The Bitesize Parenting Teens Podcast is about navigating life as the parent of a teenager. Actor and comedian Kerry Godliman hosts a different celebrity guest each episode - they listen to real questions and worries from parents, share their own experiences and get tips and advice from trained experts.
In the first episode of Bitesize Parenting Teens, comedian and radio host Charlie Baker talks about having a big age-gap between his two children and how the reason for that is baby loss. In this short, additional episode, Charlie and Kerry discuss how he's dealt with people asking about the age-gap and how they coped with baby loss as a family, especially with their eldest child. Psychologist and psychotherapist Dr Charlotte Armitage offers her own personal reflection on how people talk about miscarriage and grief.
Kerry:
Welcome to Bitesize Parenting Teens, where we talk about the wonders and woes of raising teenagers and soon to be teenagers. I'm Kerry Godliman and we've decided to talk on this separate, shorter episode with comedian Charlie Baker and psychologist Charlotte Armitage about why Charlie's family has a big age gap between his kids.
Hello!
Charlie:
Hello.
Kerry:
And you have got two kids?
Charlie:
Yes, 18 and nine.
Kerry:
Which is quite a gap.
Charlie:
Quite a gap. Not through choice,
Kerry:
Right?
Charlie:
We had Stanley straight away.
Kerry:
Right.
Charlie:
First try Kerry.
Kerry:
I don't need to know that.
Charlie:
Do you need that? Do you need that level of information?
Kerry:
I love it when people get that. I love when people say we’re trying for a baby.
I'm like, ‘OK!’
Charlie:
But also – ‘what have you been doing till now?’
Kerry:
Yeah, there's a lot of implication I don't want or need. I know where babies come from. I read the books.
Charlie:
Yes. And we had him no problem.
Kerry:
Right.
Charlie:
So, er well…
Kerry:
And you just thought, well, it will be just as easy for another one…?
Charlie:
We better look out. Yeah. Better be careful now.
Kerry:
Yeah, yeah,
Charlie:
yeah, because you know, otherwise we're gonna end up with hundreds of kids.
Kerry:
Yeah.
Charlie:
And we had three miscarriages.
Kerry:
Oh, sorry to hear that.
Charlie:
And, at the time, no one talked about it.
Kerry:
Really?
Charlie:
No one talked about miscarriage. There was no, you know, there was no information really. And…
Kerry:
Really?
Charlie:
Not, not that I… not for a man, not for a dad.
Kerry:
And you found yourself not able to talk about it?
Charlie:
No, I could talk about it because I can talk about anything.
Kerry:
Right. But there wasn't the information there?
Charlie:
So you're not aware of… Actually, it's one in…I think it's 1 in 3 pregnancies ends in miscarriage.
Kerry:
My understanding is the stats are quite high.
Charlie:
Yes. It’s very high. Yeah, yeah.
Kerry:
Yeah you're right, I suppose. Is it fair to say there's a bit of stigma around it? I think that’s almost bizarre…
Charlie:
I think that it's, it's just I think there’s a sadness around it, and people want having a baby to be this joyous occasion.
Kerry:
Yeah.
Charlie:
And I think it's something that didn't or doesn't get talked about.
Kerry:
Do you think that's true as well?
Charlotte:
Well, I don't think the loss is taken seriously because it's not… in other people's eyes, it's not yet a baby, but the experience of a miscarriage, I think, is very personal, isn't it?
If you wanted that pregnancy, how far on were you? Had you imagined it as a baby?
I've had a miscarriage and one of my friends actually said to me,‘oh well, maybe it was for the best.’ For me, it wasn't…
Kerry:
That's a very presumptuous thing to say.
Charlotte:
It really was. And I just thought, I can't believe you just said that because I already had my daughter. So it was. I did think it was a strange thing to say.
But I don't think people understand, you know, because some – certainly when I fell pregnant with my daughter, I imagined her as a baby straight away. Whereas I think some people don't do that, do they? They sort of – ‘it’s just cells and then, oh, it's just lost or it's only eight weeks.’ It's only like, you know, shedding some skin off your finger.
But if you've imagined that as a baby, that is a, it's a grief and it's a loss,
Kerry:
Especially when you already have a child, because then you're starting to picture your family.
Charlie:
Well, there's that, that sort of hope that exists…
Kerry:
Yeah, because you think there's a sibling coming for your kid
Charlie:
Coming along there. Medical profession weren't great either at discussing it.
Kerry:
Really?
Charlie:
Or dealing with it while it was happening either, especially the second time it was particularly bad. And then the third time we were like, I sort of, I think it's probably the first time I felt like, oh, I'm going to have to say something to a medical professional.
Kerry:
Ask for support?
Charlie:
Protective, protective you know, protective of my wife.
Kerry:
Of course and did you ask for support?
Charlie:
Well, for the third one. We were quite far down the line. We were at the scan at the 12‑week scan and the nurse went quite, just went quiet. Just bad, bad bedside manner and said…didn't, didn't deal with it well basically, we left through a different door and as we left, you know, I heard someone saying, ‘oh bloody hell, Dave, it's another boy,’ you know.
Kerry:
Oh God!
Charlie:
Oh, just things that you can't control that sort of side of it, but you sort of go, oh, it was quite a heavy moment in our, in our lives. So, we…so I always talk about it, I know it's quite a, I always talk about it because I think if you have, if you are, if you are in a relationship where you've experienced miscarriage, or you are going through at the moment, you are not alone.
Kerry:
Absolutely.
Charlie:
If you bring it up in any group of people, you will find that 80% of those people who've tried to be parents will go, ‘oh, that happened to us.’
Kerry:
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, even you talking about it – and talking about it and me thinking and remembering friends that have been through it, you know, it's, isn't it bizarre that kind of silence around it.
Charlie:
So. But with the gap which, so we sort of said, we'll have Stanley that's our family.
Kerry:
Yeah.
Charlie:
Because as often, as often I know you're a single parent Charlotte and I, we'd often get, oh, ‘just the one?’
Kerry:
Yeah. Or only child. The word only isn’t …
Charlie:
Just the one – ‘only child’… we'd get, are you going to complete your family?
Kerry:
Again, so presumptuous to say…
Charlie:
You know, I say things like that, and so you sort of just suck it up, you know?
Kerry:
Yeah. People don’t intend to offend…
Charlie:
because, you know, people aren’t being cruel. There's no intention behind it. But you do go –‘it's not an Ikea wardrobe. Family isn't…It's not a jigsaw.
Kerry:
No quite. Or a game…
Charlie:
Or a game to play, you know, family, family is what you want it to be. Completely what you want to be…
Kerry:
Yeah, completely and we're all from very different families.
Charlie:
And you, I'm sure with this podcast, you've spoken to people who are from very many different families.
Kerry:
Exactly.
Charlie:
So that it's such a linear thought.
Kerry:
Yeah. Well, it’s just the projection of lack or incompletion or some form of scarcity and you're like, why are you projecting that onto me? Especially if you're happy. And like you said, you kind of accepted.
Charlie:
Yeah, I read up about it and I've read something I don't know. I'm sure there's no science base to this at all – people like to see even numbers.
Kerry:
Where does that leave families with three kids then?
Charlie:
So everyone's got,
Kerry:
So the whole ‘Outnumbered’ thing…?
Charlie:
It’s so everyone's got a friend basically. So it's people – like people…It’s like they like to see ‘well they're with them, so that's fine’. And ‘they're with them and that's…’
Charlotte:
But I don't know if that's true.
Charlie:
Subconsciously.
Charlotte:
I'm not sure though, because I'm a single parent with a child and I still I still feel that.
I say ‘it's just us two.’ So it's just us. And I do think, I wonder how that's affecting my daughter when I say it's just us two. So I have to be quite careful that I don't say that, it's us two and our dog Winnie, you know, our little unit of three.
But yeah, so I don't, I don't know because then that, you know that would be two – an even number – but I still think people would think ‘where’s the father, where’s the… another sibling’?
Charlie:
Yeah.
I mean I can't explain people, but I make sure I don't now go just the one…
Kerry:
Yeah. Just is just you is it only this.
Charlie:
You know, only this. Yeah. I try and, you know, sort of. But anyway, we gave up.
Kerry:
Right. And you accepted?
Charlie:
Accepted it all. Er…And, actually that's untrue. And, it's not untrue.
We I said, let's give it one more go. And we're really lucky we live near, a hospital in Oxford that has a specialised unit, right. and, a specialised charity called Silver Star who are brilliant, who help women who've had problem, pre - during and post pregnancy.
Kerry:
Right.
Charlie:
And we were on their radar, and we suddenly had a thing on our notes.
And we were sort of helped, really, I don't know how we were helped, but we were helped, and I suppose just monitored. I mean, I think we had a few more scans than we would have and monitored, and that charity helped that and is a brilliant, brilliant charity. Full of, run by really good people. So, I think it was monitored more. And I don't know if that helps at all because there's not ever any reason for.
Kerry:
No. It's definitely a very hard thing to pin down, isn't it.
Charlie:
The kind of no one's made a mistake. There's no no,
Kerry:
No one’s broken.
Charlie:
No there's no… So and then, we had the most terrifying nine months of our life while we waited for Betty to come.
Kerry:
I bet that was a stressful nine months. Yeah.
Charlie:
And now you go. And that's how it was meant to be.
Kerry:
That's how - the way it was.
Charlie:
That's how it was. And that's how it was meant to be.
Kerry:
Yeah, yeah. So hence the gap.
Charlie:
Hence the gap.
Charlie:
When…So Stanley's a lovely boy. And when we told him …
Kerry:
So, he was nine?
Charlie:
Yeah, he was nine. And of course, we thought he was massive. You know, you know – ‘deal with it. Come on.’
Kerry:
You’re nine!
Charlie:
‘You’re nine! You’re nine!’
Kerry:
Yeah. It's so weird isn't it. When you look back at pictures of when they're little and like, ‘oh, you're like, God, I think you should have had a job.’ But you were five.
Charlie:
‘Deal with it! Man up! Oh, man up for goodness’ sake!’
Not. But he's been holding his sister like, oh, but he’s beside himself, you know, and it's just a little lad… Tiny little boy, you know.
Kerry:
Was he made up?
Charlie:
Well, when we told him because we left it till 20 weeks to say…because of what's happened, we, we left it a long time and, we told him and he welled up like this, sort of like an adult. And just looked at us and said, ‘just so happy for you two.’
Charlotte:
Oh.
Kerry:
Oh, gosh, that’s so sweet.
Charlie:
And it was, it was, it was like, ‘oh, oh.’ it was like,
Kerry:
So he was like about like a man
Charlie:
oh goodness, that’s really – we will never forget all that.
Kerry:
That's so mature. Did he know about the miscarriages or have any sense of it at all?
Charlotte:
He must have.
Charlie:
Yeah, he must have had a sense of it. And, I think we're pretty open, and we've always. Yeah, we've always, discussed everything.
Kerry:
Yeah, yeah. So, he was very happy.
Charlie:
Sam's mum, my wife's mum… Sam's mum died when Sam was 19.
Kerry:
Right.
Charlie:
And so, there's never been, a nanny on that side. And so, there's always been a hold. So, we've always. I think we've always had to explain death and where people are. Throughout their whole lives.
Kerry:
Yes. Yeah.
Charlie:
I think because of that death is on the table as a, as a conversation.
Kerry:
Yeah, And that's great isn't it, that you've been able to do that.
I mean, I'm sure a lot of parents struggle with those kinds of mortality conversations?
Charlotte:
I think they do. And I think it can affect the grieving process that the child goes through. And that can be really problematic for them in terms of attachment and relationships that they have in the future. So it's quite important that death is dealt with in a healthy way from quite a young age and in an age‑appropriate way as well.
Kerry:
Yeah. A lot of people get a pet, don't they. They just sort of outsource it to a hamster.
Charlie:
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Just these poor little hamsters turn up going. Well. You’re not long for this world. But you are really…
Kerry:
You're going to workshop mortality…
Charlie:
Yeah. Good luck soldier! Like a sort of drama workshop for someone who's learning how to sack somebody. Yeah, [in character]well, ‘just say it again and say it a bit nicer.’
Kerry:
[In character] ‘If I could change anything, what would I…’
Charlie:
And so anyway,
Kerry:
so, he was a good big brother?
Charlie:
Oh and he's a great big brother. He's a great he's a great man.
Kerry:
Thank you for being so open and honest, Charlie. I think he's probably been good to hear a dad's take on these things.
If you've been affected by anything that's come up today, you can go to https://www.bbc.co.uk/actionline/ for details of charities that deal with miscarriage.
If you have been affected by Charlie and Charlotte's stories, BBC Action Line has information on charities who can offer advice and support.
Watch more episodes of Parenting Teens here:
Helping teenagers make good choices and step-parenting challenges. video
Kerry Godliman, clinical psychologist Dr Martha Deiros Collado and guest Radio 1 DJ Rickie Haywood-Williams talk about the difficulties of step-parenting a teen and helping them make good choices.
How to help teenagers revise - and deal with exam stress. video
Comedian Charlie Baker talks to Kerry Godliman about his difficulties getting his son to revise, helping teenagers find their path in life and how parents can help.
Coping with teenage hormones and helping teens handle their friendships. video
Actor and comedian Bridget Christie talks to Kerry Godliman about empty nests, when menopause meets teen hormones, and whether loneliness is normal for teens.
Dealing with school avoidance - and how to co-parent teenagers successfully. video
Kerry Godliman, actor Charlie Condou & expert Dr Charlotte Armitage discuss letting go as a parent, school 'refusal'/school avoidance and co-parenting across households.
How to talk to angry teenagers - including about phone use and sleep habits video
Comedian Rob Rouse joins Kerry Godliman and Dr Martha Deiros Collado to discuss how to talk to angry teens, teen sleep habits and phone use boundaries.
Should I tidy my teenager's bedroom? And talking to teens about relationships. video
Jamelia talks with Kerry Godliman about parenting teenage girls, the influence of social media and body image.
