September 12, 2025 • 52 mins
Outlouders, it’s Parenting Out Loud to kick off your weekend right.
Monz, Amelia and Stacey are here to unpack the week — through the wild, wonderful lens of parenthood.
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On the show this week:
-
KPop Demon Hunters is smashing records. Kids love it, parents ADORE it so, what’s behind all the hype?
-
Tracking apps: a non-negotiable today, or are we just spying on the ones we love?
-
The evidence that says having kids young is a good idea. We’re not completely sold, but we are talking about it.
-
And Anne Hathaway: the quiet queen of gentle parenting who put the paps in their place.
Settle in — it’s the group chat you won’t want to mute.
Plus, it’s our recommendations:
🎁 Stacey recommends a 'shit bits box' to save your sanity.
🛏️ Amelia has discovered the first kids' bedtime book that she’s actually enjoyed herself.
🧇 And Monz has got a heartwarming TV show for the family to enjoy.
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- Don't miss an episode of Parenting Out Loud
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- 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- The Death Of The Dining Table & 'Outdated' Schooling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
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on Hey, out louders, it's Saturday,
which means another episode of Parenting out Loud, your weekly
dose of culture savvy conversation parents actually want. Amelia Lester,
Stacy Hicks and I break down what parents are thinking
about from the zeitgeist, the news cycle, and trending momtop conversations.
(00:37):
It's smart shark takes with zero sugarcoating. This is episode three,
and it's the last time we're going to be gate
crashing this feed, so we bid you adieu. But before
we go, I've got something to ask. If you want
to support this show and keep it going, I mean,
we would love that. I've got a favor. It's going
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(00:58):
search your Parenting out Loud in your podcast feed, and
hit the plus button. Hit the follow button, because that's
where our new show home is going to be. It's
going to be in Parenting out Loud, So hit follow
and be part of our smart parent squad every week. Okay,
without further ado, here's episode three of a brand new
season of Parenting Out Loud. Welcome to Parenting out Loud.
(01:26):
This is the podcast for parents who don't always listen
to parenting podcasts. It's the culture, it's the trends, it's
a zeitgeist, it's Marbo, it's the vibe. I'm Monique Bolli,
I'm Amelia Lastra and I love that Castle shout out,
and I am Stacey Higgs. First up, Thank you for
all the years. On last week's show, so many of
you dming us people loving it sick and heaps of
(01:50):
non parents just here for it. So we love that.
And Ladies number two on the Apple Charts.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I love that. That seems huge. Are we stars now?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I think we are.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
We've made it fine Diary of a CEO, which feels
so validating because in twenty twenty five, parenting culture has
become like an intense startup, right.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yes, and both cultures lack sleep.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I feel that's true. Yeah, you're giving your all and
not getting a lot time.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, both cultures relentless. Coming up on today's show, K
Pop Demon Hunters, you might have heard it rippling through
the culture. We're going to talk about why it's so huge.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Men parent or tracking apps are booming, but do children
have a right to privacy? I really want to get
into this sauny debate with you, and a man has
made a case for why we should be having kids younger,
and he actually might convince.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
You it's a good idea. Maybe maybe we'll.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
See, But first, did you guys see Anne Hathaway gentle
parent the paparazzi? I feel like this. I saw this
video on Instagram a few times. It's been viewed over
sixty million times. She was on the set of The
Devil Wears prior to Too, which has had a lot
of paparazzi interest, Like there's things being leaked from set,
there's lots of images coming out. But on this particular day,
the paparazzi pack were bickering and she walked over. She
(03:05):
had this big smile and just completely diffuse the situation.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You're going to have to give a like a reenactment,
mons like, what was she doing? Calm zen Master.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
We can't play this on the show because Muma Mia
does not endorse paparazzi shots or videos. So I'm going
to explain to you instead, she walks over to the pack.
She has an open palm. She has a very calm
and present stance, and she says, you guys have got
to relax. There are children on set today. Does everybody
know there are children on set? So everyone's going to relax.
(03:37):
We're gonna have a very nice day because we have children.
It was very calm, very demure, very okay. Everyone's having
some feelings right now, but this is the boundary. And
it was so fantastic. I tried it on my own
kids as well today, like it worked. It worked on
my four year old. It also worked on the paparazzi.
(03:58):
They all sort of diffused and said, oh, yes, thank you, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
I feel like Anne Hathaway was born to gentle parents.
First of all, she has an amazing voice. Second of all,
I remember reading an interview with her when her kids
were a little younger, and she said that she had
stopped drinking because she found that she was more present
with them during the week, in particular when she sort
of just ruled out drinking. So every time I have
(04:23):
a glass of wine on a weeknight, I think of
Anne Hathaway and how she is present and I am
not okay and another mum doing it right this week
I need to talk about Queen Mary. So she's just
given us all the masterclass in how to react when
your kids do stupid shit. So our very own Tazzyborn,
Queen of Denmark. She was at this public engagement and
a reporter asked her what she thought of her daughter
(04:46):
Isabella's outfit when she attended. Have you seen this?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Remember this?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
The princess wore a T shirt that had something rude
on it.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Right, Yes, it was quite rude.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
So it loosely translates to f tim yesterday with an
arrow pointing to the right kind of light. Those shirts
from the nineties that said I'm with stupid and then
pointed to.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
The right of view.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I would be so worried wearing that T shirt that
like on the yeah or that someone inappropriate walks up
like your brother or your dad walks up next to you.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Very risky shirt.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
But for context, it's lyrics from the band that she
was watching at the festival. And so this reporter asked
what did you think of this? And Queen Mary gave
the most perfect response in Danish. So I have studied
this clip with forensic levels of investigation. The smile on
her face doesn't crack. It doesn't break even for a second.
(05:38):
She just does a slight raise of the eyebrows, very demure,
and just says, my first thought was, are you completely confused?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Ha ha ha.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
But let's just put it.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
This way, some decisions are better than others. She's a
great response, like, I feel like this was the perfect
way of saying I don't agree with it, but she
can do what she wants and I'm not going to
put her down in front of you.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I loved it.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
What do you think imagine being a royal and having
the ball to wear a T shirt that's got the
F word on it, Like, are you okay? Isabella? Like
do you put any weight behind birth order impact on personality?
So if you think about Isabella Princess Isabella Henriette to
Ingrid muggarethe she's the middle child, her older brother is
(06:26):
first in line to the throne, so he's going to
be king, and her younger siblings are twins, right, so
it's attention on him, attention on them. Is this just
like the middle child going attention to me?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
And she's Prince Harry in the birth order When you
think about it, like she's the second in line to
the throne. She's the Prince Harry equivalent of Denmark, so
I feel like she can be a bit more cheeky
with her behavior. And she is eighteen, she's an adult.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
She also has form in the area of breaking protocol.
So you might remember she had an official portrait where
she was wearing this orange gown and this teal sash,
she had the tiara, the turquoise earrings and she was
holding her phone.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
She was kind of the first royal to do so,
and it was apparently Mary our Mary's idea, like this
intentionally modern touch to like symbolize a modern princess and
kind of a nod to her generation. But what's interesting
is the Danes mostly love it. Like this TV presenter
Jim Linfield I saw this on Facebook. He said, I
love that our royal youngsters also have personality and courage
(07:33):
and they don't follow the neat, pleated flow. The time
of the ladies in the hat is over. Princess Isabella
is in. People are getting around it.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
They're such a modern, cool royal family. I feel like
they're rode bikes everywhere. It's so different to the British
royal family totally. And I think you can actually buy
this shirt online, so we can drop a link in
the show notes if anyone wants a T shirt that
says ftim yesterday, it's available.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Oh to be eighteen to not have the front to
low fully developed. I love it. It feels like the
whole world is talking about kay Pop d Hunters. It's
not a great name.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Is it.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Let's just get that out of the way. It feels
like a placeholder name. It feels like they were thinking
this is just the working title, and they were like,
you know what, let's just call it this. This is
just what it is.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I kept seeing it on Netflix. I think it came
out in June, and I kept seeing it pushed on me.
I was like, this sounds ridiculous. I'm not going to
watch it. But then one day my children had been
possessed by K pop Demon Hunters. They chose to watch
it by themselves, and now it's all we listen to.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah. So this little animated movie has completely captured the
attention of kids the world over and adults too. It's
now Netflix's most watched movie ever wow, two hundred and
thirty six million views, and the soundtracks made history too.
It's the first movie soundtrack to have four simultaneous top
ten hits on the Billboard Top one hundred and Golden
(08:59):
has hit number one. So if you're thinking I have
seen this, I haven't clicks on it. It looks horrid
on Netflix. It's a terrible placeholder name. But should I
be worried if my kids are obsessed with this? The
answer is, don't worry. This is excellent, and I want
to talk about why. Top line. It follows a fictional
K pop girl group now k pop stands for Korean pop,
(09:22):
and they're also Demon Hunters. It's written and directed by
Maggie Kang. It's about these three girls where demons lurk everywhere,
but their music protects the world from the demons of
Korean folklore. So in a sentence, it's basically girl pop
group save the world. This movie goes so hard and
(09:43):
it is so good. Like in the first eight minutes
I thought, what is this? I cannot look away and
it's not what I thought it would be at all,
and I'm obsessed with it. Have you guys seen.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
It so good?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I hadn't, and you two convinced me to watch this,
and now the songs are on repeat.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
In my head, like I can't get it out. It's
the catchiest ear. Whem.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I'm happy it's there. It's not even annoying me that
these songs are in my head. It's absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, it's fun, it's funny, it's really tightly written, it's
beautiful to watch. The music is just all bangers. But
beyond that, I want to talk about the messages in it,
because I think it's really solid, and I think Disney
would be looking at this and thinking, shit, our brain
is over. They would be sitting around the bardroom head
(10:28):
in hands I reckon. So firstly, it's very girl power,
So the girls are at the center of this. Instead
of being passive and pretty pop idols, they're warriors and
it's their voices that are the weapons. So that's doing
two interesting things. Firstly, it centers art and music as
the thing that will save us, like music's going to
(10:50):
save us, which I think is a really good message
right now for the world. And secondly, it's flipping the
script on female pop stars, like this thing that's often
commodified their voices actually is what gives this group power.
It's really heavily about friendship. So these three girls are
all each other's anchors, there's no male savior rushing in,
(11:12):
and it's got all these amazing girlhood coded moments like goofy, messy,
really silly energy and Maggie Kang, the director, said in
Glamour that she grew up watching Disney princesses and thought
that's not me. I'm goofy and I'm awkward and I'm
gross sometimes, and she wanted to put that version of
girlhood on screen. Did you guys notice that.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, that's a big thing that stuck out to me, Like,
I know, you kind of sold this to me as
this is a great show to watch with your kids.
But my overriding thought when I was watching it is
this isn't for the kids. This is for the women
who love girl groups and want to relive that fandom
and girlhood, and it just happens to be done in
a format that your kids will up weird. Did you
(11:56):
think it was inappropriate for kids or more just that
kids wouldn't get as much out of it. I just
feel like kids wouldn't get as much out of it.
I mean, the demons, depending on your kids age, probably
might freak them out a little bit. But I think like,
you know, it's no scarier than in Lion King him
falling off the rock or the Scary step Mother Entangled. Like,
there's always dark themes in kids shows, so I could
(12:18):
definitely overlook that. I definitely though, felt like it was
more for us. I felt like it was very much
a movie for us. Here's what I loved about it.
When I was growing up, I was not even aware
of South Korea. I consumed almost exclusively American content, with
a little bit of British and a tiny bit of
Australian content sprinkled in. I just think it's so brilliant
(12:42):
that the first big cultural touchstone for Generation Alpha is
a non Western creation, which is this movie. And there's
Korean language in the songs, as I discovered because my
kids wanted to write out the lyrics to them, and
then we realized there's a bunch of Korean lyrics in them.
There are Korean locations, there's nods to Korean myths. Of course,
(13:03):
the very plot is sort of premised on the idea
of Korean demons and folklore. It's part of this wave
of Korean culture which is not as how you, which
has sort of taken over the world. In recent years,
but I love that this is the first big moment
for this generation and it's not Western. I found it
really interesting to learn that even though the characters speak English,
(13:25):
their mouth movements actually match or reflect Korean pronunciation. So
little details like that the producer and the filmmakers really
wanted to get across an authentic picture of Korean culture
today and the ultimate message of reclaiming your identity and
being true to yourself. It feels almost subversive right now
in a political environment both in Australia and the US
(13:48):
and in other Western countries where that whole idea of immigration, pluralism,
multiculturalism is under attack from some sectors. And Mum and
mea is entertainment writer Chelsea Hoy. She loved this movie.
She was a very early adopter of this movie and
he's a big fan of the k pop craze and
said that it does feel very true to that genre,
(14:09):
bringing in this whole other group of people now that
get to enjoy that. And she wrote for the site,
we can link the story in our show notes, but
bringing it back to what you said about female friendship Monds,
she said that that was what felt like the best
part of this film was that it perfectly captures friendship
in all its chaotic glory.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
She said, the.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Silliness, the unhinged chaos. It's so girlhood coded. This is
exactly how close friends should interact. It's messy, supportive, ridiculous,
and fiercely loyal all at the same time. Each girl
has her own struggles, dreams, growth, arc and the film
takes time to develop them all properly, and that the
banter feels natural and lived in, so their conflicts feel real,
(14:48):
but their bond feels very unbreakable. And I think that's
an excellent message for our girls to be growing up
with well and our boys. I love the fact that
for boys and girls, this is a vital window when
they are young to kind of shape their perceptions of
the world and what relationships are. And I've noticed that
when boys watch that movie too, it's not centering a
heterosexual it's centering friendship. And that's just as powerful a
(15:12):
message for boys to receive as for girls. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Absolutely, it's very emotionally intelligent. Like I was comparing it
to what we grew up with when we were kids,
and it's sort of we had the Goonies, the Sandlot kids,
Lion King, I guess was really big beating the Beast,
which is super problematic.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
A lad and super problematic, a lot of like mediation
of other cultures.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
And all centered on men. Here's the small problem with
it is that the men actually don't come off very
well in this movie. So Mark Lee wrote in Northwest
Asian Weekly that once again Asian men get thrown under
the bus, and he was arguing that at first glance,
this looks like a win for Asian representation, Like the
(15:58):
women are very stylish and confident and heroic, but the
men in this film are either villains or they're passive
like the Sarja boys. They don't speak, none of them
really a speaking role, so they're completely silenced, or they're
just playing useless like their manager that the girls have.
The other main male character is basically like a buffoon.
(16:20):
So it does leave the guys with almost nothing. But
I was thinking about childhood movies we had it. I
was arguing with my sister about this. She was saying,
don't worry about the man like, they've had their time
in the sun. If you think about the childhood movies
we had, it was Goonies, all boys, Sandlot kids, all boys,
lion king, a big boy dies and a little boy
takes over, you know, and a weird evil boy uncle
(16:43):
Beauty and the beast like the smart girl marries her
captor to save her dad. So it's nice to see
this tide turning in kids pop culture towards more female centric,
smart movies.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I can see that critique though, because in cell culture
is really a big thing in Korea too, and this
idea of young men feeling left behind as young women
are empowered and hitting educational goals and career goals in
a way that they're kind of lapping men is just
as big an issue there as it is in Western cultures.
(17:17):
So I think that's an important perspective to bring in.
I guess the other thing that I think kids are
really connecting with here, which we haven't yet touched on,
is the way that it blurs the lines between the
digital and virtual world and real world in a way
that feels so on point and so relevant for Generation Alpha.
They are more than digital natives. Their world is shaped
(17:40):
by the Internet and by online culture, and this movie
just blurs those boundaries in such a sort of neat
and clever way. Think about the way on the end credits,
this isn't a spoiler. You see the women who are
actually doing the singing in the studio recording the songs,
so you get reminded that this is the real world.
There is also the virtual world that you've been watching
(18:00):
in the movie, and the two of them, it's really
hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
One interesting cultural reason for that is that South Korea
got internet in a widespread way a lot earlier than
the rest of the world. They found out that broadband
was delivered their back in twenty ten to basically all houses,
and so I think that's part of the reason why
they're able to sort of tap into a digital native
(18:21):
culture in such a convincing way. For young kids, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
It's quite TikTok coded as well, so in the way
that Stacy said before that this is a movie for
really for adults. It does that beautiful thing where it
toes the line between youth culture and adult themes. So
in the first few minutes we meet the girls, they're
on their private jet and they're having this big feast
of food, and that feels TikTok coded to me, because
(18:45):
there is this subculture on TikTok of I think it's
called muckbang, where people buy Korean food and then film
themselves eating it, And so I think there's all these
like digital moments throughout the show that kids would connect
with in a way that people who don't live their
lives on TikTok probably wouldn't. But the other thing that
really stood out to me was how inclusive this show was.
(19:08):
So the fans of this girl group, they're not just silly,
screaming teenage girls. It's everyone. You see all ages, all
body types, all genders. You see blokey men crying, you
see elderly women with their little fan clubs. Zoe, one
of the characters, talks about the colors in her head
and taking off her mask, which some people have said
(19:31):
is coded as she's neurodivergent, and a lot of fans
have read roomy. The main character is queer. Even the
rival boy band has pink hair and sort of effem
that looking soft men. So the whole world of it
is very fluid and very inclusive.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
That's a great point, and it makes me reflect on
the fact that you know, there are all sorts of
downsides to not having a monoculture anymore, like the fact
that everyone's listening to their own music, everyone's watching their
own TikTok algorithm. But every now and then something hits
that the whole world enjoys, and that brings us back
to the monoculture that we used to have. And I've
(20:07):
found that I'm reconnecting with friends who I've sort of
fallen out of touch with because our kids are sharing
videos of themselves dancing to Golden and it's just so
nice for the whole world at this kind of moment
to be able to enjoy the same thing at the
same time. Yeah. Yeah, my only criticism when Monzie mentioned
about the inclusiveness, I think that was great from the
(20:28):
fan perspective. But my only thing that bugged me was
that the three main girl band members are all incredibly
thin and attractive, and when they're showing other body types
in the movie, but they're not showing them on them
that was the only thing where I went, Oh, when
they're talking about consuming ten thousand calories before they go
on stage, I wish that that hadn't been part of it,
(20:49):
because you kind of don't want that to be the focus.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah, Like, I can't argue with that. I think that's
a really valid point though. I was listening to a
podcast with Jayha Kim. She studies K pop, and she
was talking about how K pop is this extremely manufactured
and controlled machine, and how women in K pop have
to diet like they're really controlled. They have to look
(21:13):
a certain way. So I guess in some sense it's
true to the K pop culture. But yeah, I do agree, skinny,
hot girls save.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
In the world. And it's even at the point, as
you say about the dancers from the show. Novak Djokovic
even when you want to match. Last week did a
little dance from one of the songs, and I said,
most lovable thing he's ever.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Done in it.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
I know, that's what I thought. I was like, do
I like him now?
Speaker 1 (21:38):
He did one of the dancers in tribute to his daughter.
He said, she's been teaching me how to do these
dances from K pop Demon Hunters. So it's at that level,
like it's just permeated the culture in such a massive way,
which is great to see.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Everyone can enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
The demons are funny. They're not scary. If you're thinking, arna, oh,
my kid's watching demons, they're quite funny. They poke, fun
at themselves like it's a ten out of ten for me.
I loved it.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
There are a lot of questions that parents these days
are having to ask themselves and answer that previous generations
of parents did not have to deal with. One of
those questions, a really, really tricky one to answer, is
whether or not to use a tracking app on your kids. Now,
Mon's and Stacy, You're probably not yet at the stage
(22:22):
where you're thinking about that. I am sort of approaching
that stage, and to be honest, I just don't know
what I'm going to do. But lots and lots of
parents have asked this question and decided yes, they do
want to know where their children are, and there are
lots of reasons why they do that. For instance, experts
say that for parents of children with autism, a tracking
(22:44):
app can be really helpful, particularly when wandering off is common.
There are lots of reasons why they do it, But
we don't yet really understand what the effects of using
these tracking apps will be on the children who are
constantly surveyed by them. So we have some clues that
are emerging. I should say they've become really ubiquitous. One
(23:06):
of the most popular apps Life three sixty is now
on fourteen percent of all phones in the US.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
What really, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
It's crazy right, And in Australia, one in five parents
attracting their children, whether it's through an air tag or
LIE three sixty or another app. We've got some stats
coming out about what it's doing to kids to feel
constantly surveyed. A recent survey that Australia's e Safety Commissioner
did looked at the effects on young people's attitudes to
(23:34):
relationships and specifically intimate relationships, and they discovered that a
full twenty percent of eighteen to twenty four year olds
think that it's reasonable to track the location of their
intimate partners. That's higher than any other age group. And
remember this is the age group that came of age
being trapped by their parents. It's alarming. I think I'm
(23:54):
going to put my cards on the table here. I
haven't decided yet what to do about the tracking apps.
There are unforeseen consequences of children going up knowing that
their parents know exactly where they are at all times.
And it's a real gray area and it raises lots
of uncomfortable questions. Do children are they entitled to privacy?
(24:14):
Do we need to get their consent to use these apps.
What does it mean to link surveillance and love in
this way? Is this just the price of safety these days?
You know? As I was thinking about this, I came
across a great quote from Tina Fay about photoshop. She said,
and I want to get it right because she's so clever.
It is an appalling and tragic reflection on the moral
decay of our society, unless I need it, in which case,
(24:37):
everybody be cool. I suspect that's where I'm going to
land on the whole tracking apps thing, but I also
wanted to intellectualize it and overthink it first. So Stacy,
what do you think. Do you think you'll use a
tracking app?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Of course I bloody will. Like I didn't even think
this was a question. Everybody's doing that now. I have
friends who track their kids, track their husbands, track their
son's girlfriend like. It's all very normal now. And our
kids are growing up in that generation where they're tracking
their friends even on Snapchat. They're used to sharing that,
they're not used to the level of privacy that we had.
So I very much feel that this is going to
(25:11):
be the norm going forward. I must admit it's something
that I think, well, yeah, that probably would make me
feel better knowing where she is. But I kind of
wanted to interrogate, like what's our fear, Like, what's our
fear around not knowing their every move? And I guess
the one that's at the top of the list I
think you'd probably both agree is that they'll get taken,
Like that's the thing you're worried about, is that they'll
(25:33):
get taken or they're a missing person and you don't
know where they are. And so I looked into that
and the stats of that, and it's so minuscule compared
to our population. Like Dennis Moriarty wrote this piece where
he quoted the National Missing Person's Coordination Center, and they
track the number of missing child cases throughout the decades.
So when we're looking back at the seventies, it was eighteen,
(25:55):
in the eighties, it was eleven children, nineties fifteen, and
then it drops way down four in the two thousands
and five in the twenty ten. Do they know why
there's been such a drop? I mean, those are small
numbers to begin with, small numbers when you consider like
the growth of people that we've had in the country
as well, not to say that we ever want that
to be happening to any child. But the world is
(26:16):
by and large a safer place now than it was then.
But I wonder whether it's a chicken and egg. It's
a bit safer now because we have the technology to
be able to know where everyone is.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
What do you think mons.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Safety doesn't sell product, Stacy, Yeah, you said the magic
word just before fear. And these companies they don't care
about your kids. They care about their shareholders. Life three
sixty is a tech company and they have built a
(26:51):
product on anxious millennial parents, on catastrophizing situations, and marketing
with fear. Have you seen the ad for this product?
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Cop this?
Speaker 4 (27:03):
You are my whole wide world, my heart, my joy,
my baby girl. You'll never know how much I love you.
When you're gone. I just think of you dying.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Mom.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
What every time you leave my safe when.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
You drive a schools, stay out of night?
Speaker 4 (27:22):
This is where I go.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Out of the million ways in i've my brain and
what you could.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Die at any given time. That's to range.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
That does make me very anxious.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
When you go to marketing school, you know what they say.
They say like marketing one oh. One. Fear based marketing
works because it hits the oldest part of our brain,
like the survival instinct. And for parents, the stakes are
really high because you're talking about your children. So I
just think we need to take a zoom back and go,
(27:55):
are they just exploiting a fear that we have that
doesn't exist, stacy, because as you say, the data shows
that we actually are living quite in safe times, particularly
in Australia. Yeah, notwithstanding your point about autism and about
some parents really needing this for certain reasons. But what
I think is really interesting is what the experts are
(28:17):
saying about this. I've been reading The Anxious Generation by
Jonathan hit He wrote this best selling book. Lots of
people are talking about it, and he calls this phenomenon
safety ism, and he says the research around this is
really consistent, like hovering, tracking doesn't reduce anxiety. It actually
makes kids and parents more anxious, and you see it
(28:40):
in the data everywhere. So Deacon University found that Australian
parents are the most risk averse in the world. Four
out of five won't let their kids do risky things.
There was this University of Michigan study that found that
half of parents won't even let their tween walk to
a friend's house or go to another aisle in the supermarket,
like parents will not let their kids go to Aisle
(29:02):
three to collect a can of beans. And what this
is doing is making kids depressed and anxious more than
ever and parents too. And so the experts are saying
the solution to this anxious generation is not tracking them
or texting them. You have to let them go into
the big wide world. And when we stop children taking
(29:22):
any risks, we actually block them with this safetyism. We
block them from overcoming anxiety, managing risk, learning to be
self governing like, all of which are essential skills to
becoming an adult.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
The other thing that Hit says is that we have
set up a division between the real world and the
online world that says that the real world is more
dangerous than the online world, and kids get a lesson
from this. He says that they can retreat into their
phones where they're not monitored and where they can roam freely,
and that world is actually more dangerous than the real
(29:56):
world that we're monitoring them in. So I know, it
starts to feel overwhelming them because when you say, thinking
about the supermarket aisle. I don't know if I have
necessarily consciously let my kids go into a different isle
in the supermarket. And one way to get a that
is that Jonathan hit has this organization called let Grow
that I know you've come across Tumbons and that website.
(30:16):
The let Grow website has a ton of useful information
and practical tips on how you can start letting go
of your kids and let them into the world. And
they even have this little card you can print out
there that your child can carry that says I am
not a neglected child. I am a child whose parents
want me to be able to walk around in the world.
(30:38):
Here is their number if you have any questions. And
I think that's a brilliant idea.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
That's so interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Maybe it is a case of that we're worrying about
the wrong thing, Like it's like when people are worried
about getting on a plane and the plane crashing, but
then they'll jump in their car every day after a
couple of glasses of wine and not think.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Twice about it.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Like really, we're thinking that the danger is when they're
out and about without us, But a lot of the
danger is the phone, Like we're seeing time and time
again study showing that phones are the damaging thing to
their mental health and they're overall well being, like to
their resilience. And yet we're saying, here, have the phone,
never leave it alone. You must take this with you
so that I don't lose you. It's kind of like
(31:14):
misdirected fear. I think I saw.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
An article that said that in twenty twenty three, stalking
victims filed a class action lawsuit against this company Life
three sixty and against tile and against Amazon for essentially
promoting stalking, specifically multiple privacy law violations. And there was
this article in the Washington Post as well that said
(31:38):
that parents are using this location sharing feature to track
their teenage and adult children in ways that resemble emotional abuse.
So you talked about that before, Amelia, like, is it
a thin end of the wedge? Are we teaching our
kids that surveillance is normal and surveillance is love? And
what does that say?
Speaker 1 (31:56):
And I think we're teaching each other that too. The
New South Wales Crime Commission has actually highlighted the use
of these apps in both domestic violence and organized crime settings.
In a lot of intimate partner violence situations, these apps
are used to control, and I wonder if we're just
becoming used to having people on demand and having information
(32:16):
about people on demand in a way that isn't just
done reasonable for kids, but it's also bleeding into our
other relationships. And it's like the app doesn't guarantee the safety.
It's telling you where they are, but it's not telling
you the circumstances of that location and how safe they'd
be when they're there, Like you might be seeing them
at their friend's house, there could be a party going on,
all sorts of strangers there, So it's not like a
(32:38):
fail safe. It doesn't account for everything that could go wrong.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
So true stacy. Also, kids are savvy. They're going to
find a work around for this anyway. They're going to
put their phone under their pillow at home and then
have a burn a phone that they're using at a party.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
I found this awesome article Juliet Weisfogel wrote for She Knows,
a Teens Guide to Temporarily Regaining Freedom, where she's written
all about the hacks that she used when her mum
put the tracking apps on her phone when she was
a fourteen year old and got caught sneaking out the
wadow on the ways that she got around it, So
there were different things she did, like turning off the
(33:14):
Bluetooth at home and the Wi Fi so that the
app would know that that was her last location, and
then seeking out the window to a party.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
But I thought the best.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
One that she gave his advice, which is so funny,
really crazy idea to get around it. She suggested leave
your phone at home and go to the party. But
I thought the best part was that she said they
still took their laptops because they needed a way to
communicate and to uber home afterwards. So they've got a
bit of technology on them anyway, they can't escape it.
And that said, I'm getting a bit of deja vu here,
(33:45):
which is before I had kids, I said I'd never
let them watch TV. I reserve the right to use
tracking apps the minute I feel.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
I need to.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, some sad news cross my feed this week. Every
reject shop in Australia is about to disappear for good. No.
I love the reject shop and I also love the
top comment on this news from a Reddit post about
the reject shop. No longer will I be able to
tell my sister. That's where my mum and dad bought her.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
That was a classic. I pulled that one a couple
of times too.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Look, it's probably a deep psychological problem I have, but
the reject Shop really brings out my latent hoarding instincts.
I go in there with my little basket, and because
everything is so aggressively and reasonably priced, I just want
it all. And it makes me feel like I can
be a different kind of parent. This is the kind
of parent who has a craft draw as opposed to
(34:40):
just piles of nonsense. The kind who sharpens her kids
pencils every evening while thinking about the masterpieces that they're
going to create the next day that she's not going
to throw out when no one's looking back, instake curate
in a perfect scrap book that she also got at
the reject shop, And the kind of parent who creates
seasonal tablescapes. I really want to be one of those
(35:00):
parents who celebrates the coming of spring with some pastels.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, I get that feeling in Ikia. This is too okay,
that's yours reject, that's my reject.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Look, that's why I really want to pour out a
bottle of aggressively centered off brand bubble Bath for the
reject shot. You know exactly what you're talking.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I can smell the smell as you said.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
It's blue, right, it's blue blue.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
And you're like, is this going to make my children's
skin break out in a rash? Maybe, but they're gonna
have fun doing it and it's going to be a
form thing. Reject Shop. Thank you for the good times.
Remember when Tony Abbott I'm wittingly posed in front of
its signage on a campaign stop in Canberra before the election,
he last n't that wonderful? Thank you for making school
(35:49):
holidays bearable. Thank you for the competitively priced water colors.
Thank you for the Okay. I've just been told by
their producers that in fact, it's just being renamed, and
they're telling me that it's going to be okay. It's
going to be called something called Dolorama, which is apparently
a Canadian chain that just doesn't have the same ring.
(36:13):
And I am going to suspend judgment on this and
wait to go and see it. But in the meantime,
thank you for the good times. Thank you for the
hairspray I have that has the name It's giving glam.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
They sell impulse body spray there, guys, stop it now.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I read a substack this week called once again I
wish I had kids younger that I have been busting
to talk to you too about because I know you'll
have a lot of feelings. Jim Dalrymple, who was thirty
six when he had his first child, said he started
thinking about the pros and cons of having kids younger
when the CEO of an AI company, Brad Weiss, tweeted
having kids before thirty is how you stay generationally poor,
(36:56):
and it caused quite the debate.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
So why's later?
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Clara Frid that what he meant is that having kids
young eats up your cash flow and your time, which
makes having kids sound like dodgy investment properties, and fair
kind of does. But Hrymple argues that the opposite might
be true when you consider what you could gain laiter
down the track by having kids early. So he says
in his piece, if I become a grandparent at sixty
(37:19):
two rather than seventy two, I might be able to
provide ten years of full time care for my grandkids.
This could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to
my descendants. That's not generational poverty, it's generational wealth. Suddenly
having kids young is a financial advantage, And his whole
point is by having kids sooner, we can give ourselves
a more active, involved village, which is something a lot
(37:42):
of us millennials say that we don't really have, is
an involved village. He makes the point that millennials complain
that they don't have a village, but then go out
and make choices that will actively ensure our children also
don't have a village.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
This is very.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Simplistic, like he acknowledges that not everyone is going to
have a village just by compressing the time span between generations.
Some people won't have a village, whether they have a
baby at twenty two or they have one at forty two.
But the point is that we could rethink the way
families are helping each other. So Mon's do you wish
you got cracking sooner? Now that you heard this.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Argument, Jim, Jim, Jim, I see your argument. I accept
your argument. What I don't accept is the thing that
he's missed entirely, which is the reason so many of
us don't have babies until like our thirties and older.
It's not just because we're making a choice about that.
(38:36):
There are all these systemic reasons, like there are huge
socio economic and social drivers that are related to this,
and here's my receipts. In Australia, the average age of
first time mums is twenty nine point nine years, so
almost thirty. In the nineteen seventies, which is where Jim
wants to live, it was twenty three. Demographers and social
(39:01):
researchers have looked at this, They're like, why are people
having babies older? Here's why women are spending more years
in hierogic, They're establishing careers. There are enormous economic pressures
on us right now. There's insecure work, there's better contraception,
which means more control over timing. Meeting someone is a
(39:21):
shit show. People are marrying their partners much later. So
the average age at marriage in Australia is now thirty
two for women thirty four for men. That's ten years
later than in the nineteen seventy so that pushes berths
further out. Also, FYI, it takes ten years now to
say for a house deposits. So I just think, yeah,
cool story, Jim. I see that, But the data doesn't
(39:44):
quite match up, and I think that that's the piece
that was missing for me here is it's not a
personal choice to have kids later. There's all these other
things happening around us. This is not just in Australia.
This is globally. If you zoom out, this is happening
across the EU, It's happening in Italy, Greece and Ireland,
it's happening in Asia. Maternal age is rising everywhere. There
(40:07):
are very few places that are sucking the trend here.
It's sort of rural India and some parts of northern Europe,
but mostly the average age of parents is rising because
we are being structurally funneled into it from all the
precious Jim.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
I didn't like the article either at first. I did
at first. I read it and look, it's like everything
you disagree with politically often there's a kernel of truth
in it. And that's why on first read I was
kind of seduced by his thesis. Yes, thought, it's true.
You know when you have children older, your parents are older,
they are less into changing nappies because they are enjoying
(40:48):
their retirement, and you're older, so it's harder to wake
up in the morning. None of this can be disputed.
Getting older in general is not great and your energy
levels do drop. But then I started to think about
what Jim was saying, and I realized that he was
missing an elephant in the room, and that elephant is women.
(41:10):
He says, no, it's fine to have children young, because
it turns out that men who have children young actually
make more money than men who have children later. And
then I thought to myself, Yeah, but women who have
children younger make less money than women who have children later.
And you know why that is. It's because the motherhood
(41:33):
penalty is real. The Australian Breer Statistics shows that women
reduce their paid work hours by about thirty five percent
across the first five years after the arrival of children.
Australia has one of the highest rates of part time
work by women in the OECD. In some ways, that's great.
It means we get a lot more flexibility when our
children are young to give them the time that we
(41:55):
want to give them. In other ways, it means we're
missing out on income for retirement and for financial security
and stability because we're looking after children and we're taking
ourselves out of full time work. So the motherhood penalty
for women is real, and it's even more real when
you have kids younger. The other problem with it is
that when we talk about the village, let's be real,
(42:17):
we're talking about grandmothers, right.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
That is so true.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
That's what the village is. The village is just a
series of grandmothers making crowchheped blankets and doing the stuff.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Yeah, it's the unpaid labor that women get loved with. Again,
good point, Amelia.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
And the thing about grandmothers is they're not paid for
what they do. The village is unpaid labor and that's wonderful.
Grandmothers want to do it. They love their grandkids. But
we can't get away from the fact that we're basically
saying that we want more unpaid labor by women. And
one way Australians are actually pushing to strengthen that village
(42:53):
is they're pushing to include grandparents in the government childcare subsidy.
Parents around the nation are actually putting together a petition
for the Prime Minister to say why shouldn't grandparents get
the same kinds of financial reimbursement as other types of
care And I think that's a really solid step forward
rather than saying that women should take themselves out of
(43:13):
the workplace earlier to have children. Yeah, and it's also
in an ideal world that would be lovely if you
had your children earlier, your parents are around to help you.
But you can't bet on the fact that once you
get there, your parents will be around to help you.
Like that's assuming that nothing will go wrong for them
physically or health wise.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
And assuming they're alive. Exactly, they have a relationship with
you as well, that's it.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
That's not guaranteed that they're even going to be there.
And as you say, they're not paid workers. They can
change their mind at any time and say I'm not
helping you with this. Your kids are brat, you're on
your own, so you're not guaranteeing yourself a village. Obviously,
in an ideal world that would be lovely, But why
would I risk it and risk my earning capacity to
have a child earlier?
Speaker 3 (43:55):
On what if?
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Sorry Jim, Sorry. I love that more men are writing
about parenting. And yes, I think Jim's got a terrific
newsletter which I have subscribed to because I do want
to hear more perspectives from men. And it's really refreshing
to have a man talk frankly about his regrets in fatherhood,
but turns out he really is pushing an gender. He
also writes for a conservative think tank in the US
(44:18):
that's dedicated to strengthening marriage hint, heterosexual marriage and families.
And I think blessed Jim, Like, even if we subscribe
to this idea that we should be having them younger,
I think we can all probably admit whether we it's
not a great trait. But when you hear of someone
who's had a baby at twenty two, twenty three, your
first question is, one, was that on purpose? Did they
(44:40):
mean to do that?
Speaker 3 (44:41):
And two?
Speaker 1 (44:43):
How are they going to do this now? Who's going
to help them look after that baby? How are they
going to move ahead in their career? Like I get
secondhand stress for women that have them younger because I
think about how hard it would be to parent at
that age. It will help out. Yeah, God, Stacy, what.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
They've got all the energy in the world. That's the
best age to be a parent. That's what you say.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
That's true, But it is a young person's game. And
that is the thing.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Like, really, when you look at all of the studies
around when is actually best for us to conceive and
when would quate to the lowest risk pregnancy. It is
in our mid twenties to late twenties, Like that is
when we should be having them, but we're just too
busy getting our shit in order to do.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
It all right. To wrap up today's show, we're going
to share the things that we're loving, sick things that
we might text to our friends or put in a
mum's group chat. Amelia.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
So, I have discovered a book series that I want
to read just as much, if not more than my children.
And it's called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. This is
a series that inspires absolute devotion and adoration and people.
And I guess I've been living under a rock because
I only recently discovered it. The book started coming out
in two thousand and five that by an author called
(45:49):
Rick Reordan. I pick one up at the bookshop and
I took it to the counter and the young woman
behind the counter literally gasped and said, this is the
book that got me into reading. And now she works
at a bookshop, so she's very into reading. And I
took it home and started reading it to my children.
And look, they think it's fine. I'm obsessed, Like, can
(46:10):
we start doing bedtime reading at six point thirty when
bedtime is eight, just so we can read more of
the books. There are fantasy series. They're about a twelve
year old kid who travels across America to recover Zusa's
lightning Bolt. They're based on Greek mythology. They're so exciting,
they're so gripping, and they're a page turner for kids
and adults alike.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
That's great. I love that. Did you start with a
particular one? Is it a series that you have to
start at zero? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Start at zero. The first book's called The Lightning Thief.
But there's so many in the series. So the good
news is you have a lot of great reading ahead
of you.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
I've been reading Rolldal to my kids, whoa role like whoa?
The world has changed. I was reading The Magic Finger
to the middle of Night. Do you remember this one?
The kids have guns in it.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Is The Gunner Magic Fingers.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
Yeah. Wow, it's just like wow, another time Rodal did
not give a shit about like being careful around language
or he's just yeah, it's really cool to read, Stacy, Stacy,
what are you recommending?
Speaker 1 (47:14):
So despite us something doing this show for a few weeks,
I felt like I had run out of recommendations yesterday,
and I of course made that my husband's problem.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
I was like, do a lap of.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
The house, look around at our daughter's stuff and see
if there's anything that I should be recommending. And as
I've got him on that wild goose chase, I found
the thing that I wanted to recommend. So it only
cost me twelve dollars and I bought it five years
ago and I still use it every single day and
they still have them.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
I've checked.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
It's a nappy caddy from Kmart, so I'm well out
of the nappy stage. But they're just a cute little box,
chic looking little box with a handle on the top,
and I use it now as like the shit bits box.
So you know when you find like a piece of
a toy and you have no idea where the rest
of that toy is and you put it in that
pile next to your fruit bowl, like where Haemish and
(48:04):
Andy talk about this in my podcast. Why do you
know about my house? Because we all have I clouses
and you just end up with all this crap that
you don't know where it's meant to go and all
my daughter's like hair stuff. You know, you're the curl
cream and the tangling brush and all those bits. I
use that nappy caddy still for all of those bits.
(48:25):
And now I've got a second one to stop the
fruit bowl pile from piling up. So just pulled all
the little bits in there and figure it out later.
That's later mess problem.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Are you literally recommending a bin like a bin?
Speaker 1 (48:36):
No?
Speaker 3 (48:37):
There are things that you can't throw out, yes.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Because you know that the kid's going to be like,
where is the one small bit of a toy that
I desperately need? Yes, exactly you need them at some
point maybe, but you can't throw them out.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
So that's where this stuff goes.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Doesn't it stink though from all the nappy odor that
seeped into the plastic.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
No, I don't know about your nappy. No, I'm not
taling about a nappy bin, mons. I'm talking about a
little square box with a little handle on top of
the dirty nappies.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Never went anywhere near.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
It is the one that you keep like the wife's
the clean nappies, gotcha the moisturizer?
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Okay, all right?
Speaker 3 (49:17):
Oh my god, No, that bin is long gone.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
That bin has gone to the tip that was foul,
never to be returned to my house.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
My god, I thought you were just throwing everything in
the stinking like yeah, here for that.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Anyway, they're like ten to twenty bucks at kmar and
we'll put a link to one.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Of lid on it Stacey, so you can cover the
ship bits.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
No, the bits are free and loose, but it's fine.
Got confused shit bits. You're imatching little bits of shit
in there. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
That's on memons.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
That's what's your reco I've got this this hidden Netflix
gem that I can't stop watching right now, neither can
my kids. It's not K Pop Demon Hunters. It's Toddler's
Running Errands. It's a show called Old Enough. It's a
Japanese show where they send two three and four year
(50:07):
olds off into the world to errands completely on their own,
and then they film them with hidden cameras.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Have they got tracking apps?
Speaker 2 (50:14):
I must know there are no tracking apps. Literally. I
watched one last night where a woman said to her
three year old, take my pants to the store and
get them mended, and I cannot stop watching it. It's
equal parts adorable and terrifying, like you will laugh, you
will gasp, you'll cheer for these toddlers, like these preschoolers.
(50:36):
And my kids love it too, even though they can't
quite understand it because it's in Japanese, so there's subtitles,
but they can't completely read them all. It's going to
make you want to send your kids out for errands
too without a tracker, which is, you know, sometimes a
good thing.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
How successful are they fulfilling the errands? Did she get
the pants hammed?
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Yes? They do the most amazing things, some of these kids,
and they show you during the show. They say they
have to walk three hundred meters, they need to cross
two roads, so they set it up and yes, these
kids are so capable at such a young age. It's
amazing to watch. And now since we've watched it, my
kids keep saying, Mum, send me on an errand I
want to go to the shops by myself.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
So this is definitely watching this great wreck.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
You know what, We'll put a link to all of
our reps in the show notes in case your brain
is a sieve. That is all we have time for
this week on Parenting Out Loud. Now, last week I
told you something I was not supposed to tell you all.
I said, hey, we're in the Mamamea out Loud feed
for just a few weeks. So if you like this show,
come and follow it, because if you don't, it might
(51:41):
not survive. That's actually a reality. I've got a fun
fact for you both. There are ten times the amount
of people listening to this in the Mama Mea out
Loud feed compared to the Parenting out Loud feed. One
in ten people went and followed and the rest were
like nah nah. So I want to say huge thank
you to the people who did. You are elite, You're
(52:01):
in the one percent. You are the early adopters. Thank you,
and for the rest of you, if you do like
this show, come on over to the Parenting out Loud
feed and if not, you know what will be out
of your hair in a couple of weeks. The best
way to help us is to just do that. So
search for Parenting out Loud in your podcast app, find
the show it's a purple logo, and hit follow and
(52:22):
then maybe, just maybe we will get to number one
ahead of Daria of a CEO. A huge thank you
to our team. The group ep is Ruth devine produces
Leah Porgius and Sashutanic and researcher Tessa Kodovich. Have a
great week. We'll talk to you next Saturday morning.
Speaker 3 (52:38):
See then bye,
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on Hey, out louders, it's Saturday,
which means another episode of Parenting out Loud, your weekly
dose of culture savvy conversation parents actually want. Amelia Lester,
Stacy Hicks and I break down what parents are thinking
about from the zeitgeist, the news cycle, and trending momtop conversations.
(00:37):
It's smart shark takes with zero sugarcoating. This is episode three,
and it's the last time we're going to be gate
crashing this feed, so we bid you adieu. But before
we go, I've got something to ask. If you want
to support this show and keep it going, I mean,
we would love that. I've got a favor. It's going
to take you about three seconds. Pick up your phone,
(00:58):
search your Parenting out Loud in your podcast feed, and
hit the plus button. Hit the follow button, because that's
where our new show home is going to be. It's
going to be in Parenting out Loud, So hit follow
and be part of our smart parent squad every week. Okay,
without further ado, here's episode three of a brand new
season of Parenting Out Loud. Welcome to Parenting out Loud.
(01:26):
This is the podcast for parents who don't always listen
to parenting podcasts. It's the culture, it's the trends, it's
a zeitgeist, it's Marbo, it's the vibe. I'm Monique Bolli,
I'm Amelia Lastra and I love that Castle shout out,
and I am Stacey Higgs. First up, Thank you for
all the years. On last week's show, so many of
you dming us people loving it sick and heaps of
(01:50):
non parents just here for it. So we love that.
And Ladies number two on the Apple Charts.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I love that. That seems huge. Are we stars now?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I think we are.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
We've made it fine Diary of a CEO, which feels
so validating because in twenty twenty five, parenting culture has
become like an intense startup, right.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yes, and both cultures lack sleep.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I feel that's true. Yeah, you're giving your all and
not getting a lot time.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, both cultures relentless. Coming up on today's show, K
Pop Demon Hunters, you might have heard it rippling through
the culture. We're going to talk about why it's so huge.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Men parent or tracking apps are booming, but do children
have a right to privacy? I really want to get
into this sauny debate with you, and a man has
made a case for why we should be having kids younger,
and he actually might convince.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
You it's a good idea. Maybe maybe we'll.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
See, But first, did you guys see Anne Hathaway gentle
parent the paparazzi? I feel like this. I saw this
video on Instagram a few times. It's been viewed over
sixty million times. She was on the set of The
Devil Wears prior to Too, which has had a lot
of paparazzi interest, Like there's things being leaked from set,
there's lots of images coming out. But on this particular day,
the paparazzi pack were bickering and she walked over. She
(03:05):
had this big smile and just completely diffuse the situation.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You're going to have to give a like a reenactment,
mons like, what was she doing? Calm zen Master.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
We can't play this on the show because Muma Mia
does not endorse paparazzi shots or videos. So I'm going
to explain to you instead, she walks over to the pack.
She has an open palm. She has a very calm
and present stance, and she says, you guys have got
to relax. There are children on set today. Does everybody
know there are children on set? So everyone's going to relax.
(03:37):
We're gonna have a very nice day because we have children.
It was very calm, very demure, very okay. Everyone's having
some feelings right now, but this is the boundary. And
it was so fantastic. I tried it on my own
kids as well today, like it worked. It worked on
my four year old. It also worked on the paparazzi.
(03:58):
They all sort of diffused and said, oh, yes, thank you, ma'am.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
I feel like Anne Hathaway was born to gentle parents.
First of all, she has an amazing voice. Second of all,
I remember reading an interview with her when her kids
were a little younger, and she said that she had
stopped drinking because she found that she was more present
with them during the week, in particular when she sort
of just ruled out drinking. So every time I have
(04:23):
a glass of wine on a weeknight, I think of
Anne Hathaway and how she is present and I am
not okay and another mum doing it right this week
I need to talk about Queen Mary. So she's just
given us all the masterclass in how to react when
your kids do stupid shit. So our very own Tazzyborn,
Queen of Denmark. She was at this public engagement and
a reporter asked her what she thought of her daughter
(04:46):
Isabella's outfit when she attended. Have you seen this?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Remember this?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
The princess wore a T shirt that had something rude
on it.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Right, Yes, it was quite rude.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
So it loosely translates to f tim yesterday with an
arrow pointing to the right kind of light. Those shirts
from the nineties that said I'm with stupid and then
pointed to.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
The right of view.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I would be so worried wearing that T shirt that
like on the yeah or that someone inappropriate walks up
like your brother or your dad walks up next to you.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Very risky shirt.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
But for context, it's lyrics from the band that she
was watching at the festival. And so this reporter asked
what did you think of this? And Queen Mary gave
the most perfect response in Danish. So I have studied
this clip with forensic levels of investigation. The smile on
her face doesn't crack. It doesn't break even for a second.
(05:38):
She just does a slight raise of the eyebrows, very demure,
and just says, my first thought was, are you completely confused?
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Ha ha ha.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
But let's just put it.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
This way, some decisions are better than others. She's a
great response, like, I feel like this was the perfect
way of saying I don't agree with it, but she
can do what she wants and I'm not going to
put her down in front of you.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I loved it.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
What do you think imagine being a royal and having
the ball to wear a T shirt that's got the
F word on it, Like, are you okay? Isabella? Like
do you put any weight behind birth order impact on personality?
So if you think about Isabella Princess Isabella Henriette to
Ingrid muggarethe she's the middle child, her older brother is
(06:26):
first in line to the throne, so he's going to
be king, and her younger siblings are twins, right, so
it's attention on him, attention on them. Is this just
like the middle child going attention to me?
Speaker 1 (06:41):
And she's Prince Harry in the birth order When you
think about it, like she's the second in line to
the throne. She's the Prince Harry equivalent of Denmark, so
I feel like she can be a bit more cheeky
with her behavior. And she is eighteen, she's an adult.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
She also has form in the area of breaking protocol.
So you might remember she had an official portrait where
she was wearing this orange gown and this teal sash,
she had the tiara, the turquoise earrings and she was
holding her phone.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
She was kind of the first royal to do so,
and it was apparently Mary our Mary's idea, like this
intentionally modern touch to like symbolize a modern princess and
kind of a nod to her generation. But what's interesting
is the Danes mostly love it. Like this TV presenter
Jim Linfield I saw this on Facebook. He said, I
love that our royal youngsters also have personality and courage
(07:33):
and they don't follow the neat, pleated flow. The time
of the ladies in the hat is over. Princess Isabella
is in. People are getting around it.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
They're such a modern, cool royal family. I feel like
they're rode bikes everywhere. It's so different to the British
royal family totally. And I think you can actually buy
this shirt online, so we can drop a link in
the show notes if anyone wants a T shirt that
says ftim yesterday, it's available.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Oh to be eighteen to not have the front to
low fully developed. I love it. It feels like the
whole world is talking about kay Pop d Hunters. It's
not a great name.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Is it.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Let's just get that out of the way. It feels
like a placeholder name. It feels like they were thinking
this is just the working title, and they were like,
you know what, let's just call it this. This is
just what it is.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I kept seeing it on Netflix. I think it came
out in June, and I kept seeing it pushed on me.
I was like, this sounds ridiculous. I'm not going to
watch it. But then one day my children had been
possessed by K pop Demon Hunters. They chose to watch
it by themselves, and now it's all we listen to.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah. So this little animated movie has completely captured the
attention of kids the world over and adults too. It's
now Netflix's most watched movie ever wow, two hundred and
thirty six million views, and the soundtracks made history too.
It's the first movie soundtrack to have four simultaneous top
ten hits on the Billboard Top one hundred and Golden
(08:59):
has hit number one. So if you're thinking I have
seen this, I haven't clicks on it. It looks horrid
on Netflix. It's a terrible placeholder name. But should I
be worried if my kids are obsessed with this? The
answer is, don't worry. This is excellent, and I want
to talk about why. Top line. It follows a fictional
K pop girl group now k pop stands for Korean pop,
(09:22):
and they're also Demon Hunters. It's written and directed by
Maggie Kang. It's about these three girls where demons lurk everywhere,
but their music protects the world from the demons of
Korean folklore. So in a sentence, it's basically girl pop
group save the world. This movie goes so hard and
(09:43):
it is so good. Like in the first eight minutes
I thought, what is this? I cannot look away and
it's not what I thought it would be at all,
and I'm obsessed with it. Have you guys seen.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
It so good?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I hadn't, and you two convinced me to watch this,
and now the songs are on repeat.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
In my head, like I can't get it out. It's
the catchiest ear. Whem.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I'm happy it's there. It's not even annoying me that
these songs are in my head. It's absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, it's fun, it's funny, it's really tightly written, it's
beautiful to watch. The music is just all bangers. But
beyond that, I want to talk about the messages in it,
because I think it's really solid, and I think Disney
would be looking at this and thinking, shit, our brain
is over. They would be sitting around the bardroom head
(10:28):
in hands I reckon. So firstly, it's very girl power,
So the girls are at the center of this. Instead
of being passive and pretty pop idols, they're warriors and
it's their voices that are the weapons. So that's doing
two interesting things. Firstly, it centers art and music as
the thing that will save us, like music's going to
(10:50):
save us, which I think is a really good message
right now for the world. And secondly, it's flipping the
script on female pop stars, like this thing that's often
commodified their voices actually is what gives this group power.
It's really heavily about friendship. So these three girls are
all each other's anchors, there's no male savior rushing in,
(11:12):
and it's got all these amazing girlhood coded moments like goofy, messy,
really silly energy and Maggie Kang, the director, said in
Glamour that she grew up watching Disney princesses and thought
that's not me. I'm goofy and I'm awkward and I'm
gross sometimes, and she wanted to put that version of
girlhood on screen. Did you guys notice that.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, that's a big thing that stuck out to me, Like,
I know, you kind of sold this to me as
this is a great show to watch with your kids.
But my overriding thought when I was watching it is
this isn't for the kids. This is for the women
who love girl groups and want to relive that fandom
and girlhood, and it just happens to be done in
a format that your kids will up weird. Did you
(11:56):
think it was inappropriate for kids or more just that
kids wouldn't get as much out of it. I just
feel like kids wouldn't get as much out of it.
I mean, the demons, depending on your kids age, probably
might freak them out a little bit. But I think like,
you know, it's no scarier than in Lion King him
falling off the rock or the Scary step Mother Entangled. Like,
there's always dark themes in kids shows, so I could
(12:18):
definitely overlook that. I definitely though, felt like it was
more for us. I felt like it was very much
a movie for us. Here's what I loved about it.
When I was growing up, I was not even aware
of South Korea. I consumed almost exclusively American content, with
a little bit of British and a tiny bit of
Australian content sprinkled in. I just think it's so brilliant
(12:42):
that the first big cultural touchstone for Generation Alpha is
a non Western creation, which is this movie. And there's
Korean language in the songs, as I discovered because my
kids wanted to write out the lyrics to them, and
then we realized there's a bunch of Korean lyrics in them.
There are Korean locations, there's nods to Korean myths. Of course,
(13:03):
the very plot is sort of premised on the idea
of Korean demons and folklore. It's part of this wave
of Korean culture which is not as how you, which
has sort of taken over the world. In recent years,
but I love that this is the first big moment
for this generation and it's not Western. I found it
really interesting to learn that even though the characters speak English,
(13:25):
their mouth movements actually match or reflect Korean pronunciation. So
little details like that the producer and the filmmakers really
wanted to get across an authentic picture of Korean culture
today and the ultimate message of reclaiming your identity and
being true to yourself. It feels almost subversive right now
in a political environment both in Australia and the US
(13:48):
and in other Western countries where that whole idea of immigration, pluralism,
multiculturalism is under attack from some sectors. And Mum and
mea is entertainment writer Chelsea Hoy. She loved this movie.
She was a very early adopter of this movie and
he's a big fan of the k pop craze and
said that it does feel very true to that genre,
(14:09):
bringing in this whole other group of people now that
get to enjoy that. And she wrote for the site,
we can link the story in our show notes, but
bringing it back to what you said about female friendship Monds,
she said that that was what felt like the best
part of this film was that it perfectly captures friendship
in all its chaotic glory.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
She said, the.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Silliness, the unhinged chaos. It's so girlhood coded. This is
exactly how close friends should interact. It's messy, supportive, ridiculous,
and fiercely loyal all at the same time. Each girl
has her own struggles, dreams, growth, arc and the film
takes time to develop them all properly, and that the
banter feels natural and lived in, so their conflicts feel real,
(14:48):
but their bond feels very unbreakable. And I think that's
an excellent message for our girls to be growing up
with well and our boys. I love the fact that
for boys and girls, this is a vital window when
they are young to kind of shape their perceptions of
the world and what relationships are. And I've noticed that
when boys watch that movie too, it's not centering a
heterosexual it's centering friendship. And that's just as powerful a
(15:12):
message for boys to receive as for girls. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Absolutely, it's very emotionally intelligent. Like I was comparing it
to what we grew up with when we were kids,
and it's sort of we had the Goonies, the Sandlot kids,
Lion King, I guess was really big beating the Beast,
which is super problematic.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
A lad and super problematic, a lot of like mediation
of other cultures.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
And all centered on men. Here's the small problem with
it is that the men actually don't come off very
well in this movie. So Mark Lee wrote in Northwest
Asian Weekly that once again Asian men get thrown under
the bus, and he was arguing that at first glance,
this looks like a win for Asian representation, Like the
(15:58):
women are very stylish and confident and heroic, but the
men in this film are either villains or they're passive
like the Sarja boys. They don't speak, none of them
really a speaking role, so they're completely silenced, or they're
just playing useless like their manager that the girls have.
The other main male character is basically like a buffoon.
(16:20):
So it does leave the guys with almost nothing. But
I was thinking about childhood movies we had it. I
was arguing with my sister about this. She was saying,
don't worry about the man like, they've had their time
in the sun. If you think about the childhood movies
we had, it was Goonies, all boys, Sandlot kids, all boys,
lion king, a big boy dies and a little boy
takes over, you know, and a weird evil boy uncle
(16:43):
Beauty and the beast like the smart girl marries her
captor to save her dad. So it's nice to see
this tide turning in kids pop culture towards more female centric,
smart movies.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I can see that critique though, because in cell culture
is really a big thing in Korea too, and this
idea of young men feeling left behind as young women
are empowered and hitting educational goals and career goals in
a way that they're kind of lapping men is just
as big an issue there as it is in Western cultures.
(17:17):
So I think that's an important perspective to bring in.
I guess the other thing that I think kids are
really connecting with here, which we haven't yet touched on,
is the way that it blurs the lines between the
digital and virtual world and real world in a way
that feels so on point and so relevant for Generation Alpha.
They are more than digital natives. Their world is shaped
(17:40):
by the Internet and by online culture, and this movie
just blurs those boundaries in such a sort of neat
and clever way. Think about the way on the end credits,
this isn't a spoiler. You see the women who are
actually doing the singing in the studio recording the songs,
so you get reminded that this is the real world.
There is also the virtual world that you've been watching
(18:00):
in the movie, and the two of them, it's really
hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
One interesting cultural reason for that is that South Korea
got internet in a widespread way a lot earlier than
the rest of the world. They found out that broadband
was delivered their back in twenty ten to basically all houses,
and so I think that's part of the reason why
they're able to sort of tap into a digital native
(18:21):
culture in such a convincing way. For young kids, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
It's quite TikTok coded as well, so in the way
that Stacy said before that this is a movie for
really for adults. It does that beautiful thing where it
toes the line between youth culture and adult themes. So
in the first few minutes we meet the girls, they're
on their private jet and they're having this big feast
of food, and that feels TikTok coded to me, because
(18:45):
there is this subculture on TikTok of I think it's
called muckbang, where people buy Korean food and then film
themselves eating it, And so I think there's all these
like digital moments throughout the show that kids would connect
with in a way that people who don't live their
lives on TikTok probably wouldn't. But the other thing that
really stood out to me was how inclusive this show was.
(19:08):
So the fans of this girl group, they're not just silly,
screaming teenage girls. It's everyone. You see all ages, all
body types, all genders. You see blokey men crying, you
see elderly women with their little fan clubs. Zoe, one
of the characters, talks about the colors in her head
and taking off her mask, which some people have said
(19:31):
is coded as she's neurodivergent, and a lot of fans
have read roomy. The main character is queer. Even the
rival boy band has pink hair and sort of effem
that looking soft men. So the whole world of it
is very fluid and very inclusive.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
That's a great point, and it makes me reflect on
the fact that you know, there are all sorts of
downsides to not having a monoculture anymore, like the fact
that everyone's listening to their own music, everyone's watching their
own TikTok algorithm. But every now and then something hits
that the whole world enjoys, and that brings us back
to the monoculture that we used to have. And I've
(20:07):
found that I'm reconnecting with friends who I've sort of
fallen out of touch with because our kids are sharing
videos of themselves dancing to Golden and it's just so
nice for the whole world at this kind of moment
to be able to enjoy the same thing at the
same time. Yeah. Yeah, my only criticism when Monzie mentioned
about the inclusiveness, I think that was great from the
(20:28):
fan perspective. But my only thing that bugged me was
that the three main girl band members are all incredibly
thin and attractive, and when they're showing other body types
in the movie, but they're not showing them on them
that was the only thing where I went, Oh, when
they're talking about consuming ten thousand calories before they go
on stage, I wish that that hadn't been part of it,
(20:49):
because you kind of don't want that to be the focus.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yeah, Like, I can't argue with that. I think that's
a really valid point though. I was listening to a
podcast with Jayha Kim. She studies K pop, and she
was talking about how K pop is this extremely manufactured
and controlled machine, and how women in K pop have
to diet like they're really controlled. They have to look
(21:13):
a certain way. So I guess in some sense it's
true to the K pop culture. But yeah, I do agree, skinny,
hot girls save.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
In the world. And it's even at the point, as
you say about the dancers from the show. Novak Djokovic
even when you want to match. Last week did a
little dance from one of the songs, and I said,
most lovable thing he's ever.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Done in it.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
I know, that's what I thought. I was like, do
I like him now?
Speaker 1 (21:38):
He did one of the dancers in tribute to his daughter.
He said, she's been teaching me how to do these
dances from K pop Demon Hunters. So it's at that level,
like it's just permeated the culture in such a massive way,
which is great to see.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Everyone can enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
The demons are funny. They're not scary. If you're thinking, arna, oh,
my kid's watching demons, they're quite funny. They poke, fun
at themselves like it's a ten out of ten for me.
I loved it.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
There are a lot of questions that parents these days
are having to ask themselves and answer that previous generations
of parents did not have to deal with. One of
those questions, a really, really tricky one to answer, is
whether or not to use a tracking app on your kids. Now,
Mon's and Stacy, You're probably not yet at the stage
(22:22):
where you're thinking about that. I am sort of approaching
that stage, and to be honest, I just don't know
what I'm going to do. But lots and lots of
parents have asked this question and decided yes, they do
want to know where their children are, and there are
lots of reasons why they do that. For instance, experts
say that for parents of children with autism, a tracking
(22:44):
app can be really helpful, particularly when wandering off is common.
There are lots of reasons why they do it, But
we don't yet really understand what the effects of using
these tracking apps will be on the children who are
constantly surveyed by them. So we have some clues that
are emerging. I should say they've become really ubiquitous. One
(23:06):
of the most popular apps Life three sixty is now
on fourteen percent of all phones in the US.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
What really, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
It's crazy right, And in Australia, one in five parents
attracting their children, whether it's through an air tag or
LIE three sixty or another app. We've got some stats
coming out about what it's doing to kids to feel
constantly surveyed. A recent survey that Australia's e Safety Commissioner
did looked at the effects on young people's attitudes to
(23:34):
relationships and specifically intimate relationships, and they discovered that a
full twenty percent of eighteen to twenty four year olds
think that it's reasonable to track the location of their
intimate partners. That's higher than any other age group. And
remember this is the age group that came of age
being trapped by their parents. It's alarming. I think I'm
(23:54):
going to put my cards on the table here. I
haven't decided yet what to do about the tracking apps.
There are unforeseen consequences of children going up knowing that
their parents know exactly where they are at all times.
And it's a real gray area and it raises lots
of uncomfortable questions. Do children are they entitled to privacy?
(24:14):
Do we need to get their consent to use these apps.
What does it mean to link surveillance and love in
this way? Is this just the price of safety these days?
You know? As I was thinking about this, I came
across a great quote from Tina Fay about photoshop. She said,
and I want to get it right because she's so clever.
It is an appalling and tragic reflection on the moral
decay of our society, unless I need it, in which case,
(24:37):
everybody be cool. I suspect that's where I'm going to
land on the whole tracking apps thing, but I also
wanted to intellectualize it and overthink it first. So Stacy,
what do you think. Do you think you'll use a
tracking app?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Of course I bloody will. Like I didn't even think
this was a question. Everybody's doing that now. I have
friends who track their kids, track their husbands, track their
son's girlfriend like. It's all very normal now. And our
kids are growing up in that generation where they're tracking
their friends even on Snapchat. They're used to sharing that,
they're not used to the level of privacy that we had.
So I very much feel that this is going to
(25:11):
be the norm going forward. I must admit it's something
that I think, well, yeah, that probably would make me
feel better knowing where she is. But I kind of
wanted to interrogate, like what's our fear, Like, what's our
fear around not knowing their every move? And I guess
the one that's at the top of the list I
think you'd probably both agree is that they'll get taken,
Like that's the thing you're worried about, is that they'll
(25:33):
get taken or they're a missing person and you don't
know where they are. And so I looked into that
and the stats of that, and it's so minuscule compared
to our population. Like Dennis Moriarty wrote this piece where
he quoted the National Missing Person's Coordination Center, and they
track the number of missing child cases throughout the decades.
So when we're looking back at the seventies, it was eighteen,
(25:55):
in the eighties, it was eleven children, nineties fifteen, and
then it drops way down four in the two thousands
and five in the twenty ten. Do they know why
there's been such a drop? I mean, those are small
numbers to begin with, small numbers when you consider like
the growth of people that we've had in the country
as well, not to say that we ever want that
to be happening to any child. But the world is
(26:16):
by and large a safer place now than it was then.
But I wonder whether it's a chicken and egg. It's
a bit safer now because we have the technology to
be able to know where everyone is.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
What do you think mons.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Safety doesn't sell product, Stacy, Yeah, you said the magic
word just before fear. And these companies they don't care
about your kids. They care about their shareholders. Life three
sixty is a tech company and they have built a
(26:51):
product on anxious millennial parents, on catastrophizing situations, and marketing
with fear. Have you seen the ad for this product?
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Cop this?
Speaker 4 (27:03):
You are my whole wide world, my heart, my joy,
my baby girl. You'll never know how much I love you.
When you're gone. I just think of you dying.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Mom.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
What every time you leave my safe when.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
You drive a schools, stay out of night?
Speaker 4 (27:22):
This is where I go.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Out of the million ways in i've my brain and
what you could.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Die at any given time. That's to range.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
That does make me very anxious.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
When you go to marketing school, you know what they say.
They say like marketing one oh. One. Fear based marketing
works because it hits the oldest part of our brain,
like the survival instinct. And for parents, the stakes are
really high because you're talking about your children. So I
just think we need to take a zoom back and go,
(27:55):
are they just exploiting a fear that we have that
doesn't exist, stacy, because as you say, the data shows
that we actually are living quite in safe times, particularly
in Australia. Yeah, notwithstanding your point about autism and about
some parents really needing this for certain reasons. But what
I think is really interesting is what the experts are
(28:17):
saying about this. I've been reading The Anxious Generation by
Jonathan hit He wrote this best selling book. Lots of
people are talking about it, and he calls this phenomenon
safety ism, and he says the research around this is
really consistent, like hovering, tracking doesn't reduce anxiety. It actually
makes kids and parents more anxious, and you see it
(28:40):
in the data everywhere. So Deacon University found that Australian
parents are the most risk averse in the world. Four
out of five won't let their kids do risky things.
There was this University of Michigan study that found that
half of parents won't even let their tween walk to
a friend's house or go to another aisle in the supermarket,
like parents will not let their kids go to Aisle
(29:02):
three to collect a can of beans. And what this
is doing is making kids depressed and anxious more than
ever and parents too. And so the experts are saying
the solution to this anxious generation is not tracking them
or texting them. You have to let them go into
the big wide world. And when we stop children taking
(29:22):
any risks, we actually block them with this safetyism. We
block them from overcoming anxiety, managing risk, learning to be
self governing like, all of which are essential skills to
becoming an adult.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
The other thing that Hit says is that we have
set up a division between the real world and the
online world that says that the real world is more
dangerous than the online world, and kids get a lesson
from this. He says that they can retreat into their
phones where they're not monitored and where they can roam freely,
and that world is actually more dangerous than the real
(29:56):
world that we're monitoring them in. So I know, it
starts to feel overwhelming them because when you say, thinking
about the supermarket aisle. I don't know if I have
necessarily consciously let my kids go into a different isle
in the supermarket. And one way to get a that
is that Jonathan hit has this organization called let Grow
that I know you've come across Tumbons and that website.
(30:16):
The let Grow website has a ton of useful information
and practical tips on how you can start letting go
of your kids and let them into the world. And
they even have this little card you can print out
there that your child can carry that says I am
not a neglected child. I am a child whose parents
want me to be able to walk around in the world.
(30:38):
Here is their number if you have any questions. And
I think that's a brilliant idea.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
That's so interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Maybe it is a case of that we're worrying about
the wrong thing, Like it's like when people are worried
about getting on a plane and the plane crashing, but
then they'll jump in their car every day after a
couple of glasses of wine and not think.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Twice about it.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Like really, we're thinking that the danger is when they're
out and about without us, But a lot of the
danger is the phone, Like we're seeing time and time
again study showing that phones are the damaging thing to
their mental health and they're overall well being, like to
their resilience. And yet we're saying, here, have the phone,
never leave it alone. You must take this with you
so that I don't lose you. It's kind of like
(31:14):
misdirected fear. I think I saw.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
An article that said that in twenty twenty three, stalking
victims filed a class action lawsuit against this company Life
three sixty and against tile and against Amazon for essentially
promoting stalking, specifically multiple privacy law violations. And there was
this article in the Washington Post as well that said
(31:38):
that parents are using this location sharing feature to track
their teenage and adult children in ways that resemble emotional abuse.
So you talked about that before, Amelia, like, is it
a thin end of the wedge? Are we teaching our
kids that surveillance is normal and surveillance is love? And
what does that say?
Speaker 1 (31:56):
And I think we're teaching each other that too. The
New South Wales Crime Commission has actually highlighted the use
of these apps in both domestic violence and organized crime settings.
In a lot of intimate partner violence situations, these apps
are used to control, and I wonder if we're just
becoming used to having people on demand and having information
(32:16):
about people on demand in a way that isn't just
done reasonable for kids, but it's also bleeding into our
other relationships. And it's like the app doesn't guarantee the safety.
It's telling you where they are, but it's not telling
you the circumstances of that location and how safe they'd
be when they're there, Like you might be seeing them
at their friend's house, there could be a party going on,
all sorts of strangers there, So it's not like a
(32:38):
fail safe. It doesn't account for everything that could go wrong.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
So true stacy. Also, kids are savvy. They're going to
find a work around for this anyway. They're going to
put their phone under their pillow at home and then
have a burn a phone that they're using at a party.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
I found this awesome article Juliet Weisfogel wrote for She Knows,
a Teens Guide to Temporarily Regaining Freedom, where she's written
all about the hacks that she used when her mum
put the tracking apps on her phone when she was
a fourteen year old and got caught sneaking out the
wadow on the ways that she got around it, So
there were different things she did, like turning off the
(33:14):
Bluetooth at home and the Wi Fi so that the
app would know that that was her last location, and
then seeking out the window to a party.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
But I thought the best.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
One that she gave his advice, which is so funny,
really crazy idea to get around it. She suggested leave
your phone at home and go to the party. But
I thought the best part was that she said they
still took their laptops because they needed a way to
communicate and to uber home afterwards. So they've got a
bit of technology on them anyway, they can't escape it.
And that said, I'm getting a bit of deja vu here,
(33:45):
which is before I had kids, I said I'd never
let them watch TV. I reserve the right to use
tracking apps the minute I feel.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
I need to.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, some sad news cross my feed this week. Every
reject shop in Australia is about to disappear for good. No.
I love the reject shop and I also love the
top comment on this news from a Reddit post about
the reject shop. No longer will I be able to
tell my sister. That's where my mum and dad bought her.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
That was a classic. I pulled that one a couple
of times too.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Look, it's probably a deep psychological problem I have, but
the reject Shop really brings out my latent hoarding instincts.
I go in there with my little basket, and because
everything is so aggressively and reasonably priced, I just want
it all. And it makes me feel like I can
be a different kind of parent. This is the kind
of parent who has a craft draw as opposed to
(34:40):
just piles of nonsense. The kind who sharpens her kids
pencils every evening while thinking about the masterpieces that they're
going to create the next day that she's not going
to throw out when no one's looking back, instake curate
in a perfect scrap book that she also got at
the reject shop, And the kind of parent who creates
seasonal tablescapes. I really want to be one of those
(35:00):
parents who celebrates the coming of spring with some pastels.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, I get that feeling in Ikia. This is too okay,
that's yours reject, that's my reject.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Look, that's why I really want to pour out a
bottle of aggressively centered off brand bubble Bath for the
reject shot. You know exactly what you're talking.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I can smell the smell as you said.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
It's blue, right, it's blue blue.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
And you're like, is this going to make my children's
skin break out in a rash? Maybe, but they're gonna
have fun doing it and it's going to be a
form thing. Reject Shop. Thank you for the good times.
Remember when Tony Abbott I'm wittingly posed in front of
its signage on a campaign stop in Canberra before the election,
he last n't that wonderful? Thank you for making school
(35:49):
holidays bearable. Thank you for the competitively priced water colors.
Thank you for the Okay. I've just been told by
their producers that in fact, it's just being renamed, and
they're telling me that it's going to be okay. It's
going to be called something called Dolorama, which is apparently
a Canadian chain that just doesn't have the same ring.
(36:13):
And I am going to suspend judgment on this and
wait to go and see it. But in the meantime,
thank you for the good times. Thank you for the
hairspray I have that has the name It's giving glam.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
They sell impulse body spray there, guys, stop it now.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I read a substack this week called once again I
wish I had kids younger that I have been busting
to talk to you too about because I know you'll
have a lot of feelings. Jim Dalrymple, who was thirty
six when he had his first child, said he started
thinking about the pros and cons of having kids younger
when the CEO of an AI company, Brad Weiss, tweeted
having kids before thirty is how you stay generationally poor,
(36:56):
and it caused quite the debate.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
So why's later?
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Clara Frid that what he meant is that having kids
young eats up your cash flow and your time, which
makes having kids sound like dodgy investment properties, and fair
kind of does. But Hrymple argues that the opposite might
be true when you consider what you could gain laiter
down the track by having kids early. So he says
in his piece, if I become a grandparent at sixty
(37:19):
two rather than seventy two, I might be able to
provide ten years of full time care for my grandkids.
This could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to
my descendants. That's not generational poverty, it's generational wealth. Suddenly
having kids young is a financial advantage, And his whole
point is by having kids sooner, we can give ourselves
a more active, involved village, which is something a lot
(37:42):
of us millennials say that we don't really have, is
an involved village. He makes the point that millennials complain
that they don't have a village, but then go out
and make choices that will actively ensure our children also
don't have a village.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
This is very.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Simplistic, like he acknowledges that not everyone is going to
have a village just by compressing the time span between generations.
Some people won't have a village, whether they have a
baby at twenty two or they have one at forty two.
But the point is that we could rethink the way
families are helping each other. So Mon's do you wish
you got cracking sooner? Now that you heard this.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Argument, Jim, Jim, Jim, I see your argument. I accept
your argument. What I don't accept is the thing that
he's missed entirely, which is the reason so many of
us don't have babies until like our thirties and older.
It's not just because we're making a choice about that.
(38:36):
There are all these systemic reasons, like there are huge
socio economic and social drivers that are related to this,
and here's my receipts. In Australia, the average age of
first time mums is twenty nine point nine years, so
almost thirty. In the nineteen seventies, which is where Jim
wants to live, it was twenty three. Demographers and social
(39:01):
researchers have looked at this, They're like, why are people
having babies older? Here's why women are spending more years
in hierogic, They're establishing careers. There are enormous economic pressures
on us right now. There's insecure work, there's better contraception,
which means more control over timing. Meeting someone is a
(39:21):
shit show. People are marrying their partners much later. So
the average age at marriage in Australia is now thirty
two for women thirty four for men. That's ten years
later than in the nineteen seventy so that pushes berths
further out. Also, FYI, it takes ten years now to
say for a house deposits. So I just think, yeah,
cool story, Jim. I see that, But the data doesn't
(39:44):
quite match up, and I think that that's the piece
that was missing for me here is it's not a
personal choice to have kids later. There's all these other
things happening around us. This is not just in Australia.
This is globally. If you zoom out, this is happening
across the EU, It's happening in Italy, Greece and Ireland,
it's happening in Asia. Maternal age is rising everywhere. There
(40:07):
are very few places that are sucking the trend here.
It's sort of rural India and some parts of northern Europe,
but mostly the average age of parents is rising because
we are being structurally funneled into it from all the
precious Jim.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
I didn't like the article either at first. I did
at first. I read it and look, it's like everything
you disagree with politically often there's a kernel of truth
in it. And that's why on first read I was
kind of seduced by his thesis. Yes, thought, it's true.
You know when you have children older, your parents are older,
they are less into changing nappies because they are enjoying
(40:48):
their retirement, and you're older, so it's harder to wake
up in the morning. None of this can be disputed.
Getting older in general is not great and your energy
levels do drop. But then I started to think about
what Jim was saying, and I realized that he was
missing an elephant in the room, and that elephant is women.
(41:10):
He says, no, it's fine to have children young, because
it turns out that men who have children young actually
make more money than men who have children later. And
then I thought to myself, Yeah, but women who have
children younger make less money than women who have children later.
And you know why that is. It's because the motherhood
(41:33):
penalty is real. The Australian Breer Statistics shows that women
reduce their paid work hours by about thirty five percent
across the first five years after the arrival of children.
Australia has one of the highest rates of part time
work by women in the OECD. In some ways, that's great.
It means we get a lot more flexibility when our
children are young to give them the time that we
(41:55):
want to give them. In other ways, it means we're
missing out on income for retirement and for financial security
and stability because we're looking after children and we're taking
ourselves out of full time work. So the motherhood penalty
for women is real, and it's even more real when
you have kids younger. The other problem with it is
that when we talk about the village, let's be real,
(42:17):
we're talking about grandmothers, right.
Speaker 3 (42:19):
That is so true.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
That's what the village is. The village is just a
series of grandmothers making crowchheped blankets and doing the stuff.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Yeah, it's the unpaid labor that women get loved with. Again,
good point, Amelia.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
And the thing about grandmothers is they're not paid for
what they do. The village is unpaid labor and that's wonderful.
Grandmothers want to do it. They love their grandkids. But
we can't get away from the fact that we're basically
saying that we want more unpaid labor by women. And
one way Australians are actually pushing to strengthen that village
(42:53):
is they're pushing to include grandparents in the government childcare subsidy.
Parents around the nation are actually putting together a petition
for the Prime Minister to say why shouldn't grandparents get
the same kinds of financial reimbursement as other types of
care And I think that's a really solid step forward
rather than saying that women should take themselves out of
(43:13):
the workplace earlier to have children. Yeah, and it's also
in an ideal world that would be lovely if you
had your children earlier, your parents are around to help you.
But you can't bet on the fact that once you
get there, your parents will be around to help you.
Like that's assuming that nothing will go wrong for them
physically or health wise.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
And assuming they're alive. Exactly, they have a relationship with
you as well, that's it.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
That's not guaranteed that they're even going to be there.
And as you say, they're not paid workers. They can
change their mind at any time and say I'm not
helping you with this. Your kids are brat, you're on
your own, so you're not guaranteeing yourself a village. Obviously,
in an ideal world that would be lovely, But why
would I risk it and risk my earning capacity to
have a child earlier?
Speaker 3 (43:55):
On what if?
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Sorry Jim, Sorry. I love that more men are writing
about parenting. And yes, I think Jim's got a terrific
newsletter which I have subscribed to because I do want
to hear more perspectives from men. And it's really refreshing
to have a man talk frankly about his regrets in fatherhood,
but turns out he really is pushing an gender. He
also writes for a conservative think tank in the US
(44:18):
that's dedicated to strengthening marriage hint, heterosexual marriage and families.
And I think blessed Jim, Like, even if we subscribe
to this idea that we should be having them younger,
I think we can all probably admit whether we it's
not a great trait. But when you hear of someone
who's had a baby at twenty two, twenty three, your
first question is, one, was that on purpose? Did they
(44:40):
mean to do that?
Speaker 3 (44:41):
And two?
Speaker 1 (44:43):
How are they going to do this now? Who's going
to help them look after that baby? How are they
going to move ahead in their career? Like I get
secondhand stress for women that have them younger because I
think about how hard it would be to parent at
that age. It will help out. Yeah, God, Stacy, what.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
They've got all the energy in the world. That's the
best age to be a parent. That's what you say.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
That's true, But it is a young person's game. And
that is the thing.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Like, really, when you look at all of the studies
around when is actually best for us to conceive and
when would quate to the lowest risk pregnancy. It is
in our mid twenties to late twenties, Like that is
when we should be having them, but we're just too
busy getting our shit in order to do.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
It all right. To wrap up today's show, we're going
to share the things that we're loving, sick things that
we might text to our friends or put in a
mum's group chat. Amelia.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
So, I have discovered a book series that I want
to read just as much, if not more than my children.
And it's called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. This is
a series that inspires absolute devotion and adoration and people.
And I guess I've been living under a rock because
I only recently discovered it. The book started coming out
in two thousand and five that by an author called
(45:49):
Rick Reordan. I pick one up at the bookshop and
I took it to the counter and the young woman
behind the counter literally gasped and said, this is the
book that got me into reading. And now she works
at a bookshop, so she's very into reading. And I
took it home and started reading it to my children.
And look, they think it's fine. I'm obsessed, Like, can
(46:10):
we start doing bedtime reading at six point thirty when
bedtime is eight, just so we can read more of
the books. There are fantasy series. They're about a twelve
year old kid who travels across America to recover Zusa's
lightning Bolt. They're based on Greek mythology. They're so exciting,
they're so gripping, and they're a page turner for kids
and adults alike.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
That's great. I love that. Did you start with a
particular one? Is it a series that you have to
start at zero? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Start at zero. The first book's called The Lightning Thief.
But there's so many in the series. So the good
news is you have a lot of great reading ahead
of you.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
I've been reading Rolldal to my kids, whoa role like whoa?
The world has changed. I was reading The Magic Finger
to the middle of Night. Do you remember this one?
The kids have guns in it.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Is The Gunner Magic Fingers.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
Yeah. Wow, it's just like wow, another time Rodal did
not give a shit about like being careful around language
or he's just yeah, it's really cool to read, Stacy, Stacy,
what are you recommending?
Speaker 1 (47:14):
So despite us something doing this show for a few weeks,
I felt like I had run out of recommendations yesterday,
and I of course made that my husband's problem.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
I was like, do a lap of.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
The house, look around at our daughter's stuff and see
if there's anything that I should be recommending. And as
I've got him on that wild goose chase, I found
the thing that I wanted to recommend. So it only
cost me twelve dollars and I bought it five years
ago and I still use it every single day and
they still have them.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
I've checked.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
It's a nappy caddy from Kmart, so I'm well out
of the nappy stage. But they're just a cute little box,
chic looking little box with a handle on the top,
and I use it now as like the shit bits box.
So you know when you find like a piece of
a toy and you have no idea where the rest
of that toy is and you put it in that
pile next to your fruit bowl, like where Haemish and
(48:04):
Andy talk about this in my podcast. Why do you
know about my house? Because we all have I clouses
and you just end up with all this crap that
you don't know where it's meant to go and all
my daughter's like hair stuff. You know, you're the curl
cream and the tangling brush and all those bits. I
use that nappy caddy still for all of those bits.
(48:25):
And now I've got a second one to stop the
fruit bowl pile from piling up. So just pulled all
the little bits in there and figure it out later.
That's later mess problem.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Are you literally recommending a bin like a bin?
Speaker 1 (48:36):
No?
Speaker 3 (48:37):
There are things that you can't throw out, yes.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Because you know that the kid's going to be like,
where is the one small bit of a toy that
I desperately need? Yes, exactly you need them at some
point maybe, but you can't throw them out.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
So that's where this stuff goes.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Doesn't it stink though from all the nappy odor that
seeped into the plastic.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
No, I don't know about your nappy. No, I'm not
taling about a nappy bin, mons. I'm talking about a
little square box with a little handle on top of
the dirty nappies.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Never went anywhere near.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
It is the one that you keep like the wife's
the clean nappies, gotcha the moisturizer?
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Okay, all right?
Speaker 3 (49:17):
Oh my god, No, that bin is long gone.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
That bin has gone to the tip that was foul,
never to be returned to my house.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
My god, I thought you were just throwing everything in
the stinking like yeah, here for that.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Anyway, they're like ten to twenty bucks at kmar and
we'll put a link to one.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Of lid on it Stacey, so you can cover the
ship bits.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
No, the bits are free and loose, but it's fine.
Got confused shit bits. You're imatching little bits of shit
in there. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
That's on memons.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
That's what's your reco I've got this this hidden Netflix
gem that I can't stop watching right now, neither can
my kids. It's not K Pop Demon Hunters. It's Toddler's
Running Errands. It's a show called Old Enough. It's a
Japanese show where they send two three and four year
(50:07):
olds off into the world to errands completely on their own,
and then they film them with hidden cameras.
Speaker 3 (50:13):
Have they got tracking apps?
Speaker 2 (50:14):
I must know there are no tracking apps. Literally. I
watched one last night where a woman said to her
three year old, take my pants to the store and
get them mended, and I cannot stop watching it. It's
equal parts adorable and terrifying, like you will laugh, you
will gasp, you'll cheer for these toddlers, like these preschoolers.
(50:36):
And my kids love it too, even though they can't
quite understand it because it's in Japanese, so there's subtitles,
but they can't completely read them all. It's going to
make you want to send your kids out for errands
too without a tracker, which is, you know, sometimes a
good thing.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
How successful are they fulfilling the errands? Did she get
the pants hammed?
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Yes? They do the most amazing things, some of these kids,
and they show you during the show. They say they
have to walk three hundred meters, they need to cross
two roads, so they set it up and yes, these
kids are so capable at such a young age. It's
amazing to watch. And now since we've watched it, my
kids keep saying, Mum, send me on an errand I
want to go to the shops by myself.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
So this is definitely watching this great wreck.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
You know what, We'll put a link to all of
our reps in the show notes in case your brain
is a sieve. That is all we have time for
this week on Parenting Out Loud. Now, last week I
told you something I was not supposed to tell you all.
I said, hey, we're in the Mamamea out Loud feed
for just a few weeks. So if you like this show,
come and follow it, because if you don't, it might
(51:41):
not survive. That's actually a reality. I've got a fun
fact for you both. There are ten times the amount
of people listening to this in the Mama Mea out
Loud feed compared to the Parenting out Loud feed. One
in ten people went and followed and the rest were
like nah nah. So I want to say huge thank
you to the people who did. You are elite, You're
(52:01):
in the one percent. You are the early adopters. Thank you,
and for the rest of you, if you do like
this show, come on over to the Parenting out Loud
feed and if not, you know what will be out
of your hair in a couple of weeks. The best
way to help us is to just do that. So
search for Parenting out Loud in your podcast app, find
the show it's a purple logo, and hit follow and
(52:22):
then maybe, just maybe we will get to number one
ahead of Daria of a CEO. A huge thank you
to our team. The group ep is Ruth devine produces
Leah Porgius and Sashutanic and researcher Tessa Kodovich. Have a
great week. We'll talk to you next Saturday morning.
Speaker 3 (52:38):
See then bye,
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