December 24, 2025 • 42 mins
This summer we've curated your Help I Have A Teenager playlist with a healthy dose of culture-savvy conversation parents actually want - Parenting Out Loud.
Another week, another Parenting Out Loud episode where if parents are thinking about it, we're talking about it.
On today's show, Jessie Stephens and Amelia Lester are joined by friend of the pod, and Mamamia's Deputy Editor, Stacey Hicks to discuss whether or not kids ruin your adult friendships.
Also, to what extent should children's entertainment figures be apolitical, and why is YouTube's Ms Rachel so controversial right now?
Plus, the dumb phone. Between landlines, 'brick' phones and a yearning for the '90s, it seems nostalgia is the newest tech trend for parents.
And, in this week’s reccos:
Amelia wants you to try a special storytelling collection, Jessie is recommending daycare with a twist and Stacey is all over Dolly Parton's 'imagination' library.
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Want more Parenting Out Loud? Click here.
WHAT TO READ:
- Rachel Accurso's son struggled with a speech delay, so she started making videos online.
- ‘I was a total a**hole’. An open letter to the women who became mums before me.
- 'I didn't know how to keep my kids safe on their phones, until an expert shared these three hacks.'
- 'I'm a psychologist. This hidden phone setting kills your endless scrolling addiction.'
- Worried about what your kids see online? These 5 tips make digital parenting easier.
- 'I don't have a kid, but I told my workplace I do.'
- 'Why I refuse to use a smartphone.'
- 2006 called and it wants you to buy your kid a dumb phone.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mumma mea acknowledges
the traditional owners of the land. We have recorded this
podcast on the Gatagoul people of the Eur Nation. We
pay our respects to their elders past and present, and
extend that respect to all Aboriginal and torres strained Islander cultures.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'm Stacy Hicks. I'm the editor of Mamma Mia, and
I'm also the host of our new parenting podcast, Parenting
out Loud. And this summer, we're curating your listening with
a healthy dose of culture savvy conversations that parents actually want.
This holiday season, we're bringing you unmissible episodes right here
into your podcast playlist. It's your summer listening sorted. And
if you're looking for more to listen to, every Muma
(01:03):
Mia podcast is curating. Some are listening right across the network,
from pop culture to beauty to powerful interviews. There's something
for everyone. There's a link in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Hello, and welcome to our limited series of Parenting out Loud.
I am Jesse Stevens and I am joined by Melia Lester.
You can say hello, Maria. You're allowed to say hello, Hope,
Ja how are you good? And we're here to talk
about some of the stories that dominated the week, because
if parents are thinking about it, we're talking about it.
And today we also have a very special third co host.
(01:43):
It is Mum and MIA's deputy editor. Welcome to Stacey Hicks.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Hello, Hell, thanks for scooching over.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
For for me.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Please tell us a bit about yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
This question is my nightmare. Thank you so much for us.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
That is so fine. I wanted to leave it as
open ended as possible so that you'd lose sleepover.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yes, I feel like all I do is scroll on
TikTok in bed, so that is not very interesting. I'm
the writer of many words on Muma Mia that you
might have seen on the website. I'm the drinker of
copious amounts of tea and margaritas. Which tea and spicy
irregular marks, oh English breakfast tea, Yeah, milk sugar, depending
on the time of day. You're not a barbarian and
(02:20):
I'm a regular mar girl.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Very say you know I've started putting jalapenos in my sovank. Oh, yes,
it's true, it's happening.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Sally be An early recommendation from a Milia today and Stacey,
do you have a kid?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I do. It would be a bit weird if I
didn't throwing my opinions around. I am one and done
so I've had one child. I got it right. I'm
stopping so clever, we're done gone.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I have affected the process you went. This one is
ten out of ten. Let's not tempt fate.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Or let's just never do that roller coaster again?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Did you have a way you want to look at it?
How old is the little one?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
She is four years old. I have a four year
old little girl.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
On today's show Do Kids Ruin Friendships? We discussed two
fiery essays about what happens to friendship in the wake
of children and the return of the landline signals nostalgia
for childhood we might never be able to recreate. So
what is kid rotting and could it be the answer?
Plus children's YouTube star miss Right express support for the
(03:22):
children of Gaza and now she's had to disable comments
on Instagram and YouTube. We explain what happened and the
parasocial relationships we have with kids entertainers. But first, in
case you missed it, a number of unnamed women have
confessed to making up they have kids in order to
get flexibility at work. And I want your initial reactions now, please.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I think it's genius, really yeah, because before I had kids,
I would always see these women leaving work early to
go and pick up so called children from so called school.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
And they would be consumed with anger and jealousy. How
about you, Stacy equally think it's genius. But they have
forgotten something very important, the guilt that comes along with
leaving early. So once you have a child and you
have to duck out an hour early, they're not thinking
about the fact that you then make up for that
tenfold afterwards to prove that you or way, I'm sending
(04:14):
a lot of like sort of overly diligent emails to
your boss at nine pm.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yes, yes, yeah, that's the part I resent. So one
woman told MoMA Maya that she lied to her boss
with a story about her daughter experiencing a health emergency
and she needed to leave. In reality, it was her
cat and it really was an emergency. And I guess
that all depends on your definition of child exactly. That
definition includes male cat doesn't for me. But I'm slightly
(04:38):
horrified by this story, even though I know there's lots
of research. A health emergency of a child is really serious.
It's really serious and scary for parent. And that is
not to undermine the horror of having a sick cat.
But your workplace should respect a sick cat. You should
be able to acknowledge I've got a sick cat. I
(04:59):
need to leave. There's caarras leave that exists. But I
think to suggest, and I saw some of this research
and some of the rhetoric around this that said women,
particularly without kids, pick up the slack of working mothers.
And I resent that so deeply because i'd know about
you too. But are we seeing much slack from working mothers.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Well, I'm not going to confess to it here yet.
I'm never slacking. No, we're definitely not slacking. But I
do think that we take it more seriously when it's
a kid. Like if someone's kid had an emergency, I
probably would send them a message that night and say,
hope Paul is okay. If it was a cat, I
would not, And.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I think that that's the right reactions good.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I'm allergic to cats. In my defense, I cannot do
kids ruin friendships. That's the real reason I barge my
way into the.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Studio today, you're lonely and desperate.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yes, I needed to talk about it with my favorite
women because I read an article on this very topic
and I cannot stop thinking about it. So in a
substack called in Pursuit of Clean Countertops, which is a
great name by Sarah Peterson, she spoke about how after
she gave birth, trying to care about anything other than
her baby's Pooh color and sleep schedule was akin to
(06:14):
having phantom limb syndrome. So she said she tried to
care but just didn't really. So instead of wanting to
do these gossip sessions with her child free friends, she
was craving more time with the mothers who were experiencing
the same thing as her. And the same sentiment was
echoed in a piece in the Cut where the writer
Alison P. Davis called children tiny little detonators, which they
(06:37):
very much are, saying nothing represents a threat to friendship
more than parenthood. So does motherhood actually ruin our friendships
or just change the DNA of them a little bit? Well,
in my experience, they do ruin friendships a little bit.
I've been on both sides of this equation.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I had children fairly laid in the piece, and before
I had them, I felt a lot of rage. I
guess this is a thread through my remarks today. I
felt a lot of rage towards friends who had kids
before I did. I could tell that they were not
inviting me to birthday parties, which I didn't want to
go to, but nonetheless wanted the invitation for. I could
tell that they were getting together on side group chats
(07:13):
to talk about nappies and toilet training and things I
didn't understand, and I desperately wanted to be involved, and
I couldn't understand why they weren't involving me.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Now that I'm on the.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Other side of that equation, I've realized that a big
time suck once you have children is that you do
have to make friends, not just because you need the
fellow feeling and the sympathy of having friends who will
also have kids, but also we live in such an
isolated society now, and parenting is just put on to
the parents rather than the community, and I need mum
(07:43):
friends who I can lean on if I can't pick
the kid up from school at the right time, or
if I have a really important question about something that
Google is not going to answer for me without a sort.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Of anxiety spiral.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
I need those friends who I can call on and
lean on in moments of crisis with my kids. So
now I guess I understand given that time is limited
once you do have kids, you do have to reserve
a certain amount of time for making those new friends.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
So do you think that it's just about the equation
that we all have finite time and energy. Whether it's
you've got one child or you've got four children, you
suddenly have this person that needs all of your attention
or as much as you can give them, and then
you've got to make parent friends, which is true, whether
it's starting with mother's group and then at school and whatever.
(08:33):
Is it just that Is it just that there's not
as much time, or do you think that it's also
that you don't relate in the same way.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Stacey, Have you lost friends since you had your I
think mine. I didn't lose friends completely, but I think
mine went into a state of flux. So you added
so many more people in that it just felt like
you couldn't give time to the ones that were already there.
And I also think, as you said before, once I
was on the other side, I kind of went on
(08:59):
this apology tour with all of my friends that had
had children before me, saying I get it now, like
I get why you did this. I get why you
retreated from me because I wasn't supporting you in the
way that I now need from you.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Which you can't. I'm sorry, but you just simply can't understand.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And all my friends were very gracious in that way
and saying you just didn't get it. You didn't know
that showing up with a teddy bear was not very
useful to me, and that it would have been better
if you'd stacked the dishwasher and not sat on my
lauch with me for two hours.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
I have literally never stacked a friend's dishwasher. I need
to go on this apology to it.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
I do well. Once I did that, I've been a
great mum friend to all my friends that have come
after me with children, but the ones before, thank god,
they were kind about it. But I think it's because
that happens with every single friend. You're in a line
of the order, and you've got to pay it forward
to the ones behind you. See.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I kind of reject this. I don't think that kids
ruined friendships. And I think accepting that can make us
all a bit lazy. It can make the people who
have either chosen not to have kids or don't have
them yet think they don't want to hang out with me.
I think there's a lot of assumptions going both ways
that aren't necessarily true. Because when I was in my
twenties and my friend wanted to go clubbing, I most
(10:11):
of the time didn't want to go clubbing, but I
went clubbing because I was like, I just want to
hang out with you. Wherever you are. I would go
and watch their basket, they'd come watch my netball. We
went through a stage where we take turns going and
picking each other up just because we just got our
license right. And so it's never about what you're actually doing.
(10:31):
It's more about the time you're spending together. And in
both of these articles, they were sort of saying, if
I don't have kids, I don't want to spend time
in a park, I don't want to spend time at
your house with bluey on in the background. And I
kind of reject that. I think that if you want
to spend time with someone, then you do it on
each of your terms to varying degrees and you can
(10:53):
try and maintain those friendships, but it's give and take.
I think there's something quite selfish about thinking, well, I
don't want to spend my Saturday in a parker at
a kid's birthday party. Like, if you want to sustain
the friendship, then there's got to be a bit given take.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
What's the give and take on the part of the
person who has kids in this equation?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
What are they being asked to do.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I was having this conversation with Maya on out Loud recently,
and she said, get a babysitter and hang out at night.
And you know what, do that once a month if
you can, if you can afford it. And I know
that it's harder for some people than others. It's about
how much support you have. But if you can, yeah,
have that in the diary a month in advance and
go all right, let's hang out. But still I think
(11:31):
that the friends who don't have kids also have to
compromise a little bit.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
See, I really disagree with you, Jessey. The last thing
I want to do is say to a friend of
mine who doesn't have children, min us at the playground,
we will have a half hearted, completely disjointed, ultimately unsatisfactory conversation.
While I ensure that my child doesn't break his or
her neck, who does that benefit? All?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Right? So I have a theory about why we feel
differently about this, which was in the cut article. There
is research to suggest that something happens around the age
of three. The Journal of Demographic Research said that that's
when from the age of three is when kids are
the most demanding of the parents' time and energy. I
currently have a two year old. I wonder if I'm
still in this. She's started talking probably like what six
(12:20):
months eet a year ago, like properly talking. But in
that first year you can put the baby in the
pram and walk the dog, right, So there's still an
element of socializing that's possible there even now, push her
on the swing. I was hanging out with someone recently
who had a five and a seven year old. No, no,
because it's the pulling of the skirt and going my mom.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Compassion of the Minecraft movie.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Which like your friend as lovely as they are, your
kid's boring as shit, yea, Like they are boring as
shit and you know that, but you love them, And
whether you are boring at the start, You are so
boring once you have a kid, so actually they're giving
up a lot to spend time with you from the start.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Like I remember with my newborn talking to my friend
at nauseum about the tog ratings of sleeping bags and
worrying that my daughter wasn't warm enough at night. It's
so dull.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
But you know what, my friends who don't have kids
can also be very boring.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
True.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
I have a friend at the moment who is doing
a fitness challenge. Holy boring the stuff I've heard about,
and I follow up, so he talks about his fitness challenge.
I talk about Luna's sleep and how much sleep I
got last night. We're both bored. Isn't friendship just shared boreder?
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Look, my main topic of conversation with people right now
is the fact that I love mouth tape, and I
can see the light draining from their eyes when I
talked to them about this. Just last night, I had
dinner with some mum friends and our kids at a
tepanyaki joint, which is really interesting because you always wonder
whether or not the food is going to make it
into the bowl or if it's going to go all
over your brand new jumper. I'm pleased to report that
(13:49):
my jumper did not have stains on it. At the
end of the night, you know, I'm devoid of conversation.
I'm very tired, and I just started talking about mouth
tape because that's my go to and I realized that's
really boring. So we probably shouldn't say just kids are boring,
and in fact, this conversation you couldn't send it to partners.
Think about heterosexual relationships where you've got do I bring
the man who's now in my life along to the
(14:11):
dinner with girlfriends.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I have met men so much more boring than a
sick jumper, so much.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
This is what I'm saying, And I guess the contention
that I'm moving towards here.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Is we're all a little bit boring, but our friends
the people who find us the right amount of boring.
So let's not drag other people into the equation.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
See your friends on the terms as a friendship. Don't
try and bring kids in, don't try and being partners
in interesting.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
I'm all about the compartmentalization. I think it's also because
we're not as accustomed to the ups and downs in
our friendships as we are in our relationships. Like I
think there's an understanding that in long term relationships you
might go through rough patches, you'll go through great patches,
And the same is not really said for friendships, like
we just go, oh, that's run its course once they've
had a child and they've kind of retreated. So and
(14:57):
the other thing to consider is how much our circle
of friends changes in that time, because we talk about
losing friends a lot, or maybe friends with our children
retreating from us. But you also are forced into a
lot of extra friendships through circumstance, like whether that's through
a mother's group, whether that's through sport or kids' activities,
where so many more people end up in your life.
And there was an essay in Psychology Today where clinical
(15:19):
psychologist Seth Mine not The Late Night talked about how
many people are blindsided by the level of loss when
it comes to their friendships because it's always the ones
they don't expect. But he also warned about being a
bit cautious going into these new friendships because they've kind
of been forced upon you by circumstance, that they might
not stand the test of time once those children have
(15:41):
kind of grown up or moved out of that activity.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
That is so true. I've seen that happen where I
think people look at each other and they go, oh,
we're only mates because or they've tried to like go,
all right, so we're friends because our kids' primary school together,
and they're like, let's try and do a weaken away.
Doesn't worry, It's like, no, no, no, it only works
in that context. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
This makes me think about the fact that when you
have little kids, conversation is never that good, and so
the friendship there's never that much strain put on the
friend Yes, but as the kids grow older and they're
off doing their own thing, all of a sudden, the
spotlight is on can this relationship withstand long stretches of
act conversation the juries out.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
There are a few things floating around in the culture
that I'm going to attempt to bring together. The first
is The Atlantic published a story this month about the
return of the landline. Writer Rina Murray spoke to a
mother who bought her ten year old a landline to
connect with her friends, and this was in lieu of
a smartphone, and then encouraged other families in the suburb
(16:45):
to do the same. So now twenty or so families
have landlines, They've got their kids calling each other. She
writes about sort of practicing active listening, which is a
lot better than looking on FaceTime, which can be distracting.
And this leads me to the second thing. I listened
to this great episode of Search Engine, which was about
a booming industry of technology to stop you from using
(17:07):
addictive technology. So think a dumb phone, or there's this
thing called a brick, which is you kind of tap
your phone, turns all the apps off, and then you
can go for a walk or spend a few hours
or whatever, and then you tap it again. Apps come
back on. One thing is a story in the cut
about millennial nostalgia for a nineties summer. It's about the
school holidays where time was unstructured. You laid around, maybe
(17:31):
you watched some TV, you got up late, you went
on a budget family trip up the coast, basically a
time before YouTube. And I think what this highlighted for
me is that we're trying to wind back the clock
and recreate the childhood we had. And my question is
that even possible? Stacy, what do you think?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
No, I don't think it's possible. At all, But I
love that everyone is trying. And my best friend has
actually been telling me the same thing is happening in
her neighborhood at the moment where all the year four
moms have set up a chat about reinstalling landlines in
their homes. I thought this was just an Atlantic trendy. No,
this is happening in regional Queensland where they're doing that
(18:14):
because and her reasoning was really interesting. She said, to me,
the most important thing to me is just allowing her
to be where she is. So whether they're out at school, sport,
whether they're at home just having family time, the technology
can physically not reach her. So it's very easy way
to shut it off and it not be available and
still be able to enjoy being in the present moment
of her childhood. And that's the fear for everyone, the
(18:37):
idea that the landline is prolonging her having to get
a mobile phone. Yes, her daughter, Yeah, absolutely, because then
it is very much that she can talk in a
public space. Her parents are around, they can see that
she's chatting and as you say, they're actually holding a conversation.
It's not just tapping away on a keyboard. To some
faceless friend. They're actually communicating and learning that skill, which
(18:59):
I think. I mean, even I hate having to call
the doctors. Now we just don't do it. So it's
great that they're encouraging them with that.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
And the theory is that rather than just taking something
away and depriving, it's like you give them something else instead.
And it reminds me of in this search Engine episode,
it said you can treat your mobile phone like a landline,
Like if you walk into your house and you plug
it in and you go When my phone is in
my house, it's plugged in, that's it. And when I
want to use it, I go upstairs or I go whatever,
(19:28):
and I tap away. I thought that's really clever because
that has some boundary where if you're sitting on the
couch and you just go to look at your phone
for the four hundredth time that day. Because let's be honest,
the reason why kids want phones is because we are
not setting a great example. I am appalling. Just having
that bit of resistance is way better for us. I
(19:50):
think it was in the Cut article it talked about
this concept of kid rotting, and it was saying that
it might be better to let kids do nothing right.
So what happens now? School holidays are coming up, and
a lot of people will go camps, training, Let's have
something for every day. But I don't think you can
(20:11):
let a kid rot anymore, because if a kid is rotting,
they will gravitate like there is a magnet to the
nearest screen and there is no no one structured time
because that's just screen time. We'll pay a premium. There
is such desperation to be like, oh, school holidays, how
do I separate child from screen for the longest amount
of time possible?
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
I was talking with a friend about the pressure that
we have to enroll kids and all sorts of activities now,
and she really dropped a truth bomb. She said, I
realized I dialed back on my kids' activities, and then
I realized that I was just giving them more time
to watch television.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yes, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
We had television back in the olden days. But were
we just watching less of it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Because it wasn't I think underpinned with an algorithm designed
to turn our brains into mush. It was like, I
think we all remember the experience of getting bored, Yes,
and so.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
We didn't have the expectation that we would need to
be entertained at all times exactly children already have.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And then when you went outside, like, yeah, you could
go to a friend's house and watch television. But even
if you haven't seen your kids in a while and
they're at the neighbor's house or whatever, they're probably on
PS five right like that, Yeah, it's a very unlikely
making a tree house, which is I think contributing to
this parental anxiety. And it also I think screens make
(21:29):
time feel different, like there is this endlessness to a
day where you're engaged with the world around you, and
now it just feels so punctuated by three second videos
or YouTube or whatever they're on.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
And here's another thing I'm concerned about the death of
the prank call. Kids make prank.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Calls so important, Amelia, so true, what was your go to?
Oh look, I.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Don't even want to say it on that, but I
did love a prank call, like wrapping the curly cord
of the phone around my finger, doing the star sixty
nine to see who would last call? Remember that someone
tells her how to devilish sense of humor. I loved
all of that, I know, and it's.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Sad to think that for the most part, kids are
not having that. I just wonder, though, it's hard to
distinguish between moral panic around phones and also the inevitable
nostalgia that a parenting generation has for its youth. Is
that just what we're doing here, or is there something
fundamentally different about the digital world that we live in
now as compared with the world that we grew up in.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I wonder that too, because there's an inevitable nostalgia. Like
I'm sure my mum felt the nostalgia because we had
Foxtel and she was like, well, I think when my
mum grew up, TV wasn't actually on all night, Like
there was a point at which the TV stopped and
she just went, you could watch TV at any time,
and you can change the channel and watch.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And when I grew up, there was rage, and now.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
It's no rage. It's rage is so sad.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
And you don't have to wait for the video to rewind,
so there is absolutely no patience. Remember that when you
get out the best video that you wanted to watch
on school holidays and it was at the end you
had to wait to rewind it back to the start.
I don't do that now, it's just on a loop instantly.
And I do think the fundamental challenge we have as
parents is trying to reacquaint ourselves with boredom, because our
(23:19):
children alonte from us every time we pick up our
phone because we feel discomfort or disquiet or boredom.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I reckon algorithms have changed childhood. There is an element
of nostalgia in us wanting to recreate what we see
as an idyllic if we're lucky enough, but moments of
an idyllic kind of utopian childhood, and we go. I
want to give them that. I do think that it's
fundamentally changed how time is spent in childhood. And I
even think about the computer room. Like when I grew up,
(23:48):
when the computer did come, it was in a room
and you fought for it, and sometimes it was dial up.
There was a sense as well that even though it
was a room, that it wasn't entirely private, so you
felt like you were being watched. And now every room
in every house is a computer room. So it just
means that time isn't it doesn't have these distinctions when
(24:08):
it comes.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
To exactly and on Mama mea actually We've seen a
huge appetite from parents for information on how to control
their children's access to technology. We did a story on
the top three safety features every parent now on their
phone that Annal's Todd wrote for us and it was
top on the site for days just talking about us. Yeah,
so there's lots of different features. This is mostly for
(24:30):
the Apple users, so apologies to the androids users among us.
But there's now nudity blocking functions where oh wow, you
can set those up on your children's phone so it
blurs the images. They've got a three step process they
have to get through to see it, including you putting
in a password for them to see the image. There's
screen time setups now where you can be blocking certain
(24:51):
websites so that they can't access them, and of course
like limiting their screen time all together can be done
as well. But the response to that story was epic,
and I think that just showed how worried we all
are about that, whether we're at that stage with our
children or not to be thinking well, how am I
going to get on top of this, and maybe a
little bit of thinking how do I get on top
of this one myself now, so that I'm not setting
(25:13):
this up for them.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Emily Osta, who gives a bit of parenting advice, and
a lot of it is databased. She says about scrap time,
what's it taking away from? So whenever you have a
child who's looking at a screen, so for example, Luna
has been unwell recently, and it's like, we wouldn't be
at the park, we wouldn't be, you know, doing something enriching,
(25:36):
just glad to look at the TV. Like if the
difference is between looking at a TV and looking at
a white wall, then you're allowed to do the TV.
It's just when it starts to sort of encroach on
other activities. And I also heard an expert say not
all screen time is equal. So if you can find
something that has any sort of narrative, like even Bluey,
it does have like a story to it, way better
(25:57):
than just jumbling fast cuts of like this is brainmush
or social media like that makes a difference. And something
that's a little bit more slow is also what some
of the experts say. And in terms of phones, I
remember reading the advice years ago turn it to grayscale
and it makes it less appealing, and I've found that
helps for me too.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
Mss Rachel is a very pop children's entertainer. I have
actually never seen her videos, but I have gone deep
on a controversy that has embroiled her, and which I
think gets to the heart of the relationship that we
now have with children's entertainers. So let me unpack it.
Her real name is Rachel an Accurso. She is a
(26:39):
former teacher. She makes adorable content for kids on YouTube.
I'm told it's adorable. She certainly looks adorable. She wears
overalls and a pink T shirt and a pick headband,
and her channel, which sated in twenty nineteen to help
her own son with a speech delay, has over fifteen
million subscribers, and she's recently had her videos licensed by Netflix,
so she might be, by some metrics, the most popular
(27:02):
children's entertainer in the world. However, she is in trouble.
In April, an American group called Stop Anti Semitism called
on the US Attorney General Pam Bondie to investigate Miss Rachel.
The group said that she had been disseminating pro Hamas
propaganda and getting paid by her mass for doing so,
(27:22):
which would be quite a scandal. I agree is miss
Rachel in fact disseminating pro Har mass propaganda. We should
say that she denies that she is being paid anything
by her mass, and I think that the charge that
she's disseminating propaganda is kind of a tough case to make.
Speaking as someone who is not very familiar with her content,
(27:42):
I watched a few of her videos in preparation for this.
They seem very benign to me. They seem to be
about toilet training, brushing your teeth, learning your colors. I
did not see anything that would seem to be pro
Har mass propaganda. What she has posted on her social
media feed, on her Instagram so separate from the YouTube channel,
(28:04):
are images of traumatized children in the Gaza strip. These
images often feature the children watching her videos or even
interacting with Miss Rachel via FaceTime. She has also pledged
one million dollars to the World Food Program, which works
to provide nutrition for kids in complexones Sudan, Ukraine and
also Gaza. She has also posted about Israeli children who
(28:28):
were held hostage by Hamas. She told The New York
Times in a very long investigative peace about this that
her posting about children in Gaza was a continuation of
her lifelong work and passion for children. But The Times
quoted some Jewish parents who felt distraught. They said that
there was a relative lack of.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Posts about Israeli children, and The Times, which did an
analysis of Miss Rachel's Instagram content, agreed with that assessment
that she did tend to post more about Gaza and
children than Israeli children. One Jewish parent.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Quoted said Miss Rachel seems to be someone who is
really really good hearted, but in the context of everything
that's going on, she says, I care about all children,
She's really talking about the children of Gaza. That was
a Jewish parent called Stacy Hatner who's based in London.
She said that has left a lot of Jewish parents
feeling quite isolated. In research for this, yes, I have
(29:21):
to say that one video that Miss Rachel pin really
made a big impression on me. It featured a three
year old girl called Rahaf who was a double amputee
who was medically evacuated from Gaza for her surgery and
sings a song with Miss Rachel about skipping and hopping.
Her two brothers are still in Gaza with their father.
Stepping back from all of this, though I want to
(29:43):
talk about why we feel.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
So connected in this way to children's entertainers, why it
matters to us what Miss Rachel thinks about world news
and events. I think it's probably inevitable on one level
that these debates are happening. You just have to look
at how during COVID desperate parents were looking for anything
to entertain their children, and they latched on to all
sorts of parenting gurus. So one guru I was obsessed
(30:09):
with during this time was an American woman called Taking
Cara Babies. Have either of you heard of her?
Speaker 4 (30:14):
No? So she is this lovely blonde woman from Arizona
who posted endless Instagram videos about sleep schedules. She absolutely
got me through twenty twenty. I'm still citing in my
household all the time. Her idea of the sleep wave,
you got to ride the sleepwave. This applies to adults too.
If you feel sleep coming on, you got to ride
the wave. And if you miss the wave, you gotta
(30:34):
wait for the next one. Genius.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
I was very dismayed when I found out that Kara
was a Trump supporter. She had not posted about it
on her Taking Care of Babies account, but she was
posting about it on her personal account. I really resented
her using even her personal account to talk about politics,
and it made me not want to watch her videos
or take her sleep advice anymore. I'm not drawing equivalences
(30:59):
or even parallels between these very different political stories here.
I'm mentioning it because I felt left out, resent full,
angry at taking care of babies in a way that
perhaps I didn't have a right to. She was teaching
me about children's sleep. She wasn't showing me her political
beliefs or talking about world events. But I think what's
interesting is that we clearly do expect peace people who
(31:21):
work with or care about kids to not share their
political beliefs with us, and to not share how they
think about the wider world. And I'm wondering if that's
really fair, And it seems connected to me to an
idea that children themselves should not be talked about as
living in an inherently political world. Children living in a
world where the decisions made by leaders directly impact them.
(31:43):
Doesn't it make sense for the experts that we turn
to to raise our own children to weigh in on
these decisions that are being made by leaders.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
That's interesting because I reckon it is a totally different
level of parasocial relationship. And I think it's because of
the moments where we feel our children, especially with the
Miss Rachel example. She's been in your home, she's been
in your child's bedroom, she's sung in your child's ear.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Are you a Miss Rachel? Arcolod?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
So we have Miss Rachel plays a song for us
every time we brush our teeth, and we do the
brushing teeth song, and she is like I see her
and hear her at some of my most vulnerable moments,
at some of Luna's most vulnerable moments, that she feels
like an extension of the family. And I don't think
we realize this until there is a moment, as you
(32:32):
say with your example, I don't feel this about Miss Rachel,
but like of betrayal, where people then go, hang on,
You're not who I thought you were. And I wonder
if it's like if you have a nanny or an
early educator or even a teacher, like there is an
expectation that their political selves or whatever might be left
outside the classroom because there is this incredible, innocent, almost
(32:58):
quite simplistic and straightforward relationship with your child. But on
the Miss Rachel example, I think it feels so consistent right,
Like she has said that no child should have their
crucial brain development interrupted by trauma, and whether you want
to talk about scale, and everyone has the right to
(33:19):
feel how they want to and not listen to Miss
Rachel if she doesn't feel like an extension of your
family anymore. But that does feel consistent with what she's
always done. And she's always, you know, encouraged people to
donate to the food bank and make sure kids have
enough food. And I think that there were videos or
examples of kids in some of these instances watching Miss Rachel,
(33:40):
so to her, I think she probably felt drawn into
it as well because she had this presence.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
I am a Miss Rachel household as well. We very
sincerely referred to her as the third parent in our household.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Can we step back, and I just want to ask
you both a quick question about her, because I'm not
familiar with her. She clearly is inspiring incredibly strong feelings
in people, both positive and negative.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
What is it about her that.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Broke through in twenty twenty and beyond that was so
different from all the other children's entertainer For me, it
was that I had my daughter during COVID, So miss
Rachel's voice face was with me in my darkest moments,
quite literally, like in the dark with my daughter when
I couldn't settle her with you know, colic and reflux
and all the things.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Miss Rachel was the answer to that. So I think
you tie her to yourself in some sort of you know,
she's my savior in.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
This Situation's interesting your example, right, because as you were saying, Amelia, so,
I think that she only started making these videos in
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty nineteen, and then something that she
couldn't control, which was the pandemic, happened, and that is
when her star just rose enormously.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Why her as opposed to other children's entertainers, What was
it about her communication style?
Speaker 3 (34:53):
For instance?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
I think it is about the fact that what she
does is educational. She has a master's degree in music education.
She sings, she's all about a nunciation and that origin
story you told of how her son was one and
didn't have any words, yet she made these videos to
help him with language. And I think that, as we
were saying before, there's this sense that if a screen
(35:15):
is on, it should be enridging, or it should be educational.
It was a guilt free way for people to have
their child exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
My daughter learned sign language before she could speak from
Miss Rachel. We learned it from Miss Rachel. So we
started doing it because she was doing it and it
felt like, oh, at least if I've got the screen on.
As Jesse said, it's something useful. It's something that's helping
her with her speech. It's helping her with songs that
we can't remember from where we were young. That I
think was the magnetism of her. I think that's the
(35:46):
missing puzzle piece I needed to understand this story because
the idea that.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
She's helping children learn makes her very different as a
figure to someone like say Blippy. Yeah, mister Blippy is
not helping people children to learn. He's largely cavorting through
ridiculous scenarios and driving parents mad. And I wonder if
that's part of why a parents who love Miss Rachel
(36:12):
love her so much, and b why she feels so
strongly that there's a through line with what she's doing
to help children learn and how she's communicating to their
parents on Instagram about what she feels as an urgent
political situation that she wants them to learn about.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, that's really true. And I suppose if the children
are absorbing her through YouTube, then that feels like a
siloed experience. And then people, I guess, are seeing that
this smiling, chirpy woman who not only taught my child
but taught me a lot about parenting, taught me about
enunciating or what words to do? Or are we doing colors?
(36:48):
Are we doing shapes? Are we doing all of these things?
What's difficult about this, you know, crisis as well, is
that what someone says and what someone hears are not
often the same thing, because it is a very loaded
There's a lot of history that a lot of context,
is a lot of trauma, and so I think that
that too is people feeling betrayed by something that has
(37:09):
been shared.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yeah, and I think we expect a lot more from
anyone in the public eye now than we ever did.
I don't know if we would have known the personal
lives of the og Wiggles, that alone their stance on
geo political issues back when we were growing up, But
it's so true now there's so much more information out there,
and I think it is definitely worse for women in
the public eye. Like Taylor Swift was criticized for not
(37:32):
backing Kamala Harris quick enough in the US election. Chris
Brown is currently on a world tour even though he's
found guilty of domestic violence charges. We don't seem bothered
by what his views are on anything, Like there's just
a very double standard there for women.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
That's true. I do think though, that we've got the
wiggles on sometimes, and my obsession with Emma Unlockey's marriage
has just gone to ridiculous. And it wasn't just me,
it was also Luca. We had a week where Luna
was sick and it was on constantly, and I swear
we were hallucinating. We're in a weird state, and like
(38:06):
we needed the wedding photos, and then we needed to
know why they broke up. And now Lockie has a
new family and who is she? And I can tell
you what Emma did her PhD in And then I
had to go down the route of like is it
a wig or is it a real head? Like if
I saw Emma walking down the street, I'd be like, hey,
am I, how you going? Like nice yellow bow? I
would just have so much. She feels like a member
(38:27):
of my family, which is unlike anyone else. I can
see him through a screen.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
I'm also thinking about the fact that for missus Rachel,
she has the YouTube channel for kids. She's not posting
this on the YouTube channel. She's posting this on the
Instagram And last time I checked, most three year olds
don't have Instagram, so there is a difference between those platforms.
On the other hand, to argue with myself, when I
found out that Taking care of Babies was a Trump supporter,
(38:53):
she had never told me that on the Taking care
of Babies sleep Instagram account, So why was it my business?
Why did I care if she was doing it over
on her separate personal account.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I think it's because you start to get your guard
up about whether that is informing the information or the
content that she's providing to the children. I think that
that's what you start to go, are you brainwashing my child?
And then you start to get like a bit paranoid
about it. And it's interesting that Miss Rachel has had
to turn off comments on Instagram and YouTube so under
(39:25):
her teeth Brushing song, the level of trolling was so
bad that she had to just go no, I'm not
taking this on.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
There is though that fear, isn't there, that maybe this
sleep advice is tinged with maganists.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
It makes you start thinking about.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
All of them exactly. It's time for recommendation, Stacy, what
have you got for us?
Speaker 3 (39:46):
I feel quite smug about this recommendation, so imparting it
so you can all feel smug when you recommend it
to someone else. So my daughter gets a free book
every month from Dolly part What the Dolly Parton sends
my well, not personally, I imagine she has someone at the
postal service that does this for her, but she has
a free book gifting service. They have it all around
the world. It's in the US, UK everywhere, and you
(40:08):
can just sign your child up and they'll send you
out in the mail a age appropriate book for your
child each month.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
That's brilliant.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
It's the best. My daughter loves getting mail every month.
I love that I don't have to buy her a
book every month. Like it's the best service. So you
just have to find out if it's in your little area.
It's called Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. I love Dolly Parton.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
She's good egg, she's a very good egg.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
You couldn't love her more. And then she goes and
does that.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Amelia, what's your recommendation?
Speaker 4 (40:36):
My recommendation is to do with learning how to read.
I have a child, two children learning how to read,
and the books that the school sends home are interminably
boring and I'm not inspiring a love of reading. My brother,
who lives in the UK, turned me on to Julia
Donaldson's Songbirds Phonics storytelling collection. Julia Donaldson, you may know
(40:59):
from such classics as Gruffalo and Zog. She has written
sixty books where almost every word is phonically decodable, and
they're also somehow interesting stories.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Okay, what do you mean phonically?
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Oh, Jesse, I can't get into it with you. You wouldn't
understand that. We're not at the stage. You won't understand.
But the point is they're books for kids learning how
to read that are actually fun for them to read.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Oh I love it all right, Okay. My recommendation is
similar to yours, Stacey. There are kind of different versions
in different states, but look up to see if there's
one near you. But in Sydney there's one called Bubbadesk
and I am recommending this place because this is where
my twin sister essentially just wrote her book, and it
is a coworking space with more and more people sort
of free lancing, or even if you're on maternity leave
(41:45):
or you work three days a week or whatever, and
there is a day or an afternoon where you need
to get some work done and you don't have childcare options,
you can take your child to Bubbadesk. There's another one
in no.
Speaker 4 (41:59):
You can say what I think you're going to say,
and you can drop the child off and work.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yes, so it's like a child like they're right there,
they're upstairs. You get a little monitor so you can
just see what they're doing. They have like a system
where they'll be like, Luna's playing with a block, Luna
just date her lunch and I'm like, lies.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
They like you in the morning, bullshit.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
And then they'll have like you can, yeah, get the
little baby monitor, see what she's doing. If you want,
you can go up and check on them. I often
find better not to. They're just like mums here what.
But it's brilliant and it's all parents that are kind
of doing it. There's even the bubbajesque that I went
to there was a gym attached to it because they
were like, you can go.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
To Why don't have any excuses? Like I know.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
So it's really really good and there is an equal
amount what I love about it too, equal amount of
dads and moms there. So look up at co working
space with kids. I didn't even know they gisted. Thank
you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
Bye,
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mumma mea acknowledges
the traditional owners of the land. We have recorded this
podcast on the Gatagoul people of the Eur Nation. We
pay our respects to their elders past and present, and
extend that respect to all Aboriginal and torres strained Islander cultures.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'm Stacy Hicks. I'm the editor of Mamma Mia, and
I'm also the host of our new parenting podcast, Parenting
out Loud. And this summer, we're curating your listening with
a healthy dose of culture savvy conversations that parents actually want.
This holiday season, we're bringing you unmissible episodes right here
into your podcast playlist. It's your summer listening sorted. And
if you're looking for more to listen to, every Muma
(01:03):
Mia podcast is curating. Some are listening right across the network,
from pop culture to beauty to powerful interviews. There's something
for everyone. There's a link in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Hello, and welcome to our limited series of Parenting out Loud.
I am Jesse Stevens and I am joined by Melia Lester.
You can say hello, Maria. You're allowed to say hello, Hope,
Ja how are you good? And we're here to talk
about some of the stories that dominated the week, because
if parents are thinking about it, we're talking about it.
And today we also have a very special third co host.
(01:43):
It is Mum and MIA's deputy editor. Welcome to Stacey Hicks.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Hello, Hell, thanks for scooching over.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
For for me.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Please tell us a bit about yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
This question is my nightmare. Thank you so much for us.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
That is so fine. I wanted to leave it as
open ended as possible so that you'd lose sleepover.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yes, I feel like all I do is scroll on
TikTok in bed, so that is not very interesting. I'm
the writer of many words on Muma Mia that you
might have seen on the website. I'm the drinker of
copious amounts of tea and margaritas. Which tea and spicy
irregular marks, oh English breakfast tea, Yeah, milk sugar, depending
on the time of day. You're not a barbarian and
(02:20):
I'm a regular mar girl.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Very say you know I've started putting jalapenos in my sovank. Oh, yes,
it's true, it's happening.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Sally be An early recommendation from a Milia today and Stacey,
do you have a kid?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I do. It would be a bit weird if I
didn't throwing my opinions around. I am one and done
so I've had one child. I got it right. I'm
stopping so clever, we're done gone.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I have affected the process you went. This one is
ten out of ten. Let's not tempt fate.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Or let's just never do that roller coaster again?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Did you have a way you want to look at it?
How old is the little one?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
She is four years old. I have a four year
old little girl.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
On today's show Do Kids Ruin Friendships? We discussed two
fiery essays about what happens to friendship in the wake
of children and the return of the landline signals nostalgia
for childhood we might never be able to recreate. So
what is kid rotting and could it be the answer?
Plus children's YouTube star miss Right express support for the
(03:22):
children of Gaza and now she's had to disable comments
on Instagram and YouTube. We explain what happened and the
parasocial relationships we have with kids entertainers. But first, in
case you missed it, a number of unnamed women have
confessed to making up they have kids in order to
get flexibility at work. And I want your initial reactions now, please.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I think it's genius, really yeah, because before I had kids,
I would always see these women leaving work early to
go and pick up so called children from so called school.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
And they would be consumed with anger and jealousy. How
about you, Stacy equally think it's genius. But they have
forgotten something very important, the guilt that comes along with
leaving early. So once you have a child and you
have to duck out an hour early, they're not thinking
about the fact that you then make up for that
tenfold afterwards to prove that you or way, I'm sending
(04:14):
a lot of like sort of overly diligent emails to
your boss at nine pm.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yes, yes, yeah, that's the part I resent. So one
woman told MoMA Maya that she lied to her boss
with a story about her daughter experiencing a health emergency
and she needed to leave. In reality, it was her
cat and it really was an emergency. And I guess
that all depends on your definition of child exactly. That
definition includes male cat doesn't for me. But I'm slightly
(04:38):
horrified by this story, even though I know there's lots
of research. A health emergency of a child is really serious.
It's really serious and scary for parent. And that is
not to undermine the horror of having a sick cat.
But your workplace should respect a sick cat. You should
be able to acknowledge I've got a sick cat. I
(04:59):
need to leave. There's caarras leave that exists. But I
think to suggest, and I saw some of this research
and some of the rhetoric around this that said women,
particularly without kids, pick up the slack of working mothers.
And I resent that so deeply because i'd know about
you too. But are we seeing much slack from working mothers.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Well, I'm not going to confess to it here yet.
I'm never slacking. No, we're definitely not slacking. But I
do think that we take it more seriously when it's
a kid. Like if someone's kid had an emergency, I
probably would send them a message that night and say,
hope Paul is okay. If it was a cat, I
would not, And.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I think that that's the right reactions good.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I'm allergic to cats. In my defense, I cannot do
kids ruin friendships. That's the real reason I barge my
way into the.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Studio today, you're lonely and desperate.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yes, I needed to talk about it with my favorite
women because I read an article on this very topic
and I cannot stop thinking about it. So in a
substack called in Pursuit of Clean Countertops, which is a
great name by Sarah Peterson, she spoke about how after
she gave birth, trying to care about anything other than
her baby's Pooh color and sleep schedule was akin to
(06:14):
having phantom limb syndrome. So she said she tried to
care but just didn't really. So instead of wanting to
do these gossip sessions with her child free friends, she
was craving more time with the mothers who were experiencing
the same thing as her. And the same sentiment was
echoed in a piece in the Cut where the writer
Alison P. Davis called children tiny little detonators, which they
(06:37):
very much are, saying nothing represents a threat to friendship
more than parenthood. So does motherhood actually ruin our friendships
or just change the DNA of them a little bit? Well,
in my experience, they do ruin friendships a little bit.
I've been on both sides of this equation.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I had children fairly laid in the piece, and before
I had them, I felt a lot of rage. I
guess this is a thread through my remarks today. I
felt a lot of rage towards friends who had kids
before I did. I could tell that they were not
inviting me to birthday parties, which I didn't want to
go to, but nonetheless wanted the invitation for. I could
tell that they were getting together on side group chats
(07:13):
to talk about nappies and toilet training and things I
didn't understand, and I desperately wanted to be involved, and
I couldn't understand why they weren't involving me.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Now that I'm on the.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Other side of that equation, I've realized that a big
time suck once you have children is that you do
have to make friends, not just because you need the
fellow feeling and the sympathy of having friends who will
also have kids, but also we live in such an
isolated society now, and parenting is just put on to
the parents rather than the community, and I need mum
(07:43):
friends who I can lean on if I can't pick
the kid up from school at the right time, or
if I have a really important question about something that
Google is not going to answer for me without a sort.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Of anxiety spiral.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
I need those friends who I can call on and
lean on in moments of crisis with my kids. So
now I guess I understand given that time is limited
once you do have kids, you do have to reserve
a certain amount of time for making those new friends.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
So do you think that it's just about the equation
that we all have finite time and energy. Whether it's
you've got one child or you've got four children, you
suddenly have this person that needs all of your attention
or as much as you can give them, and then
you've got to make parent friends, which is true, whether
it's starting with mother's group and then at school and whatever.
(08:33):
Is it just that Is it just that there's not
as much time, or do you think that it's also
that you don't relate in the same way.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Stacey, Have you lost friends since you had your I
think mine. I didn't lose friends completely, but I think
mine went into a state of flux. So you added
so many more people in that it just felt like
you couldn't give time to the ones that were already there.
And I also think, as you said before, once I
was on the other side, I kind of went on
(08:59):
this apology tour with all of my friends that had
had children before me, saying I get it now, like
I get why you did this. I get why you
retreated from me because I wasn't supporting you in the
way that I now need from you.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Which you can't. I'm sorry, but you just simply can't understand.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And all my friends were very gracious in that way
and saying you just didn't get it. You didn't know
that showing up with a teddy bear was not very
useful to me, and that it would have been better
if you'd stacked the dishwasher and not sat on my
lauch with me for two hours.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
I have literally never stacked a friend's dishwasher. I need
to go on this apology to it.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
I do well. Once I did that, I've been a
great mum friend to all my friends that have come
after me with children, but the ones before, thank god,
they were kind about it. But I think it's because
that happens with every single friend. You're in a line
of the order, and you've got to pay it forward
to the ones behind you. See.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I kind of reject this. I don't think that kids
ruined friendships. And I think accepting that can make us
all a bit lazy. It can make the people who
have either chosen not to have kids or don't have
them yet think they don't want to hang out with me.
I think there's a lot of assumptions going both ways
that aren't necessarily true. Because when I was in my
twenties and my friend wanted to go clubbing, I most
(10:11):
of the time didn't want to go clubbing, but I
went clubbing because I was like, I just want to
hang out with you. Wherever you are. I would go
and watch their basket, they'd come watch my netball. We
went through a stage where we take turns going and
picking each other up just because we just got our
license right. And so it's never about what you're actually doing.
(10:31):
It's more about the time you're spending together. And in
both of these articles, they were sort of saying, if
I don't have kids, I don't want to spend time
in a park, I don't want to spend time at
your house with bluey on in the background. And I
kind of reject that. I think that if you want
to spend time with someone, then you do it on
each of your terms to varying degrees and you can
(10:53):
try and maintain those friendships, but it's give and take.
I think there's something quite selfish about thinking, well, I
don't want to spend my Saturday in a parker at
a kid's birthday party. Like, if you want to sustain
the friendship, then there's got to be a bit given take.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
What's the give and take on the part of the
person who has kids in this equation?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
What are they being asked to do.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I was having this conversation with Maya on out Loud recently,
and she said, get a babysitter and hang out at night.
And you know what, do that once a month if
you can, if you can afford it. And I know
that it's harder for some people than others. It's about
how much support you have. But if you can, yeah,
have that in the diary a month in advance and
go all right, let's hang out. But still I think
(11:31):
that the friends who don't have kids also have to
compromise a little bit.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
See, I really disagree with you, Jessey. The last thing
I want to do is say to a friend of
mine who doesn't have children, min us at the playground,
we will have a half hearted, completely disjointed, ultimately unsatisfactory conversation.
While I ensure that my child doesn't break his or
her neck, who does that benefit? All?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Right? So I have a theory about why we feel
differently about this, which was in the cut article. There
is research to suggest that something happens around the age
of three. The Journal of Demographic Research said that that's
when from the age of three is when kids are
the most demanding of the parents' time and energy. I
currently have a two year old. I wonder if I'm
still in this. She's started talking probably like what six
(12:20):
months eet a year ago, like properly talking. But in
that first year you can put the baby in the
pram and walk the dog, right, So there's still an
element of socializing that's possible there even now, push her
on the swing. I was hanging out with someone recently
who had a five and a seven year old. No, no,
because it's the pulling of the skirt and going my mom.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Compassion of the Minecraft movie.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Which like your friend as lovely as they are, your
kid's boring as shit, yea, Like they are boring as
shit and you know that, but you love them, And
whether you are boring at the start, You are so
boring once you have a kid, so actually they're giving
up a lot to spend time with you from the start.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Like I remember with my newborn talking to my friend
at nauseum about the tog ratings of sleeping bags and
worrying that my daughter wasn't warm enough at night. It's
so dull.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
But you know what, my friends who don't have kids
can also be very boring.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
True.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
I have a friend at the moment who is doing
a fitness challenge. Holy boring the stuff I've heard about,
and I follow up, so he talks about his fitness challenge.
I talk about Luna's sleep and how much sleep I
got last night. We're both bored. Isn't friendship just shared boreder?
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Look, my main topic of conversation with people right now
is the fact that I love mouth tape, and I
can see the light draining from their eyes when I
talked to them about this. Just last night, I had
dinner with some mum friends and our kids at a
tepanyaki joint, which is really interesting because you always wonder
whether or not the food is going to make it
into the bowl or if it's going to go all
over your brand new jumper. I'm pleased to report that
(13:49):
my jumper did not have stains on it. At the
end of the night, you know, I'm devoid of conversation.
I'm very tired, and I just started talking about mouth
tape because that's my go to and I realized that's
really boring. So we probably shouldn't say just kids are boring,
and in fact, this conversation you couldn't send it to partners.
Think about heterosexual relationships where you've got do I bring
the man who's now in my life along to the
(14:11):
dinner with girlfriends.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I have met men so much more boring than a
sick jumper, so much.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
This is what I'm saying, And I guess the contention
that I'm moving towards here.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Is we're all a little bit boring, but our friends
the people who find us the right amount of boring.
So let's not drag other people into the equation.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
See your friends on the terms as a friendship. Don't
try and bring kids in, don't try and being partners
in interesting.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
I'm all about the compartmentalization. I think it's also because
we're not as accustomed to the ups and downs in
our friendships as we are in our relationships. Like I
think there's an understanding that in long term relationships you
might go through rough patches, you'll go through great patches,
And the same is not really said for friendships, like
we just go, oh, that's run its course once they've
had a child and they've kind of retreated. So and
(14:57):
the other thing to consider is how much our circle
of friends changes in that time, because we talk about
losing friends a lot, or maybe friends with our children
retreating from us. But you also are forced into a
lot of extra friendships through circumstance, like whether that's through
a mother's group, whether that's through sport or kids' activities,
where so many more people end up in your life.
And there was an essay in Psychology Today where clinical
(15:19):
psychologist Seth Mine not The Late Night talked about how
many people are blindsided by the level of loss when
it comes to their friendships because it's always the ones
they don't expect. But he also warned about being a
bit cautious going into these new friendships because they've kind
of been forced upon you by circumstance, that they might
not stand the test of time once those children have
(15:41):
kind of grown up or moved out of that activity.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
That is so true. I've seen that happen where I
think people look at each other and they go, oh,
we're only mates because or they've tried to like go,
all right, so we're friends because our kids' primary school together,
and they're like, let's try and do a weaken away.
Doesn't worry, It's like, no, no, no, it only works
in that context. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
This makes me think about the fact that when you
have little kids, conversation is never that good, and so
the friendship there's never that much strain put on the
friend Yes, but as the kids grow older and they're
off doing their own thing, all of a sudden, the
spotlight is on can this relationship withstand long stretches of
act conversation the juries out.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
There are a few things floating around in the culture
that I'm going to attempt to bring together. The first
is The Atlantic published a story this month about the
return of the landline. Writer Rina Murray spoke to a
mother who bought her ten year old a landline to
connect with her friends, and this was in lieu of
a smartphone, and then encouraged other families in the suburb
(16:45):
to do the same. So now twenty or so families
have landlines, They've got their kids calling each other. She
writes about sort of practicing active listening, which is a
lot better than looking on FaceTime, which can be distracting.
And this leads me to the second thing. I listened
to this great episode of Search Engine, which was about
a booming industry of technology to stop you from using
(17:07):
addictive technology. So think a dumb phone, or there's this
thing called a brick, which is you kind of tap
your phone, turns all the apps off, and then you
can go for a walk or spend a few hours
or whatever, and then you tap it again. Apps come
back on. One thing is a story in the cut
about millennial nostalgia for a nineties summer. It's about the
school holidays where time was unstructured. You laid around, maybe
(17:31):
you watched some TV, you got up late, you went
on a budget family trip up the coast, basically a
time before YouTube. And I think what this highlighted for
me is that we're trying to wind back the clock
and recreate the childhood we had. And my question is
that even possible? Stacy, what do you think?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
No, I don't think it's possible. At all, But I
love that everyone is trying. And my best friend has
actually been telling me the same thing is happening in
her neighborhood at the moment where all the year four
moms have set up a chat about reinstalling landlines in
their homes. I thought this was just an Atlantic trendy. No,
this is happening in regional Queensland where they're doing that
(18:14):
because and her reasoning was really interesting. She said, to me,
the most important thing to me is just allowing her
to be where she is. So whether they're out at school, sport,
whether they're at home just having family time, the technology
can physically not reach her. So it's very easy way
to shut it off and it not be available and
still be able to enjoy being in the present moment
of her childhood. And that's the fear for everyone, the
(18:37):
idea that the landline is prolonging her having to get
a mobile phone. Yes, her daughter, Yeah, absolutely, because then
it is very much that she can talk in a
public space. Her parents are around, they can see that
she's chatting and as you say, they're actually holding a conversation.
It's not just tapping away on a keyboard. To some
faceless friend. They're actually communicating and learning that skill, which
(18:59):
I think. I mean, even I hate having to call
the doctors. Now we just don't do it. So it's
great that they're encouraging them with that.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
And the theory is that rather than just taking something
away and depriving, it's like you give them something else instead.
And it reminds me of in this search Engine episode,
it said you can treat your mobile phone like a landline,
Like if you walk into your house and you plug
it in and you go When my phone is in
my house, it's plugged in, that's it. And when I
want to use it, I go upstairs or I go whatever,
(19:28):
and I tap away. I thought that's really clever because
that has some boundary where if you're sitting on the
couch and you just go to look at your phone
for the four hundredth time that day. Because let's be honest,
the reason why kids want phones is because we are
not setting a great example. I am appalling. Just having
that bit of resistance is way better for us. I
(19:50):
think it was in the Cut article it talked about
this concept of kid rotting, and it was saying that
it might be better to let kids do nothing right.
So what happens now? School holidays are coming up, and
a lot of people will go camps, training, Let's have
something for every day. But I don't think you can
(20:11):
let a kid rot anymore, because if a kid is rotting,
they will gravitate like there is a magnet to the
nearest screen and there is no no one structured time
because that's just screen time. We'll pay a premium. There
is such desperation to be like, oh, school holidays, how
do I separate child from screen for the longest amount
of time possible?
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
I was talking with a friend about the pressure that
we have to enroll kids and all sorts of activities now,
and she really dropped a truth bomb. She said, I
realized I dialed back on my kids' activities, and then
I realized that I was just giving them more time
to watch television.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Yes, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
We had television back in the olden days. But were
we just watching less of it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Because it wasn't I think underpinned with an algorithm designed
to turn our brains into mush. It was like, I
think we all remember the experience of getting bored, Yes,
and so.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
We didn't have the expectation that we would need to
be entertained at all times exactly children already have.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And then when you went outside, like, yeah, you could
go to a friend's house and watch television. But even
if you haven't seen your kids in a while and
they're at the neighbor's house or whatever, they're probably on
PS five right like that, Yeah, it's a very unlikely
making a tree house, which is I think contributing to
this parental anxiety. And it also I think screens make
(21:29):
time feel different, like there is this endlessness to a
day where you're engaged with the world around you, and
now it just feels so punctuated by three second videos
or YouTube or whatever they're on.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
And here's another thing I'm concerned about the death of
the prank call. Kids make prank.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Calls so important, Amelia, so true, what was your go to?
Oh look, I.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Don't even want to say it on that, but I
did love a prank call, like wrapping the curly cord
of the phone around my finger, doing the star sixty
nine to see who would last call? Remember that someone
tells her how to devilish sense of humor. I loved
all of that, I know, and it's.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Sad to think that for the most part, kids are
not having that. I just wonder, though, it's hard to
distinguish between moral panic around phones and also the inevitable
nostalgia that a parenting generation has for its youth. Is
that just what we're doing here, or is there something
fundamentally different about the digital world that we live in
now as compared with the world that we grew up in.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I wonder that too, because there's an inevitable nostalgia. Like
I'm sure my mum felt the nostalgia because we had
Foxtel and she was like, well, I think when my
mum grew up, TV wasn't actually on all night, Like
there was a point at which the TV stopped and
she just went, you could watch TV at any time,
and you can change the channel and watch.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And when I grew up, there was rage, and now.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
It's no rage. It's rage is so sad.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
And you don't have to wait for the video to rewind,
so there is absolutely no patience. Remember that when you
get out the best video that you wanted to watch
on school holidays and it was at the end you
had to wait to rewind it back to the start.
I don't do that now, it's just on a loop instantly.
And I do think the fundamental challenge we have as
parents is trying to reacquaint ourselves with boredom, because our
(23:19):
children alonte from us every time we pick up our
phone because we feel discomfort or disquiet or boredom.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I reckon algorithms have changed childhood. There is an element
of nostalgia in us wanting to recreate what we see
as an idyllic if we're lucky enough, but moments of
an idyllic kind of utopian childhood, and we go. I
want to give them that. I do think that it's
fundamentally changed how time is spent in childhood. And I
even think about the computer room. Like when I grew up,
(23:48):
when the computer did come, it was in a room
and you fought for it, and sometimes it was dial up.
There was a sense as well that even though it
was a room, that it wasn't entirely private, so you
felt like you were being watched. And now every room
in every house is a computer room. So it just
means that time isn't it doesn't have these distinctions when
(24:08):
it comes.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
To exactly and on Mama mea actually We've seen a
huge appetite from parents for information on how to control
their children's access to technology. We did a story on
the top three safety features every parent now on their
phone that Annal's Todd wrote for us and it was
top on the site for days just talking about us. Yeah,
so there's lots of different features. This is mostly for
(24:30):
the Apple users, so apologies to the androids users among us.
But there's now nudity blocking functions where oh wow, you
can set those up on your children's phone so it
blurs the images. They've got a three step process they
have to get through to see it, including you putting
in a password for them to see the image. There's
screen time setups now where you can be blocking certain
(24:51):
websites so that they can't access them, and of course
like limiting their screen time all together can be done
as well. But the response to that story was epic,
and I think that just showed how worried we all
are about that, whether we're at that stage with our
children or not to be thinking well, how am I
going to get on top of this, and maybe a
little bit of thinking how do I get on top
of this one myself now, so that I'm not setting
(25:13):
this up for them.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Emily Osta, who gives a bit of parenting advice, and
a lot of it is databased. She says about scrap time,
what's it taking away from? So whenever you have a
child who's looking at a screen, so for example, Luna
has been unwell recently, and it's like, we wouldn't be
at the park, we wouldn't be, you know, doing something enriching,
(25:36):
just glad to look at the TV. Like if the
difference is between looking at a TV and looking at
a white wall, then you're allowed to do the TV.
It's just when it starts to sort of encroach on
other activities. And I also heard an expert say not
all screen time is equal. So if you can find
something that has any sort of narrative, like even Bluey,
it does have like a story to it, way better
(25:57):
than just jumbling fast cuts of like this is brainmush
or social media like that makes a difference. And something
that's a little bit more slow is also what some
of the experts say. And in terms of phones, I
remember reading the advice years ago turn it to grayscale
and it makes it less appealing, and I've found that
helps for me too.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
Mss Rachel is a very pop children's entertainer. I have
actually never seen her videos, but I have gone deep
on a controversy that has embroiled her, and which I
think gets to the heart of the relationship that we
now have with children's entertainers. So let me unpack it.
Her real name is Rachel an Accurso. She is a
(26:39):
former teacher. She makes adorable content for kids on YouTube.
I'm told it's adorable. She certainly looks adorable. She wears
overalls and a pink T shirt and a pick headband,
and her channel, which sated in twenty nineteen to help
her own son with a speech delay, has over fifteen
million subscribers, and she's recently had her videos licensed by Netflix,
so she might be, by some metrics, the most popular
(27:02):
children's entertainer in the world. However, she is in trouble.
In April, an American group called Stop Anti Semitism called
on the US Attorney General Pam Bondie to investigate Miss Rachel.
The group said that she had been disseminating pro Hamas
propaganda and getting paid by her mass for doing so,
(27:22):
which would be quite a scandal. I agree is miss
Rachel in fact disseminating pro Har mass propaganda. We should
say that she denies that she is being paid anything
by her mass, and I think that the charge that
she's disseminating propaganda is kind of a tough case to make.
Speaking as someone who is not very familiar with her content,
(27:42):
I watched a few of her videos in preparation for this.
They seem very benign to me. They seem to be
about toilet training, brushing your teeth, learning your colors. I
did not see anything that would seem to be pro
Har mass propaganda. What she has posted on her social
media feed, on her Instagram so separate from the YouTube channel,
(28:04):
are images of traumatized children in the Gaza strip. These
images often feature the children watching her videos or even
interacting with Miss Rachel via FaceTime. She has also pledged
one million dollars to the World Food Program, which works
to provide nutrition for kids in complexones Sudan, Ukraine and
also Gaza. She has also posted about Israeli children who
(28:28):
were held hostage by Hamas. She told The New York
Times in a very long investigative peace about this that
her posting about children in Gaza was a continuation of
her lifelong work and passion for children. But The Times
quoted some Jewish parents who felt distraught. They said that
there was a relative lack of.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Posts about Israeli children, and The Times, which did an
analysis of Miss Rachel's Instagram content, agreed with that assessment
that she did tend to post more about Gaza and
children than Israeli children. One Jewish parent.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Quoted said Miss Rachel seems to be someone who is
really really good hearted, but in the context of everything
that's going on, she says, I care about all children,
She's really talking about the children of Gaza. That was
a Jewish parent called Stacy Hatner who's based in London.
She said that has left a lot of Jewish parents
feeling quite isolated. In research for this, yes, I have
(29:21):
to say that one video that Miss Rachel pin really
made a big impression on me. It featured a three
year old girl called Rahaf who was a double amputee
who was medically evacuated from Gaza for her surgery and
sings a song with Miss Rachel about skipping and hopping.
Her two brothers are still in Gaza with their father.
Stepping back from all of this, though I want to
(29:43):
talk about why we feel.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
So connected in this way to children's entertainers, why it
matters to us what Miss Rachel thinks about world news
and events. I think it's probably inevitable on one level
that these debates are happening. You just have to look
at how during COVID desperate parents were looking for anything
to entertain their children, and they latched on to all
sorts of parenting gurus. So one guru I was obsessed
(30:09):
with during this time was an American woman called Taking
Cara Babies. Have either of you heard of her?
Speaker 4 (30:14):
No? So she is this lovely blonde woman from Arizona
who posted endless Instagram videos about sleep schedules. She absolutely
got me through twenty twenty. I'm still citing in my
household all the time. Her idea of the sleep wave,
you got to ride the sleepwave. This applies to adults too.
If you feel sleep coming on, you got to ride
the wave. And if you miss the wave, you gotta
(30:34):
wait for the next one. Genius.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
I was very dismayed when I found out that Kara
was a Trump supporter. She had not posted about it
on her Taking Care of Babies account, but she was
posting about it on her personal account. I really resented
her using even her personal account to talk about politics,
and it made me not want to watch her videos
or take her sleep advice anymore. I'm not drawing equivalences
(30:59):
or even parallels between these very different political stories here.
I'm mentioning it because I felt left out, resent full,
angry at taking care of babies in a way that
perhaps I didn't have a right to. She was teaching
me about children's sleep. She wasn't showing me her political
beliefs or talking about world events. But I think what's
interesting is that we clearly do expect peace people who
(31:21):
work with or care about kids to not share their
political beliefs with us, and to not share how they
think about the wider world. And I'm wondering if that's
really fair, And it seems connected to me to an
idea that children themselves should not be talked about as
living in an inherently political world. Children living in a
world where the decisions made by leaders directly impact them.
(31:43):
Doesn't it make sense for the experts that we turn
to to raise our own children to weigh in on
these decisions that are being made by leaders.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
That's interesting because I reckon it is a totally different
level of parasocial relationship. And I think it's because of
the moments where we feel our children, especially with the
Miss Rachel example. She's been in your home, she's been
in your child's bedroom, she's sung in your child's ear.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Are you a Miss Rachel? Arcolod?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
So we have Miss Rachel plays a song for us
every time we brush our teeth, and we do the
brushing teeth song, and she is like I see her
and hear her at some of my most vulnerable moments,
at some of Luna's most vulnerable moments, that she feels
like an extension of the family. And I don't think
we realize this until there is a moment, as you
(32:32):
say with your example, I don't feel this about Miss Rachel,
but like of betrayal, where people then go, hang on,
You're not who I thought you were. And I wonder
if it's like if you have a nanny or an
early educator or even a teacher, like there is an
expectation that their political selves or whatever might be left
outside the classroom because there is this incredible, innocent, almost
(32:58):
quite simplistic and straightforward relationship with your child. But on
the Miss Rachel example, I think it feels so consistent right,
Like she has said that no child should have their
crucial brain development interrupted by trauma, and whether you want
to talk about scale, and everyone has the right to
(33:19):
feel how they want to and not listen to Miss
Rachel if she doesn't feel like an extension of your
family anymore. But that does feel consistent with what she's
always done. And she's always, you know, encouraged people to
donate to the food bank and make sure kids have
enough food. And I think that there were videos or
examples of kids in some of these instances watching Miss Rachel,
(33:40):
so to her, I think she probably felt drawn into
it as well because she had this presence.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
I am a Miss Rachel household as well. We very
sincerely referred to her as the third parent in our household.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Can we step back, and I just want to ask
you both a quick question about her, because I'm not
familiar with her. She clearly is inspiring incredibly strong feelings
in people, both positive and negative.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
What is it about her that.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Broke through in twenty twenty and beyond that was so
different from all the other children's entertainer For me, it
was that I had my daughter during COVID, So miss
Rachel's voice face was with me in my darkest moments,
quite literally, like in the dark with my daughter when
I couldn't settle her with you know, colic and reflux
and all the things.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Miss Rachel was the answer to that. So I think
you tie her to yourself in some sort of you know,
she's my savior in.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
This Situation's interesting your example, right, because as you were saying, Amelia, so,
I think that she only started making these videos in
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty nineteen, and then something that she
couldn't control, which was the pandemic, happened, and that is
when her star just rose enormously.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Why her as opposed to other children's entertainers, What was
it about her communication style?
Speaker 3 (34:53):
For instance?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
I think it is about the fact that what she
does is educational. She has a master's degree in music education.
She sings, she's all about a nunciation and that origin
story you told of how her son was one and
didn't have any words, yet she made these videos to
help him with language. And I think that, as we
were saying before, there's this sense that if a screen
(35:15):
is on, it should be enridging, or it should be educational.
It was a guilt free way for people to have
their child exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
My daughter learned sign language before she could speak from
Miss Rachel. We learned it from Miss Rachel. So we
started doing it because she was doing it and it
felt like, oh, at least if I've got the screen on.
As Jesse said, it's something useful. It's something that's helping
her with her speech. It's helping her with songs that
we can't remember from where we were young. That I
think was the magnetism of her. I think that's the
(35:46):
missing puzzle piece I needed to understand this story because
the idea that.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
She's helping children learn makes her very different as a
figure to someone like say Blippy. Yeah, mister Blippy is
not helping people children to learn. He's largely cavorting through
ridiculous scenarios and driving parents mad. And I wonder if
that's part of why a parents who love Miss Rachel
(36:12):
love her so much, and b why she feels so
strongly that there's a through line with what she's doing
to help children learn and how she's communicating to their
parents on Instagram about what she feels as an urgent
political situation that she wants them to learn about.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, that's really true. And I suppose if the children
are absorbing her through YouTube, then that feels like a
siloed experience. And then people, I guess, are seeing that
this smiling, chirpy woman who not only taught my child
but taught me a lot about parenting, taught me about
enunciating or what words to do? Or are we doing colors?
(36:48):
Are we doing shapes? Are we doing all of these things?
What's difficult about this, you know, crisis as well, is
that what someone says and what someone hears are not
often the same thing, because it is a very loaded
There's a lot of history that a lot of context,
is a lot of trauma, and so I think that
that too is people feeling betrayed by something that has
(37:09):
been shared.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yeah, and I think we expect a lot more from
anyone in the public eye now than we ever did.
I don't know if we would have known the personal
lives of the og Wiggles, that alone their stance on
geo political issues back when we were growing up, But
it's so true now there's so much more information out there,
and I think it is definitely worse for women in
the public eye. Like Taylor Swift was criticized for not
(37:32):
backing Kamala Harris quick enough in the US election. Chris
Brown is currently on a world tour even though he's
found guilty of domestic violence charges. We don't seem bothered
by what his views are on anything, Like there's just
a very double standard there for women.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
That's true. I do think though, that we've got the
wiggles on sometimes, and my obsession with Emma Unlockey's marriage
has just gone to ridiculous. And it wasn't just me,
it was also Luca. We had a week where Luna
was sick and it was on constantly, and I swear
we were hallucinating. We're in a weird state, and like
(38:06):
we needed the wedding photos, and then we needed to
know why they broke up. And now Lockie has a
new family and who is she? And I can tell
you what Emma did her PhD in And then I
had to go down the route of like is it
a wig or is it a real head? Like if
I saw Emma walking down the street, I'd be like, hey,
am I, how you going? Like nice yellow bow? I
would just have so much. She feels like a member
(38:27):
of my family, which is unlike anyone else. I can
see him through a screen.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
I'm also thinking about the fact that for missus Rachel,
she has the YouTube channel for kids. She's not posting
this on the YouTube channel. She's posting this on the
Instagram And last time I checked, most three year olds
don't have Instagram, so there is a difference between those platforms.
On the other hand, to argue with myself, when I
found out that Taking care of Babies was a Trump supporter,
(38:53):
she had never told me that on the Taking care
of Babies sleep Instagram account, So why was it my business?
Why did I care if she was doing it over
on her separate personal account.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I think it's because you start to get your guard
up about whether that is informing the information or the
content that she's providing to the children. I think that
that's what you start to go, are you brainwashing my child?
And then you start to get like a bit paranoid
about it. And it's interesting that Miss Rachel has had
to turn off comments on Instagram and YouTube so under
(39:25):
her teeth Brushing song, the level of trolling was so
bad that she had to just go no, I'm not
taking this on.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
There is though that fear, isn't there, that maybe this
sleep advice is tinged with maganists.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
It makes you start thinking about.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
All of them exactly. It's time for recommendation, Stacy, what
have you got for us?
Speaker 3 (39:46):
I feel quite smug about this recommendation, so imparting it
so you can all feel smug when you recommend it
to someone else. So my daughter gets a free book
every month from Dolly part What the Dolly Parton sends
my well, not personally, I imagine she has someone at the
postal service that does this for her, but she has
a free book gifting service. They have it all around
the world. It's in the US, UK everywhere, and you
(40:08):
can just sign your child up and they'll send you
out in the mail a age appropriate book for your
child each month.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
That's brilliant.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
It's the best. My daughter loves getting mail every month.
I love that I don't have to buy her a
book every month. Like it's the best service. So you
just have to find out if it's in your little area.
It's called Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. I love Dolly Parton.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
She's good egg, she's a very good egg.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
You couldn't love her more. And then she goes and
does that.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Amelia, what's your recommendation?
Speaker 4 (40:36):
My recommendation is to do with learning how to read.
I have a child, two children learning how to read,
and the books that the school sends home are interminably
boring and I'm not inspiring a love of reading. My brother,
who lives in the UK, turned me on to Julia
Donaldson's Songbirds Phonics storytelling collection. Julia Donaldson, you may know
(40:59):
from such classics as Gruffalo and Zog. She has written
sixty books where almost every word is phonically decodable, and
they're also somehow interesting stories.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Okay, what do you mean phonically?
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Oh, Jesse, I can't get into it with you. You wouldn't
understand that. We're not at the stage. You won't understand.
But the point is they're books for kids learning how
to read that are actually fun for them to read.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Oh I love it all right, Okay. My recommendation is
similar to yours, Stacey. There are kind of different versions
in different states, but look up to see if there's
one near you. But in Sydney there's one called Bubbadesk
and I am recommending this place because this is where
my twin sister essentially just wrote her book, and it
is a coworking space with more and more people sort
of free lancing, or even if you're on maternity leave
(41:45):
or you work three days a week or whatever, and
there is a day or an afternoon where you need
to get some work done and you don't have childcare options,
you can take your child to Bubbadesk. There's another one
in no.
Speaker 4 (41:59):
You can say what I think you're going to say,
and you can drop the child off and work.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yes, so it's like a child like they're right there,
they're upstairs. You get a little monitor so you can
just see what they're doing. They have like a system
where they'll be like, Luna's playing with a block, Luna
just date her lunch and I'm like, lies.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
They like you in the morning, bullshit.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
And then they'll have like you can, yeah, get the
little baby monitor, see what she's doing. If you want,
you can go up and check on them. I often
find better not to. They're just like mums here what.
But it's brilliant and it's all parents that are kind
of doing it. There's even the bubbajesque that I went
to there was a gym attached to it because they
were like, you can go.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
To Why don't have any excuses? Like I know.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
So it's really really good and there is an equal
amount what I love about it too, equal amount of
dads and moms there. So look up at co working
space with kids. I didn't even know they gisted. Thank
you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
Bye,
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