Janie Oliver: ‘Parenting definitely won’t be what you expect but if you let yourself, you’ll find joy and magic in places you won’t anticipate.’

Janie, tell us what your early life was like, you grew up in South Africa?

So, yes, my early years were in apartheid South Africa, which was an interesting time to be alive. I remember Mandela being released in 1990 and our first democratic election in 1994. I was at primary school as integration started, and we had our first non-white child. It was a seminal time. I was young and didn’t really understand all of what was going on, but you could feel how exciting it was for the country at the time and just how amazing it was that it was such a peaceful transition.

South Africa was and remains a very unequal society and I think my early experiences of poverty and injustice around me have driven me to focus on those issues ever since. When you grow up with great need and injustice so close all the time, you can’t help but be profoundly impacted by it and it has clearly influenced my life including my career path.

Did you grow up going to church? Were your parents Christians?

Yeah, I grew up going to a relatively traditional Anglican church. It’s funny because my dad had a role in the church that included dealing with the collection and I used to help him, and I loved it so much. I used to love putting all the coins in piles and counting them. So maybe that’s another precursor to what I have gone on to do in my career!

looking back now isn’t God amazing that he really takes all our experiences, even our early childhood and he moulds us and equips us to what he calls us to do

We moved churches a couple of times in my teenage years, and as we moved our faith was deepened as a family through doing an Alpha course and embracing a more charismatic form of faith. We ended up in a church in Cape Town called the Church of the Holy Spirit which was just wonderful. In South Africa it’s common to go to your local university and stay at home, which worked well as I was very happy at home and the church.

What was what was faith like at home? Did your parents do specific things in terms of family worship?

Well, my parents spoke about their faith a lot, they would pray with us regularly not just at mealtimes but in general life. So, if we were struggling with something, they would talk to us about it and then my mum would often say, shall we pray about it? So that was really something, it left an impression on me.

The other thing that was influential was their heart for generosity. So, there was always this idea that if you hadn’t played with a toy or worn some clothes for a while then the question should be: should you give that away? It wasn’t stuff that was in bad condition, it was just stuff that wasn’t being used. Similarly, any excess food never went to waste. There was always stuff being given away; faith, was really practical.

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There was also this underlying idea that you should always serve and just serve where God has put you and with whatever God has blessed you. So even when I was 13, I started leading worship and bear in mind I was grade 3 piano and my sister was too - so I played with my right hand, and she played with her left hand piano! But the church was amazing to let us have a go and we were encouraged into that by our parents.

So, you grew up around visible injustice, ended up counting money with your dad, were encouraged by your parents to be generous and to serve with whatever gifts you had. Does it feel like you were being prepared to become involved in the Christian charity sector?

It is interesting to look back at it in that way. In my professional life I’ve always seen how my work experiences have led me on in my career, but I’ve never thought about my childhood, my upbringing, in that way, but yes looking back now isn’t God amazing that he really takes all our experiences, even our early childhood and he moulds us and equips us to what he calls us to do.

And when did you move to the UK?

After qualifying as an accountant after my time at university I wasn’t quite ready to settle down to a permanent job in Cape Town and so was ready to spread my wings a bit! I have a British passport because my mum was born in the UK and I had cousins in London I could stay with initially, so I made the decision to move to London and three weeks later I arrived. It was a year before the financial crisis, and I got a job at Barclays in finance which afforded me a good work life balance and great experience.

I did struggle to find the right church for a while, and it was only once I got married a few years later that we started going to a really great church. I would say that my faith story since I’ve been in the UK is that I’ve had a series of moments where I’ve been to festivals or on courses and God has revealed himself to me in new ways and my faith has evolved in stages from what it was when I was with my family in South Africa. Moving to Stewardship has been one of those moments, my faith has just grown exponentially, it’s been such a huge blessing for me being at this organisation.

You then start a family in the UK – what are your overriding thoughts and memories?

My two daughters are now 8 and 11 and my overriding feelings of being a mum is that it’s probably the most important, difficult and rewarding job you can do. I also think it’s probably the job where you receive the most unsolicited opinions and it’s the job where you’ll need the most help, but often you don’t know what the help looks like. It’s a job that never ends. It’s 24-7, 365 days a year, it looks different in every season, and it’s paid not in cash but love, affection, tears and tantrums. It’s wonderful, all consuming, inspiring, challenging and a gift. My girls are the most precious gift that I have from God.

There’s a lot of unrealistic pressure, particularly on women, to be amazing at everything

And do you feel a lot of pressure being a mum and working full time in what must be a busy job?

There’s a lot of unrealistic pressure, particularly on women, to be amazing at everything. You’ve got to look amazing, cook amazing food for everyone, be great at your job, serve at church and have well behaved children all the time and be really lovely and kind and wonderful to everyone all the time and that’s not to mention all the demands that are coming from school 24/7 about going to all the events. So yes, it’s pressured, but you’ve got to prioritise and learn what to say no to. So, for example I don’t cook from scratch most of the time, but that’s fine, I think my children are relatively healthy!

On top of all that we have been journeying with a neuro diverse child, my eldest daughter, who was diagnosed with autism nearly two years ago. We’ve been learning to live with that and the challenges that brings. Girls are great at masking and so sometimes people think she is being rude or just very shy because she doesn’t greet them in the way others would. She has Passive Demand Avoidance (PDA) so oftentimes she’ll not do something simply because she’s been told to do it. There’s then judgement that comes with that with people saying that we just need to be stricter, so it’s taken and is taking a lot of work to get to a place of understanding, but yeah, by God’s grace, we’re working it out together.

In terms of faith in the home, are there things that you’ve done in the home to develop faith in in your girls that have worked well and maybe things that have not worked quite so well?

We pray together as a family each day. To be honest, I don’t know how well it’s working, sometimes people wander around or speak, sometimes it just looks like me praying or it’s a lot of me asking them to be quiet but when I say we’re not going to do it they protest and pester me to pray, so maybe it’s working better than it feels at times…we just keep going.

I guess, the focus on the continued value of prayer might be something I have inherited from my parents and the same goes for service and generosity. Our girls see us serving the church and community through the week, it’s part of what we do and, I try to continue that inculcation of generosity through action. So, for example, we encourage them to give away a toy so like the other day, I said, can you both go and get five toys that you don’t want anymore because you’ve got so many things, and some children have almost nothing or nothing at all. So, I try to talk about our faith in really practical ways – that was instilled in me and it’s something that I am passing on.

you will love your children more fiercely and they will teach you more than you could ever imagine

And then it was maybe two years ago, my little one was going through a difficult time, not wanting to go into school, really struggling with confidence. And so, we started prayer journaling together, so we’d write down the three things she was grateful for each day and then who she wanted to pray for. Sometimes she’d pray and sometimes I’d pray and over a few months I could see such a change in her. Spiritually speaking that’s the power of prayer but also ensuring that we talked about the positives helped, I’m sure.

In terms of things we’ve struggled with more, I think Christian festivals are a problem for us, simply because there is too much going on for my two, it’s too busy and intense. In the past we’ve just spent most of our time managing our children at festivals.

We’ve also had some issues with individual prayer and helping my children understand that prayer is a conversation and listening is as important as asking. I see the work that some children’s organisations do which just looks amazing, but I think some of it can just be too much for my children. Whether it’s an age thing or a character thing I don’t know but it’s just something we’re having to take slowly.

If you could give yourself one piece of advice before you had your first child, what would it be?

I would say to let go of expectations. Parenting definitely won’t be what you expect but if you let yourself, you’ll find joy and magic in places you won’t anticipate. I would say you will love your children more fiercely and they will teach you more than you could ever imagine. God will really use them to shape and refine you. You just hold on for the adventure and trust him because he’ll never let you go.

Janie Oliver is CEO of Stewardship, a charity serving Christian donors, workers, charities and churches to faithfully steward their resources. She is a chartered accountant by profession and has held significant senior roles in both the charity and corporate sectors.