Gousto x Mother Pukka: Q&A with Anna Whitehouse
The Gousto Parents community has been established to amplify the voices of parents at Gousto and build a support network for colleagues with children.
We recently welcomed Anna Whitehouse, founder of Mother Pukka to speak to the Parents community about flexible working, parenting and work life balance, and were charmed by her honest answers and her passion for her work.
Anna is best known for her Flex Appeal campaign for more flexible working for all workers, which was launched in 2015 and has gained recognition across the country.
She has written the best-selling books Parenting the Sh*t Out of Life and Where’s My Happy Ending, with co-author and husband, Matt Farquharson. Her hit podcast, Dirty Mother Pukka covers the highs and lows of parenting, as Anna speaks candidly about life’s challenges and invites her guests to do the same.
Anna was a champion of flexible working years before the pandemic, but Covid demonstrated which businesses were prepared to open up to changes to the workplace and which refuse to adapt. She views it as her life’s mission to prevent companies from losing good talent, and explains that flexible working is the best way to close the gender pay gap. It costs companies nothing to allow their employees to work remotely, and it also demonstrates empathy and understanding.
Flexible working is one of Gousto’s USPs: we are a remote-first company, with offices available for those who prefer to meet in person, and operate with core hours which allow employees to balance their work and personal lives.
There is legislation going through in the House of Lords at the moment for flexible working for everyone, but Anna also names and shames certain companies who have retracted the flexible working policies they set up during the pandemic. She believes behaviour like this benefits no one: “There will be a point where you as a company will start losing talent, you will start losing money, and you as a company will have to suck it up”.
Gen-Z are already saying they will not be strapped to a desk 24/7, and Anna references a Ted Talk she gave on this subject. Additionally, she explains that social media permits people to share their experiences more openly, while allowing people like her with larger platforms to speak up on behalf of those who may be unable to for legal reasons. Companies cannot get away with it any more.
Anna then talks about her own experiences of being a working parent and struggling with burnout. She is aware of the irony of fighting for flexible working and gender equality within the workplace, while also having painful moments of disconnect with her family because of her work.
When she had children, she suddenly felt less worthy than colleagues who would never have to take maternity leave. She thought about how hard she would find it to encourage her young daughters to work hard and aim high, while simultaneously setting them up for the ‘fall’ she felt herself experiencing in the early years of motherhood.
She had many conversations with her manager about how to navigate this, acknowledging the paradox of wanting to succeed in her career without compromising her personal relationships: “you always feel guilty no matter what you’re doing”. By rediscovering her passion for work, Anna was able to rebuild her self worth. Her message to her daughters is “you are my everything, but this is my something”. Her work is clearly her passion.
Anna’s husband, Matt is a working parent as well and also a champion of flexible working. She sees it as a win-win if fathers can work flexibly: they get to spend more time with their children, and the mothers have more freedom to build their careers. Despite this, no one talks about the impact of domestic load on relationships, which might start as small inflections in the day but will eventually build up and create cracks between a couple.
Anna and Matt challenge each other to reconsider which domestic roles they are actually good at and which ones they automatically take on because of their genders. There must be an understanding and an agreement to split the work equally, away from social conditioning and traditional ‘blue’ and ‘pink’ tasks.
When asked about some of the parenting advice she’s received over the years, Anna shares an anecdote about a conversation she had with an octogenarian sex worker called Joyce Williams. Joyce reminded her that while being a working parent to young children can feel like a perfect storm of resentment and frustration, it’s only circumstantial. Once you get through to the other side, it’s really lovely.
She also introduces her strategy for coping with stress, which was inspired by a conversation she once had with a personal trainer. Rather than trying to carve out huge chunks of ‘me time’, Anna treats rest like she would in the gym, taking small periods to pause between each activity. We can all do this: take a few minutes to breathe when leaving work, rather than racing to the school run; pause when you get back at your desk, instead of jumping straight onto a call. Allow your day to be punctuated by beats of stopping.
Anna thinks that people don’t talk enough about the peaks of parenthood, focusing instead on the challenges. To her, the lows of parenting can be so much lower than those she might have had before children; yet, the highs are higher than anything she could ever have imagined. She has come to celebrate this in her journey as a parent.
In her podcast, Dirty Mother Pukka, she has had several eye-opening conversations about the highs, lows, and laughs of being a parent. She reflects on one particularly moving conversation with Mylene Class and acknowledges the pain that the journey to parenthood can cause for so many.
To conclude her talk, Anna reminds us that parental leave is still bad in the UK. Countries like Finland offer equal parental leave, where as the enhanced parental leave is 4–5 weeks in the UK. A quarter of men don’t even take the basic two weeks paternity leave, and are almost applauded for being back to work soon after their child is born.
Through her work at Mother Pukka, Anna not only raises awareness about the importance and benefits of flexible working, but she also opens up conversations about these issues. By raising her voice, she hopes to make a difference, encourage companies to reconsider their policies, and push through new legislations in favour of flexibility and balance.
With special thanks to Anna Whitehouse for speaking to us and to the Gousto Parents community for the work they do in that area.
