The Hidden Crisis Facing Working Parents Today | Work, Burnout & Family Balance

Are you a working parent struggling to balance career, family life, and your own wellbeing?

You are not alone.

In this episode of the Parenting Collective Podcast, Donna Moala sits down with workplace and family wellbeing expert Dr Rosina McAlpine to explore the hidden crisis facing working parents today: burnout, stress, mental load, and the impossible pressure to "do it all."

With more families than ever relying on two working parents, many mums and dads are finding themselves overwhelmed by work demands, school commitments, childcare responsibilities, sporting schedules, technology challenges, and the emotional labour of modern parenting.

In this episode, you will learn:

✔ Why modern parenting feels harder than ever

✔ The real causes of parental burnout and stress

✔ Why work-life balance feels impossible for many families

✔ How workplace culture impacts family wellbeing

✔ Practical strategies to reduce overwhelm and improve family life

✔ What employers can do to better support working parents

✔ How parents can create healthier boundaries between work and home

✔ Why supporting parents benefits workplaces, businesses, and society as a whole

Dr Rosina McAlpine is an internationally recognised researcher, speaker, and founder of Win Win Parenting, helping organisations create family-friendly workplaces that support both employees and business success.

Whether you are a working mum, working dad, business owner, HR leader, manager, or parent navigating the challenges of modern family life, this conversation will give you practical insights, validation, and hope.

👇 We would love to hear from you in the comments:

What is your biggest challenge as a working parent right now?

Follow Dr. Rosina McAlpine

Website:  https://www.drrosina.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drrosina/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drrosina

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drrosinamcalpine/

Follow Win Win Parenting:

Website: https://www.winwinparenting.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/winwinparenting/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/winwinparenting

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/winwinparenting/

I would appreciate it greatly if you could please LIKE and FOLLOW this podcast and if you are not following me over on instagram, head over there for all of my top tips and advice around sleep and parenting @parentingcollective.au.  I also offer a free 15 minute phone chat to run through all your questions CLICK here to book your FREE 15 minute chat

Much Love 💞

Donna Moala 
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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello and welcome to today's episode. So if you're a parent trying to juggle the demands of work and family life, then today's conversation's for you. I'm so excited to welcome today's guest, Dr. Rosina McAlpine. Dr. Rosina is an internationally recognised expert in workplace and family well-being. She's a researcher, speaker, and founder of Win-Win Parenting. So for more than a decade, she's helped workplaces, leaders, and families better understand the challenges facing working parents and finding practical solutions that support both the families and the organisations. So today's conversation will resonate with so many parents who are constantly juggling work, family responsibilities, WhatsApp groups, sporting events, and then trying to find any time for themselves, which is typically doesn't happen, and we usually put ourselves at the bottom of that ladder. So today's modern parenting can feel absolutely relentless with work demands, school commitments, and that mental load leaving many parents just feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. So her work has been featured internationally across television, radio, print media, and including the New York Post, The Today Show, and ABC Radio. But what I love most about Dr. Rosina's work is how it connects our work lives and family lives. So in this episode, we explore working parent burnt out, the impact of stress across home and work, the practical ways employers, leaders, and parents can create more balance and reduce the overwhelm and be more connected to their family and do their jobs the way that they feel like they need to do their jobs. So whether you're working outside the home, running a business, or managing your family, I think you'll take a lot from this conversation. So I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did, and Dr. Rosina did. Leave your comments, let me know all about it. We'll speak to you next week.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Bye.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Good morning, Dr. Rosina, and welcome to the podcast today. Hello, hello, it's lovely to be here. We're having a little chit-chat before we get it's so funny. Right, that's it's like one of the movies. Um, take one, take two. I would love for you to start to get to know you a little bit more and introduce yourself and tell everyone a little bit about what you're doing and all the work that you're doing in the world and your purpose and passion in life around this, is like I always like to say. And if you could share a little bit about that, that'd be amazing.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

So for me, my biggest mission and vision at the moment is to support all the busy, hardworking, amazing parents out there who are struggling to manage all of the demands, work, family, and feel like, you know, their employer just doesn't get it.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

They don't change, has it really? The world's change. The world has changed drastically, and there's so much pressure on everyone, but the it's sounding like the workplaces aren't really adjusting.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

No, it's and it feels like, you know, as a working parent, you're worried about if I say anything, it's gonna hurt my ability to grow in the firm, to be employed, I'm gonna look like I can't handle it all. But really, at the end of the day, and and I'll talk about stats later when you're you know ready to do that. At the end of the day, we've got a system that just doesn't work. And so the systems issue, not an individual issue. So if you're feeling tired and burnt out, let's take that responsibility away from you and say, no, no, it's workplace issues, it's structural issues in society that's actually the issues here.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Oh, totally. And it feels working with so many families on so many different levels from babies up to 10-year-old kids and parenting, you know, I'm seeing it so drastically change. And I say this to I offer a 15-minute call for families to introduce myself to them and what I can do. But what I always say to them is like, you know, I'm a mum of three and they're 21, 18, and 15. And, you know, the pressures now are tenfold on not living expenses, the stress of the world. We still have to parenting's not changed, kids have not changed, but we, the life world has, and trying to keep up with it all is just it's just, yeah, no one's sleeping, everyone's tired, and everyone's trying to do their right job, and it's just not working, is it?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

That's so true. And I think I think you make some really good points. And one that I'd like to hone in on is this whole idea that as a parent, you've got to kind of grow and change with the times. And when I was growing up, there was no tech, the bullying was very different to what it is today.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

Totally. Anxiety was low because we just played.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yes, that's what I was gonna talk about. It's just a different world, and yet, you know, working parents are expected to understand all the new games, all of the food that's available. I think you might say if you got a little boiled lolly, it was like, woohoo, I know, like you know, I know the weight, yeah. Now, you know, you look at the shelves, and there's more artificial colours, flavours, and things that we ever had. So I think we have to accept that this whole concept that there is not a job in the world, not a single job in the world, that doesn't require education and training, an ongoing improvement. Yet we're like, here's your baby, see you later, figure it out, it'll be okay, and please work and time, you know, and um, you know, deal with all of the financial challenges and your own. Like we we know that there's a growing number of mental health challenges individually as well, and that social media gaming has had a negative impact on adults as much as it has on our children. So I think what I'm trying to say is there's a lot of complexities to navigate. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Again, we could talk about this forever, and what you do and what we're going to talk into, obviously, is is you know, families, parenting, and and in the workplace, and and how, like you said, it's not we sort of parents blame themselves and don't want to speak up, they don't want to lose their job, and they just keep on going. But I think the more that we get to know you is that you're really advocating for the parents out there or trying to get out there of like, you know what, it's not about how busy you are and you're not doing your job properly, it's about the organizations and the structure.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Absolutely, and that's what we've been doing now for the last 10 years. 10 years? Yeah, this is why well maybe a little even longer. Really? Maybe 11 years, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

Well, take us back to that 10, 11 year light. So your background, where it sort of, you know, the light bulb sort of went, and this is where I I'd really like to focus my attention. And yeah, I'd love to hear a bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

So obviously, I myself became a working parrot, and that was about 19 years ago now. And I just myself went from competent, capable, professional associate professor at the University of Sydney to incompetent. But no, really, I'm not joking. I really am. I mean, no, I totally get it. Yeah, I was managing thousands of students and teams of you know, tutors, and I was winning awards and writing papers. I was like, I had I had this, like my career was really at its peak. Totally. But I came home with a tiny baby, and I could not get myself or my baby off of the house in any kind of order.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

It took a lot of you know you're not alone. You know, you've heard the word matrescence we talk about a lot, but you know, it is you the I find the women I work with that are again, all women are amazing, all mothers are amazing, but the women like yourself who are highly, you know, driven, educated, got to those levels, sometimes find becoming a parent even harder because you had everything organized, you're very independent and a brilliant woman, like not comparing to other people, but often uh I find when I work with high highly professional women like that, they find it a little bit a bigger adjustment. I did.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

And and you know what I realized was it it didn't take long, but about three months in, I went, oh my goodness, it took me my whole life to get to where I was at Yumi. And I'm not giving myself a week or two or a month or a year to get to where I need to be now. And that's where I really dove in and I went, hang on a sec, I might not know what I'm doing, but I'm a researcher, I'm an academic. Somebody's gonna know. And so I started to do look at all the research, and there was so much great information from psychology, child development, from you know, and I was seeing that I wasn't the only parent on the planet that was not coping or was that not doing the best job that they felt like they could do a better job, right? Yeah, so I ended up writing a book, believe it or not. What's it called? While I was on parental.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Do you believe it? You couldn't, you couldn't, um, I definitely would believe it. What was the book about and what was it called?

SPEAKER_00 8:59

So it was called Inspired Children, How the Leading Minds Raise Their Kids. Oh, how interesting. It was so interesting. So I went and found psychologists and um parenting experts and um neuroscientists and everyone of all the different areas. And I would be interviewing them while I was on maternity leave. And I came out with this book and it just made me feel so much more confident. And so that's when I started advocating and saying, look, um, of course we're not gonna be confident. This whole concept that it'll come naturally, what a lot of nonsense that is. Like how nonsensical to say, how nonsensical to say it's just gonna be natural. You're gonna know how your bread child's brain development, social development, emotional development is gonna be. So I get the book together and then I go back to work, and I'm you know, finding it really struggling. And I was doing a research area on managing work and family gender equality, and it was so clear. Right. There was this humongous gap that there was at it was at the time, you know, 15 years ago, 12 years ago around there, that they started doing these well-being programs. Right. And these well-being programs had nothing to do with working parents. Yeah. So, yes, go to the gym, have some yoga.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, what? Like, what am I gonna do with the toddler that's you know attached to my leg or the teenager who's slamming the car door? What am I gonna do about that? Totally. So that's when I had this whole concept of hang on a sec. Workplaces are taking parents out of the home and into the workplace. And of course, society is requiring that too, because you know, the now we have something like the Australian Bureau Statistics, the latest ones, are about 73% of families have both parents working.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Oh, I would have even thought it was higher, and you're the researcher, so you know. Um, but it's it is higher in one.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

But when you've got just two parents, there's at least 73% where both are working, and that's a lot. There's a very small proportion where you know only one parent is not working and the other one is. Anyway, so so I was looking at this and I thought nobody's doing this. So that's when I just developed win-win parenting and went, hang on a sec. If we support working parents to be the best they can at home because we know that their stress, their challenges are gonna turn up in the workplace. Um, we're gonna have a win-win. Good for parents, good for business. And that was when when win was born, didn't it? That was, yeah, over a decade ago now. And we've been working with, you know, we work with all levels of government, we work with corporate, we work with not-for-profit organizations, small, medium, large. The ones who are really socially responsible, the ones who are saying, Oh my goodness, if I don't support the working parents, we're not gonna get the outcomes that we want. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

So, in regards to win-win, then your majority working with the organizations and the businesses, not always particularly the parents themselves, or is it both? So, are you sort of yeah, talking to the heads of these yeah, businesses? Tell me, tell me, tell me about it. How does it how do you support that? How do you support the parents out there around this and what does it look like?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

So, my thesis at the time was if you take the parent out of the home, you need to give something back. Yeah, and so I talk to HR Managers, Diversity, Workplace Health and Safety Managers, and talk to them about what are the programs that you've got in place that actually create family-friendly workplaces, that actually help your working parents be the best they can for themselves, for their families. And of course, that all translates to the workplace. So we deliver um training to managers to make sure, number one, that they actually understand the challenges. Now, many people come straight out of uni into HI, HR workplace, children makes no sense to them whatsoever. When they say, Hey, we'll give you a gym membership or whatever, they're like, This is a good thing, but they don't understand all the the barriers. Oh my god, yeah. Yeah, so number one, training for the for the managers, but then all of our programs are directed towards, and we've just little by little by little, we've got over 40 programs now because we just listen to working parents. We listen when they say, Look, my big challenges are with technology, my big challenges are with emotional regulation for the kids and for ourselves. My big challenges are, you know, like you know, recently there was a big change in the age that kids can access social media, you know, from 13 to 16. Now that's a big problem for parents. You know, you don't realize what a big problem. You've got two or three kids that are going, what? I can't access social media anymore. Um, how do we manage that? How do we navigate it? So there's not the meltdown and the screaming and the you know, circumventing. So whenever we see you know current challenges, um, increases in mental health challenges, we want to address that. Bullying, we know bullying is on the rise. Yeah, so whenever we we try and address all the really big challenges, but we also try and challenge through the little challenges every day.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Like the everyday ones are grinding, you know, like but they're they're the ones that weigh you down the most, I think, little bit, little bit, little bit all the time, like getting them to daycare and getting out the house on time for work and you know correct.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

How do you get into a routine where from preschool right through to 10 years and then into university and you know, higher education and beyond? Um, we used to do, we used to say our programs were 18 months to 18 years, but we've had to do like adult children at home now, so we just say 18 plus years. Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Honestly, then where are they going? It's like, you know, I remember when they were smaller, I was like, you know, they'll be out of home by 18, 19. No, they're not going anywhere. But now I'm like, you don't need to go anywhere. It's okay. Stay with mummy and daddy, it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Exactly. If we get to stretch that out, that's very nice. I hear you. So, yeah, so really it's listening to what are the challenges. How do we create situations at home where our kids feel like they're part of the family, they're learning life skills, yeah, they're becoming part of the solution, not the problem, right? Yeah, being empowered. So the program is all about how do we support working parents to feel confident at home, have all the resources that they need because they don't have time to do the research. And as you know, you know, today it's so problematic. If you type in, you know, bullying or whatever, you are gonna get a variety of answers. And then you'll be like me, and which is why I did the book was on the very first day that our son was born, the lactation consultant said one thing, and the nurses said something completely different. One was feed on demand, and one was feed every four hours, and I was in a teary mess. Like, what am I supposed to know now at this point in time?

SPEAKER_02 16:43

You can't do exactly, and you think about for us and uh our kiddos being so much older, we had a book or or that would happen, you know, one midwife will come in and you know, we had that and it stressed us out. But we think about the poor parents out there that oh my gosh, just are so losing their minds because everything contradicts itself.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

And absolutely does, and then you don't even know what to trust. And that's why with the Win-Win program, we feel confident to say that it's the heart and science of parenting. And that's why we do have Dr. Rosina McAlpine who wrote the programs, you know, which is you, by the way. Which is you, Dr.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Rosina McAlpine, yes. Dr. Dr. Dr. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Because I didn't want it, I didn't want it to be oh, someone's idea or that the leading minds. Now I'll give you just a really quick example of you know what really piqued my interest. So here's one saying every four hours, and here's the other one going, oh no, that's so old-fashioned, it's been on demand today. So I went to the Journal of Lactation. Yes, it exists, right? Sure, it does.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

It's like sleep. Sleep does. There's a lot of research done on humans over 50 years ago that people forget about, like the science back stuff, you know, there's lots of research on this stuff. And get this.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

So they did studies on whether you fed on demand or whether you fed in a routine, and they found that children who were fed on demand had an up to five point higher IQ than children. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly the face you're pulling right now, which is the same face I had, which was why, you know, I'm like, that's it. Everybody has to know this stuff. Why is it in academic journals? Why is there anyone that knows this? And but more importantly, I wanted to understand why. Now, this is the why. When a child is in fight or flight, they're not in growth and repair. When you're struggling and you want to eat, you're hungry, you're not going, oh, ceiling. Oh, look at my thumb. You're like you're not doing any of that. I'm starving. I'm starving, I'm in fight or flight. Now, a four-hour routine might work for some kids and be perfect. So I'm not saying this or this. What I'm saying is that if we know that when a child is hungry and those needs are met, they're going to have a higher IQ because their neural pathways are going to be growing at a time when they're in growth and repair. But it's information that I think is really important for parents to have.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

I know. But you know, as you're talking, I love all the research stuff. I love it. So we talk about sleep support. So, you know, I like them I secure, nurturing, attached sleep specialist, you know, I could use so many other words. We're responsive to all needs, right? But it's like um anything. That's amazing information. But you might have a mother that's feeding on demand every 30 minutes. And it's hard, happen, happen. So it's like it's the in-between. It's like the sleep. Our babies biologically, if they haven't got tummy pains and they're they're thriving, they can all master this miracle of sleep through us nurturing, supporting. But you can't just write a book about that and go do it this way. It doesn't work like that. This is the thing. When you have highly uh intelligent research back information, people will look at that and then stick to it rather than sort of like then use the parental instance, you know, like it's just such a confusing world, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 20:11

You know, like heart and science via abilities, 100%, you know, and that's exactly what I say. Well, you know, I start every session, and so do our team of facilitators with this. We're not here to give you advice, no, support, what we're getting what we're here to do is give you information strategies and ideas, and you are the expert in your family. You're gonna know what you are putting in place. That to me is so important. So empower yourself. We know garbage in, garbage out.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

I know.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Good information in, good information out, good decisions. Yeah, so the whole idea for me is the better we know, the better we do. And sure, we might not be able to be perfect, you might not be able to feed on demand the whole time. You've got to get up and go to work and whatever. Hello, or whatever you can, you're doing it, and then you're doing the best you can. And that's all we ever are. That's what I think.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

A lot of my when I do my one-on-one in my families, a lot of the conversations like, you're doing amazing. Because they're thinking they're failing. As mothers, we always do that anyway, but now it's even worse. And I'm like, You're amazing. This is your child. Look at this, look at the positives. But also, we live in a world of instant gratification. So then people like, for example, working with so many families might go, here, this is what we've got to do. And if it's not started to do or work in a couple of days, they're like, Am I doing it wrong? Is this happening? I'm like, just give it time, constant, don't keep mommy, no, don't change the things, just get the information, the resources that is backed and you feel comfortable with, and just keep persevering. You're not gonna get it work life balance is very hard, you know. Isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 21:51

It really is. And but with the right tools and the right encouragement, and that's how coaches come in, you know, and a lot of people will. Say, I really love that your program is not prescriptive, it's informative and educative. So that we can then go, oh, oh, oh, or I tried that and it didn't work, but what about that? And you know, for example, you know, we talk about sleep as well, and I know you're the expert. So, but one of the areas that I was very interested in was because as soon as Cameron came home, as we all know, I don't know why they say sleep like a baby, like that.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

Don't stay doodle, stay run. Like, what would they be? I know, when they're at your tummy still, maybe. Yeah, exactly. No, no, no, no. That's what happened.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

So they were like there was this whole whole idea of control crying versus lecturing to sleep. And so the the two things that I had to listen to was first of all, I started to look at the research on cortisol levels and all of that, in you know, this whole concept of control crying. The second thing I looked at was how I felt. We tried it for one night for a bit five minutes, ten minutes, five minutes, definitely. I just said to my husband, I'm gonna vomit. And if I feel like I'm gonna vomit, this can't be good. So it's not gonna happen. But everyone kept telling me, oh, just oh, just anyway. No, no, nervous system regulation, exactly. Yeah, and then I started to joke. I thought, wow, if they're so smart and can, you know, put themselves to sleep when they don't even have, you know, a brain to figure anything out. Maybe we should have them playing the stock market. I know exactly because clearly they're very smart. So I started just making the jokes, but in all in all honesty, it was that's why I always say, Yeah, read the science or whatever. Someone's gonna write something about something. Yeah, totally. Which there was, there was all of this information at that time.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Imagine now, 19 years later, what it's like now trying to say just I say to everyone once they find me, I am your sleep Google. Just message me. If you've someone tells you something, message me because that's what it's about is like finding something that we're a reliable source, yeah, and also that you feel regulated. Like that's what I say to anyone anytime you're made to feel yucky, something you've watched, something you someone's told you, it's not aligned with you, don't do it. If it's of someone looking in front of you, just grin and thanks so much. But you are the parent. And we're not gonna the other big thing is surrendering to the fact of chaos. Because everyone looks this like, you know what I mean? Like everyone's like, and I was like that. I was a stay-at-home mum, and I was like, I'm gonna feed them this way or whatever, and it ended up turning into a shit show as they got older because you can't control it all. But the more educated we can be as parents about nervous system regulation, understanding the human bioscience of it, of what they can do, then that's research stuff, which is your forte, and then building on that, you know, like if you're such a beautiful person who's created this, then the people that are your team or whoever's in your community, I'm pretty sure, will have to be the same mindset or the same sort of personality that you are to educate your parents or, you know, you wouldn't be having someone who's telling them they're doing something wrong in your team. Um, and that's what I say to everyone: find your pre people that help you with this village that we don't have anymore, you know? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

And that's part of that systems things where we were talking about. So when things were simpler and you had maybe an aunt, an uncle, a parent, you know, village, I went back to I went back to Serbia when our son was 18 months old and then again six years old. And because my family comes from a little village in Serbia, I'm not kidding you. I was, you know, co-sleeping was just considered normal. That's what you do. You put your baby in the bed with you. And the grandmas and the aunnies would be listening at the door, and as soon as the child went, ah, there'd be knock, knock, door open, child gone, you rest, I'll see you later. And I'm like, I was shifting to Serbia. I know later.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

I know I know, but it doesn't happen anymore, does it? And it's got worse and worse and worse, and not for anyone's fault, but grandparents are working longer and everybody's working.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Precisely. And the thing then was the village actually, for that time that we were there, you know, I'd have to go up and down the street to find him. He'd be somewhere, but he'd be with an aunt or with an uncle or with a cousin or with somewhere. And so we don't have that anymore. We're lucky if we talk to the neighbors on either side. We have someone who comes to visit every now and again. And so structurally, we've really got to say there's a lot on the shoulders of working parents, and how could we make it a bit easier?

SPEAKER_02 26:55

I love it. I love it. So we could talk all day, but I really want to fine-tune if a mother or a father is listening to this and feels like, my gosh, my business who I work for needs to, I need to know more about this. Can you make it nice and clear how they can work with you? Do they go to their manager? What support do the parents get? Run through a little bit of yeah, how people could work with you or the companies could work with you.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

So the first thing is that we now have psychosocial safety laws, which I love.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Which is, what's that?

SPEAKER_00 27:31

It's great, isn't it? So what is it? Tell me. I don't know what it is. Tell me. Yes, it's the responsibility of an organization and managers to ensure that the well-being of their employees so that they can be physically, emotionally, socially well to be able to perform their duties uh as well as they can in the workplace. Now, what that means is that they have to identify the risks. And so, just a simple thing like saying, I understand that you are trying to create psychosocial safety in our workplace, because that's the big words now. One of the things that many companies are not doing is looking at the specific risks for working parents. Now, working parents have the highest rates of burnout, highest rates of stress, highest rates of turnout, turnover. Now, companies, organizations don't like that. So if you want to improve workplace, productivity, mental health, just ask them. Go to the win-winparenting.com. You know, all the yeah, all the programs are there, and we offer free, like you do, 15-minute conversation. We offer loads of articles. We've got a free assessment that says, How ready are you to support the psychosocial well-being of your working parents? It's a free tailored assessment. There's you know, 20 questions that they can go, we do this, we do this, we do this, we don't do this, and how can we work? So the whole idea is to feel really confident in saying the well-being of working parents is not an individual problem, it's a systemic problem. And I would love to connect you with when we're parenting documents so that we can work together to support working parents because it really is that's the win-win. If working parents are doing well, then the organization's doing well. But there's one more little pace that I want to add. Ten years ago, I was too scared to say this. I could see it, but I couldn't avoid it. You know, like it was it was, you know, like I mean, it was big enough to say to organizations, it's your responsibility not to set meetings at three nine o'clock in the morning and three o'clock in the afternoon. So people can drop off and pick up. It's your responsibility to accept that parents are going to want to be at the presentation. Right? So that was all good. But today we need to look big up. We know that our kids are really not doing very well. We know that our society as a whole, we know that there's more anxiety, more depression. Our kids have got more ADD, ADHD, more neurodiversity, there's more bullying, there's more mental health issues, there's so much going on, right? So we don't have a wealth society. And where does that all stem? It all stems from the parents who are raising the next generation. So let's go back to corporate social responsibility. Working parents are contributing to the economy, yay! They're contributing to the future of humanity when we support them. Not only do we help workplaces with future employees that they're gonna have, but we also help the economy now and in the future, and we help society as a whole. If we've got sick working parents, we've got sick kids, if we've got sick kids, we've got sick organizations, it and nothing's gonna work. So for me, now the big picture is let's really be responsible for in the world. Let's look after our working parents, look after the future generations, and we're gonna have an awesome society.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Oh, and I love meeting people like yourself and getting to know you because you know we're all if we all find each other, I think, to be able to share these conversations, but obviously the passion that you have around it. But what I'm also seeing is I don't know if you've heard of Dr. Shafali, but I was certified, I've trained with her, and so she is a psychologist and founded the conscious parenting sort of movement, being aware of ourselves. That's what it is. It's not permissive, gentle, it's like understanding, you know, generational patterns. But what I'm what she talks about and what I'm really noticing is that us humans haven't changed, right? Being mothers, fathers, even same-sex relationships and children and whatever, children haven't changed, meaning they need their parents, you know, they don't care that we've got a career or need to earn money. They actually just want to have your basics of a parent being around and a parent and family growing that child up. And so what's happening is we're seeing, and we have to live in this society that we live in, we don't, especially the Western world, the parents are doing the best they can, the kids just want their parents, and then it's just that ongoing cycle. So if, you know, like we're saying, if the workplace is a bit more conducive to being able to go to sports events, school drop-off pickup, that's just huge. Like that's life-changing for the future for our kids, and it starts in all these different places for sure.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

And absolutely, and what if the organization, as the ones that we work with, do give you, we have we have like ongoing programs. We don't go, a one-off isn't going to help you. The kids you do your one-off program and the kids don't run away after that, right? So we're ever parenting's forever. So we do what you know, one program a month where you can ask questions and answers and you can learn one topic, right? So, from that point of view, what happens is the working parents start saying, Wow, you get that I've got problems. And that's one of the biggest problems. When you don't feel like your manager understands you, you are in a big, very stressful situation. You don't feel confident to talk about things, you have to hide things, and that's when you will say, I've got a doctor's appointment instead of going to get a certificate for my child, right? You know, to see my child. So if we want open, honest conversations and we know the basic, the basic kind of let's say, um, framework is life is always going to tip you off balance. That's just gonna happen because we made today, you know, socks gonna be missing or someone's gonna get sick, right? What we know from the research is that if life tips you off and you've got the resources to ride it, if you've got the knowledge, the understanding to write it, you ride through it. Life changing. Life changing. Right? Yeah, and so that's what organizations need to do. We now know the risks, we know the challenges working parents are suffering. They don't have the time to go and research who's good, who's not, what program, what resources. So provide it, provide flexible work, provide resources, educate people managers who actually understand and go, yes, no worries, take an early mark, go pick up the kid, do this, and then you can do it later or whenever, you know, we can talk about this. And then, of course, we're gonna have much better outcomes at work 100%.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

And the thing is, typically, working parents are the ones that work the hardest. They're not being lazy, you know, like and just needing some time off work and you know, the workplace to be adjustable. It's like they're the hardest working because they want to get it done in a certain amount of time, they want to be there as a parent, they want to cook dinner, and yeah, so it sounds like there's actually research that shows that.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

There's actually research and data, recent data that says, you know, a lot of employers assume that working parents aren't, you know, really hungry for promotion and to have a career, but that's actually not true at all. They are as dedicated, as wanting to achieve as anybody else is, and as you said, because they have to juggle so many things, they're usually masters, masters at that as well. So definitely we should not be making those assumptions. It's a gender issue though that we haven't talked about.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

We haven't, and it's a it's a tricky one to touch on, isn't it? Because it's another probably whole podcast. Um, but you know, this is my podcast, so I can say it. I can I can broach it, and this is by no um, you know, not minimalizing anybody's role, like I said, same sex, dads, mums, whatever. But typically in the world that we live in, the mothers are still doing the mothering. They're the ones that are doing the maternal stuff. We go to sleep, we go to go to bed and can't sleep because we're worried. Our beautiful hunter-gatherer husbands hop into bed an hour later and go to sleep in 10 seconds. So we're just talking about biology here as well, you know. So the load of the mothers typically, I'm not saying 100%, is still a lot more, I find, with the working mothers, because we just do it to ourselves, you know. So that's a bit of a, you know, I'm not saying martyr, but we do. And so then it's like a gender thing that I sort of talk about a little bit too. I don't know if that's what you were going to talk about, but it's close.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

It is close to what I was gonna talk about. So I like to start with the data because then we don't have any gray.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

But I brought it up so everyone can tell me off. It's okay. But you've got the you've got the research.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

I do. So the Australian Bureau on Statistics in 2021 just asked, how many hours do men and women? Because that's how it's actually, and I understand that you know that's controversial in and all this stuff, but I'm just reporting what the I don't want to, yeah, we're not generalizing, we're just no, I'm just saying that the data there were men and there were women in this study in 2021. It was the census, actually. And on average, men were doing half, or women were doing twice as much unpaid domestic work. So, right? So that's not anything controversial in the sense of I'm not saying anything other than just go and get the ABS and have a look at that stat.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Go get that stat. So there are many reasons, and that's when it gets a little more tricky. There are many reasons why that is. I worked with Professor Charles Arene many years ago at Cindy Inn, and he wrote a book called The Other Glaf Feeling: Fathers Stepping Up and Mothers Letting Go. And there's truth in both of that. So it's a really lovely book. And what he says is that women can be gatekeepers and therefore not let dads step up. But there's also the whole concept of dads moving into this space and feeling more confident as well.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

I've definitely seen that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Yeah. So there's a dance, and there's a dance. But what we do know now is that while dads are stepping up, they're not there yet if in 2021 we're three times more, right? Exactly. So good, but not there yet. So really important that that women do be mindful that where could they step back? Yeah. What could they let go? And I know in the early days that was not easy for me.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Oh, me either. I had a nurse had to tell me, midwife had to say, look, your husband's going to try to do this, this, and this. Shut your mouth. Not nicely. She said it very nicely. Um, just don't say anything and let him do it. And I'm like, that was the best advice a midwife's ever given me because that's what we do. We just like, oh, we can do it better. Or we can, you know, we're the mothers. Um, but yeah, it is what what can you take a step back? And that normally it was your role, but it's something that um, you know, you let your partner do.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

What's the little thing? Like, I'll give you an example. So one of the mums the other day said in one of our podcasts, asked in one of our sessions, asked the question, Oh, look, I read with my son every night, but when I let my husband do it, he's not blooming reading with the son, he's making up stories and he's doing all this other stuff. And so he's not, you know, so I just have to take a really deep breath and say, I get it. You're really concerned with your child's learning, and it's so awesome that you read with your son. That's fantastic. But what we know from the research is that dads do it differently. What they're doing is they're looking at a picture, they're telling stories, they're connecting in different ways. So your reading is one skill that your child's learning, and your husband's storytelling and imagination is a whole other skill. And she went, What? It's okay that he's doing it. It is bothered okay. Yeah, it's a really well-rounded, you know, child that you're gonna have. And that's what I'm talking about. It's like, oh, where can I get the good information to know that I can let go and not worry that my child's not gonna read or that the pressure's not gonna get the benefit? So that's the beautiful thing about like you said, you're a tap on demand, you know. If someone says something like, hang on a sec, let's talk quickly, quickly us Donna, you know, and see what she says about that, right? Is it okay? Is it not okay? Um, and that's the same thing with the women parenting. We've got our approach, we know it. Stop, empathize, educate. It's all about life skills. You know, if we've got that program in place, we know that really education for me, education for my child, education for me. Oh god, beautiful, totally, right?

SPEAKER_02 40:59

And then that relates that to my conscious parenting because conscious parenting is all being aware, us being conscious of like that that lovely mum. Oh, really? Is that okay? Being aware and conscious, yes, it's okay. And then you're like, oh, I'll let my husband do that. I might be having to walk away and bite my tongue. But it's being conscious and aware of all of these triggers, of all these stresses, the pressures we put on ourselves for our children's education, where it's, you know, yeah, we could go on and on and on. But um, thank you so much for being a guest today. It's been wonderful to get to know you. And um, it sounds like you're doing amazing things. So hopefully we hear lots, lots more about win-win parenting. Um, and I'll put everything in the show notes of how they can connect to you and bring it to their workplace.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Thank you. And I really I do my head over heart. I went to your website. Without sleep for parents and kids, we know that that's like the biggest foundation for life success, for well-being, physical, emotional, mental. So thank you for being. I I saw the the feedback like as I was lipping through, like life-changing, life saver. So I guess what we're saying is permission to not know parents, permission to reach out and get just click on win-win. Permission to make mistakes and fix it up. Yeah, and teach your kids that you know what, you don't have to be perfect in life. Oh, never.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

We can never be perfect. No, it's you know, and we just have to I call my my life the beautiful chaos because it is, you know, like it's over years having to change parenting and where we're at now, and on the other side of it, you know, being able to support families and bring people like yourself to people's ears because you know, um, there's so many beautiful uh people like yourself trying to help families. So, you know, we're all out here trying to help everyone. I love chatting. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, and we'll speak to you soon.

unknown 42:54

Bye.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

So if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave me a rating and review. I love reading all of your messages. So shoot me a DM over on Instagram. It is parentingcollective.au. I also offer a free 15 minute no obligation phone chat. If you'd like to book one, head over to my website, www.parentingcollective.com.au, and request one there. So try to remember to be kind to yourself and always know you're doing the best you can every day, no matter what your day is looking like. Until next time, much love.