September 5, 2025 • 39 mins
Outlouders, it's that time of the week again. Parenting Out Loud is back in your ears to start your weekend right.
Each week, Monique Bowley, Amelia Lester and Stacey Hicks unpack the zeitgeist through the unique lens of being a parent.
On today's show:
- Father’s Day is tomorrow and there's been a distinct shift in its marketing. Amelia unpacks what’s changed and why.
- Bluey: adorable? Absolutely. But is this the kids' TV show that's also making us feel… bad? Welcome to the Bluey Inadequacy Complex. Monz explains all.
- Plus, ❤️💜 Two emojis, very different vibes. And yes, we all need to know the difference. Welcome to your emoji decoder.
- And, the 'one and done' debate that has Stacey riled.
Plus, our recommendations:
🛏️ Stacey recommends a sleep story.
👩🎨 Amelia has a new playdate hack.
📺 Monz has an old fashioned screen test.
Want to lock in next week's episode? Search Parenting Out Loud in your podcast app and hit '+ follow' so you never miss a show.
Support independent women's media
What To Listen To Next:
- Don't miss an episode of Parenting Out Loud
- The Third Kid Dessert Analogy & FFS, Stop With The Texts
- Dr Becky's DFK Theory & The Great Trampoline Debate
- The Ms Rachel Controversy & The Great Kids Vs Friendships Debate
- A New Co-Parenting Rule & The 100% Work Dilemma
- The Death Of The Dining Table & 'Outdated' Schooling
- Grandparents — It's Time For Your Performance Review
- Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts
What to read:
- 'Mum, that means ejaculate.' These emojis aren't as innocent as they look.
- You're not imagining it. There's a reason everyone really is sicker this winter.
- Every moment from Bluey that has horrified Americans.
- 'The 'boring' parent is the unsung hero': 5 things Bluey has taught me about parenting.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
is recorded on. Hey, out louders, are you raising kids
and trying to keep up with the world. Well, I've
got a little something for your Saturday. It's called Parenting
out Loud. It's me Monique Bowie with Amelia Lesta and
Stacy Hicks, and we break down the latest from the zeitgeist,
(00:33):
new cycle and trending mumtop conversations with smart, sharp takes
and zero sugarcoating. This is episode two and if you
missed last week, all good, but we did have people say, look,
I'm not even a parent and I'm very into this.
So we're back gate crashing here in the MoMA mea
out Loud feed. But it's only for a really short time.
So if you're into this hit follow on the Parenting
(00:55):
out Loud Feed, open your app, type it in, tap
the little plus button. Done that way, we get to
keep making this show and you can get back to
just hearing Holly and Jesse and Amelia and Mia depending
on what less's up to in your ears here. Okay,
the business part is done. Let's go. Here's episode two
(01:16):
of a brand new season of Parenting Out Loud. Hello,
and welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast where if
parents are thinking about it, we are talking about it.
I'm Monque Bowley, and I am joined by my gorgeous
co host, the delightful Stacy Hicks and big brain Amelia Lester.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Oh my gosh, I just need to announce that I
ran to the bus this morning in pouring rain, so
I hope I'm giving glowy, not sweaty. But if I'm
giving sweaty, I apologize.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
It's giving both and it's great. The translation how I
can only do so much.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Very dewy. I'm into it. It has been a very
big week in parenting culture. On today's show, there has
been a tiny shift in the marketing of Father's Day
that I need to unpack with you guys. Plus, does
Bluey give you warm feelings or the creeping sense that
you're a bit of a shit parent? Welcome to the Bluey.
(02:18):
Inadequately complex, and at the end of the show, we're
going to tell you all the things we're loving and
we think that you might love too. It's kind of
hot tips and the stuff that we share with our friends.
But first, Stacy, you're the deputy editor of Mama Maya.
You're the big dog. What's been going off online this week?
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Yes, second big dog technically, but I'll take big dog
as my title. But a story that really popped off
this week will make you feel very vindicated. If, like me,
despite it officially being spring, you've already achieved the daycare
Bingo card of sicknesses. If you have been completely flattened,
you are not alone. This story was titled You're not
imagining it. There's a reason everyone is sicker. I think
(02:55):
this resonated so much with people because we all know
there's nothing quite like the hell of being sick when
someone else in your house is also sick at the
same time, especially if they're a person you have to
care for. So I think that's why this hit the
way did. But while it's obviously hard to do the
sums on every single sickness, Zoe Rutchford spoke to doctor
Melanie Conroy about the figures that show that there's already
(03:18):
been two hundred and thirty thousand reported cases of the
flu this year. That's just the ones where they're reported,
not the heroes that soldier on without it. That is
the same number as what we had for the entire
year in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
So it's it's hitting people hard. And she cited a
few possible reasons for the incline. So they include vaccination fatigue,
saying that maybe you know, that's contributed to the fact
that half of Australians haven't gotten their COVID booster and
haven't done their flu shot this year, or it's out
of pocket costs. And it's also another potential reason is
there is a lot more full return to the office now,
(03:52):
so a lot of us are you know, sweaty on
the bus or on the train and.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Sharing the dresses around. Yes.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
No, this is really interesting because a it's true. I
just feel like I've been living in sickness for many
months now. I came across an article on the Examine newsletter,
which is a science newsletter put up by The Herald
and the Age, and it looked at how even though
the federal government recommends the flu shot for kids under
five and it makes it free, the message about the
(04:20):
importance of getting that flu vaccine is just not getting
through to parents. And it looked at some reasons why
that might be. Basically, they did cite that sense of
parents being concerned about viral load, like getting too many vaccinations,
and experts say, this is not a thing, do not
worry about that.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
And then they also thought that.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Maybe it was a post pandemic effect, whereby during COVID
parents wanted to do anything they could to protect their children,
and before the COVID vaccine, that was essentially the flu vaccine.
But now we've all kind of forgotten about flu when
we really shouldn't be. I don't mean to alarm anyone,
but a startling fact from this newsletter is that the
hospitalization rate for kids under five of the flu actually
(05:02):
exceeds that of sixty five plus adults. It's a dangerous
illness and we are just not taking the steps that
we need to.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Okay, so confession, I did not have a flu jub
this year, and I'll tell you why. It's because I
quit my job. So when you work in a place,
they often run a flu JAB program, right, which makes
it really easy. Because I think there's two barriers to
getting the flu JAB that immediately spring to mind. First
is cost and second is access.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
And so when you're in a workplace. Often they take
those two things out of the equation. They make it free,
and they bring someone in to do it for you,
so you do it while you're at work. So the
question I've got is, why don't they run flu jobs
at schools? Like there is a national immunization program that
rolls out some vaccinations, but why don't they just add
flu to that?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I wonder if that would be actually quite controversial because
another interesting stat is that the nationwide percentage of children
who get all vaccines on average is ninety percent, but
less than fifty percent of children get the flu vaccine.
There's something about the flu vaccine where I think parents
are thinking that it's like optional or that it's not important,
(06:07):
and that's leading to this decline rates.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Mellly, you mentioned that like the messaging isn't ubiquitous around
flu season, do public health need to spend more money
on social media marketing to get the messages into our feeds? Like?
I feel like that is how we are all consuming
news and information now does it just need to be
more like spend less on ads, spend more in social media?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Well, and I also think that specifically what the campaign
should say is this fact that for children under five,
This is resulting in more hospitalizations than for older adults,
because I think we all have this hangover feeling of
like it's something that affects older adults and we're kind
of getting it as an act of benevolence for the oldies.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
But that's not the case.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Cool, So what else we're parents clicking on this week's stacy.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Another story that went gangbusters was called are you ready
for It?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Mum?
Speaker 4 (06:58):
That means ejaculate. The emojis aren't as innocent as they look,
and it was basically a glossary we published essentially decoding
what all the emojis mean so that you can figure
out what ones you're using wrong for your genel for children,
and if you want to snoop in their phone, you'll
be able to code what they're saying to one another
if you're so inclined. So generally we know the ones
(07:19):
like the eggplant meaning dick dick.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I was gonna go with Willie for some.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Reasons to use silly names.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Yes, so the eggplant is penis. There are so many more,
so Mon's and Emilia. I'm gonna do a little quiz
with you to see if you're down with the kids
and see if you're using these correctly. Okay, first one,
what do you think the red heart means love?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Love, yeah, truck question, the red heart is love. You're safe. Okay,
you can use your red heart.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So you haven't recovered from the fact that you're not
meant to use the laughing crying one, because apparently that
pgs me as an elder millennials, we're.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
So uncall using that. It's fine. We're meant to use the.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Skull anyway, Yeah, meant to say you're like dying laughing.
We're meant to use the skull anyway. Let's stick without
crying laughing.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
It's fine.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
But the next one, this shocks me because this is
my default emoji. This is my top used emoji. So
I am sending a very confused message. The purple heart friendship.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Oh god, is this the ejaculate one?
Speaker 4 (08:20):
No, but close it means you're aroused, Oh, arousal that's
the purple heart, and I've been sending that to all
my coworkers.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Actually, it actually means the word beginning with H, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah, horny horny purple heart.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Okay, now the corn cob, like, what could that possibly
mean so innocent.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
It means cringe. It so corny, so cringe.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
No, well, it's code for porn. So they use this
a lot on TikTok as code for porn because it
rhymes with corn. Okay, very simple. Now, this one genuinely
shocked a lot of us. The little brain emoji thinking emoji,
the little brain.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Nerd like, what a nerd? Oh my god, such a nerd?
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Sixty nine amelings clothes?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Really it is code for head.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
We never talked about such things when I was a child.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I know, we were just such innocent little beings. And
the last one I had was the bolonnaise the spaghetti
noodles with the fork.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I'm hungry for.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Mind boggles, some to pray sex.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
I know, nudes, send nudes. Noodles noodles send nudes. So
there you go your education.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
So have you actually managed to get yourself out of
the habit of using the purple hard at work?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Because I'm embarrassed for you.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
No, I'm still sending it, but I just avoid sending
it to the genss because that feels more risky.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
So ejaculate.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
We need to get the water the splashy war whes.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Mon's ding Ding Ding. That's right.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
It's the splashy water yeap that is ejaculate. So now
you know what to avoid. The rest of the list
will be in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Okay, into the main stuff for this week. So the
first topic we want to kind of hook into an
unpack is about Father's Day. Now, Father's Day is Sunday,
and the marketing for it is in full swing. My
letterbox is full of Bunning's catalogs, Syraco Sheds, and like
Dan Murphy's catalogs. But I got an email this week
from a major brand asking something that I've never seen before.
(10:24):
It asked if I wanted to opt out of Father's
Day marketing. And the email said, we understand that Father's
Day is a sensitive time for many. If you'd prefer
not to receive any Father's Day related emails, you can
opt out by clicking the button below. And it got
me thinking because I think in the last maybe six
or seven years, we've seen this cultural shift around Mother's Day,
(10:48):
Like whereas a decade ago it was kind of wall
to wall like World's Best Mom sort of marketing, whereas
now it's understood that not everyone's experience of motherhood and
not everyone's relationship with their mom is like a Hallmark card.
There is sort of grief and estrangement, and it can
be complicated, So brands and people are a little bit
(11:08):
more delicate now around how they talk about Mother's Day.
But this is the first time I've seen this same
treatment applied to Father's Day, So I wanted to check
in with you guys. Where are we at with Father's
Day this year?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Stacy?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
What do you think it all mean?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
I think it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
I definitely think it is a step towards recognizing the
sensitivities around it for some people. On the more serious
side of it, because I think we never really consider
the fathers or the men out there who might be
receiving these emails and are desperate to become a dad,
but are also struggling with infertility or their partner having
pregnancy loss. So I think on that side of things,
it's really lovely that there is that sensitivity there for
(11:46):
people who maybe don't have the best relationship or are
longing to be fathers and aren't at this point in
their lives. But on the more cynical side of this,
I just think people might use this opt out situation
to get rid of the emails because they never buy
their dad are present. Like every year, my dad tells
me he doesn't want a present. Every year, I believe him.
I just take him for a drink, which he usually
(12:07):
ends up paying for. And that's that Father's Day is
just not thought about as much as Mother's Day.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
And I'm going to get even more cynical on you,
and I want to step back and ask you both
how you feel about those emails for Mother's Day or
Father's Day, the ones that say, you know, let us
know if you have a complicated relationship with your mother,
Because why am I telling the brand that it's sort
of the brand pretending to be sensitive and concerned about
my feelings, but they're also harvesting my data. Why am
(12:35):
I telling them about my complicated family dynamics? Probably so
that they can sell me more stuff? Or am I
being cynical? Do we think that these are helpful?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
No, that was my second thought. My first thought was oh,
how interesting. My second thought was, oh, this is another
data point for you to fill your algorithm. And also
it also feels like savvy marketing dressed up as empathy.
So I do see that I'm also interested in why
there was a lag for this to hit the dad's content,
and I wonder if it's because My theory is like
(13:05):
dads seem to carry like less emotional weight in the culture.
Like you think about the way dads are depicted in
pop culture and it's like feel done fee from modern
family or like Daddy Pig, just like well meaning but
quite bumbling dads. So I think fatherhood feels less emotionally
loaded like in the public's imagination. So I think there's
been less pressure on brands to handle Father's Day carefully
(13:29):
until now. I think this is a kind of an
interesting shift here. It's like, are we finally starting to
see dads differently? And if that's the case, like Father's
Day might start to look really different in future. So
I hear your cynicism. I don't disagree with it. I
think you're right about that. I'm just holding out hope
that the dial is kind of shifting here.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
No, that's really interesting, Mon's I hadn't thought about that,
but now that you mentioned, say, Daddy Pig from pepper Pig,
there's this iconic song from pepper Pig where they sing,
He's a bit of an expert about daddy pig, and
the idea is that he pretends that he's an expert
in all sorts of things, but actually he's pretty useless
at most things. And that really is a sort of
(14:08):
trope that we have around dads. There's another trope that
I think this is kind of reversing too, and it
relates to what you said, Stacy, for people who long
to be dads. Yeah, I'm wondering how big that group is.
I don't want to stereotype, but certainly the pressures that
are on women to pro create are so much more
intense and explicit. But are we now getting to the
(14:32):
point where men too are getting these pressures that they
need to sort of perform adulthood and have babies.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Yeah, it just feels like maybe we're putting that onto
people a little bit like that, it's getting to that
extreme point where we're being sensitive about every possible thing,
when really you can choose to turn away from that
if you want.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
So, does it.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Work for you like Mom's, doesn't make you think more
of a brand that they're doing this, or does it
make you think they are being a bit manipulative?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
No, I'm cynical about it. But I do think that sometimes,
like brands respond to cultural touch points, brands respond to
the cultural ten and so I think it's an interesting signifier.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Now here's something which I've been hanging to talk about
this week. Hamma, barn, dollar bucks, wackadoo. If you recognize
those sounds I just made as actual words, then congratulations.
You are one of the millions of people who is
watching what is considered Australia's most successful show ever, Bluey. So,
the animated series by Joe Brahm about the Healer dog family,
(15:35):
is now in sixty countries and was viewed for fifty
five point six.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Billion minutes last year.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Most of those came from my household alone, and if
you're like me, you still can't get through a few
of the episodes Baby Race, Granddad Camping without crying. Such
is the power of these animated dogs. As far as
it goes with screen time, it's widely considered to be
one of the better shows for our kids. So a
new article from the Conversation talked about how researchers watched
(16:03):
one hundred and fifty episodes of Bluey, which I feel
like is every episode of Bluey surely, and they found
that she Blue being a girl. Just in case you
weren't clear, I know mea Friedman only found out about
a month ago that Blue is teaching kids' resilience in
the face of life's ups and downs. Apparently it's the
first time the show's been systematically examined like this to
(16:24):
see how it's teaching resilient behavior, and nearly half of
the episodes have that as the primary or the secondary theme. So, Amelia,
are you as in love with Blue as I am?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I love that you brought this up.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I have really complicated feelings that I'm looking forward to
unpacking with you both. I should say that when I
moved back to Australia from the United States last year,
the only thing anyone said to me about the move was,
is it going to be like bluey there? I cannot
overstate the way that Bluuie has shaped international perceptions of
(17:00):
Australia and of the life of children in Australia. They
think that it's like Bluie, and look, I was kind
of curious about whether it would be like Blue as well.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
And to some extent it really is.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I think it captures something that's still very present in
an Australian childhood that is gone from at least American childhoods,
which is it feels more carefree, it feels more safe,
it feels more harmonious. So I'd say that it's a
really nice depiction of Australian childhood.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Oh you know what, you two, This show does not
need any more fans. I can hear you both. Joe
loving it, sick. We know it's the best show on TV.
Blah blah blah. Joe Brahm's a genius. It's gorgeous. What's
interesting is the unpopular opinion, the undercurrent of I can't
(17:51):
watch this. It's making me feel like a shit parent.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Okay, I'm glad that you brought that up, because this
is where the complicated feelings come in. I got a
text from a friend the other day. She has three children.
I think of her as an amazing parent. For the record,
she wrote me a text pretty much out of the blue.
She said, I'm the bearer of some reassurance about parenting.
I was noodling around and found some conversation about how
(18:15):
parents who watch Bluey with their kids are talking to
each other and their shrinks about how the show makes
them feel like detached, inattentive parents who do not play enough.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
With their kids. And I thought, well, if she's feeling
like that.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
To be honest, I'm feeling a bit like that too.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah. It feels unpopular to say it, but there is
this big swell, this groundswell of parents talking to their
therapist saying this show makes me feel so shit, and
I think that's really interesting to unpack. I saw a
great article on substack. Jess Commons wrote it. She's a journalist,
she's got a substack called mother loading, and she wrote
about it as well earlier this year and said, how
(18:52):
dare these cartoon dogs with seemingly no financial troubles and
endless amounts of time show me up? There is no
way I can be as engaged, as invested, as imaginative
as them, and it makes me feel shitty. And there's
also there was this while us piece in The New
Yorker by Ellis Rosen called Blue's Dad thinks He's so great,
(19:17):
and it starts like this, it goes, well, there is again,
mister perfect dad, the best father ever to grace the
television screen. That's what everyone says anyway, including my wife
and children, which doesn't hurt my feelings at all. I
definitely didn't mind when my daughter asked me to pretend
to be Bluey's dad, even though she wasn't pretending to
(19:38):
be blue Like, the struggle is real. There are parents
out there who feel kind of insecure. This show brings
up a lot of feelings of like guilt and rejection
and fear and maybe defense. And I think that this
show very quietly exposes the gap between the parent that
we are and the parent we wish we were, and
(20:01):
that's confronting.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, let's call it the Bluey backlash. I've started seeing
it everywhere since I got that text. I found an
article on Good Housekeeping said Bluie is fun to watch,
but it makes parents feel like crap. And I've got
an example of how it makes me feel like crap.
There's an episode called Stickbird, which I think about a lot,
and in that episode, Blue's dad Bandit is really upset
about something and yet he.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Still has to play with Blue. They're at the beach.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And what's very intriguing about this episode is that he
tells Bluie that he's a bit upset about something. And
in fact, mental health advocacy groups have praised this episode
for reminding men to talk about their emotions. So great,
let's make sure that Blue gets that recognition. But what's
interesting is that he manages to hold it in having
expressed that sadness, and he doesn't tell Bluie why he's sad.
(20:51):
And I think about that, because that's a really high
bar if you're really sad or upset about something and
your parenting to just merely say I'm upset about something,
it has nothing to do with you. Let's move on
and keep playing a game.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
That's really hard to do.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I find myself wanting to share with my children why
I'm sad. And now maybe that's about that I shouldn't
be crossing. But every time I do experience, you know,
a difficult chapter, I think about Stickford and how band
It doesn't say.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Why he's sad, and it just feels like an impossible bar.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
The whole show is an impossible bar, Amelia. The Whole Show,
like Bandit and Chili, are endlessly patient and playful and
available and navigating like complex emotional issues. They're never hiding
in the pantry, scrolling their phone or like giving their
kids the finger behind their back. And even though it's fiction,
(21:43):
Like our brains are still comparing and what we see, yeah,
can make us uncomfortable with how we're doing things. And
I think the show, like you said, it models a
lot of amazing parenting, and so it has become in
the zeitgeist, like the default for great parenting is to
be like Bluie's parents. You know, they model this very slow,
(22:03):
very responsive, very playful parenting. But for most of us
who are juggling work and fatigue and commutes and craziest schedules,
like we're tired and we're distracted, and it just feels
quite unattainable.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
And I think there are episodes where you see the
mum and the dad on their phone, but the second
the child enters the room, the phone gets put away.
And I don't know that all of us can say
that that happens immediately when it's us. One of the
positives because I love to make myself feel bad. So
now that you've said it, I'm definitely thinking about it
more and thinking about all the times I've gone, oh, yeah,
I probably should be doing that, just like Chilli Heeler is.
(22:40):
But I think one of the ways that it's helped
if you're not a parent that finds play naturally comes
to them when your kids are at that age. Imaginative
play I find especially embarrassing. Don't know why, but I've
found that Bluey is kind of a connector to some games,
all some activities that I can do with my daughter
that she recognizes from the show, that I recognize from
(23:00):
the show. And then it feels like it's a level
playing field, that we're doing what the Healer family did see.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
There are some positives there.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
It is useful anytime you have a balloon to play
keep you uppy. Let's face that I wanted to get though.
Why we think it's kind of like pushing our button.
I have a theory for why this is. I think
it's because it's depicting parents spending a lot of one
on one time with their children, giving them a lot
of attention, and we feel like we're not doing enough
of that. But I've got a really reassuring newsflash for you,
(23:31):
which is that we are actually spending so much more
time with our children than previous generations. I found an
Economist article from twenty seventeen, so pre pandemic, which said
that parents are now spending twice as much time with
their children than they did fifty years ago. So don't
feel bad. We're already spending so much more time with them.
And it turns out even men are too, So men
(23:51):
are still spending less time with their children than women are,
but the amount of time has jumped sixteen minutes a
day over the last decade to fifty nine minutes a day.
Fifty nine minutes. I feel like I'm probably spending around
fifty nine minutes a day with my children, and that's average,
and I loved that. One exception to this trend is France.
In France, people are still sipping their wine and ignoring
(24:12):
their remarkably well behaved children. That's what the studies show,
So don't feel bad. Australians are spending plenty of time
with their children, and Bluis is accurately depicting that.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I feel like I've been too hard on Louis. I
do think it is the most beautiful show, the most
well made show on TV right now, and it deserves
all of its sissess and it should infiltrate France and
teach the French engaged playful parenting familiar If I am
a parent and I watch this and I feel the
defense mechanism coming up, and I start to feel the
feelings of in us guilty. What are therapists telling parents?
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, so this friend who texted me saying that she
feels bad actually asked around and she asked an expert
who was a therapist, why she shouldn't feel bad about it.
And this therapist said, each episode shows eight minutes of
their day. Anyone can pareent enthusiastically for eight minutes a day.
For all we know, Bandit spends four hours each day
(25:08):
on the couch, watching the foot and drinking, and.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
That does actually make me feel better. We can do
eight minutes. We can do eight minutes.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Bend needs to go to work, Guys, bend It actually
needs to go and do some work. Like, how are
they affording the three bedroom house in the cul de Sac? Stacy? Yes, Mons,
you know you're like, we're getting to know each other.
We don't really know each other that well. Yeah, I
deep dived on you. I googled your name and I
started reading your work. Turns out used to be the
editor of Girlfriend magazine.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Yes, that was my dream job. It was so great.
Apart from being here, of course, that's very cool.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
But the other thing that worried me was I think
I've said some things to you that I wish I
could take back now, So I'm just confessing my sins
to you.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
What did you do?
Speaker 1 (25:51):
I described you as a mother of one and I
may have at some point in our conversations said to you,
are you one and done?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah? I'm so glad you raise this mons because I
feel like I've made the same faux pa with Stacy.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I was allerted to.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
This because there was an article on folk dot com
by Liz Hammond recently, and she makes the plea that
we stop using that phrase one and done to describe
families with one child. I didn't even know that I
shouldn't be using it. Let me explain why she said
we shouldn't be using it. She has one five year
old son, she's pretty sure she doesn't want more children,
(26:25):
and she says that one and done fails to capture
the complexity of raising a child today because her responsibilities
as a parent are not done after giving birth. Stacy,
are we doing.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
It all wrong? And why do you have a problem
with one and done? Well, you can both stop panicking.
It's okay.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Because I have referred to myself as one and done
until I read this article as well, So it's absolutely fine.
At least to me, it hasn't bothered me. But I
must admit that that Vogue article did make me rethink
the term, because I thought it was really interesting that
she argued that when you say you're one and done,
it makes it sound like, you know, you popped out
a kid.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
You've done the hard part.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
And now it's just going to be easy, and it's
so much easier than listen not to, is it not?
It's so not of I was on another podcast called
The Kids or Trial Free Podcasts, and Kelty, the host
asked me this question as well, because she said a
lot of people who are considering whether to have children
at all often will say, well, I'll just have one,
(27:23):
as if it's a middle ground. And she said, what
is your take. Do you feel like having one is
closer to having two or closer to having none? And
I said, it is so much closer to having two
than to having none, Like my life is unrecognizable from
before having my child. And so I think there's this
understanding that it's like parenting light. You know that you
(27:46):
just got the easy way out of doing it. But
you're still getting all the emotions and all the stress
and all the herd outside your body and stressing about
whether your child will turn out okay. And then you're
layering on all these assumptions that people have about only children,
that they might be selfish, or they might be weird,
or they won't know how to share with other people.
There's so many things that people kind of put on you.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Well, you said in your article for Mum and Me
that you get these comments from.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
To your face. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
And I think just as a PSA for people who
want to say that, I know it's probably out of
genuine curiosity, but people with one kid are thinking about
it a lot like that is something that plays on
your mind A ton is are you doing the wrong thing?
But I think your reason for having a second can't
be out of service to your child. I think now
women can and all couples can be thinking about what
(28:36):
is best for them as a parent and what will
mean that they can give their child the best life,
whether that's for financial reasons, whether that's for mental health reasons,
whether it's just that you don't feel the strong urge
any of those are enough, I think, and so we
probably can stop calling it that.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Stacy. This article that you wrote, and we will link
to it in the show notes because I want everyone
to read it. I think everyone should read it, no
matter how many kids you have. It was beautiful, it
was smart. It's important because language is everything. And what
highlighted in that articles how many times people will come
to you and weigh in on your reproductive choices. When
(29:15):
are you having a second? Are you going to give
them a sibling? And it just feels so I know
it's well intentioned, but it does kind of feel very
dated to weigh in on someone else's choice of family.
It's like we don't say any more like oh, the
clock's ticking, and we don't say like when are you
going to start a family? Because families come in all
(29:37):
shapes and sizes. So we've mostly retired those phrases because
it feels like, you know, they were never okay in
the first place. I do feel like the questions around
are you having another when are you having another one?
Are you going to give them a sister or brother?
They need to be retired. They should be in the
same bucket.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Yeah, definitely, And I think like I would consider myself
a pretty agreeable person. I know Amelia said yesterday she
can't imagine me being bothered by anything like I think
I come across and if there was one thing that
bothered you, the people say, and there is one thing
that bothers me, And it's when people say, when are
you having another? Not are you thinking about having another?
Because I understand the genuine curiosity, too's the norm, So
(30:17):
I understand people assuming that if you've had one, you
probably do want to. So I love talking about it
to people, But it's the when that really annoys me
because I think it undermines what people go through to
even have a child in the first place, and what
I went through to have my child in the first place.
For many people, it's not a choice, and having one
(30:37):
might not be what they want. For me, it is,
but for some people that's just how their family dynamic
pans out. So I think there's that, and it also
layers the expectation on women that we're somehow selfish or
prioritizing our own lives too much.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Stacy, you just said it in your own answer. Then
you just said two is the norm, and that's the
kind of thinking that we need to stop. Yeah, that's
the retoric. That's not helpful. It's not the norm. There
is no norm. Families are all shaped, sizes, amount of people,
there is no normal.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Also, people are having fewer children. It's becoming the norm.
You quoted this in the article. But the Australian Bureau
Statistics has new numbers on this and Australian families are
going to have an average of one point six babies
over the next two years. That's down from two point three.
So this is the new norm.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
And I think only just have a pr problem really
because it all stems from research that happened in the
eighteen hundreds around that only children were a disease was
what they were called. And so I like, very selfishly
for my wanting my own reassurance, I interviewed an expert
who's done a lot of research on only children because
she has one child as well, doctor Razina McAlpine. So
(31:48):
she's got a master's in higher education, done so much
research in this area, and research she found showed that
only borns generally do equally as well as first borns
and children in two child families, and they surpassed children
from larger families across all of the measures of academic achievement, intelligence, sociability, character,
and child parent relationship.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
So all the myths around they will grow up lonely,
they don't hold up.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
No, they don't hold up. They have the same outcomes
as children into child households. Thank God for me.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Okay, to wrap up today's show, my favorite bit. We
share the things that we are loving, sick, the things
that we might text to our friends, put in the
mum group chat, whatever it is. It's recommendations, Stacy, what
do you got so mine?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
This week?
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Is a sleep story that doesn't make me want to
fall asleep, although I have fallen asleep in my daughter's
bed a lot of times.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Hang on, that's the point. Don't you want them to
be sleepy?
Speaker 4 (32:45):
I want them to be sleepy. I don't want to
be listening to it being tortured by the sound. And
there are a few that genuinely are so painful to
listen to, even for a couple of minutes. But on
Spotify it's free. This series called Calm Kids Bedtime Stories,
and there's one called Hector's Exploding Head, which my daughter
and I really love. So it's about a kid who
(33:06):
forgets his mum's birthday and forgets his homework and just
generally hopeless, like all kids around that age can be
with that stuff, and then someone visits the school that
teaches them about breathing to calm themselves down and keep
their head connected to their neck basically so their head
doesn't explode.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
I just love listening to it.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
I've probably listened to it a hundred times, and I'm
not sick of it yet. My daughter's probably half listened
to it about one hundred times because thankfully she dozes off.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
So that's my recommendation.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Hector's exploding, Hector's.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Exploding head, And it's just fun to say.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Well, I wanted to talk about playdate anxiety because I
know I should be hosting playdates, but I hosted one
a couple of years ago that i'm still recovering from.
Thought the kids were playing so nicely together because we
didn't hear from them, and then basically walked into the
room they were playing in and it seriously looked like
the Rolling Stones had been there for seven days having
(33:59):
a party because everything was everywhere, and it just really
triggered my anxiety. I can't deal with stress or mess,
particularly living in a two bedroom apartment, it really gets.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
To me, isn't that the fun of the play date?
Speaker 2 (34:12):
No, it's not the fun of the play date. Months
I can tell that we're different people. So I needed
to find something to have the children do that did
not result in mess. And I went to a playdate
at someone else's place on the weekend and she had
the most brilliant idea which I'm going to steal, which
is that the girls decorated water bottles together. And I
(34:33):
love this because it's not just like more useless plastic.
It's actually something they need. As we know, water bottles
disappear to the great water bottle black hole in the
sky and you don't know why or where. With the
socks with the one sock, not both socks, just one sock.
And so now she has a water bottle that she's
very proud of. The girls spent a good hour decorating
(34:54):
the water bottles together, and I just thought it was
a brilliant, very tidy activity for a playdate. And I
will unpack my neurosies about mess at a later time,
perhaps not on a podcast. Anyway, these water bottles you
can get the kits that came up. They're about thirty
dollars each, and I'm going to try that out myself
next time I host a play date. Next time I
(35:15):
summon the courage to host a play date.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Okay, so it wasn't like build your own like the
mom didn't gather all the separate bits and do it.
It's already done for us.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Oh gosh, no no.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, it was a kit with stickers and great story things, and.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah it was great.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Okay, team, I have the ultimate test of grit for
your kids. You know, we're always looking of ways to
increase resilience in our children. I've got a screen endurance
test that's going to break them.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Sounds fine.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
You sit down to watch a movie with them. You
select Disney, then choose Mary Poppins, Say nothing, and what
will happen next will determine your kid's level of resilience
because the intro Mary Poppins is lacially slow. There's three
(36:04):
minutes and six seconds before anything happens on the screen.
It's just text and very slow Edwardian sort of music.
I aged thirty years before Mary flies out of the
fucking sky. I swear to god, it's so sore. My
kids could not handle it, and I was loving it.
I just said nothing, and they were like, mom, mom,
(36:26):
working themselves into the biggest lather. Why is nothing happening?
What are these words on the screen. I loved it
for them. I think it's the ultimate endurance test for
the screen generation. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
That is deranged and I love it. I want to
add a further deranged recommendation for that movie, which is
I find the lead actor very attractive. I enjoyed watching it.
He's very attractive.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Dick van die.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Back in the ninety nine and he's dancing and he's
still living a great life.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
And I just love Dick Van Dyke.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
No is he the one that could start with the
harmonica and no.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Chimney sweet mons. I guess I'm purple heart for Dick Vandy. Yeah,
if you.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I think what's refreshing about Dick Van Dyke is his
bad teeth, Like how you never see bad teeth on
screens anymore? And I saw his teeth and I was like, Oh,
that's so nice that someone doesn't have a year.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
That is so cruel and such a bad kind of
compliment to a screen legend.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
I'm not into him. I am into mister Banks how
he walks in at the start, He's like, my home
is run like a thing. Like he's just so like
precise about everything. I love that for him.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
So what we're saying basically, there's like two male fox
leads to choose between ye the moms.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Pick your poison and torturing your kids. It sounds great.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
All right, that's all we have time for on Parenting
out Loud today. Thanks for hanging out.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
I want to shout out to the out louders who
said we should make this show a real thing, like
you're the reason where he's doing this, so thank you
for getting around it. Mainly Amelia. It's people want you Amelia,
so Stacy and I I'm.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Choosing don't ever use the brain emoji when talking about me.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Special mentions to Sally who said parenting podcasts of boring,
except this one's great.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
We love you, Sally.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Sophie said anything with Amelia, I'm tuning in.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
There's a lot of that, Sophie. I'm offended.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I know, I know we're just the hangers on. And
myth who said I don't even have kids and I
never miss an episode. Put that on the billboard and
then she put a purple heart emoji. Eh, miss, we're
horny for you too if you'd loved this episode. The
best way to help us in these really early days
(38:46):
is just to do one thing. It's search for Parenting
out Loud in your podcast app, find the show, and
then hit follow. So it's free to do it. But
it's like the Instagram algorithm, kind of equivalent of a
love heart, where if you do it, it pushes the
show in the algorithm, like the algorithm goes, oh, like shit,
there's all these people that are liking this one, so
(39:07):
it surfaces it to more people, so more people see
it and they're like, oh, what's this? Oh merely a lester?
Yes please, you.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
Can't dyke discussion so topical.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
But if all that sounds too hard, that's fine, no pressure.
Just come back next Saturday and hang out again. It's
been great, so have a great week and we'll talk
to you then.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Byye
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
is recorded on. Hey, out louders, are you raising kids
and trying to keep up with the world. Well, I've
got a little something for your Saturday. It's called Parenting
out Loud. It's me Monique Bowie with Amelia Lesta and
Stacy Hicks, and we break down the latest from the zeitgeist,
(00:33):
new cycle and trending mumtop conversations with smart, sharp takes
and zero sugarcoating. This is episode two and if you
missed last week, all good, but we did have people say, look,
I'm not even a parent and I'm very into this.
So we're back gate crashing here in the MoMA mea
out Loud feed. But it's only for a really short time.
So if you're into this hit follow on the Parenting
(00:55):
out Loud Feed, open your app, type it in, tap
the little plus button. Done that way, we get to
keep making this show and you can get back to
just hearing Holly and Jesse and Amelia and Mia depending
on what less's up to in your ears here. Okay,
the business part is done. Let's go. Here's episode two
(01:16):
of a brand new season of Parenting Out Loud. Hello,
and welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast where if
parents are thinking about it, we are talking about it.
I'm Monque Bowley, and I am joined by my gorgeous
co host, the delightful Stacy Hicks and big brain Amelia Lester.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Oh my gosh, I just need to announce that I
ran to the bus this morning in pouring rain, so
I hope I'm giving glowy, not sweaty. But if I'm
giving sweaty, I apologize.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
It's giving both and it's great. The translation how I
can only do so much.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Very dewy. I'm into it. It has been a very
big week in parenting culture. On today's show, there has
been a tiny shift in the marketing of Father's Day
that I need to unpack with you guys. Plus, does
Bluey give you warm feelings or the creeping sense that
you're a bit of a shit parent? Welcome to the Bluey.
(02:18):
Inadequately complex, and at the end of the show, we're
going to tell you all the things we're loving and
we think that you might love too. It's kind of
hot tips and the stuff that we share with our friends.
But first, Stacy, you're the deputy editor of Mama Maya.
You're the big dog. What's been going off online this week?
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Yes, second big dog technically, but I'll take big dog
as my title. But a story that really popped off
this week will make you feel very vindicated. If, like me,
despite it officially being spring, you've already achieved the daycare
Bingo card of sicknesses. If you have been completely flattened,
you are not alone. This story was titled You're not
imagining it. There's a reason everyone is sicker. I think
(02:55):
this resonated so much with people because we all know
there's nothing quite like the hell of being sick when
someone else in your house is also sick at the
same time, especially if they're a person you have to
care for. So I think that's why this hit the
way did. But while it's obviously hard to do the
sums on every single sickness, Zoe Rutchford spoke to doctor
Melanie Conroy about the figures that show that there's already
(03:18):
been two hundred and thirty thousand reported cases of the
flu this year. That's just the ones where they're reported,
not the heroes that soldier on without it. That is
the same number as what we had for the entire
year in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
So it's it's hitting people hard. And she cited a
few possible reasons for the incline. So they include vaccination fatigue,
saying that maybe you know, that's contributed to the fact
that half of Australians haven't gotten their COVID booster and
haven't done their flu shot this year, or it's out
of pocket costs. And it's also another potential reason is
there is a lot more full return to the office now,
(03:52):
so a lot of us are you know, sweaty on
the bus or on the train and.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Sharing the dresses around. Yes.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
No, this is really interesting because a it's true. I
just feel like I've been living in sickness for many
months now. I came across an article on the Examine newsletter,
which is a science newsletter put up by The Herald
and the Age, and it looked at how even though
the federal government recommends the flu shot for kids under
five and it makes it free, the message about the
(04:20):
importance of getting that flu vaccine is just not getting
through to parents. And it looked at some reasons why
that might be. Basically, they did cite that sense of
parents being concerned about viral load, like getting too many vaccinations,
and experts say, this is not a thing, do not
worry about that.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
And then they also thought that.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Maybe it was a post pandemic effect, whereby during COVID
parents wanted to do anything they could to protect their children,
and before the COVID vaccine, that was essentially the flu vaccine.
But now we've all kind of forgotten about flu when
we really shouldn't be. I don't mean to alarm anyone,
but a startling fact from this newsletter is that the
hospitalization rate for kids under five of the flu actually
(05:02):
exceeds that of sixty five plus adults. It's a dangerous
illness and we are just not taking the steps that
we need to.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Okay, so confession, I did not have a flu jub
this year, and I'll tell you why. It's because I
quit my job. So when you work in a place,
they often run a flu JAB program, right, which makes
it really easy. Because I think there's two barriers to
getting the flu JAB that immediately spring to mind. First
is cost and second is access.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
And so when you're in a workplace. Often they take
those two things out of the equation. They make it free,
and they bring someone in to do it for you,
so you do it while you're at work. So the
question I've got is, why don't they run flu jobs
at schools? Like there is a national immunization program that
rolls out some vaccinations, but why don't they just add
flu to that?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I wonder if that would be actually quite controversial because
another interesting stat is that the nationwide percentage of children
who get all vaccines on average is ninety percent, but
less than fifty percent of children get the flu vaccine.
There's something about the flu vaccine where I think parents
are thinking that it's like optional or that it's not important,
(06:07):
and that's leading to this decline rates.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Mellly, you mentioned that like the messaging isn't ubiquitous around
flu season, do public health need to spend more money
on social media marketing to get the messages into our feeds? Like?
I feel like that is how we are all consuming
news and information now does it just need to be
more like spend less on ads, spend more in social media?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Well, and I also think that specifically what the campaign
should say is this fact that for children under five,
This is resulting in more hospitalizations than for older adults,
because I think we all have this hangover feeling of
like it's something that affects older adults and we're kind
of getting it as an act of benevolence for the oldies.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
But that's not the case.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Cool, So what else we're parents clicking on this week's stacy.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Another story that went gangbusters was called are you ready
for It?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Mum?
Speaker 4 (06:58):
That means ejaculate. The emojis aren't as innocent as they look,
and it was basically a glossary we published essentially decoding
what all the emojis mean so that you can figure
out what ones you're using wrong for your genel for children,
and if you want to snoop in their phone, you'll
be able to code what they're saying to one another
if you're so inclined. So generally we know the ones
(07:19):
like the eggplant meaning dick dick.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I was gonna go with Willie for some.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Reasons to use silly names.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Yes, so the eggplant is penis. There are so many more,
so Mon's and Emilia. I'm gonna do a little quiz
with you to see if you're down with the kids
and see if you're using these correctly. Okay, first one,
what do you think the red heart means love?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Love, yeah, truck question, the red heart is love. You're safe. Okay,
you can use your red heart.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So you haven't recovered from the fact that you're not
meant to use the laughing crying one, because apparently that
pgs me as an elder millennials, we're.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
So uncall using that. It's fine. We're meant to use the.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Skull anyway, Yeah, meant to say you're like dying laughing.
We're meant to use the skull anyway. Let's stick without
crying laughing.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
It's fine.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
But the next one, this shocks me because this is
my default emoji. This is my top used emoji. So
I am sending a very confused message. The purple heart friendship.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Oh god, is this the ejaculate one?
Speaker 4 (08:20):
No, but close it means you're aroused, Oh, arousal that's
the purple heart, and I've been sending that to all
my coworkers.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Actually, it actually means the word beginning with H, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah, horny horny purple heart.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Okay, now the corn cob, like, what could that possibly
mean so innocent.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
It means cringe. It so corny, so cringe.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
No, well, it's code for porn. So they use this
a lot on TikTok as code for porn because it
rhymes with corn. Okay, very simple. Now, this one genuinely
shocked a lot of us. The little brain emoji thinking emoji,
the little brain.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Nerd like, what a nerd? Oh my god, such a nerd?
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Sixty nine amelings clothes?
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Really it is code for head.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
We never talked about such things when I was a child.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I know, we were just such innocent little beings. And
the last one I had was the bolonnaise the spaghetti
noodles with the fork.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
I'm hungry for.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Mind boggles, some to pray sex.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
I know, nudes, send nudes. Noodles noodles send nudes. So
there you go your education.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
So have you actually managed to get yourself out of
the habit of using the purple hard at work?
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Because I'm embarrassed for you.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
No, I'm still sending it, but I just avoid sending
it to the genss because that feels more risky.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
So ejaculate.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
We need to get the water the splashy war whes.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Mon's ding Ding Ding. That's right.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
It's the splashy water yeap that is ejaculate. So now
you know what to avoid. The rest of the list
will be in the show notes.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Okay, into the main stuff for this week. So the
first topic we want to kind of hook into an
unpack is about Father's Day. Now, Father's Day is Sunday,
and the marketing for it is in full swing. My
letterbox is full of Bunning's catalogs, Syraco Sheds, and like
Dan Murphy's catalogs. But I got an email this week
from a major brand asking something that I've never seen before.
(10:24):
It asked if I wanted to opt out of Father's
Day marketing. And the email said, we understand that Father's
Day is a sensitive time for many. If you'd prefer
not to receive any Father's Day related emails, you can
opt out by clicking the button below. And it got
me thinking because I think in the last maybe six
or seven years, we've seen this cultural shift around Mother's Day,
(10:48):
Like whereas a decade ago it was kind of wall
to wall like World's Best Mom sort of marketing, whereas
now it's understood that not everyone's experience of motherhood and
not everyone's relationship with their mom is like a Hallmark card.
There is sort of grief and estrangement, and it can
be complicated, So brands and people are a little bit
(11:08):
more delicate now around how they talk about Mother's Day.
But this is the first time I've seen this same
treatment applied to Father's Day, So I wanted to check
in with you guys. Where are we at with Father's
Day this year?
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Stacy?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
What do you think it all mean?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
I think it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
I definitely think it is a step towards recognizing the
sensitivities around it for some people. On the more serious
side of it, because I think we never really consider
the fathers or the men out there who might be
receiving these emails and are desperate to become a dad,
but are also struggling with infertility or their partner having
pregnancy loss. So I think on that side of things,
it's really lovely that there is that sensitivity there for
(11:46):
people who maybe don't have the best relationship or are
longing to be fathers and aren't at this point in
their lives. But on the more cynical side of this,
I just think people might use this opt out situation
to get rid of the emails because they never buy
their dad are present. Like every year, my dad tells
me he doesn't want a present. Every year, I believe him.
I just take him for a drink, which he usually
(12:07):
ends up paying for. And that's that Father's Day is
just not thought about as much as Mother's Day.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
And I'm going to get even more cynical on you,
and I want to step back and ask you both
how you feel about those emails for Mother's Day or
Father's Day, the ones that say, you know, let us
know if you have a complicated relationship with your mother,
Because why am I telling the brand that it's sort
of the brand pretending to be sensitive and concerned about
my feelings, but they're also harvesting my data. Why am
(12:35):
I telling them about my complicated family dynamics? Probably so
that they can sell me more stuff? Or am I
being cynical? Do we think that these are helpful?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
No, that was my second thought. My first thought was oh,
how interesting. My second thought was, oh, this is another
data point for you to fill your algorithm. And also
it also feels like savvy marketing dressed up as empathy.
So I do see that I'm also interested in why
there was a lag for this to hit the dad's content,
and I wonder if it's because My theory is like
(13:05):
dads seem to carry like less emotional weight in the culture.
Like you think about the way dads are depicted in
pop culture and it's like feel done fee from modern
family or like Daddy Pig, just like well meaning but
quite bumbling dads. So I think fatherhood feels less emotionally
loaded like in the public's imagination. So I think there's
been less pressure on brands to handle Father's Day carefully
(13:29):
until now. I think this is a kind of an
interesting shift here. It's like, are we finally starting to
see dads differently? And if that's the case, like Father's
Day might start to look really different in future. So
I hear your cynicism. I don't disagree with it. I
think you're right about that. I'm just holding out hope
that the dial is kind of shifting here.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
No, that's really interesting, Mon's I hadn't thought about that,
but now that you mentioned, say, Daddy Pig from pepper Pig,
there's this iconic song from pepper Pig where they sing,
He's a bit of an expert about daddy pig, and
the idea is that he pretends that he's an expert
in all sorts of things, but actually he's pretty useless
at most things. And that really is a sort of
(14:08):
trope that we have around dads. There's another trope that
I think this is kind of reversing too, and it
relates to what you said, Stacy, for people who long
to be dads. Yeah, I'm wondering how big that group is.
I don't want to stereotype, but certainly the pressures that
are on women to pro create are so much more
intense and explicit. But are we now getting to the
(14:32):
point where men too are getting these pressures that they
need to sort of perform adulthood and have babies.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Yeah, it just feels like maybe we're putting that onto
people a little bit like that, it's getting to that
extreme point where we're being sensitive about every possible thing,
when really you can choose to turn away from that
if you want.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
So, does it.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Work for you like Mom's, doesn't make you think more
of a brand that they're doing this, or does it
make you think they are being a bit manipulative?
Speaker 1 (15:01):
No, I'm cynical about it. But I do think that sometimes,
like brands respond to cultural touch points, brands respond to
the cultural ten and so I think it's an interesting signifier.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Now here's something which I've been hanging to talk about
this week. Hamma, barn, dollar bucks, wackadoo. If you recognize
those sounds I just made as actual words, then congratulations.
You are one of the millions of people who is
watching what is considered Australia's most successful show ever, Bluey. So,
the animated series by Joe Brahm about the Healer dog family,
(15:35):
is now in sixty countries and was viewed for fifty
five point six.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Billion minutes last year.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Most of those came from my household alone, and if
you're like me, you still can't get through a few
of the episodes Baby Race, Granddad Camping without crying. Such
is the power of these animated dogs. As far as
it goes with screen time, it's widely considered to be
one of the better shows for our kids. So a
new article from the Conversation talked about how researchers watched
(16:03):
one hundred and fifty episodes of Bluey, which I feel
like is every episode of Bluey surely, and they found
that she Blue being a girl. Just in case you
weren't clear, I know mea Friedman only found out about
a month ago that Blue is teaching kids' resilience in
the face of life's ups and downs. Apparently it's the
first time the show's been systematically examined like this to
(16:24):
see how it's teaching resilient behavior, and nearly half of
the episodes have that as the primary or the secondary theme. So, Amelia,
are you as in love with Blue as I am?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I love that you brought this up.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I have really complicated feelings that I'm looking forward to
unpacking with you both. I should say that when I
moved back to Australia from the United States last year,
the only thing anyone said to me about the move was,
is it going to be like bluey there? I cannot
overstate the way that Bluuie has shaped international perceptions of
(17:00):
Australia and of the life of children in Australia. They
think that it's like Bluie, and look, I was kind
of curious about whether it would be like Blue as well.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
And to some extent it really is.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I think it captures something that's still very present in
an Australian childhood that is gone from at least American childhoods,
which is it feels more carefree, it feels more safe,
it feels more harmonious. So I'd say that it's a
really nice depiction of Australian childhood.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Oh you know what, you two, This show does not
need any more fans. I can hear you both. Joe
loving it, sick. We know it's the best show on TV.
Blah blah blah. Joe Brahm's a genius. It's gorgeous. What's
interesting is the unpopular opinion, the undercurrent of I can't
(17:51):
watch this. It's making me feel like a shit parent.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Okay, I'm glad that you brought that up, because this
is where the complicated feelings come in. I got a
text from a friend the other day. She has three children.
I think of her as an amazing parent. For the record,
she wrote me a text pretty much out of the blue.
She said, I'm the bearer of some reassurance about parenting.
I was noodling around and found some conversation about how
(18:15):
parents who watch Bluey with their kids are talking to
each other and their shrinks about how the show makes
them feel like detached, inattentive parents who do not play enough.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
With their kids. And I thought, well, if she's feeling
like that.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
To be honest, I'm feeling a bit like that too.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah. It feels unpopular to say it, but there is
this big swell, this groundswell of parents talking to their
therapist saying this show makes me feel so shit, and
I think that's really interesting to unpack. I saw a
great article on substack. Jess Commons wrote it. She's a journalist,
she's got a substack called mother loading, and she wrote
about it as well earlier this year and said, how
(18:52):
dare these cartoon dogs with seemingly no financial troubles and
endless amounts of time show me up? There is no
way I can be as engaged, as invested, as imaginative
as them, and it makes me feel shitty. And there's
also there was this while us piece in The New
Yorker by Ellis Rosen called Blue's Dad thinks He's so great,
(19:17):
and it starts like this, it goes, well, there is again,
mister perfect dad, the best father ever to grace the
television screen. That's what everyone says anyway, including my wife
and children, which doesn't hurt my feelings at all. I
definitely didn't mind when my daughter asked me to pretend
to be Bluey's dad, even though she wasn't pretending to
(19:38):
be blue Like, the struggle is real. There are parents
out there who feel kind of insecure. This show brings
up a lot of feelings of like guilt and rejection
and fear and maybe defense. And I think that this
show very quietly exposes the gap between the parent that
we are and the parent we wish we were, and
(20:01):
that's confronting.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, let's call it the Bluey backlash. I've started seeing
it everywhere since I got that text. I found an
article on Good Housekeeping said Bluie is fun to watch,
but it makes parents feel like crap. And I've got
an example of how it makes me feel like crap.
There's an episode called Stickbird, which I think about a lot,
and in that episode, Blue's dad Bandit is really upset
about something and yet he.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Still has to play with Blue. They're at the beach.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And what's very intriguing about this episode is that he
tells Bluie that he's a bit upset about something. And
in fact, mental health advocacy groups have praised this episode
for reminding men to talk about their emotions. So great,
let's make sure that Blue gets that recognition. But what's
interesting is that he manages to hold it in having
expressed that sadness, and he doesn't tell Bluie why he's sad.
(20:51):
And I think about that, because that's a really high
bar if you're really sad or upset about something and
your parenting to just merely say I'm upset about something,
it has nothing to do with you. Let's move on
and keep playing a game.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
That's really hard to do.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I find myself wanting to share with my children why
I'm sad. And now maybe that's about that I shouldn't
be crossing. But every time I do experience, you know,
a difficult chapter, I think about Stickford and how band
It doesn't say.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Why he's sad, and it just feels like an impossible bar.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
The whole show is an impossible bar, Amelia. The Whole Show,
like Bandit and Chili, are endlessly patient and playful and
available and navigating like complex emotional issues. They're never hiding
in the pantry, scrolling their phone or like giving their
kids the finger behind their back. And even though it's fiction,
(21:43):
Like our brains are still comparing and what we see, yeah,
can make us uncomfortable with how we're doing things. And
I think the show, like you said, it models a
lot of amazing parenting, and so it has become in
the zeitgeist, like the default for great parenting is to
be like Bluie's parents. You know, they model this very slow,
(22:03):
very responsive, very playful parenting. But for most of us
who are juggling work and fatigue and commutes and craziest schedules,
like we're tired and we're distracted, and it just feels
quite unattainable.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
And I think there are episodes where you see the
mum and the dad on their phone, but the second
the child enters the room, the phone gets put away.
And I don't know that all of us can say
that that happens immediately when it's us. One of the
positives because I love to make myself feel bad. So
now that you've said it, I'm definitely thinking about it
more and thinking about all the times I've gone, oh, yeah,
I probably should be doing that, just like Chilli Heeler is.
(22:40):
But I think one of the ways that it's helped
if you're not a parent that finds play naturally comes
to them when your kids are at that age. Imaginative
play I find especially embarrassing. Don't know why, but I've
found that Bluey is kind of a connector to some games,
all some activities that I can do with my daughter
that she recognizes from the show, that I recognize from
(23:00):
the show. And then it feels like it's a level
playing field, that we're doing what the Healer family did see.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
There are some positives there.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
It is useful anytime you have a balloon to play
keep you uppy. Let's face that I wanted to get though.
Why we think it's kind of like pushing our button.
I have a theory for why this is. I think
it's because it's depicting parents spending a lot of one
on one time with their children, giving them a lot
of attention, and we feel like we're not doing enough
of that. But I've got a really reassuring newsflash for you,
(23:31):
which is that we are actually spending so much more
time with our children than previous generations. I found an
Economist article from twenty seventeen, so pre pandemic, which said
that parents are now spending twice as much time with
their children than they did fifty years ago. So don't
feel bad. We're already spending so much more time with them.
And it turns out even men are too, So men
(23:51):
are still spending less time with their children than women are,
but the amount of time has jumped sixteen minutes a
day over the last decade to fifty nine minutes a day.
Fifty nine minutes. I feel like I'm probably spending around
fifty nine minutes a day with my children, and that's average,
and I loved that. One exception to this trend is France.
In France, people are still sipping their wine and ignoring
(24:12):
their remarkably well behaved children. That's what the studies show,
So don't feel bad. Australians are spending plenty of time
with their children, and Bluis is accurately depicting that.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I feel like I've been too hard on Louis. I
do think it is the most beautiful show, the most
well made show on TV right now, and it deserves
all of its sissess and it should infiltrate France and
teach the French engaged playful parenting familiar If I am
a parent and I watch this and I feel the
defense mechanism coming up, and I start to feel the
feelings of in us guilty. What are therapists telling parents?
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, so this friend who texted me saying that she
feels bad actually asked around and she asked an expert
who was a therapist, why she shouldn't feel bad about it.
And this therapist said, each episode shows eight minutes of
their day. Anyone can pareent enthusiastically for eight minutes a day.
For all we know, Bandit spends four hours each day
(25:08):
on the couch, watching the foot and drinking, and.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
That does actually make me feel better. We can do
eight minutes. We can do eight minutes.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Bend needs to go to work, Guys, bend It actually
needs to go and do some work. Like, how are
they affording the three bedroom house in the cul de Sac? Stacy? Yes, Mons,
you know you're like, we're getting to know each other.
We don't really know each other that well. Yeah, I
deep dived on you. I googled your name and I
started reading your work. Turns out used to be the
editor of Girlfriend magazine.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Yes, that was my dream job. It was so great.
Apart from being here, of course, that's very cool.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
But the other thing that worried me was I think
I've said some things to you that I wish I
could take back now, So I'm just confessing my sins
to you.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
What did you do?
Speaker 1 (25:51):
I described you as a mother of one and I
may have at some point in our conversations said to you,
are you one and done?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah? I'm so glad you raise this mons because I
feel like I've made the same faux pa with Stacy.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I was allerted to.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
This because there was an article on folk dot com
by Liz Hammond recently, and she makes the plea that
we stop using that phrase one and done to describe
families with one child. I didn't even know that I
shouldn't be using it. Let me explain why she said
we shouldn't be using it. She has one five year
old son, she's pretty sure she doesn't want more children,
(26:25):
and she says that one and done fails to capture
the complexity of raising a child today because her responsibilities
as a parent are not done after giving birth. Stacy,
are we doing.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
It all wrong? And why do you have a problem
with one and done? Well, you can both stop panicking.
It's okay.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Because I have referred to myself as one and done
until I read this article as well, So it's absolutely fine.
At least to me, it hasn't bothered me. But I
must admit that that Vogue article did make me rethink
the term, because I thought it was really interesting that
she argued that when you say you're one and done,
it makes it sound like, you know, you popped out
a kid.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
You've done the hard part.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
And now it's just going to be easy, and it's
so much easier than listen not to, is it not?
It's so not of I was on another podcast called
The Kids or Trial Free Podcasts, and Kelty, the host
asked me this question as well, because she said a
lot of people who are considering whether to have children
at all often will say, well, I'll just have one,
(27:23):
as if it's a middle ground. And she said, what
is your take. Do you feel like having one is
closer to having two or closer to having none? And
I said, it is so much closer to having two
than to having none, Like my life is unrecognizable from
before having my child. And so I think there's this
understanding that it's like parenting light. You know that you
(27:46):
just got the easy way out of doing it. But
you're still getting all the emotions and all the stress
and all the herd outside your body and stressing about
whether your child will turn out okay. And then you're
layering on all these assumptions that people have about only children,
that they might be selfish, or they might be weird,
or they won't know how to share with other people.
There's so many things that people kind of put on you.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Well, you said in your article for Mum and Me
that you get these comments from.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
To your face. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
And I think just as a PSA for people who
want to say that, I know it's probably out of
genuine curiosity, but people with one kid are thinking about
it a lot like that is something that plays on
your mind A ton is are you doing the wrong thing?
But I think your reason for having a second can't
be out of service to your child. I think now
women can and all couples can be thinking about what
(28:36):
is best for them as a parent and what will
mean that they can give their child the best life,
whether that's for financial reasons, whether that's for mental health reasons,
whether it's just that you don't feel the strong urge
any of those are enough, I think, and so we
probably can stop calling it that.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Stacy. This article that you wrote, and we will link
to it in the show notes because I want everyone
to read it. I think everyone should read it, no
matter how many kids you have. It was beautiful, it
was smart. It's important because language is everything. And what
highlighted in that articles how many times people will come
to you and weigh in on your reproductive choices. When
(29:15):
are you having a second? Are you going to give
them a sibling? And it just feels so I know
it's well intentioned, but it does kind of feel very
dated to weigh in on someone else's choice of family.
It's like we don't say any more like oh, the
clock's ticking, and we don't say like when are you
going to start a family? Because families come in all
(29:37):
shapes and sizes. So we've mostly retired those phrases because
it feels like, you know, they were never okay in
the first place. I do feel like the questions around
are you having another when are you having another one?
Are you going to give them a sister or brother?
They need to be retired. They should be in the
same bucket.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Yeah, definitely, And I think like I would consider myself
a pretty agreeable person. I know Amelia said yesterday she
can't imagine me being bothered by anything like I think
I come across and if there was one thing that
bothered you, the people say, and there is one thing
that bothers me, And it's when people say, when are
you having another? Not are you thinking about having another?
Because I understand the genuine curiosity, too's the norm, So
(30:17):
I understand people assuming that if you've had one, you
probably do want to. So I love talking about it
to people, But it's the when that really annoys me
because I think it undermines what people go through to
even have a child in the first place, and what
I went through to have my child in the first place.
For many people, it's not a choice, and having one
(30:37):
might not be what they want. For me, it is,
but for some people that's just how their family dynamic
pans out. So I think there's that, and it also
layers the expectation on women that we're somehow selfish or
prioritizing our own lives too much.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Stacy, you just said it in your own answer. Then
you just said two is the norm, and that's the
kind of thinking that we need to stop. Yeah, that's
the retoric. That's not helpful. It's not the norm. There
is no norm. Families are all shaped, sizes, amount of people,
there is no normal.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Also, people are having fewer children. It's becoming the norm.
You quoted this in the article. But the Australian Bureau
Statistics has new numbers on this and Australian families are
going to have an average of one point six babies
over the next two years. That's down from two point three.
So this is the new norm.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
And I think only just have a pr problem really
because it all stems from research that happened in the
eighteen hundreds around that only children were a disease was
what they were called. And so I like, very selfishly
for my wanting my own reassurance, I interviewed an expert
who's done a lot of research on only children because
she has one child as well, doctor Razina McAlpine. So
(31:48):
she's got a master's in higher education, done so much
research in this area, and research she found showed that
only borns generally do equally as well as first borns
and children in two child families, and they surpassed children
from larger families across all of the measures of academic achievement, intelligence, sociability, character,
and child parent relationship.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
So all the myths around they will grow up lonely,
they don't hold up.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
No, they don't hold up. They have the same outcomes
as children into child households. Thank God for me.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Okay, to wrap up today's show, my favorite bit. We
share the things that we are loving, sick, the things
that we might text to our friends, put in the
mum group chat, whatever it is. It's recommendations, Stacy, what
do you got so mine?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
This week?
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Is a sleep story that doesn't make me want to
fall asleep, although I have fallen asleep in my daughter's
bed a lot of times.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Hang on, that's the point. Don't you want them to
be sleepy?
Speaker 4 (32:45):
I want them to be sleepy. I don't want to
be listening to it being tortured by the sound. And
there are a few that genuinely are so painful to
listen to, even for a couple of minutes. But on
Spotify it's free. This series called Calm Kids Bedtime Stories,
and there's one called Hector's Exploding Head, which my daughter
and I really love. So it's about a kid who
(33:06):
forgets his mum's birthday and forgets his homework and just
generally hopeless, like all kids around that age can be
with that stuff, and then someone visits the school that
teaches them about breathing to calm themselves down and keep
their head connected to their neck basically so their head
doesn't explode.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
I just love listening to it.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
I've probably listened to it a hundred times, and I'm
not sick of it yet. My daughter's probably half listened
to it about one hundred times because thankfully she dozes off.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
So that's my recommendation.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Hector's exploding, Hector's.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Exploding head, And it's just fun to say.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Well, I wanted to talk about playdate anxiety because I
know I should be hosting playdates, but I hosted one
a couple of years ago that i'm still recovering from.
Thought the kids were playing so nicely together because we
didn't hear from them, and then basically walked into the
room they were playing in and it seriously looked like
the Rolling Stones had been there for seven days having
(33:59):
a party because everything was everywhere, and it just really
triggered my anxiety. I can't deal with stress or mess,
particularly living in a two bedroom apartment, it really gets.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
To me, isn't that the fun of the play date?
Speaker 2 (34:12):
No, it's not the fun of the play date. Months
I can tell that we're different people. So I needed
to find something to have the children do that did
not result in mess. And I went to a playdate
at someone else's place on the weekend and she had
the most brilliant idea which I'm going to steal, which
is that the girls decorated water bottles together. And I
(34:33):
love this because it's not just like more useless plastic.
It's actually something they need. As we know, water bottles
disappear to the great water bottle black hole in the
sky and you don't know why or where. With the
socks with the one sock, not both socks, just one sock.
And so now she has a water bottle that she's
very proud of. The girls spent a good hour decorating
(34:54):
the water bottles together, and I just thought it was
a brilliant, very tidy activity for a playdate. And I
will unpack my neurosies about mess at a later time,
perhaps not on a podcast. Anyway, these water bottles you
can get the kits that came up. They're about thirty
dollars each, and I'm going to try that out myself
next time I host a play date. Next time I
(35:15):
summon the courage to host a play date.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Okay, so it wasn't like build your own like the
mom didn't gather all the separate bits and do it.
It's already done for us.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Oh gosh, no no.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, it was a kit with stickers and great story things, and.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah it was great.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Okay, team, I have the ultimate test of grit for
your kids. You know, we're always looking of ways to
increase resilience in our children. I've got a screen endurance
test that's going to break them.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Sounds fine.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
You sit down to watch a movie with them. You
select Disney, then choose Mary Poppins, Say nothing, and what
will happen next will determine your kid's level of resilience
because the intro Mary Poppins is lacially slow. There's three
(36:04):
minutes and six seconds before anything happens on the screen.
It's just text and very slow Edwardian sort of music.
I aged thirty years before Mary flies out of the
fucking sky. I swear to god, it's so sore. My
kids could not handle it, and I was loving it.
I just said nothing, and they were like, mom, mom,
(36:26):
working themselves into the biggest lather. Why is nothing happening?
What are these words on the screen. I loved it
for them. I think it's the ultimate endurance test for
the screen generation. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
That is deranged and I love it. I want to
add a further deranged recommendation for that movie, which is
I find the lead actor very attractive. I enjoyed watching it.
He's very attractive.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Dick van die.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Back in the ninety nine and he's dancing and he's
still living a great life.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
And I just love Dick Van Dyke.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
No is he the one that could start with the
harmonica and no.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Chimney sweet mons. I guess I'm purple heart for Dick Vandy. Yeah,
if you.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I think what's refreshing about Dick Van Dyke is his
bad teeth, Like how you never see bad teeth on
screens anymore? And I saw his teeth and I was like, Oh,
that's so nice that someone doesn't have a year.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
That is so cruel and such a bad kind of
compliment to a screen legend.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
I'm not into him. I am into mister Banks how
he walks in at the start, He's like, my home
is run like a thing. Like he's just so like
precise about everything. I love that for him.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
So what we're saying basically, there's like two male fox
leads to choose between ye the moms.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Pick your poison and torturing your kids. It sounds great.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
All right, that's all we have time for on Parenting
out Loud today. Thanks for hanging out.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
I want to shout out to the out louders who
said we should make this show a real thing, like
you're the reason where he's doing this, so thank you
for getting around it. Mainly Amelia. It's people want you Amelia,
so Stacy and I I'm.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Choosing don't ever use the brain emoji when talking about me.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Special mentions to Sally who said parenting podcasts of boring,
except this one's great.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
We love you, Sally.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Sophie said anything with Amelia, I'm tuning in.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
There's a lot of that, Sophie. I'm offended.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I know, I know we're just the hangers on. And
myth who said I don't even have kids and I
never miss an episode. Put that on the billboard and
then she put a purple heart emoji. Eh, miss, we're
horny for you too if you'd loved this episode. The
best way to help us in these really early days
(38:46):
is just to do one thing. It's search for Parenting
out Loud in your podcast app, find the show, and
then hit follow. So it's free to do it. But
it's like the Instagram algorithm, kind of equivalent of a
love heart, where if you do it, it pushes the
show in the algorithm, like the algorithm goes, oh, like shit,
there's all these people that are liking this one, so
(39:07):
it surfaces it to more people, so more people see
it and they're like, oh, what's this? Oh merely a lester?
Yes please, you.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
Can't dyke discussion so topical.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
But if all that sounds too hard, that's fine, no pressure.
Just come back next Saturday and hang out again. It's
been great, so have a great week and we'll talk
to you then.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Byye
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