S: The family thing is interesting, because it feels like society still determines women’s success by our personal lives.
E: It is. I have so many friends now where they’re the main breadwinner and the guy is more frequently at home with the kids, so I think the tides are slowly shifting. Since I’ve been a mum, a couple of women have come up to me and been like, “I don’t know how you work.” But then I have another friend who said that for a long time, she bought into the guilt-tripping that she shouldn’t go to work. And she’d be like, “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t leave my child.” But then one day she turned round and said [to him], “But I love what I do.” And now she’s inspiring her son to grow up and find a career that he loves too.
P: I was just one of those people who always knew they weren’t going to have kids. But I still got a lot of condescending remarks like, “Oh, but you’ll change your mind…”
E: That’s so annoying!
P: But then we had all that fuss recently about Theresa May not having kids and that whole issue of having childless politicians. So clearly there’s still work to be done.

S: Do you think these things get easier with age because people treat you differently – or do you just care less?
E: I absolutely care less. I’m always saying, “Oh, who cares?” now. It’s like I don’t have the energy to care any more – I don’t like dwelling on an unhappy thought or an unhappy relationship. So I don’t.
P: I’m in my 40s, and you get so much better at knowing what’s good for you and what will make you happy. We’re both successful and in nice relationships, which makes everything easier. You do get to a point where you miss your youth, but you don’t miss the way you feel in your 20s at all.
E: I was a complete idiot in my early 20s. A complete idiot.
P: I’m so grateful that I went through all the stupid, teenage, early 20s behaviour before everyone had a smartphone, so there aren’t loads of pictures of me drunkenly falling over.
E: Exactly! [Laughs]. I feel like in my 20s, I was much more of a follower. I wanted to be in with the cool crowd and wasn’t very strong in my convictions. I made some stupid mistakes, and I’m so glad nobody was documenting them. That’s why I feel for people like Justin Bieber, because at the end of the day, I would have hated to have had that kind of focus on me when I was a teenager. God knows what people would have thought of me.

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