Carla Miller 00:00
Welcome to the Influence and Impact podcast for female leaders.

My name is Carla Miller, and I'm a leadership coach who helps female leaders to tackle self doubt, become brilliant at influencing and make more impact at work.

I've created this podcast to help you to become a more inspiring and impactful leader. We'll be talking about all the different topics that affect you as a woman leading today. Think of it as personal development meets professional development. And I want to become the leadership BFF you didn't know you were missing until now.

In this episode of the influence and impact podcast, I'm talking about equality at home and how that impacts equality in the workplace. And my guest today is Clare Twelvetrees, who is one of the cofounders of a charity called equality starts at home. Clare is a leader in the international development secretary. She's currently Director of Strategy and Performance at the charity book, equality starts at home was formed after she gave a speech about equality post COVID-19 at the Aspire reimagination conference in June 2020. And it's now become a formal charity.

Clare's worked on a range of issues, including women's empowerment, specifically as interim Chief Exec at the Cherie Blair Foundation For Women. She's also a trustee for Age International, and she's passionate about the quality at home, and believes it's helped her and her partner challenge stereotypes achieve their potential and be positive role models to their children.

Now, this is an interesting episode for anyone who shares their home with anyone else at all, including a small child like me, and, and we talk a lot, obviously, about partnerships where one partner is doing more than the other one is. And we also recognise that not every family looks the same. We don't all have 2.4 children and a mother and father. And indeed, my family is one of those families that looks very different from that. But even if that's you, I think there's still a lot of relevance in here. And like usual we address it from a line managers perspective as well. And think about well, what can we do in the workplace to help with this, now Equality at Home, run a safe space series of events, and you can find the links to those in the shownotes. And they've also got a survey at the moment, I'm just going to bring up the details of that. So they've joined forces with Third Shift. And you can take the Third Shift quiz where you answer questions about what chores you do and the time taken to do them. And the tool calculates the percentage of what the balance or split is in your family. So it's a good conversation starter, and an objective way to get an understanding between you and the other people in your household about the dynamics and who's doing what.

So we will also include the link to that in the shownotes. Now other than that, as I record this, I am gearing up well actually, I'm doing completely the opposite. I'm slowing down before going on holiday, I am off to Norfolk with my entire family for a week and then a few days in London, I do have to run a workshop in London on one of those days but other than that, hopefully it's going to be very restful. And I know I talk a lot about burnout and not overdoing things and I've really recognised that in myself the last few weeks that I'm tired and I have less motivation about work and normally I'm highly motivated at work and I'm absolutely desperate for a holiday so I've been streamlining my diary and taking out anything that is non-essential to the business and moving it to the summer. And I'm hoping to have a very chilled summer. I am still working I've got a reading week mainly around inclusivity I've been reading some fascinating books on inclusivity including The Anti-racist Organisation by Shareen Daniels which I highly recommend any leader to read and I wish every chief exec and director of people or culture HR would read as well fascinating eye opening educational but I am developing a programme on inclusive leadership skills and so I've been doing an awful lot of reading and I will continue that in my reading week as well.

So looking forward to reading week looking forward to some chilled out time where I am neither working nor in charge of my small child. It is not too hot up here in Cumbria as I record this everyone is experiencing the hottest day on record in the UK. In Cumbria we are about to hinder He's cooler than everyone else, which I had been moaning about for most of the last few weeks. But I'm very grateful for today and yesterday. So that's it for me. I hope you find this episode. Interesting. It's great to reflect on what affects the workplace and what affects our ability to show up and fulfil our potential in the workplace. Other than what just happened specifically within that environment. Enjoy the episode and take care.

So it's great to have you here on the podcast, Clare, how you doing today?

Clare Twelvetrees 05:39
Good. Thank you. How are you?

Carla Miller 05:41
I'm good. Thank you. We've just been sharing weekend stories. And what I would love to do, first of all, is to find out a little bit about a small amount about your personal background. And then how did you come to be part of setting up this new initiative is practice a new charity, isn't it?

Clare Twelvetrees 05:58
It's just become a charity. Yeah, we achieved charity registration about a month ago. So it's very exciting. So yes, in terms of my background, I've been in international development in the international charity sector for several years, up to about 20 years. And in terms of my early background, and it's relevant to equality starts at home, I was raised by a radical feminist mother, who always really instilled a sense of gender equality into me and my life. And my brother. And my father was also a passionate feminist at the time in the early to late 70s, and 80s. And my mother was really a trailblazer, because she set up quite a few women's refuges at the time where, you know, violence against women was really the domestic issue and say, for example, the police often turned a blind eye and just thought, well, that's a domestic and we don't need to get involved.

So that was my that was definitely a significant influence on my belief and passion in gender equality. But in terms of setting up equality starts at home. I mean, it started although as I said, gender equality has always been in my, my blood really, it started after I did a speech at the Aspire Reimagination Conference, and Dr. Sam Collins, who is a leadership, vision really, for women in leadership. And I spoke about COVID. And is it going to be the end of inequality, because the spotlight was shown on inequality, particularly in a home when, you know, people realised who, for example, was doing the disproportionate amount of homeschooling if you had children, etc.

So I also carried out a little tiny bit of research at the time to find out what was going on in the home. So I think with any disaster or emergency, it's also an opportunity to raise awareness of issues of inequality. And that was, you know, there were a lot of talk about inequality across the spectrum in terms of who was disproportionately getting COVID, and also globally in the vaccine. So equality was being questioned during COVID.

So I spoke about that, and I spoke about the research that I've done, because I spoke to my friends and network, what's going out and got what's going on in your home is if you've got a good balance of household responsibilities, or poor balance, who has more free time. And so in that, I spoke at this international conferences, I said, and there's quite a lot of people at the conference 1000s, and a few people got in touch with me after and said, oh my goodness, yes, the home sphere is not talked about as much. And so I got together with three other women, and we co founded equality starts at home. And, you know, we set about establishing a good fundamentals or vision or mission or values. And then we operated, fast forward two years, we've been meeting regularly. And two years later, as we gained momentum, we decided to register as a charity. And we've recently registered as a charity, as I said, but can talk more about what we've done. But in terms of that was the origin of it. And I think it gained momentum, because it happened to launch at a time where, you know, there was a spotlight on the home, and what was going on in the home.

So the time was right. And of course, we know that there are many charities operating in the home space, domestic violence charities, for accept, etc. But in terms of that, actually, let's improve equality in the home space, we felt there was a niche. So a lot of talk about equality in the work sphere, not to talk about equality and also organisations trying to influence I don't know 5050 parliamentary women in parliamentary positions, lots of your gender pay gap, gender equality policies in the work, but in terms of the home sphere, we felt it there wasn't that many charities we know of charities who are operating, who intersect between the work and the home sphere, but we felt we had a niche. And so we established ourselves we've been running and carry out a whole series of activities and work, but can can go on to that.

Carla Miller 09:53
Excellent. So what is the why? What do you exist to do what is the vision or the mission?

Clare Twelvetrees 09:59
Okay, so our vision is a big vision. And it's a global vision, in that the vision is for equality at home to be a reality for all, because and that's quite simple. But we believe that it will be a better society if everybody has equality. I mean, it's a massively large vision, of course, but why not? Why shouldn't people have equality, or, and or balance at home? So that's our vision. And our mission is more about changing mindsets and behaviours. So we want to raise awareness of the issues of inequality in the home and then get people to think about it, and change, eventually changing mindsets and behaviours to create our vision, which is equality at home is a reality for all.

Carla Miller 10:42
And what does equality at home look like? Like this vision that you're working towards? What does that look like?

Clare Twelvetrees 10:48
That's a good question. And I think, you know, we also recognise that home, the home sphere is different wherever you want, whoever you are, and wherever, whatever your family unit or single person is. So we recognise that upfront, there's a whole diversity of home setups. But we also recognise that it's everybody has some sort of home set up globally, albeit, sometimes on the street, sometimes with very little infrastructure service or provision that won't go into all the diversity now, but in terms of what does it look like? It's a really good, it's good question.

So it's about give and take. And it's about balance, that albeit we recognise that some people are lone on their own. So what does that mean for them, that's, that's more challenging. But if you are in a unit where there's more than one person, it isn't about 50%, doing 50% Of all the household responsibilities, if there are children looking after them, 50% of the time, for us, it's about give and take. It's about having good respectful relationships, communication, and respect within that host household unit. So, and it isn't about one person overwhelmingly doing way more of something than another. And it isn't about somebody at the end of the day of day feeling, put upon feeling disrespected feeling that they are doing way, way more.

So it's about balance. It's about communication. It's about respect, and it's about give and take. And it's about making decisions together about what is best for the household. It's about having a joint vision, I always think about, you know, people put a lot of effort into in the work sphere into a vision and a mission and communications around a project. For example, if they put half as much time thinking about the household unit, and about, you know, collaborative working a vision, how do we want to work together? How do we want to think of the long term etc.

So it's, what I'm saying is it's not about 50% 50 50%, all of the time, but it's about give and take. And it's about having a joint vision and respectful communications, and operating as a team and teamwork.

Carla Miller 13:07
Sounds good, and how does it work if you're working hours, or your salaries are imbalanced? Because often that's used as the reasoning, isn't it? Why women tend to be paid, we're talking about a heterosexual relationship, women tend to be paid less gender pay gap doesn't help us on that tends to be working part time as well, because we take on more of the childcare responsibilities historically. So how does that balance? Is the idea that they balance each other out? Or is the idea It doesn't matter how much you earn, or how long you work, you should be doing more stuff

Clare Twelvetrees 13:46
I think what I found is that people in their 20s, and people tend not to have a massive wage differential. But but even if they do, I think people aren't thinking about the longer term, as I said, and thinking about the repercussions in old age. So I think if people get more information, they can make longer term decisions. So if the woman's going part time, then it's going to only perpetuate that imbalance in the longer term. So I think people need to have enough information at their fingertips to factor in to when making longer term decisions about not just sort of oh, I'm earning less, at this point in time, this sort of thinking about you know, 3040 years down the road and also what how is it role modelling the children if there's an imbalance where the man is, for example, getting up at six o'clock in the morning and commuting into the office and then not coming back in time to see the children but thinking about everybody in the in the household and thinking about their well being and how important it is for children to see a balance of household responsibilities because then it teaches them respect and balance when they end up getting older and potentially having children and so it's not thinking about purely the economics but thinking holistically, really about the family unit and what's what's better in the long term.

But also, we're finding that if you have got a very imbalanced relationship, which is male or female, for example, the men, were finding that there are social norms, which kind of say that the men, if they're making decisions to not work longer hours, that it's no good for them, because they don't also have a good relationship with it, they don't get the opportunity to have such a good relationship with their children, for example. So it's, you know, in a more modern society, we're finding that younger women and men are making those more holistic decisions for the family unit than our older generation. So not to make a decision purely based on income, but based on mental health, mental wellbeing, holistic family relationships, and the longer term.

Carla Miller 15:58
Excellent, that makes sense. And I think I mean, it's good that the younger generation are looking at things differently. I certainly grew up in a very traditional family where my dad worked long hours, my mom took five years off to house then worked part time. And the pension gap is quite significant, because that's one of the things to bear in mind as well, isn't it? Like you said, it's that long term? impact for both? And so how do we, there's so much we could talk about around this, but it'd be interesting to talk about men's roles, and how do we do we need to get men on board with this? Or are men already actually on board with it? And they want things to change as well? What are your thoughts on that?

Clare Twelvetrees 16:40
Yeah, well, it's interesting because it has been, that's one of our targets is to really engage men on this, we've found that it hasn't been that easy initially. But we've got now we've set up as a charity, we've got one male trustee, who's brilliant and has which we're finding that it's easier for men to reach out to men, interestingly, but we definitely we want to make sure that it's not just men talking to men, women talking to women, but we want to bring, you know, the two together and other genders. And we've had a recent sale, we run the safe space events series, and one thing that we're discovering is that men can feel isolated, and men can feel that they're on, you know, a treadmill, for example. And the men also can feel that they don't know where, where families have children, that they don't have a good enough relationship with their children, they're missing out on all of the really fun things, if they've got, you know, that imbalance where the man is doing a lot of the working, but we feel that men are absolutely part of this part of the solution. You know, in the early days of feminism, you know, there was the, in the 60s I'm talking about, and obviously feminism existed way long before that, but we call it the women's liberation movement.

And that itself, the title is quite interesting, because it was about men, and patriarchy, patriarchy, and almost liberating ourselves from the patriarchy. And that was sort of radical feminism. But certainly what I believe is that men are part of the solution and need to be in it with us together for you know, solutions to manifesting itself. It's not about women getting frustrated and pissed off. Obviously, women, if they feel frustrated and pissed off, then that's fine. But it's about, you know, mutual understanding and trying to find solutions together. Because men have said and articulate men have said, for example, they feel isolated, they feel that they don't have these quality relationships with the children. They've also said, interestingly, they don't tend to form groups as much.

And again, I'm being stereotypical. But that sort of sort of quoting from what some of our safestay series have said that men don't have WhatsApp groups as much, and even mums net, it doesn't feel inclusive to men, because it says in a minute that they don't feel that they can really engage with Mumsnet, because the title kind of doesn't feel like it's for them. So women have these all of these support networks, and what we're when we're engaging men, but we're also providing spaces to for men to talk about their feelings. And we do believe that, you know, more modern parenthood. People are younger people on our group, for example, are saying we do have these conversations with millennials and the younger generation, you know, they find it more normal, I suppose not to have these imbalances and stereotypes. So I think everything is going in the right direction. And men are realising that speaking out more about, if you see on LinkedIn, you know, equal parental leave, you know, being really proud and privileged to spend the first or second six months with a baby, and how wonderful it is to be able to bring up a child and be an equal parent that wasn't open to them 20 3040 years ago, even though we know that equal parenting, I think only about 2% of the male population, or the population of Britain take that up whereas in Norway, it's much higher percentage and about 97% in Norway and the other Scandinavian countries because the some things are different, like the use it or lose it, rule and the fact that everybody else is doing it in society.

So you know, engaging manual critical and they absolutely part of the solution. And it's raising awareness about how rewarding it is and breaking that mindset that even amongst employers that, you know, some men feel they can't ask to go part time, or they feel that they can't really use the equal parenting provision or the because the equal parental leave, I mean the shared parental leave because nobody else is doing it. So getting kind of leaders and role models to speak up getting leaders of industry to speak up saying I'm taking much shared parental leave, I'm going part time now just normalises it, because I think some of the problem is it's not normalised in society. But you know, men of death have said that the time they spent with the children, if there are children, you know, in the early years, it's so it's so rewarding. And it's something that you can't get back on your deathbed, you know, you don't on the deathbed tend to say, Oh, I wish I spend more time in the office. And also research says if you're engaged at a younger age, with your children pattern set in, you know, good patterns and responsible, shared parenting just kind of patterns and habits set in and the more sustainable in the early years. And the attachment of a child to the parent in the early years is so important. So it sets up good patterns of behaviour that then sustain throughout the longer term. So it's a win win really.

Carla Miller 21:25
sounds like it definitely is, and it has been really encouraging to see on LinkedIn are more men sharing about taking that parental leave, and it becoming more of a norm. At the same time on LinkedIn. Last week, I saw a woman get something through from the doctor for her child. And it kept saying this is a note for the mother and the mother couldn't do this. Despite the fact that actually I think it had been the father that had taken the child to the doctor, there's still so many assumptions there aren’t there.

Clare Twelvetrees 21:55
There absolutely are. And there's a few quite prominent men who talk about parenting and solo parenting. There's a guy called Michael Ray in Australia, who is quite prominent in terms of writing about how excluded he felt he wasn't allowed to go into ballet class with his daughter, there were only women as parents, but in this particular ballet class, he was excluded. I think he did then kick up a class and he was allowed to go in, I think it was into the changing room to change his daughter, only other female parents were changing their daughters, he wasn't allowed to change his daughter, because of you know, our child being amongst the children.

Another guy talks about it. And he's even he's he feels excluded in parenting classes. And he's had some bad reactions from from parents from mothers saying, What are you doing here? Well, I'm looking after my child. So society is not helping us, you know, and you know, even sometimes women don't my partner, we he looked after our daughter from about age one. And he hadn't didn't have any really bad experience. But he was a little bit cautious about going to groups, which were predominantly female. And I don't think he interacted as much as I did, for example, because he was always a little bit hesitant. And he did say there was a few clicks. I mean, there are clicks anyway, women and women, so it's not, you know, only against men. And one man points out interesting. He runs a dad's networking wedding, and there's many, many, many members. And he said, As a man with a young child, he couldn't easily phone up a female parents say Do you fancy going down to the park for a playdate didn't feel as comfortable.

So we need to break down those barriers. And it needs to be more of the norm of them. During COVID as well there were more men at the school debt gates because people were more men working from home. So it was both a positive and a little bit of a negative sometimes when we discovered that women were doing more of a care, etc, during COVID. But in some scenarios, men realised how much there was to do, for example, and then did more as a consequence. So you know, when men certainly, what were the flexible working now and people not going back to the office five days, but you know, maybe one or two, on average or three men can participate more in household responsibilities and sharing, you know, the care of children.

So I mean, as I said, is the whole of society and attitude, it just becomes needs to become more and more normal. But the more that men speak up about it, the better as well. And it was really good that Michael Michael, you know, in the ballet class wrote a letter of complaint, he said, you know, why am I being excluded from being able to, you know, support my daughter in her ballet, and she was on her own, had to be on her own for opinion. So that those sorts of things and that's just not acceptable.

Carla Miller 24:32
Absolutely. And we were talking earlier about how I mean, obviously, this is all about childcare anyway. But I am getting to that age, that sandwich generation age when you're still children, but your parents are getting older. And there's a lot of caring responsibilities as your parents get older as well. Yeah,

Clare Twelvetrees 24:53
No, absolutely. The sandwich generation those who perhaps have children who are coming on to university because things don't stop when children are young. 18 in terms of supporting them, and then also, you know, increasingly as people are living longer, but with more often underlying health conditions, because people are living longer, and that's incredibly challenging. And I think this is why galti starts at home, although we focus more on male female dynamics, and we realise that gender equality tends to get worse after having a child because decisions are made, as we talked about earlier about salaries and income and but we also recognise that there's lone parents of single parents or single people who are looking after children.

And in families, it it tends to fall out on the women more to look after the older parents just because it's the expectation friend of mine said the other day, well, I'm glad I shaved my head boys, because I don't think they'll look after me and, you know, old age as much. And I said, there's no reason why you should assume that, you know, girl, children will look after you more than five children. But of course, that was the stereotype. And you know, a stereotype perpetuates if that's what you're kind of assuming. But yes, incredibly difficult, like double or triple Whammies. And, of course, it's people with children with disabilities, as well. And, you know, are all caring for parents with disabilities and children with you know, there's a whole host of really challenging circumstances.

And I think our belief that if equality starts at home is if families, what are household units, whatever they are, had a better balance and given take mental health of the individual mental health of a household, and then, you know, people, especially women, I always found that if there was that imbalance, severe imbalance, you know, women ended up there was no time for them. There was no headspace. Of course, there's emotional labour as well, which it's not just a question of who does the cooking and cleaning and school runs, etc.

It's also thinking about birthdays, it's thinking about if somebody's ill going to the doctor, getting a doctor's appointment, there's a whole series of sort of mental admin and there is no space, there's no space, you need some sort of space to think, in order to fulfil your potential, whatever your potential might be. You can't you may wish to be senior leader in an industry in the charity sector, I always find that if your head is filled with household, both practical and mental, both physical and mental, there's going to be no space to consolidate and kind of think, Okay, what am I learning in a work environment, if you want to be an author, or even if you want to just live your life, if your mind is 99%, occupied with household responsibilities, there is no space.

So I really believe that to allow everybody to fulfil their potential there needs to be that given taking a family or household unit, and they've got off the point is a bit from sandwich generation, but it aggravates it even more, if you've got it on both side and the burden of that responsibility has tended to board to women.

Carla Miller 28:04
And we talked about equality in terms of sharing the load. How about equality in terms of how you're raising children? So I've been reading books recently, I've been reading the Authority Gap by Mary Ann Sieghart, who was also a guest on the podcast a few episodes ago. And it's really shocking how young children so how young boys learn that their voice has more value?

Clare Twelvetrees 28:35
It's about five isn't it outside boys, the girls don't think they're as good as boys. I think there's a whole series of research out there isn't there if you show a job they girls think they can't achieve a to achieve a particular job, or girls don't think they're good enough. They just don't see themselves as or authority. So I think that's another reason it's about how things play out in the home and how not even in media, you look at the television, on television, there's male voices for action toys and female voices for dolls and nothing wrong with dolls, but it's so there's very few where you you hear a mixture of voices for what you call neutral, generic, gender neutral ties, and it almost used to be better years ago, when that there was more of a focus on neutral toys. I think it's got worse in the media. Now in terms of gender specific clothes, you go to shops, and there's a whole series of pink for girl Blue for boy. So no, this all plays out. This all kind of plays out in the psyche of young girls and boys. And even, you know, just a little anecdote.

I was at school the other day and a little girl was bursting into tears and believing she couldn't play football. I'm no good at it. I'm no good at I'd be told I'm no good at it. And so that scarred for life and she probably was never going to try again. And she was told she was no good at it by some boys and you're held back at such a young age. And so that's why equality in the home you learn most from the home, you do learn from other spheres. But you certainly learn to believe like how you're brought up from a very, very early age what I think you, you could be walking the talk in terms of equality in the workspace and then the man, for example, might come home and then be waited upon in terms of the dinners always read, then it's ready. And what does this say to the children I you know, then they see the media, then they see, you're in school, perhaps schools can still be stereotyped in some scenarios.

So it's coming from all angles, which is why in the home sphere, if you can make it a good balance, it doesn't have to be 5050. But it shouldn't be divided on gender lines. If, for example, I think you're trying to get this little bit earlier with a question. Decisions are made not on gender. So if take gender out of the question, if somebody prefers a certain job, then to do it from preference or time available, but time available shouldn't be dictated by gender, either even. So, you know, a whole series of sort of bombarded by gender stereotypes. And if you can, as the primary male role models, whether you're one or two, try to be conscious about what you're saying in the messaging to your children. If you have children, it's really important to try and instil that I know, I try to, but it's not it's not easy.

Carla Miller 31:35
It's not when they're hearing different things from their friends, or from school or just from society and what's been TV, My son doesn't, he likes to watch TV, but we're icbb. So there's no adverts so far. So at least he's not getting bombarded with more than those. I also, I'm also a fan of delegating within the household to the children, as well.

So in my household, when I grew up, my mum was literally slave to all of us, and she still is, we go around to her house, and I'll go after like a biscuit, I won't go and get one, she'll go and get one for me, we've got stuck in that dynamic. There is no way I'm being your slave, I say to my son, he's only four. But it's teaching children young to be capable as well as it so that we're not doing everything for them.

Clare Twelvetrees 32:21
Totally, and again, it's a bit like operating as a unit and teamwork. Because, you know, give and take. And it's not also it shouldn't be the mother or the woman, delegating, like or being overall project manager, because I think also something that we've just discovered with our men's theory or photosphere is for some some for men, is they don't like just being given a little bit to do it's like at work if you're delegated a tiny little bit and say we'll do this but don't think it through, don't think it through from beginning to end just by the roses or whatever it is. But if you're cooperating and collaborating as a household, I mean, obviously you have to delegate to children, I think you can't say to the children, if they're three, you know, do the shopping list, do it from end to end, but I mean, with the adults in the in the family, but it is about not one person taking whole responsibility, but it's about kind of, okay, you're responsible, let's work out what each is responsible for.

And I mean, I know some people have project management software to do it, which is, you know, if you like tech and like to operate in a bank, everything all the tasks in and then work out who wants to do what, whatever the reason, not on gendered lines, but absolutely, that the children because again, it's it's equal participation, totally agree that it's a unit. So the children need to pull their weight and they shouldn't just see the mother just doing everything and or even organising everything, because so many women, I think, they might say, Oh, yes, fairly equal, but it's always me thinking it through and delegating. Well, that's not, that's not co creation, or collaboration.

Carla Miller 33:55
Maybe it's also about what you value as well, like, if you if you're someone who's women, we are brought up to think about other people's needs, aren't we more than our own? So if you're there thinking, well, we need to send those cards out to family for birthdays, and your partner or husband is like, you know, okay, if I can recall it or not, so do we really need to send them out? I guess there's also that kind of thing of it. We are often taught to think about other people's needs. And that's now become a note for us to the point where it's not necessarily healthy for us most of the time, but boys aren't taught that from a young age and the same way are they?

Clare Twelvetrees 34:31
They tend not to note it's funny because I guess I was brought up the reverse and more my partner interestingly, in our household who thinks about people's parents, children, sorry, Christmas cards, birthday cards, etc, etc. And, but I think what it's about is going back to communication, because it's hard to undo years and years and years have been brought up in a certain way but it is going back to the family unit. What is how do we want to be with others? Do we You want to remember that they're doing not is there a halfway house? What would be a compromise? Okay, if you're going to take on this, this and the other around, maybe just give an example of car servicing or I'm not trying to do on male female lines, but it could be that we make we agree as a family unit. Yeah, we want to honour people's birthdays, because it's, it's, it's good. But we don't have to honour every single meet reaching some sort of compromise, when a friend of mine also said, Look, I'm more concerned about the clean cleanliness of the bathroom.

So I'm going to do just a bit more in the bathroom, but he is more concerned about the garden, for example, and he's going to do more in the garden. So it does not everything's going to be perfect 5050. And you're not going to agree on everything. But it is about communication. And it's about I really believe it's about joint vision and a way of working in a way of working together as teamwork. And then working out. Okay, what what will work, you know? And then I think that communication is a way of overcoming some of the stereotypes that people have been in dealt with. And not easy, but I do think it comes back to that.

Carla Miller 36:03
And how about within the workplace? Are there things that align manager can do or things that an organisation can do to help further this agenda?

Clare Twelvetrees 36:11
Yeah, I think line managers, we were talking about this in the series event series, like empathetic line management, and its meaning when somebody comes into work, getting an understanding or an awareness of what might be going on for them at home. And that can be you don't want to pry because there's a balance between asking intrusive questions, but just thinking when somebody comes into the office, they may not be coming.

This ranges from having a terrible job journey, but also potentially doing for having done four hours of work. Certainly, I work a lot in developing countries, and people are getting up at four in the morning and are travelling for hours to work and what they come you know, you're not gonna get somebody who's 100% At work, but what is going on for them at home and the caring responsibilities. And then being empathetic to that, and I, you know, even some diversity monitoring forms now have caring responsibilities that can be ticked, so people are aware. And there are companies that also go and work with HR, HR teams, HR departments to kind of offer, sometimes, perks are offered to get more help at home, for example, with a whole series or outsourcing some of the help at home. So I think there are more, there's more more awareness of caring responsibilities. And I think managers can just be a bit more empathetic.

And also line managers, HR teams can encourage shared parental leave, make sure it's really easily available, make sure it's promoted and champion to make sure it's kind of well use it or lose it, or at least, assuming that men are going to take it rather than not, and really pushing it and making sure that, you know, there, there is no disincentive to take it. So you know, those sorts of things. Empathetic leadership, I think is the key thing here.

Carla Miller 37:55
Great. And assuming that listening to this conversation, obviously, there's gonna be a percentage of people listening who are like, Yeah, my partner is great. They're brilliant. They do all the things with me, or maybe they can do more, and I can think of some families like that. But let's assume there's a percentage. And this is really resonating with me, I wish I could have this conversation with my partner, but I don't know where to start. Do you have any advice for them?

Clare Twelvetrees 38:22
I think it is about having that conversation about what you want out of the household dynamic. And I recognise it's hard, but I think maybe the first step would be to look at the resources out there. And so for example, our website is www equality starts@home.com. But also on LinkedIn, there are many, many people talking men and women about sharing the care about equal parenting. So maybe find out some information but also role models that might sometimes I think people do it in different ways that that women will know their partner about the best entry point, I think somebody left a book on equal parenting close to their desk and they picked it up and have a look, other people will be able to have more of a direct conversation. So it is about broaching the subject. But it is about you know, pointing them in the direction of resources that they might be more persuaded by, or come to one of our Safe Space events and talk to other women and men facing some similar challenges. What we're finding is an entry point for conversations often the children and that if research is showing that children's well being is better in more balanced, less stereotypical households, then sometimes that is a good way to broach a subject or wouldn't you prefer to spend more time with the children get home a little bit earlier? You're missing x, y and z.

So I suppose there's no perfect answer. It does depend on, you know, the person and what's more likely to be influential, but you know, take a look at the resources, and try these different approaches and learn from others.

Carla Miller 40:09
Yeah, and I guess what all of us can do, whether we're parents or not, or whatever kind of household we're in, there's just recognise the value that all of that load does have at home. In the same way, as women take on the work household or housework, quite often, it's not valued, actually. Because there are some parents like myself, who will be doing all of it. And that takes lots of time. And if I had an employer, just even recognising that actually, it's always me that has to pick up the kids, or recognising in the family, if the mother chooses that they want to be the person that's called when the child is sick. Just recognising that maybe there's something there as well, which sounds like a really, really interesting charity, I think you've got your work cut out for you. But hopefully it will get easier as time comes, goes on. And we will include in the show notes, how to find out more about your organisation and the events you run and things like that.

So best of luck with it, especially getting men engaged. And thanks so much for coming and sharing. Because I think it's a really interesting topic. And like you say, it's not one that gets talked about enough particularly on leadership, and workplace type podcast. So thanks, Clare. I really appreciate it.

Clare Twelvetrees 41:26
Thanks very much.

Carla Miller 41:33
If you've listened to the podcast and you want to know more about how we can work together, here are a few places you can look. First of all, I've got a couple more freebies.

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