Breeding lessons: Daisy’s message for stressed parents
As a mum Daisy Haggard knows the difficulties of being a parent. Starring in comedy drama Breeders has given her a perspective on what it’s like to have children; as well as scaring the life out of her.
She is once more starring as stressed parent Ally, alongside The Office alumni Martin Freeman, in the third series of Sky Comedy’s cult hit.
“Parenthood keeps you on your toes,” says Haggard, 43, who is a mother of two.“and I think this show terrifies me, because it’s always ahead of me.
“I’m like,‘oh, is that gonna happen?’ But Ally’s very different to me, she’s much more sorted and grown-up than me, really.
“But I think I parent with humour, like I think Ally parents with humour. But apart from that, we’re also super different.
“I try to learn from her – and also, just teasing your kids and getting them to laugh at themselves. I think she’s quite good like that.”
As well as being a comical look at being a parent, the show tackles her character’s use of Hormone Replacement Therapy, which coincides with an issue in the news: a shortage of HRT drugs for women undergoing menopause.
“I don’t even know if that was actually happening at the time,” said Haggard. “I think it pre-empted it. And for women, you always feel like you want to be representing something that is underrepresented.
“You want to be telling a story. I’m always excited if I’m in a play and do something where I’m like,‘oh, that’s good, finally, something about that!’
“But yeah, I don’t think that had happened yet – the shortage – so that feels ridiculously timely and relevant right now.”
One of the strengths of the show is how both characters struggle with having children, something people, Haggard says, tend to hide.
“You know, when I first got the script, I got the scene of them being really tired and fighting about who’s going to get up and deal with the awake children. And I was like,‘this is so bang on!’ because I was literally going through that at home.
“It was so nice, because I was having that thing of looking on Instagram and seeing people going,‘oh, look at me and my baby, and my hair is all done and I look amazing!’ And I was like ‘AGH!’.
“At the time I probably looked at it and thought,‘oh, look, they’re doing so well – and they’ve got a six pack?!’ So, I think you’ve just got to switch those things off and do your best.”
Breeders, Sky Comedy, Wednesday, 10pm and on Now TV