bit of an identity crisis, can't it? So I loved your wording there and I can't quite remember what it was, but to think of it as, as a bit of a, like a system reset, a bit of an overhauling, which is what's happening isn't, which we know is what is happening in the adolescent brain as well.
[00:13:42] Is it that grey matter? It's a pruning, [00:13:45] it's a kind of preparing for that transition. It's not a loss of, it is a creation of a new system. And I think even just having that language can be quite empowering for somebody who's maybe's feeling like, uh, how am I gonna hop back into work as if nothing's happened?
[00:14:01] You know, I don't even feel like I can, you know, remember my own name and actually. We know that there is some research coming up that there's some similar [00:14:10] changes during menopause around those brain changes, which again, kind of is that other transition stage. So for me, what you said in there, that explanation already gives us sort of some empowerment, doesn't it?
[00:14:24] That that kind of helps us understand, well actually this is perfectly normal, it's perfectly natural. And what did you say? Did you say it was a system reset?
[00:14:34] Lucy: Yeah, so [00:14:35] I think an, I called it a specialisation, but absolutely during, um, mares essence is a really unique opportunity to rewire. So that's often what we call with our neuroplasticity that's happening in the brain.
[00:14:49] We can rewire many parts of our stress systems and parts of our own brains that were developed during our infancy. So it's a [00:15:00] vulnerable time, but it is an extremely empowering time as well because our brain is in a position where we are able to make changes if we can nurture it, and if our communities around us and our workplaces around us can help us in that process.
[00:15:15] Julie: Yeah, I think that's the narrative that we need to be having, isn't it, is around that empowerment. And can I just come back to what you said about the amygdala and would it be right [00:15:25] therefore, in thinking that maybe there's a heightened sensitivity to stress or to, you know, that fear response? Would that be something that changes?
[00:15:37] Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. So through my work as an an mp, we kind of discuss these, the, some of the brain changes that give us maternal superpowers. And that's the way we kind of like to frame it because I think it's a really nice way of [00:15:50] showing mums and um, hopefully listeners as well. These are really positive and amazing things that are happening.
[00:15:55] So these can be auditory changes that we can be responding to. Baby's cries. We are more empathetic, we are able to respond to emotions, um, with more empathy. We are more motivated to care for baby, we have stronger emotional regulation. Even if at times it doesn't always feel like it, um, our intuition becomes stronger.
[00:16:14] And [00:16:15] yes, exactly as you said, our amygdala does tend to fire, um, that stress response that, oh, there's a threat a bit more quickly. And it's designed like that because it's so that we can protect our baby. We are more primed to protect as our role, but with that, yes, the stress system can fire and trigger a little bit more quickly than perhaps when we weren't going through these changes.
[00:16:37] Julie: Yeah, I love that. A maternal superpower.
[00:16:39] Lucy: Yeah. [00:16:40]
[00:16:40] Julie: If we think about that then Lucy, and we think about, you know, that experience and then we fast forward a little bit, the mother returning to work, what might she be experiencing? What might that look like that kind of colleagues or employers don't see?
[00:16:56] Lucy: Yeah, so I think especially for teachers, I know this can relate to lots of people in the workplace, but I think, you know, especially for the context of this [00:17:05] conversation, teachers and people working in education often come to that role from a place of deep passion.
[00:17:12] Teaching can really easily become part of somebody's identity because it's something that people deeply care about, um, and feel that is really important. So you can leave to go and have a baby and go on maternity leave and leaving in your job feeling one way about your identity as a teacher, perhaps about your [00:17:30] ambition.
[00:17:30] And then some of these changes that happen can then feel completely derailing. You might think, oh, I wanted to go back, um, and get straight back into my job because I care so deeply about it. I want to return full time. And then you might be on maternity leave and start having thoughts about how you want that to look different perhaps for some people.
[00:17:53] And that can lead to questioning your [00:17:55] ambition, questioning your identity as a teacher, questioning your role within the classroom. And it can start to lead you into a place of thinking, is there something wrong with me? Do I now not care about my job? Rather than thinking, actually this is still having a deep passion for my job.
[00:18:10] This is still part of my identity, but actually there is now something else huge that's happening to me within this process as well. So it's kind of changing the question [00:18:20] when we are returning to work from what's wrong with me? Why am I finding this so difficult? Why do I want something different to what I wanted before, to actually what am I now adapting to?
[00:18:31] Who am I now in this new role? How have I changed? And understanding our identities and exploring that process can help us identify our needs and then use our amazing neuroplasticity to our [00:18:45] advantage rather than finding it a really unsettling and confusing time.
[00:18:51] Julie: Yeah, I think, yeah, I think that's so powerful.
[00:18:52] And again, I'm thinking back to my own experience a little bit there. I think for me, I certainly found adjusting to an identity of being a parent was wonderful and, and lovely, but not necessarily easy because you've gone from, you know, being [00:19:10] competent in your work life, you know, being able to drive a car, being able to do all of these things to suddenly being faced with a situation where you're having to create a new identity, which is actually as a learner again, and all of that.
[00:19:24] And then almost seeing work as something that therefore is when you go back to work is going to just be something that you're gonna fit into really easily again. And I suppose it, it's all of [00:19:35] that, isn't it? And all of that transition and then maybe it's getting back into work and think actually, you know, I, I don't feel as comp, I don't feel like I am the same person as who I was when I left.
[00:19:45] Does that make any sense? I sort really, I really do understand that, that journey.
[00:19:51] Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you've sort of hit the nail on the head with why I think talking about this is so important because so many [00:20:00] mothers, particularly, I know this can happen with fathers returning as well, but so many mothers particularly I think can return carrying all of this new stuff and then question themselves, question their own abilities to do both and to hold both roles and just question so much about their capability.
[00:20:18] I know for me, I definitely had periods where I thought, can I teach anymore? Whereas in reality, on reflection [00:20:25] now, I believe I'm a better teacher now than I was before becoming a mom. But a lot of things come into question and when you can understand why, it can feel easier and less threatening to navigate.
[00:20:37] And I think as well, caring for babies has always been about balancing factors like stress, financial strains, mental health, and lots of things in that returning to work process don't always align [00:20:50] with baby's best interests. Um, and that can be really tricky to navigate as well. And this is then where I think the sort of social and workplace support as well comes in because the degree of support a person has can mitigate those factors.
[00:21:03] And that's where I believe that shared understanding, it's not only about the mother herself returning that may feel more empowered to understand her experience and then be able to [00:21:15] navigate that and stay within the classroom. But equally from a workplace and leader's perspective of understanding the level of support they could give somebody in order to help them stay.
[00:21:27] In the workplace and help them to stay like we want to keep our mothers in teaching.
[00:21:32] Julie: How much do you think the way that someone is made to feel during that transition does matter? I mean, do, do we feel like there's some organisations [00:21:40] who've got it right and some that maybe haven't?
[00:21:43] Lucy: Yes. Yeah, I do. I think, I like to think that people do come with the right intentions and the best intentions, but I think sometimes people are not consciously discriminating against individuals.
[00:21:58] It can be a lot more subtle. We could be talking about unconscious bias, a lack of understanding of what [00:22:05] somebody needs, misinterpreting perhaps the way somebody is behaving with a lack of ambition or um, a lack of commitment. And I think without a language and without a narrative to talk about this without the understanding, there can be things created, policies in place or conversations that are had that don't best support culturally women back into the [00:22:30] classroom.
[00:22:30] And I know there has been a lot of talk recently, I know the MTPT does a lot of work on flexible working and I know that the department for education even, you know, years before our conversation now have been talking about encouraging this workplace culture or flexible working to help retain this group of people that we are seeing leave the classroom.
[00:22:53] But I think [00:22:55] what runs deeper is the cultural shifts perhaps, that we need in order for this to be embedded. So our wellbeing policies, parental leave policies, flexible working policies are all amazing and they all need to be embedded within the system. But I think there's also that extra layer of creating that psychological [00:23:20] safety in the workplace for these policies to be able to be used, drawn upon for women or returning fathers as well within this conversation to be able to have conversations with leaders that are coming from that place of understanding.
[00:23:34] Julie: Yeah, absolutely. I think I'm just as listening to you talk then. I feel like, and obviously, you know, um, I've spoke to Emma Shepherd from the MTPT project. She's brilliant. And I know that you [00:23:45] kind of are connected to Emma and also we talk a lot about menopause and menstrual health and you know, you rightly saw mention fathers there, and I wanna come back to fathers in a minute, but it's almost like we've created a system that pretends we are not humans as well.
[00:24:03] And from listening to what you're saying, it's almost just about making sure there's that yes, the policies all [00:24:10] need to be in place and yes, we need to be doing that. But that psychological safety created around, you know, recognising that people are, there is a biological as well as a social behavioural, um, changes that are going on.
[00:24:27] And actually, if we were to recognise that and be able to talk about that and have the language. Then that's better [00:24:35] or round. That's kind of what I'm hearing you say. Would that be right?
[00:24:39] Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, without having the language, we, I think as returners and perhaps leaders within the workplace, so coming from both sides, expect that you could be able to just return back after a period of leave where not much has happened within that period of leave.
[00:24:57] And then you are returning and [00:25:00] trying to do the job as if you are not a parent. So you are trying to step back into a role that perhaps you were before, step backing into those expectations you have on yourself as well. And there's almost culturally, perhaps I might be making a sweeping statement, a sweeping statement here in that we should just pretend like we haven't got the children at home and that that is an inconvenience to the workplace rather [00:25:25] than.
[00:25:26] As you beautifully put, having the permission to be fully human and the permission to thrive in both of those roles and not seeing them as sort of fighting against each other, but actually these are things that together supported, can be amazing rather than it has to be one or the other. And I think definitely women as mothers [00:25:50] feel that too, and that's worth exploring for them of how those things can come together beautifully rather than be fighting against each other.
[00:25:58] Julie: Yeah, they, yeah. Recognising it that the, the strength, and I think you said it earlier, Lucy, that actually from your own perspective, you feel like that process of motherhood and returning to to work has actually strengthened your ability in the [00:26:15] classroom. So I suppose, yeah, it's recognising that. So I've got loads of questions I still wanna ask you around this, but if we go back to, if we're thinking about this from a supportive level, if we've got head teacher or a, you know, senior leader who genuinely wanted to support somebody who was returning, what small things could they be doing either before, during, or after that return?
[00:26:38] You know, you, you talked about that [00:26:40] psychological safety. Um, but is there anything that, that you feel could make a difference?
[00:26:45] Lucy: I think even, um, we'll talk more about some perhaps more practical things that they could do in a moment. But I think even this conversation that we are having, developing and understanding, um, training leaders, training managers who are working with parents to understand this transition [00:27:05] is going to help to build capacity, to understand support, have compassion.
[00:27:11] And we know that without understanding, we can't develop compassion for somebody. And I think it's that compassion that somebody has that is going to create the psychological safety so somebody can have all the right policies in place. They can be saying, you know, we promote flexible working here, even we have an [00:27:30] open door policy.
[00:27:30] All of those wonderful things that do create amazing workplaces. But often psychological safety is not something that is just understood cognitively through words, but it is about how safe the nervous system feels to use those. And I think when we're talking about the context of returning mothers here who are going through these intense and amazing brain changes where [00:27:55] we discussed earlier, um, that their stress systems can find more easily, they often in a state of hypervigilance, and especially when their nervous systems at this time are already under significant strain, hormonally, sleep changing identities that.
[00:28:11] Perhaps, you know, in a non-scientific way, their threat detectors or their, um, inner alarms are going to be firing and triggering a little bit more quickly. So this is [00:28:20] even more important to be working on just creating environments where it feels safe to have conversations. It feels safe to ask for what they need.
[00:28:30] It feels safe to be human and to be a parent at the same time without having to hide that part of themselves. And I know for some people listening, that might not come across as an easy takeaway of something practical that they can implement. [00:28:45] But I think it's just learning about people as one thing does change the way that you interact with people, um, and does build more empathy.
[00:28:55] Especially in, um, some of the statistics that we know of leaders are disproportionately men in an, in a workplace that is more proportionately women. So maybe there's a disconnect there with a different understanding of perhaps [00:29:10] not knowing what that is, the maternal mental load, what that can be like for women.
[00:29:16] Developing that understanding may then give more space for conversations, may give more compassion for a space for people to be both. And then there are practical things as well that people could do of asking a question of what would make this transition more manageable for you? Perhaps not assuming that everybody [00:29:35] wants the same thing.
[00:29:36] So I think, again, there can be that assumption that mothers perhaps want less, or that if they're asking for part-time work or flexible work, that they are somehow less ambitious or aren't interested in progression anymore, not assuming that, and maybe having conversations around that. What do they think that their few years might look like?
[00:29:55] Now that might be a conversation that's not had straight away, of course, but it's just [00:30:00] knowing that these things without making assumptions, perhaps regular check-ins as well, um, so that they know that that person is understanding what they're going through, considering the cumulative load of being a mom and going through those transitions on top of the emotional and psychological demanding environment that a classroom can be.
[00:30:20] Giving people permission to rebuild their confidence and to be human and to [00:30:25] allow them that space to, to transition from one to another, uh, and manage those expectations, I think
[00:30:32] Julie: sounds the perfect place to work, Lucy,
[00:30:34] Lucy: doesn't it?
[00:30:37] Julie: Well, you're right. And I think, you know, again, I, I don't wanna keep kind of bringing it back to menstrual health and menopause, but actually sometimes it's just about opening up that conversation, isn't it?
[00:30:46] And, you know, leaders and managers being aware [00:30:50] that, and knowing that can make a difference to the way that they approach a situation. And, and that's sometimes what's the powerful thing, isn't it, that that's needed, um, to create that safety. So some really useful suggestions there. Lucy, we've understandably talked a lot about mothers, but I wonder whether, can we just briefly, um, talk about fathers and potentially other primary caregivers as well?
[00:31:14] [00:31:15] Um, possibly non-biological, um, moms you talked about, uh, Petre as a concept. What are we seeing? What are the neurological changes? Tell us what you know.
[00:31:25] Lucy: Yes. So, um, there is not as much evidence unfortunately and as much research, so that is definitely something I think within the science world that is ongoing.
[00:31:34] But the evidence that we do have does suggest that similar changes do occur in fathers non-biological [00:31:40] parents and same sex parents. And this is because a lot of those changes are coming from the caregiving role itself. So yes, we know that in pregnancy a brain is primed and a body is primed hormonally as well in order to care for a baby.
[00:31:55] But a lot of the changes are happening, what we could call dose dependent. So the amount of caregiving, engagement, interaction that is [00:32:05] happening is going to result in more brain changes. So this is why it's so important to have good parental leave policies as well. For fathers, we kind of, the research shows us that the first 12 to 16 weeks postpartum is critical for fathers to nurture their babies and then develop their parental brain.
[00:32:23] So it's allowing fathers to have that space. And that does then extend to non-biological parents and other caregivers that [00:32:30] actually nurturing them through that process of becoming a parent, holding that space, giving them that time to do that and develop relationship with baby is going to result in more brain changes.
[00:32:42] We also see this hormone as well, so hormone changes are. We see bigger hormonal changes with fathers when they are interacting with babies and with their children more so they have high [00:32:55] oxytocin, um, higher prolactin, and often their testosterone will decrease as their paternal caregiving increases. So all of these things are priming their brain to change as well.
[00:33:05] Julie: That's really interesting because I think that's a massive shift away from when you look at that early work. I suppose it's the attachment theories isn't that you were talking about when you look at John Balley's work was so focused on the mother and actually a lot of our working [00:33:20] practises and policies, I'll caveat that with to say they are obviously changing, was based on the work that he did in the forties and fifties, which was, you know, the, the mother as as caregivers.
[00:33:31] So I think that's really interesting what you say, that there's that dose theory and that it's, you know, that caregiving and that exposure and experience of caregiving is what then activates the brain changes, in which [00:33:45] case we should be really looking at that wider experience of, um, the father. I know I think we do that quite well in kind of adopted parents processes, but what I would also say is that, you know, within the education sector, I'd say we're quite far behind in terms of what other sectors are doing around paternity leave and that ability for shared paternity leave and [00:34:10] that ability to take a long time off or stagger that time.
[00:34:13] Um, and I understand, you know, that there's maybe different constraints on the education system, but I still think we've probably got a way to go. Would, would you agree?
[00:34:23] Lucy: Yes, I would because I think fathers, if I'm right, it's two weeks in the education system, which I know there are other industries as well that it's the same.
[00:34:32] Um, but yes, in education, I [00:34:35] think it's the two weeks and I'm not an expert in terms of the, the pay or the finance of that, but I know that that is what the leave is granted. And when we have the research here of showing how important those first 12 to 16 weeks are, yeah, two weeks is not only not enough for the father, but also that's then where we see the correlations between the mother's support system as well and supporting the mother through this [00:35:00] time when they're vulnerable.
[00:35:01] So it's, it's about changing and creating policies that are supporting the whole family system, not just fathers as one group, not just babies as another group or children or mothers as a separate group, but seeing how families are an integrated system and how are we supporting that system to thrive.
[00:35:20] Julie: Yeah, and I've seen some amazing work being done in trusts across the [00:35:25] country around that sort of family supportive practises because you're absolutely right. That's what we're talking about here, that wide depiction. I do know that some people have got it very right and that's in place. I suppose again, for me it's that sharing of practises.
[00:35:41] Opening up the conversation, seeking support and guidance from other people who've managed to kind of implement these practises and recognising [00:35:50] why it's important. So as educators, obviously we're not just the ones who are in this position, we're often working with parents every day who are also in this kind of permission.
[00:36:03] Um, has learning about the parent or brain, um, maybe it's just even on a personal level, has that changed the way that you communicate or, or see the parents of the children that you teach? Has that had [00:36:15] any influence?
[00:36:16] Lucy: Yeah, I think definitely the training and understanding that I have developed is made me a lot more aware of nervous systems and what people are.
[00:36:29] The load. I said I guess that people are under, and this is not just talking about parents, staff, it's also encompasses our work with children as well. And I know there is some fantastic research and [00:36:40] training programmes out there that talk about this with children. A lot of this is what our children need, it's what our parents need, what our babies need is what the parents need.
[00:36:51] And it's goes back to this sort of family system in that things are often not a single entity on their own and that they are part of a wider network. So if we are asking families to cope with new [00:37:05] babies, new siblings, new schools, new routines, separation, additional needs, neurodiversity, stress, we can kind of come back to that understanding of what are their nervous systems experiencing, what stress are they under?
[00:37:18] And that's about creating environments not only then for our children in the classroom or our staff working in schools, but actually for our families as well where they can feel seen, understood, and supported. So a lot of it [00:37:30] stems back to the same thing of creating a language around what's happening for people and what they are going through so that we can have compassion and we can be curious about how we can support people rather than assuming or or judging.
[00:37:45] Julie: I love that. But yeah, there's like an interconnected system isn't there, there of nervous systems all interacting with each other.
[00:37:53] Lucy: Absolutely.
[00:37:54] Julie: And how [00:37:55] that then manifests in behaviour. And I think you're absolutely right. I think we do a better job or we're more, um, we've got a better language, a better of understanding of that in the classroom towards our children, uh, than we ever did have.
[00:38:09] But then there is the adult in the school who is laing their nervous system, who is suppressing and who is kind of laing their nervous system in order to support [00:38:20] and regulate the children. And then there's the parent. Oh, it's just one spider's way, isn't it? Of nervous systems all interacting with each other.
[00:38:29] Yeah.
[00:38:30] Lucy: And I think this is why I care so deeply about supporting the teacher and the mother. coming together especially so beautifully, but also both of them on their own. The teacher as a teacher, and the mother. As a mother. Because if we want our children to thrive, we have [00:38:45] to think about the wellbeing of those people who are caring for them.
[00:38:47] And we have to think of and consider their nervous systems and what they're going under. And I think as you've said, there is some amazing training, some amazing practice that we see in schools up and down the country where there is a shift now where we are starting to support children holistically a lot better as well, rather than just thinking school as an academic lens and more behavioural [00:39:10] practise.
[00:39:10] But actually we are now considering their nervous systems, considering the environment for our children, understanding more about what we are asking them to function in. But I think what we are missing is extending that to the people working with them. And then I think for the purpose of this conversation where we know that we need our mothers in the classroom.
[00:39:29] I think I saw a statistic from, um, Emma Shepherd the other day about we're gonna [00:39:35] lose a fifth or two fifths, I think it was nearly 2,500, um, returning teachers from maternity or maternity leave within the academic year that they return. And I think that's where this conversation becomes so important, because these are valuable people in our profession for their experience, for their nurturing ability, their superpowers that we've just spoken about.
[00:39:56] But perhaps there are things happening for those teachers [00:40:00] that we are not understanding, and then we are not supporting them through perhaps in the same way that we are starting to do for our children in the classroom.
[00:40:09] Julie: Yeah. And, and listening to you, Lucy, what it feels like is that some of this doesn't require huge initiatives.
[00:40:19] Lucy: No,
[00:40:19] Julie: it doesn't require big step changes. It's [00:40:25] around small shifts in language understanding and, you know, the way that we respond to each other would, would that be correct?
[00:40:33] Lucy: Yeah, I think there's, yeah. This is not a question about sort of structural reform. It's, it's really small shifts, so it could be something as, you know, if we go back to the flexible work and genuinely normalising it, because I think we have sometimes got a case of, um, yeah, we support it in [00:40:50] the school, but is it perhaps subtly penalised or is it perhaps made difficult for somebody?
[00:40:55] So, yep, we want you to do it, but also we don't want you to do it. So is it genuinely normalised and genuinely encouraged and, um, support, support a person through that process? I think we've mentioned checking in with parents, creating that space for honest conversations, things like meetings or timetable changes, making sure that these can recognise the [00:41:15] relatives of family life in terms of.
[00:41:17] Nursery pickups or nursery drop-offs, um, parents evening, just perhaps conversations or considerations around these things. And then I guess more of a sort of internal lens of looking at whether, what behaviours we kind of reward unintentionally are we favouring availability and visibility, which often as young teachers, if we're sort of [00:41:40] looking at the traditional model of when you are new in your career, if you start, if you've come to teaching from early on in your career where when you are new and you don't have caring responsibilities outside of the classroom, you can perhaps offer more of your yourself and your availability.
[00:41:54] And then when you become a parent, you realise there's that conflict there where you can no longer do that without that being at the expense of your children. And what we don't want to do culturally is [00:42:05] then penalise that and, and see a mother or a father as less ambitious or less dedicated or less committed because of their, their other responsibilities that they've got happening at that time.
[00:42:17] Which again, links into our conversation about ambition or commitment. We know that when people, statistically when people become mothers, there's that motherhood penalty of them not going into leadership or they're not progressing. And for [00:42:30] women, a lot of women or mothers, that might be a choice and that might be what they want.
[00:42:34] But there might be another group of mothers who that feels that that choice has been given to them because that they're a mother rather than them actively making that decision, they might still be interested in progression and having ambition within the school environment. And I think, actually, I'm gonna caveat that with ambition is not always, uh, [00:42:55] traditional upward.
[00:42:56] Ladder, if you like, that actually, uh, mother could be quite happy staying in the classroom as a classroom teacher without sort of progressing into leadership, but still have a lot of ambition and still be really interested in, um, other parts of her work that we wanna support people and nourish that and other CPD opportunities.
[00:43:16] Having those conversations that, okay, what does ambition look like for [00:43:20] you, rather than assuming that they now somehow want less.
[00:43:24] Julie: Love that. So Lucy, in your role then as NNP as I am now calling it, um, do you work with schools or is it work that you do with mothers individually?
[00:43:35] Lucy: So at the moment I do local circles, so with, um, mothers who are local to me in my area, and we get together weekly for, it's a bit like a, a [00:43:45] women's circle, if any listeners have experienced something like that.
[00:43:48] Um, and they bring their babies and we talk a lot about theory, we talk about attachment, we talk about stress. We hold space for all of these emotions and all of these changes that are happening within this process. And it's about bringing moms together to build that community where we can talk about those things, where we're taking away the shame from these conversations where we are normalising [00:44:10] this transformation into motherhood, um, and unpicking some of our stress responses and the challenges around that to support people through that process.
[00:44:19] So at the moment, that's for mothers, all mothers and it's not specialising in work with teachers. However, my plan is to build in lots of this work that I'm currently doing with mothers to support the group of mothers who are also returning to a [00:44:35] classroom or have, have just recently returned. So my work is, is focused on those first sort of three years after returning just because that's where my understanding is.
[00:44:45] And yes, I have an Instagram called the Nurtured Mother Teacher and um, yeah, it's starting to build that language and build that community and that space where. I hope that we could have an impact on mothers staying in the education [00:45:00] system.
[00:45:00] Julie: Yeah, well, we'll definitely make sure we put all your contact details, Lucy, in the show notes so people know where to find you and, and I'm sure people will reach out just to try and understand this a little bit more.
[00:45:10] I just wanted to go back to something you said then about that flexible working and about, you know, that whole piece and, and interestingly, I recorded an episode with Deborah Ley and we talked about flexible working, and I think I might have talked about it with Emma Shepherd as [00:45:25] well, but just that embracing flexible working as a system actually, regardless of why people need it, people might need it as to care for elderly parents to, you know, there's different reasons or just to nurture a, a different passion alongside the work that they're doing.
[00:45:43] And I think what is really important is not to see that as a, somebody therefore [00:45:50] doesn't care about their job is not ambitious. And I think that's a big piece of it, isn't it? What she also said, which stayed with me was that often when people are requesting flexible working, it's usually only for a period of time they don't necessarily want it long term.
[00:46:06] It's kind of reviewable. And that actually sometimes it's just, you know, not all mothers will maybe, you know, maybe it's that flexible work and will suit to [00:46:15] start with, but then they, they kind of want to go back to full-time and it's recognising that that word flexibility is key, but in more positive slant around it, I think is is central, central to your suggestion there around that working flexibly?
[00:46:32] Lucy: Yeah, I think it's changing the narrative away from I want to work flexibly because I want to work less. And [00:46:40] having that sort of, it wrapped up in you are doing less and actually I want to work flexibly. In order to really be able to give more. I often see that as it's, it's recognising somebody's own capacity.
[00:46:54] And I think when you can recognise your own capacity at where you are at, and for a lot of people that's organising their lives through flexible working as one method to help them understand and work around their own [00:47:05] capacity at that time, it can be a way of keeping somebody in a profession, keeping somebody there where they can thrive and perhaps if they weren't given the opportunity, they wouldn't be able to be teaching or doing other roles as their best selves because they're being forced to ignore their own capacities.
[00:47:26] So I think, yeah, for me it's a lot about celebrating that if, [00:47:30] I dunno if that's a weird way of putting it, but actually this is about somebody recognising what they have to give in this time and then they are being able to then give it wholeheartedly if you like, because actually that is what's working for them at that moment.
[00:47:44] And as you say, if it's about nurturing a hobby or caring for elderly parents, that's about somebody being able to still show up in the classroom as an amazing, as an effective teacher because they are able to [00:47:55] manage their own capacity and, and we should celebrate that, encourage that. Rather than just saying, you have to be here, all of you all or nothing, or see you later and you're out of the profession.
[00:48:06] I think we need to create that culture around where we celebrate that balance and we allow people to be amazing teachers and also have responsibilities outside of it.
[00:48:16] Julie: Totally agree. Well, I think you're doing an amazing job, Lucy, of being that [00:48:20] positive voice around mares and petre. I had to catch myself then that I'm saying it right.
[00:48:26] But you're doing an amazing job of opening up this conversation and I think that word celebrate and is kind of, I think it works. Let's stop seeing it as a failure or pretend it's not happening or, you know, you talked about that maternal superpowers and let's just recognise it that, and [00:48:45] this is what people are experiencing, how can we work with it?
[00:48:48] Rather than pretend it's not happening. Yeah. Is, is big. So you're doing a fabulous job, Lucy, and thank you so much for coming along, um, and having this conversation, um, today. I think it's really enlightening and I'm sure people will listening be able to kind of, um, take something away. Just to ponder on it, Lucy, we finished the podcast in, in the same way.
[00:49:09] So I have a final [00:49:10] question for you. It's a bit left field. If your career journey, which is interesting, had a theme song or tune, what would it be?
[00:49:19] Lucy: I think there is a beautiful song by somebody called Leah Morris, which, uh, might get the title wrong, but I think it's just as you are. And it's a song that she wrote for her baby or child [00:49:35] that just as you are, I accept you.
[00:49:38] I see you, I hear you. I welcome you in. And I think for me, that would encompass my career journey because I definitely had some challenges myself when I had to pause my counselling training that I was really interested in doing. I've had to step back into a part-time teaching role rather than full-time that I was before teaching.
[00:49:59] And in many [00:50:00] ways, I battled with that sort of sacrifices that I was making when I was becoming a mother myself. And as much as I made those sacrifices internally, I was fighting against it rather than accepting, welcoming that in welcoming in this change. And I think throughout my journeys as a teacher into counselling, training, into my, uh, my role as a mom into my training as an NMP, that [00:50:25] actually it's a beautiful journey so far that I'm excited to see and keep going where, where this goes.
[00:50:31] Um, and actually if I was fighting against that and I wasn't welcoming that in, in the same way that I am trying to, it perhaps, um, would be, would be a process that I wouldn't be celebrating like I am now.
[00:50:45] Julie: What a beautiful answer, Lucy. Thank you so much. Thank you. [00:50:50] Um, and we'll make sure that we check the title and that will go on all clear lists.
[00:50:53] So yeah, I love that. Welcoming it in whatever that looks like, that sense of acceptance. Thank you so much Lucy. Such an empowering conversation and I really look forward to seeing what you do next and seeing where we go next in the sector around everything that we've talked about today. So thank you so much for your time.
[00:51:13] Lucy: Thank you so much. It's been an absolute [00:51:15] pleasure. I have loved having this conversation, so yeah, thank you for having me.
[00:51:20] Julie: Thank you for listening to Edwin Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow or subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. And if you'd like to find out more about the work, Edwin are doing the schools and trusts, then follow us on LinkedIn.
[00:51:32] If you want to discover more about any of the topics discussed in this episode, you can find all the resources and links in the show [00:51:40] notes.
[00:00:21] Her work combines her background in education with the science of early brain [00:00:25] development and nervous system health. Lucy facilitates circle groups for mothers and their babies age n to three, supporting moms to understand their nervous systems, navigate the transition to motherhood and build connected relationships with their young children, drawing on both her professional training and lived experience.
[00:00:43] Lucy is passionate about helping parent teachers better understand the unique challenges they face using [00:00:50] neuroscience to offer practical, compassionate support. It was great to chat to Lucy in this episode. I talked to her about mattress sense, the significant but often overlooked transition that happens when people become mothers.
[00:01:02] We explore what happens to the parental brain, the impact on identity, and the transition back into work, and what this understanding might mean for leaders in education. We also discuss flexible working [00:01:15] psychological safety and how creating more supportive cultures for parents could help us retain experienced and talented people in the profession.
[00:01:30] Welcome to Edwin Talks. Thank you so much for joining us here today.
[00:01:34] Lucy: It is lovely to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:37] Julie: I'm really excited about our [00:01:40] conversation. Lucy, I know you and I have met previously and it's a topic that I'm really passionate about that we're gonna discuss today. But I want to, before we get into the episode, could you just give us just a quick potted history of your career, how you came to combine primary education with the work that you do now?
[00:02:01] Lucy: Yes, absolutely. So I have been a [00:02:05] teacher now in the classroom for very nearly 10 years. And a couple of years ago I became particularly interested more in the kind of behaviour how children were presenting outside of the, just the ac outside of the academics, the more pastoral support. Through that became more interested in doing some counselling training.
[00:02:27] So I started alongside my teaching [00:02:30] career a couple of years ago, undertaken counselling training, and then I paused that to have my little boy, um, and then have had been on maternity leave with my little boy. And through that experience, became very interested in attachment and infant biology, infant neurobiology.
[00:02:50] So kind of combining all the things I was interested in before becoming a mom [00:02:55] that I now became very interested in, now that I had this little baby in front of me. So through that I kind of did a lot of my own research, a lot of my own learning, really fascinated by all this stuff. And then I returned to work and my return to work with returning to the classroom was a little bit stressful for different reasons.
[00:03:15] Got on maternity leave from one school and I joined a different school after. And then as I [00:03:20] was having my return and getting back into the classroom, I found out about some training to become a nurture neuroscience practitioner, which linked together all of the things that I'd been really interested in, um, on my maternity leave with a lot of kind of psychology coming into it.
[00:03:39] But that was focused on new moms. And was focused on those years with [00:03:45] baby naught to three. So because this was relevant to my life at the time, I decided, yeah, this kind of fits everything. I'm really keen to learn more about this. So undertook the training, which was amazing. So this is training by a scientist called Dr.
[00:04:00] Greer Kirschenbaum and Dr. CIO Zini. Then after undertaking the training, I had a lot of connections personally that I [00:04:10] felt there's a lot here that I think is relevant for teachers in the classroom. So this is not only relevant for mothers, but a lot of this is also relevant for people who are in the caregiving role of a teacher and became through my own personal experience, particularly interested in the group of teachers who are also moms, especially those early [00:04:35] returners who.
[00:04:36] We can struggle to be keeping within the education system at the moment.
[00:04:40] Julie: That's amazing. And I suppose when you think about, you know, the, the context of education, as you rightly saw that sort of retention issue, our demographic across education is predominantly female. And particularly in those supporting roles as well, that demographic is even higher.
[00:04:57] It's over 90% in those supporting roles. [00:05:00] So I suppose what we're talking about here is, you know, maybe it's multifaceted, but, but what does it mean? What does it feel like, what does it look like for a mother returning to work? And I suppose, and I'm sure we'll get to that, what, what kind of the work that you are doing maybe could help support or ease that journey or maybe, you know, just what do we need to be thinking about both as, you know, as [00:05:25] mothers, but also as organisations and leaders as to, to what that looks like.
[00:05:30] So I know that one of the things that, um, comes into the work that you've been doing as a nurture neuroscience practitioner, do you get called NNP for short?
[00:05:41] Lucy: Yes. Yes.
[00:05:44] Julie: Just 'cause I can see myself stumbling over that one, but I wanna start with the kind of concept and, and I [00:05:50] hope this is the right place to start.
[00:05:51] Tell me if it's not, but maybe start with a term that I suspect many people haven't really heard of it. Um, and it's the term tres essence. Now from our research, it seems that it was a term that was coined in the 1970s and it kind of is similar to thinking about mothers [00:06:15] in the same way that we think about that transition through adolescence.
[00:06:19] Um, so I hope I'm pronouncing that right. So what does it mean? What are we talking about when we're talking about mares essence and why is it really important that we understand it?
[00:06:28] Lucy: So yeah, absolutely. You've mentioned that it's kind of linked to adolescence and that's not a, um, a coincidence. The name is very similar for that reason because it's describing a very similar process.
[00:06:39] [00:06:40] So in your life there are three times within your life where your brain is subject to the most neuroplasticity. And that's in infancy, which is the years of zero to three. It is an a adolescence, which kind of starts from around nine. And then, you know, researchers have different endpoints for when they believe adolescents would finish.
[00:07:00] Um, but we talk in the teenagers and then the other is trece and [00:07:05] trece. So that is when tres essence for when women become mothers or when men become fathers. The interesting thing with tres essence and Petre is that it is not as widely recognised as the other two stages. So society, um, knows a lot about those stages and often in adolescence we.
[00:07:27] Give teenagers grace for that [00:07:30] experience, that transition that they're going through as education staff, if you are working with teenagers, there's often that training and that awareness of what those people are going through during those time. Um, hormonal changes, physical changes, emotional changes.
[00:07:46] However, with mires or scent, and I know we're particularly today talking about Mires essence, um, but this is a major developmental [00:07:55] transition that. People aren't talking about in the same way, and therefore we aren't giving mothers or fathers, we aren't giving them the language to understand that experience that they're going through.
[00:08:08] And then that can come into the workplace as well where people, because it's not a transition that we are talking about or that we are understanding enough as individuals, as mothers, as fathers, we don't understand it. [00:08:20] And then as leaders, teachers in the workplace, we don't understand exactly what that transition looks like.
[00:08:26] And that can make the process quite tricky if we don't fully understand what's happening for us.
[00:08:31] Julie: Yeah, I think, you know, I'm looking back to my own experience having, um, you know, gone through the process twice of having children. And actually I think when the language isn't, yes, there's the physical changes.
[00:08:43] Yes. There's the [00:08:45] kind of the research that you do around that whole experience around giving birth and uh, and all of that sort of as, not to say all of that sort of stuff, but that's kind of minimising the process a little bit, isn't it? But I suppose it can be a bewildering time. It can feel like a seismic change.
[00:09:05] And I think stepping outta the workforce and then trying to step back in and that [00:09:10] bit in between what feel, I mean, you feel like a completely different person. So I suppose having that language and understanding what has happened, what has changed, could actually be incredibly powerful. Are you able to give us sort of any insight into those changes?
[00:09:29] You know, what, what's actually happening in the maternal brain? Maybe it's either during pregnancy or after [00:09:35] birth. Can you just give us a, a little bit of an insight?
[00:09:37] Lucy: Yeah, of course. So there's some fantastic and really interesting scientific concepts that are going on. I'll just caveat this with, and perhaps we can talk about later, that there are other changes that happen to people who become parents not through pregnancy.
[00:09:52] Um, but for this particular example, we'll talk about mothers who become mothers through pregnancy. So when we become [00:10:00] parents, um, we experience significant changes in parts of our brain, including our amygdala, our hippocampus, and our prefrontal cortex, and lots of other complex network networks involved in emotional intelligence.
[00:10:13] And there's a really fascinating concept around grey matter in the brain. So when people become pregnant, this is associated with a loss of grey matter in the brain. And when I say that, it sounds [00:10:25] really negative, it sounds like. We're losing some kind of cognitive ability because we are now becoming pregnant.
[00:10:32] And there may be listeners thinking, yeah, I can relate to that of the whole pregnancy brain, mum brain. And that's its own thing as well. Um, but for the example of grey matter, this loss in grey matter is actually not something negative, but this is a type of pruning to [00:10:50] result in the brain networks working much more tighter together, a bit like a specialisation.
[00:10:56] So it's becoming more, we are getting rid of certain things that aren't gonna serve us during this time, and we are coming tighter together so our brain can work more efficiently. So it's a loss, but it's actually a specialisation in, in terms of that loss. And that's to help it become more efficient and better adapted to its new [00:11:15] role.
[00:11:15] And this reduction is so distinct that in research, a computer algorithm has been able to support brain imaging into parents and non-parents, um, which I find fascinating because that's a huge, for a computer to be able to sort that. We must be seeing something really significant here in the brain. And on this as well, there was, um, a research study where participants were [00:11:40] showing pictures of their own babies.
[00:11:42] And the more grey loss, grey matter loss was correlated with stronger neural activity to pictures of their own babies. So we can see from that that this is a positive thing and that it's not something negative. So that kind of, um, debunks the part of the membrane. Myth or analogy that actually this is something really positive and amazing that is happening.
[00:12:04] And [00:12:05] similarly, these things happen through hormonal changes as well. So throughout pregnancy we see progesterone rise dramatically about 20 times more than non-pregnant levels, um, estradiol as well. And then these hormones, um, during labour drop drastically. And it's these hormonal shifts that are part of priming the brain in order to take care of baby when baby's here.
[00:12:29] [00:12:30] So these amazing things start to happen in the brain throughout pregnancy, which is getting somebody ready to become a mom first time, second time, third time, subsequent time, however it is then baby arriving as well. And through all of that sensory feedback that the brain changes start to happen. So it's a combination of hormonal, hormonal surges and changes throughout pregnancy as well as the [00:12:55] changes that are then happening once baby is here as well.
[00:12:58] Julie: I think it's interesting what you said there at the beginning, Lucy, the, the, it's kind of that baby brain, that mum brain. And I think, I think there is a fear amongst women that it is seeing that they are less than I think maybe some people own it and can style it out and people are understanding. But I do think that there is that, you know, have I [00:13:20] lost my ability to think and process and my memory's not sharp?
[00:13:23] And, and I think for some people that can be quite overwhelming and can lead to a bit of an identity crisis, can't it? So I loved your wording there and I can't quite remember what it was, but to think of it as, as a bit of a, like a system reset, a bit of an overhauling, which is what's happening isn't, which we know is what is happening in the adolescent brain as well.
[00:13:42] Is it that grey matter? It's a pruning, [00:13:45] it's a kind of preparing for that transition. It's not a loss of, it is a creation of a new system. And I think even just having that language can be quite empowering for somebody who's maybe's feeling like, uh, how am I gonna hop back into work as if nothing's happened?
[00:14:01] You know, I don't even feel like I can, you know, remember my own name and actually. We know that there is some research coming up that there's some similar [00:14:10] changes during menopause around those brain changes, which again, kind of is that other transition stage. So for me, what you said in there, that explanation already gives us sort of some empowerment, doesn't it?
[00:14:24] That that kind of helps us understand, well actually this is perfectly normal, it's perfectly natural. And what did you say? Did you say it was a system reset?
[00:14:34] Lucy: Yeah, so [00:14:35] I think an, I called it a specialisation, but absolutely during, um, mares essence is a really unique opportunity to rewire. So that's often what we call with our neuroplasticity that's happening in the brain.
[00:14:49] We can rewire many parts of our stress systems and parts of our own brains that were developed during our infancy. So it's a [00:15:00] vulnerable time, but it is an extremely empowering time as well because our brain is in a position where we are able to make changes if we can nurture it, and if our communities around us and our workplaces around us can help us in that process.
[00:15:15] Julie: Yeah, I think that's the narrative that we need to be having, isn't it, is around that empowerment. And can I just come back to what you said about the amygdala and would it be right [00:15:25] therefore, in thinking that maybe there's a heightened sensitivity to stress or to, you know, that fear response? Would that be something that changes?
[00:15:37] Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. So through my work as an an mp, we kind of discuss these, the, some of the brain changes that give us maternal superpowers. And that's the way we kind of like to frame it because I think it's a really nice way of [00:15:50] showing mums and um, hopefully listeners as well. These are really positive and amazing things that are happening.
[00:15:55] So these can be auditory changes that we can be responding to. Baby's cries. We are more empathetic, we are able to respond to emotions, um, with more empathy. We are more motivated to care for baby, we have stronger emotional regulation. Even if at times it doesn't always feel like it, um, our intuition becomes stronger.
[00:16:14] And [00:16:15] yes, exactly as you said, our amygdala does tend to fire, um, that stress response that, oh, there's a threat a bit more quickly. And it's designed like that because it's so that we can protect our baby. We are more primed to protect as our role, but with that, yes, the stress system can fire and trigger a little bit more quickly than perhaps when we weren't going through these changes.
[00:16:37] Julie: Yeah, I love that. A maternal superpower.
[00:16:39] Lucy: Yeah. [00:16:40]
[00:16:40] Julie: If we think about that then Lucy, and we think about, you know, that experience and then we fast forward a little bit, the mother returning to work, what might she be experiencing? What might that look like that kind of colleagues or employers don't see?
[00:16:56] Lucy: Yeah, so I think especially for teachers, I know this can relate to lots of people in the workplace, but I think, you know, especially for the context of this [00:17:05] conversation, teachers and people working in education often come to that role from a place of deep passion.
[00:17:12] Teaching can really easily become part of somebody's identity because it's something that people deeply care about, um, and feel that is really important. So you can leave to go and have a baby and go on maternity leave and leaving in your job feeling one way about your identity as a teacher, perhaps about your [00:17:30] ambition.
[00:17:30] And then some of these changes that happen can then feel completely derailing. You might think, oh, I wanted to go back, um, and get straight back into my job because I care so deeply about it. I want to return full time. And then you might be on maternity leave and start having thoughts about how you want that to look different perhaps for some people.
[00:17:53] And that can lead to questioning your [00:17:55] ambition, questioning your identity as a teacher, questioning your role within the classroom. And it can start to lead you into a place of thinking, is there something wrong with me? Do I now not care about my job? Rather than thinking, actually this is still having a deep passion for my job.
[00:18:10] This is still part of my identity, but actually there is now something else huge that's happening to me within this process as well. So it's kind of changing the question [00:18:20] when we are returning to work from what's wrong with me? Why am I finding this so difficult? Why do I want something different to what I wanted before, to actually what am I now adapting to?
[00:18:31] Who am I now in this new role? How have I changed? And understanding our identities and exploring that process can help us identify our needs and then use our amazing neuroplasticity to our [00:18:45] advantage rather than finding it a really unsettling and confusing time.
[00:18:51] Julie: Yeah, I think, yeah, I think that's so powerful.
[00:18:52] And again, I'm thinking back to my own experience a little bit there. I think for me, I certainly found adjusting to an identity of being a parent was wonderful and, and lovely, but not necessarily easy because you've gone from, you know, being [00:19:10] competent in your work life, you know, being able to drive a car, being able to do all of these things to suddenly being faced with a situation where you're having to create a new identity, which is actually as a learner again, and all of that.
[00:19:24] And then almost seeing work as something that therefore is when you go back to work is going to just be something that you're gonna fit into really easily again. And I suppose it, it's all of [00:19:35] that, isn't it? And all of that transition and then maybe it's getting back into work and think actually, you know, I, I don't feel as comp, I don't feel like I am the same person as who I was when I left.
[00:19:45] Does that make any sense? I sort really, I really do understand that, that journey.
[00:19:51] Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. And I think you've sort of hit the nail on the head with why I think talking about this is so important because so many [00:20:00] mothers, particularly, I know this can happen with fathers returning as well, but so many mothers particularly I think can return carrying all of this new stuff and then question themselves, question their own abilities to do both and to hold both roles and just question so much about their capability.
[00:20:18] I know for me, I definitely had periods where I thought, can I teach anymore? Whereas in reality, on reflection [00:20:25] now, I believe I'm a better teacher now than I was before becoming a mom. But a lot of things come into question and when you can understand why, it can feel easier and less threatening to navigate.
[00:20:37] And I think as well, caring for babies has always been about balancing factors like stress, financial strains, mental health, and lots of things in that returning to work process don't always align [00:20:50] with baby's best interests. Um, and that can be really tricky to navigate as well. And this is then where I think the sort of social and workplace support as well comes in because the degree of support a person has can mitigate those factors.
[00:21:03] And that's where I believe that shared understanding, it's not only about the mother herself returning that may feel more empowered to understand her experience and then be able to [00:21:15] navigate that and stay within the classroom. But equally from a workplace and leader's perspective of understanding the level of support they could give somebody in order to help them stay.
[00:21:27] In the workplace and help them to stay like we want to keep our mothers in teaching.
[00:21:32] Julie: How much do you think the way that someone is made to feel during that transition does matter? I mean, do, do we feel like there's some organisations [00:21:40] who've got it right and some that maybe haven't?
[00:21:43] Lucy: Yes. Yeah, I do. I think, I like to think that people do come with the right intentions and the best intentions, but I think sometimes people are not consciously discriminating against individuals.
[00:21:58] It can be a lot more subtle. We could be talking about unconscious bias, a lack of understanding of what [00:22:05] somebody needs, misinterpreting perhaps the way somebody is behaving with a lack of ambition or um, a lack of commitment. And I think without a language and without a narrative to talk about this without the understanding, there can be things created, policies in place or conversations that are had that don't best support culturally women back into the [00:22:30] classroom.
[00:22:30] And I know there has been a lot of talk recently, I know the MTPT does a lot of work on flexible working and I know that the department for education even, you know, years before our conversation now have been talking about encouraging this workplace culture or flexible working to help retain this group of people that we are seeing leave the classroom.
[00:22:53] But I think [00:22:55] what runs deeper is the cultural shifts perhaps, that we need in order for this to be embedded. So our wellbeing policies, parental leave policies, flexible working policies are all amazing and they all need to be embedded within the system. But I think there's also that extra layer of creating that psychological [00:23:20] safety in the workplace for these policies to be able to be used, drawn upon for women or returning fathers as well within this conversation to be able to have conversations with leaders that are coming from that place of understanding.
[00:23:34] Julie: Yeah, absolutely. I think I'm just as listening to you talk then. I feel like, and obviously, you know, um, I've spoke to Emma Shepherd from the MTPT project. She's brilliant. And I know that you [00:23:45] kind of are connected to Emma and also we talk a lot about menopause and menstrual health and you know, you rightly saw mention fathers there, and I wanna come back to fathers in a minute, but it's almost like we've created a system that pretends we are not humans as well.
[00:24:03] And from listening to what you're saying, it's almost just about making sure there's that yes, the policies all [00:24:10] need to be in place and yes, we need to be doing that. But that psychological safety created around, you know, recognising that people are, there is a biological as well as a social behavioural, um, changes that are going on.
[00:24:27] And actually, if we were to recognise that and be able to talk about that and have the language. Then that's better [00:24:35] or round. That's kind of what I'm hearing you say. Would that be right?
[00:24:39] Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, without having the language, we, I think as returners and perhaps leaders within the workplace, so coming from both sides, expect that you could be able to just return back after a period of leave where not much has happened within that period of leave.
[00:24:57] And then you are returning and [00:25:00] trying to do the job as if you are not a parent. So you are trying to step back into a role that perhaps you were before, step backing into those expectations you have on yourself as well. And there's almost culturally, perhaps I might be making a sweeping statement, a sweeping statement here in that we should just pretend like we haven't got the children at home and that that is an inconvenience to the workplace rather [00:25:25] than.
[00:25:26] As you beautifully put, having the permission to be fully human and the permission to thrive in both of those roles and not seeing them as sort of fighting against each other, but actually these are things that together supported, can be amazing rather than it has to be one or the other. And I think definitely women as mothers [00:25:50] feel that too, and that's worth exploring for them of how those things can come together beautifully rather than be fighting against each other.
[00:25:58] Julie: Yeah, they, yeah. Recognising it that the, the strength, and I think you said it earlier, Lucy, that actually from your own perspective, you feel like that process of motherhood and returning to to work has actually strengthened your ability in the [00:26:15] classroom. So I suppose, yeah, it's recognising that. So I've got loads of questions I still wanna ask you around this, but if we go back to, if we're thinking about this from a supportive level, if we've got head teacher or a, you know, senior leader who genuinely wanted to support somebody who was returning, what small things could they be doing either before, during, or after that return?
[00:26:38] You know, you, you talked about that [00:26:40] psychological safety. Um, but is there anything that, that you feel could make a difference?
[00:26:45] Lucy: I think even, um, we'll talk more about some perhaps more practical things that they could do in a moment. But I think even this conversation that we are having, developing and understanding, um, training leaders, training managers who are working with parents to understand this transition [00:27:05] is going to help to build capacity, to understand support, have compassion.
[00:27:11] And we know that without understanding, we can't develop compassion for somebody. And I think it's that compassion that somebody has that is going to create the psychological safety so somebody can have all the right policies in place. They can be saying, you know, we promote flexible working here, even we have an [00:27:30] open door policy.
[00:27:30] All of those wonderful things that do create amazing workplaces. But often psychological safety is not something that is just understood cognitively through words, but it is about how safe the nervous system feels to use those. And I think when we're talking about the context of returning mothers here who are going through these intense and amazing brain changes where [00:27:55] we discussed earlier, um, that their stress systems can find more easily, they often in a state of hypervigilance, and especially when their nervous systems at this time are already under significant strain, hormonally, sleep changing identities that.
[00:28:11] Perhaps, you know, in a non-scientific way, their threat detectors or their, um, inner alarms are going to be firing and triggering a little bit more quickly. So this is [00:28:20] even more important to be working on just creating environments where it feels safe to have conversations. It feels safe to ask for what they need.
[00:28:30] It feels safe to be human and to be a parent at the same time without having to hide that part of themselves. And I know for some people listening, that might not come across as an easy takeaway of something practical that they can implement. [00:28:45] But I think it's just learning about people as one thing does change the way that you interact with people, um, and does build more empathy.
[00:28:55] Especially in, um, some of the statistics that we know of leaders are disproportionately men in an, in a workplace that is more proportionately women. So maybe there's a disconnect there with a different understanding of perhaps [00:29:10] not knowing what that is, the maternal mental load, what that can be like for women.
[00:29:16] Developing that understanding may then give more space for conversations, may give more compassion for a space for people to be both. And then there are practical things as well that people could do of asking a question of what would make this transition more manageable for you? Perhaps not assuming that everybody [00:29:35] wants the same thing.
[00:29:36] So I think, again, there can be that assumption that mothers perhaps want less, or that if they're asking for part-time work or flexible work, that they are somehow less ambitious or aren't interested in progression anymore, not assuming that, and maybe having conversations around that. What do they think that their few years might look like?
[00:29:55] Now that might be a conversation that's not had straight away, of course, but it's just [00:30:00] knowing that these things without making assumptions, perhaps regular check-ins as well, um, so that they know that that person is understanding what they're going through, considering the cumulative load of being a mom and going through those transitions on top of the emotional and psychological demanding environment that a classroom can be.
[00:30:20] Giving people permission to rebuild their confidence and to be human and to [00:30:25] allow them that space to, to transition from one to another, uh, and manage those expectations, I think
[00:30:32] Julie: sounds the perfect place to work, Lucy,
[00:30:34] Lucy: doesn't it?
[00:30:37] Julie: Well, you're right. And I think, you know, again, I, I don't wanna keep kind of bringing it back to menstrual health and menopause, but actually sometimes it's just about opening up that conversation, isn't it?
[00:30:46] And, you know, leaders and managers being aware [00:30:50] that, and knowing that can make a difference to the way that they approach a situation. And, and that's sometimes what's the powerful thing, isn't it, that that's needed, um, to create that safety. So some really useful suggestions there. Lucy, we've understandably talked a lot about mothers, but I wonder whether, can we just briefly, um, talk about fathers and potentially other primary caregivers as well?
[00:31:14] [00:31:15] Um, possibly non-biological, um, moms you talked about, uh, Petre as a concept. What are we seeing? What are the neurological changes? Tell us what you know.
[00:31:25] Lucy: Yes. So, um, there is not as much evidence unfortunately and as much research, so that is definitely something I think within the science world that is ongoing.
[00:31:34] But the evidence that we do have does suggest that similar changes do occur in fathers non-biological [00:31:40] parents and same sex parents. And this is because a lot of those changes are coming from the caregiving role itself. So yes, we know that in pregnancy a brain is primed and a body is primed hormonally as well in order to care for a baby.
[00:31:55] But a lot of the changes are happening, what we could call dose dependent. So the amount of caregiving, engagement, interaction that is [00:32:05] happening is going to result in more brain changes. So this is why it's so important to have good parental leave policies as well. For fathers, we kind of, the research shows us that the first 12 to 16 weeks postpartum is critical for fathers to nurture their babies and then develop their parental brain.
[00:32:23] So it's allowing fathers to have that space. And that does then extend to non-biological parents and other caregivers that [00:32:30] actually nurturing them through that process of becoming a parent, holding that space, giving them that time to do that and develop relationship with baby is going to result in more brain changes.
[00:32:42] We also see this hormone as well, so hormone changes are. We see bigger hormonal changes with fathers when they are interacting with babies and with their children more so they have high [00:32:55] oxytocin, um, higher prolactin, and often their testosterone will decrease as their paternal caregiving increases. So all of these things are priming their brain to change as well.
[00:33:05] Julie: That's really interesting because I think that's a massive shift away from when you look at that early work. I suppose it's the attachment theories isn't that you were talking about when you look at John Balley's work was so focused on the mother and actually a lot of our working [00:33:20] practises and policies, I'll caveat that with to say they are obviously changing, was based on the work that he did in the forties and fifties, which was, you know, the, the mother as as caregivers.
[00:33:31] So I think that's really interesting what you say, that there's that dose theory and that it's, you know, that caregiving and that exposure and experience of caregiving is what then activates the brain changes, in which [00:33:45] case we should be really looking at that wider experience of, um, the father. I know I think we do that quite well in kind of adopted parents processes, but what I would also say is that, you know, within the education sector, I'd say we're quite far behind in terms of what other sectors are doing around paternity leave and that ability for shared paternity leave and [00:34:10] that ability to take a long time off or stagger that time.
[00:34:13] Um, and I understand, you know, that there's maybe different constraints on the education system, but I still think we've probably got a way to go. Would, would you agree?
[00:34:23] Lucy: Yes, I would because I think fathers, if I'm right, it's two weeks in the education system, which I know there are other industries as well that it's the same.
[00:34:32] Um, but yes, in education, I [00:34:35] think it's the two weeks and I'm not an expert in terms of the, the pay or the finance of that, but I know that that is what the leave is granted. And when we have the research here of showing how important those first 12 to 16 weeks are, yeah, two weeks is not only not enough for the father, but also that's then where we see the correlations between the mother's support system as well and supporting the mother through this [00:35:00] time when they're vulnerable.
[00:35:01] So it's, it's about changing and creating policies that are supporting the whole family system, not just fathers as one group, not just babies as another group or children or mothers as a separate group, but seeing how families are an integrated system and how are we supporting that system to thrive.
[00:35:20] Julie: Yeah, and I've seen some amazing work being done in trusts across the [00:35:25] country around that sort of family supportive practises because you're absolutely right. That's what we're talking about here, that wide depiction. I do know that some people have got it very right and that's in place. I suppose again, for me it's that sharing of practises.
[00:35:41] Opening up the conversation, seeking support and guidance from other people who've managed to kind of implement these practises and recognising [00:35:50] why it's important. So as educators, obviously we're not just the ones who are in this position, we're often working with parents every day who are also in this kind of permission.
[00:36:03] Um, has learning about the parent or brain, um, maybe it's just even on a personal level, has that changed the way that you communicate or, or see the parents of the children that you teach? Has that had [00:36:15] any influence?
[00:36:16] Lucy: Yeah, I think definitely the training and understanding that I have developed is made me a lot more aware of nervous systems and what people are.
[00:36:29] The load. I said I guess that people are under, and this is not just talking about parents, staff, it's also encompasses our work with children as well. And I know there is some fantastic research and [00:36:40] training programmes out there that talk about this with children. A lot of this is what our children need, it's what our parents need, what our babies need is what the parents need.
[00:36:51] And it's goes back to this sort of family system in that things are often not a single entity on their own and that they are part of a wider network. So if we are asking families to cope with new [00:37:05] babies, new siblings, new schools, new routines, separation, additional needs, neurodiversity, stress, we can kind of come back to that understanding of what are their nervous systems experiencing, what stress are they under?
[00:37:18] And that's about creating environments not only then for our children in the classroom or our staff working in schools, but actually for our families as well where they can feel seen, understood, and supported. So a lot of it [00:37:30] stems back to the same thing of creating a language around what's happening for people and what they are going through so that we can have compassion and we can be curious about how we can support people rather than assuming or or judging.
[00:37:45] Julie: I love that. But yeah, there's like an interconnected system isn't there, there of nervous systems all interacting with each other.
[00:37:53] Lucy: Absolutely.
[00:37:54] Julie: And how [00:37:55] that then manifests in behaviour. And I think you're absolutely right. I think we do a better job or we're more, um, we've got a better language, a better of understanding of that in the classroom towards our children, uh, than we ever did have.
[00:38:09] But then there is the adult in the school who is laing their nervous system, who is suppressing and who is kind of laing their nervous system in order to support [00:38:20] and regulate the children. And then there's the parent. Oh, it's just one spider's way, isn't it? Of nervous systems all interacting with each other.
[00:38:29] Yeah.
[00:38:30] Lucy: And I think this is why I care so deeply about supporting the teacher and the mother. coming together especially so beautifully, but also both of them on their own. The teacher as a teacher, and the mother. As a mother. Because if we want our children to thrive, we have [00:38:45] to think about the wellbeing of those people who are caring for them.
[00:38:47] And we have to think of and consider their nervous systems and what they're going under. And I think as you've said, there is some amazing training, some amazing practice that we see in schools up and down the country where there is a shift now where we are starting to support children holistically a lot better as well, rather than just thinking school as an academic lens and more behavioural [00:39:10] practise.
[00:39:10] But actually we are now considering their nervous systems, considering the environment for our children, understanding more about what we are asking them to function in. But I think what we are missing is extending that to the people working with them. And then I think for the purpose of this conversation where we know that we need our mothers in the classroom.
[00:39:29] I think I saw a statistic from, um, Emma Shepherd the other day about we're gonna [00:39:35] lose a fifth or two fifths, I think it was nearly 2,500, um, returning teachers from maternity or maternity leave within the academic year that they return. And I think that's where this conversation becomes so important, because these are valuable people in our profession for their experience, for their nurturing ability, their superpowers that we've just spoken about.
[00:39:56] But perhaps there are things happening for those teachers [00:40:00] that we are not understanding, and then we are not supporting them through perhaps in the same way that we are starting to do for our children in the classroom.
[00:40:09] Julie: Yeah. And, and listening to you, Lucy, what it feels like is that some of this doesn't require huge initiatives.
[00:40:19] Lucy: No,
[00:40:19] Julie: it doesn't require big step changes. It's [00:40:25] around small shifts in language understanding and, you know, the way that we respond to each other would, would that be correct?
[00:40:33] Lucy: Yeah, I think there's, yeah. This is not a question about sort of structural reform. It's, it's really small shifts, so it could be something as, you know, if we go back to the flexible work and genuinely normalising it, because I think we have sometimes got a case of, um, yeah, we support it in [00:40:50] the school, but is it perhaps subtly penalised or is it perhaps made difficult for somebody?
[00:40:55] So, yep, we want you to do it, but also we don't want you to do it. So is it genuinely normalised and genuinely encouraged and, um, support, support a person through that process? I think we've mentioned checking in with parents, creating that space for honest conversations, things like meetings or timetable changes, making sure that these can recognise the [00:41:15] relatives of family life in terms of.
[00:41:17] Nursery pickups or nursery drop-offs, um, parents evening, just perhaps conversations or considerations around these things. And then I guess more of a sort of internal lens of looking at whether, what behaviours we kind of reward unintentionally are we favouring availability and visibility, which often as young teachers, if we're sort of [00:41:40] looking at the traditional model of when you are new in your career, if you start, if you've come to teaching from early on in your career where when you are new and you don't have caring responsibilities outside of the classroom, you can perhaps offer more of your yourself and your availability.
[00:41:54] And then when you become a parent, you realise there's that conflict there where you can no longer do that without that being at the expense of your children. And what we don't want to do culturally is [00:42:05] then penalise that and, and see a mother or a father as less ambitious or less dedicated or less committed because of their, their other responsibilities that they've got happening at that time.
[00:42:17] Which again, links into our conversation about ambition or commitment. We know that when people, statistically when people become mothers, there's that motherhood penalty of them not going into leadership or they're not progressing. And for [00:42:30] women, a lot of women or mothers, that might be a choice and that might be what they want.
[00:42:34] But there might be another group of mothers who that feels that that choice has been given to them because that they're a mother rather than them actively making that decision, they might still be interested in progression and having ambition within the school environment. And I think, actually, I'm gonna caveat that with ambition is not always, uh, [00:42:55] traditional upward.
[00:42:56] Ladder, if you like, that actually, uh, mother could be quite happy staying in the classroom as a classroom teacher without sort of progressing into leadership, but still have a lot of ambition and still be really interested in, um, other parts of her work that we wanna support people and nourish that and other CPD opportunities.
[00:43:16] Having those conversations that, okay, what does ambition look like for [00:43:20] you, rather than assuming that they now somehow want less.
[00:43:24] Julie: Love that. So Lucy, in your role then as NNP as I am now calling it, um, do you work with schools or is it work that you do with mothers individually?
[00:43:35] Lucy: So at the moment I do local circles, so with, um, mothers who are local to me in my area, and we get together weekly for, it's a bit like a, a [00:43:45] women's circle, if any listeners have experienced something like that.
[00:43:48] Um, and they bring their babies and we talk a lot about theory, we talk about attachment, we talk about stress. We hold space for all of these emotions and all of these changes that are happening within this process. And it's about bringing moms together to build that community where we can talk about those things, where we're taking away the shame from these conversations where we are normalising [00:44:10] this transformation into motherhood, um, and unpicking some of our stress responses and the challenges around that to support people through that process.
[00:44:19] So at the moment, that's for mothers, all mothers and it's not specialising in work with teachers. However, my plan is to build in lots of this work that I'm currently doing with mothers to support the group of mothers who are also returning to a [00:44:35] classroom or have, have just recently returned. So my work is, is focused on those first sort of three years after returning just because that's where my understanding is.
[00:44:45] And yes, I have an Instagram called the Nurtured Mother Teacher and um, yeah, it's starting to build that language and build that community and that space where. I hope that we could have an impact on mothers staying in the education [00:45:00] system.
[00:45:00] Julie: Yeah, well, we'll definitely make sure we put all your contact details, Lucy, in the show notes so people know where to find you and, and I'm sure people will reach out just to try and understand this a little bit more.
[00:45:10] I just wanted to go back to something you said then about that flexible working and about, you know, that whole piece and, and interestingly, I recorded an episode with Deborah Ley and we talked about flexible working, and I think I might have talked about it with Emma Shepherd as [00:45:25] well, but just that embracing flexible working as a system actually, regardless of why people need it, people might need it as to care for elderly parents to, you know, there's different reasons or just to nurture a, a different passion alongside the work that they're doing.
[00:45:43] And I think what is really important is not to see that as a, somebody therefore [00:45:50] doesn't care about their job is not ambitious. And I think that's a big piece of it, isn't it? What she also said, which stayed with me was that often when people are requesting flexible working, it's usually only for a period of time they don't necessarily want it long term.
[00:46:06] It's kind of reviewable. And that actually sometimes it's just, you know, not all mothers will maybe, you know, maybe it's that flexible work and will suit to [00:46:15] start with, but then they, they kind of want to go back to full-time and it's recognising that that word flexibility is key, but in more positive slant around it, I think is is central, central to your suggestion there around that working flexibly?
[00:46:32] Lucy: Yeah, I think it's changing the narrative away from I want to work flexibly because I want to work less. And [00:46:40] having that sort of, it wrapped up in you are doing less and actually I want to work flexibly. In order to really be able to give more. I often see that as it's, it's recognising somebody's own capacity.
[00:46:54] And I think when you can recognise your own capacity at where you are at, and for a lot of people that's organising their lives through flexible working as one method to help them understand and work around their own [00:47:05] capacity at that time, it can be a way of keeping somebody in a profession, keeping somebody there where they can thrive and perhaps if they weren't given the opportunity, they wouldn't be able to be teaching or doing other roles as their best selves because they're being forced to ignore their own capacities.
[00:47:26] So I think, yeah, for me it's a lot about celebrating that if, [00:47:30] I dunno if that's a weird way of putting it, but actually this is about somebody recognising what they have to give in this time and then they are being able to then give it wholeheartedly if you like, because actually that is what's working for them at that moment.
[00:47:44] And as you say, if it's about nurturing a hobby or caring for elderly parents, that's about somebody being able to still show up in the classroom as an amazing, as an effective teacher because they are able to [00:47:55] manage their own capacity and, and we should celebrate that, encourage that. Rather than just saying, you have to be here, all of you all or nothing, or see you later and you're out of the profession.
[00:48:06] I think we need to create that culture around where we celebrate that balance and we allow people to be amazing teachers and also have responsibilities outside of it.
[00:48:16] Julie: Totally agree. Well, I think you're doing an amazing job, Lucy, of being that [00:48:20] positive voice around mares and petre. I had to catch myself then that I'm saying it right.
[00:48:26] But you're doing an amazing job of opening up this conversation and I think that word celebrate and is kind of, I think it works. Let's stop seeing it as a failure or pretend it's not happening or, you know, you talked about that maternal superpowers and let's just recognise it that, and [00:48:45] this is what people are experiencing, how can we work with it?
[00:48:48] Rather than pretend it's not happening. Yeah. Is, is big. So you're doing a fabulous job, Lucy, and thank you so much for coming along, um, and having this conversation, um, today. I think it's really enlightening and I'm sure people will listening be able to kind of, um, take something away. Just to ponder on it, Lucy, we finished the podcast in, in the same way.
[00:49:09] So I have a final [00:49:10] question for you. It's a bit left field. If your career journey, which is interesting, had a theme song or tune, what would it be?
[00:49:19] Lucy: I think there is a beautiful song by somebody called Leah Morris, which, uh, might get the title wrong, but I think it's just as you are. And it's a song that she wrote for her baby or child [00:49:35] that just as you are, I accept you.
[00:49:38] I see you, I hear you. I welcome you in. And I think for me, that would encompass my career journey because I definitely had some challenges myself when I had to pause my counselling training that I was really interested in doing. I've had to step back into a part-time teaching role rather than full-time that I was before teaching.
[00:49:59] And in many [00:50:00] ways, I battled with that sort of sacrifices that I was making when I was becoming a mother myself. And as much as I made those sacrifices internally, I was fighting against it rather than accepting, welcoming that in welcoming in this change. And I think throughout my journeys as a teacher into counselling, training, into my, uh, my role as a mom into my training as an NMP, that [00:50:25] actually it's a beautiful journey so far that I'm excited to see and keep going where, where this goes.
[00:50:31] Um, and actually if I was fighting against that and I wasn't welcoming that in, in the same way that I am trying to, it perhaps, um, would be, would be a process that I wouldn't be celebrating like I am now.
[00:50:45] Julie: What a beautiful answer, Lucy. Thank you so much. Thank you. [00:50:50] Um, and we'll make sure that we check the title and that will go on all clear lists.
[00:50:53] So yeah, I love that. Welcoming it in whatever that looks like, that sense of acceptance. Thank you so much Lucy. Such an empowering conversation and I really look forward to seeing what you do next and seeing where we go next in the sector around everything that we've talked about today. So thank you so much for your time.
[00:51:13] Lucy: Thank you so much. It's been an absolute [00:51:15] pleasure. I have loved having this conversation, so yeah, thank you for having me.
[00:51:20] Julie: Thank you for listening to Edwin Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow or subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. And if you'd like to find out more about the work, Edwin are doing the schools and trusts, then follow us on LinkedIn.
[00:51:32] If you want to discover more about any of the topics discussed in this episode, you can find all the resources and links in the show [00:51:40] notes.
