"My kids ruined my career."

A look into Lily Allen's life and why context is always important.

Over the weekend, my feed was flooded with the headline from Lily Allen Says Having Kids 'Ruined My Career'. Those three words were quoted from Lily Allen's interview on The Radio Times Podcast and appear approximately three-and-a-half minutes from the end of the 50-minute episode. The British singer was asked if she changed her career path when she had children. She responded, "I never really had a strategy when it comes to a career," she laughs boldly, "but yes, my children ruined my career. I love them, and they complete me, but in terms of pop stardom? They totally ruined it." That headline stuck in my mind, but probably not for the reasons you would think. Though Allen's words may be brutal, there is truth to what she is saying, but the context of her upbringing, fame and privilege are equally significant. 

She is correct in that kids complicate our lives, and those complications usually affect the lives of mothers. They add another layer of priorities, organisation and passion to almost everything we do, including our careers. However, as I researched Lily Allen's family life, I discovered some verity in her words as she took a break from her singing career. After all, it is hard to continue to be an in-demand pop star and a present parent, as she also expressed on The Times Podcast, which was incredibly important to her. "Some people choose their career over their children, and that's their prerogative," the nepo baby said. "But my parents were quite absent when I was a kid, and I feel like that really left some nasty scars that I'm not willing to repeat on mine." There is a smidge of context as to why she stepped away from her career. The context that is often overlooked in the hot takes we see on TikTok.

There's another part to this that is not mentioned in the The Radio Times interview, however, in her 2018 memoir, My Thoughts Exactly. (Disclaimer: I haven't read this, but I listened to the summary on the Celebrity Memoir Bookclub Podcast). The hosts explain that a year and a half after Allen’s second daughter, Marnie was born, she began her 2014 Sheezus Tour. This tour did get bad reviews, but motherhood had nothing to do with it. The memoir details her illicit drug-taking, drinking and fornicating, which I am not judging. It all sounds very stereotypical pop star to me! She was the breadwinner and thus continued to work. Her husband and father of their two daughters, Sam Cooper, and what I assume, hired help were at home taking care of the children – a luxury most can not afford. The CMBP hosts explain that Allen had been quoted in the past saying, "motherhood is boring" (there are countless articles on this; here and here) and goes on to quote part of her memoir, "she says she loves being a mother but the day-to-day of just sitting around watching a baby bop around, you can only do that for so long."

After the Sheezus Tour, Allen became sober and divorced. Her current lifestyle and career were not serving her anymore and did not allow her to be the mother she wanted to be (from what I can assume from her words). For the next four years she left her life in the limelight and appeared to be sober, happy and healthier than ever before. She may have stepped away but she never truly left. She now i pursuing an acting career which is still a creative career with a no-doubt, demanding schedule. Her kids are out of their infancy; they are in school, communicating better (which is what she said she found so drab in the first place) and less physically dependent. All things that do make working motherhood a little easier.

Allen is part of the 1%. How she lives and how she was brought up is not relatable to the average family yet that one quote gives the illusion we are on level ground. When we quote women on the hardships of motherhood, especially working motherhood, we are not giving justice to the whole story. A mother reads a headline like that and she becomes riled up. A woman who is curious but yet to have children, immediately thinks her career is over once she does. That is why it is so important, even more now that clickbait headlines thrive and #tradwife are rife on our feeds, for us all to think critically about the content we consume online and the context of that individual’s life. The whole, complicated story is rarely told. It's often not divisive enough; it doesn't make our blood boil or cause an all-out war in the comments section, and more to the point; it doesn't allow us to make up our own minds. 

In Allen’s case I believe having kids was a choice and with that choice came the disruption to the life she use to lead. Her kids may have "ruined" one moment in her career, but by the sounds of things, having kids is also what has ultimately saved her.

For more chat on this topic follow me @jaderachelefox