Described by Quentin Bryce as a ‘National Treasure’ Wendy McCarthy has been instrumental in shaping today’s experience of motherhood. Host Amelia Phillips and Wendy discuss how she was able to be a feminist, activist, mother and teacher, how she campaigned to allow fathers to be present during birth, to decriminalise abortion in NSW in 2019, and ended up deputy chair of the ABC. She tells us how we can, and should, stand up for matters close to our heart and now is the time to play a part in shaping our future.
About the guest:
Wendy McCarthy is nothing short of a powerhouse force for change. Now in her 80s, Wendy remains Deputy-Chair of Goodstart Early Learning, a Non-executive Director of IMF Bentham, a Patron of the Sydney Women’s Fund, Ambassador for 1 Million Women, and Advisor to Grace Papers. Wendy boasts one of the most impressive resumes of her time having affected positive change for Australian women all throughout her career.
Her latest memoir Don’t Be Too Polite Girls is full of brilliant storytelling and wise words for ambitious women.
Below is an unedited transcript of the podcast episode:
I’ll never forget this one night just before my ninth, or maybe was it my 10th birthday, my whole family were sitting around the dinner table and my mom said, Amelia, the time has come for you to watch the video, my siblings, or gasped not that video, and then fell into fits of laughter. You see, it was a rite of passage in my house that once you reached a certain age, you are required to watch my mother giving birth on national tv.
part, horrified, but also part intrigued. Okay, But mostly horrified. I s. Sat through this grainy black and white 30 minute documentary on the rise of, at the time, this groundbreaking new labor management technique called prophylaxis, which put the mother in control and at the center of birth and not the doctor.
So it essentially used this breathing and massage support from the partner to help with labor management, and it was aiming for a. Smoother labor, and my mom was the poster girl for this new technique. Whilst yes, I am still traumatized by watching my mom give birth, I am also so proud of her to have been part of this amazing movement that shaped how we all give birth today.
You know, that she campaigned to change the laws so that men could be allowed in the delivery suite, and a woman feel empowered, not disempowered during labor. Thank you, mom.
This is healthy her with Amelia Phillips. While most of us struggle to remember where the library books are, or which kid needs the knit treatment, there are some women out there campaigning for causes close to their. Really making a difference in our society. I don’t know about you, but I would love to feel like I’ve left some kind of mark on the world during my life.
Now, don’t get me wrong, raising healthy, vibrant children of the next generation is certainly one thing to be so, so proud of. But imagine what it would feel like to be part of something bigger, to leave a legacy, or at least be part of. To me right now that feels unreachable. My legacy is making it to Friday.
So I wanted to speak to somebody who has not only done it, but done it whilst raising children and at a time when it really was a woman’s place to stay at home. I want to know how she did it. Today’s guest is one such woman, and as she welcomes her eighth decade, she shows no signs of slowing down. Wendy McCarthy, It is such a pleasure to speak with you today and it’s a pleasure to be here.
And I love that video of your mother . I dunno how you could possibly be traumatized by it, but there you go. Well, now that I’ve got a video of four of my own kids being born, I’m totally gonna put it on my kids when the time comes. Don’t you worry about that. Now, you’ve been described by Quentin Bryce as a national.
I would fill up an entire episode, probably two episodes, just listing out all your incredible career accomplishments. School teacher activist, non-executive director, and chair of countless boards, including the abc. You know, instrumental in removing abortion from the New South Wales criminal code in 2019, which, oh my goodness, that was yesterday.
The list goes on, and I have just finished devouring your amazing new book. Don’t Be Too Polite Girls. Oh my goodness, listeners. It was one of those books that I skipped Netflix and jumped into bed extra early so I could, Oh, that’s such a perfect compliment, , isn’t it? Just . I wanna start by asking you, Wendy, what career accomplishment are you most proud of?
There’s so many. Well, I think there are three and they kind of fit together and I’m talking political and work, not family. I’m pretty pleased with my family. Yes, of course. But they’re an ongoing, you know, story. I think that being a good teacher and learning to be a good teacher, Oh, I love that. This one I’m incredibly proud of, and I’m still fundamentally a teacher.
I just work in different classrooms. Isn’t that wonderful? Why are you so proud of that? Because teachers lead the next generation. They prepare the next generation to go into the world, to be numeric, to be literate, to be able to research and synthesize and stand up in front of people if they become teacher.
They learn to leave home. To come to the classroom at an early age. Children, and I love the idea that we invest in children from the moment that they’re born. And of course, you know, I, prenatal is also extremely important, but once we have these children, they have rights. We have a convention on human rights for children, and it’s our duty as a society to make sure they lead good lives and they are.
Their human rights. So for me, that’s very important. I think being the first woman in the new, when the ABC changed from being a commission to a corporation, to being the woman who was the deputy chair in that first new organization, which is now 50 years old, was probably the, uh, the other thing, but the other lifelong task was to finally, Abortion off the criminal code.
How on earth was it still on the criminal code in 2019? Well, this is a story for your generation really, because when I was your age and we were trying to make sure that children could be birthed well and happily with partners present, which your mom and dad were a part of, that was a really important community exercise.
And of course, nothing encourages you more than. And we won that one. And I then moved as part of that childbirth group to be the person who went to the abortion law reform meetings. And at that stage, the criminal code said a woman could go to jail for 10 years, as could her provider if she had an illegal abortion.
Meaning her doctor, meaning her provider? Well, no, it might have been her backyard operator. Oh, okay. Lots of people. Right. But the doctor was include. In the same grouping as the backyard abortionists, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that I just found that extraordinary, and a lot of people couldn’t understand how I could be in favor of children and childbirth and support abortion, but for me it always seemed it was about choice for women.
About the kind of women they wanted to be. We wanted to be, and whether or not we thought we would be good mothers, or that was the right time to be a parent, or did we have the right partner? And it seemed to me the choice was everything. So I joined this little group called Abortion Law Reform, which be.
Sort of Aus Women’s electoral lobby. And over the years, and by the time I was about your age, we had a couple of court rulings that said it’s a matter between a woman and her doctor, and if the doctor agrees it’s okay, But we never changed the criminal code. In about 2016 when Donald Trump became president, about five of us from that original group, COA store almost immediately and said, Whatever happens in America is here.
Three years later, we have to finally fix up that rule. We need to finish that work. Yes. And people said, you know, a lot of people always said, Oh, don’t worry about it. You can get on the medical benefits. But in fact you can’t in the country, and there are a few hospitals that will perform terminations now unless you come in through the emergency.
And that’s not the most gracious way to arrive at a. And so it seemed to us that it was kind of grandmother’s business, so we needed to fix it. Oh, I love this. And that’s what we did. But it took two years of really hard strategic thinking and planning and campaigning, and we didn’t come out into the public arena until about three months before the state elect, the last state election, where we and the Parliament agreed to be the leaders.
And we agreed to find the community. And by that time we had 70 organiz health organizations supporting. And it’s fixed. It now is not on the criminal code. It had been there 90 years. Well, on behalf of all the women and future mothers out there and our next generation, we just wanna thank you so much for the work that you’ve done, and especially in light of what’s happening in America at the moment, where it seems to be going in the other direct.
It just goes to show when things don’t get fixed, and that’s why we need women such as yourself in these leadership and activist positions. I wanna talk to you about your very first entrance into doing something outside of your family life and your professional working life. Talk us through your very first step into whatever that particular activist role was and what made.
Step out of your comfort zone in your life with your husband and children, et cetera? I think the Women’s Electoral lobby, starting the women’s electoral lobby was definitely that. We had a meeting of people, and of course all these meetings were in our kitchens. They were our political places and our political power really.
And what made you do that? What motivated you to. I just think a sense of injustice and fairness. So when we had the meeting, a woman from Victoria said, I’ve got this great idea based on what happened in America as we always do, say , and I think we should do it in Australia before the next federal election, which was at the end of 1972.
And she said, So who’ll do it? And it was to basically take the questionnaire that the American magazine had run before the presidential. Asking people what they thought were women’s issues and whether they thought they were of significance and would’ve changed their vote. So we kind of tailored the thing for Australia and we just called a meeting.
And really at the end of the meeting, most people, there are only 12 people there, I think, and always the number twelves significant in these things. No, some, some say I’m too busy, blah, blah. But there were three of us who didn’t, No one thought was busy, although one had four children. , I had three or two, four or something, and the other one had a full-time teaching job.
Anyway, we said, Oh, okay, we’ll do it. So we just went really quietly and it, it just went like fire. Everyone wanted to know, and it was, of course Whitlam was running and there was a whole new vision in Australia. And like most democracies, we get tired if we have. One party for much more than 10 years. Yes.
And it’d been a long time since the labor government had been in, so there was a lot of fire and there was around Vietnam, conscription, you know, there, there were street marches and suddenly people were interested. So we did interview all these politicians and the answers were absolutely shocking. And as a result of that, we said, Right, well, we’re happy to go.
And we ran public meetings and you know, we have a candidate in Mosman, but this was about. It wasn’t about mom, it wasn’t about wife. Mm-hmm. or teacher. It was actually me. Cuz deep in my heart I believe this was really important. And also during this time I never disclosed, not even to a doctor, wasn’t until the beginning of 73 that I ever disclosed that I’d had an abortion.
Yeah, I read that in the book, which, because at the time, I mean, I can’t imagine the reaction of some of the more conservative people in society, probably of your immediate family, your own. It’s a brave thing to admit today and back then it was, you know, even braver cuz it was so shunned upon in a funny way.
When people say that to me now, I think, gosh, it was brave. But at the time we were so sort of gung-ho about getting our stories listened to and you know, we had the shopping list as good people do in the lesson plan, like teachers and so on. We put that together and we knew that this was a very important.
but it does disproportionately affect poor women compared with middle class women, and that we could see that and we could still see the damages. And we remembered the girls in our university who disappeared overnight, never heard of again. And anyway, when we put the paper and 80 of us signed our names and said to the cops basically, you know, charges, well, of course they never did.
That made me so brave. You know, that’s twice I’d actually stood up for what I believed in, and it worked well. I mean, I’ve been on the pathway ever since. Really. I could step someone down and I think if any of us had been poor, you can bet your life there would’ve been at least half of them would’ve been.
It’s funny hearing you talk about stepping into that activist role. I am drawing so many parallels to what’s happening and what’s happened with our recent election and the rise of the teal independence out there and there was a movement what helped Zza Stego getting called the voices movement, which was kitchen table.
And it’s funny you reference kitchens it. This was also kitchen. Conversations where this group would go around with a questionnaire to find out what the major concerns and issues that women want addressed in Canberra. And it’s so funny to think that decades on, we are still here fighting the fights.
Well, the Women’s election lobby brought out a scorecard and they’ve just brought one out for the last. And at, they’re 50 years old this year. And what was most interesting is how many other women’s groups this year brought out scorecards. The scorecard is now as an established technique and certainly for, we used it at campaigning for the seat of Mosman in 1972.
We had a scorecard in public meetings now, cause they won’t come to public meetings now, politicians, cuz they won’t even appear with their opposition that that might change again. I mean, if I look at the young women running now and again, many of us feel most comfortable in our kitchens or in our spaces that we are in control of.
And we don’t have to say Chatham House rules or anything cause we just know it’s in the code. But I think now you’ll see that they are really the daughters and the granddaughters of the thinking of the seventies and on election night where I was in iso, in my friend’s house in Victoria, beside myself not being able to be with Allegra’s party, et cetera.
Anyway, that’s Covid Covid for you, isn’t it?
Anyway, I’m thinking to myself, It just feels like the night that Goth Whitlam was Ah, isn’t that, I just got goosebumps when you said that. I feel like a big change is in the air. I really do. I was at the Sophie Stomps celebration when she got announced. She was actually the first independent nationally that got, It’s so exciting, wasn’t it?
Oh my goodness. I have been on a high ever. Only because you look now we’ve got a 37% representation or 38%, which is still nowhere near 50%. But gosh, it’s an improvement and it was in decline. Knowing that women are stepping up into these leadership positions, into these positions, that can help bring about balance, practical debate, and I love that you look at.
Your career, Wendy, and you mentioned bravery before, and Sophie mentioned it as well because she said, You know, I, I’ve been a doctor, I’ve been one on one my whole career. I had to step into my sphere of fear. She called it step into that uncomfortable place and be brave. And she said, But now, I’m comfortable with that.
Just like when she stepped onto the emergency floor. She’ll always be brave now because she’s moved the deals away at the end of the night in counting when it was clear that Morrison had, when he’d conceded all I could think of, I just felt like this giant, fluffy blanket was just taken off my head and my brain, and we could now get on to real talk.
And for me, the demise of the previous government is all about respect for. Safety for women and equity for women. We didn’t have that in that last government. We haven’t had it for 10 years. No, to think that five or a handful. It wasn’t even five. I think it was three of the 55 recommendations passed down after Brit Higgins to think that only a handful of the 55 that were recommended were implemented, and now we’ve got Albanese saying that he will implement all.
Well, except one for mother. Is that right? Yes. I didn’t know that. Okay. It’s astonishing, but you know what everyone needs to say. It’s actually not that. If you believe in something and you stand there and say no, or yes, I just say to young women, What’s the worst that can happen? You might be wrong. Yep.
You might suffer a bit of humiliation. That’s not so bad. It’s okay. There’s another day and there is an over resounding sense of bravery in your book and when you look at the career that you’ve had, can you tell us the story? And we know, you know, you’ve, you’ve been on so many boards, too many for me to list, but tell me the story of when you got the phone call about the ABC deputy chair role.
Okay, so it was a Sunday night in Longville where we’d moved fairly recently from advances point. And the phone rang and most people didn’t ring as much on Sunday night, and we’d just come back from the farm and children were dispensed to bathrooms to wash and so on. And my youngest son came out with trailing his towel and slipped over the radiator just after I’d picked up the phone and it said, Senator John Batton, here I’m ringing to see if you’d be interested in being on the ABC board.
I said, Yeah, sure, but just a minute. My child might be. So , I just love that story. I can just imagine this Rudy Nuy kid running around the house, wet, slipping onto the heater, and you are trying to make a work court. Oh my God, I this every mother’s nightmare. Really. But, and of course we’d only ever once had a one bar radiator and that was it.
I could see, you know, scarring for life while mother on the phone, you know, Anyway, Well, I don’t know where to ring in, so I’ll just have to wait and see. Anyway, he rang back in about half an hour and he said, You know, we’d, my colleagues and many of the people in the ABC think you’d be a really good person to join the board.
Would you be interested? And I said, Yes, I really would. And as I’m saying it, I’m feeling as though there’s someone out there, my outer body saying, I’m thinking, am I saying I could be on the board of the A, B, C, I think. Yes. So he got off and he said I’d hear from the public sector person in the next couple of days.
So I mentioned it to Gordon and he said, Oh, it was just someone playing a practical joke. My husband would say something like that as well. . That was horrible. You know, I know you’ve done a few gigs, but he’s, you know, and you’ve spoken on the ABC a lot, but. He said, Who’s on the ABC now? And I said, I don’t know.
Anyway, he went away to look at that and I thought, Oh, I’m definitely saying yes. Anyway, next thing they rang up and they said, Would I consider being the chairman? And I said, By this time, I thought, Well, honey, okay. Yeah, sure. And out of that learning comes a really big thing that I want young women to think.
If someone thinks you can do something, in all probability, you can. I love that. And when someone thinks you can do something and they invite you to do it, They are invested in that with you? Yes. It’s like an extension of my life growing up, you know, being told always wait until I, I was asked to dance.
Never push myself forward. Well, I’d never pushed myself forward for that job. I didn’t even know it was in the off, you know, I knew there’d been an inquiry into the abc, but you know, I wasn’t following it, but just simply wasn’t on my radar. I’m unpacking that, you know, later in life, but I, I realized, They were going to try and support me.
They thought I could do it, and so I sort of had to get over myself. Yeah, yeah. It was in their best interest. I’m gonna challenge one thing you mentioned though, in, in this modern world, there’s also an element of you’ve got to put yourself out there as well. And I’m thinking particularly of women listening today who might want to take that step into a board role, but they feel like they lack the experience or the skills they’re really stuck in.
Taking that first step, it might be a board role, but it also might be an activist role or just stepping outside into a greater cause. What would you say to those women that are wanting to do it, but scared and not sure what the first step is? Find one person who you think might be doing it. And call them, ask if you can talk to them.
It might be your best friend. He might be saying, or he might be saying, You know, I think I’d like to do this or that, or something. And I think, Oh, that’s interesting. So that personal contact. There’s also a professional way of doing it by doing the company director’s course, which costs a bit of money and you can invest in yourself there.
You meet people and you get a sense of corporate and good not for profit boards, independent board. But nothing beats sharing an idea with someone you trust. Think about it, and some, and some people do very well. I was never good at asking for anything for myself. I am really good at asking for things for other people, and most of my career really is about personal things that I make political, personal things that you make political.
So childbirth was about, became political cause we changed the rules. That’s how you and my mom met early on. That you did it together. That’s, We had the same obstetrician. Yes. A Bradfield. Yes. We’re all both in love with him. Oh my gosh. My mom talks about a Bradfield to this day. Her obstetrician. Yes. I think everyone was in love with a bradfield.
Absolutely. They were. So you should mention it. This might resonate with some of your peer group. You mostly get onto. And not for profit board because you’re interested in it or because you know someone who is, and you hear about it and you think, you know, how would I, how could I get there? Could be an arts board, a health board, whatever.
Really, government boards are fantastic ways to do things, and they’re gonna open up. And there’s a book called the Remuneration Tribunal book. You know, you can find through a government agency and you can look at all the boards that are available in state and public territories, and they’re wonderful learning boards and they matter because it’s government policy and behavior and so on.
But I’ve been thinking with a friend this morning about how we get the voice into. And there needs to be a community movement. Okay. What do you mean by the voice into parliament? Okay, So the Aboriginal voice into Parliament is about the beautiful thing that has been written. It’s in my book. Oh, the OO statement.
Oo statement. Yes. So how do we get that in? Linda? Bernie’s been charged with the task and I have been thinking that it won’t happen just through formal channel. There needs to be a big community response. So we might have a register but needs a lot of thinking about, and if that’s just a group of women who are watching and thinking about this and they said, I would love to do that for the next couple of years.
Ah, now that’s not a board, but it’s an activity. Yes. And. Indigenous people will probably take most of the boards on that and that’s proper. But there’ll be lots of opportunity because you learn to campaign, you extend your, the people you know, you work on public policy and you probably learn to march in the street.
Marching in the street is very good for you. Everyone who puts their feet on the ground at the same time has, it’s a leveling experience until you march to Parliament and Scott Morrison refuses to see you, which is what he did. And I bet he’s sorry. Now I bet he’s very sorry. Now I visited him with Brittany.
Oh really? I went as Britney’s support person. Oh, I did not know that. Oh, there you go. Oh wow. Well, Wendy, please do tell us, um, if you do set up some kind of register, I can pop it in the show notes here so listeners pop into the show note, or at least we can put some way to get in touch if you are interested, because that is absolutely a wonderful way to make your mark and make a differe.
I wanna just segue for a second, Wendy, and you know, hearing you talk and many would assume that you’ve lived a trouble free charmed life, but growing up in rural Australia, your father, actually, he was an alcoholic. Your family lost their house and livelihood during your high school years. The first part of your book goes into great detail about that, and I really appreciate your openness and honesty.
Tell me how those years shaped the woman that you went on to. Well, I think I developed a resilience fairly early in my childhood. I mean, the first seven years were happy, and I probably didn’t know my father was a drinker then, and it wasn’t until I was about eight or nine that I began to understand when we moved to the country.
And he had a soldier settlement block that I realized that, you know, this was, this was not good. And of course he was much worse then than, than I remember up to the age of five. I don’t remember much except, you know, a dad who took me riding on a pony and was sang, danced well and so on and, and my parents seemed happy, but that fell away around about the age of six or.
and I was very close to my mother and she was 18 when I was born, and we sort of grew up together in a strange way. She left a family to marry my father and she’d never lived in, you know, the sorts of situations that she had to live in there. Yeah. When the family really fell apart, I kind of accepted the responsibility.
You know, I helped financially and I helped support the family. Remind me, were you the oldest? Yes, and that’s what older children do anyway, , the oldest child, is nearly always the one who. Forms that kind of responsibility. And my brother and sister, My brother was four years younger and my sister was eight years younger.
I mean, I subsequently had another sister who’s was 24 years younger when my mother formed a new family. But I think I was her confident and I sort of grew up with her. And I think in a way we all knew we had to stick together. To get through it. And we did. And it wasn’t that in the good times we didn’t love my father, but the good times became fewer and fewer.
And then in the end, when my mother’s living in some awful little place and I’m trying to save a bit of money while I’m at university on a scholarship and working and having a very good time, I have to say that it was inevitable that it was going to end. And I still can remember, and someone asked me about this, the other.
The relief when my father died, we hadn’t seen him for, apart from the couple of days before he died. We hadn’t seen him for about a. He’d gone to live with his mother and sister-in-law, in the country. That the relief of worrying, Where is he? What’s happening to him? I mean, he’d write to me occasionally.
Yes. But you know what a sad end to a life that began so well. Yeah. And you talked about his funeral and you talked about the, the impact it had on you that it was a small and sad funeral. 11 people, no one speaking to each other. My grandmother, whom I ad. Trying to speak to me, but they made my mother the Demonn and it was so unfair.
A sign of the times, really, Who knows what all the back stories are, But my mother was sort of blamed with it and really I’ve felt very strongly ever since about how funerals should be celebratory events. Yes, I agree with you. I absolutely agree with you. Now, then you managed to raise three children, plus support your husband Gordon through leukemia and a bone marrow transplant.
And I just think of you, Wendy, I look at your five or six pages at the back of your book where you list your amazing, stellar career. And I think during this time she was raising three children. She had a terribly ill husband for almost close to a decade. When you look. Tell me about your stress levels and how on earth you managed all those responsibilities.
Without , without losing it, it was a terrible shock. When it was diagnosed, it took four days to be diagnosed, and when it was, it was like a death sentence. You can have six weeks to get your affairs in order, and that’ll be it. Wow. Six weeks. That’s what the surgeon Royal North Shore said to us, and Gordon said to.
We’re walking out, like we’re shell shocked. And he said, Well, I’m not, I’m just not planning to die, so I’m not, It’s not gonna happen. Oh, I love that. And I thought, you know, obviously what I’d think, Well, of course he won, doesn’t want to die. But you know, I guess if the doctor would be right. Anyway, he just decided no matter what, he’d follow the doctor’s rules.
Okay. And he’d take his medicine, he’d do as he was told. And he was a pretty independent, feisty man. And we sort of sat down and we talked to the kids about it and we. The thing that we need to remember is that every day now is a good day, and we take every day as it comes and plan for the worst. And hope for the best.
Yes. Yes. And that was a new defined mantra for staying alive. And he did. I mean, he did respond well to. Chemo, but he had it for eight years on and off, but he had good times in between. Okay. So, and he didn’t die after six weeks and after six weeks, we sort of stood around and said, Well, what happens now?
And of course, so we just go on lipid , Hang on, you’re not dead, you’re still here. What the, The doctor said he needed to sleep a lot. You know, he’d go to work and he decided over a period of about five years to, we had a little farm in the country and that he was going to spend more time in the farm. His description of it was living closer to the earth, getting up when the sun came up and to bed when the sun came down.
And we would go there for the weekend. We’d go, we’d all, we’d all go together. For about five years. And then he wanted to spend more time there, so we’d go down on a Friday night and that became just a new way of life and we kind of just slid into it and, and it would only be when he’d get an attack, which meant his blood plate.
Thats were out of order. That I, I would have this rolling film in my head about the funeral. You know, I go straight to the funeral anyway, then he had the bone marrow transplant from his brother, which was really successful. And I kind of got the funeral roll out of my head and we had, we had some good years then.
And when he did die eventually, you know, he had glorious 25 years as a creta. When he did die, what was it really interesting is. He died as the longest living bone marrow recipient in Australia. He was a competitive man. He’d have been so proud of that . He would’ve been so proud of that. That is incredible.
And you look at the amount of research in bone cancers these days, and it is remarkable. And this was the eighties and nineties he was diagnosed in 1980. Yep. And he wa had a bone marrow transplant in 80. And he died in 2017. I mean, that is really good. Innings after extraordinary, an extraordinary life story.
And during that time, he grew a business, sold it, renovated the house, and became a farmer so that he could provide for us. It’s extraordinary, generous and careful family, man, husband, and father, that were the traditional things that he did for us so that we could all flourish and we. I do wonder as well, how much of that drove your career ambition from a place of security and wanting to provide for your family as well, and to have your own income and to make sure that you are working to Olivia?
That is true, because when he was sick, a couple of my friends said, Well, you know, you’ll have to give up work now and look after him. Mm. And I said, Well, he’s not planning to be an inlet, and I think I have to take my guidance from what he wants. And how he, his doctor, think it’s going to be managed. But I said, we have three young children and if I start losing my place in the pecking order, I’m not a teacher anymore with a regular income.
Um, I’m very poorly paid in family planning. I’m afraid I have to get back to work now and realize that I might have to keep this family. That’s what could happen. It was incredibly focusing. It’s a really interesting. Approach cuz as a woman, a lot of us really identify with being that nurturer and, and that first instinct when someone’s unwell, whether it’s a child or a family net member, is to drop everything and just go and help them.
But sometimes it’s that oxygen mask theory where well, you know, you have to actually help yourself and get your life set. And that’s exactly what you did to become the best provider and supporter. And you’ve raised three amazingly successful children. And your daughter now runs the executive mentoring business that you set up, is that right?
Yes, she does. Which is amazing. I mean, you must be so proud to see the baton passed on. Yes, it is, and it’s, it’s a very. satisfying feeling to think. And she’s, she’s changed the business a lot, which is perfect. She’s really good at it as she could, You know, we can all do better than our moms. Come on. That’s what we’re gonna do.
Yes, absolutely. We can the same with my mom. Oh my goodness. The amount of stories I have of, when I was a new mom and mom would make some recommendation. I’d say, It’s not best practice mom. And then, you know, five minutes later you’re doing it. Be like, Mom, I should have done it two weeks ago. Oh, look, Wendy, I could talk to you all day, but I, I’d love to just wrap up finally, For a woman listening who might feel inspired to step up into an influential position, be it a cause she’s passionate about a committee or a board, what is one piece of advice you’d like to leave with her fundamental?
A mentor will help you find your voice and at a personal level, keep your head and heart connected. Wendy McCarthy, Thank you so much and thank you for having me. I’ve really enjoyed being part of it.
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