Today is a special day for me as exactly 20 years ago I gave birth to my youngest daughter – on 25.05.2005 – and today is 25.05.2025. (I do love a bit of number magic….)
It feels like a moment to get the baby of the fam to double figures; we celebrated with a mighty pink Primrose Bakery cake (her fave) and a trip to Lina Stores for truffle pasta (SO good). There’s an old truism that you are only as ever as happy as your least happy child – and conversely their happiness and flourishing is bonus sweetness.
The ups…and downs of motherhood
I’ve been noodling around the ups and downs of mothering during my daily swims. It’s duckling season and, given our quacking friends are super-tame at the Ladies Pond, I get an up-close-and-personal encounter with duck family dynamics every day. Like in all families, it’s an emotional rollercoaster.
On Monday, there were 12 fluffy Coot ducklings, escorted around the yellow flag irises and lily pads by their proud mama. But then the heron and the seagulls arrived and by Wednesday there were only 2 babies left, their mum a bag of nerves chirruping heartbreakingly at the chicks, trying to keep them safe. My heart went out to the poor mum as I watched her being chivvied by other ducks, pecked at by a gull and then swooped on by a heron. Yes, nature, red in tooth and claw: I watched it munch one of the last ducklings for its lunch. Oh no!
Maybe I was over-identifying with mama duck’s trauma but if so, I wasn’t the only one.
The ladies were splashing water at the gulls to try and protect the chicks, the lifeguards getting on their paddle boards to see off the heron. All in vain: At time of writing, the chicks are all gone.
I couldn’t help noticing that duckling-gate was also accompanied by human mums freaking out about GCSEs and A levels. Exam season is in full flow – and it’s a big strain on the parents too.
If you are holding the ring while your kids buckle down (or not), I send you love and fortitude for the half term break. Remember: This too shall pass. Keep buying the biscuits and making the tea. I spent hours during exam season just sitting on their beds, often holding a foot, or just being there while they revised. Contact comfort. Having lived through A levels and GCSEs twice, (not to mention prelims and finals), all I can say is, it’s shit, but at least they aren’t being gobbled by a heron!
Me and Cherie (Blair)
Last weel I went to see one of the most famous working-mother of the last few decades, Cherie Blair KC, talking about her foundation, named appropriately enough The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women. It helps female entrepreneurs all over the world build and scale businesses. This isn’t micro-finance but proper support and access to finance and mentoring.
Cherie was hilarious about her early days at the bar. “In all my pupillage [barrister training] I never saw a female litigant,” she said. She added that at one seminar at London University, the senior barrister taking the lesson told the women present, “I know you are only here because you want to bag a rich husband.” At least that kind of publicly egregious sexism is a thing of the past.
But she also noted that despite women entering the legal profession in higher numbers than men for a while now, the top it is still stubbornly male. It is always a treat to see a woman close up you have admired for decades. Cherie – who got the highest First in her year and is one of our finest legal minds – did not disappoint.
Cherie’s take on sisterhood
She was particularly good on the power of sisterhood: “Yes, there are some Queen Bees out there, but the vast majority of women – in my experience – want to support each other. I’ve seen that all over the world. When we support a woman to start or scale a business, it improves not just her life but that of her family and her community. It gives women the power to say no and to control their lives and biology.”
She told a story about a Palestinian entrepreneur running a guest house: The place was filled with her kids, her in-laws, her grandchildren. “Where is your husband?” Cherie asked. “He didn’t like me being a businesswoman – so I divorced him!” the woman said. Cherie loved that.
What Cherie is like in person
Cherie talked about being the first Downing Street PM’s wife to insist on continuing her career, how she’d just become a KC (then a QC) when Blair became PM, that she didn’t want to give up all she had worked for and believed in. Even when she was fighting a case for the TUC against her husband’s government.
During her time in Number 10, the media portrayed her “a grasping, scheming embarrassment”, as she wrote in her book Speaking for Myself.
I loved her strong belief in a woman’s right to her own agency and how she has lived those beliefs wholeheartedly. In person she was super smart, funny, unapologetically a “bolshy Scouser”: “The more people tell me I can’t do something, the more I dig my heels in.”
High profile, humble beginnings
Cherie’s dad left her and her mum when she was 8. Her mum supported the family with a job in a local fish and chip shop.
When a younger lawyer asked what we can do to stop the push back against women’s rights – Cherie responded that we re-double our efforts: We keep pushing forward.
In a world where Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are becoming dirty words (she pointed out that no one is in favour of “inequity, exclusion or group think…”), it was refreshing to hear a rousing call to action.
What can yesterday’s ‘superwomen’ tell us?
Cherie hails from the era when women “did it all”. She was in court 2 days before giving birth to her fifth child (the judge asked if she wanted to sit down, she preferred to stand!). There is a lot spoken now about the terrible price women pay for “having it all”.
But without trailblazers like Cherie (and my own aunt, Barbara Mills, the first female Director of Public Prosecutions and, like Cherie, an early Silk), there wouldn’t be so many women in the law today.
Whatever you personally think of Cherie, all of us who come in the wake of this generation of women owe them a debt of gratitude. I’m glad that my daughters won’t face the obstacles these ‘first’ women did. They forged a path which makes it easier for those who follow.
The recognition I am after for Queenagers – the new story we are trying to tell about our pioneering generation – is only possible because we stand on the shoulders of other impressive women.
Now, let’s talk money…
The Cherie event talked about female entrepreneurs and female investing. It was hosted by a financial services group called Y Tree, who say they are focussing on What Women Want. (We know one thing women want at our age: financial freedom!)
It’s becoming quite the topic.
Last week we produced the NOON/HSBC report about the problems Queenager entrepreneurs have starting businesses and accessing capital. Also this week McKinsey produced a landmark survey of female wealth.
As the McKinsey report makes clear, financial services companies and banks are missing a huge trick. Only 17% of Independent financial advisors are women and many midlife women are mistrustful of institutions that don’t understand the way we think, or speak to us in our own language.
Two money topics to think about
I want to talk about money from two directions. One is about us as individuals.
As Queenagers, we have not only earned our own money. Many of us might be inheriting from parents or older spouses, or have cash from divorce.
Back in 2023, we ran our Queenager Financial Spanx campaign – the first of several aimed at helping all of us be more money savvy. What we found was that we experience something of an information vacuum.
Many midlife women feel put off by traditional advice because it doesn’t frame the financials in terms of female life goals and possibilities – around legacy or inheritance or inadequate pensions or what we can do for ourselves or kids if we have them (a third of Queenagers are childfree). This needs to change.
The good news is that in the UK women will control 60% of wealth by 2030. Not so good is that 53% of wealth held by women isn’t under management. It’s languishing in cash ISAs or savings accounts. We can and should be investing it.
We are the future of the economy
The other money topic I want to talk about is about the entrepreneurship and investing.
Queenagers are behind 75% of discretionary spending and now as a group have huge amounts of investible wealth; more of us midlife women need to use that financial firepower to back Queenager entrepreneurs.
All of you who support NOON by becoming members and gave to our crowdfunding campaign have invested in female entrepreneurship (feels good, doesn’t it?). You’ve played an important role in changing that paradigm!
If women could build and scale businesses at the same rate as men, we’d add £250 billion to the UK economy. (Hello, Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer, if you want GROWTH, then sorting out this ecosystem is crucial.)
Women have a 53% higher return on investment in their businesses than male founders. We are a great bet but are receiving only 2% of Venture Capital funding worldwide – probably because 83% of VC decision makers are men!
If you are interested in hearing more about this, I did a LinkedIn Live with Female Founders Rise on Thursday – you can see the recording here.
Businesses and investors need to wake up
I am heartened by the attention that midlife women and our financial power is finally commanding: I thought when I started NOON that the Queenager money math would make us an irresistible market for brands.
What I hadn’t bargained for was the gendered ageism which stops us being “seen” or spoken to. I fervently hope that is starting to change.
We’ll be talking more about making the most of your money soon. Until then, let’s embrace how important we are to a strong, forward-looking economy!
New events – near and far!
For now the sun is shining and the ducklings await (maybe). Enjoy your bank holiday weekend! If you fancy some “cul-churr”, come to the Well Read at Wasing Festival where I am speaking on the Midlife Pivot into Purpose at lunchtime on Bank Holiday Monday.
We’ve also just launched an affordable day retreat in Warwickshire on June 22nd, with the specific aim of providing classic NOON retreat elements at an accessible price. Our Warwickshire Day Retreat takes place at a NOON member’s beautiful farm, where we’ll walk, swim, NOON Circle, have lunch, drink tea, play with puppies and chickens, hang out, make new friends – all for £48 for Members! Book before all the spaces are gone….
Looking for something further afield?
And for those of you fancying a bit more of an adventure – we’re off to the pyramids on November 13th!
On this special Egypt trip – our first Queenager tour with Voyages Jules Verne – we’ll have a private tour guide, a NOON Circle on a boat, a visit to ancient monuments in the desert with a Queenager Egyptologist and MUCH more fun. I’ll be leading the trip and it’s already selling fast – here’s the link. Don’t miss out!
Don’t forget to book Circles
We hope to see lots of you at our June Circles – I’ll be hosting the London one in Knightsbridge on Tuesday June 3rd and we’ve got an Online Circle on June 2nd – as well as lots all over the UK. Sign up today!
All the best
Eleanor x
