Episode 7 Play and Parental Guilt

This week, we will ponder the feelings of guilt experienced by parents, caregivers, grandparents, and adults. A listener's question about the lack of joy some parents feel when it comes to playing with their children, whether they do not have the time to play, or whether they feel unable to engage in play at all prompted this topic. This guilt can be quite significant.

In a previous episode, we explored the difference between expectations and actual milestones, discussing how we often measure children against certain standards. This leads us to consider are there similiar expectations surrounding parenting as well, particularly regarding how and when we should play with our children. There is a societal pressure to ensure that our children are intelligent, sociable, and fit the mold of what society deems appropriate, alongside the expectations of what parenting should entail. 

Pondering Play and Therapy | Instagram, Facebook, | Linktree

Transcript

Play and parental guilt

Julie: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode with me, Julie.

Philippa: And me, Philippa. And this week, we are going to be talking about parental carer grandparent guilt. And this has come from a listener who, DM'd us, and asked if we could. about when parents don't the joy out of playing, have the time to play, maybe feel like they can't play, with their child, young person, teenager, and the guilt that, can come along. With that, which can be significant. a couple of episodes ago, we talked about, differences versus expectations and the milestones that we think children should be measured against. And then we did a whole episode of that. I wonder if there's also the expectations of what parenting is. [00:01:00] and how we should play, how we need to play to make sure our children are intelligent, sociable, fit in with what society says should be, and also what parenting should be. So that's our topic for this week.

Julie: So, Philippa, there's a lot of shoulds in what you've said. Shoulds, expectations, the internal expectation that a parent, and when we say parent we mean anybody who at that moment is in a parenting role. So, In connection with the child. The expectation that might come from self, I ought to. I should. Others I've seen on the telly, or I've seen in social media, or I've read about, play with their child every day, sit down on the [00:02:00] floor with them, get the Lego out.

That sense of, Is there an expectation that to be a good parent, a good carer, a good adult around a child, I ought, should, am expected to be playing with them? And our listener writing in to saying that that's a huge pressure and that she feels guilt and shame not doing it enough. And when she does do it, feeling that she's kind of faking it to make it happen, that the joy isn't in it.

So I'm just thinking back to my own childhood and that question of did my parents, I was brought up by both of my birth parents, a mother and a father in quite a large sibling group. Did my parents ever sit down and play with me? So I'm trying to imagine that and I can have a vague [00:03:00] memory of playing the odd snakes and ladders or drafts with a parent quite formally at a table and remembering that being quite fraught.

I had a father who absolutely we had to stick to the rules and if I was heading for a devastating loss then That had to be a learning process. And I often remember, losing, being very tearful about that and it actually breaking connection with a parent, whereas my memory of playing things like that with my mum would be much looser, a bit more creative.

And if you were, she would let us win. I think a lot more than dad. She was much more about the enjoying the connection. playing a game together and it not really mattering about the winning and losing. But I think other than that, my parents didn't play with me and yet I have [00:04:00] developed a huge sense of playfulness in my life, which I think has come from Playing outside a lot.

Playing with my siblings, playing with friends in the street, other people's houses, and mainly playing with children. But with my parents, I think my mom certainly had a sense of playfulness around the house or walking to school or walking downtown. We were a mile from town and we could get the bus.

Or we could share a piece of chocolate together and walk and there would be a bit of playfulness along that walk, jumping on the cracks, singing a song, swinging our arms. So there was playfulness. But I'm wondering, for you and those who cared for you and brought you up, was there playfulness?

What do you remember?

Philippa: [00:05:00] Listen to you talk. I've had loads of thoughts there. Try and order them a little bit and not ramble 'cause I know that I ramble a little bit. Growing up, live on an estate and I. I went out first thing in the morning, early as I could, and I played with a group of friends. We played in the fields, we built out of other stuff and slid down the road on tin sheets. We hid in mines. I live in an area where there's lots of mine shafts. When I think about it now, it's horrendously dangerous. But we went out first thing in the morning. You might go to somebody's house for a snack. My house as long as we stayed in the garden. So we could go into the garden and my mum would cook. would bring out drinks for us. She'd bring out snacks for us and then we'd go off again

[00:06:00] Silence.

All my parents shouted me and I remember being in early and hearing my friends still playing out in the street and having to be in bed and I was devastated by that. I used to think it was really, really, really unfair and my dad, actually had some mental illness, I think, when we were growing up. Didn't know that my parents protected us and they

Okay. when we're really talking about it.

mom, very chaotic. But for us as children, it was really exciting. So we'd go and do things like building rafts and taking them out onto a lake or building a sled in the snow. And coming down really steep hills now. I don't think I would have let my,

[00:07:00] Transcript.

consistent, present parent, as in that she was there when we

Silence.

But I don't remember. My mum listens to this podcast, so I am apologizing now if she did play with us in that getting down on the floor and playing. I'm sure she must've done when we were little. I don't remember that play.

What I remember is being out from morning till night, playing things like Kirby, like I say, some quite dangerous play now, I didn't play with my parents. Since my play was with my peers, but. I am in my 50s, so there wasn't very many cars on the road like there are nowadays, so you

Yeah.

[00:08:00] you could, do, the sledding down a hill and not fear that there's going to be 15 cars coming up.

So there was a difference, I guess, in the community that we lived in. I also, I did have fields around me. I know that that estate now, all the fields have got houses on them and, a school. So children who live on the estate wouldn't be able to do the same things that I did. So the community has changed, I had times of play with my parents.

I played formal games like you at Christmas. We played

Julie: Yeah.

Philippa: cards and things like that with my nan on a Saturday. She would come or I'd stay there on a Friday night and I played cards and Ludo and, and those kind of games with, with my nan and, and car games. We used to play that. Did you see how many red cars you could, you can see when you're doing a drive or singing, stuff like that, but

formal getting down on the floor. Let's get out this and play. I don't remember 

Julie: [00:09:00] No,

What you're saying, and I think matches a little bit of what I experienced and what I see in parents and try to do myself as somebody around children, is to facilitate play for children, to see that they've got a space that they can do their playing in, or perhaps have somebody else do You know, now we talk about play dates.

I don't think I ever talked about that as a child, but I did visit other houses. Where the parent isn't actively engaged in the play, for the most part, but has set things up or has given the space, given the time, given the expectation to the child, it's okay to go off and play for a couple of hours.

There isn't a routine that says you must do this, you must do that. And so I'm imagining and remembering things like den building, down the back of the sofa, getting cushions off the sofa. I was [00:10:00] fortunate in my family as well as yours to have an area garden, a yard at the back to be able to sort of put a few chairs out and a blanket and some pegs.

And certainly my mum would be involved in the setting up of that. She had great skills in getting the blankets and the sheets to hang on to the chairs. But she never came into the den. Well, we would be very happy for her to deliver snacks to the den. But they only ever got to the door of the tent. And we were the only ones that were ever in the den.

I had no expectation that she would come in with me. So I wonder if there's something about not having access to so many outdoor spaces. for children in many places in the UK now compared to, say, 50 years ago. Both of us had access to outdoor spaces in our homes and outdoor spaces on the street [00:11:00] that were generally seen as safe play areas.

I see very, very few children in my area ever outside. I actually very rarely hear a child in a back garden as well in my area, and there are many children who live close to me. Play seems to be happening in the home, in the apartment, in the maisonette, in the flat, in the bed sit, in the refuge, wherever people are making their family home.

It has to happen a lot more indoors. So I'm wondering if that's partly the pressure for a parent or carer to feel they ought to be part of that. of the playing because it's in their home, it's in the same space as their child.

Philippa: I wonder, also Julie, you can buy so much things now, can't you? Like, I remember, and this isn't, I feel like I'm a bit [00:12:00] like my nan now, reminiscing about when I was a kid. But,

Julie: We're of that age,

Philippa: yes, but I suppose we built a den, now you buy a den. My nieces have got cardboard things that you can buy and you slot together to make different things. We use sheets and chairs. And I'm not saying people don't, but there's more access. We didn't have all the kind of dolls and representation of the different characters on the tally, or if you were building a go kart, you built a go kart, whereas now you buy a go kart. You can buy so many toys and that's not, don't really have a view whether that's better or worse, but I suppose what I wonder if it takes away a little bit is that creativity of an imagination of building that, if I was going to be Robin Hood or if I was going to be [00:13:00] a firefighter or something like that, I cobbled together stuff from our house and so did all my other friends and you made whatever you were going to be. Whereas nowadays you can get beautiful Drettenopstorf and all those sorts of things. So I wonder if, you know, I don't know, maybe this is just because of my age, is if we have more items to play with, more items to create things with,

Philippa, we're of that age. 

That inhibits and creates an expectation.

Do you know what I mean?

That I've now got this great big doll's house. like you say, I don't have the space to maybe have 10 friends around so I want to play with this really lovely doll's house. But children are designed, we're all designed to do it in connection with others. children at play like to be with other people, particularly people who they care about, [00:14:00] their parents.

So in the absence of a peer. their parent becomes that, person. Yeah. 

Julie: Yeah.

Philippa: it's changed, I think. And I wonder if that in itself, the adverts that we see on the tally and the social media, we're doing this and we're on social media. It's an amazing thing, I wonder also if that, to what parents see and therefore feel that this is how we should be playing with our children that they see these adverts or on Facebook or wherever it is of all these amazing things that people are doing and that's not taking away from all those amazing things but can really add pressure if you, you don't, one, have the money to buy all those things. Two, you don't have the time because you're working or you have the space. Or maybe you have children and, you can't have all the [00:15:00] time that you would really want to. Or maybe you weren't played with yourself. And we're going to do a whole episode on play and the ability to play.

So I know I've just said again, loads of things in there, but there's just so much that goes with parents 

Julie: you said something there about we're built to play in connection. I don't know that that's always true. I, I'm thinking about some children who I know and have spent time with either as a therapist, as an aunt, as a neighbor, who really enjoy spending time playing on their own and often want an adult to pop in every now and again to say, Are you okay?

Need a snack? Dinner in 10 minutes? But actually they're doing a lot of that play, which is the play that makes sense of [00:16:00] life, or is creating a story, or they're rehearsing teacher and pupil, nurse and patient, that they're in some sort of life scenario. And they're needing to work it out for themselves.

I think of it as sort of processing play, the play that's about reliving an event that wobbled them or practicing an event that is coming up, but may not need to do that with somebody else. directly with the other person being in role play. So I'm thinking about, say, in a therapy situation, a child will quite often want to play a story and not have me as one of the characters.

They're moving all the characters, say, in the sand tray or on the road map, and they make it very clear that they don't want me to be one of the cars or to be one of the [00:17:00] monsters. But they do want me to be around to witness it. And sometimes they want me to be the other side of the room. doing my own stuff or drawing a picture while they're doing their play because they've really entered a very deep process and it doesn't always involve direct connection with me.

So I'm wondering if a lot of that might be happening in homes where sometimes a child wants to play and wants space and time. to set up something and get on with it and just have the parent quietly getting on with whatever they're doing in the other room or the other end of the one room. They're in, you know, a refuge or in a sort of temporary accommodation and to have That acceptance of I really, really need to play.

Can I get on with this while you get on [00:18:00] with what you're getting on with? And that might alleviate some of that guilt from a parent. Actually, sometimes the child doesn't want you to be sat on the floor with them because often as the parent or the carer, I might take the play off in a direction the child doesn't want it to go in.

And that's when the tensions build up. The parents made a suggestion. Oh, shall we have the monster climb the castle? And the child goes. And then you're into tension and conflict, whereas the child just simply may want space and time and to know that their play can be left one day and picked up again the next day.

And I think that's what causes a lot of tension from what I understand from parents. The child's made a Lego forest on the table and Child's gone to bed, parent's doing a bit of clearing up, puts all the Lego back in the tub. Next morning, child's [00:19:00] absolutely devastated and furious with the parent, because it's as though their internal world has just been scooped up and destroyed.

And that's really difficult, especially in small accommodation, where you don't have the luxury of a playroom or a play corner. Where do you put that stuff? So that the child can come back to it, say, after school the next day. And one of the ways I've often, thought about with parents is, can it slip under the sofa?

Can it slip under the bed? So it's not trodden on. You can still clean around it. But you're not destroying the child's world. See how important that one Lego figure is, or that forest is for that child. So I'm wondering in some ways if there are several different types of play in the home.

One is Giving time and space for the child to do their own stuff on their own. [00:20:00] Giving the child time, space, the condoning, you know, accepting, validating the child wanting to play with a sibling or with a peer. even if it gets hairy at some times, and then playfulness with the parent. And you were thinking earlier on about very small actions of play that might happen in everyday life.

You were talking about, yeah. Okay.

Philippa: that's what I was going to say. Cause what I is, is that guilt where you don't enjoy the play and you don't want to do it. So you

Julie: Mm.

Philippa: I don't want to do that with you today. I don't want to play Bob the Builder or Barbie, or I don't want to color.

I can sit here and watch it, but actually I'm really bored I'd prefer to be doing something else. And there's, yeah. The guilt that comes with that, that you

Julie: Yeah.

Philippa: You use the word ought to, so there's that thing of you ought to be playing, but [00:21:00] actually you really as a parent aren't getting any joy out of it it just feels like a chore, that I think can be really hard. What think what you were about to going to say is I wonder if it's this other kind of playfulness that you can build in so like we've talked about, children can, manage thrive, really enjoy not. having an adult present in their play. We talked about it for us earlier on and you've just give that example there. I suppose there is a playfulness that they do maybe need from parents at times, but it can be just in moments, can't it? It can be just blowing the bubbles. you're doing the washing up, although I guess most people have dishwashers nowadays or lots of people do,

Julie: Oh, Uh,

Philippa: doing some, you know, you don't do some washing up and just the bubbles and [00:22:00] watching them fall in the air, maybe walking to school and doing that game where you don't stand on the cracks. Or like I said before, playing a game where you, notice all the red cars or, those moments where they can be playful, they're not sitting down and doing this long play, or, drawing, or being

Um,

for a parent, for whatever reason. you can still be playful, and those are as valuable. Sometimes for some children, more so. I mean,

Julie: Um,

Philippa: Theraplay, which is all about, everyday items. So things like cotton, wool balls, straws, silver foil. And sometimes we just do 30 seconds with it and move on to the next thing, don't we? Because that's where a young person or a child is. So I think play can be so [00:23:00] many aspects. It doesn't have to be this, let's sit down and do this for a period of time.

Julie: Mm. I'm wondering if even in that playfulness, trying to find or notice ways of playful connection in everyday life can also be very boring, very lifeless. It's very, difficult for a parent, and can it be added to the list of parenting chores? I have a friend who has three children, and I remember in the early days, She was staying with them one night and she was making the packed lunches for the children for the next day.

And she was standing there going, There is no joy to be had in making three packed lunches five days a week for what feels like forever. But she had to do it. These kids needed packed lunches. She knew what each needed. She knew the colour of their [00:24:00] boxes. She was sorting them out. But there was no joy to be had in that task.

And can we as the adults around children, as parents, as whatever our role is with children, accept that sometimes Being playful has no joy in it for us as the parent, but it is functional and it is slowly, slowly topping up the connection between us and as the child. A bit like those packed lunches are gonna top the child up in the middle of the day.

 It's the fuel for them to get through the school day. And the same might be in counting the yellow cars as we go to school, not standing on the cracks. Tweaking their hand as we walk along, singing a little daft song. Might not feel very joyful some days, but it might be that it's one of the tasks of being with children and young [00:25:00] people and gradually builds up, tops up each day a bit of connection.

And we might simply just notice the days where I really enjoy that and the days where it just feels like, oh gosh, am I going to blow these bubbles? Right, let's see what happens, blow the bubbles. And that expectation, we've talked about this before, that expectation that play has to always be enjoyable.

And I don't know that it always is. I think sometimes it is fairly functional and can be about painful things, and isn't always full of high level joy and excitement and laughter. It can be just painful. part of everyday life that you, you know, give your child's nose a little tweak as they go off to school.

And that's just part of, it's part of routine. And sometimes that routine, routine can be greatly [00:26:00] joyful. And at other times that routine of playfulness, feeding, changing nappies, washing the clothes, getting dressed for school, can feel fairly mundane and play could be part of everyday routine rather than seen as this big special thing that I must sit down on the floor and give my child half an hour of my undivided attention.

I think that's a huge pressure for adults around children. Um,

Philippa: mean, I remember what I've worked with families. Not where I am now, quite, quite a long time ago where, parents themselves hadn't experienced connection or, with it. The experience quite neglectful, an abusive childhoods themselves and now got children and we're trying to learn how to be the parent they wanted to be rather than the parent they'd experienced, but they hadn't experienced lots and lots of things that they should have done. So they would have a [00:27:00] checklist of, I need to smile at my child. three times in an hour. I need to touch my child four times in an hour. And it was them trying to learn that this is, this is what didn't happen for me, but I want my experience it, but it's almost, it's not programmed in my body.

So like you talked about, it was a checklist and that is what they

Julie: Ah,

yeah.

Philippa: this is how you can build that connection. You can give your child what you want to give them and maybe you don't instinctively know because you didn't experience that. I will read two pages of a story three nights a week to my child, asking them to do a seven nights was a bit too much, but three nights they could manage and then four nights and then five nights. I remember working with several families around a [00:28:00] checklist of this is what they wanted to provide their child, but really didn't get the joy from it. Didn't instinctively know it because they hadn't experienced it, but they, they did it as a checklist.

Um,

Julie: Because they wanted to, rather than they felt they ought to. wonder if there's a difference between the ought to that comes externally from others expectations or that I read about, hear about from others and feel I ought to be doing that. Whereas a want to comes with an element of desire that, that comes with perhaps more energy, more motivation.

I want to be able to do this with my child. This didn't happen at all for me as a child, or it didn't happen well for me as a child. [00:29:00] It was fraught with, anxiety and difficulty and perhaps pain. So I want to be able to do this with my child. I want to be a different parent to my parents or those who cared for me.

And so there's a desire to learn how to be playful and that takes great courage, but I can hear that it might come with greater energy and greater motivation. because it comes from a want to rather than an ought to. An ought to feels much harder, feels harsher, feels as though it's colder and is almost set up to fail.

I ought to do this, so I'll do it. Whereas I really, really want to do this, I don't know how to do it, so I'm going to give it a go and see what happens. And maybe as you've said with your, your families, I'll set myself little targets. Perhaps letting somebody else know that you're doing that. I mean, I'm thinking for those [00:30:00] families who worked with you, was that at a time when you were social worker to those families?

Yeah,

Philippa: one of those. Yeah.

Julie: so they had you as the external parent as the other person outside that they could almost report back to. You were guiding them that I guess they met with you again and then you were able to say, well, how did it go? Is there something about Lessening the guilt, lessening the shame, by having these conversations with friends, with other family members. And checking in, well how do you do this? Do you do this play, play thing? Because I'm really struggling with it, and actually, to be honest, I quite hate it. But I'd quite like to be doing it, but I don't know how. And sharing that, and perhaps anxiety or, shame, guilt around playfulness with children.

sharing it with somebody so that you've got somebody else on your, at your side, you've got an advocate, somebody going, okay, well, [00:31:00] how about you try this? Because I can see what a lonely position that could be.

Philippa: And I think sometimes it's also okay to say I'm not going to do it. I remember when my son was little, going to parent and toddler groups with my child. He didn't sleep hugely. He was happy, joyful, and I loved spending time with him. I didn't find it playing. In my home with him, but I went to parent and toddler groups and all these people about all their Children were doing all these things and I was like, I'm not doing that I'm lucky that I haven't gotten vomit all down the front of my top today and i've managed to actually brush my hair I went for a while, and every time I come away, I just, and this is not that I don't think the parents there meant that to [00:32:00] happen, and I'm sure that they were just trying to get through what they could get through, do you know what I mean?

But it was and there was a bit of, I ought to be taking, him to these parenting toddler groups and these gym groups because that's what you, we should do for development. And then there was a point where I said, I'm not doing it anymore. I was miserable. I was absolutely miserable. I loved being with my son.

I loved being a parent, but I absolutely found these groups very, very difficult and soul destroying. So I just didn't go anymore. And he, he did, his granny, thankfully, took him to one, locally, so

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Parachutes and all those sorts of things because I was constantly telling him off as well because he never ever ever sat [00:33:00] still and you couldn't go on the top of this climbing frame I remember it and it was constantly of course on the top of the climbing frame so I was constantly taking him down and saying you can't go on the top of the climbing frame and then he'd be on top of the climbing frame again and all I felt I'm sure the parents but it felt like everybody was looking at me and judging me Because I couldn't get my kid to sit still and then when we were doing circle time and you had to sit with the parents they were all supposed to sit around and sing these songs. But there's no way, there was absolutely no way on this earth

Silence. Silence. Silence.

He was being in the middle of the colorful parachute and then we couldn't lift it up because he's in the middle. And have you ever tried to year old off the middle of a parachute that's really slippy on a slippy floor. It's quite difficult, I have to tell you. So I just didn't go anymore. I just

Julie: Um,

Philippa: not okay. It didn't make me

Julie: [00:34:00] Bye bye.

Philippa: my son in a way that I didn't want to parent him. I was telling him off and moving him around. And actually we could go and, know, walk in the woods and he could climb the trees and he could climb over them and fall off them and get muddy.

And I didn't have to tell him off. and I know that. Not everybody, one, is confident enough to do it, maybe has a support network. But, what I suppose, what I would say is that sometimes we can fake it till we make it, and 

Julie: Um,

Philippa: do that in life generally. And that's okay if you're faking it and just, you know, doing the best you can. okay if you spend, you know, eight hours out of 24 playing with your kid and doing all the amazing things that, that your, you and your child want to do. That's okay. It's also okay if you[00:35:00] 

Um, Uh,

 And it's also all right to say, that's not for me. And, I'm not going to do that because it doesn't make my child happy. It doesn't make me happy. I'm going to find another way that works for my family, for my child. And it's not always going to be joyful and amazing. Sometimes it's stressful and sometimes it's messy and you've got stuff all over your house and you don't want your house to be that messy.

You just want it to be tidy and sit and watch traitors or whatever it is you're watching on the telly tonight.

Julie: Uh,

Philippa: and I suppose, you know, it's hard being a parent, a grandparent, an aunt, a foster carer, and everybody's just doing best they can. And I suppose that's what I think the message we should give to people is that doing the best you can is and you're showing up for your kids [00:36:00] every day and that's fantastic that's a great job really and I wish somebody had said that to me and they did really you know I say that and I was quite confident and was like I'm not doing that anymore you know. I just, just not having vomit on my, my shirt, for me, was a win. It didn't really, I didn't really care whether it was building blocks or walking or any of those sorts of things. We were clean enough that we could be seen in, the world and I think that's okay. Sorry, I feel like I've also just had another little rant.

Julie: But I'm just, I'm just thinking about, in a family where there is more than one parent figure, it might be. grandad and mom, it might be dad and dad, it might be mom and dad, whatever the combination is of multiple parents, in a family, where one parent will often be the far more playful parent, and [00:37:00] the other parent might be the more Functional, rule based, routine parent.

And that, I mean, that's probably in extremes. And for many families, the parents will mix those roles. But how the individual relationships build up between each child and each parent, and how different that can be. So a parent might find themselves being very, very playful with one of their children. But much more rule based, routine based, functional, reading books, talking about, the world, history, geography, much more in a sort of talky way, with another child.

And just, being curious about that. Why do I feel drawn to do this with this child, but don't feel so drawn to do it with that child? Or I feel drawn to do this or take this child this place. And just [00:38:00] noticing the complexity of family makeup and as children, how we can feel drawn to one adult to do this and drawn to another child to do something else, how we get our needs met in such different ways.

different ways with the different adults in our lives as a child, and also how that's constantly developing, constantly changing. There's nothing to say that if your relationship with your six year old child is like this now, that it will be forever like that, because the child is constantly growing and evolving, and we see that with a child.

Of course, you can see their height, their girth, everything's constantly changing. As adults, we've stopped a lot of our physical growth upwards. But we are also constantly changing, moving into new stages of life and that [00:39:00] the hopefulness that comes with acknowledging that there is development happening all the time for the adult and the child, that nothing's set in stone, that, that it can move.

Philippa: I think that's a great place to end, because that is a podcast that we're gonna do, is play learnt? Or how do we learn to play? So that hope, is there, that You want to, maybe you can, but that's a whole other podcast

Julie: yeah, can everybody play? I suppose that would be a title. Can everybody play? Can play be learnt?

Philippa: does

Julie: yeah.

Philippa: to play?

Julie: Does everybody want to play? That's hard for you and I because we've got a great desire for playfulness, which is what has brought us together to do this podcast. But more and more, I'm recognizing in some of my friends and family members [00:40:00] that play really isn't of any interest to them.

It's something they left in childhood or something they didn't experience in childhood. And it's a complete mystery to them. And they're living very contented adult lives without playfulness. And I'm really curious about that. because I have made the very biased assumption that my experience is everybody's experience.

So hands up, I've realized that's not true.

Philippa: So thank you for listening to this episode. If you've enjoyed it, hit like, subscribe.

Julie: See you next time.