Dirty Mother Pukka with Anna Whitehouse

Happiness is a fairly elusive concept. Fleeting, perhaps. While contentment feels a little more accessible. In this episode, Anna and Polly question where their happiness lies - however momentary - and why we’re struggling to celebrate people’s happiness in 2023.

In this episode Anna opens up about the stress of her kids fighting constantly. How to break the sibling rivalry cycle. And how to regroup as a family when the fighting gets tough. Practical tips and emotional confessions abound in an episode that unites our brothers and sisters.

In this episode Anna and Polly celebrate the power of platonic love. Inspired by two women who chose to live as PLP’s (Platonic Life Partners) over settling down with a romantic partner, there’s a question for Team Dirty Mother Pukka: should we just move in with our best mate and be done with it?

In this open-hearted chat, the author and podcaster Kate Ferdinand opens up on life married to Rio and what it took/takes to raise another woman’s family (after Rio’s wife Rebecca sadly passed away before they met). From step parenting to blending families, this is an episode that opens up what family really means in 2023.

Far from some frantic fingering in the 90s, Anna and Polly have found the true meaning of foreplay. If you awkwardly get into bed buttoning up your PJs for fear of a sexual move from your partner, this one’s for you. From desire and sexting to erotic looks and massage, this is another world of sexual healing.

Fats has been discriminated against from the moment she was born. She describes herself as a ‘little person’ but what she has faced has been huge. At school she was thrown into an industrial bin and left - and throughout her life she’s had to question who really loves her, who really wants to be with her. This episode is on self love, self confidence and how one women rebuilt herself when everyone...

The tables have turned and after speaking about Polly’s ADHD diagnosis last week, she asks Anna about her anxiety. How to know if it’s severe, when to go to the GP and how to navigate everyday life without having as many panic attacks.

We're digging this incredible conversation out from the archives. Stella opens up about the reality of being a mother in Parliament and what needs to change across the board. In this punchy chat, she cracks open the issues surrounding motherhood and work. And, well, how to make it work.

In this open chat Polly opens up about her ADHD diagnosis and how she found out. How she has felt and if the drugs really do work. The pair then talk to chef Gizzi Erskine about her ADHD diagnosis and the trio wonder why this specific neurodiversity is only just being understood in women.

The brilliant organisation expert opens her doors, cupboards and drawers to show the beauty of living less chaotically. Far from just being a clean queen, this episode is about the mental health associations with clearing out your home, how to do it realistically when you have a family. And what it feels like to finally sort your life/ home out.

In this episode we go back to one of our most popular episodes where we talk to presenter Cherry Healey on exiting her marriage. How she did is calmly and kindly. And how to know when to get out. This episode is a deep-dive into irretrievable breakdown and, well, not breaking in the process.

You may know her as Mandy from Hollyoaks but actress Sarah Jayne Dunn was fired from the show for daring to start an OnlyFans account. She speaks up about the double standards of a TV industry that had her posing topless on every lads mag but fires her for doing it for herself. In this episode we go back to a 90s era of Nuts, Zoo and FHM, questioning what has actually changed since those magazines...

Why is it so hard to actually sleep? We are the most exhausted we’ve ever been and could barely string a sentence together - and yet sleep does not come. A lot of that is children hollering but also when we do have time, it’s impossible to wind down. But what does this level of sleep deprivation actually look like? And how does it impact your life?

The revered beauty writer doesn’t hold back on the grip sugar has had on her life. Having been recently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, Ateh reflects on her binge-eating and childhood trauma to understand the magnitude of what some might minimise as a ‘sweet tooth’. She also opens up about her experience of being a Black woman in a white woman’s magazine world. She worked at Vogue House as a beaut...

One word: oxytocin. If you aren’t getting it through shagging your partner, then you can get it by simply reaching out to others. In this episode Anna and Polly dig deep on who has made them feel the love hormone unexpectedly. From Polly’s NICU nurse to a woman called Becky in seat 32E on a Ryanair flight to Stanstead, this episode is about looking up and reaching out to the people in front of you...

If you want to laugh through the pain of procreation, Jen Brister is your woman. From taking the piss out of herself as the seemingly ‘awkward friend’ next to her wife at the birth of her twins to acknowledging the madness of an IVF pregnancy, this is a one-woman-show that brings everyone else in. From same sex parenting to raising the next generation to truly understand inclusion, this episode is...

This episode pays tribute to Jacqueline Gold, a woman who sat at the helm of Ann Summers all her working life. She single-handedly changed the face of the sex toy industry, removing shame and pioneering the iconic rampant rabbit. Anna and Polly only spoke to Jacqueline last year before she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. She sadly passed away last week and the girls wanted to take a mome...

This is one for anyone wanting to understand autism. In adults or kids. This isn’t one to gloss over because you haven’t been diagnosed or feel it isn’t relevant. We all need to understand neurodiversity to truly be inclusive and this is a heartfelt, informed conversation between three women - one who has been diagnosed, one whose son is going through the process - and what to consider - and one w...

The backdrop to Dirty Mother Pukka is, well, more than a podcast. We decided to start it in - quite frankly - our lowest moment. To give each other structure and accountability week-in-week-out. Isolation and loneliness happens in the least likely places sometimes. Whether in a marriage, in a home, in motherhood, this episode is our love story to you. Our love story for each other. Because no matt...

God we love this woman. From dancing to Hear’Say in our student unions to partying - what felt alongside her - in sticky-floored nightclubs, Suzanne Shaw was the girl-next-door who knew how to party. But at what cost? And who was she underneath what the music label had decided? In this open-hearted episode Anna and Polly talk about the complexity of binge-drinking and how grey area boozing wasn’t...

When Helen Thorn’s husband cheated on her, she found love with her best friend and work wife Ellie Gibson. This episode is the happily ever after we were never sold. The one where woman falls for women amid the pain of infidelity. Original music by Matt J Brown at WeAreOK.com.

This episode cracks open the reality of abuse in a relationship. Physical and non-physical. What are the signs? And how do you support someone going through it - and how to get out of it. Malin talks to Anna and Polly about rebuilding after Love Island and finding her inner strength outside of the male gaze. Original music by Matt J Brown at WeAreOK.com.

Bored of missionary? Done with doggy? There are no words for what Polly says in this episode. Left complete tumble weed as we discuss new sex positions to try. But there’s ONE that truly works and after raking through a list of 48 others, it’s time to mix it up. Let’s talk about sex, indeed. Original music by Matt J Brown at WeAreOK.com.

In this episode Anna and Polly go deep into the postnatal trenches and talk about the impact kids have had on their relationship. From birth trauma to pure anger, this episode is a cathartic listen for anyone with pent-up maternal rage with nowhere to put it - other than on your partner.

It’s been exactly a year since Dirty Mother Pukka launched and the first episode with Myleene Klass landed. She spoke so beautifully and openly about her experience of miscarriage and the one thing she said in that episode has stayed with me - and so many of you - since. It’s given me peace where there was pain and emptiness. So many of you keep asking for this clip so here it is for you to share...