After years of never wanting children, the presenter gave in to pressure at 40 – she talks 50/50 parenting duties, receiving an intervention during postnatal depression, and raising a baby while in perimenopause
“If I hadn’t met [my husband] Boj, I wouldn’t have children. I’d be a dog mum,” Kate Lawler, television presenter, podcaster and bestselling author, tells me. “He was instrumental in my decision; he really wanted it.”
Lawler is chatting to me in between filming, the school run and a vet acupuncture appointment for her 15-year-old dog (“He’s got spondylosis; it really does loosen him up and help him walk,” she explains). The 45-year-old, who became famous when she won Big Brother aged 22, met podcast company owner Martin Bojtos when she was 33 and was upfront about her intentions, telling him: ‘I’m not getting married and I’m not having children: it’s not on my radar.’ Then she fell in love.
A few years later, he asked about kids. “I told him, ‘It’s not for me, babes, but I’d happily get another dog,’ she remembers. “So we got another dog, and I was such a loving dog mama that all my maternal joy was radiating towards my two dogs: I treated them like babies.”
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But, she says, he kept returning to the subject. “He just kept on. And I was like, ‘I did tell you at the start’, and he was like, ‘Yeah, but you have to give me some kind of hope. We’ve been together seven years now, and I feel like we’re not going anywhere.’”
It was when she turned 40 that she changed her mind. “We went to a fertility clinic the year before, and [the doctor] said I was really close to perimenopause. My egg reserve was very low. Getting the results made me cry. And I thought: ‘Why am I upset? Maybe I do want children’.”
They had countless conversations on the subject, including on their podcast Maybe Baby (they also have a podcast called Boj and Kate Have A Lot On Their Plate about food and family life), and Lawler was clear that if they did have a child, she’d want an equal relationship.
“It’s a 50/50 responsibility,” she says. “He’s always there in the mornings doing breakfast if I’m getting Noa ready for school, and he’s there for bath and bed – we are really fortunate to have him home a lot, I know some parents are out all day. We’re told, as women, we can have it all. Now, just looking at your WhatsApp messages is a full-time job. I’m trying to be a parent and be a dog mum, and have a job. It comes at a cost. We can have it all, but it’s incredibly difficult.”
The domestic load remains a subject of contention in Lawler’s north London home. “A woman will always do more, we have it harder. I still have to delegate and remind him that we agreed 50/50 if it feels like it’s slipping again. My husband this morning said: ‘You never pick up dog poo in the garden’,” she tells me. “I said: ‘Don’t complain about that. Because all your clothes are clean, in a pile in your room; the house is constantly tidy. But he does stick to an equal split. He does the gardening and poo picking and a lot of cooking – I really appreciate that.”
Even with a supportive partner, she finds it hard to juggle her career. “I’m in hormonal hell, going through an awful perimenopause. If you had postnatal depression, your perimenopause can be rough because your brain is really sensitive to hormonal changes and imbalances. I’m having the busiest year, and need to learn more about work-life balance. Last week, I didn’t get to see my chiropractor or go to the gym, things I need to do to be a better version of me.”
Lawler had postnatal depression after the birth of her daughter, Noa, who is now four (and is currently working with Aldi on an awareness-raising campaign – the supermarket has added mental health guidance to packs of its baby wipes). “My health visitor came over a few times, and every time I cried, and she said, ‘Oh, don’t worry. It will go away. Go to your doctor if you feel like you need extra support’.”
Eventually, her husband ‘staged an intervention’. “He could see I wasn’t coping, but I was being that typical: ‘I’m okay. I can do this. I will not be a failure’. I felt so guilty, because I had a perfectly healthy child, my pregnancy was really chilled, my birth was fine,” she tells me, before mentioning that newborn Noa was in intensive care for a few days, and then had a temperature of 40 degrees, and a couple of weeks later had suspected meningitis and a “horrific” lumbar puncture. “It wasn’t a great start. I think that may have sparked PND, and I found breastfeeding really hard,” she remembers.
So Boj contacted the producer on MTV’s Celebrity Bumps, which Lawler was filming, and they got her a therapist, while he took her to the GP to get medication. “He also looked at our finances, and we got a night nanny twice weekly so I could sleep. I didn’t think anyone else had postnatal depression until I started speaking about it,” she remembers.
She shared her experiences on social media and found “solace and comfort” from the replies of strangers who’d been through similar, not just recently but decades earlier. “Three in four parents go through mental health challenges in the perinatal period, which is shocking because only 17 per cent ask for support. Not everyone has someone to whom they can utter those words, whether it’s ‘I am depressed’ or ‘I’m feeling suicidal’, ‘I’m having intrusive thoughts’ or ‘I’m not bonding with my baby’.”
It was a slow recovery to feeling like herself. “I love my daughter so much, but it has definitely been one of the most emotionally challenging periods of my life. During that first year, every month I’d go: ‘I feel a bit better’. Then, two months later, I’d look back and realise I was really bad even then. I slowly started to come out of it. I really feel sad that happened in [Noa’s] first year of my life, but I like to use it for good, and remind people it’s okay to not be okay – a lot of women feel guilty, especially if they’ve had a long fertility struggle.”
Now, she loves being an older mum. “I’d already calmed down partying and going out; I was living a more wholesome life anyway. I don’t feel like I’m giving up anything. There are definitely advantages to being a young parent as well. But there’s no way I could have been the parent I am to Noa in my 20s or 30s. It was my path to wait and meet Boj: I never thought I’d meet a patient, kind, caring man.
“I’m wiser, I love being a mum. I love going to soft play. I actually love going to kids’ birthday parties and chatting to parents. I love raising a little person and want to spend time with her because I love her so much.”
For Lawler, the best bit of parenting is seeing your child develop. Noa has just started reception and comes home with a new book to read each night. She’s just written her first story. “I appreciate this as a 45-year-old. I don’t think I’d appreciate that as a 20-year-old,” she admits. “I’ve read more books in the past four years than in my entire life. Yeah, they’re all children’s books, but it inspired me to write a children’s book.
“Every single stage feels like the best bit: Noa says the word dada, or she’s crawling, or walking. Then suddenly she’s hilarious: coming out with one-liners, and then they cuddle you and tell you they love you. I love my dogs as much as I love Noa, but the dogs are always babies.”
PANDAS provides free support for those struggling with prenatal and postnatal mental health. To use the service simply message 07903 508334 and you will be connected to a trained PANDAS volunteer.
