Work Series: You’re Not Imagining It — The System Is Rigged Against Working Mothers, with Jane van Zyl

The Motherkind Podcast

Parenting, Kids & Family

4.8 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to our special 8 part work series. A mini series that takes a deep dive into paid work and motherhood, inspired by feedback from our community who have overwhelmingly said that this is something that’s difficult to get right. We hope that this series supports you, offers you guidance and gives you confidence. For first guest interview, we’re going straight where we need to: to the big picture, to reveal the systems and structures that we’re operating in. Why? Because that helps us make sense of our individual experiences. Our guest is Jane Van Zyl, CEO of Working Families, the UK’s national charity for working parents and carers. Jane brings a rare and powerful perspective. She is at the heart of the conversations between government, employers and thousands of parents. There’s probably no one better placed to understand the challenges, opportunities and systems at play. We talk about the ‘Motherhood Pentalty’, the truth about flexible work, why shared parental leave isn’t working, and what real systemic change looks like. Jane also shares practical advice for anyone who feels unseen or unsupported in the workplace and gives us a vital reminder that we all need to hear: that you are enough. Click Here to order your copy of 'Motherkind: A New way to thrive in a world of endless expectations’ Motherkind is sponsored by Wild Nutrition, the brand raising the bar for women’s supplements. Want to feel the Food-Grown difference yourself? Get 50% off for three months at wildnutrition.com/motherkind. Ts and Cs apply. Discover the May App here: https://app.adjust.com/1od0zbe1?campaign=The+Motherkind+Podcast For a £100 sponsored job credit visit Indeed.com/ Motherkind Get 15% off OneSkin with the code MOTHERKIND at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod This show is sponsored by FreePrints. Download the Free Prints app for iPhone and Android from the App store or Google Play or visit freeprints.co.uk.Continue the Conversation: Join our community over on Instagram for inspiration, tips, and sometimes a bit of humour to get us through our day - @zoeblaskey Join our mailing list to receive news, updates and new episode releases Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey and welcome to this episode of Motherkind and our special eight part work series. We are proudly sponsored by Wild Nutrition's Women's Supplements. I'm your host Zoe Blaskey and this is a special mini-series
0:22.1	and we are taking a deep dive into paid work and motherhood. Feedback from you, our community,
0:29.1	is that this is one of the biggest challenges faced by us mothers. And when I did a poll on
0:34.0	stories, a massive 76% of you said you wanted to change some aspect of your
0:40.7	paid work. So my greatest hope is that this eight-part series supports you, offers you guidance,
0:47.0	inspiration, and of course, because it's mother kind, gives you solid tools and takeaways that
0:51.6	you can use to feel more confident and empowered wherever you're at
0:55.6	with your relationship to paid work. So whether you are currently in paid work or not or any
1:00.6	variation thereof, I really, really hope that this series feels not only inspiring but also
1:06.5	supportive. Last week, I kicked off the series by sharing my story and revealing the mistakes
1:11.7	and regrets that I have in my nine years as a working mother growing this platform. The feedback
1:17.0	has been, I've got to say, incredible from that episode. So many of you saying you feel seen,
1:23.4	validated. And it was actually nice to get to know a little bit of behind the scenes of Motherkind
1:28.2	and the podcast. So if you hadn't listened to that already, then I'd really encourage you to make
1:31.7	time for that. This week, we are going straight where we need to for the first interview episode
1:38.4	of the series. And that is to the big picture. I always think with anything in life, we should look at the big
1:46.5	picture first, the systems and the structures that we are operating in. Why? Because that
1:52.6	helps us to make sense of our individual experiences. We always have to understand the waters we're
2:00.7	swimming in to make sense of our strokes.
2:04.0	So this week I'm joined by the incredible Jane von Salle, CEO of Working Families,
2:09.1	which is the UK's national charity for working parents and carers.
2:14.1	And I'm so excited to bring you this episode and Jane as our expert because Jane brings such a rare and powerful perspective.
	...

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