Learning the lessons of life
YouTube stars turn to audio to document their path to parenthood
Married YouTube stars Rose and Rosie Daughton have a lot to celebrate right now. They’ve been shortlisted in the broadcaster category at this year’s prestigious British LGBT Awards, up against the likes of Phillip Schofield. Plus they are now parents, Rosie giving birth to baby Ziggy at the beginning of July.
The comic Cotswoldsbased duo got together in 2011, and by their third date had made their first vlog, with subsequent episodes of their lively videos gaining them mass popularity on the platform for their banter and relatable overshares; the pair now the UK’s most successful same-sex couple on YouTube, with 1.6 million subscribers.
The now-thirtysomething pair released a book in 2018 called Overshare: Love, Laughs, Sexuality And Secrets, before, in 2020, launching a podcast, Rose and Rosie: Parental Guidance.
With trademark humour and candour, plus heaps of warmth and sensitivity, the podcast sees them share details of their “crazy journey” to starting a family and chat with a range of guests.
Delving into modern parent- ing dilemmas
(like gender reveals and raising an anti-racist child), they ponder how their identities might change in the future, and whether they’ll agree on everything, as well as opening up about the really hard moments – like when Rose, who had originally planned to carry first, suffered a traumatic miscarriage during the first lockdown
last spring.
The podcast took a short break, understandably, in the run-in to Ziggy’s arrival, before the pair returned to the casting with ‘Our Birth Story’ earlier in August
LGBTQ+ representation and visibility have always been a big motivation for Rose and Rosie. “We understand we don’t represent everybody, and that’s also the point with the podcast – parenthood comes in all shapes and sizes, everybody’s different – and so we use the podcast to try and talk to as many different families as possible,” says Rosie. “Equally, we had lots of feedback before our parenthood
journey, about how just being a
visible couple [was helpful for people]. We didn’t shout about being gay or anything, we were just being ourselves, and people were like, ‘Wow, you are really normalising that, just by showing what you have’ – and we want that with same-sex parenting too.”
Rose adds: “Definitely. There is so little representation and information out there. We need to talk about this stuff.”
It makes them think back to the days of sex education in schools, when there was no mention of things like safe sex for LGBTQ+ students. “There was no education there,” says Rosie. And now it’s like there’s nothing on fertility for LGBTQ+ people.”
Well, not if Rose and Rosie can help it. And fans can rest assured – they won’t be hanging up their video cameras and mics any time soon.
Rose and Rosie: Parental Guidance is on Spotify.