Tell us about the new the show – what’s the elevator pitch?

From Gay to Ze celebrates LGBTQ+ parenting and the messy reality of modern families. We chat to fabulous guests about their own experiences and projects including the latest film, TV, books and music. We delve into queer pop culture as well as queer parents need a switch off too! Plus both of us work in the entertainment and media industry so we love all that jazz. The show is designed to be inclusive as we want non-queer families to listen who want to be good allies and understand the queer parenting community.

‘Some Families’ was the first UK podcast dedicated to queer families, and so influential. Was it sad to say goodbye to the brand?

Some Families will forever hold a special place in our hearts. It was ground-breaking in the sense that it was the first EVER podcast that focused on LGBTQ+ families in all their different guises. The show is still there and we did 40 episodes (award-winning none the less!) and we are so proud of it, but if Some Families was the “how” you become a family From Gay to Ze is all about navigating around the day to day of parenting with wider and varied topics and with our book coming out we felt it was due a refresh.

We all know I love a pun name – for readers who might not be familiar, can you explain where the podcast’s title ‘From Gay To Ze’ came from?

You can’t beat a good pun!! We came up with the title whilst we were working on the book as the format is an A-Z. When looking and exploring pronouns we discovered the pronoun Ze which can be used by those who identity as non-binary. We immediately loved it as it stood for everything we are about, inclusivity and learning something new about our community. Neither of us had never heard of Ze so we wanted to share something that not only our allies can use in their ongoing queer education, but something for the community as well. It was also about celebrating the range and diversity of the LGBTQ+ umbrella… it’s so empowering to think we have so many ways to identify.

You’ve got a book on the way – tell us how you found adapting podcast skills to book writing?

Oh did we mention we had a book? Ha. Yes, The Queer Parent: Everything You Need to Know From Gay to Ze is out in May and is the first LGBTQ+ parenting book to ever be published by a major author. Isn’t that insane? We took a lot of the essence of a podcast into the book in the sense that whilst we rattle on a little about our own experiences we are a tiny, tiny representation of the full queer parenting spectrum so we speak to loads of different people to try and ensure we reflect our community, in the best way we can.

Munroe Bergdorf, Suzi Ruffle, Ben Aldridge – you are straight out of the gate with some incredible guests! But is there a dream guest you haven’t spoken to yet?

Elton John. Would have to record it in person in his villa in the South of France. Think we would call the episode “Parenting is Fabulous, Darling”

Lastly, anything else you’d like to share.

We have a loyal and fabulous queer audience but if you are reading this as a cishet parent (A term used to describe a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth and is heterosexual) then do give us a listen. We are hopefully offering something a bit different from a usual parenting podcast and every non-queer person we’ve spoken to whose listens say they learnt so much from our guests and their stories.

Listen to From Gay to Ze now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other popular podcast apps >>

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Adam is here to walk you through the weeks podcast proceedings, with guests including the people behind Some Families, Touchline Fracas and Zombiemum!

THIS WEEKS GUESTS

Some Families • Acast • Spotify

Touchline Fracas • Acast • Spotify

Zombiemum • Apple Podcasts • Spotify

THIS WEEKS RECOMMENDATIONS

Disunomics • Soundcloud • Spotify

The Christmas Chronicles • Online • Spotify

Table Manners • Acast • Spotify

PODBIBLE LINKS

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Adam Richardson caught up with Laura Dockrill in April 2021 to discuss her podcast Zombiemum, her parenting story and whether recording over zoom helps or hinders intimacy on a podcast. You can hear this conversation on episode 86 of the Pod Bible Podcast but for the full unedited version, check out the video above!

Listen to Zombiemum on Acast or Spotify.

Listen to the Pod Bible Podcast on Acast or Spotify.

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Adam is here to walk you through the weeks podcast proceedings, with guests including the people behind Zombiemum, Thank You Next and Anthems!

LISTEN TO THIS WEEKS GUESTS!

Zombiemum • Apple Podcasts • Spotify

Thank You Next • Acast • Spotify

Anthems • Acast • Spotify

LISTEN TO THIS WEEKS RECOMMENDATIONS!

Song Exploder • Acast • Spotify

Talk Art • Acast • Spotify

PODBIBLE LINKS!

Pod Bible Magazine

Pod Bible Twitter

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Bump, Baby & Beyond was initially launched in January 2020 and since the it has had an amazing reception, with nearly 400,000 listens. There are now over 30 episodes covering a wide range of issues around pregnancy and birth. Topics include practical health such as  ‘Understanding colic and how to cope’ and ‘Giving birth during COVID-19 & what to expect‘. It also speaks to mums about their personal stories, such as Faye who has had two children via IVF.

We asked podcast host, and mum of two, Hollie (@HolliePlus) to tell us how it feels to be part of this award-nominated podcast.

Hollie, how does it feel to be nominated for Publisher Podcast Awards?

It feels incredible! I’m so proud to work with Emma’s Diary on #BumpBabyandBeyond and to see it recognised amongst some other incredible names is just brilliant. It’s always a funny feeling when you see facts and figures, which show people are actually listening to the podcast. It’s really quite amazing and the Emma’s Diary team really deserve the nomination for all the hard work they do to make the podcast so beneficial to new parents and pregnant women.

How do you feel the podcast supports new parents and pregnant women? Why do you feel it’s important?

I wish this podcast was around when I was pregnant a couple of years ago, because pregnancy and being a new parent is like learning a new language – without a manual! The podcast talks about the good, the bad and the ugly of pregnancy but from real people’s experiences. Not from a textbook or from a third-person perspective. I get to talk to real women who have gone through or are going through a whole host of different pregnancies and births. The stories are incredible and can help parents feel emotionally prepared, physically ready, not alone AND it’s also a really entertaining listen.

It’s important that mums-to-be and new parents don’t feel isolated during one of the most amazing but challenging times in their lives. From the trials and tribulations of breastfeeding to buggies, baby names and unexpected births, we talk about it all. I feel like Bump Baby and Beyond is like having a friend round for a cup of tea, nothing is off-limits and we’ll give it to you exactly how it is but help hold your hand when things get tough.

Read the full Press Release:

The Emma’s Diary podcast channel, Bump, Baby & Beyond on SPOTIFY, or ELSEWHERE.

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Scrummy Mummies

Scummy Mummies is a ‘fun and filthy chat show that is vaguely about parenthood’ according to comedian and co-host Helen Thorn. She and Ellie Gibson started in 2013 as ‘an excuse to drink together on a Friday night’. They now have fans in over 150 countries. Helen says, ‘We love hearing about parenting from all around the world. It is basically all the same – iPads, biscuits and bribery.’

Listen to: ‘Our episode How Not to Get Divorced with the comedian Sam Pamphilon. He and I both talk about getting divorced… which is funnier than it sounds.’ Listen now >>

Funny Mummies

Funny Mummies is hosted by comedian and ‘mum of two wild boys under five’ Hatty Ashdown. She suggests that nobody should follow the advice dished out by her and her rotating outspoken panel of comedy mums. She began podcasting after working at BBC Radio London and Soho Radio: ‘So many of my comedian guests were becoming mums. It gave us an angle.’

Listen to: ‘Margaret Cabourne-Smith is a regular. We did a live record with her in front an audience just before the first lockdown last March. Her story of the worst advice given on a bus is something that will haunt you forever.’ Listen now >>

Some Families

Some Families is a podcast ‘for and about LGBTQ+ families’, says Lotte Jeffs, who lives with her wife and daughter in South East London. She and cohost Stu, an adoptive dad of three, welcome a diverse array of guests: ‘This season we speak to a lesbian couple who gave birth on the same day, a trans dad, black lesbian adoptive mums, single adoptive dads, a woman fighting for IVF equality and so many more.

Listen to: ‘One interview that really taught me a lot was with lesbian foster mum Annabelle Avis.’ Listen now >>

How to Be a Girl

How to Be a Girl tells the story of Marlo Mack and her trans daughter. They’ve been producing the show from home for seven years, after ‘doting mum’ Marlo bought a cheap recorder to preserve the sounds that her baby made. She believes that podcasting has made her ‘a better parent and maybe a better person. When I record my daughter, I find that I listen more closely. She knows she matters.’

Listen to: ‘Start at the beginning with Mama I’m a Girl. You can hear a fierce three year old telling her mother she isn’t a boy after all. She also tells you some interesting facts about aliens and princesses.’ Listen now >>

The Mother of All Losses

The Mother of All Losses explores the ‘often unfathomable death of a mother’ and originated from a book anthology project that writer Anna Burtt was pitching to publishers. Although it didn’t get picked up, she put a callout on Twitter for a collaborator who might want to revisit the idea with her as a podcast. She met Emily Benita and fell in love with her show Big Wendy, which she had written about her mum: ‘I’ve made a friend for life and we’ve brought something really special, meaningful and fun into fruition.’

Listen to: ‘Our introduction episode. We ask each other “How is your grief today?” and “How did your mum live?” I think it’s important for us to be vulnerable and prepared to answer the questions we now ask other people.’ Listen now >>

Discovering Dementia

Discovering Dementia was created by former nurse and radio journalist Penny Bell when her mum was diagnosed with dementia: ‘We weren’t given a lot of information about the road ahead. So I started doing my own research. Then I thought it might be helpful to share what I found.’ She loves the ‘free nature’ of podcasting that allows for a really organic way of bringing people together who might be seeking support and advice.

Listen to: ‘The first episode of season two is a great way to meet mum. You really begin to hear how dementia is affecting her memory. But she still remains her chatty, cheerful self, itching to practise the piano.’ Listen now >>

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The podcast grew out of a Whatsapp group set up by London-based strategy consultant Marvyn Harrison on Father’s Day, 2018. Harrison added 23 friends who are also dads to the group, and told them that they inspired him to be a better father.

The chat group soon became a community that would talk about everything they were going through, including co-parenting, marriage, fatherhood, blended families, and more. As 2018 went on, the growing group became a community of knowledge-sharing and support. In 2019, during Black History Month (which falls in October), the Dope Black Dads podcast was launched as a safe space for Black dads to discuss issues they face.

In 2020, the podcast continues to grow and strike up conversations about Black parenting that we should all be listening to, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Umar spoke to Pod Bible about which Black parenting podcasts we should be listening to.

Backtalk, by the Successful Black Parenting Magazine, is first on his list, as it offers a valuable American take on Black parenting. “Raising Black kids in America has some similarities to raising children here in the UK,” says Umar, “but I think there are also those big differences. We’ve seen recently everything that goes on with the police and just generally how African Americans are viewed and treated.” In June and July this year, after the footage of George Floyd’s death went viral, and Black Lives Matter protests began in the US, the podcast published two episodes on the complex subject of talking to children about race.

Next on Umar’s list is Chronicles of Black Parenting Podcast, which has just launched. In the first episode, host Chidinma Okorie, talks about being a Nigerian immigrant in America who became pregnant at the age of 17. The second episode also features a teenage mother, and the advice she has for the future grandparents. The podcast is engaging with traditional ideas of parenting, and as Umar’s family background is Nigerian, he is interested in the perspective of a young Nigerian parent in America. As Umar puts it: “There’s definitely a shift in terms of how we parent. With our generation, I think parenting has become a lot more equal between mothers and fathers. It’s not just left to the mum, as it traditionally is often done in Nigerian households.”

Shades of Black: Parenting Podcast “is for Black British parents, and those who are parents of Black children,” says Umar, “and I guess it is a bit more relevant to me as it gives the Black British experience.” Season 2 of the podcast has just launched, and the latest episode rounds up how hosts Sam and Ola have got through “Brexit, a pandemic, Lockdown, homeschooling, protests, heatwaves and sadly, bereavements.” This is the podcast Umar goes to for another view on “things that we often will talk about in the community; how we’ve coped with the pandemic; how we’re dealing with that and adapting to homeschooling, and so on.”

Dope Black Mums has just celebrated its first anniversary, and acts as a sister podcast to Dope Black Dads. “It’s great to hear the Black mum’s perspective,” says Umar. “I get to have more of an insight into what life is like for Black mums. There are times when I’ve listened to the podcast, and I go speak to my wife about the issues they’ve brought up.” A recent episode on race and maternal care digs into the horrifying statistic that, in the UK, Black women are 5 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women, and the hosts bring their personal experiences to the discussion. Other recent must-listen episodes include Dear Dope White Mom – “an emergency response to the state sanctioned murder of black men – which we have all witnessed yet again with the filming of George Floyd”; The True Colour of Colourism, in which the hosts “unpack colourism and the cost it has on [their] children’s wellbeing”; and Racism is a White Person’s Problem. RIP George Floyd.

For his fifth choice, Umar has gone for his own podcast, Dope Black Dads. In 2020, the conversation around Black parenting has grown ever more important, with the pandemic disportionately affecting people of colour, and the huge growth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Recent episodes include a recording of a segment on the BBC’s primetime The One Show, on talking about kid about race, and The Mental Health Impact of Racism with Dr Roberta Babb. The podcast has also recently tackled issues brought up by cultural events, such as Will and Jada Smith’s Red Table Talk, Kanye West’s recent bid for the US presidency and Dads: Should we bring Back Football during the Lockdown?

“What I love about what we do with Dope Black Dads is the fact that we’re trying to shift the narrative, what those headlines have said about us. We’re trying to change how people perceive a black father,” says Umar. “People have a certain viewpoint on what a Black father can be, it’s the idea that Black fathers are absent, or they’ve got multiple baby mothers. Actually, that’s a very small minority.” Umar himself is married, and has two children aged five and two – and he knows many others like him, who don’t hit the headlines because of their stable, ordinary lives. “There’s a majority of Black fathers who are very much present in their children’s lives, who play an active role in the running of the household and the upbringing of the kids,” he concludes. “We need to tell our stories, and we need to educate people about us and what we go through.”

Suchandrika Chakrabarti is a freelance journalist, podcaster and comedian from London. She makes Freelance Pod, which is about how the internet has changed creative jobs. It was shortlisted for a Lovie Award for Best Host in 2019. 

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