June 27, 2025 • 42 mins
What better way to start the weekend than with this episode of Parenting Out Loud? Because if parents are thinking about it, we're talking about it.
On the show today, Jessie Stephens and Amelia Lester are joined by friend of the pod, and Mamamia's Deputy Editor, Stacey Hicks, to chat all things:
👩🏻 Ms Rachel: to what extent can we expect children's entertainers to be apolitical? The controversy about the beloved YouTube star continues.
☎️ The dumb phone: why families are reintroducing landlines and 'bricks' in pursuit of simpler technology.
💬 And, can having kids wreck adult friendships?
Plus, in this week’s reccos:
📝 Amelia wants you to try a special storytelling collection.
🧸 Jessie recommends daycare with a twist.
📚 Stacey is all about Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.
Support independent women's media
WHAT TO LISTEN TO NEXT:
- Parenting Out Loud Ep 1: Grandparents — It's Time For Your Performance Review
- Parenting Out Loud Ep 2: The Death Of The Dining Table & 'Outdated' Schooling
- Parenting Out Loud Ep 3: A New Co-Parenting Rule & The 100% Work Dilemma
- How to Build A Universe: From Media To Friends, How To Manage Your Child's External Influences
- This Glorious Mess: Why Your Obsession With Bluey Is Deeper Than You Think (Bonus)
WHAT TO READ:
- Rachel Accurso's son struggled with a speech delay, so she started making videos online.
- ‘I was a total a**hole’. An open letter to the women who became mums before me.
- 'I didn't know how to keep my kids safe on their phones, until an expert shared these three hacks.'
- 'I'm a psychologist. This hidden phone setting kills your endless scrolling addiction.'
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 Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mama and Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello, and welcome
to our limited series Parenting Out Loud. I am Jesse Stevens,
and I am joined by Merely Lester. You can say hello.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
You're alloud to say hello, Hope, Jesse, how are you good?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And we're here to talk about some of the stories
that dominated the week, because if parents are thinking about it,
we're talking about it. And today we also have a
very special third co host. It is Mom and MIA's
deputy editor. Welcome to Stacey Hicks.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Hello, Helloks for scooching over for hell me.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Please tell us a bit about yourself.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
This question is my nightmare. Thank you so much for us.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
That is so fine. I wanted to leave it as
open ended as possible so that.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
You'd lose slopover. Yes, I feel like all I do
is scroll on TikTok in bed, so that is not
very I'm the writer of many words on Muma Mia
that you might have seen on the website. I'm the
drinker of copious amounts of tea and margaritas, which tea
and spicy irregular marks. Oh English breakfast tea, milk, sugar,
depending on the time of day. You're not a Barbarian
(01:26):
and I'm a regular mar girl.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Very basic.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
You know I've started putting jalapeno in my soblank. Oh yes,
it's true. It's happening, say b.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
An early recommendation from Amelia today And Stacey, do you.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Have a kid? I do?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
It would be a bit weird if I didn't throwing
my opinions around. I am one and done so I've
had one child. I got it right, I'm stopping so clever,
We're done, well done. I have affected the process.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You went.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
This one is ten out of ten.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Let's not tempt fake.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Or let's just never do that roller coaster again? Did
you have a way you want to look at it?
How old is little she is four years old? I
have a four year old little girl.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
On today's show do Kids Ruin Friendships? We discussed two
fiery essays about what happens to friendship in the wake
of children and the return of the landline signals nostalgia
for childhood we might never be able to recreate. So
what is kid rotting and could it be the answer?
Plus Children's YouTube star Miss Rachel express support for the
(02:28):
children of Gaza and now she's had to disable comments
on Instagram and YouTube. We explain what happened and the
parasocial relationships we have with kids entertainers. But first, in
case you missed it, a number of unnamed women have
confessed to making up they have kids in order to
get flexibility at work. And I want your initial reactions now, please.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I think it's genius, really yeah, because before I had kids,
I would always see these women leaving work early to
go and pick up so called children from so called school,
and they would be consumed with anger and jealousy. How
about you, Stacy equally think it's genius. But they have
forgotten something very important that comes along with leaving early.
(03:11):
So once you have a child and you have to
duck out an hour early, they're not thinking about the
fact that you then make up for that tenfold afterwards to.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Prove that you are ways.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
We're sending a lot of like sort of overly diligent
emails to your boss at nine pm.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yes, yeah, that's the part I resent. So one woman
told MoMA Maya that she lied to her boss with
a story about her daughter experiencing a health emergency and
she needed to leave. In reality, it was her cat
and it really was an emergency. And I guess that
all depends on your definition of child exactly. That definition
includes male cat doesn't for me. But I'm slightly horrified
(03:45):
by this story. Even though I know there's lots of research,
a health emergency of a child is really serious. It's
really serious and scary for parent. And that is not
to undermine the horror of having a sick cat. But
your workplace should respect a sick cat. You should be
able to acknowledge I've got a sick cat. I need
to leave. There's cararas leave that exists. But I think
(04:09):
to s and I saw some of this research and
some of the rhetoric around this that said women, particularly
without kids, pick up the slack of working mothers. And
I resent that so deeply because I know about you too.
But are we seeing much slack from working mothers.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Well, I'm not going to confess to it here yet.
I'm never slacking. No, we're definitely not slacking. But I
do think that we take it more seriously when it's
a kid. Like if someone's kid had an emergency, I
probably would send them a message that night and say,
hope Paul is okay.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
If it was a cat, I would not, And I think.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That that's the right reaction.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Good good, I'm allergic to cats.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
In my defense, I cannot do kids ruin friendships. That's
the real reason I barge my way into the studio today.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
You're lonely and desperate.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yes, I needed to talk about it with my favorite
women because I read an article on this very topic
and I cannot stop thinking about it. So in a
substack called Impers Suit of Clean Countertops, which is a
great name by Sarah Peterson, she spoke about how after
she gave birth, trying to care about anything other than
her baby's Pooh color and sleep schedule was akin to
(05:20):
having phantom limb syndrome. So she said she tried to
care but just didn't really, So instead of wanting to
do these gossip sessions with her child free friends, she
was craving more time with the mothers who were experiencing
the same thing as her. And the same sentiment was
echoed in a piece in the cut where the writer
Alison P. Davis called children tiny little detonators, which they
(05:43):
very much are saying nothing represents a threat to friendship
more than parenthood. So does motherhood actually ruin our friendships
or just change the DNA of them a little bit? Well,
in my experience, they do realin friendships a little bit.
I've been on both sides of this equation. I had
children fairly laid in the piece, and before I had them,
I felt a lot of rage. I guess this is
(06:05):
a thread through my remarks today. I've felt a lot
of ragewards friends who had kids before I did. I
could tell that they were not inviting me to birthday parties,
which I didn't want to go to, but nonetheless one
of the invitation for I could tell that they were
getting together on side group chats to talk about nappies
and toilet training and things I didn't understand, and I
desperately wanted to be involved, and I couldn't understand why
(06:26):
they weren't involving me. Now that I'm on the other
side of that equation, I've realized that a big time
suck once you have children is that you do have
to make friends, not just because you need the fellow
feeling and the sympathy of having friends who will also
have kids, but also we live in such an isolated
society now, and parenting is just put on to the
(06:46):
parents rather than the community. And I need mum friends
who I can lean on if I can't pick the
kid up from school at the right time, or if
I have a really important question about something that Google
is not going to answer for me without a sort
of anxiety spiral. I need those friends who I can
call on and lean on in moments of crisis with
my kids. So now I guess I understand given that
(07:09):
time is limited once you do have kids, you do
have to reserve a certain amount of time for making
those new friends.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
So do you think that it's just about the equation
that we all have finite time and energy. Whether it's
you've got one child or you've got four children, you
suddenly have this person that needs all of your attention
or as much as you can give them, and then
you've got to make parent friends, which is true, whether
it's starting with mother's group and then at school and whatever.
(07:39):
Is it just that Is it just that there's not
as much time, or do you think that it's also
that you don't relate in the same way.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Stacy, Have you lost friends since you had your shop.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I think mine.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
I didn't lose friends completely, but I think mine went
into a state of flux. So you added so many
more people in that it just felt like you couldn't
give time to the ones that were already there. And
I also think, as you said before, once I was
on the other side, I kind of went on this
apology tour with all of my friends that had had
children before me say I get it now, like I
(08:11):
get why you did this.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I get why you.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Retreated from me because I wasn't supporting you in the
way that I now need from you.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Which you can't. I'm sorry, but you just simply can't understand.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
And all my friends were very gracious in that way
and saying you just didn't get it. You didn't know
that showing up with a teddy bear was not very
useful to me, and that it would have been better
if you'd stacked the dishwasher and not sat on my
lounge with me for two hours. I have literally never
stacked a friend's dishwasher. I need to go on this
apology to it.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I do well.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Once I did that, I've been a great mum friend
to all my friends that have come after me with children,
but the ones before, thank god, they were kind about it.
But I think it's because that happens with every single friend.
You're in a line of the order, and you've got
to pay it forward to the ones behind you. See.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I kind of reject this. I don't think that kids
ruined friendships, and I think accepting that can make us
all a bit lazy. It can make the people who
have either chosen not to have kids or don't have
them yet think they don't want to hang out with me.
I think there's a lot of assumptions going back both
ways that aren't necessarily true. Because when I was in
my twenties and my friend wanted to go clubbing, I
(09:17):
most of the time didn't want to go clubbing, but
I went clubbing because I was like, I just want
to hang out with you wherever you are. I would
go and watch their basketball, they'd come watch my netball.
We went through a stage where we take turns going
and picking each other up just because we just got
our license right. And so it's never about what you're
actually doing. It's more about the time you're spending together.
(09:39):
And in both of these articles, they were sort of saying,
if I don't have kids. I don't want to spend
time in a park I don't want to spend time
at your house with Louie on in the background. And
I kind of reject that. I think that if you
want to spend time with someone, then you do it
on each of your terms to varying degrees, and you
can try and maintain those friendships. But it's give and take.
(10:01):
I think there's something quite selfish about thinking, well, I
don't want to spend my Saturday in a parker at
a kid's birthday party. Like, if you want to sustain
the friendship, then there's got a baby given tew.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
What's the give and take on the part of the
person who has kids in this equation. What are they
being asked to do.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I was having this conversation with Maya on out Loud recently,
and she said, get a babysitter and hang out at night.
And you know what, do that once a month if
you can, if you can afford it. And I know
that it's harder for some people than others. It's about
how much support you have. But if you can, yeah,
have that in the diary a month in advance and
go all right, let's hang out. But still I think
(10:38):
that the friends who don't have kids also have to
compromise a little bit.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
See, I really disagree with you, Jesse. The last thing
I want to do is say to a friend of
mine who doesn't have children, Mina's at the playground. We
will have a half hearted, completely disjointed, ultimately unsatisfactory conversation
while I ensure that my child doesn't break his or
her neck. Who does that benefit? All right?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
So I have a theory about why we feel differently
about this, which was in the cut article. There is
research to suggest that something happened around the age of three.
The Journal of Demographic Research said that that's when from
the age of three is when kids are the most
demanding of the parents' time and energy. I currently have
a two year old. I wonder if I'm still in this.
(11:24):
She's started talking probably like what six months a year ago,
like properly talking. But in that first year you.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Can put the baby in the pram and walk the
dog right.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Right, So there's still an element of socializing that's possible
there even now push her on the swing. I was
hanging out with someone recently who had a five and
a seven year old no, no, because it's the pulling
of the skirt and going my.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Mom discussion of the Minecraft movie.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Which like, your friend as lovely as they are, your
kids boring as shit? Yeah, like they are boring a
shit and you know that, but you love them.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
And whether you are boring at the start, you are
so boring once you have a kid, So actually they're
giving up a lot to spend time with you from
the start. Like I remember with my newborn talking to
my friend at nauseum about the tog ratings of sleeping
and worrying that my daughter wasn't warm enough at night.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
It's so dull.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
But you know what, my friends who don't have kids
can also be very boring.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
True.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I have a friend at the moment who is doing
a fitness challenge. Holy boring the stuff I've heard about,
and I follow up, so he talks about his fitness challenge.
I talk about Luna's sleep and how much sleep I
got last night.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
We're both bored.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Isn't friendship just shared boreder?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Look, my main topic of conversation with people right now
is the fact that I love mouth tape and I
can see the light draining from their eyes when I
talked to them about this. Just last night, I had
dinner with some mum friends and our kids at a
Tepanaki joint, which is really interesting because you always wonder
whether or not the food is going to make it
into the bowl or if it's going to go all
over your brand new jumper. I'm pleased to report that
(12:56):
my jumper did not have stains on it. At the
end of the night, you know, I'm devoid of conversation.
I'm very tired, and I just started talking about mouth
tape because that's my go to and I realized that's
really boring. So we probably shouldn't say just kids are boring,
and in fact, this conversation you couldn't send it to partners.
Think about heterosexual relationships where you've got do I bring
the man who's now in my life along to the
(13:17):
dinner with girlfriends.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I have met men so much more boring than a
sick comper so much.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
This is what I'm saying, And I guess the contention
that I'm moving towards here is we're all a little
bit boring, but our friends the people who find us
the right amount of boring, So let's not drag other
people into the equation. See your friends on the terms
of the friendship. Don't try and bring kids in, don't
try and bring partners in.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Interesting, I'm all.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
About the compartmentalization. I think it's also because we're not
as accustomed to the ups and downs in our friendships
as we are in our relationships. Like I think there's
an understanding that in long term relationships you might go
through rough patches, you'll go through great patches, and the
same is not really said for friendships, like we just go, oh,
that's run its course once they've had a child and
they've kind of retreated. So and the other thing to
(14:04):
consider is how much our circle of friends changes in
that time, because we talk about losing friends a lot,
or maybe friends our children retreating from us. But you
also are forced into a lot of extra friendships through circumstance,
like whether that's through a mother's group, whether that's through
sport or kids activities, where so many more people end
up in your life. And there was an essay in
Psychology Today where clinical psychologist Seth Myers, not the late
(14:27):
night host, talked about how many people are blindsided by
the level of loss when it comes to their friendships.
Because it's always the ones they don't expect. But he
also warned about being a bit cautious going into these
new friendships because they've kind of been forced upon you
by circumstance, that they might not stand the test of
time once those children have kind of grown up or
(14:48):
moved out of that activity. That is so true.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I've seen that happen where I think people look at
each other and they go, oh, we're only mates because
or they've tried to like go, all right, so we're
friends because our kids's a primary school together, and they're like,
let's try and do a weaken away. Doesn't worry. It's like, no, no, no,
it only works in that context.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
This makes me think about the fact that when you
you have little kids, conversation is never that good, and
so the friendship there's never that much strain put on
the friend Yes, but as the kids grow older and
they're off doing their own thing, all of a sudden,
the spotlight is on can this relationship with stand long
stretches of actual conversation. The jury is out.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
There are a few things floating around in the culture
that I'm going to attempt to bring together. The first
is the Atlantic published a story this month about the
return of the landline. Writer Rina Murray spoke to a
mother who bought her ten year old a landline to
connect with her friends, and this was in lieu of
a smartphone, and then encouraged other families in the suburb
(15:51):
to do the same. So now twenty or so families
have landlines. They've got their kids calling each other. She
writes about sort of practicing active listening, which is a
lot better than looking on FaceTime, which can be distracting.
And this leads me to the second thing. I listened
to this great episode of Search Engine, which was about
a boomy industry of technology to stop you from using
(16:13):
addictive technology. So think a dumb phone, or there's this
thing called a brick, which is you kind of tap
your phone, turns all the apps off, and then you
can go for a walk or spend a few hours
or whatever, and then you tap it again, apps come
back on. And the third thing is a story in
the Cut about millennial nostalgia for a ninety summer. It's
about the school holidays where time was unstructured. You laid around,
(16:37):
maybe you watched some TV, you got up late, you
went on a budget family trip up the coast, basically
a time before YouTube.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
And I think what.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
This highlighted for me is that we're trying to wind
back the clock and recreate the childhood we had. And
my question is is that even possible, Stacy, what do
you think?
Speaker 3 (16:58):
No, I don't think it's possible at all, But I
love that everyone is trying. And my best friend has
actually been telling me the same thing is happening in
her neighborhood at the moment, where all the year four
moms have set up a chat about reinstalling landlines in
their homes. I thought this was just an Atlantic trendy. No,
this is happening in regional Queensland where they're doing that
(17:20):
because and her reasoning was really interesting. She said, to me,
the most important thing to me is just allowing her
to be where she is. So whether they're out at school, sport,
whether they're at home just having family time, the technology
can physically not reach her, so it's very easy way
to shut it off and it not be available and
still be able to enjoy being in the present moment
of her childhood. And that's the fear for everybody. The
(17:43):
idea that the landline is prolonging her having to get
a mobile pho. Yes, her daughter, Yeah, absolutely, because then
it is very much that she can talk in a
public space. Her parents are around, they can see that
she's chatting, and as you say, they're actually holding a conversation.
It's not just tapping away on a keyboard to some
faceless friend. They're actually communicating and learning that skill, which
(18:05):
I think. I mean, even I hate having to call
the doctors. We just don't do it. So it's great
that they're encouraging them with that.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And the theory is that rather than just taking something
away and depriving, it's like you give them something else instead.
And it reminds me of in this Search Engine episode,
it said you can treat your mobile phone like a landline,
Like if you walk into your house and you plug
it in, and you go when my phone is in
my house, it's plugged in, that's it, and when I
want to use it, I go upstairs or I go whatever,
(18:34):
and I tap away. I thought that's really clever because
that has some boundary where if you're sitting on the
couch and you just go to look at your phone
for the four hundredth time that day, because let's be honest.
The reason why kids want phones is because we are
not setting a great example. I am appalling. Just having
that bit of resistance is way better for us. I
(18:56):
think it was in the cut article it talked about
this concept of kid rotting, and it was saying that
it might be better to let kids do nothing.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
So what happened now? School holidays are coming up and
a lot of people will go camps training. Let's have
something for every day. But I don't think you can
let a kid rot anymore, because if a kid is rotting,
they will gravitate like there is a magnet to the
nearest screen and there is no unstructured time because that's
just screen time. We'll pay a premium. There is such
(19:32):
desperation to be like, oh, school holidays, how do I
separate child from screen for the longest amount of time possible?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Yeah. I was talking with a friend about the pressure
that we have to enroll kids and all sorts of
activities now, and she really dropped a truth bomb. She said,
I realized I dial back on my kids' activities, and
then I realized that I was just giving them more
time to watch television. Yes, exactly right. We had television
back in the olden days. But were we just watching
(19:59):
less of it?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, because it wasn't I think underpinned with an algorithm
designed to turn our brains into mush. It was like,
I think we all remember the experience of getting bored.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yes, so we didn't have the expectation that we would
need to be entertained at all times, exactly children already have.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
And then when you went outside, like, yeah, you could
go to a friend's house and watch television. But even
if you haven't seen your kids in a while and
they're at the neighbor's house or whatever, they're probably on
PS five right like that, it's very unlikely they're making
a tree house, which is I think contributing to this
parental anxiety. And it also I think screens make time
(20:36):
feel different, Like there is this endlessness to a day
where you're engaged with the world around you, and now
it just feels so punctuated by three second videos or
YouTube or whatever they're on.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
And here's another thing I'm concerned about the death of
the prank call.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Make prank calls so important, Amelia so true?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
What was your go to look?
Speaker 3 (21:04):
I don't even want to say it on that. But
I did love a prank call, like wrapping the curly call,
ordered the phone around my finger, doing the star sixty
nine to see.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Who would last call?
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Remember that, Yeah, someone tells her how a devilish sense
of humor. I loved all of that, I know, and
it's sad to think that for the most part, kids
are not having that. I just wonder, though, it's hard
to distinguish between moral panic around phones and also the
inevitable nostalgia that a parenting generation.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Has for its youth.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Is that just what we're doing here, or is there
something fundamentally different about the digital world that we live
in now as compared with the world that we grew
up in.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I wonder that too, because there's an inevitable nostalgia. Like
I'm sure my mum felt the nostalgia because we had
Foxtel and she was like, well, I think when my
mum grew up, TV wasn't actually on all night, Like
there was a point at which the TV stopped and
she just went, you could watch TV at any time,
and you can change the channel and you watch.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
And when I grew up, there was rage, and.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Now there's no rage.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
It's rage it's so sad, and you don't have to
wait for the video to rewind, so there is absolutely
no patience. Remember that when you get out the best
video to watch on school holidays and it was at
the end, you had to wait to rewind it back
to the start.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I don't do that now. It's just on a loop instantly.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
And I do think the fundamental challenge we have as
parents is trying to reacquaint ourselves with boredom, because our
children are learning from us every time we pick up
our phone because we feel discomfort or disquiet or boredom.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I reckon algorithms have changed childhood. There is an element
of nostalgia in us wanting to recreate what we see
as an idyllic if we're lucky enough, but moments of
an idyllic kind of utopian childhood, and we go I
want to give them that. I do think that it's
fundamentally changed how time is spent in childhood. And I
even think about the computer room. Like when I grew up,
(22:54):
when the computer did come, it was in a room
and you fought for it, and sometimes it was dial up.
There was a sense as well that even though it
was a room that it wasn't entirely private, so you
felt like you were being watched. And now every room
in every house is a computer room, so it just
means that time isn't it doesn't have these distinctions when
(23:14):
it comes to.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Exactly and on Muma Mea, actually, we've seen a huge
appetite from parents for information on how to control their
children's access to technology. We did a story on the
top three safety features every parent needs on their phone
that analyst Todd wrote for us and it was top
on the site for days just talking about us. Yeah,
so there's lots of different features. This is mostly for
(23:36):
the Apple users, so apologies to the androids users among us.
But there's now nudity blocking functions where oh wow, you
can set those up on your children's phone so it
blurs the images. They've got a three step process they
have to get through to see it, including you putting
in a password for them to see the image. There's
screen time setups now where you can be blocking certain
(23:57):
websites so that they can't access them, and of course
like limiting their screen time all together can be done
as well. But the response to that story was epic,
and I think that just showed how worried we all
are about that web. We're at that stage with our
children or not to be thinking well, how am I
going to get on top of this? And maybe a
little bit of thinking how do I get on top
of this one myself now so that I'm not setting
(24:19):
this up for them.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Emily Osta, who gives a bit of parenting advice, and
a lot of it is databased. She says about screen time,
what's it taking away from? So whenever you have a
child who's looking at a screen, So for example, Luna
has been unwell recently, and it's like, we wouldn't be
at the park, we wouldn't be doing something enriching, She's
(24:43):
glad to look at the TV. Like, if the difference
is between looking at a TV and looking at a
white wall, then you're allowed to do the TV. It's
just when it starts to sort of encroach on other activities.
And I also heard an expert say not all screen
time is equal. So if you can find something that
has any sort of narrative, like even Blueye, it does
have like a story to it, way better than just
(25:03):
jumbling fast cuts of like this is brainmush or social
media like that makes a difference, and something that's a
little bit more slow is also what some of the
experts say. And in terms of phones, I remember reading
the advice years ago turn it to gray scale, and
it makes it less appealing, and I've found that helps
for me to see.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Mss Rachel is a very popular children's entertainer. I have
actually never seen her videos, but I have gone deep
on a controversy that has embroiled her and which I
think gets to the heart of the relationship that we
now have with children's entertainers. So let me unpack it.
Her real name is Rachel and Accurso. She is a
(25:45):
former teacher. She makes adorable content for kids on YouTube.
I'm told it's adorable. She certainly looks adorable. She wears
overalls and a pink T shirt and a pick headband,
and her channel, which started in twenty nineteen to help
her own son with a speech delay, has over fifteen
million subscribers, and she's recently had her videos licensed by Netflix,
so she might be, by some metrics, the most popular
(26:08):
children's entertainer in the world. However, she is in trouble.
In April, an American group called Stop Antisemitism called on
the US Attorney General, Pam Bondie to investigate Miss Rachel.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
The group said that she had.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Been disseminating pro harmas propaganda and getting paid by her
maas for doing so, which would be quite a scandal.
I agree, is Miss Rachel in fact disseminating pro hamas propaganda?
We should say that she denies that she is being
paid anything by her maas, and I think that the
charge that she's disseminating propaganda is kind of a tough
(26:45):
case to make. Speaking as someone who is not very
familiar with her content, I watched a few of her
videos in preparation for this. They seem very benign to me.
They seem to be about toilet training, brushing your teeth,
learning your colors. I did not see anything that would
seem to be pro har mass propaganda. What she has
posted on her social media feed on her Instagram so
(27:08):
separate from the YouTube, are images of traumatized children in
the Gaza strip. These images often feature the children watching
her videos or even interacting with Miss Rachel via FaceTime.
She has also pledged one million dollars to the World
Food Program, which works to provide nutrition for kids in
conflict zones Sudan, Ukraine, and also Gaza. She has also
(27:32):
posted about Israeli children who were held hostage by Hamas.
She told The New York Times in a very long
investigative peace about this that her posting about children in
Gaza was a continuation of her lifelong work and passion
for children. But The Times quoted some Jewish parents who
felt distraught. They said that there was a relative lack
(27:52):
of posts about Israeli children, and The Times, which did
an analysis of Miss Rachel's Instagram content, agreed with that
assessment that she did tend to post more about Gaza
and children than Israeli children. One Jewish parent quoted said
Miss Rachel seems to be someone who is really really
good hearted, but in the context of everything that's going on,
(28:12):
she says, I care about all children, She's really talking
about the children of Gaza. That was a Jewish parent
called Stacy Hackner, who's based in London. She said that
has left a lot of Jewish parents feeling quite isolated.
In research for this, I have to say that one
video that Miss Rachel pin really made a big impression
on me. It featured a three year old girl called
(28:34):
Rahaf who was a double amputee who was medically evacuated
from Gaza for her surgery and sings a song with
Miss Rachel about skipping and hopping. Her two brothers are
still in Gaza with their father. Stepping back from all
of this, though, I want to talk about why we
feel so connected in this way to children's entertainers, why
(28:56):
it matters to us what Miss Rachel thinks about world
news and events. I think it's probably inevitable on one
level that these debates are happening. You just have to
look at how during COVID desperate parents were looking for
anything to enter their children, and they latched on to
all sorts of parenting gurus. So one guru I was
obsessed with during this time was an American woman called
(29:17):
Taking Cara Babies. Have either of you heard of her? No?
So she is this lovely blonde woman from Arizona who
posted endless Instagram videos about sleep schedules. She absolutely got
me through twenty twenty. I'm still exciting in my household
all the time. Her idea of the sleepwave, you got
to ride the sleepwave. This applies to adults too. If
you feel sleep coming on, you got to ride the wave,
(29:39):
and if you miss the wave, you gotta wait for
the next one. Genius. I was very dismayed when I
found out that Kara was a Trump supporter. She had
not posted about it on her taking care of Babies account,
but she was posting about it on her personal account.
I really resented her using even her personal account to
talk about politics, and it made me not want to
watch her videos or take her sleep advice anymore. I'm
(30:04):
not drawing equivalences or even parallels between these very different
political stories here. I'm mentioning it because I felt left out, resentful,
angry at taking care of babies in a way that
perhaps I didn't have a right to. She was teaching
me about children's sleep. She wasn't showing me her political
beliefs or talking about world events. But I think what's
interesting is that we clearly do expect people who work
(30:27):
with or care about kids to not share their political
beliefs with us, and to not share how they think
about the wider world. And I'm wondering if that's really fair.
And it seems connected to me to an idea that
children themselves should not be talked about as living in
an inherently political world. Children at living in a world
where the decisions made by leaders directly impact them. Doesn't
(30:49):
it make sense for the experts that we turn to
to raise our own children to weigh in on these
decisions that are being made by leaders.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Yes, it's interesting because I reckon it is a totally
different level of parasocial relationship. And I think it's because
of the moments where we feel our children, especially with
the Miss Rachel example. She's been in your home, she's
been in your child's bedroom, she's sung in your child's ear.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Are you are Miss Rachel a close?
Speaker 2 (31:17):
So we have Miss Rachel plays a song for us
every time we brush our teeth. We do the brushing
teeth song, and she is like I see her and
hear her at some of my most vulnerable moments, at
some of Luna's most vulnerable moments, that she feels like
an extension of the family. And I don't think we
realize this until there is a moment, as you say
(31:38):
with your example, I don't feel this about Miss Rachel,
but like of betrayal, where people then go, hang on,
You're not who I thought you were. And I wonder
if it's like if you have a nanny or an
early educator or even a teacher, like there is an
expectation that their political selves or whatever might be left
outside the classroom because there is this incredible, innocent, almost
(32:04):
quite simplistic and straightforward relationship with your child. But on
the Miss Rachel example, I think it feels so consistent right,
Like she has said that no child should have their
crucial brain development interrupted by trauma. And whether you want
to talk about scale, and everyone has the right to
(32:25):
feel how they want to and not listen to Miss
Rachel if she doesn't feel like an extension of your
family anymore. But that does feel consistent with what she's
always done, and she's always, you know, encourage people to
donate to the food bank and make sure kids have
enough food. And I think that there were videos or
examples of kids in some of these instances watching Miss Rachel,
(32:46):
so to her, I think she probably felt drawn into
it as well because she had this presence.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
I am a Miss Rachel household as well. We very
sincerely referred to her as the third parent in our
house hold. Can we step back, and I just want
to ask you both a quick question about her, because
I'm not familiar with her. She clearly is inspiring incredibly
strong feelings in people, both positive and negative.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
What is it about her that.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Broke through in twenty twenty and beyond that was so
different from all the other children's entertainer For me, it
was that I had my daughter during COVID, So Miss
Rachel's voice face was with me in my darkest moments
quite literally, like in the dark with my daughter, when
I couldn't settle her with you know, colic and reflux
and all the things. Miss Rachel was the answer to that.
(33:30):
So I think you tie her to yourself in some
sort of you know, she's my savior in this situation.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Interesting your example, right, because as you were saying, Amelia, So,
I think that she only started making these videos in
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty nineteen, and then something that she
couldn't control, which was the pandemic, happened and that is
when her star just rose enormously.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Why her as opposed to other children's entertainers? What was
it about her communication style? For instance?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
I think it is about the fact that what she
does is educational. She has a master's degree in music education.
She sings, she's all about nunciation and that origin story
you told of how her son was one and didn't
have any words, yet she made these videos to help
him with language. And I think that, as we were
saying before, there's this sense that if a screen is on,
(34:22):
it should be enridging or it should be educational. It
was a guilt free way for people to have their child.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Exactly like my daughter learned sign language before she could
speak from Miss Rachel. We learned it from Miss Rachel.
So we started doing it because she was doing it,
and it felt like, oh, at least if I've got
the screen on. As Jesse said, it's something useful. It's
something that's helping her with her speech. It's helping her
with songs that we can't remember from where we were.
That I think was the magnetism of her. I think
(34:52):
that's the missing puzzle piece I needed to understand this story,
because the idea that she's helping children learn makes her
very different as a figure to someone like say Blippy. Yeah,
mister Blippy is not helping people children to learn. He's
largely cavorting through ridiculous scenarios and driving parents mad. And
(35:14):
I wonder if that's part of why a parents who
love miss Rachel love her so much and b why
she feels so strongly that there's a through line with
what she's doing to help children learn and how she's
communicating to their parents on Instagram about what she feels
as an urgent political situation that she wants them to
learn about.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah, that's really true. And I suppose if the children
are absorbing her through YouTube, then that feels like a
siloed experience. And then people, I guess, are seeing that
this smiling, chirpy woman who not only taught my child
but taught me a lot about parenting, taught me about
enunciating or what words to do, or are we doing colors?
(35:54):
Are we doing shapes? Are we doing all of these things?
What's difficult about this, you know, crisis as well, is
that what someone says and what someone hears are not
often the same thing, because it is a very loaded
There's a lot of history that a lot of context,
is a lot of trauma. So I think that that too,
is people feeling betrayed by something that has been shared.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah, and I think we expect a lot more from
anyone in the public eye now than we ever did.
I don't know if we would have known the personal
lives of the og Wiggles, that alone their stance on
geopolitical issues back when we were growing up, but so
true now there's so much more information out there, and
I think it is definitely worse for women in the
public eye. Like Taylor Swift was criticized for not backing
(36:38):
Kamala Harris quick enough in the US election, Chris Brown
is currently on a world tour even though he's found
guilty of domestic violence charges. We don't seem bothered by
what his views are on anything. Like there's just a
very double standard there for women.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
That's true. I do think though that we've got the
Wiggles on sometimes and my obsession with Emma un Luckey's
marriage has just gone to ridiculous. And it wasn't just me,
it was also Luca. We had a week where Luna
was sick and it was on constantly, and I swear
we were hallucinating. We're in a wed state, and like
(37:13):
we needed the wedding photos, and then we needed to
know why they broke up. And now Lockie has a
new family and who is she? And I can tell
you what Emma did her PhD in And then I
had to go down the route of like is it
a wig or is it her real hair? Like if
I saw Emma walking down the street, I'd be like, hey,
am I, how you going? Like nice yellow bow? I
would just have so much She feels like a member
(37:33):
of my family, which is unlike anyone else I can
see him through a screen.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
I'm also thinking about the fact that for missus Rachel,
she has the YouTube channel for kids, She's not posting
this on the YouTube channel. She's posting this on the Instagram.
And last time I checked, most three year olds don't
have Instagram, so there is a difference between those platforms.
On the other hand, to argue with myself, when I
found out that taking care of Babies was a Trump supporter,
(37:59):
she had never told me that on the Taking Care
of Babies sleep Instagram act, So why was it my business?
Why did I care if she was doing it over
on her separate personal count.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I think it's because you start to get your guard
up about whether that is informing the information or the
content that she's providing to the children. I think that
that's what you start to go, are you brainwashing my child?
And then you start to get like a bit paranoid
about it. And it's interesting that Miss Rachel has had
to turn off comments on Instagram and YouTube so under
(38:31):
her teeth Brushing song, the level of trolling was so
bad that she had to just go, no, I'm not
taking this on.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Yeah. There is though, that fear, isn't there, that maybe
this sleep advice is tinged with maganists. How it makes
you sort of start thinking about.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
All of it exactly, it's time for recommendation, Stacy, what
have you got for us?
Speaker 3 (38:52):
I feel quite smug about this recommendation, so imparting it
so you can all feel smug when you recommend it
to someone else. So my daughter gets a free book
every month from Dolly Parton. What the Dolly Parton sends
my well, not personally, I imagine she has someone at
the postal service that does this for her. But she
has a free book gifting service. They have it all
around the world. It's in the US, UK, everywhere, and
(39:14):
you can just sign your child up and they'll send
you out in the mail a age appropriate book for
your child each month. That is brilliant. It's the best.
My daughter loves getting mail every month. I love that
I don't have to buy her a book every month,
like it's the best service. So you just have to
find out if it's in your little area. It's called
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. I love Dolly Parton.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
She's good egg.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
She's a very good egg.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
You couldn't love her more. And then she goes and
does that.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Amelia, what's your recommendation?
Speaker 3 (39:42):
My recommendation is to do with learning how to read.
I have a child, two children learning how to read,
and the books that the school sends home are interminably
boring and I'm not aspiring a love of reading. My brother,
who lives in the UK, turned me on to Julia
Donaldson's Songbirds Phonics Storytelling Collection. Julia Donaldson, you may know
(40:05):
from such classics as Gruffalo and Zog. She has written
sixty books where almost every word is phonically decodable, and
they are also somehow interesting stories.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Okay, what do you mean phonically.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Jesse, I can't get into it with You wouldn't understand it.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
But we're not at the phonic stage.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
You won't understand. But the point is there are books
for kids learning how to read that are actually fun
for them to read.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Oh I love it.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
All right, Okay, my recommendation is similar to yours, Stacey.
There are kind of different versions in different states, but
look up to see if there's one near you. But
in Sydney there's one called Bubbadesk, and I am recommending
this place because this is where my twin sister essentially
just wrote her book and it is a coworking space
with more and more people sort of freelancing or even
if you're on maternity leave or you work three days
(40:53):
a week or whatever, and there is a day or
an afternoon where you need to get some work done
and you don't have childcare options, you can take your
child to Bubbadesk. There's another one in.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
No if you can say what I think you're going
to say and you can drop the child off and work.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Yes, So it's like a chug, like they're right there,
they're upstairs. You get a little monitor so you can
just see what they're doing. They have like a system
where they'll be like Luna's playing with a block, Luna
just date her lunch.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
And I'm like lies, they.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Tuna morning bullshit, and then they'll have like you can, yeah,
get the little baby monitor, see what she's doing. If
you want, you can go up and check on them.
I often find better knowledge. They're just like moms here
what But it's brilliant and it's all parents that are
kind of doing it. There's even the Bubbajesque that I
went to. There was a gym attached to it because
(41:47):
they were like, you can go.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
To I don't have any excuses.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Like I know.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
So it's really really good and there is an equal
amount what I love about it too, equal amount of
dads and moms there. So look up at co working
space with kids.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
I didn't even know they existed.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
We will be back next Saturday.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Bye
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mama and Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello, and welcome
to our limited series Parenting Out Loud. I am Jesse Stevens,
and I am joined by Merely Lester. You can say hello.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
You're alloud to say hello, Hope, Jesse, how are you good?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
And we're here to talk about some of the stories
that dominated the week, because if parents are thinking about it,
we're talking about it. And today we also have a
very special third co host. It is Mom and MIA's
deputy editor. Welcome to Stacey Hicks.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Hello, Helloks for scooching over for hell me.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Please tell us a bit about yourself.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
This question is my nightmare. Thank you so much for us.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
That is so fine. I wanted to leave it as
open ended as possible so that.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
You'd lose slopover. Yes, I feel like all I do
is scroll on TikTok in bed, so that is not
very I'm the writer of many words on Muma Mia
that you might have seen on the website. I'm the
drinker of copious amounts of tea and margaritas, which tea
and spicy irregular marks. Oh English breakfast tea, milk, sugar,
depending on the time of day. You're not a Barbarian
(01:26):
and I'm a regular mar girl.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Very basic.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
You know I've started putting jalapeno in my soblank. Oh yes,
it's true. It's happening, say b.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
An early recommendation from Amelia today And Stacey, do you.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Have a kid? I do?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
It would be a bit weird if I didn't throwing
my opinions around. I am one and done so I've
had one child. I got it right, I'm stopping so clever,
We're done, well done. I have affected the process.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You went.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
This one is ten out of ten.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Let's not tempt fake.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Or let's just never do that roller coaster again? Did
you have a way you want to look at it?
How old is little she is four years old? I
have a four year old little girl.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
On today's show do Kids Ruin Friendships? We discussed two
fiery essays about what happens to friendship in the wake
of children and the return of the landline signals nostalgia
for childhood we might never be able to recreate. So
what is kid rotting and could it be the answer?
Plus Children's YouTube star Miss Rachel express support for the
(02:28):
children of Gaza and now she's had to disable comments
on Instagram and YouTube. We explain what happened and the
parasocial relationships we have with kids entertainers. But first, in
case you missed it, a number of unnamed women have
confessed to making up they have kids in order to
get flexibility at work. And I want your initial reactions now, please.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I think it's genius, really yeah, because before I had kids,
I would always see these women leaving work early to
go and pick up so called children from so called school,
and they would be consumed with anger and jealousy. How
about you, Stacy equally think it's genius. But they have
forgotten something very important that comes along with leaving early.
(03:11):
So once you have a child and you have to
duck out an hour early, they're not thinking about the
fact that you then make up for that tenfold afterwards to.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Prove that you are ways.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
We're sending a lot of like sort of overly diligent
emails to your boss at nine pm.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yes, yeah, that's the part I resent. So one woman
told MoMA Maya that she lied to her boss with
a story about her daughter experiencing a health emergency and
she needed to leave. In reality, it was her cat
and it really was an emergency. And I guess that
all depends on your definition of child exactly. That definition
includes male cat doesn't for me. But I'm slightly horrified
(03:45):
by this story. Even though I know there's lots of research,
a health emergency of a child is really serious. It's
really serious and scary for parent. And that is not
to undermine the horror of having a sick cat. But
your workplace should respect a sick cat. You should be
able to acknowledge I've got a sick cat. I need
to leave. There's cararas leave that exists. But I think
(04:09):
to s and I saw some of this research and
some of the rhetoric around this that said women, particularly
without kids, pick up the slack of working mothers. And
I resent that so deeply because I know about you too.
But are we seeing much slack from working mothers.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Well, I'm not going to confess to it here yet.
I'm never slacking. No, we're definitely not slacking. But I
do think that we take it more seriously when it's
a kid. Like if someone's kid had an emergency, I
probably would send them a message that night and say,
hope Paul is okay.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
If it was a cat, I would not, And I think.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
That that's the right reaction.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Good good, I'm allergic to cats.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
In my defense, I cannot do kids ruin friendships. That's
the real reason I barge my way into the studio today.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
You're lonely and desperate.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yes, I needed to talk about it with my favorite
women because I read an article on this very topic
and I cannot stop thinking about it. So in a
substack called Impers Suit of Clean Countertops, which is a
great name by Sarah Peterson, she spoke about how after
she gave birth, trying to care about anything other than
her baby's Pooh color and sleep schedule was akin to
(05:20):
having phantom limb syndrome. So she said she tried to
care but just didn't really, So instead of wanting to
do these gossip sessions with her child free friends, she
was craving more time with the mothers who were experiencing
the same thing as her. And the same sentiment was
echoed in a piece in the cut where the writer
Alison P. Davis called children tiny little detonators, which they
(05:43):
very much are saying nothing represents a threat to friendship
more than parenthood. So does motherhood actually ruin our friendships
or just change the DNA of them a little bit? Well,
in my experience, they do realin friendships a little bit.
I've been on both sides of this equation. I had
children fairly laid in the piece, and before I had them,
I felt a lot of rage. I guess this is
(06:05):
a thread through my remarks today. I've felt a lot
of ragewards friends who had kids before I did. I
could tell that they were not inviting me to birthday parties,
which I didn't want to go to, but nonetheless one
of the invitation for I could tell that they were
getting together on side group chats to talk about nappies
and toilet training and things I didn't understand, and I
desperately wanted to be involved, and I couldn't understand why
(06:26):
they weren't involving me. Now that I'm on the other
side of that equation, I've realized that a big time
suck once you have children is that you do have
to make friends, not just because you need the fellow
feeling and the sympathy of having friends who will also
have kids, but also we live in such an isolated
society now, and parenting is just put on to the
(06:46):
parents rather than the community. And I need mum friends
who I can lean on if I can't pick the
kid up from school at the right time, or if
I have a really important question about something that Google
is not going to answer for me without a sort
of anxiety spiral. I need those friends who I can
call on and lean on in moments of crisis with
my kids. So now I guess I understand given that
(07:09):
time is limited once you do have kids, you do
have to reserve a certain amount of time for making
those new friends.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
So do you think that it's just about the equation
that we all have finite time and energy. Whether it's
you've got one child or you've got four children, you
suddenly have this person that needs all of your attention
or as much as you can give them, and then
you've got to make parent friends, which is true, whether
it's starting with mother's group and then at school and whatever.
(07:39):
Is it just that Is it just that there's not
as much time, or do you think that it's also
that you don't relate in the same way.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Stacy, Have you lost friends since you had your shop.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I think mine.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
I didn't lose friends completely, but I think mine went
into a state of flux. So you added so many
more people in that it just felt like you couldn't
give time to the ones that were already there. And
I also think, as you said before, once I was
on the other side, I kind of went on this
apology tour with all of my friends that had had
children before me say I get it now, like I
(08:11):
get why you did this.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I get why you.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Retreated from me because I wasn't supporting you in the
way that I now need from you.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Which you can't. I'm sorry, but you just simply can't understand.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
And all my friends were very gracious in that way
and saying you just didn't get it. You didn't know
that showing up with a teddy bear was not very
useful to me, and that it would have been better
if you'd stacked the dishwasher and not sat on my
lounge with me for two hours. I have literally never
stacked a friend's dishwasher. I need to go on this
apology to it.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
I do well.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Once I did that, I've been a great mum friend
to all my friends that have come after me with children,
but the ones before, thank god, they were kind about it.
But I think it's because that happens with every single friend.
You're in a line of the order, and you've got
to pay it forward to the ones behind you. See.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I kind of reject this. I don't think that kids
ruined friendships, and I think accepting that can make us
all a bit lazy. It can make the people who
have either chosen not to have kids or don't have
them yet think they don't want to hang out with me.
I think there's a lot of assumptions going back both
ways that aren't necessarily true. Because when I was in
my twenties and my friend wanted to go clubbing, I
(09:17):
most of the time didn't want to go clubbing, but
I went clubbing because I was like, I just want
to hang out with you wherever you are. I would
go and watch their basketball, they'd come watch my netball.
We went through a stage where we take turns going
and picking each other up just because we just got
our license right. And so it's never about what you're
actually doing. It's more about the time you're spending together.
(09:39):
And in both of these articles, they were sort of saying,
if I don't have kids. I don't want to spend
time in a park I don't want to spend time
at your house with Louie on in the background. And
I kind of reject that. I think that if you
want to spend time with someone, then you do it
on each of your terms to varying degrees, and you
can try and maintain those friendships. But it's give and take.
(10:01):
I think there's something quite selfish about thinking, well, I
don't want to spend my Saturday in a parker at
a kid's birthday party. Like, if you want to sustain
the friendship, then there's got a baby given tew.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
What's the give and take on the part of the
person who has kids in this equation. What are they
being asked to do.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I was having this conversation with Maya on out Loud recently,
and she said, get a babysitter and hang out at night.
And you know what, do that once a month if
you can, if you can afford it. And I know
that it's harder for some people than others. It's about
how much support you have. But if you can, yeah,
have that in the diary a month in advance and
go all right, let's hang out. But still I think
(10:38):
that the friends who don't have kids also have to
compromise a little bit.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
See, I really disagree with you, Jesse. The last thing
I want to do is say to a friend of
mine who doesn't have children, Mina's at the playground. We
will have a half hearted, completely disjointed, ultimately unsatisfactory conversation
while I ensure that my child doesn't break his or
her neck. Who does that benefit? All right?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
So I have a theory about why we feel differently
about this, which was in the cut article. There is
research to suggest that something happened around the age of three.
The Journal of Demographic Research said that that's when from
the age of three is when kids are the most
demanding of the parents' time and energy. I currently have
a two year old. I wonder if I'm still in this.
(11:24):
She's started talking probably like what six months a year ago,
like properly talking. But in that first year you.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Can put the baby in the pram and walk the
dog right.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Right, So there's still an element of socializing that's possible
there even now push her on the swing. I was
hanging out with someone recently who had a five and
a seven year old no, no, because it's the pulling
of the skirt and going my.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Mom discussion of the Minecraft movie.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Which like, your friend as lovely as they are, your
kids boring as shit? Yeah, like they are boring a
shit and you know that, but you love them.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
And whether you are boring at the start, you are
so boring once you have a kid, So actually they're
giving up a lot to spend time with you from
the start. Like I remember with my newborn talking to
my friend at nauseum about the tog ratings of sleeping
and worrying that my daughter wasn't warm enough at night.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
It's so dull.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
But you know what, my friends who don't have kids
can also be very boring.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
True.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I have a friend at the moment who is doing
a fitness challenge. Holy boring the stuff I've heard about,
and I follow up, so he talks about his fitness challenge.
I talk about Luna's sleep and how much sleep I
got last night.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
We're both bored.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Isn't friendship just shared boreder?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Look, my main topic of conversation with people right now
is the fact that I love mouth tape and I
can see the light draining from their eyes when I
talked to them about this. Just last night, I had
dinner with some mum friends and our kids at a
Tepanaki joint, which is really interesting because you always wonder
whether or not the food is going to make it
into the bowl or if it's going to go all
over your brand new jumper. I'm pleased to report that
(12:56):
my jumper did not have stains on it. At the
end of the night, you know, I'm devoid of conversation.
I'm very tired, and I just started talking about mouth
tape because that's my go to and I realized that's
really boring. So we probably shouldn't say just kids are boring,
and in fact, this conversation you couldn't send it to partners.
Think about heterosexual relationships where you've got do I bring
the man who's now in my life along to the
(13:17):
dinner with girlfriends.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
I have met men so much more boring than a
sick comper so much.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
This is what I'm saying, And I guess the contention
that I'm moving towards here is we're all a little
bit boring, but our friends the people who find us
the right amount of boring, So let's not drag other
people into the equation. See your friends on the terms
of the friendship. Don't try and bring kids in, don't
try and bring partners in.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Interesting, I'm all.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
About the compartmentalization. I think it's also because we're not
as accustomed to the ups and downs in our friendships
as we are in our relationships. Like I think there's
an understanding that in long term relationships you might go
through rough patches, you'll go through great patches, and the
same is not really said for friendships, like we just go, oh,
that's run its course once they've had a child and
they've kind of retreated. So and the other thing to
(14:04):
consider is how much our circle of friends changes in
that time, because we talk about losing friends a lot,
or maybe friends our children retreating from us. But you
also are forced into a lot of extra friendships through circumstance,
like whether that's through a mother's group, whether that's through
sport or kids activities, where so many more people end
up in your life. And there was an essay in
Psychology Today where clinical psychologist Seth Myers, not the late
(14:27):
night host, talked about how many people are blindsided by
the level of loss when it comes to their friendships.
Because it's always the ones they don't expect. But he
also warned about being a bit cautious going into these
new friendships because they've kind of been forced upon you
by circumstance, that they might not stand the test of
time once those children have kind of grown up or
(14:48):
moved out of that activity. That is so true.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I've seen that happen where I think people look at
each other and they go, oh, we're only mates because
or they've tried to like go, all right, so we're
friends because our kids's a primary school together, and they're like,
let's try and do a weaken away. Doesn't worry. It's like, no, no, no,
it only works in that context.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
This makes me think about the fact that when you
you have little kids, conversation is never that good, and
so the friendship there's never that much strain put on
the friend Yes, but as the kids grow older and
they're off doing their own thing, all of a sudden,
the spotlight is on can this relationship with stand long
stretches of actual conversation. The jury is out.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
There are a few things floating around in the culture
that I'm going to attempt to bring together. The first
is the Atlantic published a story this month about the
return of the landline. Writer Rina Murray spoke to a
mother who bought her ten year old a landline to
connect with her friends, and this was in lieu of
a smartphone, and then encouraged other families in the suburb
(15:51):
to do the same. So now twenty or so families
have landlines. They've got their kids calling each other. She
writes about sort of practicing active listening, which is a
lot better than looking on FaceTime, which can be distracting.
And this leads me to the second thing. I listened
to this great episode of Search Engine, which was about
a boomy industry of technology to stop you from using
(16:13):
addictive technology. So think a dumb phone, or there's this
thing called a brick, which is you kind of tap
your phone, turns all the apps off, and then you
can go for a walk or spend a few hours
or whatever, and then you tap it again, apps come
back on. And the third thing is a story in
the Cut about millennial nostalgia for a ninety summer. It's
about the school holidays where time was unstructured. You laid around,
(16:37):
maybe you watched some TV, you got up late, you
went on a budget family trip up the coast, basically
a time before YouTube.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
And I think what.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
This highlighted for me is that we're trying to wind
back the clock and recreate the childhood we had. And
my question is is that even possible, Stacy, what do
you think?
Speaker 3 (16:58):
No, I don't think it's possible at all, But I
love that everyone is trying. And my best friend has
actually been telling me the same thing is happening in
her neighborhood at the moment, where all the year four
moms have set up a chat about reinstalling landlines in
their homes. I thought this was just an Atlantic trendy. No,
this is happening in regional Queensland where they're doing that
(17:20):
because and her reasoning was really interesting. She said, to me,
the most important thing to me is just allowing her
to be where she is. So whether they're out at school, sport,
whether they're at home just having family time, the technology
can physically not reach her, so it's very easy way
to shut it off and it not be available and
still be able to enjoy being in the present moment
of her childhood. And that's the fear for everybody. The
(17:43):
idea that the landline is prolonging her having to get
a mobile pho. Yes, her daughter, Yeah, absolutely, because then
it is very much that she can talk in a
public space. Her parents are around, they can see that
she's chatting, and as you say, they're actually holding a conversation.
It's not just tapping away on a keyboard to some
faceless friend. They're actually communicating and learning that skill, which
(18:05):
I think. I mean, even I hate having to call
the doctors. We just don't do it. So it's great
that they're encouraging them with that.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And the theory is that rather than just taking something
away and depriving, it's like you give them something else instead.
And it reminds me of in this Search Engine episode,
it said you can treat your mobile phone like a landline,
Like if you walk into your house and you plug
it in, and you go when my phone is in
my house, it's plugged in, that's it, and when I
want to use it, I go upstairs or I go whatever,
(18:34):
and I tap away. I thought that's really clever because
that has some boundary where if you're sitting on the
couch and you just go to look at your phone
for the four hundredth time that day, because let's be honest.
The reason why kids want phones is because we are
not setting a great example. I am appalling. Just having
that bit of resistance is way better for us. I
(18:56):
think it was in the cut article it talked about
this concept of kid rotting, and it was saying that
it might be better to let kids do nothing.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
So what happened now? School holidays are coming up and
a lot of people will go camps training. Let's have
something for every day. But I don't think you can
let a kid rot anymore, because if a kid is rotting,
they will gravitate like there is a magnet to the
nearest screen and there is no unstructured time because that's
just screen time. We'll pay a premium. There is such
(19:32):
desperation to be like, oh, school holidays, how do I
separate child from screen for the longest amount of time possible?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Yeah. I was talking with a friend about the pressure
that we have to enroll kids and all sorts of
activities now, and she really dropped a truth bomb. She said,
I realized I dial back on my kids' activities, and
then I realized that I was just giving them more
time to watch television. Yes, exactly right. We had television
back in the olden days. But were we just watching
(19:59):
less of it?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, because it wasn't I think underpinned with an algorithm
designed to turn our brains into mush. It was like,
I think we all remember the experience of getting bored.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yes, so we didn't have the expectation that we would
need to be entertained at all times, exactly children already have.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
And then when you went outside, like, yeah, you could
go to a friend's house and watch television. But even
if you haven't seen your kids in a while and
they're at the neighbor's house or whatever, they're probably on
PS five right like that, it's very unlikely they're making
a tree house, which is I think contributing to this
parental anxiety. And it also I think screens make time
(20:36):
feel different, Like there is this endlessness to a day
where you're engaged with the world around you, and now
it just feels so punctuated by three second videos or
YouTube or whatever they're on.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
And here's another thing I'm concerned about the death of
the prank call.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Make prank calls so important, Amelia so true?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
What was your go to look?
Speaker 3 (21:04):
I don't even want to say it on that. But
I did love a prank call, like wrapping the curly call,
ordered the phone around my finger, doing the star sixty
nine to see.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Who would last call?
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Remember that, Yeah, someone tells her how a devilish sense
of humor. I loved all of that, I know, and
it's sad to think that for the most part, kids
are not having that. I just wonder, though, it's hard
to distinguish between moral panic around phones and also the
inevitable nostalgia that a parenting generation.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Has for its youth.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Is that just what we're doing here, or is there
something fundamentally different about the digital world that we live
in now as compared with the world that we grew
up in.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I wonder that too, because there's an inevitable nostalgia. Like
I'm sure my mum felt the nostalgia because we had
Foxtel and she was like, well, I think when my
mum grew up, TV wasn't actually on all night, Like
there was a point at which the TV stopped and
she just went, you could watch TV at any time,
and you can change the channel and you watch.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
And when I grew up, there was rage, and.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Now there's no rage.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
It's rage it's so sad, and you don't have to
wait for the video to rewind, so there is absolutely
no patience. Remember that when you get out the best
video to watch on school holidays and it was at
the end, you had to wait to rewind it back
to the start.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I don't do that now. It's just on a loop instantly.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
And I do think the fundamental challenge we have as
parents is trying to reacquaint ourselves with boredom, because our
children are learning from us every time we pick up
our phone because we feel discomfort or disquiet or boredom.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I reckon algorithms have changed childhood. There is an element
of nostalgia in us wanting to recreate what we see
as an idyllic if we're lucky enough, but moments of
an idyllic kind of utopian childhood, and we go I
want to give them that. I do think that it's
fundamentally changed how time is spent in childhood. And I
even think about the computer room. Like when I grew up,
(22:54):
when the computer did come, it was in a room
and you fought for it, and sometimes it was dial up.
There was a sense as well that even though it
was a room that it wasn't entirely private, so you
felt like you were being watched. And now every room
in every house is a computer room, so it just
means that time isn't it doesn't have these distinctions when
(23:14):
it comes to.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Exactly and on Muma Mea, actually, we've seen a huge
appetite from parents for information on how to control their
children's access to technology. We did a story on the
top three safety features every parent needs on their phone
that analyst Todd wrote for us and it was top
on the site for days just talking about us. Yeah,
so there's lots of different features. This is mostly for
(23:36):
the Apple users, so apologies to the androids users among us.
But there's now nudity blocking functions where oh wow, you
can set those up on your children's phone so it
blurs the images. They've got a three step process they
have to get through to see it, including you putting
in a password for them to see the image. There's
screen time setups now where you can be blocking certain
(23:57):
websites so that they can't access them, and of course
like limiting their screen time all together can be done
as well. But the response to that story was epic,
and I think that just showed how worried we all
are about that web. We're at that stage with our
children or not to be thinking well, how am I
going to get on top of this? And maybe a
little bit of thinking how do I get on top
of this one myself now so that I'm not setting
(24:19):
this up for them.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Emily Osta, who gives a bit of parenting advice, and
a lot of it is databased. She says about screen time,
what's it taking away from? So whenever you have a
child who's looking at a screen, So for example, Luna
has been unwell recently, and it's like, we wouldn't be
at the park, we wouldn't be doing something enriching, She's
(24:43):
glad to look at the TV. Like, if the difference
is between looking at a TV and looking at a
white wall, then you're allowed to do the TV. It's
just when it starts to sort of encroach on other activities.
And I also heard an expert say not all screen
time is equal. So if you can find something that
has any sort of narrative, like even Blueye, it does
have like a story to it, way better than just
(25:03):
jumbling fast cuts of like this is brainmush or social
media like that makes a difference, and something that's a
little bit more slow is also what some of the
experts say. And in terms of phones, I remember reading
the advice years ago turn it to gray scale, and
it makes it less appealing, and I've found that helps
for me to see.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Mss Rachel is a very popular children's entertainer. I have
actually never seen her videos, but I have gone deep
on a controversy that has embroiled her and which I
think gets to the heart of the relationship that we
now have with children's entertainers. So let me unpack it.
Her real name is Rachel and Accurso. She is a
(25:45):
former teacher. She makes adorable content for kids on YouTube.
I'm told it's adorable. She certainly looks adorable. She wears
overalls and a pink T shirt and a pick headband,
and her channel, which started in twenty nineteen to help
her own son with a speech delay, has over fifteen
million subscribers, and she's recently had her videos licensed by Netflix,
so she might be, by some metrics, the most popular
(26:08):
children's entertainer in the world. However, she is in trouble.
In April, an American group called Stop Antisemitism called on
the US Attorney General, Pam Bondie to investigate Miss Rachel.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
The group said that she had.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Been disseminating pro harmas propaganda and getting paid by her
maas for doing so, which would be quite a scandal.
I agree, is Miss Rachel in fact disseminating pro hamas propaganda?
We should say that she denies that she is being
paid anything by her maas, and I think that the
charge that she's disseminating propaganda is kind of a tough
(26:45):
case to make. Speaking as someone who is not very
familiar with her content, I watched a few of her
videos in preparation for this. They seem very benign to me.
They seem to be about toilet training, brushing your teeth,
learning your colors. I did not see anything that would
seem to be pro har mass propaganda. What she has
posted on her social media feed on her Instagram so
(27:08):
separate from the YouTube, are images of traumatized children in
the Gaza strip. These images often feature the children watching
her videos or even interacting with Miss Rachel via FaceTime.
She has also pledged one million dollars to the World
Food Program, which works to provide nutrition for kids in
conflict zones Sudan, Ukraine, and also Gaza. She has also
(27:32):
posted about Israeli children who were held hostage by Hamas.
She told The New York Times in a very long
investigative peace about this that her posting about children in
Gaza was a continuation of her lifelong work and passion
for children. But The Times quoted some Jewish parents who
felt distraught. They said that there was a relative lack
(27:52):
of posts about Israeli children, and The Times, which did
an analysis of Miss Rachel's Instagram content, agreed with that
assessment that she did tend to post more about Gaza
and children than Israeli children. One Jewish parent quoted said
Miss Rachel seems to be someone who is really really
good hearted, but in the context of everything that's going on,
(28:12):
she says, I care about all children, She's really talking
about the children of Gaza. That was a Jewish parent
called Stacy Hackner, who's based in London. She said that
has left a lot of Jewish parents feeling quite isolated.
In research for this, I have to say that one
video that Miss Rachel pin really made a big impression
on me. It featured a three year old girl called
(28:34):
Rahaf who was a double amputee who was medically evacuated
from Gaza for her surgery and sings a song with
Miss Rachel about skipping and hopping. Her two brothers are
still in Gaza with their father. Stepping back from all
of this, though, I want to talk about why we
feel so connected in this way to children's entertainers, why
(28:56):
it matters to us what Miss Rachel thinks about world
news and events. I think it's probably inevitable on one
level that these debates are happening. You just have to
look at how during COVID desperate parents were looking for
anything to enter their children, and they latched on to
all sorts of parenting gurus. So one guru I was
obsessed with during this time was an American woman called
(29:17):
Taking Cara Babies. Have either of you heard of her? No?
So she is this lovely blonde woman from Arizona who
posted endless Instagram videos about sleep schedules. She absolutely got
me through twenty twenty. I'm still exciting in my household
all the time. Her idea of the sleepwave, you got
to ride the sleepwave. This applies to adults too. If
you feel sleep coming on, you got to ride the wave,
(29:39):
and if you miss the wave, you gotta wait for
the next one. Genius. I was very dismayed when I
found out that Kara was a Trump supporter. She had
not posted about it on her taking care of Babies account,
but she was posting about it on her personal account.
I really resented her using even her personal account to
talk about politics, and it made me not want to
watch her videos or take her sleep advice anymore. I'm
(30:04):
not drawing equivalences or even parallels between these very different
political stories here. I'm mentioning it because I felt left out, resentful,
angry at taking care of babies in a way that
perhaps I didn't have a right to. She was teaching
me about children's sleep. She wasn't showing me her political
beliefs or talking about world events. But I think what's
interesting is that we clearly do expect people who work
(30:27):
with or care about kids to not share their political
beliefs with us, and to not share how they think
about the wider world. And I'm wondering if that's really fair.
And it seems connected to me to an idea that
children themselves should not be talked about as living in
an inherently political world. Children at living in a world
where the decisions made by leaders directly impact them. Doesn't
(30:49):
it make sense for the experts that we turn to
to raise our own children to weigh in on these
decisions that are being made by leaders.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Yes, it's interesting because I reckon it is a totally
different level of parasocial relationship. And I think it's because
of the moments where we feel our children, especially with
the Miss Rachel example. She's been in your home, she's
been in your child's bedroom, she's sung in your child's ear.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Are you are Miss Rachel a close?
Speaker 2 (31:17):
So we have Miss Rachel plays a song for us
every time we brush our teeth. We do the brushing
teeth song, and she is like I see her and
hear her at some of my most vulnerable moments, at
some of Luna's most vulnerable moments, that she feels like
an extension of the family. And I don't think we
realize this until there is a moment, as you say
(31:38):
with your example, I don't feel this about Miss Rachel,
but like of betrayal, where people then go, hang on,
You're not who I thought you were. And I wonder
if it's like if you have a nanny or an
early educator or even a teacher, like there is an
expectation that their political selves or whatever might be left
outside the classroom because there is this incredible, innocent, almost
(32:04):
quite simplistic and straightforward relationship with your child. But on
the Miss Rachel example, I think it feels so consistent right,
Like she has said that no child should have their
crucial brain development interrupted by trauma. And whether you want
to talk about scale, and everyone has the right to
(32:25):
feel how they want to and not listen to Miss
Rachel if she doesn't feel like an extension of your
family anymore. But that does feel consistent with what she's
always done, and she's always, you know, encourage people to
donate to the food bank and make sure kids have
enough food. And I think that there were videos or
examples of kids in some of these instances watching Miss Rachel,
(32:46):
so to her, I think she probably felt drawn into
it as well because she had this presence.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
I am a Miss Rachel household as well. We very
sincerely referred to her as the third parent in our
house hold. Can we step back, and I just want
to ask you both a quick question about her, because
I'm not familiar with her. She clearly is inspiring incredibly
strong feelings in people, both positive and negative.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
What is it about her that.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Broke through in twenty twenty and beyond that was so
different from all the other children's entertainer For me, it
was that I had my daughter during COVID, So Miss
Rachel's voice face was with me in my darkest moments
quite literally, like in the dark with my daughter, when
I couldn't settle her with you know, colic and reflux
and all the things. Miss Rachel was the answer to that.
(33:30):
So I think you tie her to yourself in some
sort of you know, she's my savior in this situation.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Interesting your example, right, because as you were saying, Amelia, So,
I think that she only started making these videos in
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty nineteen, and then something that she
couldn't control, which was the pandemic, happened and that is
when her star just rose enormously.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Why her as opposed to other children's entertainers? What was
it about her communication style? For instance?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
I think it is about the fact that what she
does is educational. She has a master's degree in music education.
She sings, she's all about nunciation and that origin story
you told of how her son was one and didn't
have any words, yet she made these videos to help
him with language. And I think that, as we were
saying before, there's this sense that if a screen is on,
(34:22):
it should be enridging or it should be educational. It
was a guilt free way for people to have their child.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Exactly like my daughter learned sign language before she could
speak from Miss Rachel. We learned it from Miss Rachel.
So we started doing it because she was doing it,
and it felt like, oh, at least if I've got
the screen on. As Jesse said, it's something useful. It's
something that's helping her with her speech. It's helping her
with songs that we can't remember from where we were.
That I think was the magnetism of her. I think
(34:52):
that's the missing puzzle piece I needed to understand this story,
because the idea that she's helping children learn makes her
very different as a figure to someone like say Blippy. Yeah,
mister Blippy is not helping people children to learn. He's
largely cavorting through ridiculous scenarios and driving parents mad. And
(35:14):
I wonder if that's part of why a parents who
love miss Rachel love her so much and b why
she feels so strongly that there's a through line with
what she's doing to help children learn and how she's
communicating to their parents on Instagram about what she feels
as an urgent political situation that she wants them to
learn about.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah, that's really true. And I suppose if the children
are absorbing her through YouTube, then that feels like a
siloed experience. And then people, I guess, are seeing that
this smiling, chirpy woman who not only taught my child
but taught me a lot about parenting, taught me about
enunciating or what words to do, or are we doing colors?
(35:54):
Are we doing shapes? Are we doing all of these things?
What's difficult about this, you know, crisis as well, is
that what someone says and what someone hears are not
often the same thing, because it is a very loaded
There's a lot of history that a lot of context,
is a lot of trauma. So I think that that too,
is people feeling betrayed by something that has been shared.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah, and I think we expect a lot more from
anyone in the public eye now than we ever did.
I don't know if we would have known the personal
lives of the og Wiggles, that alone their stance on
geopolitical issues back when we were growing up, but so
true now there's so much more information out there, and
I think it is definitely worse for women in the
public eye. Like Taylor Swift was criticized for not backing
(36:38):
Kamala Harris quick enough in the US election, Chris Brown
is currently on a world tour even though he's found
guilty of domestic violence charges. We don't seem bothered by
what his views are on anything. Like there's just a
very double standard there for women.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
That's true. I do think though that we've got the
Wiggles on sometimes and my obsession with Emma un Luckey's
marriage has just gone to ridiculous. And it wasn't just me,
it was also Luca. We had a week where Luna
was sick and it was on constantly, and I swear
we were hallucinating. We're in a wed state, and like
(37:13):
we needed the wedding photos, and then we needed to
know why they broke up. And now Lockie has a
new family and who is she? And I can tell
you what Emma did her PhD in And then I
had to go down the route of like is it
a wig or is it her real hair? Like if
I saw Emma walking down the street, I'd be like, hey,
am I, how you going? Like nice yellow bow? I
would just have so much She feels like a member
(37:33):
of my family, which is unlike anyone else I can
see him through a screen.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
I'm also thinking about the fact that for missus Rachel,
she has the YouTube channel for kids, She's not posting
this on the YouTube channel. She's posting this on the Instagram.
And last time I checked, most three year olds don't
have Instagram, so there is a difference between those platforms.
On the other hand, to argue with myself, when I
found out that taking care of Babies was a Trump supporter,
(37:59):
she had never told me that on the Taking Care
of Babies sleep Instagram act, So why was it my business?
Why did I care if she was doing it over
on her separate personal count.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I think it's because you start to get your guard
up about whether that is informing the information or the
content that she's providing to the children. I think that
that's what you start to go, are you brainwashing my child?
And then you start to get like a bit paranoid
about it. And it's interesting that Miss Rachel has had
to turn off comments on Instagram and YouTube so under
(38:31):
her teeth Brushing song, the level of trolling was so
bad that she had to just go, no, I'm not
taking this on.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Yeah. There is though, that fear, isn't there, that maybe
this sleep advice is tinged with maganists. How it makes
you sort of start thinking about.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
All of it exactly, it's time for recommendation, Stacy, what
have you got for us?
Speaker 3 (38:52):
I feel quite smug about this recommendation, so imparting it
so you can all feel smug when you recommend it
to someone else. So my daughter gets a free book
every month from Dolly Parton. What the Dolly Parton sends
my well, not personally, I imagine she has someone at
the postal service that does this for her. But she
has a free book gifting service. They have it all
around the world. It's in the US, UK, everywhere, and
(39:14):
you can just sign your child up and they'll send
you out in the mail a age appropriate book for
your child each month. That is brilliant. It's the best.
My daughter loves getting mail every month. I love that
I don't have to buy her a book every month,
like it's the best service. So you just have to
find out if it's in your little area. It's called
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. I love Dolly Parton.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
She's good egg.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
She's a very good egg.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
You couldn't love her more. And then she goes and
does that.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Amelia, what's your recommendation?
Speaker 3 (39:42):
My recommendation is to do with learning how to read.
I have a child, two children learning how to read,
and the books that the school sends home are interminably
boring and I'm not aspiring a love of reading. My brother,
who lives in the UK, turned me on to Julia
Donaldson's Songbirds Phonics Storytelling Collection. Julia Donaldson, you may know
(40:05):
from such classics as Gruffalo and Zog. She has written
sixty books where almost every word is phonically decodable, and
they are also somehow interesting stories.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Okay, what do you mean phonically.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Jesse, I can't get into it with You wouldn't understand it.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
But we're not at the phonic stage.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
You won't understand. But the point is there are books
for kids learning how to read that are actually fun
for them to read.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Oh I love it.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
All right, Okay, my recommendation is similar to yours, Stacey.
There are kind of different versions in different states, but
look up to see if there's one near you. But
in Sydney there's one called Bubbadesk, and I am recommending
this place because this is where my twin sister essentially
just wrote her book and it is a coworking space
with more and more people sort of freelancing or even
if you're on maternity leave or you work three days
(40:53):
a week or whatever, and there is a day or
an afternoon where you need to get some work done
and you don't have childcare options, you can take your
child to Bubbadesk. There's another one in.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
No if you can say what I think you're going
to say and you can drop the child off and work.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Yes, So it's like a chug, like they're right there,
they're upstairs. You get a little monitor so you can
just see what they're doing. They have like a system
where they'll be like Luna's playing with a block, Luna
just date her lunch.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
And I'm like lies, they.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Tuna morning bullshit, and then they'll have like you can, yeah,
get the little baby monitor, see what she's doing. If
you want, you can go up and check on them.
I often find better knowledge. They're just like moms here
what But it's brilliant and it's all parents that are
kind of doing it. There's even the Bubbajesque that I
went to. There was a gym attached to it because
(41:47):
they were like, you can go.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
To I don't have any excuses.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Like I know.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
So it's really really good and there is an equal
amount what I love about it too, equal amount of
dads and moms there. So look up at co working
space with kids.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
I didn't even know they existed.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
We will be back next Saturday.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Bye
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