Yeah, I love that because it's completely unrealistic to expect that we can always be on a upward trajectory.

And sometimes, you know, when you throw in all the extra things that mothers have to hold, you know, we know all the statistics around us holding most of the emotional and invisible and emotional labour in the home,

then plateauing is succeeding, giving everything else you've just taken on on your plate in motherhood.

And you've mentioned that word blend a couple of times. Tell us what that means.

Very much in my kind of personal journey, I remember very early on returning back to work.

I was literally running through waterloo station. I remember very early on returning back to work. I was literally

running through Waterloo Station. I remember it so clearly. And I could not stop the tears

from falling from my face. I was thinking, what am I doing? I don't feel like I'm doing anything

well. I don't feel like I'm really doing work well. And I don't feel like I'm really doing

parenting well because I was actually running late at that particular moment. And I was really struggling and trying to find this

balance that everybody had promised me or I thought was possible. And it's that moment that I

realized there isn't any balance. And what I need to do, me, Toby, I need to look at my particular situation and my particular

set up and my particular ambitions and goals and what my career and what my family requires of me.

And I need to take the little bits and the little ingredients that I personally need to make it work

for me. Now, that blend of ingredients will be different for me than it is to the next person.

And that's why I'd like to approach it as a bit of a blend. I find it more harmonious. I find it

more forgiving. And I find that it allows you to have more grace for yourself. And sometimes there's a

little bit more of your career in that blend. That's absolutely fine. And sometimes there's a little bit more

of your family in that blend. I like to think of it as baking a cake, depending on the different

type of cake that you need to make, depends on the different types of ingredients that you need to

put into that cake. And that's why I really, really like to encourage families to think about it as

their own personal blend.

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