Welcome back to Witching Hour – the show where two mums and sort-of cousins figure out how to make work, work. Today on the show:

• We look back at last year’s New Year’s resolutions and give ourselves a very honest report card. We unpack what stuck, what didn’t, and what we actually learned.
• Loz and Lu also set their intentions for the year ahead… let’s see what actually sticks!

In this episode we cover: default parent syndrome, saying no, mum guilt, post-partum self care, identity shifts, relationship reconnection, mental load pressure, kinder transitions and what resolutions look like when you’re raising small humans.

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

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This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurong people of the Kulin Nation. The land on which we're lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters always was and always will be Aboriginal land. We Pay The Rent and you can too.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Witching Hour – the show where two mums and sort of cousins figure out how to make work, work. Except for today, where Loz answers a whole heap of questions with producer Kitch!  

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Ask Ready or Not! It’s Ready or Not’s tip-based episode, landing in your ears every Friday.

This week, Loz is talking about feeling stuck at work after maternity leave. A listener who returned to work three years ago has written in, she's feeling underpaid, overwhelmed by job hunting, and unsure of her next move. In this episode, Loz shares a step-by-step plan to get clear on what’s keeping you stuck, explore internal opportunities, tackle pay gaps, and job hunt in a way that feels manageable. If you’re wondering whether to stay or go, this episode will help you figure it out. 

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

—

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. The land on which we’re lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Witching Hour – the show where two mums and sort of cousins figure out how to make work, work. Except for today, where Lu answers a whole heap of your listener questions with producer Kitch! Next week, you’ll hear from Loz. 

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Ask Ready or Not! It’s Ready or Not’s tip-based episode, landing in your ears every Friday.

This week, Loz is talking about how to negotiate a more flexible working situation that works for you.

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

—

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. The land on which we’re lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Frances Bilbao founded Mums Matter Psychology when her oldest child was just three months old, and now, alongside raising three children her  practice has grown into a social enterprise supporting more than 4,000 families each year with over 120 clinicians nationwide. So, as you might’ve guessed, she’s learned a lot of what parents need. And I love hearing from parents that are also psychologists, because they just get it, from both the professional and personal point of view.

Here, we hear all about building her business alongside raising children, why we need to take sleep deprivation more seriously (which if you’ve listened to this show for a while, you’ll know is a hill I’d die on), how society is letting down families and why we need to stop gaslighting mums into thinking the struggle comes from within them. 

This episode is a warm hug, and while you’ll still hear Loz and I chat each week, this is the perfect way to finish off our interviews for 2025 before our schedule changes a little next year. But more on that in the new year. For now, let’s hear from Frances. 

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Witching Hour, the show where two mums and sort-of cousins figure out how to make work work. This week, we answer your biggest Christmas and end-of-year questions, including:

• Are we all doing Christmas Day wrong by visiting multiple houses

• What’s the actual etiquette for daycare and teacher gifts when budgets are tight

• How to survive working through school holidays without drowning in mum guilt

• What to say when your family expects long-distance Christmas travel with overstimulated kids

• How to shut down parenting comments without causing a festive feud

• Whether you’re entitled to return part-time after maternity leave

• If it’s bad to ditch your mother’s group when the chat is only sleep schedules

• And the spicy one: is accepting less responsibility for the same pay a feminist failure… or the smartest decision a working mum can make

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In this episode we cover: Christmas family politics, emotional labour in motherhood, school holiday stress for working parents, teacher and educator gift etiquette, overstimulation in young kids, parenting boundaries with relatives, flexible work after maternity leave, Fair Work return-to-work entitlements in Australia, breastfeeding and pumping at work, inadequate corporate parents rooms, mother’s group expectations, maternal mental load, burnout in working mothers, identity shifts after returning to work, workplace discrimination and flexible work negotiations, and feminist debates around choosing balance versus ambition.

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

Find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

 @laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

—

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation,  the land on which we’re lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land. We Pay The Rent, and you can too.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Ask Ready or Not! It’s Ready or Not’s tip-based episode, landing in your ears every Friday.

This week, Loz shares her best tips on what to do if you're made redundant on maternity leave.

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

—

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. The land on which we’re lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stephanie Vizard has thought and written a lot about parenting, relationships, and work. Her first novel, The Love Contract, was directly inspired by maternity leave and in her most recent release, A Smart Girl’s Guide to Second Chances, Steph explores the dynamics between mothers and daughters, and how their relationship is impacted by really different attitudes to work, ambition, and parenting.

But when she’s not writing, she works as a lawyer. And here, we hear all about navigating both the corporate and creative sides of her career as a mum who wants to be as successful as her dad has been and as good to her kids as her mum has been to her. 

Here, we talk about drowning under the weight of it all even when on paper all your dreams have come true, starting a new job when you’re also newly pregnant, and what it feels like when your body starts to feel like yours again after years of sharing it with your children. 

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Witching Hour – the show where two mums and sort-of cousins figure out how to make work, work. Today on the show:

• We unpack All Her Fault -  the film, the mindset, and the moment that made us rage. Is it really all her fault, or just the default?
• Loz and Lu reflect on some of the moments that they’re proud of and surprised by in both motherhood and career this year. 

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In this episode we cover: default parent syndrome, Christmas burnout, maternal identity loss, the mental load, gendered time inequality, stay-at-home vs working parent expectations, unpaid labour, household dynamics.

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

Find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

—

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation,  the land on which we’re lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land. We Pay The Rent, and you can too.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

[Apologies for some dodgy bits of audio in this episode, unfortunately we couldn’t come up with a solution that we could get to in time because our batteries are low but we still love you and thank you for listening anyway] Welcome back to the third and final part of The Low Battery Book Club, where we consume way too much culture and talk way too much trash. If you need to play catch up on the first episode of this series, you can find it here. The second episode, where we unpacked cancel culture and Clare Stephens’ new book, The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done, can be found here.

On the show today:

• We share our favourite recs of the month (something old, something new, something high, something low)
• We deep dive Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray 
• We talk about the business of book covers.
• AND! Charley gives you a whole lot of recs based off what you’ve been loving reading. 

And here’s our ‘something old, something new, something high, something low’ for December…

Charley:

Old favourite: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

New: Mushroom Tapes!! 

High: The Fashion Neurosis podcast with Bella Freud and The Rachel Incident filming underway!

Lowbrow but loving: Great British Bake Off

Lu:

Old: Heartburn by Nora Ephron

New: One Battle After Another on Apple TV

High: Sophie Gilbert interview on the Wheeler Centre podcast 

Low: That the Lily Allen album came out just before we recorded our last episode.

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Ask Ready or Not! It’s Ready or Not’s tip-based episode, landing in your ears every Friday.

This week, Loz is sharing everything you need to know about starting a new business as a mum. From navigating the costs and admin to finding time and maintaining your sanity, she’ll share the lessons she’s learned and the advice she wishes she had from the start. If you’ve got a business idea brewing or you’re already in the thick of it, this one’s packed with practical tips on all the how-to's.

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

—

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. The land on which we’re lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After the overnight fame that came with winning Miss Universe Australia in 2010, model, presenter, and now co-owner of  bioactive honey company Honey for Life Jesinta Franklin has always done things differently. 

From the get-go, she was never going to let her public and private lives get too close, and she’s a unique example of what straddling both worlds can look like. For example, she may have protected her kids’ privacy well before the conversation entered the zeitgeist, but she’s always been open about the fertility struggles and pregnancy losses she had to wade through to get her firstborn. She’s always been interested in business, but she wanted to make sure the thing she was contributing to actually meant something to her. 

And here, she spares no detail in reflecting on her motherhood and career journey. We talk about the challenging path she walked to become a mum, how that journey only made her becoming pregnant with her second child at just three months postpartum all the more surprising, what it was like to navigate early motherhood while her husband Lance (aka Buddy) Franklin was in quarantine hubs for the AFL season, the shame she felt around breastfeeding challenges, and what she’s excited about now that she waits to become a mum for the third time. 

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

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In this episode, we cover the below topics: being a young mum, going from one to two, solo parenting, recurrent miscarriage, pregnancy loss, business, honey, Jesinta Franklin, Lance Franklin, third time pregnancy, breastfeeding, bottle feeding, modelling, bounce back culture, and more.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Witching Hour – the show where two mums and sort of cousins figure out how to make work, work. Today on the show:

• The great school holiday juggle: Who’s actually getting a break? (spoiler alert - it’s not mums)

Australia’s unpaid labour is worth $688 billion and women are doing most of it.

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In this episode we cover: school holidays and the mental load, invisible labour and emotional burnout, working motherhood, overstimulation, default parent culture, the cost of school holiday activities, juggling work and care, mum guilt and overwhelm, why women absorb the planning and prep, and how families can actually survive the holiday juggle without losing their minds.

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

Find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

—

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation,  the land on which we’re lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land. We Pay The Rent, and you can too.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Ask Ready or Not! It’s Ready or Not’s tip-based episode, landing in your ears every Friday.

This week, Loz takes you through the five interview questions that may just help you land your dream job.

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

—

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. The land on which we’re lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jodi Wilson has led an unconventional life. She became pregnant with her first of four children at 22, she’s always worked as a freelancer and was even one of the OG mummy bloggers, she lives in a rural part of Tasmania, and she’s deeply interested in researching and writing about both motherhood and what our brains and bodies need to live well. 

So, while Jodi’s experience with making work, work as a mum might not represent the average, there’s so much wisdom to be learned from her life’s work, and from what the science shows us about motherhood, our brains, and what we actually need to live well and navigate the chaos.

Here, we talk about the reason motherhood is so hard, what she thought would happen to her career after becoming pregnant at 22, the indigenous economic concept of enoughness, and how we teach our children to be more human in an increasingly AI world. 

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

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In this episode, we cover the below topics: being a young mum, writing books, working as a freelancer, living a slow life, mental health, navigating AI with children, raising teenagers, motherhood, parenting, writing, career and so much more.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Witching Hour – the show where two mums and sort of cousins figure out how to make work, work. Today on the show:

• Should you show your kids’ faces online, or not? What started as a simple privacy decision has become a full-blown cultural divide.
• Plus, we chat about women’s rights that are more recent than you thought.

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In this episode we cover: kids’ privacy online, share-enting and digital footprints, mum-shaming and judgment culture, posting children on social media, online safety for kids, consent and parenting, influencer culture and family content, children’s rights and online boundaries, plus how modern motherhood shapes our digital identity and the pressure mums feel to get it right in every direction.

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This episode contains a branded segment from Ergopouch! If you'd like to shop their upcoming Black Friday sale, here's all the T's & C's:

Shop here: https://shorturl.at/JnSGz

T&Cs

30% OFF sitewide on our pouches, layers and bedding, PLUS 20% OFF Drift Home Baby Monitor and Smart TOG Guide, and Free delivery across our Lyra and Skye Cots, prices as marked. Promotion runs from 9am 20th November until 11:59 AET 1st December 2025. The offer excludes online Lyra Cot, Skye Cot, Deluxe Mattress, Gift Cards, Multi Buys, Bundle Packs and Sale Products, and cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount or promotion

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

Find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

—

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation,  the land on which we’re lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land. We Pay The Rent, and you can too.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Ask Ready or Not! It’s Ready or Not’s tip-based episode, landing in your ears every Friday.

This week, Loz talks about why you shouldn't discount applying for full time roles even if you're after part-time work or non full time hours.

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

—

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. The land on which we’re lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last time I interviewed Clare Stephens for Ready or Not (and just as a side note… if you haven't listened, I highly recommend you go back and listen to that one before this, which is here) she was just under a year into motherhood, she was working at Mamamia, and she'd just completed the manuscript for her now-published book, The Worst Thing I've Ever Done, which through the lens of fiction, examines what it means to be both at the bottom and at the top of a social media pile on. 

Two key themes emerged from that vulnerable and relatable episode for me: the idea of untangling shame that can come in motherhood, which, for Clare, particularly showed up in birth trauma and breastfeeding challenges, and the deep desire to give herself more grace.

Now, her daughter's nearly two, she no longer works at Mamamia, she's a published author, and she's here to tell us all about the journey she's been on; with motherhood, her book, her podcast, and more. 

From what still lingers when she thinks about some of the challenges she faced in birth and postpartum to her decision to leave Mamamia to what's often at the heart of a social media pile on, here, Clare Stephens is back to be every bit as reflective and vulnerable as she was when I first met her here a year ago. 

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This episode contains a branded segment from Ergopouch! If you'd like to shop their upcoming Black Friday sale, here's all the T's & C's:

Shop here: https://shorturl.at/JnSGz

T&Cs

30% OFF sitewide on our pouches, layers and bedding, PLUS 20% OFF Drift Home Baby Monitor and Smart TOG Guide, and Free delivery across our Lyra and Skye Cots, prices as marked. Promotion runs from 9am 20th November until 11:59 AET 1st December 2025. The offer excludes online Lyra Cot, Skye Cot, Deluxe Mattress, Gift Cards, Multi Buys, Bundle Packs and Sale Products, and cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount or promotion

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

You can also find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

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In this episode, we cover the below topics: breastfeeding, writing a book, Mamamia, Clare Stephens, The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done, motherhood, quitting your job, freelancing, Substack, The Pile On podcast, birth trauma, navigating toddlers, press tours, the publishing world, and more.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Witching Hour, the show where two mums and sort-of cousins figure out how to make work work. This week, we talk about:

• What really hits harder: going from one to two kids or zero to one

• How to prepare emotionally and practically for two under two

• The fear of telling work you’re pregnant again

• Whether your promotion dreams are still alive after maternity leave

• How to study, pivot or completely reinvent your career with young kids

• Why women need to stop apologising for taking up space

• The identity crisis that comes with working less (or more)

• And the big one: is anyone actually handling both motherhood and work… or are we all just pretending?

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In this episode we cover: Motherhood and career overwhelm, returning to work after babies, going from one to two kids, preparing for two under two, maternal mental load, emotional labour in parenting, sleep deprivation and identity shifts, workplace discrimination in pregnancy, parental leave entitlements in Australia, confidence and communication at work, promotions after maternity leave.

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Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please tell your friends, subscribe or write a review.

Find us on Instagram:

@readyornot.pod

@laurentreweek_

@lucindamckimm_

—

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation,  the land on which we’re lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters. Always was and always will be Aboriginal land. We Pay The Rent, and you can too.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.