It started as a low-key spreadsheet. Meet the 30-something duo blowing up ‘the rules’ of early parenting

This story is part of the December 4 edition of Sunday Life.See all 15 stories.

Like many founder stories, this one starts with a problem. But unlike most, it also involves a pregnancy test and a tightly curated spreadsheet.

When Kate Casey, now 37, learnt she was pregnant the first time – “As soon as I’d peed on a stick”, she recalls – she hit the baby stores with a mix of excitement and trepidation. But instead of the fun experience she had hoped for when shopping for the biggest event in her life, she left feeling frustrated and overwhelmed, “like they were forcing everything on me”.

Casey, a one-time beauty buyer for David Jones and Mecca, turned to a friend, a lawyer, who shared a holy grail list of baby items after her own less-than-ideal experience. It was on a low-key Excel spreadsheet, broken into categories: feeding, nursery and so on.

After the birth of Matilda, now 6, Casey returned to work. It was only when she became pregnant again, with Jack, now 4, that she had her light-bulb moment after another retail ordeal.

“I felt like I was being spoken down to … [as if shop staff think], ‘You’re pregnant, here’s some plastic crap,’” she says. “I thought, ‘Why isn’t there something like Mecca, for babies?’ ”

Many women have their own version of Casey’s story. In my case, becoming a first-time mother at 41 (during a pandemic, no less) meant a lot of my friend’s children were grown up, and the collective knowledge around childhood – not to mention the research about issues such as safe sleeping – had moved on. “Oh, it was much simpler in my day,” was a common refrain from women in my life who had given birth 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

Whether or not child-rearing is more complicated today is an ongoing debate. Two-thirds of respondents to a 2020 study by the US-based Pew Research Centre said parenting today was more complicated than 20 years ago, due to factors including social media and smartphones. But then, practically every house today has plenty of modern conveniences that help parents immensely, so the jury is out.

Still, what was abundantly clear to Casey was that there were 10,000 products for babies, many of which were over-hyped and being peddled needlessly to parents when they were at their most vulnerable. In 2019, she reached out to fellow beauty industry whiz Phoebe Simmonds, who had worked for Benefit Cosmetics and had just launched her own blow-dry bar, The Blow.

Casey pitched to Simmonds the idea for a one-stop online destination for modern (read: Pilates-going, Net-a-Porter-shopping) parents they’d eventually call The Memo. The name is an ode to that humble spreadsheet: each time someone announced they were expecting, someone else would say, “I’ll send you the memo.”

Using their own savings, they launched The Memo that October with about 400 products, putting an emphasis on blind spots at the big-box stores, such as postnatal care. (Its first physical store opened in September this year in Armadale, in suburban Melbourne.)

At the time of the online launch, Simmonds, now 35, was single and didn’t have children, but says this gave the pair an unexpected edge when it came to tackling some of the biggest shortcomings in the parenting sphere.

“The message out there is that there’s one way to parent, and we felt there was an opportunity to completely break that down,” Simmonds says. “We’re all coming to parenthood from completely different values and beliefs. There’s no clear directive and it’s incredibly confusing if one place is telling you one thing and one sleep consultant is telling you another. It can freak you out.”

If there is any doubt about the minefield that is early parenthood, consider a recent Australian study that examined 600 randomly selected Instagram images with the hashtag #postpartumbody. It found only one in 20 showed stretch marks, cellulite, sagging breasts or scars.

Monash University’s Dr Heidi Bergmeier, who contributed to the research, says many of the images “don’t seem representative of real life” for the average woman recovering from pregnancy, and could expose them to “feelings of inadequacy and body dissatisfaction” if they sought to compare themselves to the social media ideal.

At the same time, one in six Australian women experiences postnatal depression, and calls to the perinatal advice and support service PANDA have jumped over the past 12 months.

But things are changing. This month, supermodel Ashley Graham shared a photo of her stomach, nine months after giving birth to twins, with her 19.3 million Instagram followers. The skin was rippled and stretch marks were peeking out from the waistband of her pants.

“The message out there is that there’s one way to parent, and we felt there was an opportunity to completely break that down.”

Phoebe Simmonds, The Memo

It followed a video she posted in June, which Graham dedicated to mothers who “haven’t and may never ‘bounce back’ and for anyone who needs to be reminded that your body is beautiful in its realest form”.

Bounce-back culture, sleep, feeding, childcare, screen time … the list of issues modern parents must navigate – sometimes in one afternoon – is mind-boggling. And that’s before new parents enter the maelstrom of the multibillion-dollar baby industry, which Casey and Simmonds assert has been set up for parents, especially mothers, to fail.

Both are determined to tackle all the issues facing new parents, no matter how delicate, including breast and bottle feeding. “We’re never going to tell you what we think you should do,” says Simmonds. “We will give you recommendations, suggestions and guidance. The rest is up to you, and we’ll support you to do it your way.”

Recalling her first postpartum experience, Casey’s grateful the conversation around motherhood, and the products available to help women, have progressed. “When my daughter was born, the Haakaa silicone breast pump [a cult-status milk catcher from New Zealand] didn’t exist,” she says. “I was strapped to a pump with that terrible noise.”

Casey says it’s hard to believe that it was only six years ago that women experiencing breast engorgement, or pain after a vaginal birth, were using cabbage leaves and frozen, water-filled condoms as there was nothing better available. She’s pleased to see brands developing more luxury postpartum-care products.

“People tended not to talk about [postpartum] as much ... it was a word that was hardly used back then,” Casey says. “Or haemorrhoids; they just weren’t talked about. Or that it was okay to go home from the hospital and ask people to not come over.” Forget society’s expectation that you would make 45 cups of tea for visitors after just two hours’ sleep. Be direct in asking for help. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you need.

Last year, Simmonds became pregnant with her first child, Remy, now six months, with partner Shaun, who has a five-year-old son, Tyler, with his former partner, Sam, who died suddenly when Tyler was a baby. Rather than project the #girlboss image of pregnancy – that is, acting like you’re not pregnant at all – Simmonds went in warts and all, even when she was diagnosed with cervical insufficiency, a condition in which the cervix opens too early in the pregnancy and is associated with a high risk of pre-term birth.

“I didn’t think anyone would be interested,” she says about vlogging her ordeal while she was on months of bed rest. “Turns out, they were. Our community is just so keen to connect and to feel that they’re not alone.”

Another positive shift in recent times is the normalising of giving gifts once viewed as taboo – perineal wash bottle, anyone? “When my friends had a baby, I would bring them a teddy bear, and now I know better,” Simmonds says.

“They want some chicken soup, someone to empty the dishwasher, or someone to hold the baby so they can wash their hair in peace.”

Simmonds hopes that by opening a more honest conversation around parenthood, the wider baby industry will take note.

“People tended not to talk about [postpartum] as much.... Or that it was okay to go home from the hospital and ask people to not come over.”

Kate Casey, The Memo

“Women have been screaming out for understanding and support for centuries,” she says. “So why aren’t brands listening? Why, in a category that’s all about a mother and her own experience, are we only just now investing in products like … portable pumps so I can go to work or the footy and continue to live my life and feed my baby. People are saying it’s a miracle but it should have happened 30 years ago.”

Since having Remy, Simmonds has shared images of her pumping and plenty of stories that once would have been considered NSFW (not suitable for work) but are now a normal part of the parenting conversation – just like Rihanna showing off her baby belly, or beauty influencer Heidi Moustafa sharing her battles with postnatal depression with her nearly 400,000 YouTube followers.

“I went for a run at 12 weeks and it was not pretty – I literally had wee in my sock,” Simmonds says. “So people need to understand their limitations and not push themselves. Just as babies are different, parents are different and bodies are different.

“That’s the crux. We want our community to feel we are there for them … You can do anything but you can’t do everything. I think that’s really important to share.”

PANDA helpline: 1300 726 306.

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