00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely this
00:06 morning to be speaking to a funny mummy, Alyssa. Now Alyssa, you are on the road with your
00:11 first ever tour with the Funny Mummy Show and you are taking in venues including Short
00:15 Room Road Tackle on Wednesday, February 21st at 8pm plus lots of other places all across
00:21 the country. What is a funny mummy? What's made you a funny mummy?
00:26 Oh well, thank you very much for asking. I'm so excited. This is my first tour with the
00:30 show and I'm coming everywhere in the UK to gorgeous places I've never been so I'm so
00:33 excited. What makes me a funny mummy? Well, I've been a mum for nine years now. So I'm,
00:40 you know, the show covers everything from being, you know, from the baby stages right
00:44 up to school mum, which I am now. And I set up a company called Bring Your Own Baby Comedy
00:51 with my friend Carly Smallman, which I don't run anymore. But thanks to that amazing company,
00:56 I have performed for parents, comedy for parents across the country and spoken to hundreds
01:02 and hundreds of mums and dads. And so I think I feel like I've got a feel for what they
01:09 want to see from a show about parenting. And I guess the point is parenting is so many
01:15 different things, isn't it? It's alarming, it's anxiety inducing, but it is actually
01:19 also funny, isn't it? But it is funny, exactly. And I think having a bit of a sense of humour
01:24 about it and having a laugh at the things that might make you cry is quite a nice way
01:28 sometimes to get you through the day. And I really believe that a lot of us just need
01:33 to hear that we're doing our best. These kids don't come with a manual. No one knows what
01:39 they're doing, even though some people seem to pretend that they do. And we should all
01:45 just have a laugh about it and give ourselves a pat on the back for doing it in the first
01:51 place.
01:52 You were saying that just now, it's a lovely thing, isn't it? The pat on the back. Do you
01:55 think we're all a bit too harsh on ourselves as parents and a bit too judgmental?
01:59 Yes, yes. Tick, tick, tick to all of those things. And I think it starts right at the
02:04 beginning where you're like, oh, right, well, I've got to breastfeed or I'm a bad mum or
02:08 oh God, you know, my birth has got to be a certain way. I've got to cook vegan, shmeegan
02:14 vegetable muffins from scratch. You know, I've got to do this. I've got to do that.
02:19 And it's all this pressure that we put on ourselves. And, you know, this kind of list
02:24 of perfect mum or perfect parents, things that we need to tick in order to hit those.
02:30 And I think it is pressure from ourselves, but it's also society. I think some of these
02:36 baby groups and some of these places that you go to do give you some of that pressure
02:41 as well. So what I would love with this show, as well as giving lots of laughs and stuff,
02:46 is just take that pressure off and, you know, do your best.
02:49 Just deploy that myth that you have to be perfect.
02:52 Absolutely. There is no such thing. There's no such thing as a perfect mum. All you can
02:56 do is your best. And, you know, if you're doing your best for your children and they're
03:00 happy, then that's wonderful, isn't it? I mean, and even if they're not, to be honest,
03:04 I mean, what can you do? Doing your best.
03:05 It sends the perfect message and a fabulous and sane message too. Well, good luck with
03:11 that and really love it to speak to you.
03:12 Thank you so much. Love to speak to you too.
03:15 Thank you.
