Interview: Ashley James
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“there’s no such thing as Dad guilt, and we never shamed Dad’s for going back to work?!”
Talented Ashley James is a TV presenter, model, DJ and Mum of two. Ashley is a familiar face on TV, but she is perhaps most well known at the moment for her presenting role on This Morning and her inspirational, honest and relatable content on social media which has led to Ashley gaining a large social media following of loyal fans.
Ashley’s openness about her mental health battles and her frank approach to the struggles of motherhood have provided comfort to many. It was clear to us that Ashley embodied everything that we are about at BROOD and therefore she would make the perfect cover feature. So we headed to London to do a photoshoot with Ashley and her two beautiful children. During this photoshoot and interview, Ashley further cemented the synergy between her and BROOD and it was a day to remember! During the shoot her son Alf, was getting very upset that he didn’t have a dress like his Mummy and Ada – we don’t blame him the dresses were AMAZING! Ashley promised that she would get Alf a dress when they got home, as none of the ones at the shoot would fit him. So we absolutely loved seeing Alf get his dress, when Ashley shared what had happened on social media. His little face was priceless!
“Yesterday we had a photoshoot for @broodmagazine and I got to bring the kiddies. I’m SO excited to show you the pics! Tatiana was styling us as per usual and she dressed me in some absolutely knockout dresses – even Ada got some cute little frocks! We were so excited about Alf’s outfits too but when we got ready, Alf was SO upset that he couldn’t wear a dress.
He’s never really expressed interest in dresses before but we’ve always let him openly explore whatever makes him happy regardless of what gender they have been traditionally assigned to: dolls, pushchairs, pink etc. I’ve always thought it was weird that dolls and pushchairs are considered “girly” given that it’s also modelling being a dad!
Anyway, I promised him he could have a dress and texted Tommy asking him to pick one up. He didn’t question it and was so enthusiastic to share Alf’s excitement! It made me so sad to think of all the generations of boys that aren’t allowed to be themselves. But on a deeper level – why do we discourage boys from having female role models and from “girly” things?
Anyway, it turns out Alf decided that dresses are not that comfortable – but I feel so happy that he gets to grow up with such a strong male role model in his dad that he does not try to force him into a box of masculinity!
How wonderful would the world be if we allowed our sons and daughters the space and freedom to be whoever they want to be.
And we couldn’t agree more! Now onto the interview…
At what point in your career did you become a Mum and how did you find that transition?
“I became a mum right in the middle of lockdown really. So my pregnancy and lockdown were pretty much In Sync. So it was quite a weird time because obviously the TV studios sort of shut down and I was doing a lot of things on Zoom, and then of course I lost all my DJ gigs overnight with lockdown because there wasn’t any. So then when lockdown lifted and I had Alfie I had to kind of like find my feet again in like a double sense of the word. And I felt this huge pressure to go back to everything really quickly because I’d already not worked for over a year. So I did feel pressure on myself more than anything, I guess, but I wanted to be back DJing. I wanted to see people dancing again, I wanted to be able to do what I loved and also I think it really hit me when the lockdown was lifted that everyone else’s world kind of went back to normal, but I didn’t recognise my world anymore. So, yeah, I think the transition was really hard.
So when I had Ada, one thing I was quite certain about – which I think people can be quite judgmental of – is that I was going back to work straight away, and obviously I’m very lucky in this industry, that that can be accommodated. So Ada has been to the Ministry of Sound, she went to all my fashion brand DJ gigs, and she was there with Dyson headphones on when I was digging for Dyson. She came to Steph’s Packed lunch back when I was doing that up in Leeds. So we’d get the train together, and obviously the great thing about the Doona is that it’s so easy to transport her anywhere. We would stay in the Holiday Inn, doing the TV shows. So she came with me everywhere for the first six months and then after that, I had her in full-time childcare, which again lots of people are quite judgemental of, especially given that she was six months old. But I think there’s no such thing as Dad guilt, and we never shame Dad’s for going back to work and especially in this climate where not all Mum’s want to work, but a lot of Mums need to work. And actually, she was in the best place for her and I was in the best place for me and I really think it has made me a better mum because I get to do what I love and get to be a Mum as well.”
What do you think the hardest thing about being a working parent is, especially as your career is rapidly growing, and going from strength to strength?
“I think there’s quite a cliche quote where it says something like, ‘You have to work as if you don’t have children and have children like you don’t have a job’, and It does feel like you’ve got two full time jobs that run side by side, but you’re not allowed to tell the other one about the other! So you find yourself trying to show that, when you’re at work – you’re at work, and that role doesn’t care really if you’ve been up all night, or that your kids sick or, about any of the things that you’re facing, because even if they’re in childcare, like the work doesn’t stop! Even if that thinking, ‘Oh, I need to get them some new clothes’, or ‘I need to book their vaccinations’ – which you can only do during office hours – so you know all that maternal mental load that you carry around is still there. And equally then when you’re at home, your kids don’t care if you’ve got any work to do. Obviously, a lot of my jobs are on Instagram, and if I have to post at a certain time and that happens to be bedtime, my kids don’t understand, I can’t say ‘Sorry Mum’s just got work quickly’, they want your full attention and of course, they deserve your full attention. So it’s trying to find that almost impossible balance within that juggle. And what I find really hard is I think there’s a lot more expectation on the Mums, like there’s an almost impossible expectation and pressure. For example, if I’m ever out, the first thing people will say is, ‘Who’s looking after the kids?’ whereas no one would ever ask Tommy that, and actually he went away for work for a whole week to LA and not a single person asked him who had the kids. So I think, you know, I feel very lucky that I’m in a very 50/50 relationship in terms of our co-parenting, but I don’t think personally that it can never be 50/50 because societal expectation is all on the Mums and we judged mums that stay at home, we judge mums for going back to work, we judged mums really for anything, which is why I always say that you may as well find your own lane and feel comfortable and confident in that. And if that’s what you want to be a stay at home mum, then I take my hat off to you, because I think it’s the hardest thing in the world. I think stay at home Mums don’t get enough credit. But if you want to be a working Mum, or if you want to do both, whatever it is, I think as a society we need to hold Mums in much more esteem, and give them a bit of a break.

Ashley James images by Tom Pitfield © BROOD Magazine
Do you think that’s why Mum’s feel so much ‘Mum guilt’ and is it something that you have experienced?
“I’m going to say I actually don’t feel Mum guilt. I never feel mum guilt. And it’s funny because I think that’s always what people say when you are working, ‘Oh you must feel really guilty?’, but it’s like, well, no, I don’t because I get to do what I love and I get to be a mum. I know that if I was at home all the time with them, I would find it so overstimulating.
I could go into a talk at Parliament, I could go on live TV on This Morning and you know, talk about news topics that I only found out about 5 minutes before and I would find it all a lot easier than being at home all the time, especially with a three and a one year old, because I feel like they both love danger and want to kill themselves in separate places [she laughs] so I find out next to impossible. So I don’t feel guilty about pulling in resources and getting to go to work and as we’ve said there is no such thing as Dad guilt, so I don’t think we should have to feel guilty either.
Has there been anything in particular that you have found especially challenging?
“What I do find really hard though, is that, if you’re lucky, you get a year maternity leave, but I was self-employed so technically I was very lucky, but I didn’t get that maternity leave. And I mean I was lucky in the sense that I got to take Ada with me, but what I did find hard was that I ended up breastfeeding Alf for a year and Ada for 15 months, and I didn’t really have a plan with feeding, that’s just how it happened and that was the option that was easiest for me, Alf didn’t even take a bottle, but there is kind of this expectation that when you first have the baby, you sort of get six weeks where people are very kind to you and they kind of they know that you’re occupied, but then I feel like the patience runs out, people kind of expect you to be able to go out and to be able to do all the things that you were doing before. You kind of hear things like, ‘I hope you’re not going to be one of those Mums who only talks about their kids’ and I found myself when I was 8 months in with the perception that lots of other mums (who had given birth at a similar time to me), had got their normal life back because, they were able to share feeds or give the baby a bottle, therefore they can have babysitters and I did feel a real sense of frustration or loneliness and isolation that my body was still the source of food and it was really hard to navigate that. Obviously, retrospectively, you’re like, it’s just a year it doesn’t matter, but I feel like society doesn’t even give you that time and it doesn’t kind of have much empathy, because if you said it out loud you would just be met with well give them a bottle then, and obviously it’s not that simple. I don’t know, I just think feeding in general is such a sadly controversial thing no matter how you feed and I think it’s just a shame that we don’t support people no matter which way they choose to feed.”
Have you ever had what we call a BROOD moment where your career and parenthood collide?
“Yes, it was when Alf was a baby, I was a new mum and I was battling identity struggles and I was paranoid I’d never work again, because I’d be written off as just a mum. So when Jeremy Vine invited me back on his show, I jumped at the chance! It was a chance to still be me, not Ashley the mum, just Ashley. But the problem was the logistics as Alfie was only six-month-old, he was still breastfeeding and wouldn’t take a bottle. So Tommy took a day’s holiday and said he would sit with Alfie in the green room, provided he wouldn’t have to be on camera. He wanted to support my career. But I was still scared that Alf would need me as he was a big baby and fed regularly, plus it had been lockdown, so I’d never really been away from him. The production team were amazing and they promised me if he needed me, we’d make it work. Things were going smoothly until Alf had a huge poo explosion all over my dress moments before I went live! Jeremy asked if we could introduce him to everyone on air, and whilst we were talking, Alf started to want to feed. At first, I panicked, but then my maternal instinct kicked in, and I thought his hunger was more important than anything else. Initially, I was gutted that it had happened as I wanted to be Ashley the professional, not Ashley the mum, and now I was being Ashley the mum on TV. I came off the show to so many comments about how I was attention-seeking, and it struck me as strange that I’d want attention, or that it was even worthy of something you do for attention. Feeding a baby should be unremarkable. But then I realised that’s why it’s so important to normalise breastfeeding, to fight against the hypersexualisation of boobs, and the stigma of feeding a baby in public, and to show the reality of juggling motherhood and a career. And now I’m actually really proud to have breastfed on TV!”
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