Eleven years ago I heard an ad on the radio.
They were looking for couples for a new renovating show. My husband Phil and I had just renovated an apartment so I called to find out more about it, thinking it would be one episode and a bit of fun. Much to our surprise we got a call back, then kept getting to the next stage in the audition process, while still being told nothing about it.
When we were finally told it was a new reality TV series called The Block, it was a big shock. We weren’t interested in doing a reality TV show! So we said no, but then realised it would be a once in a lifetime launching pad for my music and possibly the elusive big break I had been searching for since I was 15. So we took a chance and said yes. Little did we know just how much it would change our lives.
A few months later, we were on the biggest TV series of that year and overnight had become household names. I was signed to a major record label and had a gold-selling, Top Ten album called The Lighthouse. I was living my dream. But then the show went off the air, the phones stopping ringing and it all stopped. Talk about one extreme to another. The next year I released another album independently, but without the support of a record label or radio, it was hard going. So I stepped back from it all, took I break to decide what I wanted to do next and decided to throw myself into my other big life ambition. I had a baby.
I was 28 when I had my first child and I took a year off to completely focus on him. With my career at a stand still it was actually really nice to focus on someone other than myself for a while. But after a year I really missed performing, so I put a band together and started doing shows again. Then when my son was two, I wrote my first cabaret show Mother, Wife and the Complicated Life. It began with a song I wrote for him when he was born, when I wasn’t sure if I’d ever perform my songs again. So to be back on stage and performing that was wonderful.
The show, about my experiences as a mum, debuted in the Adelaide Fringe Festival and was a big hit. Women loved that someone was putting their experiences up on stage and telling it like it really is (which is nothing like the movies). So I decided to extend it and turn it into a full length musical, following the lives of four women. The themes of what motherhood is really like, how you mix career with relationships and family, why women need to be supportive or one another and how completely exhausting “the juggle” really is – these topics all really resonated with the women coming to see the show. And I think they appreciated being able to laugh at some of the absolute absurdity of our lives too!
By this stage, I was in my later stages of pregnancy with my second child Poppy so I wasn’t performing as much. I finished writing the full musical when she was a newborn. Luckily she was an easy baby and slept well (and by well, I mean the first six weeks, because it all went downhill from there). I think having a baby during that time was so helpful, because we forget how tender and raw those first few weeks are and I was living through it as I was writing about it.
The musical debuted in the Fringe Festival when Poppy was eight months old and I do look back now and wonder how I did that. I’d be up all night breastfeeding and then go to rehearsals, coming home to feed and then perform at night, feeding again in the dressing rooms during interval. Now I think it must have been exhausting, but at the time I was so excited to be doing the show that I somehow made it work. It’s another example of how hard you’ll work when you’re desperately passionate about something. Thankfully, she was also a happy baby who would sit in her pram and watch us all sing and would go to anyone, so that made it possible. And now she is the most confident child who will adapt to any situation around her, so I think it had lots of benefits for her.
I’m not sure if I’ve sacrificed anything major by taking the time off to start a family, because I’ve just always had it clear in my mind that I can do exactly what I set out to achieve. It might not eventuate by a particular date, but if I work hard, it’ll still happen. Right now I’m going through a fantastic stage in my career – writing, producing, performing – but there’s no doubt the juggle is exhausting. What I do sacrifice is time to myself, or just time off in general. But that is the reality of trying to ‘do it all,’ you have to let some things go, and it’s up to you what that is.
Sometimes you just have to laugh. I was doing a live radio interview from home the other day and it was all going smoothly, the kids were quiet in the other room. Until Poppy ran in yelling at the top of her lungs that she had to go to the toilet. So, while still doing the interview, I was putting her on the toilet, when my seven year old ran in, slipped on the bathroom floor and started screaming hysterically. But as I told the interviewer, it’s just a real life example of the complicated lives all of us are living.
So here’s my “secret” for keeping it all together – ask for help. There’s plenty of reaching out going on! I have a great husband who shares the load and amazing parents and parents in law who give so much of their time to my kids. Plus brilliant girlfriends who make me laugh and keep me sane. And most importantly, kids who know that sometimes our life is a bit hectic but that it’s important to chase your dreams and do a job that you love – and that’s what mummy is doing.