Talking with Rachel, a parent-carer, for International Women’s Day
Lastly I spoke with Rachel Wright, a mother of three, wife, business owner, writer and podcaster. She cares for her 16-year-old son Sam who has complex needs.
I spoke with Rachel about how life is for her as a working mum and parent-carer.
When I left school, I went straight into a nursing degree and worked in various places, as an A&E nurse, and a practice nurse at a GP practice, until a few years ago.
Then I accidently wrote a book. It started with writing about all the things in my head. It was then that I took some creative writing courses and started to write a blog, which became a book ‘The skies I’m under’ and now a podcast.
I was getting into conversations about the experience of transitioning from a nurse on one side of the bed, to the parent carer on the other, and how this changed and impacted me. Out of that I started training people on communicating and working with families and bringing in the heart beat of lived experience using the jargon and lingo the professionals want and understand. My business, Born at the right time was then born, so to speak.
I provide courses and training to families and professionals on various things, bridging the gap between the families of people with complex needs and the professionals who support them.
I am still a registered nurse, but most of it happens at home with Sam in person.
Tell me 5 things about you:
I love salt and vinegar crisps - a lot
I am envious of mothers who bake and craft and imaginative play
I love travelling - before I had my kids we did a lot of it and worked abroad.
I discovered the joy of writing 10 years ago when I realised it was like talking without the interruptions.
I have just started a podcast: ‘The Skies We’re Under.’.
How do you manage your work and caring role?
I am the boss, so the people I work with know about my caring role. I tell them but also because my work is so clearly related to it. My caring role informs what I do.
What support do you get from your team?
I have fallen into being self-employed because I could not navigate employment any other way. I would not be able to be consistent in showing up at work because of the caring role. It’s not just me, my husband has adjusted his career path as well - he now works three days a week as a GP. We realised that between us we could not do a full weeks work and care for our son.
The flip side is, if I am not at the job it does not get done. I have to be flexible and work stupid hours. At the end of working as a nurse I was on a zero hours contract in order to be flexible.
What’s the Impact of the pandemic on you?
Personally I had a bit of a meltdown at the beginning. I had been working on my business for three years and I was getting more bookings and interactions, it was growing and I was having influence. When covid hit all my face to face bookings and training died - all the conferences stopped. It felt as though my world was shrinking again, it was very much like how I felt when my son was born.
My husband had to carry on as he is a GP, but my work had to stop so I had a bit of a feminist revolt.
It was important to me to try and carry on working so we had a carer move in with us after a couple of weeks and she’s still here now. I don’t know how I would have done it otherwise.
My 16 year old has complex needs, and I have two other children, they are all different so juggling all their needs was challenging.
I started adapting my business point by around June, by doing things virtually and started doing more online stuff and that all took off.
What do you do about Flexible working?
My husband and I work a lot out between us, who's doing drop offs, pick-ups, if someone is sick who’s doing that etc.
Virtual working becoming normal helped, now we are both set up so we can adapt if we need to. If a face to face training had to go virtual we are all set up to do that. I am at the point where I need more people to help me in the business.
Because of my experience as a parent carer I want to create a working culture where we have a shared vision but ensure we all get the flexibility to care for our children whether they have needs or not. I want everyone to get that balance, whatever that looks like whilst recognising its different for everyone.
What’s your biggest challenge form working and caring?
I think it’s the logistics and the mental load. Often the primary parent juggles everything, manages all relationships with everyone we need to talk to and deal with. There is an assumption from the professionals that we are waiting around for them to call to say there is an appointment the following day - like we are just waiting around with nothing else to sort out.
The thing that would make a difference is not some ‘make a wish’ trip for two weeks in Disney Land, its people talking to me well, and coordinating with me better.
Where do you get support for yourself?
I have a family who are very supportive; I guess Tim and I have always shared the care of the kids, although I probably do more of the logistics. I handed over the logistics for my middle son to my husband. So i don’t handle any of that, the school etc.
And Tim does the shopping as well. We have shifted the way our house dynamics work and that feels like a bigger support. I know I am not alone and I recognize I am very lucky.
Family and friends also support me, and then we get the paid support from carers. That’s the challenging part, to get people we trust, I find that stressful.