Embracing Change with Michaela Parker

"They said, 'This is what we are proposing. You need to come back five days a week.'

And I was like, 'Right, well, that's not going to work for me.'" - Michaela Parker

[00:00:05.380] - Lucy Critchley

Life is a series of chapters. Some we write and others are written for us. But what happens when we reach a turning point? Welcome to Untold Chapters with me, Lucy Critchley.

[00:00:17.540] - Lucy Critchley

In this podcast, we'll explore the real-life stories behind those pivotal moments, the heartbreak, triumphs, and decisions that changed everything. These are the moments that are sent to challenge us, inspire us, and remind us that we're never alone.

[00:00:31.950] - Lucy Critchley

On this episode of Untold Chapters, I'm joined by Michaela Parker, the founder of Wild Social. Michaela's story is one of courage and transformation. After years in employment, she made the bold leap into self-employment, all while navigating the challenges of starting a family, moving to a new city, and re-training. Her journey is a testament to embracing change and finding purpose in life's twists and turns. I can't wait for you to hear Michaela's inspiring story and the wisdom she's gained along the way.

[00:01:08.610] - Lucy Critchley

Hi, Michaela. Thanks for joining me today.

[00:01:11.720] - Michaela Parker

Hello. So nice to be here.

[00:01:14.840] - Lucy Critchley

Oh thanks love, I'm so chuffed. Really excited to hear more about your story and find out more about you. We obviously know each other a little bit outside of this podcast, so it will be really great to learn a bit more about what made you take the leap to do your own thing and the story, the untold chapter for you.

[00:01:35.170] - Lucy Critchley

So the premise of the podcast is that my guests have an untold chapter of their lives, that the thing that happened that changed the course of the rest of their life, a certain period of it anyway. So I would love to just hand the mic over to you. And if you would like to go ahead and tell your story, that would be great.

[00:01:55.450] - Michaela Parker

Oh, thank you, Lucy. It's so nice to be here. This is actually my first podcast recording as well. It's definitely, yeah it's great. It's really lovely to be on. Thank you for having me.

[00:02:07.660] - Michaela Parker

I guess where my story started was when I got pregnant with my first baby. But just going back a little bit from that, I lived in Bristol for 10 years before I came back up to the Midlands. When I was down there, I spent a proportion of that time working in retail after Uni, we moved, needed a job to pay the bills. I actually did a law degree, but knew quite quickly I didn't want to pursue that.

[00:02:42.050] - Michaela Parker

I didn't really know when I left Uni what I wanted to do still. I was still, You're only 21, aren't you? I went to uni, I was the first one in my family, and it was all very like, go and get yourself a good job sort of thing. I ended up doing it. It was like, be a doctor or a lawyer because that's the biggest paying job. I loved my law, A-level, went to uni to do law, but really quickly realised it wasn't going to be for me long term.

[00:03:07.690] - Michaela Parker

Came out of uni, ended up in retail, worked my way up. I was managing stores, and I was in there, I was in retail for years. It was when I got to about 26, I started to think, I don't want to do this anymore. I really hated working weekends, never seeing my friends. Everyone had plans on weekends and I could never do anything because I was always working. It was just really rubbish by that point. Also, I knew that wasn't going to be a forever thing.

[00:03:38.800] - Michaela Parker

I used to love writing. I was a fashion editor on the Ripple newspaper at Leicester Uni, and loved, loved, loved writing, and I knew I wanted to do something with that. I started volunteering for various magazines, publications, websites in Bristol, and I did loads of stuff, and it was really good fun. None of it was paid, but I just loved it. I was like, I'm getting experience under my belt to then hopefully take a leap at some point and go into writing or journalism or something. I used to write for an independent magazine called Pretty Nostalgic. It was like a vintage lifestyle magazine. It was really good fun.

[00:04:20.140] - Michaela Parker

I used to love working on that, and I was a regional editor for the South West. The overall editor, Jo Keeling, she was amazing. She was very much like a mentor to me at that time. She really helped me out with loads of stuff. Anyway, one day she sent me this job application, an opportunity thing for a Bristol travel company that wanted a Marketing Exec.

[00:04:41.750] - Michaela Parker

It was a really fun brand The spec was perfect. She was like, Michaela, you need to apply for this. She was like, You're perfect for it. I was like, I can't do that. I was like, I have no qualifications or anything. There's going to be a people much better suited to that job. Anyway, she was like, You can do it. I'll help you with your application. Let's do it together. We're going to get you that job. I was like, Okay. Started applying and ended up getting the job after two interviews and practise bits of work and whatever that we had to do. I can't remember now. It was quite a laborious process, but I ended up getting the job and I was absolutely overjoyed. I feel a little bit out of my depth, but after the interview process and everything that went with it, I was like, I can do this.

[00:05:35.640] - Michaela Parker

I can do it. It's great. It's fine. They loved me and I got the job and it was fine. Anyway, started this job, absolutely adored it. It was like my dream job. It was brilliant. You got loads of free holidays and perks like that. But also it was a really fun company. They had a really sustainable angle to them and it was amazing.

[00:06:01.430] - Michaela Parker

I was there for not very long, probably three or four months or so before I found out I was pregnant with my first baby. I was obviously really happy. We were trying and it was really exciting and everything, but then I was like, okay. I just thought, okay, I'll be going on maternity leave then. That's fine. They were fine with me going off on mat leave. They employed a maternity cover for me. A guy came in for that. Off I went, off I toddled. On my maternity leave, I have Maude, who is now nine years old, and it was great. We had her, and then I think she was about three months old. I'd taken nine months off, and the HR department had spoken to me and we had this back to work meeting in place, which was due to take place when Maude was about three months.

[00:06:56.420] - Lucy Critchley

Sorry, I don't know if that's me, but that feels really early.

[00:06:58.880] - Michaela Parker

Yeah, and this is part of the problem.

[00:07:02.040] - Lucy Critchley

Right, okay. Because I have to say, when I had Edie, I was freelance, so I didn't have any of that. My initial thought was, why is that early? Is that what people do?

[00:07:11.290] - Michaela Parker

I mean, I don't know if other people do it that early, but it wasn't the, right, you're coming back to work now kind of thing, but it was like, you need to put plans in place for when you come back and decide on dates and stuff like that. I was just like, right, fine.

[00:07:28.060] - Michaela Parker

Yeah, I'll come in on that date for meeting and my HR lady had prepped me, briefed me and said, right, so if you come back... Because of childcare vouchers at the time and the tax implications that came with those, essentially, she said to me, if you come back as you were working five days a week, you will come out with less money than if you work four days a week. Because of how the voucher system worked, it didn't make sense for me to come back five, but I also didn't want to come back five because I was like, I've got a tiny baby. I don't want to leave her for all these days. My ideal scenario was going back four days, which I was totally happy to do. I've never been one of these people that would want to be a stay at home mum.

[00:08:13.320] - Michaela Parker

I love working. I really loved the job and I was really happy to go back to it. I just was like, four days a week will be fine. Couldn't afford to go back any less than that because we needed to pay the bills. Went into this meeting with the view of going back four days a week. We went into the meeting. Jonny came with me, actually, because I was breastfeeding Maude and I didn't want to have to deal with that and speaking to them and whatever. Jonny came with me with the baby and we went into this meeting.

[00:08:45.680] - Michaela Parker

Thinking back, it was a little bit scary because it was in the boardroom and it was the MD of the company and the Marketing Manager and us in this room. I feel like there was someone else there as well, but I can't remember who it was. But anyway, they said, 'Right, this is what we are proposing. You need to come back five days a week. And when do you want to come back?' And I was like, 'Right, well, that's not going to work for me because A, childcare vouchers. I'm not willing to come to work for less than if I work a day less'.

[00:09:18.260] - Michaela Parker

It just doesn't make sense to do that. I don't think anybody would do that, right?

[00:09:23.140] - Lucy Critchley

No, the maths doesn't add up, does it?

[00:09:25.890] - Michaela Parker

Exactly. It's just whether it's the system that's broken, which I mean, to be honest, it was ridiculous. But also I was like, I just had a baby. I don't want to. I can't do it. It was too expensive. Child care is extortionate. And we balanced the books and tried to work out what would work and everything like that.

[00:09:51.170] - Michaela Parker

And basically, they said, 'Well, you can't do this role in four days a week, so that's not going to work'. I'd even said to them, I'd work like an extra hour or something a day to try and fit in a few more hours over the week. That wasn't okay, apparently. They said, 'No, we can't do that'.

[00:10:11.630] - Michaela Parker

So anyway, luckily for me, at this point, I was freaking out and I was sat there almost on the verge of tears because obviously I just had a baby three months earlier. I was very hormonal and I just didn't... I was tired, obviously as well, sleep deprived. I didn't have any fight in me. I was like, 'Well, I just need a job to come back to. I don't know what to say to you here'. Luckily, Jonny was with me because he said, 'She's worked so hard to get this role. You can't just take it off her.'

[00:10:44.140] - Michaela Parker

What they'd suggested was, If you can't do five days, then we can give you a job in the bookings team. Basically, customer service role answering the phones and taking holiday bookings, which I was like, 'Absolutely not'. That is not what I signed up for here. I don't want to do that. He was like, 'She's not doing that. She's not coming to this company to work on the phones'.

[00:11:06.950] - Michaela Parker

It's just not what I wanted to do. Anyway, he was like, 'Can she not just do part of her role in bookings and part of it in marketing so that she at least keeps a foot in for when things return a little bit more to normal and she can take on more in marketing or come back a day more or whatever. But at the moment, I don't think it's fair that you take that whole role away from her. Me sitting in the corner smiling and nodding, well, not smiling. I wasn't very much smiling, but a lot of nodding like, 'Yes, please, can I do that?'

[00:11:39.320] - Lucy Critchley

Not much smiling. But in that situation. Yeah, of course. I mean, they've just totally pulled the rug out from under you. If HR were briefing you and saying, actually, this is better, you would have thought they would have had a discussion before you went into that room, right?

[00:11:58.990] - Michaela Parker

Totally. It was really interesting. The MD was a man. The Marketing Manager was this lady who was a bit of a ballbreaker. She had no kids. She was just completely consumed by work. She loved her work and she was great at her job, but she didn't really have any empathy for what I was going through at the time or anything like that. It felt really horrible. It felt like I was being ganged up on. It was awful. Anyway, what we agreed on in the end was that I would do three days in the bookings team and one day in marketing.

[00:12:33.240] - Michaela Parker

I saw it as a bit of a win because I was like, I'd negotiated a little bit and kept my foot in the door for later on if I was still there. I thought, well, I won't have the pressure of all the deadlines and stuff if I'm on the phones. It's like that it might be a bit easier with a baby not having all of that stuff. I talked myself around, went back to work after when Maude was nine months old. I did it for over a year, but I never really got back to a place where I was loving it like I did before.

[00:13:08.060] - Michaela Parker

It just wasn't the same. It was obviously very different because I was now a mum and I was coming home at half six, quarter to seven at night to a tiny baby that I was then seeing for a little hour or so and then putting her to bed. There was that aspect of it that I didn't love.

[00:13:25.920] - Michaela Parker

But then also it just took me a while to realise that I was just really cross with them and how they treated me. It was a bit rubbish. Anyway, around this time, in what made me realise, actually, this is really crap. So Anna Whitehouse, who is also known as Mother Pukka on the 'gram. She runs, I think she still runs it. It's a campaign called Flex Appeal, which was all about flexible working for people, not just parents, but anybody that needs it. She has done absolutely incredible things over the last few years with this campaign, but it was the very forefront, the very beginning of the campaign was this time that I was going through exactly what she was talking about.

[00:14:12.990] - Michaela Parker

And I was listening to her stuff. I went to a couple of her events. She did some flash mobs where people were turning up with their babies and placards and all of this. And I was like, 'This is happening to me right now. I'm an actual example of what is going on here and what she's talking about'. And I was like, 'This is really shit, actually. I don't know if I want to carry on doing this. I'm really pissed off with them'. Sorry for swearing.

[00:14:42.530] - Lucy Critchley

This is the beauty of a podcast. Swear all you like!

[00:14:45.820] - Michaela Parker

Anyway, at that point in our personal life as well, we were discussing potentially moving back up to the Midlands from Bristol because it was/is very expensive to live in Bristol. We had got to the point with Maude where she was coming up to two. We were thinking about, do we want another baby at some point?

[00:15:14.760] - Michaela Parker

And the house that we were living in, we were renting, was definitely too small to have a second child in. So we'd started looking at whether we could afford a bigger place and stuff. And we'd been in a very fortunate position where our landlords were great and they hadn't increased our rent. Basically, the market was going nuts. And if we were to try and upsize our house, we literally couldn't afford to do it. So we were like, right, okay, we're in a bit of a funny spot here because if we do want to grow our family, which we knew we wanted to do, then we can't really do it in this house. So we're going to have to think of another option.

[00:15:52.340] - Michaela Parker

We had Jonny's mum in his hometown of Coalville in the Midlands, and we knew that if we moved back up here, we could afford to get a bigger place.

[00:16:06.890] - Michaela Parker

Jonny was already self-employed, so he could work from anywhere. We'd get some childcare as well. Basically, I was like, 'Well, what will I do, though?'

[00:16:16.820] - Michaela Parker

Because the town that he's from is a little market town. They've not got loads of exciting companies like Bristol had. There was not much by way of opportunity. If I had got a marketing role, it I'd probably have been in a much less interesting company than I was working for. I was just like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what I will do up there.

[00:16:40.090] - Michaela Parker

Then basically, Mother Pukka with her campaign was working alongside brand called Digital Mums, which was basically they were like an education provider for women who wanted to retrain with a view to start in their own business in social media marketing, social media management. And that was something... So obviously, so this was back in 2015, 2016 time. So social media was not quite what it is now. It was still very, very new. I'd been doing it with the company I was working with on a like, you're the young person, you're the marketing person, just post something on Twitter, post something on Instagram, et cetera.

[00:17:24.390] - Michaela Parker

In fact, I started their Instagram. They didn't have it before I started there. So that's how long ago it and how actually... Basically, I was like, I'd really love doing the socials, but I didn't get it from a business perspective, really. I hadn't had any training from them. It was very much just do it. I wanted to understand more about the nuts and bolts, like why it works, how I should be doing things properly to make an impact for the brand. This was what this course was promising. They were saying, It's a six-month course. You trained in all of this stuff, at the end of it, you were going to be equipped to start your own thing, start your own business.

[00:18:06.790] - Michaela Parker

But I didn't have the money to do it. So I was like, I can't afford it. We were on the bread line kind of thing. We didn't have loads of spare cash. So Jonny's mum actually said, If you want to do that, I will lend you the money for it. ]

[00:18:20.340] - Lucy Critchley

Wow.

[00:18:20.510] - Michaela Parker

You can move up here and train. This was a collaborative conversation. She wasn't telling me this is what we had to do. But what we decided was that we were going to move back up to the East Midlands.

[00:18:37.060] - Michaela Parker

I would take some time out of work and do this course alongside caring for Maude, because it was part-time hours. You could fit it around whatever you were doing. Jonny would be able to work from up there. We would be able to go into a house big enough to have another baby, and she would be able to help us out with childcare. So that's what we decided to do.

[00:18:59.750] - Michaela Parker

So, basically, we took this huge leap, uprooted everything that we'd known for the past 10 years. I had to leave this dream job, which it was a dream job until all of this stuff happened, but it was really frightening. It really was. It was scary.

[00:19:16.980] - Lucy Critchley

It's massive.

[00:19:17.810] - Michaela Parker

Yeah.

[00:19:18.390] - Lucy Critchley

Such a massive step for you to take. And we moved from London up to Leeds, but we didn't have Edie at that point. And that was big enough on its own, doing that thing in a similar situation, and we could not have afforded... We were engaged at that point. And then the next step was, do we get married? Are we going to start a family? What are we going to do next? We had a one bedroom flat, so there was no way that a child would fit into that situation. I mean, our landlord did put the rent up quite frequently. It was very much like two bedroom place would have just been completely, completely out of our line of sight, we would have had no chance at all.

[00:20:03.400] - Lucy Critchley

And so, yeah, we ended up coming up to Leeds, but neither of us are from here, so we started a whole thing here. But I think it's great that you have that family connection to where you are now. Your mother-in-law has helped you set things off.

[00:20:19.300] - Michaela Parker

Yeah, I'm so thankful to her because I wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise. We just wouldn't. I'm from a very working-class family in the North West. And we just... They didn't have it to give me. She did, and she was quite happy to do it. She's the most amazing person.

[00:20:37.570] - Michaela Parker

But we were gutted to leave Bristol. And I still say today, if we won the lottery, we'd move straight back there because it's literally my favourite place. It was a funny decision because we were excited about this new step and all the stuff that was coming.

[00:20:53.730] - Michaela Parker

But then also we were just like, we were leaving behind everything we loved, and we'd... Obviously, I've been through pregnancy with Maude and made this amazing group of friends, like who we went, pregnancy yoga group, antenatal people, this amazing network of women and all of Maude's friends that we just loved so much and we were leaving them all behind.

[00:21:20.940] - Michaela Parker

It was really, really sad. We were genuinely gutted to be leaving, and it really breaks my heart that we had to do it. But we literally couldn't have afforded to stay. There was no way, even if we could afford the rent, I would have had to contribute to that and be working, so I wouldn't have been able to just take time off to do this course.

[00:21:43.830] - Michaela Parker

It was a really weird time, but we uprooted, we moved, and we settled in and it was fine. Basically, I studied for six months with this incredible group of women. We were put into small cohorts from all over the UK, all different backgrounds, and we all studied together. We worked through the course together.

[00:22:07.930] - Michaela Parker

We had weekly catch-ups and we helped each other with our coursework and all of our tasks and stuff. There's a couple of them that are still in the social media game now that you've probably met or heard of. Hello Social, Anna Skipwith, and Ella Orr from Much More Social as well. They were two of the women in my cohort and we're still really good mates now. It was a brilliant time, really enjoyed it.

[00:22:34.920] - Michaela Parker

And it was really doable with looking after Maude as well and around everything that we were doing. At the end of it, it was like, 'Oh, my God'. As we were approaching the last month or so of the course, it was very much like, right then, I've got to start a business now. This is it. I've got to do something with this and start contributing to the household again.

[00:22:59.750] - Michaela Parker

I knew what I wanted my business to be called. My business is called Wild Social. What we did with the course, we put together this. We had to do a campaign that we had to run on social media, and mine was called Wild Kids, Leicestershire. So it was all about getting children outdoors and into green spaces and stuff like that, recommending local places to go and all of that stuff.

[00:23:23.720] - Michaela Parker

I wanted it to have a nod to that because that was what really taught me. I was able to apply everything I was learning in this campaign. It's still something now that I love talking about because there's that whole thing with a brand name. Do you just go with your name or do you go with something a bit weird that's got a story?

[00:23:42.900] - Michaela Parker

I basically got my first client, one of Jonny's best friends runs a very exciting business. He basically provides petrol tanks to places like football grounds and things like that that need to a lot of mowing and stuff, like big places like that. We went around to see him and his parents one day with Maude, and his dad was like, he was asking about the course, and he was like, 'Oh we could do with you helping us with our Twitter'

[00:24:15.420] - Michaela Parker

And I was like, 'Oh my God, could this be?' And he was like, him and Brett were like, 'Let's do it. We'll take you on. You can do our socials'. And I was like, 'Oh my God, that's my first client'. It just fell into my lap, and it wasn't the most... You don't know at the beginning of your business what your ideal client is, do you?

[00:24:36.530] - Lucy Critchley

Absolutely.

[00:24:36.800] - Michaela Parker

But I was at that point, I'll take what I can get. I need practise. I need to be. But I was like, 'They're going to pay me to do this'. Like, wow, It was really exciting. That was it, really. It was real. It was a thing. I finished, I graduated from my course, and then it just snowballed from there, really. Here I am, seven years, nearly seven years later.

[00:25:00.130] - Lucy Critchley

Seven years. Wow. I mean, I'm just over four years into this phase because I've been freelance since 2000 and..., 10 years, roughly, for sure. Yeah, 2014 when I first started, but I was in short term, fixed contracts at places. So it didn't really feel like I was freelance, but because I was just... I would work in a company for six months at a time.

[00:25:25.100] - Lucy Critchley

My longest job in a business ever was two and a half years. So I've done this Untold Creative thing for longer than I've done anything else. That thing of I love this job, that's exactly how I feel getting to do this. And I know you can relate to that. It's massive, isn't it? And I think as well, my first early client, some were a good match, of course, but I definitely took on some things that were like, I just want to learn and get that experience.

[00:25:55.500] - Michaela Parker

You don't know, do you? Until you do it. You don't know what your ideal client is until you work with clients that aren't your ideal client, I think. But I've always had this thing where I've really, and this goes right back to the start, really. I like working with clients that I believe in or that I really, I either use the products or that I am their audience, essentially.

[00:26:20.890] - Michaela Parker

In the early days, so we obviously I started I business and then eight months later, Margot came along. I've got a habit of doing that, haven't I? I had a lot of clients that were like postnatal brands and parenting brands because I was there. That's what I was doing. And I could approach the job knowing that I was the audience, so I knew what to do. And it still is right today. My favourite brands to work with are the ones that I use or love or I am their audience. So that's always carried through from the start, really.

[00:26:57.360] - Michaela Parker

I think my second client So it's a lady local to me that made placenta capsules when people have babies. She must have been a very early one because she did mine when I had my second kid.

[00:27:12.260] - Michaela Parker

She was a very early one, but I loved working with her. She was great because it was like, really, I was there. I was the person that she was talking to. I knew what to do. I think that I always, as a marketer, say to people, I think you market something best if you understand it and you are the person that is using the thing. So I do tend to gravitate towards brands that I love.

[00:27:40.800] - Lucy Critchley

Yeah, and I think that's really powerful. And there's one thing that I'd love to just go back and just chat about.

[00:27:47.360] - Lucy Critchley

So I'm the first person in my family to have gone to university, and I also come from a very working class background. So I just want to say that I'm really chuffed that you mentioned that because I think that's really important stuff to share and talk about. I don't know if you find this, but I feel like I'm not working class anymore. And that really pains me, really deeply pains me, because I sometimes will go back home and I don't sound like where I've come from.

[00:28:14.140] - Lucy Critchley

I don't necessarily have... we all have the same struggles, but it's different, isn't it? And we grew up in a council house and we've got a mortgage. And I'm like, how did that happen? But the whole thing for me, I feel like I don't really fit in either world. I'm somewhere in between. It's such a funny, weird situation because then when I'm with people who are, I would say, middle class, I find myself like, 'Oh, I don't fit in here either'.

[00:28:46.980] - Michaela Parker

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, it's such a weird thing. And I agree. I go home and when I had this job where I ended up on the phones, my accent at that point was so strange. People, they used to laugh at me because they were like, 'You've got such a weird phone voice'. I used to have to really pronunciate things because the people on the phone couldn't understand what I was saying. My accent now is very strange. I don't sound like where I'm from. But when I go home, do you find that you go really broad when you go home?

[00:29:25.660] - Lucy Critchley

Yeah, I drop all my Ts and stuff.

[00:29:28.010] - Michaela Parker

Yeah. So that happens to me, and whenever I love it. And one thing I do love, though, is I don't really feel like I fit in either world, but I love going back to that and just remembering everything. And I would not have wanted to grow up in any different background or place.

[00:29:50.080] - Lucy Critchley

Absolutely

[00:29:50.620] - Michaela Parker

Because I'm so fiercely proud of where I come from. And I genuinely... It's giving me goosebumps talking about it because I love it. I would never want I don't think I'd want to live there again, necessarily

[00:30:04.340] - Lucy Critchley

I know what you mean

[00:30:04.840] - Michaela Parker

Because I do love being a bit of a city girl now. Now I've experienced it. I like being... We're not in Coalville anymore, and the reason for that is because it was too remote for us. So we lived there for two years, but then we ended up moving a bit further north to Nottingham because we discovered that we liked the city life element that we'd missed from Bristol.

[00:30:27.310] - Lucy Critchley

It's quite a jump, isn't it? From such a vibrant city to a market town. I can see that. I can totally see that.

[00:30:34.910] - Lucy Critchley

It was hard as well, because when we had the second baby, I only passed my driving test last year, so I wasn't driving and we were in the sticks and it was hard work. I mentally couldn't cope with it. I was like, I don't like this. I can't get anywhere easily. It's too much the other way. So we went for a middle ground and moved to Notts, which is we love it here now. But yeah, I don't think I could go back and live in my hometown anymore, but I love visiting and going back because it just takes you straight back, doesn't it, to where you grew up?

[00:31:11.780] - Lucy Critchley

It does. So I'm from Middlesbrough, and I go back there quite a lot to catch up with friends and see family. And where I grew up is really close to the sea. And so there's nothing that brings me more joy than taking Edie to the seaside, going in the amusements, I'm getting fish and chips, having a lemon top, which is like a north east thing. And it just brightens my day. If I know we've got that planned, it could be chucking it down, but it's still glorious. And it's mostly chucking it down.

[00:31:42.300] - Michaela Parker

It doesn't matter. We're doing something similar actually this summer because... So I'm from Chorley in the north west, so it's between Preston and Manchester. And we spent all our summers in the Lakes because we were on a direct 40-minute train up to Windermere. My grandparents used to take us up there for day trips all the time when we were little. We decided this year with... Both my grandparents have now passed away, but it just really reminds me of my childhood, and I was like, I really want to rather... We've spent the last few years going down to Cornwall, but we decided this year we're going to take them up to the Lakes because they've never been before and it's just something that means so much to me from being little. We never went abroad, really. We had, I think I went abroad twice when I was a teenager. But as a small kid, it was all Butlins and Lake District, which I love.

[00:32:41.310] - Lucy Critchley

We used to go to Primrose Valley Caravan Park if we ever went away or like Skegness. Skegness was like, 'oh, we're going on a posh holiday this year'. It was Skeggy.

[00:32:53.700] - Michaela Parker

Went to Butlins in Skegness once, and then we went once to one in Wales somewhere. But we loved it. It was great. But yeah, Windermere. We used to go up to Windermere on the train and then get the boat from Bowness to Ambleside or the other way around. Well, yeah, the other way around as well.

[00:33:12.360] - Michaela Parker

Go for a pub lunch at the other end and then come back and just go. Yeah, and it was just the best thing. So yeah, I really... I try and talk about my childhood a lot to the girls because they don't know how lucky they are. They absolutely don't. And although we don't have a mortgage yet, something that I really hope we can achieve at some point, but we're still renting. But I definitely feel that thing that we're not working class. Absolutely not. But we're not middle class either because we're not homeowners. So I don't know. It's a weird one.

[00:33:52.590] - Lucy Critchley

It's like a weird limbo, isn't it? And you're not quite in it, but you're not quite out. I find it very like, where do I fit in this?

[00:34:01.090] - Michaela Parker

I want to be still working class, but then I'm very proud of the fact that that's the roots I came from.

[00:34:07.290] - Lucy Critchley

Yeah, I do. And I really notice when we might meet people and I'm like, Oh, they're really middle class. So really, maybe it's coming from a working class background. I think you notice those things more. But I just wanted to say that I think it's such a lovely 360 thing that you get to take your kids to the Lakes and relive those things because... So for me, we would go to Redcar with my nanma and grandad. I say it when it was me till I was nine. But I would go with them and have those afternoons by the sea to get to do that for your own. I have such vivid memories of it.

[00:34:45.400] - Lucy Critchley

My best friend still lives in Middlesbrough, so I get to go back quite a bit and see her and stay at hers and remind Edie about all the... not remind. I share with her the things that I experienced.

[00:34:56.200] - Lucy Critchley

Like you said, her childhood poles apart from mine and that is really jarring sometimes. She'll say things like, 'So how did you get places when you were little?' And I'd be like, 'On the bus? We don't have a car.' 'How did you get to school?' I was like, 'Well, I walked'.

[00:35:16.160] - Michaela Parker

We walked everywhere. We walked everywhere. Like, Shanksy's pony, as my granddad would say. I don't even know what it means, but I know it means walking.

[00:35:28.790] - Michaela Parker

My mum learned to drive when I was at Uni, and she was a single mum since I was quite young. So we never had a car. It was bus or train. We went on trains loads. And I hear some people's kids I've never been on trains now. And I'm like, really? It is crazy. And I just want them to grow up understanding that they're very lucky. But it's hard, isn't it? With both of us working freelance, self-employed, we can pick them up and take them to school every day. Sometimes we have to work on a weekend or in an evening or after they get home from school, I sometimes have to sit in the kitchen table and do bits of work. But I'm like, we're there every day for you. You don't have to go to breakfast club, after school club, all of that stuff. You don't need to get picked up by... We went to my grandparents a lot when we were kids after school because my mum worked shifts at a restaurant, which was fine because it was family and it was normal and it was great and we loved it.

[00:36:36.530] - Michaela Parker

But there's nothing quite like your mum picking you up or your dad. If you've had a rubbish day and you can just go straight to your home and just let it out. It's just... I try and tell them, there's the good and the bad, but you don't know the other way. You don't know what... You have no experience of having to do it any other way. So it's their norm. So they wouldn't know any different.

[00:37:01.020] - Lucy Critchley

Thank you for sharing those things with us.

[00:37:04.540] - Michaela Parker

No worries.

[00:37:04.790] - Michaela Parker

I have two final questions, and I would love to know your thoughts on given that whole experience and everything that you've been through, what is your biggest learning from that?

[00:37:16.810] - Michaela Parker

I think to back yourself and to trust your gut is huge. Making that leap to leave a job that was my 'dream job', in inverted commas, that I loved and that was my first marketing job, but I didn't want to leave, but I knew I had to leave. It would have been very easy to talk ourselves out of that move and just be like, 'Well, let's just stay here, not have another baby for a while, work back doing...' Because I was on my one day of marketing that I was getting, not even the MD of the company, but the head of the whole umbrella company was congratulating me on amazing content campaigns and things like that. I was really good at my job, and it would have been very easy to just be like, No, let's just stay doing what we're doing. But something was just there saying, 'No, do it'. I think trusting your gut and just backing yourself that everything will be okay. Because scary decisions come up, don't they? It will be very easy to just step away and avoid them, or take the easy option. But I think if your gut's telling you otherwise, then just go that way.

[00:38:36.680] - Lucy Critchley

That's excellent. I think that's such a powerful thing. My final question is, if you met somebody and they were in a very similar situation to how you were nine, 10 years ago, what advice would you give them?

[00:38:51.480] - Michaela Parker

Take someone with you to your back to work meeting, I think. Especially if it's really early on. Honestly, I genuinely would say, if that is an option for you, if you're going to a back to work meeting and you have to negotiate stuff like that, then and you're not in, I want to say in sound mind, but that makes me sound like I was insane, I mean, I probably was, to be fair. To try and take a partner, take your parent, take someone with you who can help you negotiate something that will work for you.

[00:39:28.230] - Michaela Parker

And I mean, things are a lot different now. There's been a lot of change in terms of flexible working requests and maternity and stuff like that. So much has happened, so it might not even be the same anymore. Again, trust your gut. If you're in a position where you're having to make a tricky choice, you know really within you what the right decision is. And I think just trusting yourself is key.

[00:39:58.720] - Lucy Critchley

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it ton, and I can so relate to so much of your story, and I'm sure there'll be lots of other people who feel the same way, too.

[00:40:10.000] - Michaela Parker

It was so nice to chat. I felt like it was a therapy session or something. It was lovely. I've needed that after this week as well. It was great. Thank you so much for having me, Lucy.

[00:40:24.590] - Lucy Critchley

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Untold Chapters. I really hope you enjoyed it, found something that resonates with your own story. If you enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to rate, review, and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. Your support will help us share even more incredible stories.

[00:40:45.660] - Lucy Critchley

Untold Chapters is an Untold Creative production.

[00:40:49.720] - Lucy Critchley

Until next time.