Where were you at in your music career when you had your first child? Was there much discussion about how that life choice would affect your career within the music/entertainment industry?

My husband and I knew we wanted to start building our family pretty much right after our wedding. So there was definitely an element of planning to go with it, and we talked a lot about what our future would look like with kids and my career. At that point in my career, I was making enough money with music that it was my only job for a couple of years already, so the types of things we needed to figure out were childcare, and timing his parental leave. At least in the beginning!

As a working parent in the music industry, what are some of the biggest challenges you are facing?

Time is a massive challenge - there’s never been enough. Our twins are almost 5 now, and they’re more independent than babies now but they also have so much energy and need to be kept so busy. Childcare isn’t just somewhere to put them anymore, it’s finding stuff for them to do and someone to take them where they need to be, and usually get involved as well. It’s easy enough to set aside my office hours for while they’re in daycare (or school soon I guess), but setting time parameters for creative work is something that has never been easy no matter your circumstances. And when I leave on tour or for festivals, it’s more work for my husband and our support than it used to be.

What is one change (big or small) within the industry that could make a positive impact for working parents?

Having twins older than 2 means a lot of extra flights if I want to bring them with me, and bring someone to help. And it’s a lot of work for that one person! It would be amazing if there was some sort of childcare on-site at a festival to help relieve some of that stress and make it more manageable to include my family in at least some of my work.

How do you find support and community with other working parents in or out of the music industry?

Mostly just sharing stories in a green room! It’s very cool how many more parents there seem to be in the industry. We’re all making it work somehow!

What’s one specific example of an organization/venue/company doing something great to help support working parents?

I was a 2023 Keychange Artist, and on the programme, they offered an additional budget for childcare to be used as you saw fit. It wasn’t very big and I have two kids, so for me, it made the most sense to be used to fly my mother-in-law to help my husband while I was away at different Keychange events. Lots of funding bodies allow childcare as an expense, but in my experience, there’s no room for any childcare expenses - the rest of the grant is spoken for. So it was really great to have the additional funding available.

What could a music event (festival, conference, etc.), do or provide to make it easier for you to participate?

A childcare or supervised kids area at a conference would help for daytime business meetings and panels, and access to some local babysitting services for showcases at night. Like at a work Christmas party at a hotel, there’s a huge room and childcare and dinner and games and movies… what a dream that would be at a conference.

Can you shout out another music mama doing great things?

I see DJ Kookum out there travelling the world playing a million events with her little girl by her side and it just rules so hard. Love to see it. Hope I get there soon.