May 25, 2026 • 42 mins
Boys aren’t born less emotional - so when do they start learning to hide it? In this episode of Wiggle Talk, Simon and Lachy are joined by clinical psychologist and men’s mental health expert Dr Zac Seidler for a powerful conversation about raising boys who are kind, confident and emotionally connected.
From the messages boys absorb early, to the online worlds waiting for them later, Zac explains why parents don’t need to panic - but they do need to stay curious, stay connected and help boys build the language, trust and self-worth they’ll need as they grow.
HOSTS
Simon Pryce
Lachlan Gillespie
GUEST
Dr Zac Seidler
You can find out more about Movember here.
PRODUCERS
Produced by The Wiggles and Mylk Media
Madeline Joannou
Nick Webb
For more Wiggly fun, visit:
The Wiggles 🌏 http://thewiggles.com
YouTube 📺 https://bit.ly/WigglesYouTube
Spotify 🎶 https://ab.co/TheWigglesSpotify
Apple Music 🎧 https://music.apple.com/au/artist/the-wiggles/7066283
Instagram 🟡 http://instagram.com/TheWiggles
Facebook 🔴 http://facebook.com/TheWiggles
TikTok 🟣 http://tiktok.com/@TheWiggles
Twitter 🔵 http://twitter.com/TheWiggles
About The Wiggles' Podcast - Wiggle Talk
Welcome to Wiggle Talk, the ultimate parenting podcast brought to you by The Wiggles! With over 30 years of experience in early childhood education and a global legacy of entertaining and educating millions of children, The Wiggles are now stepping into the world of parenting to share their journey as parents themselves. This podcast is designed for parents seeking expert advice, relatable stories, and practical tips on raising toddlers.
In Wiggle Talk, you'll join Simon and Lachy, beloved members of The Wiggles, as they explore the real-life challenges and joys of parenting. From handling toddler tantrums to nurturing your child’s early development, Simon and Lachy invite guests to share compelling conversations that will provide valuable insights that every parent can relate to. Whether you're struggling with sleep routines, picky eating, or simply looking for fun and educational activities to do with your little ones, this podcast has got you covered.
Every episode also features founding Wiggle and early childhood expert Anthony Field, who will answer listener questions on topics ranging from child behaviour to effective parenting strategies. With decades of experience and a passion for helping children thrive – as well as being a father of three - Anthony offers trustworthy advice to help you navigate the complexities of raising a toddler.
As parents, we know that the journey can be both rewarding and challenging. That's why Wiggle Talk is here to support you every step of the way. Whether you're a new parent or have been on this journey for a while, you'll find a wealth of information and inspiration in each episode. Plus, you’ll hear from famous friends of The Wiggles who share their own parenting experiences and tips.
So, tune in to Wiggle Talk and join The Wiggles as they swap their skivvies for candid conversations about parenthood. Let's work out this parenting thing together, with a little help from the experts in early childhood education!
About The Wiggles
For over three decades, The Wiggles have been a beloved cornerstone of children's entertainment, captivating and educating millions of preschoolers—and their parents—around the world. Known for their high-energy performances, catchy songs, and colourful characters, The Wiggles have built a global legacy rooted in the power of music and movement to inspire early childhood learning.
With a mission to make education fun, The Wiggles create content specifically designed for pre-K, preschool, kindergarten, and nursery school age groups. Their unique blend of music, dance, and educational content not only entertains but also helps children understand the world around them. Generations of fans who grew up watching The Wiggles are now sharing that same joy with their own children.
The Wiggles’ impact is
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Wiggles acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia
and their connections to land, see and community. We pay
our respects to elders, past, present and emerging.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to wiggled Talk, a podcast for parents. My name
is Lockey the Purple Wiggle.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hello Locky. My name is Simon the Red Wiggle, and
my second toe is Belan my big toe. Are you
the same? I was not ready for you to say that.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm about to say my little toe is six foot four,
but I'll check.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm in Asue at the moment. Yeah, I'm an Ashue too,
but I just thought I won't talk about six foot four.
But pretty sure, yeah my second anyway, we're not talking
about that. No, we are talking about boys.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yes we are today, not teenage boys in crisis and
not all the scary Internet stuff for the sake of it,
but our little boys, the ones who are still more,
still soft, still figuring out who they are because the
world they're growing into is already telling boys a lot
about what it means to be strong, and what it
means to be successful, what it means to be a man,
(01:11):
and some of those messages are pretty dark.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
So today we want to ask, how do we raise
boys who stay emotionally connected, boys who are kind, confident,
able to ask for help, able to fail, able to
feel without feeling like any of that makes them weak?
How do we do that? We're going to find out soon,
but before we do, Yes, Lucky, Yes, we've talked about this.
(01:35):
We've got a lot of toys at home. Yes, a
lot of toys, and through the recent trip of the
UK we bought more. It's kind of like is that,
you know? I think it gives Ashur a bit of
comfort because he's not at home, he doesn't his normal stuff,
and we buy a little Lego. He loves Lego, loves it.
You love Lego, love it? And then you build a Lego? Yes,
(01:58):
when you're away you have to get it home. Yes,
did you disassemble ive got little SnapLock bagslock sandwich bags, Yes,
and put them all individually in the one but because
and they all come back all broken and everything, and
ash is fine with that except because it's been made.
Have you ever tried to make a lego? A bit
(02:19):
of Lego when it's half? Oh, very tricky. You've got
to actually kind of find go back.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
To the instructions and work out where you are, and.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You've got to start again. You've really got to pull
the whole thing apart and start again. Yep. And this
task for ashure Wood is quite over warming because there's
quite a few and so I think he's felt like
he's made it once, so I'm not going to go
back there again. And so we have lego pieces everywhere.
Oh wow, now a little sandwich bags.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
That's good, they're still there because otherwise, but then he.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Wants then he still wants more lego, and I'm saying, well, no, Ashua,
we can't get any more lego because until you rebuild
the broken one broken ones.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Mum had a big blue piece of material like a drawstring,
and then I just get that out some weekends and
it was just lego everywhere. But what I didn't like
about that was that, you know, you say, for example,
I had the fire set and the police set, some
of them would have the stickers of like police.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Ye, they'd be a bit like scraped off.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And then I really didn't like building the police set
because it like that's the only bad thing about putting
it all together. But then you find the part of
the funnel lego I think is finding the pieces again,
wirching through And.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Would you like to just create make your own things?
Oh no, no, we had to follow the book by
the booklet.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Is seriously oppressive. Those people who just build things from
make it up.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
They're unbelievablen't they?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Quite yeah, I mean I'm struggling with the eight plus.
It's tricky. Yeah, can be ridtructure, he can kind of.
He does some eight plus ones like he's he's advanced
through his age. I do love the fine motor skills
and the even just the concept when you've got a
picture of a piece of lego which you're putting together
(04:05):
and marrying your bit of lego you're building to the yes,
like around the right way left, and you just watching
the brains kind of sort that out. Yes, and you know,
but yeah, look that's where we're at. We're surrounded by
sandwich bags of lego.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You know, I'll buy you a drawstring because then what
what is? It just sits on the shelf when you
build it? But then, all right, shall we get started?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
We probably should?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Okay, Well, our guest today is doctor Zach Seidler. Zach
is a clinical psychologist, researcher at one of Australia's leading
voices on men's mental health. He is the Global Director
of Men's Health Research at November and Associate Professor with
origin at the University of Melbourne, and he leads the
Young Men's Mental Health Lab.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Now, Luckie, you first met Zach earlier this year at November.
It was a November invent in Melbourne where the conversation
was all about fatherhood, men's mental health and how we
better support dads to build strong, healthy relationships with their children.
Yeah right, Yes, it's when you saw him.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yes, Simon, I saw Zac there. You may have also
seen him recently on sixty Minutes speaking about looks maxing
this online world where young men and boys are being
told their worth comes down to how they look, how
desirable they are, and where they sit in some brutal
social ranking system.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Now that's not the whole focus of today's episode. Most
of you listening are parenting toddlers and young children, So
this isn't about panicking over what might happen online one day.
It's about what we start building.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Now, how do we help our boys understand their emotions
before they learn to hide them? How do we raise
boys to be strong without making them hard, And how
do we empower boys in a healthy way, not through
dominance or toughness, but through confidence, connection, respect, and self worth.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
It is Zach a very big welcome to wiggled Talk.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
So great to be here.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Thank you so much for joining us. We are really
excited in this chat today. But for anyone who's not
familiar with your work, just to start, you spend a
lot of time looking at boys and men and masculinity
and mental health. What are you most focused on at
the moment and kind of what keeps you coming back
to this work.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
It's a nice question. Not what keeps me up at night,
which is my four month old son, which I think
is what keeps me coming back to this work as well,
if I'm honest. I called my mum yesterday and said,
I'm going on the Wiggles podcast. I need a photo
because I saw the og Wiggles when I was like five,
so thirty years ago. I tried to find the photo
(06:44):
to show how far the beard has come.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
If nothing else, Lockie's trying as well. It's a really
good bid.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
The thing about men and boys is really it often
is driven by a personal experience and the world that
I get to inhabit, and the work I get to
do that November, and the incredible community that I get
to have interactions with in a similar vein to what
you guys do. You know, we lead a movement, as
do the Wiggles, and what I hear day in and
day out are the complexities, the struggles, the beauty and
(07:15):
the beast of masculinity in some ways, and really what
keeps me coming back is the deep well of emotion
that sits within all of the men that I get
to interact with.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
You.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I'm a researcher, I'm a clinical psychologist, so I still
get to see some guys, you know, one on one,
and I'm an advocate really, and so the fact that
I have so many different hats skivvies that I get
to pull on means that there is no lack of
work here and no lack of questions. And I've just
always been a very curious person, you know, growing up
(07:50):
as a guy I got two older brothers, and trying
to find my own place in the world and creating
a job in many ways that helped me understand my
own life it's such a privilege.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
What color s givy would you be if you were
a s Givy?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I think it would be olive, like a dark green skivy.
It speaks to the real academic within me, you know,
sitting on a leather couch, just sitting back, waiting on
someone's deep, dark secret wiggle.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
When you look at little boys now, and this is
kind of before the teenage years and before the Internet
and all that already kicks in, what do you wish
more of us understood about what they need from us
in those early years.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
I think what they need is more asking and less assuming.
You know, we have a really strong cultural stereotype about
boys and girls, whether it's you know, trucks and dolls,
it's blue and pink. It's these binaries that really limit
the creativity, the depth of compassion, of emotionality that exists
(08:54):
within everybody. We start to create rules very early on,
and young boys pick up on that. So what you see,
and I'm sure that anyone listening who has a three,
four five year old boy in their lives is very
aware of the extreme spectrum of their emotions. They can
throw tantrums like any girl, can you know, there's nothing
(09:14):
biologically going on that is saying to a young boy
in their DNA that they don't have the same level
of feeling as anybody else. What happens is that over time,
and it happens around the age of four or five,
especially within a daycare setting. There's an incredible research showing
that if you follow these boys over time, you'll start
(09:36):
to see that they detach in many ways from themselves.
They disengage, They find ways to actually turn off or
leision parts of themselves that are so inherently human because
they want to fit in to a norm that they
have been sold as safe. They've been told that if
(09:59):
you want to be part of this crew, you know,
you become the age of five, hierarchies start to show
up in preschool and you get into this understanding that
in order to survive, you do not want to be
an outlier, because ostracism is the greatest fear for young kids.
And so what they get told, and they get told
(10:19):
this by fathers, by teachers, by you know, people all
over the place, is that emotions and feelings and crying
and really having connection to self is not a thing
that boys do. It's not something that they should be
practicing or honing. It's not a muscle that they should
be paying attention to. It's something that they should lose
(10:41):
very quickly if they want to fit in.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
A boy is less emotional then or that's part of
what we're that's.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Where we end up. That's where we end up. It's
not where we start. And that's why you know, I'm
a perennial optimist. I do not think that any of
this is a choice. In many ways, you know, when
you're that young, I don't remember who taught me what
it meant to be a boy or a man. It's
picked up via osmosis, through media, through culture, through role models,
(11:09):
through parents, and even the most well intentioned parents because
they grew up in this culture and so they can't
even see the powers that be, the puppeteers of masculinity
that are kind of telling us what is safe and
what is not. And so you know, no one individually
is to blame. This is a structural situation. But what
happens is that I end up seeing the guys in
(11:30):
their thirties, forties, and fifties who are struggling. They've just
had a kid, they're now trying to be like a
motive and playful and present, and they're like, why can't
I do this? Where did this go? And it's this
long process of burying these these dormant feelings, these fears
(11:51):
that are kind of a part of all of us,
and guys get told to cut them off. And I
think that really the greatest thing that we can do
is unearth them in ourselves and in others, dust them often,
and show that in fact, it won't look and feel
the same way that it does for young girls, and
(12:11):
it doesn't need to. We're supposed to be different. There's
not a problem with that. I always get this tension
You're trying to make boys like girls, and it's like, no,
I'm trying to make boys the fullest versions of themselves. Yeah,
and if that means having access to feminine traits, great enjoy.
Like I just think that we need to get beyond
these political discussions around what belongs where and realize that
(12:37):
men are struggling because at that point in time, early
on in their lives, they are being coded with these
messages that certain ways of relating to the world aren't
for them.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
How to us as parents with our young boys are
toddlers Is there a certain language you can start to use.
Is it as simple as saying something happens, how do
you feel? Or what is something that we can do
as parents to kind of tap into that world you're
talking about that they're going to slide down into as
life goes on, and hopefully we can put something in
(13:12):
place early.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
This seems very doomsday, and that was not my intention.
It's just a realization that any dad mums will realize
this as well, because they'll have seen it in their
own fathers and in their sons. This is not you know,
society goes on, everybody is hopefully flourishing. It's just a
realization that there are things that we can do differently
that will benefit all of us. And so what I
(13:34):
think parents can do. Firstly, there's a lot of research
to show that parents, the way they interact with their
daughters when it comes to emotions, especially fathers, there's so
much more space, There's so much more curiosity. There's an
allowance in a way, you know, the speed at which
someone says, don't cry to a boy. You know, the
(13:57):
idea around like tough enough is kind of dying out,
and I'm very glad to see that you know, new
age dads, all the dads that I get to hang
around with, are very aware of trying to not reinforce
the stuff that was handed to them. So I have
a lot of hope for how things are changing. But nonetheless,
if I got those messages as a boy and my
(14:18):
son starts to you know, reflect back things to me,
it's my own discomfort. It's my own discomfort and the
things that I got told that start to show up
in his life, and that's not right, that's not fair.
So I think doing your own work as a parent
and being like you know, especially if you've got a
son and a daughter, that's a blessing, you know, to
be able to realize some of these differences. And lots
(14:40):
of parents say to me, oh, I treat them the same,
And I'm like, if I locked you in a room
for twenty four hours with the camera, and I'm sure
I would find evidence to the contrary. So there is
something to be said for, yes, applying language as you
just said, like what are you feeling, what are you thinking?
You know, trying to give them words. What we find
in young boys is that their emotional language, you know,
(15:03):
to the point where I end up with that thirty
year old and I say, how are you feeling? What's
going on? And he's got like three monosyllabic, you know choices.
It's very strange that there is this emotion wheel, and
I think doing that with your kids is really great,
showing them all of the colors, all of the words
that they have, so you don't just end up with
a CEO in thirty years saying I'm stressed or I'm overwhelmed. Instead,
(15:26):
it's like, what is the core of that? Where does
it come from? How does it look? There's incredible books,
you know your guys. Content is so good at leaning
into the fact that we all look, think, and feel
different things at different times, and so that's really at
the core of it. When you're a parent trying to
speak to your boys about who they are and what
(15:46):
matters to them. Talking about flexibility I think is really important,
which is that today might not be the day to
have that conversation, but tomorrow might be, and you want
them to know that you're ready whenever they are.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
How do we raise boys to feel more confident without
needing to prove that, you know, they're stronger or cooler
or more dominant than someone else.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
I think that it's important to realize that a bit
of strength and pushing boundaries and seeking independence is something
that is inherently important for young boys to flex. We
should kind of allow for some of that. What we
want to be doing is telling these kids that there
are multiple ways of being and that compassion and empathy
(16:33):
and loyalty and outruth, all of these things. They don't
need to be at odds with one another. They can
coexist within him. And so when we're trying to say
to him, being cool doesn't mean that you need to
not talk about what you're thinking or feeling. You need
to clarify what being cool actually means and why that is.
(16:57):
And you need to, especially if you're a father, can't
say nothing about your day, say nothing about what's happening
in your world or your head, and then tell him
that he needs to do it, Yeah, because he thinks
you're cool. So if you sit down and you're just
too tired or you don't share the fact that when
you attend you were going through some of this stuff
(17:18):
as well. We always believe in men do this a lot.
We believe that we're in a new chapter and I'm
not going to look back on that chapter that was
because I've evolved out of that, I've adapted, and I've grown.
We hold all of those stories within us, and we
are no better than our thirteen fourteen year old self.
We might have more knowledge, and so it's about realizing
(17:41):
that we need to go down into the trenches, into
the mud with these boys and say, I totally understand
that I felt that. What do you think it's making
you feel now? Because I remember this is what it
made me feel, and importantly, this is what I'm feeling today.
I'm still here like I haven't worked it all out
(18:03):
because they're not going to talk to you if they
think that you're the bastion of truth.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask that as
a parent, is it important to and you kind of
just answered it, But show your child that you feel sadness,
you feel excited, you feel happiness, you feel sadness, you
feel nervous. As a grown man, you still look experiencing
and feeling these things so beautiful.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
And there's a really important distinction here because there's a
real risk and lots of parents do this where they
parentify their child, where they drop all of their own
crap into the lives of their child and kind of
overburden them. That is not what we're seeking here. We
don't want the parent to talk about all their financial
(18:47):
concerns and how they're struggling with a twelve year old
who's going to then have to take on the weight
of the world. That's not what this is about. It's
about that middle ground, which is what is happen in
your own life and how you're reflecting on it and
how you're feeling about it, and them not just seeing
(19:08):
your extreme joy and anger when you're watching the footy.
There are other places and spaces where that should show up.
The problem, as I see it, is that a lot
of dads especially don't have their own socially sanctioned allowance
to do that stuff in different places, we just don't
do it that type of like extreme emotionality or excitement.
(19:30):
It's not very common to witness that. So that's kind
of the call out to all dads especially out there,
which is how we're going to open up your emotional spectrum,
open up the situations that you get into, you know,
whether it's hobbies, if you love music, or you like
take your kids, let them see you feel, because that's
the greatest way that they're going to replicate it.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, let them see you feel. I love that.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
No, we're going to talk about the Internet and everything
on there and what fun boys are about to watch.
But that sixty minutes chat you did was just fascinating.
I kind of had goosebumps the entire sixty minutes. I
was quite emotional to I've got a ten year old
step son. He's the best, but I worry about him
(20:25):
coming up a bit later, hopefully quite a bit later.
But one of the things you mentioned in the sixty
minutes was about the spaces that they don't have to
go anymore. What sort of spaces would be good for
boys that we don't have anymore. Is that that's a
society thing.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
For sure. And I think that we don't want alarmism,
we want pragmatism, money, and that's I think something that's
really important here. We're very good at diagnosing the problem,
which is that the boys are not all right, you know,
we're very bad at looking at the symptoms and trying
to understand those. And so so that entire interview around
(21:02):
the manisphere, around the content that exists online, was a
call to action to parents not to freak out, but
to see this as an opportunity to lean in and
to be curious and not punitive and not punishing them,
but trying to go what is this doing for you?
And why? And when I talk about you know, community spaces,
(21:25):
third spaces, you know COVID, did you know, horrible things
for many of those institutions. But whether it's local footy clubs,
it's Scouts, which you know really is holding on for
dear life, it's life saving and nippers, it's like beautiful
face to face communal connection where boys can see intergenerational
(21:46):
you know, men's sheds is such a perfect example. It's like,
why are there not? And I heard the other day
that there's a dad's shed that's about to open up,
and I hope that that will will spread because this
idea that like you have to get into your retirement
before you hang out with other men, it's horrible. I
want there to be this situation where a sixteen year
old boy has as many places to hang out as
(22:10):
my grandfather did before the digital age began. Because what
we see over time is that as boys age, when
they leave school, they start to shed friends. It drops
as a priority because they move into this idea of
like I need to become a successful pioneer, entrepreneur, provider, protector,
I need to find a girlfriend, I need to get
(22:32):
ripped and rich. You know, these narratives are really tapping
into the insecurities, which are very fair in this complex
world that we live in. But your ten year old
is not at risk of being lost to you if
we are willing to understand his fears and try and
find ways to actually answer them in some ways. And
(22:54):
so that means really teaching him again by modeling that
prioritizing social connections. You know, you don't see your mates cordly,
you see them bi weekly, like trying to find ways
to say this matters to me, and trying to have
a diverse group of friends with diverse ideas, and bringing
your kids along so they can witness all of that.
(23:16):
I just think we have with outsourced parenting a bit
because the world is very complex and we're all too
damn busy, and I think that, you know, I don't
want to heat more responsibility on parents who are already struggling,
but it's a matter of maybe we need to dial
down some other stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
The internet is it about dialing down that. I mean
that that obviously becomes a huge part of everyone's world, teenagers, adults, everyone.
That's that's a huge part of our life. There's no
escaping it. And an online world is where we live
and where we exist. So is it about finding that
balance too, of dialing that down of those influences that,
(23:54):
like we talked about the manisphere that there's something I
just learned recently was the looks maxing and in and
understanding what those concepts are, knowing they're around, and then
actually dialing all that down to have be more present
with friends next to each other and find that world
no spaces.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, as you said, we exist in the Internet age.
We exist in a digital way. We're not going to
get rid of that social media bands or otherwise, like
it's here to stay. What's important is, you know, using
some of this content as a jumping off point for
a dinner time conversation is fine. You know, if you've
seen some like bone smashing, crazy looksmaxing video online, go
(24:37):
and have a chat with your son about it, because
he's seen it. He's seen it for sure, and it's
like that opens up and then he can say, oh, Yeah,
we've been talking about this stuff, and it's like it
comes from a place of like letting him educate you.
We don't do enough of that, and so I think
it's understanding that you'll play whack a mole if you
try and tell him, don't listen to Andrew Tate, don't
(24:58):
do this, don't do that. It just splinters, like you
cannot beat the algorithms, so you know, you don't need
to join them per se. But I do think that
we need to find a way to teach and clarify
to young guys, especially that this stuff is not in
their best interests, you know, and to say what's it
(25:20):
making you feel? Because our research at Movember tells us
that it's very motivational for lots of them. It's really entertaining,
it's funny, it's stupid. They love it, and lots of
them say they leave the misogyny, the homophobia, you know,
at the door. But if you're watching five six hours
of this day, you know there's only so much that
you can do. So I do think it's about making
(25:42):
home life more enriching and entertaining than their phones are,
and that means putting in the effort, whether it's camping trips,
like bringing their mates along, creating new norms. Because if
all of their friends, their closest friends, are spending all
of their time doing this thing, you can't beat that.
You need to find a way to work with the
(26:04):
other parents to create change in that ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Is there a time in which, even when our children
are young, that we can address these feelings of self
worth and bodies and value and masculinity, or is there
a time that we can address that to hopefully then
have a greater understanding when they do come across this
stuff online.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Yeah, it's percolating in the background from a very young age.
They're picking up messages from all over the place. And
you spoke about bodies. You know, we talk about body
image and girls, and we have for a very long
time eating disorders and otherwise. There is a massive undercurrent
of body image issues amongst boys and men that we're
not really addressing. And so we spent a long time
(26:50):
trying to undo beauty standards and talk to girls about
they can, you know, be and look and feel whatever
way they wish. We really have not done very well
well because culture has been so male dominated for so long.
We kind of just assumed that everything was like general
knowledge and it's all like male centric, so we don't
(27:11):
need to actually focus on it. In fact, we're now
at a place where there are so many things that
we need to sit down with boys. You know, I
have a son, and I don't get given all of
these beautiful books around girl power and what's how you
can be an astronaut, and I think that we've lost
sight of that aspirational growth mindset for young boys about
(27:35):
what they can be, where they can go, what is
possible for them. And that's why you know, girls are
doing in many instances across various domains far better because
they're empowered to see many versions of themselves. So I
do think that we need to grapple with that and
sit down with kids very early on and not talk
(27:55):
to that. You know, it has to be age appropriate,
but I do think talking to them about what they're
moving towards what matters to them, like values, is something
we as a society just don't talk about enough. And
I think young boys end up in adolescents trying to
find purpose when we actually could have maybe sat down
with them and worked that through earlier.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
When you sit down with them. And what if you've
got a boy who you're finding really hard to open
up like face to face, is there other like techniques
and ways we can kind of have chats with them
get them to open up.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
This is my favorite, the amount of parents who are like,
how do we get them to talk? Like, firstly, that's
not a good intent. They can smell it, smell it
from them all away. I'm going to start running for
the hills, mate, So trying to change that intention towards
like I want to understand, you know, I'm curious about,
I'm interested in, I want to sit alongside and learn,
(28:50):
you know, all of that type of stuff, rather than
why won't you talk to me? Because why when you
talk to me always implies that something is wrong and
we're waiting. We're waiting for bad things for crisis. That's like,
that is the men's health narrative more broadly, that we
always talk about it November. Guys don't go to the
doctor until the lump shows up, until the fever is
(29:10):
too high, until the arm is broken. That is not
a way to look after ourselves. And I think that
the same thing goes here, which is like you need
to build in a practice with young guys, which is
that you're interested in this three hundred and sixty five
days of the year. You're not waiting for him to
somehow end up in this dark rabbit hole of in
(29:31):
cell content and then you go, oh, oh god, what's
happened here? Because it does happen quickly, but it doesn't
happen that quickly, and you know, I think sitting alongside them,
we always talk about shoulder to shoulder activities in the car,
looking in the rear view mirror, having conversations that aren't,
you know, eye to eye because it's very uncomfortable. I
do a lot of gaming therapy where you know, we're
(29:55):
playing FIFA and you get really interesting things at playing pool,
playing pingpong. I've done it all. You get really interesting
things out of them when you're not forcing them to
sit in this created ecosystem that they've never been in
before and say tell me everything you're feeling, even though
you don't have language for it, and you hate this
(30:15):
and it's disgusting. So all of that I think is
really important, which is time. Give it time, and time
means repetition and consistency and safety and trust building. I
don't expect a client, you know, fourteen year old to
sit across from me and tell me about all of
his stuff in the first session. What I do is
I get to know him. I get to ask him
(30:36):
what his hobbies are, what he loves. Is there a girl,
is there a boy like? What's happening in his life?
Who his mates like? I think that spending that time
and parents think that they know, but all of us
were teenagers, no one knew anything.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Still don't actually, but you're right. I mean, he's a
really good point to actually have an environment where your
child feels comfortable and is it's almost a distraction, right.
You can be kicking a soccer boy, you can do whatever,
and then hopefully a conversation starts. If over time you've
been trying different techniques and trying to get your child
(31:14):
to open up and talk a little bit, but it's
actually not working, what would be the next step for
parents to take to try to break through a little bit.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
You don't have to do it all. What we need
is to expand the circle of influence. And so, like
you know, it takes a tribe to find a way
to actually build up a young man, and so it's
uncles it's grandfathers, it's footy coaches, it's outsourcing some of
this in a way to expand the circle and realize
(31:44):
that he's not going to talk to you about everything,
and he will talk to others and you don't need
to know. Just have faith that if that is happening,
and you trust those people, like let them have that relationship.
That's a really important thing. And you know, there's a
difference between there being like a mental health crisis where
you're witnessing him having panic attacks, or if there's suicidality,
(32:04):
like you need to step in there. And there are definitely,
you know, formal pathways that you should go down, but
not every boy needs therapy. You know, lots of them
need someone to just sit with them. And I think
that like being really playful, as we kind of spoke
about the start, like try and do lots of different
(32:25):
things and one of them will work, because I think
that we we get very rejection sensitive when we say, oh,
do you want to go on a camping trip and
he goes stuff you and it's like, all right, I'm
never trying again. You know. It's like, mate, you had
the kid, you got to try a bit harder. You
brought him into the world. We need to find ways
(32:46):
to connect and realize that. You know, lots of people
say it's oh, he's ten to eleven. He's still so
interested in me and the world, and he says so
many you know things to me, and then something suddenly happens.
There's no defining point there. If you can stay connected
and realize he will push and pull consistently over time,
that's okay. It's about an expectation setting. We need to
(33:07):
realize that that things change and you need to adapt
with his needs and ask him what he wants, ask
him what he wants. It's such a unique thing. Parents
are like, I'm going to tell him and tell him
this is what he needs, is how he needs to
do it, and say it. Maybe give him the choice.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, And I think that's really important. Point too, is
about the playfulness because I think we've got to talk
about our feelings now. It can be quite a heavy,
sort of serious thing. But the more playful you can be,
the different ways you find yourself going about it, than
the best it's going to be.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
No guys want to have a mental health conversation. I
don't understand why they're like these deep, dark things that
have to happen in the corner of an office like
I'd much rather that we find ways to firstly get
ahead of this stuff early, and secondly it make it
an everyday thing because it is. We're all working it out,
(33:59):
and I think that it you know, it shouldn't take
like it'd be great for me to overhear guys talking
about their therapist at the pub. You know, everyone talks
about their fisier. He fixed my knee. Incredible. Why would
anyone talk about me as a therapist? Man?
Speaker 1 (34:15):
I crushed it. But just just so you know, Zach,
no one ever does the physio exercises.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
We saw you the other day very quickly at the
November event.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
It's just dropping prince throwing names around. Now what I
love you? Do you find?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I mean, obviously you get your clinical work and then
so many other areas, but that must just set you
up for just that that helps in every way. Right.
I was so moved by you, and you are for
me what a man should be. I think even take
your beard away, it's a very good beard.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
That is what.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
You're so well rounded, you speak so beautifully, and that
you're kind of doing so much wonderful work.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Oh mate, that means the world. And I you know,
my wife would probably challenge you on that, but I.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Think that at least on camera.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
But I've got to walk the walk when it comes
to stuff. And I think I really appreciate, like well rounded,
being a generalist, you know, being able to dip into
lots of different things and make sure that I'm speaking
with lots of different communities. You know, That's what we
talk about in November. Mustaches come in all shapes and sizes,
and you need to be able to meet guys where
(35:31):
they're at. And I realized early on I could sit
in a clinical room and do five days a week
of that, but it just didn't feel like the greatest
use of my passion and skills potentially. And so I
really have so much hope and optimism and faith in
the capacity for boys and men to really live up
to their potential. And so that's what keeps me going
(35:52):
and dipping into new rooms and trying to spread the
message that is trying to actually counteract lots of that
fire alarm situation, which I actually don't think is helpful.
We need to we need to sit alongside, we need
to talk with We need to find ways to connect
and I have a lot of work to do. Mate.
Any therapist who thinks that they have evolved is lying
(36:14):
to you. I am very aware of my own limitations
and I actually build that into my work as well.
There's plenty I don't know. There's plenty I learn from
guys in community each and every day, and it's being
willing and open to expand and be flexible in that
way that keeps me coming back.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Well, that's what came across. You know, you were talking
about such a full on it's so intense the subject
matter you're talking about, but everything that came through was
just a kind of inspiration and hope and that there
is so much good in everyone, and it's.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Just there is evil stuff going on, and it's about
a matter of balancing those two things, which is like,
you can see the thing, you can understand it, you
can hold people accountable for it. But like heaping more
on the shoulders of your everyday thirteen fourteen year old
boys not the solution. And that's just my etho. Not
everyone agrees with that, and that's okay. I think healthy
(37:10):
disagreement around this very complex space is how we grow
if everyone's just in this agreement echo chamber, it's not helpful.
So I want to bring humanity to everything. And that's
you know why I'm so lucky to have that clinical lens.
And it goes back to when I was fourteen as
a kid working with my dad as a receptionist at
a Method owned clinic. You know, I had a very
(37:31):
privileged upbringing, but I'd spend saturdays with you know, people
who were addicts and really struggling to find their place,
and they had so many demons, and I witnessed. I
witnessed that very early on and realized that we need
to find compassion and connection because that's the basis of
humanity in some ways, and we're losing sight of that sometimes.
(37:54):
And I'm very glad that it's a very simple message
that's resonating.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
And like you said earlier, as parents, we need to
instead of sensationalizing things or we need to understand so
all the things that our children and to go through,
we need to get ahead of it, understand what it is,
and the need to be able to talk about it
rationally with emotion and understanding. And I think that will
that's the best place to start from but with people
(38:21):
like you and the incredible work you're doing, Zach's, it helps.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Were sensationalize together. We never sensationalized with them. It's just
like all of the parents sitting around being like, what
is happening? Did you do this thing? And then it's
just all fever pitch yes, and it's lost sight of
the fact that wait a second, there's a kid in
the room next door. What are you doing?
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Yeah, yeah, it's so true. Thank you, Zach. Yeah, thank
you so much. We've all got a lot to learn
from u, Zach, and we're very very grateful you've come
and we will talk today. So thanks for having chat
with us, Thanks.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
So much for having me, and for all of the
support that you guys have had for men's health across
the board Mustaches in November and otherwise. And you know,
we have a lot of work to do, but it's
great to see incredible role models like yourself really stepping up.
So love this and thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Thank you, Zach. And just before we finish in November,
we tried it once years ago. Well actually we've always
been supportive, but with the Mustachers, well Lockie did and
it turned out to be. The one time that we
had a photo with Harry Styles was a great mystache,
little bits of hair.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
I love that that became someone made that my Wikipedia
photo for years.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Wow. It was kids love mustaches. I'm telling you, I've
witnessed it. They're just like, yeah, infatuated with them, Like
what is happening? So you know, lean.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Into it, bring it back, bring back them though. Thank
you Zach.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Thanks Tom Simo.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
If I need any more encouragement to get my bed back,
it's just happened.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, Zach's done it. For people who were just listening
and watching. It was a good healthy beard from a
good healthy person physically and mentally. That's why.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, I bought a great chat and thank you Zach again.
That was such an important chat.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Yeah, really important. Interesting, isn't it that we there's an
expectation maybe and you know all that the focus on
girls and you know, which of course was such an
important thing to do, But then there's maybe just a
lack of understanding that boys just expected to know what
to do. But actually, in fact we don't know. It's
just the way society was that men were, you know,
(40:31):
the prominent figures. Now all that work's been done rightfully
so with girls and women, and so we need to
kind of help out the boys a little bit as well.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, and once again, like every wonderful guest we've had
on this podcast so far, you can call it different things,
but it is all about connecting again. As he said,
you've got to kind of just step up and have
the conversations. But like you said right at the start,
just be willing to be curious, and it just starts
(41:00):
there just actually having a crack and going for it
and not being scared that it'll just take care.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Of itself for that's right. Yeah, it's about sensationalizing someone
oh what are we gonna do about this? Or putting
your head in the sound there's kind of they both
have a similar result. It's actually just been curious, like
you're saying, and understanding exactly what it all means and
what impact it could possibly have on your child and
your family and creating an environment, which we've spoken about
(41:27):
so much on the podcast, that your child is willing
to come and talk to you because of the relationship
you have in the environment you've set up at home. Yep.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
I love that he said. You know that if you're
open Yeah, it's a far better way that your child's
going to come up and yeah and just say something.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
They'll try and find playful ways of doing it. Yes,
so this serious? Yeah, yeh, chats anyway, I think that's
it for today. Lucky it is. Yeah, thanks for listening.
You can find out more about Zack and his work
at zachseither dot com or through November and Origin.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
If you love the show, make sure you follow wigle
Talk wherever you're listening so you don't miss an episode.
And if you'd like to see my picture of my mustache,
you can head to Wikipedia.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Oh yeah, Wikipedia, it's not there anymore. I think it's changed.
That's still there. Pretty easy. We put it on there.
We will talk website. Have we got what it is?
I'll put it on a Monday now. I don't think
we have one anyway. Thanks for listening. Yes, we'll see
you next time. Bye bye, goodbye,
The Wiggles acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia
and their connections to land, see and community. We pay
our respects to elders, past, present and emerging.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to wiggled Talk, a podcast for parents. My name
is Lockey the Purple Wiggle.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hello Locky. My name is Simon the Red Wiggle, and
my second toe is Belan my big toe. Are you
the same? I was not ready for you to say that.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm about to say my little toe is six foot four,
but I'll check.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm in Asue at the moment. Yeah, I'm an Ashue too,
but I just thought I won't talk about six foot four.
But pretty sure, yeah my second anyway, we're not talking
about that. No, we are talking about boys.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yes we are today, not teenage boys in crisis and
not all the scary Internet stuff for the sake of it,
but our little boys, the ones who are still more,
still soft, still figuring out who they are because the
world they're growing into is already telling boys a lot
about what it means to be strong, and what it
means to be successful, what it means to be a man,
(01:11):
and some of those messages are pretty dark.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
So today we want to ask, how do we raise
boys who stay emotionally connected, boys who are kind, confident,
able to ask for help, able to fail, able to
feel without feeling like any of that makes them weak?
How do we do that? We're going to find out soon,
but before we do, Yes, Lucky, Yes, we've talked about this.
(01:35):
We've got a lot of toys at home. Yes, a
lot of toys, and through the recent trip of the
UK we bought more. It's kind of like is that,
you know? I think it gives Ashur a bit of
comfort because he's not at home, he doesn't his normal stuff,
and we buy a little Lego. He loves Lego, loves it.
You love Lego, love it? And then you build a Lego? Yes,
(01:58):
when you're away you have to get it home. Yes,
did you disassemble ive got little SnapLock bagslock sandwich bags, Yes,
and put them all individually in the one but because
and they all come back all broken and everything, and
ash is fine with that except because it's been made.
Have you ever tried to make a lego? A bit
(02:19):
of Lego when it's half? Oh, very tricky. You've got
to actually kind of find go back.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
To the instructions and work out where you are, and.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You've got to start again. You've really got to pull
the whole thing apart and start again. Yep. And this
task for ashure Wood is quite over warming because there's
quite a few and so I think he's felt like
he's made it once, so I'm not going to go
back there again. And so we have lego pieces everywhere.
Oh wow, now a little sandwich bags.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
That's good, they're still there because otherwise, but then he.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Wants then he still wants more lego, and I'm saying, well, no, Ashua,
we can't get any more lego because until you rebuild
the broken one broken ones.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Mum had a big blue piece of material like a drawstring,
and then I just get that out some weekends and
it was just lego everywhere. But what I didn't like
about that was that, you know, you say, for example,
I had the fire set and the police set, some
of them would have the stickers of like police.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Ye, they'd be a bit like scraped off.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And then I really didn't like building the police set
because it like that's the only bad thing about putting
it all together. But then you find the part of
the funnel lego I think is finding the pieces again,
wirching through And.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Would you like to just create make your own things?
Oh no, no, we had to follow the book by
the booklet.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Is seriously oppressive. Those people who just build things from
make it up.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
They're unbelievablen't they?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Quite yeah, I mean I'm struggling with the eight plus.
It's tricky. Yeah, can be ridtructure, he can kind of.
He does some eight plus ones like he's he's advanced
through his age. I do love the fine motor skills
and the even just the concept when you've got a
picture of a piece of lego which you're putting together
(04:05):
and marrying your bit of lego you're building to the yes,
like around the right way left, and you just watching
the brains kind of sort that out. Yes, and you know,
but yeah, look that's where we're at. We're surrounded by
sandwich bags of lego.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You know, I'll buy you a drawstring because then what
what is? It just sits on the shelf when you
build it? But then, all right, shall we get started?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
We probably should?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Okay, Well, our guest today is doctor Zach Seidler. Zach
is a clinical psychologist, researcher at one of Australia's leading
voices on men's mental health. He is the Global Director
of Men's Health Research at November and Associate Professor with
origin at the University of Melbourne, and he leads the
Young Men's Mental Health Lab.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Now, Luckie, you first met Zach earlier this year at November.
It was a November invent in Melbourne where the conversation
was all about fatherhood, men's mental health and how we
better support dads to build strong, healthy relationships with their children.
Yeah right, Yes, it's when you saw him.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yes, Simon, I saw Zac there. You may have also
seen him recently on sixty Minutes speaking about looks maxing
this online world where young men and boys are being
told their worth comes down to how they look, how
desirable they are, and where they sit in some brutal
social ranking system.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Now that's not the whole focus of today's episode. Most
of you listening are parenting toddlers and young children, So
this isn't about panicking over what might happen online one day.
It's about what we start building.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Now, how do we help our boys understand their emotions
before they learn to hide them? How do we raise
boys to be strong without making them hard, And how
do we empower boys in a healthy way, not through
dominance or toughness, but through confidence, connection, respect, and self worth.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
It is Zach a very big welcome to wiggled Talk.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
So great to be here.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Thank you so much for joining us. We are really
excited in this chat today. But for anyone who's not
familiar with your work, just to start, you spend a
lot of time looking at boys and men and masculinity
and mental health. What are you most focused on at
the moment and kind of what keeps you coming back
to this work.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
It's a nice question. Not what keeps me up at night,
which is my four month old son, which I think
is what keeps me coming back to this work as well,
if I'm honest. I called my mum yesterday and said,
I'm going on the Wiggles podcast. I need a photo
because I saw the og Wiggles when I was like five,
so thirty years ago. I tried to find the photo
(06:44):
to show how far the beard has come.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
If nothing else, Lockie's trying as well. It's a really
good bid.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
The thing about men and boys is really it often
is driven by a personal experience and the world that
I get to inhabit, and the work I get to
do that November, and the incredible community that I get
to have interactions with in a similar vein to what
you guys do. You know, we lead a movement, as
do the Wiggles, and what I hear day in and
day out are the complexities, the struggles, the beauty and
(07:15):
the beast of masculinity in some ways, and really what
keeps me coming back is the deep well of emotion
that sits within all of the men that I get
to interact with.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
You.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I'm a researcher, I'm a clinical psychologist, so I still
get to see some guys, you know, one on one,
and I'm an advocate really, and so the fact that
I have so many different hats skivvies that I get
to pull on means that there is no lack of
work here and no lack of questions. And I've just
always been a very curious person, you know, growing up
(07:50):
as a guy I got two older brothers, and trying
to find my own place in the world and creating
a job in many ways that helped me understand my
own life it's such a privilege.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
What color s givy would you be if you were
a s Givy?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I think it would be olive, like a dark green skivy.
It speaks to the real academic within me, you know,
sitting on a leather couch, just sitting back, waiting on
someone's deep, dark secret wiggle.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
When you look at little boys now, and this is
kind of before the teenage years and before the Internet
and all that already kicks in, what do you wish
more of us understood about what they need from us
in those early years.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
I think what they need is more asking and less assuming.
You know, we have a really strong cultural stereotype about
boys and girls, whether it's you know, trucks and dolls,
it's blue and pink. It's these binaries that really limit
the creativity, the depth of compassion, of emotionality that exists
(08:54):
within everybody. We start to create rules very early on,
and young boys pick up on that. So what you see,
and I'm sure that anyone listening who has a three,
four five year old boy in their lives is very
aware of the extreme spectrum of their emotions. They can
throw tantrums like any girl, can you know, there's nothing
(09:14):
biologically going on that is saying to a young boy
in their DNA that they don't have the same level
of feeling as anybody else. What happens is that over time,
and it happens around the age of four or five,
especially within a daycare setting. There's an incredible research showing
that if you follow these boys over time, you'll start
(09:36):
to see that they detach in many ways from themselves.
They disengage, They find ways to actually turn off or
leision parts of themselves that are so inherently human because
they want to fit in to a norm that they
have been sold as safe. They've been told that if
(09:59):
you want to be part of this crew, you know,
you become the age of five, hierarchies start to show
up in preschool and you get into this understanding that
in order to survive, you do not want to be
an outlier, because ostracism is the greatest fear for young kids.
And so what they get told, and they get told
(10:19):
this by fathers, by teachers, by you know, people all
over the place, is that emotions and feelings and crying
and really having connection to self is not a thing
that boys do. It's not something that they should be
practicing or honing. It's not a muscle that they should
be paying attention to. It's something that they should lose
(10:41):
very quickly if they want to fit in.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
A boy is less emotional then or that's part of
what we're that's.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Where we end up. That's where we end up. It's
not where we start. And that's why you know, I'm
a perennial optimist. I do not think that any of
this is a choice. In many ways, you know, when
you're that young, I don't remember who taught me what
it meant to be a boy or a man. It's
picked up via osmosis, through media, through culture, through role models,
(11:09):
through parents, and even the most well intentioned parents because
they grew up in this culture and so they can't
even see the powers that be, the puppeteers of masculinity
that are kind of telling us what is safe and
what is not. And so you know, no one individually
is to blame. This is a structural situation. But what
happens is that I end up seeing the guys in
(11:30):
their thirties, forties, and fifties who are struggling. They've just
had a kid, they're now trying to be like a
motive and playful and present, and they're like, why can't
I do this? Where did this go? And it's this
long process of burying these these dormant feelings, these fears
(11:51):
that are kind of a part of all of us,
and guys get told to cut them off. And I
think that really the greatest thing that we can do
is unearth them in ourselves and in others, dust them often,
and show that in fact, it won't look and feel
the same way that it does for young girls, and
(12:11):
it doesn't need to. We're supposed to be different. There's
not a problem with that. I always get this tension
You're trying to make boys like girls, and it's like, no,
I'm trying to make boys the fullest versions of themselves. Yeah,
and if that means having access to feminine traits, great enjoy.
Like I just think that we need to get beyond
these political discussions around what belongs where and realize that
(12:37):
men are struggling because at that point in time, early
on in their lives, they are being coded with these
messages that certain ways of relating to the world aren't
for them.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
How to us as parents with our young boys are
toddlers Is there a certain language you can start to use.
Is it as simple as saying something happens, how do
you feel? Or what is something that we can do
as parents to kind of tap into that world you're
talking about that they're going to slide down into as
life goes on, and hopefully we can put something in
(13:12):
place early.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
This seems very doomsday, and that was not my intention.
It's just a realization that any dad mums will realize
this as well, because they'll have seen it in their
own fathers and in their sons. This is not you know,
society goes on, everybody is hopefully flourishing. It's just a
realization that there are things that we can do differently
that will benefit all of us. And so what I
(13:34):
think parents can do. Firstly, there's a lot of research
to show that parents, the way they interact with their
daughters when it comes to emotions, especially fathers, there's so
much more space, There's so much more curiosity. There's an
allowance in a way, you know, the speed at which
someone says, don't cry to a boy. You know, the
(13:57):
idea around like tough enough is kind of dying out,
and I'm very glad to see that you know, new
age dads, all the dads that I get to hang
around with, are very aware of trying to not reinforce
the stuff that was handed to them. So I have
a lot of hope for how things are changing. But nonetheless,
if I got those messages as a boy and my
(14:18):
son starts to you know, reflect back things to me,
it's my own discomfort. It's my own discomfort and the
things that I got told that start to show up
in his life, and that's not right, that's not fair.
So I think doing your own work as a parent
and being like you know, especially if you've got a
son and a daughter, that's a blessing, you know, to
be able to realize some of these differences. And lots
(14:40):
of parents say to me, oh, I treat them the same,
And I'm like, if I locked you in a room
for twenty four hours with the camera, and I'm sure
I would find evidence to the contrary. So there is
something to be said for, yes, applying language as you
just said, like what are you feeling, what are you thinking?
You know, trying to give them words. What we find
in young boys is that their emotional language, you know,
(15:03):
to the point where I end up with that thirty
year old and I say, how are you feeling? What's
going on? And he's got like three monosyllabic, you know choices.
It's very strange that there is this emotion wheel, and
I think doing that with your kids is really great,
showing them all of the colors, all of the words
that they have, so you don't just end up with
a CEO in thirty years saying I'm stressed or I'm overwhelmed. Instead,
(15:26):
it's like, what is the core of that? Where does
it come from? How does it look? There's incredible books,
you know your guys. Content is so good at leaning
into the fact that we all look, think, and feel
different things at different times, and so that's really at
the core of it. When you're a parent trying to
speak to your boys about who they are and what
(15:46):
matters to them. Talking about flexibility I think is really important,
which is that today might not be the day to
have that conversation, but tomorrow might be, and you want
them to know that you're ready whenever they are.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
How do we raise boys to feel more confident without
needing to prove that, you know, they're stronger or cooler
or more dominant than someone else.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
I think that it's important to realize that a bit
of strength and pushing boundaries and seeking independence is something
that is inherently important for young boys to flex. We
should kind of allow for some of that. What we
want to be doing is telling these kids that there
are multiple ways of being and that compassion and empathy
(16:33):
and loyalty and outruth, all of these things. They don't
need to be at odds with one another. They can
coexist within him. And so when we're trying to say
to him, being cool doesn't mean that you need to
not talk about what you're thinking or feeling. You need
to clarify what being cool actually means and why that is.
(16:57):
And you need to, especially if you're a father, can't
say nothing about your day, say nothing about what's happening
in your world or your head, and then tell him
that he needs to do it, Yeah, because he thinks
you're cool. So if you sit down and you're just
too tired or you don't share the fact that when
you attend you were going through some of this stuff
(17:18):
as well. We always believe in men do this a lot.
We believe that we're in a new chapter and I'm
not going to look back on that chapter that was
because I've evolved out of that, I've adapted, and I've grown.
We hold all of those stories within us, and we
are no better than our thirteen fourteen year old self.
We might have more knowledge, and so it's about realizing
(17:41):
that we need to go down into the trenches, into
the mud with these boys and say, I totally understand
that I felt that. What do you think it's making
you feel now? Because I remember this is what it
made me feel, and importantly, this is what I'm feeling today.
I'm still here like I haven't worked it all out
(18:03):
because they're not going to talk to you if they
think that you're the bastion of truth.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask that as
a parent, is it important to and you kind of
just answered it, But show your child that you feel sadness,
you feel excited, you feel happiness, you feel sadness, you
feel nervous. As a grown man, you still look experiencing
and feeling these things so beautiful.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
And there's a really important distinction here because there's a
real risk and lots of parents do this where they
parentify their child, where they drop all of their own
crap into the lives of their child and kind of
overburden them. That is not what we're seeking here. We
don't want the parent to talk about all their financial
(18:47):
concerns and how they're struggling with a twelve year old
who's going to then have to take on the weight
of the world. That's not what this is about. It's
about that middle ground, which is what is happen in
your own life and how you're reflecting on it and
how you're feeling about it, and them not just seeing
(19:08):
your extreme joy and anger when you're watching the footy.
There are other places and spaces where that should show up.
The problem, as I see it, is that a lot
of dads especially don't have their own socially sanctioned allowance
to do that stuff in different places, we just don't
do it that type of like extreme emotionality or excitement.
(19:30):
It's not very common to witness that. So that's kind
of the call out to all dads especially out there,
which is how we're going to open up your emotional spectrum,
open up the situations that you get into, you know,
whether it's hobbies, if you love music, or you like
take your kids, let them see you feel, because that's
the greatest way that they're going to replicate it.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, let them see you feel. I love that.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
No, we're going to talk about the Internet and everything
on there and what fun boys are about to watch.
But that sixty minutes chat you did was just fascinating.
I kind of had goosebumps the entire sixty minutes. I
was quite emotional to I've got a ten year old
step son. He's the best, but I worry about him
(20:25):
coming up a bit later, hopefully quite a bit later.
But one of the things you mentioned in the sixty
minutes was about the spaces that they don't have to
go anymore. What sort of spaces would be good for
boys that we don't have anymore. Is that that's a
society thing.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
For sure. And I think that we don't want alarmism,
we want pragmatism, money, and that's I think something that's
really important here. We're very good at diagnosing the problem,
which is that the boys are not all right, you know,
we're very bad at looking at the symptoms and trying
to understand those. And so so that entire interview around
(21:02):
the manisphere, around the content that exists online, was a
call to action to parents not to freak out, but
to see this as an opportunity to lean in and
to be curious and not punitive and not punishing them,
but trying to go what is this doing for you?
And why? And when I talk about you know, community spaces,
(21:25):
third spaces, you know COVID, did you know, horrible things
for many of those institutions. But whether it's local footy clubs,
it's Scouts, which you know really is holding on for
dear life, it's life saving and nippers, it's like beautiful
face to face communal connection where boys can see intergenerational
(21:46):
you know, men's sheds is such a perfect example. It's like,
why are there not? And I heard the other day
that there's a dad's shed that's about to open up,
and I hope that that will will spread because this
idea that like you have to get into your retirement
before you hang out with other men, it's horrible. I
want there to be this situation where a sixteen year
old boy has as many places to hang out as
(22:10):
my grandfather did before the digital age began. Because what
we see over time is that as boys age, when
they leave school, they start to shed friends. It drops
as a priority because they move into this idea of
like I need to become a successful pioneer, entrepreneur, provider, protector,
I need to find a girlfriend, I need to get
(22:32):
ripped and rich. You know, these narratives are really tapping
into the insecurities, which are very fair in this complex
world that we live in. But your ten year old
is not at risk of being lost to you if
we are willing to understand his fears and try and
find ways to actually answer them in some ways. And
(22:54):
so that means really teaching him again by modeling that
prioritizing social connections. You know, you don't see your mates cordly,
you see them bi weekly, like trying to find ways
to say this matters to me, and trying to have
a diverse group of friends with diverse ideas, and bringing
your kids along so they can witness all of that.
(23:16):
I just think we have with outsourced parenting a bit
because the world is very complex and we're all too
damn busy, and I think that, you know, I don't
want to heat more responsibility on parents who are already struggling,
but it's a matter of maybe we need to dial
down some other stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
The internet is it about dialing down that. I mean
that that obviously becomes a huge part of everyone's world, teenagers, adults, everyone.
That's that's a huge part of our life. There's no
escaping it. And an online world is where we live
and where we exist. So is it about finding that
balance too, of dialing that down of those influences that,
(23:54):
like we talked about the manisphere that there's something I
just learned recently was the looks maxing and in and
understanding what those concepts are, knowing they're around, and then
actually dialing all that down to have be more present
with friends next to each other and find that world
no spaces.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, as you said, we exist in the Internet age.
We exist in a digital way. We're not going to
get rid of that social media bands or otherwise, like
it's here to stay. What's important is, you know, using
some of this content as a jumping off point for
a dinner time conversation is fine. You know, if you've
seen some like bone smashing, crazy looksmaxing video online, go
(24:37):
and have a chat with your son about it, because
he's seen it. He's seen it for sure, and it's
like that opens up and then he can say, oh, Yeah,
we've been talking about this stuff, and it's like it
comes from a place of like letting him educate you.
We don't do enough of that, and so I think
it's understanding that you'll play whack a mole if you
try and tell him, don't listen to Andrew Tate, don't
(24:58):
do this, don't do that. It just splinters, like you
cannot beat the algorithms, so you know, you don't need
to join them per se. But I do think that
we need to find a way to teach and clarify
to young guys, especially that this stuff is not in
their best interests, you know, and to say what's it
(25:20):
making you feel? Because our research at Movember tells us
that it's very motivational for lots of them. It's really entertaining,
it's funny, it's stupid. They love it, and lots of
them say they leave the misogyny, the homophobia, you know,
at the door. But if you're watching five six hours
of this day, you know there's only so much that
you can do. So I do think it's about making
(25:42):
home life more enriching and entertaining than their phones are,
and that means putting in the effort, whether it's camping trips,
like bringing their mates along, creating new norms. Because if
all of their friends, their closest friends, are spending all
of their time doing this thing, you can't beat that.
You need to find a way to work with the
(26:04):
other parents to create change in that ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Is there a time in which, even when our children
are young, that we can address these feelings of self
worth and bodies and value and masculinity, or is there
a time that we can address that to hopefully then
have a greater understanding when they do come across this
stuff online.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Yeah, it's percolating in the background from a very young age.
They're picking up messages from all over the place. And
you spoke about bodies. You know, we talk about body
image and girls, and we have for a very long
time eating disorders and otherwise. There is a massive undercurrent
of body image issues amongst boys and men that we're
not really addressing. And so we spent a long time
(26:50):
trying to undo beauty standards and talk to girls about
they can, you know, be and look and feel whatever
way they wish. We really have not done very well
well because culture has been so male dominated for so long.
We kind of just assumed that everything was like general
knowledge and it's all like male centric, so we don't
(27:11):
need to actually focus on it. In fact, we're now
at a place where there are so many things that
we need to sit down with boys. You know, I
have a son, and I don't get given all of
these beautiful books around girl power and what's how you
can be an astronaut, and I think that we've lost
sight of that aspirational growth mindset for young boys about
(27:35):
what they can be, where they can go, what is
possible for them. And that's why you know, girls are
doing in many instances across various domains far better because
they're empowered to see many versions of themselves. So I
do think that we need to grapple with that and
sit down with kids very early on and not talk
(27:55):
to that. You know, it has to be age appropriate,
but I do think talking to them about what they're
moving towards what matters to them, like values, is something
we as a society just don't talk about enough. And
I think young boys end up in adolescents trying to
find purpose when we actually could have maybe sat down
with them and worked that through earlier.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
When you sit down with them. And what if you've
got a boy who you're finding really hard to open
up like face to face, is there other like techniques
and ways we can kind of have chats with them
get them to open up.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
This is my favorite, the amount of parents who are like,
how do we get them to talk? Like, firstly, that's
not a good intent. They can smell it, smell it
from them all away. I'm going to start running for
the hills, mate, So trying to change that intention towards
like I want to understand, you know, I'm curious about,
I'm interested in, I want to sit alongside and learn,
(28:50):
you know, all of that type of stuff, rather than
why won't you talk to me? Because why when you
talk to me always implies that something is wrong and
we're waiting. We're waiting for bad things for crisis. That's like,
that is the men's health narrative more broadly, that we
always talk about it November. Guys don't go to the
doctor until the lump shows up, until the fever is
(29:10):
too high, until the arm is broken. That is not
a way to look after ourselves. And I think that
the same thing goes here, which is like you need
to build in a practice with young guys, which is
that you're interested in this three hundred and sixty five
days of the year. You're not waiting for him to
somehow end up in this dark rabbit hole of in
(29:31):
cell content and then you go, oh, oh god, what's
happened here? Because it does happen quickly, but it doesn't
happen that quickly, and you know, I think sitting alongside them,
we always talk about shoulder to shoulder activities in the car,
looking in the rear view mirror, having conversations that aren't,
you know, eye to eye because it's very uncomfortable. I
do a lot of gaming therapy where you know, we're
(29:55):
playing FIFA and you get really interesting things at playing pool,
playing pingpong. I've done it all. You get really interesting
things out of them when you're not forcing them to
sit in this created ecosystem that they've never been in
before and say tell me everything you're feeling, even though
you don't have language for it, and you hate this
(30:15):
and it's disgusting. So all of that I think is
really important, which is time. Give it time, and time
means repetition and consistency and safety and trust building. I
don't expect a client, you know, fourteen year old to
sit across from me and tell me about all of
his stuff in the first session. What I do is
I get to know him. I get to ask him
(30:36):
what his hobbies are, what he loves. Is there a girl,
is there a boy like? What's happening in his life?
Who his mates like? I think that spending that time
and parents think that they know, but all of us
were teenagers, no one knew anything.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Still don't actually, but you're right. I mean, he's a
really good point to actually have an environment where your
child feels comfortable and is it's almost a distraction, right.
You can be kicking a soccer boy, you can do whatever,
and then hopefully a conversation starts. If over time you've
been trying different techniques and trying to get your child
(31:14):
to open up and talk a little bit, but it's
actually not working, what would be the next step for
parents to take to try to break through a little bit.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
You don't have to do it all. What we need
is to expand the circle of influence. And so, like
you know, it takes a tribe to find a way
to actually build up a young man, and so it's
uncles it's grandfathers, it's footy coaches, it's outsourcing some of
this in a way to expand the circle and realize
(31:44):
that he's not going to talk to you about everything,
and he will talk to others and you don't need
to know. Just have faith that if that is happening,
and you trust those people, like let them have that relationship.
That's a really important thing. And you know, there's a
difference between there being like a mental health crisis where
you're witnessing him having panic attacks, or if there's suicidality,
(32:04):
like you need to step in there. And there are definitely,
you know, formal pathways that you should go down, but
not every boy needs therapy. You know, lots of them
need someone to just sit with them. And I think
that like being really playful, as we kind of spoke
about the start, like try and do lots of different
(32:25):
things and one of them will work, because I think
that we we get very rejection sensitive when we say, oh,
do you want to go on a camping trip and
he goes stuff you and it's like, all right, I'm
never trying again. You know. It's like, mate, you had
the kid, you got to try a bit harder. You
brought him into the world. We need to find ways
(32:46):
to connect and realize that. You know, lots of people
say it's oh, he's ten to eleven. He's still so
interested in me and the world, and he says so
many you know things to me, and then something suddenly happens.
There's no defining point there. If you can stay connected
and realize he will push and pull consistently over time,
that's okay. It's about an expectation setting. We need to
(33:07):
realize that that things change and you need to adapt
with his needs and ask him what he wants, ask
him what he wants. It's such a unique thing. Parents
are like, I'm going to tell him and tell him
this is what he needs, is how he needs to
do it, and say it. Maybe give him the choice.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Yeah, And I think that's really important. Point too, is
about the playfulness because I think we've got to talk
about our feelings now. It can be quite a heavy,
sort of serious thing. But the more playful you can be,
the different ways you find yourself going about it, than
the best it's going to be.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
No guys want to have a mental health conversation. I
don't understand why they're like these deep, dark things that
have to happen in the corner of an office like
I'd much rather that we find ways to firstly get
ahead of this stuff early, and secondly it make it
an everyday thing because it is. We're all working it out,
(33:59):
and I think that it you know, it shouldn't take
like it'd be great for me to overhear guys talking
about their therapist at the pub. You know, everyone talks
about their fisier. He fixed my knee. Incredible. Why would
anyone talk about me as a therapist? Man?
Speaker 1 (34:15):
I crushed it. But just just so you know, Zach,
no one ever does the physio exercises.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
We saw you the other day very quickly at the
November event.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
It's just dropping prince throwing names around. Now what I
love you? Do you find?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I mean, obviously you get your clinical work and then
so many other areas, but that must just set you
up for just that that helps in every way. Right.
I was so moved by you, and you are for
me what a man should be. I think even take
your beard away, it's a very good beard.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
That is what.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
You're so well rounded, you speak so beautifully, and that
you're kind of doing so much wonderful work.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Oh mate, that means the world. And I you know,
my wife would probably challenge you on that, but I.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Think that at least on camera.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
But I've got to walk the walk when it comes
to stuff. And I think I really appreciate, like well rounded,
being a generalist, you know, being able to dip into
lots of different things and make sure that I'm speaking
with lots of different communities. You know, That's what we
talk about in November. Mustaches come in all shapes and sizes,
and you need to be able to meet guys where
(35:31):
they're at. And I realized early on I could sit
in a clinical room and do five days a week
of that, but it just didn't feel like the greatest
use of my passion and skills potentially. And so I
really have so much hope and optimism and faith in
the capacity for boys and men to really live up
to their potential. And so that's what keeps me going
(35:52):
and dipping into new rooms and trying to spread the
message that is trying to actually counteract lots of that
fire alarm situation, which I actually don't think is helpful.
We need to we need to sit alongside, we need
to talk with We need to find ways to connect
and I have a lot of work to do. Mate.
Any therapist who thinks that they have evolved is lying
(36:14):
to you. I am very aware of my own limitations
and I actually build that into my work as well.
There's plenty I don't know. There's plenty I learn from
guys in community each and every day, and it's being
willing and open to expand and be flexible in that
way that keeps me coming back.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Well, that's what came across. You know, you were talking
about such a full on it's so intense the subject
matter you're talking about, but everything that came through was
just a kind of inspiration and hope and that there
is so much good in everyone, and it's.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Just there is evil stuff going on, and it's about
a matter of balancing those two things, which is like,
you can see the thing, you can understand it, you
can hold people accountable for it. But like heaping more
on the shoulders of your everyday thirteen fourteen year old
boys not the solution. And that's just my etho. Not
everyone agrees with that, and that's okay. I think healthy
(37:10):
disagreement around this very complex space is how we grow
if everyone's just in this agreement echo chamber, it's not helpful.
So I want to bring humanity to everything. And that's
you know why I'm so lucky to have that clinical lens.
And it goes back to when I was fourteen as
a kid working with my dad as a receptionist at
a Method owned clinic. You know, I had a very
(37:31):
privileged upbringing, but I'd spend saturdays with you know, people
who were addicts and really struggling to find their place,
and they had so many demons, and I witnessed. I
witnessed that very early on and realized that we need
to find compassion and connection because that's the basis of
humanity in some ways, and we're losing sight of that sometimes.
(37:54):
And I'm very glad that it's a very simple message
that's resonating.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
And like you said earlier, as parents, we need to
instead of sensationalizing things or we need to understand so
all the things that our children and to go through,
we need to get ahead of it, understand what it is,
and the need to be able to talk about it
rationally with emotion and understanding. And I think that will
that's the best place to start from but with people
(38:21):
like you and the incredible work you're doing, Zach's, it helps.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Were sensationalize together. We never sensationalized with them. It's just
like all of the parents sitting around being like, what
is happening? Did you do this thing? And then it's
just all fever pitch yes, and it's lost sight of
the fact that wait a second, there's a kid in
the room next door. What are you doing?
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Yeah, yeah, it's so true. Thank you, Zach. Yeah, thank
you so much. We've all got a lot to learn
from u, Zach, and we're very very grateful you've come
and we will talk today. So thanks for having chat
with us, Thanks.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
So much for having me, and for all of the
support that you guys have had for men's health across
the board Mustaches in November and otherwise. And you know,
we have a lot of work to do, but it's
great to see incredible role models like yourself really stepping up.
So love this and thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Thank you, Zach. And just before we finish in November,
we tried it once years ago. Well actually we've always
been supportive, but with the Mustachers, well Lockie did and
it turned out to be. The one time that we
had a photo with Harry Styles was a great mystache,
little bits of hair.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
I love that that became someone made that my Wikipedia
photo for years.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Wow. It was kids love mustaches. I'm telling you, I've
witnessed it. They're just like, yeah, infatuated with them, Like
what is happening? So you know, lean.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Into it, bring it back, bring back them though. Thank
you Zach.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Thanks Tom Simo.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
If I need any more encouragement to get my bed back,
it's just happened.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, Zach's done it. For people who were just listening
and watching. It was a good healthy beard from a
good healthy person physically and mentally. That's why.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, I bought a great chat and thank you Zach again.
That was such an important chat.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Yeah, really important. Interesting, isn't it that we there's an
expectation maybe and you know all that the focus on
girls and you know, which of course was such an
important thing to do, But then there's maybe just a
lack of understanding that boys just expected to know what
to do. But actually, in fact we don't know. It's
just the way society was that men were, you know,
(40:31):
the prominent figures. Now all that work's been done rightfully
so with girls and women, and so we need to
kind of help out the boys a little bit as well.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, and once again, like every wonderful guest we've had
on this podcast so far, you can call it different things,
but it is all about connecting again. As he said,
you've got to kind of just step up and have
the conversations. But like you said right at the start,
just be willing to be curious, and it just starts
(41:00):
there just actually having a crack and going for it
and not being scared that it'll just take care.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
Of itself for that's right. Yeah, it's about sensationalizing someone
oh what are we gonna do about this? Or putting
your head in the sound there's kind of they both
have a similar result. It's actually just been curious, like
you're saying, and understanding exactly what it all means and
what impact it could possibly have on your child and
your family and creating an environment, which we've spoken about
(41:27):
so much on the podcast, that your child is willing
to come and talk to you because of the relationship
you have in the environment you've set up at home. Yep.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
I love that he said. You know that if you're
open Yeah, it's a far better way that your child's
going to come up and yeah and just say something.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
They'll try and find playful ways of doing it. Yes,
so this serious? Yeah, yeh, chats anyway, I think that's
it for today. Lucky it is. Yeah, thanks for listening.
You can find out more about Zack and his work
at zachseither dot com or through November and Origin.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
If you love the show, make sure you follow wigle
Talk wherever you're listening so you don't miss an episode.
And if you'd like to see my picture of my mustache,
you can head to Wikipedia.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Oh yeah, Wikipedia, it's not there anymore. I think it's changed.
That's still there. Pretty easy. We put it on there.
We will talk website. Have we got what it is?
I'll put it on a Monday now. I don't think
we have one anyway. Thanks for listening. Yes, we'll see
you next time. Bye bye, goodbye,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.