Hello and welcome to the mother hood podcast. The podcast about brilliant women who also happen to be mums. My name is Ellie Hale. I am a community builder, a partnerships director, a playwright, a mental health first aid instructor and a Diversity Equity and Inclusion advocate. I am also mum to 2 very small children. I have thrived in my career, taken pride in every role I have had and have always gone above and beyond. Until I had children myself, I was blissfully unaware of the discrimination that women still face every day as a result of having babies. I literally wouldn’t have believed that i this modern world, such predjudice would still be allowed to happen. According to the 2016 Equality and Human Rights Commission - 54,000 women a year lose their jobs to maternity discrimination, more recent data from Pregnant the screwed puts it as much as 1 in 9 women will lose their job whilst pregnant or on mat leave. I had no idea about Motherhood tax before I had children, about the impact it can have on your career and your feeling of value in the working world. When I gave birth to my children, I felt like a superhero, in some ways, despite the physical, emotional and mental toll that growing and raising children takes. I personally have learnt more skills since becoming a mother, I have more value in the work[lace and I am certainly more determined to make a success of it to make my children proud. I was inspired to start this podcast to shine a light on the stories of women who can and could and did. Women who pivoted their careers, got promoted or started their businesses AFTER having children. There is so much skullduggery that goes on for women in the workplace - Sham redundancies, NDAs, lost confidence, huge financial implications. I wanted to inspire other mums to feel empowered and enabled to push and create and make something brilliant for themselves and their families. Having children doesn’t mean the end of your career - It can mean the start of something even BETTER