Dolly Jones is a former Vogue.com editor who spent over 20 years at Condé Nast overseeing digital content at director level. Based on her experience of motherhood whilst in these roles, she has written a book called 'Leaving the Ladder Down' which is a funny, positive and practical guide for women thinking about how parenthood might affect their career. She has two children aged 11 and 13.
Dolly describes getting support for young children during your working hours as the 'patchwork quilt of childcare'. She also said that one of the many women she spoke to for the book, hadn't realised till she had children herself, that as a parent you can feel that you've run a marathon before you even get to work!
She also asked people to share their worst parenting mistakes, and once she had shared her own, people were very forthcoming with some great stories!
Overall the book has a reassuring positivity, which I love.
With both of Dolly's children now at secondary school, she spoke about how our identity is like a little candle flame, and said that now that school drop offs and pick ups are a thing of the past, she is looking forward to putting a bit more time into nurturing that flame. For instance she's started learning the piano, and can now play 'very badly'. So I asked her to play us out with a tune. But she seemed oddly reluctant to do so!
Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones.
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