April 30, 2025 • 45 mins
Michelle Obama has spoken—and she’s not here to please everyone. The former First Lady revealed what it really took to skip Donald Trump’s inauguration, and why sometimes, disappointing people is exactly the right move. Mia, Jessie and Holly explore Michelle's decision and the role of women as 'shock absorbers'.
Also, can kids read minds? The hit podcast The Telepathy Tapes thinks so. But the science behind it is looking more complicated. We discuss.
Plus, Meghan Markle has shared a surprising part of her bedtime routine—except it’s not for her, won’t be used for years (if ever), and contains a whole lot of admin.
And Gwyneth Paltrow is back in the headlines with a twist no one saw coming: she’s eating carbs again. But do we really need to know every time a celebrity changes their lunch order? Yep, our hosts have thoughts on this...
What To Listen To Next:
- Listen to our latest episode: Caroline Bessette-Kennedy: The Original Influencer
- Listen: An Honest Day On Our Plate
- Listen: We're Fighting About Being Ugly
- Listen: What Supercommunicators Know That We Don't
- Listen: Sex Toys, Borrowing Money & A Dad's Group Chat Faux Pas
- Listen: The Influencer Who's Changed Too Much & Liz Hurley's Hard Launch
- Listen: Katy Perry, Gayle King & THAT Blue Origin Space Flight
- Listen: Clare Stephens - We Have Questions
Sign up to the Mamamia Out Loud Newsletter for all our recommendations and behind-the-scenes content in one place.
What to read:
- Read: Meghan Markle writes a letter every night. They won't be opened for years.
- Read: 'For Meghan Markle's show to succeed, she needs to go full Gwyneth Paltrow.'
- Read: ‘A debate is raging over Gwyneth Paltrow’s "boyfriend breakfast" and this time I'm on her side.’
- Read: Exactly why the internet is convinced the Obamas are divorcing.
- Read: For a brief moment, the internet was co
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Travis wants to fix it, and he's going, he's like,
he's grunting because he's going, I really want to help you, Taylor,
but I don't know what to do. When Taylor's going,
you don't have to fix it, you just have to
listen to me, yep, and just be here and hold
me in this moment. But Travis is like, no, no,
I know what I'm gonna do. And he gets out
his phone.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
And she goes to no, Travis, don't Travis.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
And then he goes to his follow account. He goes,
I'm gonna follow him.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I'm not going to do it. I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Do it and watch me, watch me tailor Travis, and
he went unfollowed.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
You're more of a TikTok guy.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Fixed it.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Hello, and welcome to Mommama Out Loud. What women are
actually talking about On Wednesday, the thirtieth of April, I
am hollyween Wright, I am Maya.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
An on Today's show when saying no costs you. Michelle
Obama has talked about what it took to not to
not President Trump's inauguration and why it's important to disappoint
people every day. Can some children read Minds? A hit
podcast said yes, the truth might be more complicated. And
(01:22):
Gwyneth Paltrow is eating carbs and it's making international headlines.
Should famous women just shut up about food? But first,
Jesse Stevens, We've.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Got some feedback for Clive Palmer, who is sending me, specifically,
a series of really annoying text messages.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Anyone else getting them.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I'm feeling a little negged because last election he was
sending me a lot of texts. This election, I haven't
heard from him. I'm feeling ghosted.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Okay, I haven't either. But just when we were setting
up to record today, our producer mt a text.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
From so I was going to say, I kid you not.
I was putting together this and I got a text message.
I checked Trumpet.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
How many Trumpets have you had?
Speaker 4 (02:00):
I've had four?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
And what's he saying to you? Trump? Hey, Jesse, how's
your day?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
That's exactly what he's saying. He knows not to call me.
I think the Trumpet has learned that we don't call
because and I was.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Picking a Trumpet's calling.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, no, they used to call you like they used
to do calls anyway, the.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Trumpet Patriots is the name of his political party, just
in case anyone's wondering.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
And if you're wondering what his message is, well, the
first message I got said solve housing, fast trains twenty
minutes CBD, cheap land with no punctuation.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
And that's just a list of nouns that sounds like
a house sale.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Where do I go?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Why do I have to turn up with cash?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I was sitting there at a wedding, and I go,
is he solving housing with the fast trains? Is he
buying more land in the CBD?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Like we didn't get to your housing faster on a train?
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Like what are we talking about?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
But did you know?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I learned this week that these messages are totally above board,
totally legal, because politicians have a legal exemption from spam.
That's why they're allowed to send unsolicited texts. They're allowed
to call you without offering an opt out option. They
are also exempt from privacy laws, so they can collect, store,
(03:11):
and use your personal data without the same restrictions that
apply to any businesses. So Trumpet can literally call me
a hundred times creepy text me and I have to
copy it, and no laws requiring that these texts be truthful.
They could text me anything at all. They could say
the sky is red, the ground is yellow, and your
(03:32):
name is Clive.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I know why they're texting because apparently only thirty percent
of emails ever get opened, but ninety percent of text
messages do. And that's interesting, right. I don't open all
my text messages. I'm one of those people who drives
everyone crazy by having the red sign that says twenty
million texts because I just look at it and go,
I don't need to know about that, and I move
on with my life. But apparently most people are much
(03:57):
more organized than I am, and they open everything before
they read it.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
So I reckon that texts are going to go that
way because we've learned with emails about the spam. I
no longer answer my phone because I've just been done
so many times by GET. I do not answer my
phone as a general rule, and I'm getting that way
with texts because of things like this.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
A couple of months ago, you might remember that there
was gossip around whether the Obamas were getting divorced.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah, and Obama was dating Jennifer Aniston, right.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, there were two specific reasons for these rumors.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Of those rumors because I feel like Mayor Friedman absolutely.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
For Jennifer Aniston ones, but the rumors, I don't want
them to split up. I want starting that rumor. The
reasons that people were talking about it is because firstly,
Michelle didn't attend Jimmy Carter's funeral, and then a few
weeks later she didn't attend Donald Trump's inauguration. So what
other explanation could there be for her not showing up
as a former First Lady at these very official ceremonial events.
(04:57):
All the other former first ladies did except for Michelle.
So was it splits field? That's what everybody was saying. Well,
now we know that Michelle Obama's marriage wasn't in trouble,
or it might have been in trouble, might still be
in trouble, but that's not why she didn't turn up.
She just didn't want to go. Here's what she said
in a podcast interview this week.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
My decision to skip the inauguration. You know what people
don't realize or my decision to make choices at the
beginning of this year that suited me were met with
such ridicule and criticism, like people couldn't believe that I
was saying no for any other reason that they had
to assume that my marriage was falling.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Right.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
You know, It's like, while I'm here really trying to
own my life and intentionally practice making the choice that
was right for me, and it took everything in my
power to not do the thing that was right or
that was perceived as right, but do the thing that
was right for me. That was a hard thing for
(05:58):
me to do. I had to basically trick myself out
of it. And it started with not having anything to wear.
I mean, I had affirmatively because I'm always prepared for
in a funeral any I walk around with the right dress.
I travel with clothes just in case something pops off.
So I was like, if I'm not going to do
this thing, I gotta tell my team I don't even
(06:21):
want to have a dress ready. It's so easy to
just say, let me do the right thing, but then
you become a shark absorber. Yeah, and that's what women
are as shark absorbers.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
The idea of being a shock absorber really hit now.
For more than eight years, Michelle Obama had to be
a shock absorber because as the first black first Lady,
she didn't want to hand any ammunition to people who
believe black people didn't belong in the White House. And
she sacrificed so much, not just for the eight years
when Obama was president, but in the sort of four
(06:55):
years or more before that when he was running. She
held her tongue, she silenced her opinions, she straightened her hair,
she squished her personal style, she didn't show her arms.
She did all the right things, all the things that
were expected of her.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Can you explain what a shock absorber is? How would
you describe it when she says you were.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
A shock So a shock absorber in the you know,
technical description of something is something that stands in between
two hard forces, so you know, like a piece of
rubber or something that stops them from banging together in
an angry aggressive way. So it's the thing that absorbs
all the pressure. So the shock absorber is getting hammered
to stop the other two things basically igniting.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Do you know what I sometimes say? There must be
a time of life where you just get like I'm
jack of this. I started saying a few years ago
to my husband, I just feel like human grout. I
feel like grout.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I feel like.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Everyone else is the tile, the people I work with,
my children, my parents, my husband, and I'm just the grout.
I just fit in. I'm just there so that the
tiles don't bang together, so that everybody's life is stable
and calm. And what about me? When can I be
a tile?
Speaker 3 (08:08):
So there was a an article in the New York Times,
when do I get to be a tired exactly?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And now Michelle's in her tile era.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
She's a tile on her own.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
But there was an article in the New York Times
during the pandemic about how women were the shock absorbers
because they were the ones that quit their jobs when
they needed to be quick like. So in a family context,
it's often said that, I mean, even with little children,
when a problem is seen, it's like, okay, me sacrificing
will cause the least conflict in this situation, which women
(08:40):
are programmed to do because there's something socialized into us
which is to keep the peace and to sacrifice.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yes, it's lubricant.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And also I think often when a man is behaving
really badly. Think about sort of the political wives who
have to stand next to their spouse is when they've
done something unforgivable and do the smiling and the nodding
and we're all so happy. Like that's classic shock absorbent behavior, right.
The thing I loved about all the detail in what
Michelle Obama gave us is that you know, at the time,
(09:12):
when she didn't go, we all thought that the marriage
room as were bullshit. Really, we all knew that she
was really just going, I just can't like let them, Yeah,
that's it. But what I loved about that is her
describing how difficult it was. It wasn't just her sitting
at home putting a feet up and going, see, yah,
I hope you suit still fits. To Barack as he
walked out of the house, it was a whole, very
(09:34):
difficult thing because even for him, if you're saying no,
and you know you're going to disappoint people, I'm not
going to that thing, even though everyone thinks I should go.
There's a cost to other people. So Barack Obama also
had to weather all the commentary about his marriage. He
had to go and stand there on his own. We
all remember the video of him ready to walk out
of the inauguration and they're saying, are you going to
behave and he's like no, but like he did not
(09:55):
have Michelle have his shock absorble with him, right, so
you know that your decision to do what's right for you,
Michelle sounds like nearly every midlife woman I know who's
in therapy who's like just going, I'm finally learning how
not to be the grout or the shock absilber. Yeah,
and I'm doing it for me and it's hard. And
Barack was probably going it would just shut everyone up
(10:17):
if you turn up, and she was like, no, I can't,
but it costs something, and nose sometimes do cost things,
you know.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, And I was reading something recently. I can't remember
who the author was, but it was about how when
you achieve any level of success, whether it's a promotionate work,
or you know, you're Michelle Obama, the one inevitability that
comes with that is that you're going to let people down.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
You're going to disappoint people.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
This writer was saying you should practice it like every day,
go I am going to disappoint one person and choose
who the person is.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So hard tell me more about that.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah, So she says, you've got to choose who the
person is, because trying not to disappoint people is a
prison that you can live in your entire life. If
you're trying not to disappoint them, you're likely going to
disappoint yourself or the people closest to you. So it's
actually a skill. And there are like rules or things
that you should abide by when it comes to disappointing people.
(11:12):
So you should express yourself kindly, compassionately, but most importantly firmly,
Like you've got to be really clear when you're letting
someone down and you have to follow through. I think
that the firmly is where I fall flat. I will
often go to disappoint someone and I will have Luca
or Maya or someone look at the message and go,
(11:33):
I don't know what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yes, I don't think I can do that thing. I'll
do my best absolutely maybe whatever.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
You're doing it or not, and the people question marks.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
The clinical psychologist doctor Nicole Lapera talks about this, and
she says that when you try to avoid disappointing someone,
you're making them small. You're operating under the belief that
they'll be crushed if you can't make something, and that's
just not true. You've got to expect more of others.
Like it's actually like you're being quite paternalistic or undermining
(12:08):
someone by thinking that Maya can't handle it if I say, hey,
by the way, I can't go tomorrow night.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I think where I find it most difficult is with
my children and with my parents.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
And don't you think that is parenting.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I don't mean disappointing like a good I never understand.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
A good parent just disappoints then all the time they do.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
But also the model of good parent we've been given
is constant shock absorption, constant putting yourself blast, constant swallowing
your feelings so your kids don't see them, not having
that argument with your partner so your kid doesn't see it,
putting up with somebody talking to it in a certain way,
blah blah blah. Like that is a lot of parenting,
and there's and a lot of it is necessary and
you kind of have to do it. And this is
(12:48):
why often I think that this era of Arah comes
a little later when the steaks aren't quite so high
for your family, because what's interesting about Michelle Obama specifically.
It's obvious why she didn't want to go to the
Trump inauguration, but she also didn't want to go to
the Jimmy carterfuneral because she knew she'd have to sit
next to him and make nice. And she obviously has
(13:09):
just that in her integrity, as she would say, she
cannot do that anymore. It's costing her too much to
someone who she really believes is ripping at the fabric
of all that she stands for. She can do that now.
She couldn't do that when she was First Lady, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
No, she couldn't. And I think the other level of
it for her is seeing how Milania Trump behaved that
and Donald Trump. But as she you know, if you
read her book Becoming, she talks about having to do
everything so scrupulously and everybody looking to find fault. When
Michelle Obama was First Lady and then Milania comes in,
(13:47):
she wears a jacket saying, I don't care. She doesn't
live at the White House half the time. She doesn't
really do anything as First Lady.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
As Christmas Trees of all Time.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah, and she just I mean phoning it in is
an exaggeration of what she does. She doesn't even phone
it in, and so she just flouts every single convention
and every single norm. And then you can see Michelle
Obama going, why am I always the good girl? Like
he's not running for elected office anymore. I am not
that role model. And there was all that pressure on
her to actually run for being the president. Can you imagine,
(14:19):
like with her and Oprah, you're the only ones that
can save us from Donald Trump, and everybody wanted her
to do it, and she said no, and the cost
of disappointing all of those people. You've got to admire that.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
But what you gain from choosing disappointing others is self respect.
I think self respect is on the other side of that,
and I think that you can probably live a lot
of years being the shock absorber not wanting to disappoint,
and it erodes.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Your self respect.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
It also is immunity against resentment, because you know what,
grout and shock absorbers feel resentful and it might come
after a decade, two decades, whatever, and then suddenly the
grout saying to the title, Hey, I'm fucking grout, I'm
over this, and you might end your marriage or you
might you know, do something drastic, but the title never
(15:10):
knew because you've just gone it's okay, it's okay, I'll
I'll just be here and absorb everything. And then it's like, hmm,
so maybe we need to you know, say no and
disappoint people a little bit earlier.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Constantly must be done, constantly. You do it well, man,
I'm so good at it.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
In a moment, the celebrity unfollowed that has everyone talking
and unpacking the telepathy tapes, a viral podcast that dethrone
Joe Rogan, and then came the backlash.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I am living my very happiest life today because I'm
bringing all the schoreless gossip, all the celebrity news. So
permit me a smug huh at the news that one
Travis Kelcey of Big Footballer who dates Taylor Swift fame,
has unfollowed, the husband of one of Taylor's absolute best mates,
Blake Lively. Yes, Travis is no longer Instagram buddies with
(16:05):
Ryan Reynolds, and the speculation is rife. Is this about
that court case build for next year between Justin Baldoni
and Blake Lively and not wanting to be pulled into
all the unabating drama of it. Or is Travis just
sick of all the Rex and Football club reels? Or
did his finger just slip and he accidentally pressed unfollow
(16:25):
next to a smiling picture of Deadpool Jesse. What is
the significant subtext here?
Speaker 4 (16:31):
As if she'd no, no, I have so many thoughts
about this.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I've been thinking, don't worry about I'm coming to you
for the full Taylor run. The tailor's to take turns
here she knows about unfollowing?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Before you talk? Can I just have a shout out
to whatever piece of software it is that gossip columnists
have installed that shows them someone's two million followers goes
to like one million.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
That's not what happened. I went to fans noticed.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
The fans literally going how many followers does Ryan Reynolds have?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
To that that's what fan discovered something else. I don't
know if I'd call myself a fan of Travis Kelsey,
but I went on too his Instagram and I was like,
everyone's talking about the Ryan Reynold's unfollow Does a man
follow Blake? And I went and had a look, No,
he doesn't, he doesn't follow Blake. And then I went
and had a look, and Blake Lively follows Taylor, but
she does not follow Travis, which is weird given that
Blake and Ryan were at the super Bowl last year
(17:30):
supporting them. So there has been a holiday together not
that long. Yeah, I'll tell you exactly what's happened.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
This is Travis's content is a bit boring.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
It's a worrying.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
He's not a big instagra and I do think Ryan
posts too much about Rexham. So I did wonder if
that was just a little bit of overkill and Travis
was like enough. But last week there were all these
rumors about how Justin Baldoni court case Taylor subpoened. Why
would she be subpoened because of the mention that Blake
Lively made used her name really to leverage a bit
(18:00):
of power with Justin Baldoni. Very embarrassing according to Justin Baldoni. Yes, well,
it's it's a text message. We've read the texts. Oh yes,
So Taylor is upset, she's pissed. She's come home to
their home and she's upset. She's pulling out her hair,
she's going I've had a terrible day.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I would like to be removed from this narrative.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Exactly, and Travis wants to fix it, and he's going,
he's like, he's grunting because he's going, I really want
to help you, Taylor, but I don't know what to do.
And Taylor's going, you don't have to fix it. You
just have to listen to me and just be here
and hold me in this moment. But Travis is like, no, no,
I know what I'm going to do. And he gets
out his phone and.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
She goes, no, Travis, don't, don't Travis, and.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Then he goes to his follower account. He goes, I'm
going to follow him.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it,
do it, and she says, watch me, watch me, Taylor, Travis.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
And she also says, Travis, you never go on Instagram
like it doesn't make any difference, and he went unfollowed.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
You're a TikTok guy.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Fixed it.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
But wouldn't she have been like, but then everybody's going
to write about this and the narrative just keeps going.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
But Travis had to do something. He couldn't just sit there.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Because he is an alpha male who likes to fix shit.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
Yes, he had to do something.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
He is very atack Cate one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
She's got it.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
The only I mean, it is just so glorious the
way that we have this actual proof. I mean, you
said it was scrollus gossip, but it is actually factually correct.
That Travis is no longer following.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I know for certain that he ever did.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
There's empirical evidence. No, that's details, hold.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
On, that doesn't feel importants important is that Blake still
follows Taylor. Importantly, Taylor follows no one, which complicates this narrative.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
But that's because, yeah, Taylor, it would just be helpful
if we knew who she was unfollowing.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Okay, so look, there are so many people who are
pissed at being dragged into this.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Because Hugh Jackman's been dragged in.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, and he's also exactly. This is not good. This
is not good for them. It's not good for their brand.
They do not have a dog in this fight. It
is not their monkey's not their circus, all of those things.
And yet can you even imagine Tree pains pissed pain,
She's been organized.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
She's now of course Taylor's publicser.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
She is, She's an icon. I think she's my roman
and part think about her all the time. What's she doing?
What's she doing? And I just imagine where she's like,
Fuck this, this is not part of our plan. What
are we going to do. We're going to unfollow.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
We're going to unfollow?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Can you do this age?
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Because there's no such thing as an accidental unfollow? No,
it's an active war.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I don't believe anyone that says you've been hacked.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Autism Telepathy a number one podcast and the fallout. Look,
this is a big topic and a story that has
spanned several months. But there was an article in The
Cut last week called I Can Hear thoughts. A podcast
called The Telepathy Tapes claims a group of non speaking
autistic people can read minds. The truth is more complicated.
(20:56):
We are going to start at the beginning. You might
remember that at the end of last year, particularly over
the summer holidays, a podcast called The Telepathy Tapes went viral.
I heard about it from out loud is yes me
too actually, and it was hosted by documentary filmmaker Ki Dickens,
and the series explored the theory that children with non
(21:17):
speaking autism were communicating with their parents telepathically. Hear me
out because I listened to this podcast at the time
and found parts of it really compelling. So it begins
by saying Ki Dickens says, for decades, a very specific
group of people have been claiming telepathy is happening. Nobody
has believed them, nobody has listened to them. But on
(21:39):
this podcast we do. And in the same way that
when someone is blind, their other senses heighten, like they
might have a furgus. It's a smell, yes, exactly right,
and that's called sensory compensation. The idea was that kids
with non speaking autism could in some cases read the
minds of their parents or teachers, and this was uncovered
(22:01):
in the podcast through a process called spelling. I had
never heard of this before. It is a two way
communication system whereby the non speaking child points to letters
on a board and is guided by a parent and
that makes out words, and sometimes.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
The parent is holding the child's hand, or the child
is holding the parents' hand and guiding them.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
And guiding them exactly right. And listening to it blew
my mind. I am open to this stuff. There were
some amazing cases of a parent opening a book or
reading a passage and the child being able to make
out what was in the book. Again, this is not
a visual medium, it's audio, So in the audio sense,
I was going, this is pretty convincing.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yeah. So the podcast, the host did a whole lot
of experiments which she took the audience through in graphic detail,
and they were quite repetitive. So she came in with
a fairly cynical mindset. And it wasn't all just spelling.
Some of it was they'd put up a screen and
they'd show the mother a word or something, and then
(22:59):
the child on the other side of the screen, without
having any contact with the mother, would have to write
down or whatever what that word was exactly, And the
level of accuracy was very high in many of these cases.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
So the podcast grew and grew, and now it has
amassed more than fifteen million downloads. But with that popularity
came a lot of criticism. There was a lot that
Dickens hadn't included. For example, the spelling method has been
routinely disproven, and that is because if especially if it's
a parent and a non speaking autistic child, there's unconscious
(23:32):
cues literally unconscious. They have no idea that they're making them,
but they can queue that. Oh yeah, you're getting the
word dog right. These kids are especially good at that.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
So almost like predictive text, but it's like the parent predicting.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Exactly, so spelling. Lots of criticism that it really didn't
go into. And the second really big criticism was that
it fell into a trope. And this is a term
that a lot of disability advocates use called super crip,
and it is a term that describes a tendency we
have to present a disabled person as having extraordinary or
magical abilities that makes them worthwhile, So think like rain Men.
(24:10):
Since its release, Dickens has been offered documentary deals. All
the studios that said no to her original idea now
saying yes. But instead she's crowdfunding for an independent second season.
So there's magic, spirituality, the metaphysical, whatever you want to
call it. Are these conversations worth having or can they
(24:30):
do more harm than good Holly?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
It's so complicated because one of the things that really
comes through, both in the podcast and in the writing
about the podcast when they're talking about these families is
that these are very often parents who are in impossibly
difficult circumstances. It is incredibly difficult work to be looking
after a child with severe disabilities and nonverbal, sometimes violent,
(24:59):
very difficult to predict control. A lot of the ideas
of you know, the milestones and the life that you
might have had together is derailed, and carers they're being
asked every day to be entirely selfless, like entirely selfless,
and the intensity often of that bond between the carer
(25:21):
and the child. To your point Jesse about whether or
not the spelling you know it's not intentional, but there
is almost a telepathy between those two is not surprising either.
So the idea that the parents are the ones who've
been saying, there's something special about my child and people
need to understand it. There's something otherworldly about my child.
(25:41):
We can communicate in ways that you don't understand. I
have a lot of empathy and sympathy for right because
the general able world looks at people with very severe
disability and does like to be really brutal about it.
They question, what's the point of that? You know what
I mean? To your point before about the problem with
(26:03):
the magical myth is that somehow we need to be
validating why people are sure, or why people are interesting,
or why people even deigned to exist you know and matter,
So I have so much sympathy for that. I don't
think I can answer the question of whether or not
I think these conversations should be had. Because am I
(26:23):
glad that those families got to tell their stories. We
all learned something about their children. Yeah, I am. I
don't know that. I think it's entirely regrettable, But then
I'm not informed enough about the other side of this
conversation to be able to say, oh, yes, it's definitely damaging.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
There was a quote in I think it was actually
in the podcast, but it's in the cut article where
a mother says, I was asking myself was he even
in there?
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Right?
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Because if you've got a child who cannot speak, who
cannot say I love you, who cannot.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
What they want, their desires.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
And that child was sort of six foot tall and
two hundred pounds and is a human and now not
a child in your life who your entire life is
oriented around their needs and caring for them, she knows
him better than any one in the world.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Yeah, and I have no doubt that they have a
method of understanding one another that maybe you or I
couldn't understand.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
And I think they're basically mean there are things.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
That you can't explain, you know, bonds between parents and children,
or between siblings or between twins. I don't think everything
can necessarily be proven scientifically, And I guess I'd have
to ask what's the harm in it? Like, does it
even matter whether it's able to be proven or not proven.
I just don't see the harm. And if it brings
(27:42):
some comfort or some utility to the people involved, what
does it matter what any of us think?
Speaker 3 (27:49):
So the critics would say that it contributes to an
othering of going. These people are other, they are not
like us. We're kind of projecting this magical, almost monstrous
thing on them, which.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
But is it monstrous or is it elevating their status?
Because people with disabilities are among the lowest status, most
vulnerable people in our community. And by saying no, what
you see on the outside, there's more going on, doesn't that,
if anything, elevate their status.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
At the other extreme, And this is in the cart
article is false accusations like they've had instances of spelling
where they believe that they have elicited some sort of
disclosure about an allegation that they've then gone Has this
been reinforced by the person who is helping them. Spell
(28:44):
are we projecting what this person wants? And is there
then going to be an investment and a focus on
a method of communication that maybe doesn't work and if
it doesn't work, And I think that anyone who knows
anything about the NDIS and disability support knows that the
resources and the time are finite. You also don't want
(29:05):
to give families false hope or make someone feel like
if your child can't do this, there's something wrong with
that child. And so I can sort of see that.
But listening to these parents, I thought, in terms of
status and who we listen to, do we listen to
anyone less than the parent of a child with autism?
We don't afford them a platform. And there would be moments,
(29:30):
there would be so much that we can learn about
humanity and connection through these people that has otherwise been
totally erased. And I do think that if you are
non speaking, your brain would be working differently in a
way that I find absolutely fascinating. I wished when I
(29:52):
was listening to all of this, I wish that my
grandmother was around who raised a child with a disability,
and then a grandchild and had the most remarkable relationships
with both of them. And I can see with my cousin,
I can see how the world sees him as someone
with an intellectual disability who can't read or write, can't
write his own name. There are things he can do
(30:13):
that I will never be able to do. And you know,
sometimes we laugh about being able to recite an entire
train line. He can get on a train and end
up exactly where, like sense of direction, that sort of stuff,
And I think people who love people with disabilities want
the world to know about that.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
After the break globe stopping carb news from the High
Priestess Gwyneth Paltrow.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Every Tuesday and Thursday, we drop new segments of Mom
and Me are Out Loud just for Mamma and Me
as subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to
get your daily dose of out Loud and a big
thank you to everyone who is already subscribed. Megan the
(30:54):
Duchess of Jam has done her first long form podcast
interview on someone Else's show. Now it's a little bit
of a spurious claim to make because she's now hosting
her second podcast. She's done a lot of podcasting, but
now she's on the other side of the microphone a
woman called Jamie Kernlema, who I hadn't heard of, but
(31:14):
turns out she was the founder of it Cosmetics.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Great Great Foundation, Great Foundations.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
She then sold that for many millions or hundreds of
millions of dollars to Loreal. And she lives next door
to Meghan and Harry in Montecito. So she has a
podcast and it's kind of woo woo. It's very you know, American,
sort of earnest. And the podcast interview she's done with Meghan,
her friend. They took a lot about their friendships. It's
(31:43):
a rich text for discussion at another time. But this
piece of parenting advice has particularly excited everyone, and I
need to play it for your reactions.
Speaker 6 (31:52):
And so I'd created for the kids these email addresses
that names again that you would never guess, that I
will give them at some point in their lives when
they're older. But before I got ABD, almost every night
I email them. Wow, I email because it doesn't have
to be a heavy left and you email them like,
here's a report card from today, Oh my gosh, she
said the funniest thing this morning. Or here's a picture
(32:14):
of you two having breakfast, or here's you playing with
the things that you're not going to frame, the things
that you're not going to put pen to people in
a journal. But they will end up at one point
in their life, maybe when they're sixteen or when they're eighteen,
that I say, here's an email that I've been keeping
for you.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I have full body chills right now.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I have a question, Jesse, if you got full body chills.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
That is so lovely that Megan does that for her
two children. I, like Megan, had the very best of intentions.
And when Luna was maybe six weeks old, and I
would still certifiably omnal in a very strange place, I
set up an email address for little Luna and I
(32:56):
wrote her an email about how she is God.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yes, of course is the.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Best thing, and she is so loved and I don't
know coherent, I don't think it makes sense. But I
sent her that email because I was going to send
her an email every week about.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
All the little things, only every week, only every week.
I'm not like Megan Dragon the chain.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
And then this strange thing happened where I went back
to work and that email address.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
I couldn't tell you what it is. I couldn't tell
you how to log in, could not be any of that.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
And then for her first birthday, I got a scrapbook
because we didn't do anything. We didn't have a party
or anything, and I went, everyone should write a message
about something like a funny lunar story, or like, you know,
the memory that we'll never remember. And so I got
everyone to write, and I got these markers and I didn't.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Maya wrote in it. I don't know if anyone else did.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
No one else did.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Well, I've got good news about that.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
I think Luca threw it out because I can't find it.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I have questions, one big question. When Lily, bet or
Archie or any of these precious chi children turn eighteen
and are presented with perhaps a print out, who knows
of all the emails every day for eighteen years of
things that Mum thought that were really exciting and cute
that we did. That time we shoved a piece of
(34:25):
lego upon nose, that time we kicked down in.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
The balls, that time.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
You know, like, what do you do with all that?
What do you do with it?
Speaker 5 (34:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:34):
I think there's such thing as too many memories.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
And then the other question I have is are we
surprised that there is a generation of young people who
will not take direction from their bosses? Like I've got
eighteen years of emails telling me that I'm the most
special little snowflake that ever existed in the entire universe,
(34:57):
and that every utterance out of my mouth is genius, creative, beautiful,
like to precious moment?
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Are you sending me an email with all my cute
little quirks?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
I always appreciation.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
She loved the part where she said, it's not the
stuff that you'd put in your journals, So you're already journalist.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And putting things in frames.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
So we're writing the three every night, one to yourself
and one to each of her children. Is a lot
going on.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
The mental load.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Just why people aren't having children. Sorry, it's why we're
not having children. Too many emails, too much.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I just need to make it clear that whenever you
listen to Megan lately, and because she's on so many things,
I've been listened to her a lot. No one has
loved the identity you of new mum more than Megan.
She is loving it, and I get it She's ain't
that new, but but you know she loves being a
toddler mom, a school mom. The school she she loves, loves,
loves it. While we're talking about my favorite Perfect Humans,
(35:59):
best friends and dream Brunch companions, there has been news
in Gwyneth pultrow Land that we need to discuss. You
might have seen it because it made headlines everywhere from
news dot com to the esteemed BBC. The news is
that Gwyneth is sometimes sometimes eating carbs.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I know.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
This is what she said on her podcast Goop in
an episode called for the Love of Food.
Speaker 7 (36:27):
It's the reason Brad and I became paleo a few
years ago now, although I'm a little sick of it,
if I'm honest, and getting back into eating some sour
dilk bread and some cheese. There I said it, a
little pasta after being strict with it for so long.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
There I said it. I said it, I ate cheese sometimes. Okay,
a little bit of context. I'm just feeling so giggly
because after Megan and then Gwynneth, it's just a whisper.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
I imagine a little bit of pasta like toyar two pieces,
like you either have a bowl of pasta that's bigger
than your face.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
So you don't have between.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Come on now some context. Gwyneth was talking for thirty
six minutes about her relationship with food. She talked about
how she's always been a foodie. She did all the
usual drinking and smoking and coffee years, and then when
her father became ill with throat cancer in her mid twenties,
she became obsessed with food as medicine. She became hardcore macrobiotic,
which is the first time I'd ever heard the word macrobiotic,
(37:37):
because she and Madonna were bestie to remember this era
mean macrobiotic exactly. She and Madonna and Tracy Anderson the
Trainer were always tripping around London with their yoga mats,
and every story about any event they went to was
always like they wouldn't need it, they had to have
their browin rise and their lentils blah blah blah. Anyway, then,
as we all know, she went on, she created goops,
she wrote cookbooks, and she's gone through phases of saying
(37:59):
she's loosened up. But in this chat she was saying
that she and Brad had been mostly paleo for years,
and paleo if you don't know, God bless you.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
If you don't know.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
It's about protein, no carbs, and an obsession with everything
being clean in inverted commerce.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
So no Eminem's definitely no Eminem's.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Come on, Jesse Mia, I know you have thoughts on
the impact Gwyneth and other people like when it's food
conversations have on women. Do you think that famous women
should just shut the f up about what they're eating
and what they're not eating.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Everyone can say what they want, but I think what's
important to remember always is the subtext, which is that
famous women have more pressure to conform to beauty standards
than probably any other women, and that means a life
of restricted eating. And sometimes that restricted eating has a
(38:56):
name like paleo or epkins or gluten free. I know
that there are some people who are legitimately gluten free,
but I also know from speaking to eating disorders experts
that often you don't say you're on a diet, you
don't say you're restricting, but you start becoming a vegan
or you start cutting out clean, restricting things. Having said that,
(39:18):
I really can see that connection, and I thought that
was interesting that she's I think she even used the
word of thorexia, which is that idea of when clean
eating becomes an obsession and a way to really justify
extreme restriction, and it's an eating disorder dressed up as
a healthy activity. And you can see that she felt
(39:41):
like her life was out of control. She was at
the height of her fame. She just went an oscar.
Her father was dying. He'd been a smoker and had
not been a bastion of health.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
And she says he loved food right going out to
den his favorite thing to do.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
So the idea that there could be an answer, and
that somehow she could control and help not just him,
but also everyone else in her family so that she
didn't lose anyone else. I can see this idea of
food as medicine can be a slippery slope, and I
think it can be very deductive. But I think the
subtext to all of this is skinny. And I think
(40:15):
that you've got gen X women who grew up in
the absolute center of diet culture. You know, from the
supermodels to heroin Chic to grunge to all of that.
It was very much about restricted eating. And I think
that whether you dress it up as not eating sugar
or all of these things, the underlying subtext is skinny.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
Yeah, that's why I don't think it's possible to unscramble
someone sharing what they eat in a day, or sharing
their diet or whatever from being instructive. The instruction is
in the way your body looks, whether or not you.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yes, So you're saying that Gwyneth's saying what she eats
is really just about us listening so that we can
eat like her, so we can look like her.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah, And that's why I think the question is a trap.
And we've talked about it on this show before, and
in fact, we did a subscriber episode where we spoke
about that and we talked about down a plate and
I refused. I was like, I am not saying what
I ate because I'm presenting it as something whether I
want to or not, instructive when I don't think it
is instructing.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I think that's really sad because I love food and
I could talk about food for one hundred years. I
could out rest, and I don't like the I agree
very much with what you're both saying. This is very
complicated territory, but the idea that women can only talk
about food and it's about what they look like isn't true,
like lots of women get an enormous amount of joy
(41:42):
out of FID. I think you can comfort and guilt
and shame. But also what's interesting to me is, well,
you're definitely right me or about the fact that this
was the apex of diet culture. But the other piece
to this is that a lot of women who have
this complicated pleasure pain relationship with food, and most women
(42:03):
I know restrict what they in some way. I don't
mean in a serious way, but I mean in terms
of if I eat that cake now, eating that like
most women do, like they just do, and I quite
like it when they're honest about it. I feel a
little bit like that the way you do about botox,
Like tell me you've had it, don't tell me you
haven't had it. I can't bear it when tiny skinny
celebrities are like I hate burgers, I'm like, no, you don't.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Did you notice that in Megan's show that subtext of
diet culture where not necessarily from her, but sometimes and
from her guess there was often oh, we've been for
a hike, so we can have the cake, or I've
been good today so.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Well, And also they weren't saying that, but they were
eating a lot of carbs that you actually just know
if you know anything about this a la world, they
are not eating carbs, which is why this made headlines.
But the other piece of this, it isn't all about skinny.
It is partly about health too, because women, many many
women live with this kind of general feeling of ick right,
(42:59):
like something's not right, something's not right. If I ate better,
if I did this more. And some of that is true.
A lot of processed food is making a lot of
people very sick. If you eat more healthily, you will
probably feel better. Like like everything, there is truth to it,
but when it's dressed up as high status. And it
also let's not pretend that eating like this isn't incredibly expensive,
(43:22):
like organic everything, you know. I was listening to a
podcast recently where the hosts were talking about how they
were hooking each other up with a link to where
you could buy clean grains, and you're like, oh my god,
so even quen wa isn't healthy unless SENSI. Yeah, you
know this particular place like there's so much status in it,
and it is definitely tied up with skinny. But I
(43:43):
think one of the complicating factors is that health is
part of it too. Really bad overly processed, cheap food
full of chemicals is making people see.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
But who hasn't had something lodged into their head that
a celebrity said fifteen years ago about food that has
nothing to do with health. It has everything to do
with weight. That has literally changed how you eat. Oh,
and I think there's you know, there's guidelines about how
we report in the media on weight eating disorders. You
never put someone And this happens all the time, and
I see it now all over Instagram, Like we should
(44:14):
not be talking about numbers on a scale, whether it's
about eating disorders or whatever, because it encourages copycat behavior.
And I think that all of this is only getting
worse because every time I log on to TikTok, I
get a what I eat in a day and I
look at it and I.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Go, you haven't eating disorder? Like this is an eating disorder.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Gressed up aspiration and content.
Speaker 4 (44:33):
Yeap, exactly right.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
A massive thank you out louders. That's all we have
time for today. Thank you for listening to our show,
and of course to our fabulous team for putting this together.
We are getting on a plane and going to Perth.
But we will still be back in your ears tomorrow
of course, and.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
If you're looking for something else to listen to. On
yesterday's episode, Amelia and I talked all about the Kennedy
women and one of my personal obsessions Carolyn Beissett Kennedy,
who some say is the original influencer. Do you even
know who she's Jesse Oria.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yeah, yeah, I went to the JFK Museum in Boston
and they had like some of her clothes.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Oh wow. A link, as always, will be in the
show notes. Bye bye.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
Shout out to any Mum and mea subscribers listening. If
you love the show and you want to support us,
subscribing to Mom and Mia is the very best way
to do so. There's a link in the episode description.
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Travis wants to fix it, and he's going, he's like,
he's grunting because he's going, I really want to help you, Taylor,
but I don't know what to do. When Taylor's going,
you don't have to fix it, you just have to
listen to me, yep, and just be here and hold
me in this moment. But Travis is like, no, no,
I know what I'm gonna do. And he gets out
his phone.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
And she goes to no, Travis, don't Travis.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
And then he goes to his follow account. He goes,
I'm gonna follow him.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I'm not going to do it. I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Do it and watch me, watch me tailor Travis, and
he went unfollowed.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
You're more of a TikTok guy.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Fixed it.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Hello, and welcome to Mommama Out Loud. What women are
actually talking about On Wednesday, the thirtieth of April, I
am hollyween Wright, I am Maya.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
An on Today's show when saying no costs you. Michelle
Obama has talked about what it took to not to
not President Trump's inauguration and why it's important to disappoint
people every day. Can some children read Minds? A hit
podcast said yes, the truth might be more complicated. And
(01:22):
Gwyneth Paltrow is eating carbs and it's making international headlines.
Should famous women just shut up about food? But first,
Jesse Stevens, We've.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Got some feedback for Clive Palmer, who is sending me, specifically,
a series of really annoying text messages.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Anyone else getting them.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I'm feeling a little negged because last election he was
sending me a lot of texts. This election, I haven't
heard from him. I'm feeling ghosted.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Okay, I haven't either. But just when we were setting
up to record today, our producer mt a text.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
From so I was going to say, I kid you not.
I was putting together this and I got a text message.
I checked Trumpet.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
How many Trumpets have you had?
Speaker 4 (02:00):
I've had four?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
And what's he saying to you? Trump? Hey, Jesse, how's
your day?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
That's exactly what he's saying. He knows not to call me.
I think the Trumpet has learned that we don't call
because and I was.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Picking a Trumpet's calling.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Well, no, they used to call you like they used
to do calls anyway, the.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Trumpet Patriots is the name of his political party, just
in case anyone's wondering.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
And if you're wondering what his message is, well, the
first message I got said solve housing, fast trains twenty
minutes CBD, cheap land with no punctuation.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
And that's just a list of nouns that sounds like
a house sale.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Where do I go?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Why do I have to turn up with cash?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I was sitting there at a wedding, and I go,
is he solving housing with the fast trains? Is he
buying more land in the CBD?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Like we didn't get to your housing faster on a train?
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Like what are we talking about?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
But did you know?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
I learned this week that these messages are totally above board,
totally legal, because politicians have a legal exemption from spam.
That's why they're allowed to send unsolicited texts. They're allowed
to call you without offering an opt out option. They
are also exempt from privacy laws, so they can collect, store,
(03:11):
and use your personal data without the same restrictions that
apply to any businesses. So Trumpet can literally call me
a hundred times creepy text me and I have to
copy it, and no laws requiring that these texts be truthful.
They could text me anything at all. They could say
the sky is red, the ground is yellow, and your
(03:32):
name is Clive.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I know why they're texting because apparently only thirty percent
of emails ever get opened, but ninety percent of text
messages do. And that's interesting, right. I don't open all
my text messages. I'm one of those people who drives
everyone crazy by having the red sign that says twenty
million texts because I just look at it and go,
I don't need to know about that, and I move
on with my life. But apparently most people are much
(03:57):
more organized than I am, and they open everything before
they read it.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
So I reckon that texts are going to go that
way because we've learned with emails about the spam. I
no longer answer my phone because I've just been done
so many times by GET. I do not answer my
phone as a general rule, and I'm getting that way
with texts because of things like this.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
A couple of months ago, you might remember that there
was gossip around whether the Obamas were getting divorced.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah, and Obama was dating Jennifer Aniston, right.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah, there were two specific reasons for these rumors.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Of those rumors because I feel like Mayor Friedman absolutely.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
For Jennifer Aniston ones, but the rumors, I don't want
them to split up. I want starting that rumor. The
reasons that people were talking about it is because firstly,
Michelle didn't attend Jimmy Carter's funeral, and then a few
weeks later she didn't attend Donald Trump's inauguration. So what
other explanation could there be for her not showing up
as a former First Lady at these very official ceremonial events.
(04:57):
All the other former first ladies did except for Michelle.
So was it splits field? That's what everybody was saying. Well,
now we know that Michelle Obama's marriage wasn't in trouble,
or it might have been in trouble, might still be
in trouble, but that's not why she didn't turn up.
She just didn't want to go. Here's what she said
in a podcast interview this week.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
My decision to skip the inauguration. You know what people
don't realize or my decision to make choices at the
beginning of this year that suited me were met with
such ridicule and criticism, like people couldn't believe that I
was saying no for any other reason that they had
to assume that my marriage was falling.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Right.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
You know, It's like, while I'm here really trying to
own my life and intentionally practice making the choice that
was right for me, and it took everything in my
power to not do the thing that was right or
that was perceived as right, but do the thing that
was right for me. That was a hard thing for
(05:58):
me to do. I had to basically trick myself out
of it. And it started with not having anything to wear.
I mean, I had affirmatively because I'm always prepared for
in a funeral any I walk around with the right dress.
I travel with clothes just in case something pops off.
So I was like, if I'm not going to do
this thing, I gotta tell my team I don't even
(06:21):
want to have a dress ready. It's so easy to
just say, let me do the right thing, but then
you become a shark absorber. Yeah, and that's what women
are as shark absorbers.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
The idea of being a shock absorber really hit now.
For more than eight years, Michelle Obama had to be
a shock absorber because as the first black first Lady,
she didn't want to hand any ammunition to people who
believe black people didn't belong in the White House. And
she sacrificed so much, not just for the eight years
when Obama was president, but in the sort of four
(06:55):
years or more before that when he was running. She
held her tongue, she silenced her opinions, she straightened her hair,
she squished her personal style, she didn't show her arms.
She did all the right things, all the things that
were expected of her.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Can you explain what a shock absorber is? How would
you describe it when she says you were.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
A shock So a shock absorber in the you know,
technical description of something is something that stands in between
two hard forces, so you know, like a piece of
rubber or something that stops them from banging together in
an angry aggressive way. So it's the thing that absorbs
all the pressure. So the shock absorber is getting hammered
to stop the other two things basically igniting.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Do you know what I sometimes say? There must be
a time of life where you just get like I'm
jack of this. I started saying a few years ago
to my husband, I just feel like human grout. I
feel like grout.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I feel like.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Everyone else is the tile, the people I work with,
my children, my parents, my husband, and I'm just the grout.
I just fit in. I'm just there so that the
tiles don't bang together, so that everybody's life is stable
and calm. And what about me? When can I be
a tile?
Speaker 3 (08:08):
So there was a an article in the New York Times,
when do I get to be a tired exactly?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And now Michelle's in her tile era.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
She's a tile on her own.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
But there was an article in the New York Times
during the pandemic about how women were the shock absorbers
because they were the ones that quit their jobs when
they needed to be quick like. So in a family context,
it's often said that, I mean, even with little children,
when a problem is seen, it's like, okay, me sacrificing
will cause the least conflict in this situation, which women
(08:40):
are programmed to do because there's something socialized into us
which is to keep the peace and to sacrifice.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Yes, it's lubricant.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
And also I think often when a man is behaving
really badly. Think about sort of the political wives who
have to stand next to their spouse is when they've
done something unforgivable and do the smiling and the nodding
and we're all so happy. Like that's classic shock absorbent behavior, right.
The thing I loved about all the detail in what
Michelle Obama gave us is that you know, at the time,
(09:12):
when she didn't go, we all thought that the marriage
room as were bullshit. Really, we all knew that she
was really just going, I just can't like let them, Yeah,
that's it. But what I loved about that is her
describing how difficult it was. It wasn't just her sitting
at home putting a feet up and going, see, yah,
I hope you suit still fits. To Barack as he
walked out of the house, it was a whole, very
(09:34):
difficult thing because even for him, if you're saying no,
and you know you're going to disappoint people, I'm not
going to that thing, even though everyone thinks I should go.
There's a cost to other people. So Barack Obama also
had to weather all the commentary about his marriage. He
had to go and stand there on his own. We
all remember the video of him ready to walk out
of the inauguration and they're saying, are you going to
behave and he's like no, but like he did not
(09:55):
have Michelle have his shock absorble with him, right, so
you know that your decision to do what's right for you,
Michelle sounds like nearly every midlife woman I know who's
in therapy who's like just going, I'm finally learning how
not to be the grout or the shock absilber. Yeah,
and I'm doing it for me and it's hard. And
Barack was probably going it would just shut everyone up
(10:17):
if you turn up, and she was like, no, I can't,
but it costs something, and nose sometimes do cost things,
you know.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, And I was reading something recently. I can't remember
who the author was, but it was about how when
you achieve any level of success, whether it's a promotionate work,
or you know, you're Michelle Obama, the one inevitability that
comes with that is that you're going to let people down.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
You're going to disappoint people.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
This writer was saying you should practice it like every day,
go I am going to disappoint one person and choose
who the person is.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
So hard tell me more about that.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yeah, So she says, you've got to choose who the
person is, because trying not to disappoint people is a
prison that you can live in your entire life. If
you're trying not to disappoint them, you're likely going to
disappoint yourself or the people closest to you. So it's
actually a skill. And there are like rules or things
that you should abide by when it comes to disappointing people.
(11:12):
So you should express yourself kindly, compassionately, but most importantly firmly,
Like you've got to be really clear when you're letting
someone down and you have to follow through. I think
that the firmly is where I fall flat. I will
often go to disappoint someone and I will have Luca
or Maya or someone look at the message and go,
(11:33):
I don't know what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yes, I don't think I can do that thing. I'll
do my best absolutely maybe whatever.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
You're doing it or not, and the people question marks.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
The clinical psychologist doctor Nicole Lapera talks about this, and
she says that when you try to avoid disappointing someone,
you're making them small. You're operating under the belief that
they'll be crushed if you can't make something, and that's
just not true. You've got to expect more of others.
Like it's actually like you're being quite paternalistic or undermining
(12:08):
someone by thinking that Maya can't handle it if I say, hey,
by the way, I can't go tomorrow night.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I think where I find it most difficult is with
my children and with my parents.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
And don't you think that is parenting.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
I don't mean disappointing like a good I never understand.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
A good parent just disappoints then all the time they do.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
But also the model of good parent we've been given
is constant shock absorption, constant putting yourself blast, constant swallowing
your feelings so your kids don't see them, not having
that argument with your partner so your kid doesn't see it,
putting up with somebody talking to it in a certain way,
blah blah blah. Like that is a lot of parenting,
and there's and a lot of it is necessary and
you kind of have to do it. And this is
(12:48):
why often I think that this era of Arah comes
a little later when the steaks aren't quite so high
for your family, because what's interesting about Michelle Obama specifically.
It's obvious why she didn't want to go to the
Trump inauguration, but she also didn't want to go to
the Jimmy carterfuneral because she knew she'd have to sit
next to him and make nice. And she obviously has
(13:09):
just that in her integrity, as she would say, she
cannot do that anymore. It's costing her too much to
someone who she really believes is ripping at the fabric
of all that she stands for. She can do that now.
She couldn't do that when she was First Lady, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
No, she couldn't. And I think the other level of
it for her is seeing how Milania Trump behaved that
and Donald Trump. But as she you know, if you
read her book Becoming, she talks about having to do
everything so scrupulously and everybody looking to find fault. When
Michelle Obama was First Lady and then Milania comes in,
(13:47):
she wears a jacket saying, I don't care. She doesn't
live at the White House half the time. She doesn't
really do anything as First Lady.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
As Christmas Trees of all Time.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Yeah, and she just I mean phoning it in is
an exaggeration of what she does. She doesn't even phone
it in, and so she just flouts every single convention
and every single norm. And then you can see Michelle
Obama going, why am I always the good girl? Like
he's not running for elected office anymore. I am not
that role model. And there was all that pressure on
her to actually run for being the president. Can you imagine,
(14:19):
like with her and Oprah, you're the only ones that
can save us from Donald Trump, and everybody wanted her
to do it, and she said no, and the cost
of disappointing all of those people. You've got to admire that.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
But what you gain from choosing disappointing others is self respect.
I think self respect is on the other side of that,
and I think that you can probably live a lot
of years being the shock absorber not wanting to disappoint,
and it erodes.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Your self respect.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
It also is immunity against resentment, because you know what,
grout and shock absorbers feel resentful and it might come
after a decade, two decades, whatever, and then suddenly the
grout saying to the title, Hey, I'm fucking grout, I'm
over this, and you might end your marriage or you
might you know, do something drastic, but the title never
(15:10):
knew because you've just gone it's okay, it's okay, I'll
I'll just be here and absorb everything. And then it's like, hmm,
so maybe we need to you know, say no and
disappoint people a little bit earlier.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Constantly must be done, constantly. You do it well, man,
I'm so good at it.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
In a moment, the celebrity unfollowed that has everyone talking
and unpacking the telepathy tapes, a viral podcast that dethrone
Joe Rogan, and then came the backlash.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I am living my very happiest life today because I'm
bringing all the schoreless gossip, all the celebrity news. So
permit me a smug huh at the news that one
Travis Kelcey of Big Footballer who dates Taylor Swift fame,
has unfollowed, the husband of one of Taylor's absolute best mates,
Blake Lively. Yes, Travis is no longer Instagram buddies with
(16:05):
Ryan Reynolds, and the speculation is rife. Is this about
that court case build for next year between Justin Baldoni
and Blake Lively and not wanting to be pulled into
all the unabating drama of it. Or is Travis just
sick of all the Rex and Football club reels? Or
did his finger just slip and he accidentally pressed unfollow
(16:25):
next to a smiling picture of Deadpool Jesse. What is
the significant subtext here?
Speaker 4 (16:31):
As if she'd no, no, I have so many thoughts
about this.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I've been thinking, don't worry about I'm coming to you
for the full Taylor run. The tailor's to take turns
here she knows about unfollowing?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Before you talk? Can I just have a shout out
to whatever piece of software it is that gossip columnists
have installed that shows them someone's two million followers goes
to like one million.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
That's not what happened. I went to fans noticed.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
The fans literally going how many followers does Ryan Reynolds have?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
To that that's what fan discovered something else. I don't
know if I'd call myself a fan of Travis Kelsey,
but I went on too his Instagram and I was like,
everyone's talking about the Ryan Reynold's unfollow Does a man
follow Blake? And I went and had a look, No,
he doesn't, he doesn't follow Blake. And then I went
and had a look, and Blake Lively follows Taylor, but
she does not follow Travis, which is weird given that
Blake and Ryan were at the super Bowl last year
(17:30):
supporting them. So there has been a holiday together not
that long. Yeah, I'll tell you exactly what's happened.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
This is Travis's content is a bit boring.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
It's a worrying.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
He's not a big instagra and I do think Ryan
posts too much about Rexham. So I did wonder if
that was just a little bit of overkill and Travis
was like enough. But last week there were all these
rumors about how Justin Baldoni court case Taylor subpoened. Why
would she be subpoened because of the mention that Blake
Lively made used her name really to leverage a bit
(18:00):
of power with Justin Baldoni. Very embarrassing according to Justin Baldoni. Yes, well,
it's it's a text message. We've read the texts. Oh yes,
So Taylor is upset, she's pissed. She's come home to
their home and she's upset. She's pulling out her hair,
she's going I've had a terrible day.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I would like to be removed from this narrative.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Exactly, and Travis wants to fix it, and he's going,
he's like, he's grunting because he's going, I really want
to help you, Taylor, but I don't know what to do.
And Taylor's going, you don't have to fix it. You
just have to listen to me and just be here
and hold me in this moment. But Travis is like, no, no,
I know what I'm going to do. And he gets
out his phone and.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
She goes, no, Travis, don't, don't Travis, and.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Then he goes to his follower account. He goes, I'm
going to follow him.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it,
do it, and she says, watch me, watch me, Taylor, Travis.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
And she also says, Travis, you never go on Instagram
like it doesn't make any difference, and he went unfollowed.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
You're a TikTok guy.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Fixed it.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
But wouldn't she have been like, but then everybody's going
to write about this and the narrative just keeps going.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
But Travis had to do something. He couldn't just sit there.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Because he is an alpha male who likes to fix shit.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
Yes, he had to do something.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
He is very atack Cate one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
She's got it.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
The only I mean, it is just so glorious the
way that we have this actual proof. I mean, you
said it was scrollus gossip, but it is actually factually correct.
That Travis is no longer following.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I know for certain that he ever did.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
There's empirical evidence. No, that's details, hold.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
On, that doesn't feel importants important is that Blake still
follows Taylor. Importantly, Taylor follows no one, which complicates this narrative.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
But that's because, yeah, Taylor, it would just be helpful
if we knew who she was unfollowing.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Okay, so look, there are so many people who are
pissed at being dragged into this.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Because Hugh Jackman's been dragged in.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, and he's also exactly. This is not good. This
is not good for them. It's not good for their brand.
They do not have a dog in this fight. It
is not their monkey's not their circus, all of those things.
And yet can you even imagine Tree pains pissed pain,
She's been organized.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
She's now of course Taylor's publicser.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
She is, She's an icon. I think she's my roman
and part think about her all the time. What's she doing?
What's she doing? And I just imagine where she's like,
Fuck this, this is not part of our plan. What
are we going to do. We're going to unfollow.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
We're going to unfollow?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Can you do this age?
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Because there's no such thing as an accidental unfollow? No,
it's an active war.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I don't believe anyone that says you've been hacked.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Autism Telepathy a number one podcast and the fallout. Look,
this is a big topic and a story that has
spanned several months. But there was an article in The
Cut last week called I Can Hear thoughts. A podcast
called The Telepathy Tapes claims a group of non speaking
autistic people can read minds. The truth is more complicated.
(20:56):
We are going to start at the beginning. You might
remember that at the end of last year, particularly over
the summer holidays, a podcast called The Telepathy Tapes went viral.
I heard about it from out loud is yes me
too actually, and it was hosted by documentary filmmaker Ki Dickens,
and the series explored the theory that children with non
(21:17):
speaking autism were communicating with their parents telepathically. Hear me
out because I listened to this podcast at the time
and found parts of it really compelling. So it begins
by saying Ki Dickens says, for decades, a very specific
group of people have been claiming telepathy is happening. Nobody
has believed them, nobody has listened to them. But on
(21:39):
this podcast we do. And in the same way that
when someone is blind, their other senses heighten, like they
might have a furgus. It's a smell, yes, exactly right,
and that's called sensory compensation. The idea was that kids
with non speaking autism could in some cases read the
minds of their parents or teachers, and this was uncovered
(22:01):
in the podcast through a process called spelling. I had
never heard of this before. It is a two way
communication system whereby the non speaking child points to letters
on a board and is guided by a parent and
that makes out words, and sometimes.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
The parent is holding the child's hand, or the child
is holding the parents' hand and guiding them.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
And guiding them exactly right. And listening to it blew
my mind. I am open to this stuff. There were
some amazing cases of a parent opening a book or
reading a passage and the child being able to make
out what was in the book. Again, this is not
a visual medium, it's audio, So in the audio sense,
I was going, this is pretty convincing.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yeah. So the podcast, the host did a whole lot
of experiments which she took the audience through in graphic detail,
and they were quite repetitive. So she came in with
a fairly cynical mindset. And it wasn't all just spelling.
Some of it was they'd put up a screen and
they'd show the mother a word or something, and then
(22:59):
the child on the other side of the screen, without
having any contact with the mother, would have to write
down or whatever what that word was exactly, And the
level of accuracy was very high in many of these cases.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
So the podcast grew and grew, and now it has
amassed more than fifteen million downloads. But with that popularity
came a lot of criticism. There was a lot that
Dickens hadn't included. For example, the spelling method has been
routinely disproven, and that is because if especially if it's
a parent and a non speaking autistic child, there's unconscious
(23:32):
cues literally unconscious. They have no idea that they're making them,
but they can queue that. Oh yeah, you're getting the
word dog right. These kids are especially good at that.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
So almost like predictive text, but it's like the parent predicting.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Exactly, so spelling. Lots of criticism that it really didn't
go into. And the second really big criticism was that
it fell into a trope. And this is a term
that a lot of disability advocates use called super crip,
and it is a term that describes a tendency we
have to present a disabled person as having extraordinary or
magical abilities that makes them worthwhile, So think like rain Men.
(24:10):
Since its release, Dickens has been offered documentary deals. All
the studios that said no to her original idea now
saying yes. But instead she's crowdfunding for an independent second season.
So there's magic, spirituality, the metaphysical, whatever you want to
call it. Are these conversations worth having or can they
(24:30):
do more harm than good Holly?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
It's so complicated because one of the things that really
comes through, both in the podcast and in the writing
about the podcast when they're talking about these families is
that these are very often parents who are in impossibly
difficult circumstances. It is incredibly difficult work to be looking
after a child with severe disabilities and nonverbal, sometimes violent,
(24:59):
very difficult to predict control. A lot of the ideas
of you know, the milestones and the life that you
might have had together is derailed, and carers they're being
asked every day to be entirely selfless, like entirely selfless,
and the intensity often of that bond between the carer
(25:21):
and the child. To your point Jesse about whether or
not the spelling you know it's not intentional, but there
is almost a telepathy between those two is not surprising either.
So the idea that the parents are the ones who've
been saying, there's something special about my child and people
need to understand it. There's something otherworldly about my child.
(25:41):
We can communicate in ways that you don't understand. I
have a lot of empathy and sympathy for right because
the general able world looks at people with very severe
disability and does like to be really brutal about it.
They question, what's the point of that? You know what
I mean? To your point before about the problem with
(26:03):
the magical myth is that somehow we need to be
validating why people are sure, or why people are interesting,
or why people even deigned to exist you know and matter,
So I have so much sympathy for that. I don't
think I can answer the question of whether or not
I think these conversations should be had. Because am I
(26:23):
glad that those families got to tell their stories. We
all learned something about their children. Yeah, I am. I
don't know that. I think it's entirely regrettable, But then
I'm not informed enough about the other side of this
conversation to be able to say, oh, yes, it's definitely damaging.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
There was a quote in I think it was actually
in the podcast, but it's in the cut article where
a mother says, I was asking myself was he even
in there?
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Right?
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Because if you've got a child who cannot speak, who
cannot say I love you, who cannot.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
What they want, their desires.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
And that child was sort of six foot tall and
two hundred pounds and is a human and now not
a child in your life who your entire life is
oriented around their needs and caring for them, she knows
him better than any one in the world.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Yeah, and I have no doubt that they have a
method of understanding one another that maybe you or I
couldn't understand.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
And I think they're basically mean there are things.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
That you can't explain, you know, bonds between parents and children,
or between siblings or between twins. I don't think everything
can necessarily be proven scientifically, And I guess I'd have
to ask what's the harm in it? Like, does it
even matter whether it's able to be proven or not proven.
I just don't see the harm. And if it brings
(27:42):
some comfort or some utility to the people involved, what
does it matter what any of us think?
Speaker 3 (27:49):
So the critics would say that it contributes to an
othering of going. These people are other, they are not
like us. We're kind of projecting this magical, almost monstrous
thing on them, which.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
But is it monstrous or is it elevating their status?
Because people with disabilities are among the lowest status, most
vulnerable people in our community. And by saying no, what
you see on the outside, there's more going on, doesn't that,
if anything, elevate their status.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
At the other extreme, And this is in the cart
article is false accusations like they've had instances of spelling
where they believe that they have elicited some sort of
disclosure about an allegation that they've then gone Has this
been reinforced by the person who is helping them. Spell
(28:44):
are we projecting what this person wants? And is there
then going to be an investment and a focus on
a method of communication that maybe doesn't work and if
it doesn't work, And I think that anyone who knows
anything about the NDIS and disability support knows that the
resources and the time are finite. You also don't want
(29:05):
to give families false hope or make someone feel like
if your child can't do this, there's something wrong with
that child. And so I can sort of see that.
But listening to these parents, I thought, in terms of
status and who we listen to, do we listen to
anyone less than the parent of a child with autism?
We don't afford them a platform. And there would be moments,
(29:30):
there would be so much that we can learn about
humanity and connection through these people that has otherwise been
totally erased. And I do think that if you are
non speaking, your brain would be working differently in a
way that I find absolutely fascinating. I wished when I
(29:52):
was listening to all of this, I wish that my
grandmother was around who raised a child with a disability,
and then a grandchild and had the most remarkable relationships
with both of them. And I can see with my cousin,
I can see how the world sees him as someone
with an intellectual disability who can't read or write, can't
write his own name. There are things he can do
(30:13):
that I will never be able to do. And you know,
sometimes we laugh about being able to recite an entire
train line. He can get on a train and end
up exactly where, like sense of direction, that sort of stuff,
And I think people who love people with disabilities want
the world to know about that.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
After the break globe stopping carb news from the High
Priestess Gwyneth Paltrow.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Every Tuesday and Thursday, we drop new segments of Mom
and Me are Out Loud just for Mamma and Me
as subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to
get your daily dose of out Loud and a big
thank you to everyone who is already subscribed. Megan the
(30:54):
Duchess of Jam has done her first long form podcast
interview on someone Else's show. Now it's a little bit
of a spurious claim to make because she's now hosting
her second podcast. She's done a lot of podcasting, but
now she's on the other side of the microphone a
woman called Jamie Kernlema, who I hadn't heard of, but
(31:14):
turns out she was the founder of it Cosmetics.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Great Great Foundation, Great Foundations.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
She then sold that for many millions or hundreds of
millions of dollars to Loreal. And she lives next door
to Meghan and Harry in Montecito. So she has a
podcast and it's kind of woo woo. It's very you know, American,
sort of earnest. And the podcast interview she's done with Meghan,
her friend. They took a lot about their friendships. It's
(31:43):
a rich text for discussion at another time. But this
piece of parenting advice has particularly excited everyone, and I
need to play it for your reactions.
Speaker 6 (31:52):
And so I'd created for the kids these email addresses
that names again that you would never guess, that I
will give them at some point in their lives when
they're older. But before I got ABD, almost every night
I email them. Wow, I email because it doesn't have
to be a heavy left and you email them like,
here's a report card from today, Oh my gosh, she
said the funniest thing this morning. Or here's a picture
(32:14):
of you two having breakfast, or here's you playing with
the things that you're not going to frame, the things
that you're not going to put pen to people in
a journal. But they will end up at one point
in their life, maybe when they're sixteen or when they're eighteen,
that I say, here's an email that I've been keeping
for you.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I have full body chills right now.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
I have a question, Jesse, if you got full body chills.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
That is so lovely that Megan does that for her
two children. I, like Megan, had the very best of intentions.
And when Luna was maybe six weeks old, and I
would still certifiably omnal in a very strange place, I
set up an email address for little Luna and I
(32:56):
wrote her an email about how she is God.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yes, of course is the.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Best thing, and she is so loved and I don't
know coherent, I don't think it makes sense. But I
sent her that email because I was going to send
her an email every week about.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
All the little things, only every week, only every week.
I'm not like Megan Dragon the chain.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
And then this strange thing happened where I went back
to work and that email address.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
I couldn't tell you what it is. I couldn't tell
you how to log in, could not be any of that.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
And then for her first birthday, I got a scrapbook
because we didn't do anything. We didn't have a party
or anything, and I went, everyone should write a message
about something like a funny lunar story, or like, you know,
the memory that we'll never remember. And so I got
everyone to write, and I got these markers and I didn't.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Maya wrote in it. I don't know if anyone else did.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
No one else did.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Well, I've got good news about that.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
I think Luca threw it out because I can't find it.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
I have questions, one big question. When Lily, bet or
Archie or any of these precious chi children turn eighteen
and are presented with perhaps a print out, who knows
of all the emails every day for eighteen years of
things that Mum thought that were really exciting and cute
that we did. That time we shoved a piece of
(34:25):
lego upon nose, that time we kicked down in.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
The balls, that time.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
You know, like, what do you do with all that?
What do you do with it?
Speaker 5 (34:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:34):
I think there's such thing as too many memories.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
And then the other question I have is are we
surprised that there is a generation of young people who
will not take direction from their bosses? Like I've got
eighteen years of emails telling me that I'm the most
special little snowflake that ever existed in the entire universe,
(34:57):
and that every utterance out of my mouth is genius, creative, beautiful,
like to precious moment?
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Are you sending me an email with all my cute
little quirks?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
I always appreciation.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
She loved the part where she said, it's not the
stuff that you'd put in your journals, So you're already journalist.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
And putting things in frames.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
So we're writing the three every night, one to yourself
and one to each of her children. Is a lot
going on.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
The mental load.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Just why people aren't having children. Sorry, it's why we're
not having children. Too many emails, too much.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I just need to make it clear that whenever you
listen to Megan lately, and because she's on so many things,
I've been listened to her a lot. No one has
loved the identity you of new mum more than Megan.
She is loving it, and I get it She's ain't
that new, but but you know she loves being a
toddler mom, a school mom. The school she she loves, loves,
loves it. While we're talking about my favorite Perfect Humans,
(35:59):
best friends and dream Brunch companions, there has been news
in Gwyneth pultrow Land that we need to discuss. You
might have seen it because it made headlines everywhere from
news dot com to the esteemed BBC. The news is
that Gwyneth is sometimes sometimes eating carbs.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
I know.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
This is what she said on her podcast Goop in
an episode called for the Love of Food.
Speaker 7 (36:27):
It's the reason Brad and I became paleo a few
years ago now, although I'm a little sick of it,
if I'm honest, and getting back into eating some sour
dilk bread and some cheese. There I said it, a
little pasta after being strict with it for so long.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
There I said it. I said it, I ate cheese sometimes. Okay,
a little bit of context. I'm just feeling so giggly
because after Megan and then Gwynneth, it's just a whisper.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
I imagine a little bit of pasta like toyar two pieces,
like you either have a bowl of pasta that's bigger
than your face.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
So you don't have between.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Come on now some context. Gwyneth was talking for thirty
six minutes about her relationship with food. She talked about
how she's always been a foodie. She did all the
usual drinking and smoking and coffee years, and then when
her father became ill with throat cancer in her mid twenties,
she became obsessed with food as medicine. She became hardcore macrobiotic,
which is the first time I'd ever heard the word macrobiotic,
(37:37):
because she and Madonna were bestie to remember this era
mean macrobiotic exactly. She and Madonna and Tracy Anderson the
Trainer were always tripping around London with their yoga mats,
and every story about any event they went to was
always like they wouldn't need it, they had to have
their browin rise and their lentils blah blah blah. Anyway, then,
as we all know, she went on, she created goops,
she wrote cookbooks, and she's gone through phases of saying
(37:59):
she's loosened up. But in this chat she was saying
that she and Brad had been mostly paleo for years,
and paleo if you don't know, God bless you.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
If you don't know.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
It's about protein, no carbs, and an obsession with everything
being clean in inverted commerce.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
So no Eminem's definitely no Eminem's.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Come on, Jesse Mia, I know you have thoughts on
the impact Gwyneth and other people like when it's food
conversations have on women. Do you think that famous women
should just shut the f up about what they're eating
and what they're not eating.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Everyone can say what they want, but I think what's
important to remember always is the subtext, which is that
famous women have more pressure to conform to beauty standards
than probably any other women, and that means a life
of restricted eating. And sometimes that restricted eating has a
(38:56):
name like paleo or epkins or gluten free. I know
that there are some people who are legitimately gluten free,
but I also know from speaking to eating disorders experts
that often you don't say you're on a diet, you
don't say you're restricting, but you start becoming a vegan
or you start cutting out clean, restricting things. Having said that,
(39:18):
I really can see that connection, and I thought that
was interesting that she's I think she even used the
word of thorexia, which is that idea of when clean
eating becomes an obsession and a way to really justify
extreme restriction, and it's an eating disorder dressed up as
a healthy activity. And you can see that she felt
(39:41):
like her life was out of control. She was at
the height of her fame. She just went an oscar.
Her father was dying. He'd been a smoker and had
not been a bastion of health.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
And she says he loved food right going out to
den his favorite thing to do.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
So the idea that there could be an answer, and
that somehow she could control and help not just him,
but also everyone else in her family so that she
didn't lose anyone else. I can see this idea of
food as medicine can be a slippery slope, and I
think it can be very deductive. But I think the
subtext to all of this is skinny. And I think
(40:15):
that you've got gen X women who grew up in
the absolute center of diet culture. You know, from the
supermodels to heroin Chic to grunge to all of that.
It was very much about restricted eating. And I think
that whether you dress it up as not eating sugar
or all of these things, the underlying subtext is skinny.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
Yeah, that's why I don't think it's possible to unscramble
someone sharing what they eat in a day, or sharing
their diet or whatever from being instructive. The instruction is
in the way your body looks, whether or not you.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yes, So you're saying that Gwyneth's saying what she eats
is really just about us listening so that we can
eat like her, so we can look like her.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah, And that's why I think the question is a trap.
And we've talked about it on this show before, and
in fact, we did a subscriber episode where we spoke
about that and we talked about down a plate and
I refused. I was like, I am not saying what
I ate because I'm presenting it as something whether I
want to or not, instructive when I don't think it
is instructing.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I think that's really sad because I love food and
I could talk about food for one hundred years. I
could out rest, and I don't like the I agree
very much with what you're both saying. This is very
complicated territory, but the idea that women can only talk
about food and it's about what they look like isn't true,
like lots of women get an enormous amount of joy
(41:42):
out of FID. I think you can comfort and guilt
and shame. But also what's interesting to me is, well,
you're definitely right me or about the fact that this
was the apex of diet culture. But the other piece
to this is that a lot of women who have
this complicated pleasure pain relationship with food, and most women
(42:03):
I know restrict what they in some way. I don't
mean in a serious way, but I mean in terms
of if I eat that cake now, eating that like
most women do, like they just do, and I quite
like it when they're honest about it. I feel a
little bit like that the way you do about botox,
Like tell me you've had it, don't tell me you
haven't had it. I can't bear it when tiny skinny
celebrities are like I hate burgers, I'm like, no, you don't.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Did you notice that in Megan's show that subtext of
diet culture where not necessarily from her, but sometimes and
from her guess there was often oh, we've been for
a hike, so we can have the cake, or I've
been good today so.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Well, And also they weren't saying that, but they were
eating a lot of carbs that you actually just know
if you know anything about this a la world, they
are not eating carbs, which is why this made headlines.
But the other piece of this, it isn't all about skinny.
It is partly about health too, because women, many many
women live with this kind of general feeling of ick right,
(42:59):
like something's not right, something's not right. If I ate better,
if I did this more. And some of that is true.
A lot of processed food is making a lot of
people very sick. If you eat more healthily, you will
probably feel better. Like like everything, there is truth to it,
but when it's dressed up as high status. And it
also let's not pretend that eating like this isn't incredibly expensive,
(43:22):
like organic everything, you know. I was listening to a
podcast recently where the hosts were talking about how they
were hooking each other up with a link to where
you could buy clean grains, and you're like, oh my god,
so even quen wa isn't healthy unless SENSI. Yeah, you
know this particular place like there's so much status in it,
and it is definitely tied up with skinny. But I
(43:43):
think one of the complicating factors is that health is
part of it too. Really bad overly processed, cheap food
full of chemicals is making people see.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
But who hasn't had something lodged into their head that
a celebrity said fifteen years ago about food that has
nothing to do with health. It has everything to do
with weight. That has literally changed how you eat. Oh,
and I think there's you know, there's guidelines about how
we report in the media on weight eating disorders. You
never put someone And this happens all the time, and
I see it now all over Instagram, Like we should
(44:14):
not be talking about numbers on a scale, whether it's
about eating disorders or whatever, because it encourages copycat behavior.
And I think that all of this is only getting
worse because every time I log on to TikTok, I
get a what I eat in a day and I
look at it and I.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Go, you haven't eating disorder? Like this is an eating disorder.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Gressed up aspiration and content.
Speaker 4 (44:33):
Yeap, exactly right.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
A massive thank you out louders. That's all we have
time for today. Thank you for listening to our show,
and of course to our fabulous team for putting this together.
We are getting on a plane and going to Perth.
But we will still be back in your ears tomorrow
of course, and.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
If you're looking for something else to listen to. On
yesterday's episode, Amelia and I talked all about the Kennedy
women and one of my personal obsessions Carolyn Beissett Kennedy,
who some say is the original influencer. Do you even
know who she's Jesse Oria.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
Yeah, yeah, I went to the JFK Museum in Boston
and they had like some of her clothes.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Oh wow. A link, as always, will be in the
show notes. Bye bye.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
Shout out to any Mum and mea subscribers listening. If
you love the show and you want to support us,
subscribing to Mom and Mia is the very best way
to do so. There's a link in the episode description.
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