October 10, 2025 • 31 mins
Your weekend sanity check has arrived. A new episode of Parenting Out Loud is here with all the conversations you need - because if parents are thinking about it, we're talking about it.
Are you feeling ‘The Squeeze’? The daily chaos of modern parenting is real. We unpack why you’re feeling maxed out and overwhelmed and talk about whether there’s actually anything you can do about it.
Plus, are you raising readers or just scrollers? And in today’s digital world, is it even important? We discuss whether it’s possible to get over your scrolling addiction and get you (and your kids) back into books.
And, the dads are in their feelings this week, and we’re here for it. George Clooney reflects on the sacrifices he’s made for success, while Prince William reveals how even Royal dads can feel overwhelmed when it comes to raising tiny humans.
Our recommendations:
💄 Stacey is recommending the Nyx Fat Oil Lip Drip in the shade Newsfeed to achieve her iconic lip look.
🪨 Amelia is recommending Rock Painting, and now we all know what we're getting in the office Kris Kringle this year.
🎧 And Monz wants you to listen to the Paul Field episode of the podcast Conversations, for his deeply moving, heartfelt story. A trigger warning for anyone who has experienced the loss of a child.
Support independent women's media
WHAT TO LISTEN TO:
- Don't miss an episode of Parenting Out Loud
- So That's Why Magicians Are Back & The Eldest Daughter Theory
- Rihanna and A$AP Rocky's 'Love Junk' Rebrand & The TikTok Training Camp
- Stealth Mums, The Roblox Controversy & A Tiny Internet Feud
- Unpacking The KPop Demon Hunters Obsession & A Tracking Tool Controversy
- The 'Normal' We Need To Interrogate & The Father's Day Rethink
- The Third Kid Dessert Analogy & FFS, Stop With The Texts
- Dr Becky's DFK Theory & The Great Trampoline Debate
- Check out She Built That
- Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts
WHAT TO READ:
- Prince William just gave his most candid interview. One comment lands like a message to his brother.
- 'My life changed.' A look into George Clooney's family life with 7-year-old twins.
- 'I'm a new mum who read 60 books last year. This is how I actually did it.'
- 'I was reading bedtime stories with a glass of wine. A question from my son stopped me in my tracks.'
- 'No one is reading bedtime stories to their kids anymore and I know exactly why.'
THE END BITS:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
the traditional owners of the land and waters that this
podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast for parents who
don't always listen to parenting podcasts. We bring you the news,
the trends, the culture, and what parents are thinking about.
I'm Monique Bowley. I'm an eldest daughter. I am a
school captain and a sports captain.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I'm Stacey Hicks. I am also an eldest daughter, also
a school captain and was a prefect too.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
And I'm Amelia last I'm a youngest child Type B
and was never even a prefect. And I'm feeling a
lot of stifling school captain energy here today.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, we had a big response last week, didn't we
to the eldest Daughter conversation. You must have felt very
outnumbered by all the eldest daughtersts. And I'm just going
to wait for Tenaylor Swift's next song. I was the
school captain and that's so hard for me. I guess
I'm here to break the rules. Coming up on today's show,
some very well read people gave advice on how to
(01:22):
find more time for reading and it annoyed the hell
out of one of us. I'll let you guess which.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I want to talk about some dads who are in
their feelings this week and why that's so unusual.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
And there's a name for the period of life that
we're all in, where the wolves closing. We've got young
kids and careers and expectations.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Welcome to the squeeze.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
But first, there was a very awkward moment on Taylor
Swift's publicity to our for her new album, The Life
of the show Girl, and I am the resident Swifty.
I feel it is my duty to bring it to
you today. This is BBC Radio two Scott Mills talking
to Taylor. Take a listen, Taylor, don't tell me this
is your last album?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
What No?
Speaker 5 (02:01):
I just saw some fast going well, she's going to
get married and there's going to last album.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
An sharckingly offensive thing to say.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Absolutely, it is not.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
It's not why people get married.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
No, exactly so.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
That they can right as if Teleswift is ever going
to stop working.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I know it's the funniest thing. And I love that
he said. I'm seeing some people, some people are saying
that I don't think we've ever actually seen anyone say that.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
That's so true.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I went deep into the annals of swifty fandom to
try and find who was saying this, and I can't
Stacy is it because the lyrics of her songs are
very sort of let's have kids and get married and
settled down.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
She does have one song wish List where she does
talk about having a couple of kids and that life.
But I mean, every woman in music at the top
of her game right now is married or has children
like Beyonce Rihanna. I don't know why that's been put
onto tail.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
To be fair, Rihanna has not released any new music
in a very long time.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Maybe he's onto something, maybe she's going to slow down.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
What I want to talk about today is the dads,
because the dads this week have been really in their
feelings and that's kind of unusual to hear dad's talk
about the challenges of being a dad. The first dad
that I want to bring to the table is George Clooney.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Oh hot dad.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, I'm always happy to bring him to the table.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Please bring him more.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I've mentioned on the show before that I once had
the chance to speak to him on the phone for
an hour for an interview, and he was just as
delightful as he appears. He's promoting his new movie, Jay
Kelly with Adam Samoa, and that movie is about a
guy in midlife who kind of comes to regret the
fact that he hasn't spent enough time with his children.
So he's been talking a lot on red carpets and
(03:41):
at premieres about how he achieves the juggle in his
life between work and family life. We never hear from
dads about the juggle. Let's hear what he had to
say about that to Fox Extra.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
You know, I think you probably have these same conversations,
and most people we know in almost every industry had
the conversations of I wish I'd been able to spend
I wish I hadn't missed this thing that my kids
were doing, but I was working. And so it's coming
to terms with the sacrifice you make to succeed. You know,
I'm not that mass rush to succeed anymore. I've had
(04:13):
my career in many ways, and you know, things were
winding down in a way. So I get to be
home with my kids a lot, and it's fun. You know,
I'm still young. Enough that I can run around with them.
That's going away quickly. Well, I can still do it
right now, and so you know, I'm having a really
fun time.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I love this just as a quick refresher. Georgia's sixty four.
He's been married to his wife a mile for eleven years.
They celebrated their anniversary last month, and they have eight
year old twins, Alexander and Ella. Why isn't so rare
to hear dad's talk about the juggle moons?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
We still act like dad's juggling is groundbreaking and mom's
juggling is just any other day of the week. I
think it feels rare because men are socialized to see
work as their identity and family is their hobby.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
It's just flipping the script.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah. I think it's probably also, in George's case, a
case for having children older, like that he can wind
down his career. Now. That's probably a reason that it
would be good for him to do that, because then
he's got that quality time with his kids not always
achievable for everyone.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
And it is hard, this juggle. And we had another
dad talk about it this week, Prince William. He gave
a very revealing interview on a new travel show which
is hosted by Eugene Levy of Shit's Creek Fame. It's
on Apple TV. It's called The Reluctant Traveler, and he
opened up about what weighs on him.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
History doesn't overwhelm you, Is there anything that does?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (05:38):
I think stuffing with family overwhelms me quite a bit.
You know, worry, your stress around family side of things,
that does overwhelm me quite a bit. But in terms of,
you know, doing the job and things like that, I
don't feel too overwhelmed by that.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
You can tell that it's so hard for him to
talk about his private life. I kind of feel for
him in this clip.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I am obsessed with this episode. I'm obsessed with this
PR strategy. Why Eugene Levy and why a show called
The Reluctant Traveler such a weird PR move? So lots
of people are saying this is Wills at his most revealing.
He talks about the monarchy, He talks about how he
wants to bring change in, he talks about how important
(06:22):
his family is, and all of his pundits are saying
this is a side to Wills that we haven't seen before.
So my question is why Eugene Levy, and I think
it's because he's not part of the Royal Rota, so
he's not gonna get tough questions. He's a safe pair
of hands. He's Canadian. You know, Canada's part of the Commonwealth,
so it's probably some sort of like soft diplomacy to
(06:44):
give Canada an interview with Prince William. The reason I'm
obsessed with this he's so charismatic and charming. I cannot
believe it. He's so likable. He's writing a scooter, He's like,
I'm just a regular dad. He just shows enormous emotional range.
So he goes from really charming, funny, witty and quick
(07:05):
and then when he talks about his family, you can
see how difficult it is for him. I just I
loved it. I was obsessessed with it.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
See the strategy worked on on She's into it.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Did it really did?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And I think what it's giving is a man who's
had therapy, and it's giving a man who's now a
dad and who is reflecting on how he was parented.
And there are some very pointed things he says in
this episode about the way that he was parented and
how he wants to be different. You've heard of burnout,
(07:37):
you've heard of the mental load. But there's a new
name for this particular period of life that so many
women in their thirties and forties are in, and it's
called the squeeze. Now, this is a term that economist
Carinthlo has coined. She's got a new book called Having
It All. She basically says, the squeeze is that particularly brutal,
(08:01):
exhausting stage of life when all the pressures converge on
you at once. This is particularly pertinent to me because Amelia,
I quit my job because of the square ease.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Am I fucked? Have I fucked myself?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
No?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
And I don't think you fucked yourself. I love this
term because it gives a name to something that is
such a familiar feeling, which is when you are feeling
maximum pressure at work and maximum pressure at home, and
there's a part of you that thinks, this is why
we used to have just one breadwinner in the household,
(08:36):
this is why we used to have just the dad
work because it was easier. If you sat down to
redesign the economic system, you would never have designed it
so that in women's fertile years, they are also being
asked to make enough money to pay for a mortgage
in Australia in twenty twenty five. What's really interesting about
this is how she came to this idea of the squeeze.
(08:58):
She went viral for an article in The Cut in August.
The headline was this economist crunched the numbers and stopped
dating men. So she took what she found out very personally.
She had a first chiallenge twenty seventeen. She was holding
down a very demanding academic job, and she kept finding
that the division of household labor between her and her
husband was consistently unfair. She was the primary breadwinner in
(09:21):
the relationship, and yet she was also having to do
the laundry and the administrative tasks and the cleaning of
the house. And so she decided it just wasn't going
to get better, so she left and, in her own words,
become a lesbian as an evidence based decision. So that's
really an example of heteropessimism, which is one response to
(09:41):
this idea of the squeeze, right Like one response is
just to say the problem is not structural, The problem
is just with being in heterosexual relationships.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
But surely this is a problem not just for hetero couples, Like,
I'm sure there are a lot of same sex couples,
all solo parents who would be saying this is the
same for me, Like we're both working so hard and
we're both parenting and in the trenches there. So I
do think there are a lot of people who are
feeling the squeeze at this point in their lives.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
She is really quick to say that it's not the
only way to cope with this really objectively difficult period
of life. I think what she would say is careers
themselves are changing a lot, and what she wants you
to do now that you know about the squeeze is
look ahead to other women in your field, in your
industry and see whether or not they come through the squeeze,
and then advance. If you can't see role models of
(10:32):
older women doing what you want to do, that means
you need to change course. That's part of the whole
point of the squeeze is like, at this point in
your life, at this pivotal moment, make sure that when
you come out the other end of this, you have
a path forward in what you want to do, because
if you don't, you need to think about doing something else.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I think what you say, Mom's about quitting your job
when you feel that squeeze. We're seeing that a lot
more with Like I know a lot of women have
quit their jobs even without something to necessarily go to next,
but because they go, well, something's got to give, Like
I'm getting squeezed. I can't return the children. The only
thing that you can let go of there is the job.
And it's for that very reason that you're saying, Amelia,
to pivot to something, something else, because that squeeze just
(11:12):
becomes too much. But I love this term because I
feel like we always talk about being stretched, but what
it is is a squeeze, Isn't it Like it does
feel like the walls are closing in around you as
you're trying to keep up with all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
This is every conversation I have with every working mother
is about the squeeze. Are we the first generation to
feel the squeeze this hard?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yes? And I think we are also the first generation
to not necessarily have a nice trajectory out of the squeeze.
I think that's really what she's getting at when she says,
look ahead, look beyond the squeeze, because there's no guarantees
that we can rise up a corporate ladder in the
way that we used to, particularly with artificial intelligence coming
(11:50):
down the pike. She has another useful term here, actually,
which is utility function. She says, look at what you
want out of life, because when you come out of
that squeeze, when your kids are older and they need
you less, when you have more money because you're not
having to deal with childcare costs as much, for instance,
and maybe you'll be paying off your mortgage. When you
have that more mind and more time, what do you
(12:11):
want to do with that. You've got to start thinking
about that now when you're in the squeeze. By the
time you come out of it, it's going to be
too late.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
So I read about this in a substat called culture
Study by Ann Helen Peterson. She says that this concept
is paradigm shifting. I don't understand why is it paradigm shifting.
It's just saying what's existing? How is it paradigm shifting?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Because I think she's reminding you that this is temporary.
This is not going to last forever.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
But is it temporary? Because all I could think about
when we were talking about this was a lot of
women choose to go to part time work, or a
lot of women are in careers where a lot of women,
a lot of people are in careers where it's not
necessarily you stay in that job and you'll get that
next promotion. Like we spoke about it out loud the
other day, people are job hugging, Like people are holding
on to those roles so you can't.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Necessarily if what's job hugging job huggings.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Instead of job hopping. If you listen to Friday's episode,
spoke about how like instead of everyone moving around to jobs,
everyone wants stability now, So everyone's holding onto jobs whether
they like them or not, just so that they have
the flexibility and guaranteed income coming in.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
That's so interesting.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
We've seen the death of the girl boss and the
hustle culture. Is it a response to that?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah. My theory on it was a little bit that
we now value flexibility so much more now than we
value money. Like we want to be able to have
the option to work at home, or to take the
day off to get our child in the afternoon, whatever
it may be. And you've kind of got to earn flexibility,
like you can't go into a job from the get
go and get that huge and people are holding on
a lot longer. But also if you're in an industry
(13:48):
where there isn't necessarily that climb, like if you're working
in hospitality and working in a cafe, like there might
not be the promise of more money coming down the pipeline.
Sure your children will be older, but don't they say,
like bigger children, bigger problems like that you're dealing with more,
helping them with more.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Look to be honest, you've hit on my secret response
to this. So I started off by being like, it's great,
and it is great. I love having a term to
put around a feeling or an emotion. But I've got
to reveal to you that as I was reading, I
felt anxiety because I felt like Karna was describing a
world which I don't live in the idea that I'm
(14:26):
going to eventually make more and more money. That's not
the future I see. I see a future where, in fact,
if anything, my earning power is becoming more and more
volatile and more and more uncertain. So I see a
future where the kids need me less, I'm making less money.
This is not what she's describing. No, and I felt
a lot of anxiety about that.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Is it a kind of privileged theory, because you're right,
does this apply to people who are in insecure work,
people who are like nurses or teachers and things like that.
It feels like this theory of the squeeze only really
applies to people in maybe white college jobs who can
climb the greasy.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Pop well, not even white college jobs. I would argue
that with the AI revolution that's coming, I don't think
white collar jobs have the predictability and the stability that
they used to have. So I wonder if she's actually
just talking about academia, which is where she's from. Maybe
she feels that in that industry there is still a
very clear path forward to advance yourself and to make
more and more money. But you know, there's also that
(15:26):
concept of the salary mountain that you climb throughout your
life and you do reach peak earning power, and for
men and women, that comes at a different age on average.
I think for women it's probably around late thirties, early forties.
So that's weighing on me as well.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Here.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
I think the squeeze is predicated on the idea that
I'm going to keep making more money and I'm not
seeing that.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
No. I read an article this week that made me
puff a fish. It actually annoyed the shit out of me.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
If I'm being honest and I have to make puffs
for fish. Yeah, do you mean like you get all
lights spiky about it.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah. It made me like tense up, get really annoyed,
like get my hackles up about it. And it was
this piece in the cart which should not have annoyed
me as much as it did, let me be clear,
called eighteen well read people on how they find time
for books. So the author Jasmine voj Dani, asked a
whole heap of notable people how they find time to read.
And some had really strict targets, like they were reading
(16:23):
like one hundred pages a day, and some were much
more chill about it and just kind of would find
these small moments and that'll kind of added up to
like a couple of hours reading every single day. And
most of them were editors and writers. And before you ask, yes,
a lot of them had children. Because that was my
initial annoyance was I was like, yeah, but they won't
have kids, but a lot of them did. I feel
like I used to have endless time for books, and
(16:45):
that seems to have evaporated. What I want to know is,
do you feel like it's just as easy as just
doing it more? Is that really the answer?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
I actually thought it had a lot of really actionable
tips in there. Like one of my favorites was from
Molly Young, who's a book critic who I love. She wrote,
I treat my phone like poison. I leave the house
as much as possible without it. After I had a kid,
people were like, what if there's an emergency, every fucking
person on earth has a phone, I'll ask the person
sitting eight inches away. I find myself thinking about that
(17:16):
a lot now that I've read that, thinking maybe I
can leave my phone at home, Maybe I can take
a book on the bus instead of dooms.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, some of them really do feel like very radical ideas,
But then when they break it down, you're like, oh, yeah,
I could actually just not be on my phone once.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Do you think you can start leaving your phone at
home so you can read books?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
After I read this article, I left my phone at
home to go and spend time with the neighbors and
the children.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
It was amazing. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Did it go okay, it was so great, actually a
really iconic afternoon in the neighborhood. What I'm interested in
is how defensive you sound, Stacy. Has this touched a
nerve for you?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
It really has, And when I interrogate why that is,
I think it's because a lot of the people had
very simple ways to do this, and a lot of
it involved their phone, and that is where my time
is going, Like even as a parent. A lot of
them were parents as well, giving their reasonings and when
they find time to do this. At the heart of it,
(18:13):
it's that I'm choosing to scroll instead of choosing to read.
And I have often kind of blamed parenthood for, oh,
I have no time for myself. I have no time
to do nothing. But I think it's that it's been
replaced by that little hit, instant hit you get of
doing a scroll. When these people were saying in a
lot of ways, you don't need optimal reading conditions, like
(18:34):
you don't need to be completely alone in the house
with no one there, in a really comfortable chair. A
lot of them were just saying, you know, just read
when you take your child to swimming practice, or just
read for ten minutes while you heat up dinner, and
I think it is probably a muscle that I need
to train to be doing that more.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I read a start this week that said that for
young people growing up now under the edge of eighteen,
they're estimated that they're going to spend twenty five years
of their life on their phone. Yeah. Oh, that's canes
me like a ton of bricks. Yeah. So there were
a couple of common threads in there about how to
avoid that fate. One of them was paper books, they
keep your concentration and focus more than reading on your phone.
(19:12):
Another one was being more mindful about your phone usage.
And then a third thread that I noticed was that
people who read a lot talk about raising readers. That
was a phrase that was coming up time and time again. So,
for instance, one of them said that she is raising
readers by modeling for them, that reading is a great
(19:33):
thing to do. MERV. M Ray, who is a contributing
writer at The New Yorker and a professor, said I
just don't do anything else. We don't have a television,
I'm not on TikTok or doing any form of scrolling
social media. I can't remember the last time I saw
a movie. I don't actually have any habits except to
just be reading all the time. It was annoying and
it made me feel bad, but it also got me
(19:54):
thinking about the notion of raising readers. That's different from
reading to your kids. That's raising people who want to
pick up books. I wanted to pose a maybe a
bit of a controversial question to you both, which is,
why is it important to raise readers in an ag
where so few people do read? Is it still important
or is it just a way of boasting? Is it
(20:15):
just to thing to boast about. I've raised readers.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
When I was a child, someone asked me why I
loved reading. I was a massive bookworm, and I still
remember my answer. Reading is the one place where you
get to go into another world.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
And I remember as a kid my mind.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Being blown that I could pick up a story and
be transported into another world. That is not something you
can get from mindlessly watching Minecraft or Gabby's Doghouse. There's
such a magic to reading books that we might have
lost that we probably need to recapture.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
That's hard to describe to a kid.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
It's something that they kind of had to discover on
their own, but we have to facilitate that discovery. I'm
sure there's lots of research about why it's good for
our brains and vocabulary and all the academic stuff, but
it's also magical in the way that we can discover
and embed ourselves in stories and understand different perspectives and
be someone else for a little while.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, we're focusing on it being an academic thing or
something that's going to get us a head in life,
but what we're forgetting is the joy and just the
enjoyment out of reading. More.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I'm going to be the pragmatic one because I was
not a school captain and saying it does get you
ahead in life. It's worth throwing this research in because
it's really striking, which is that reading for pleasure is
one of the strongest predictors of future academic success. And
here's the really interesting part of that fact. That is
true regardless of socioeconomic background. So so many predictors of
(21:39):
academic success are actually just simply tied to how much
money your parents have. But this is the one that
can catapult people up the socioeconomic ladder, and it's reading.
It's basically a magic bullet for getting a head in life.
I found that really sort of galvanizing because it's just
so clear this research. It got me thinking about how
(22:02):
we can implement some practical tips to raise readers because
I'm not doing a very good job of it myself.
There's a former Australian Teacher of the Year named Megan.
She's written a book called Raising Readers about how to
instill and I thought this word was interesting, a joy
of reading in children. That word joy is really interesting
because so often when we have this screens discussion, we're
never talking about joy. Kids are not driving joy from
(22:24):
watching screens, they're just basically addicted to them. And she's
got lots of practical tips, but one that I liked
in particular was that she said, when your kids are
a little bit older and they're tackling chapter books, you
can just read the first chapter of the book with
them and then just leave the book lying around and
then eventually they might pick it up if their interest
(22:44):
is piqued, and they might read the book. And I
thought that was a really practical way to start raising readers.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Yeah, this discussion reminded me of an article we have
on Mama Mia by Zoe Rochford, and she wrote about
how she read sixty books in a year with two
young kids. So she has two under three, and she
was saying that a lot of it was about doing
communal reading. So she's like groundbreaking, I know. But go
to the library because it entertains them, no matter their age,
to be a round the books and picking up those
(23:12):
books and you can read there. You can be modeling
it to them there. And the other one she was
saying was exactly what you said about joy. Don't finish
a book if you're not enjoying it, Like, don't be
reading books because that's the hot new book. Like if
you're into Cowboy smart, read Cowboy Smart. That's where I
didn't know that was a genre. Now, yeah, that should
(23:33):
be first on our list. But you know, don't worry
if you're in a slump, Like, don't be reading something
just because it's seen as the call book or the
best seller. Pick up something that will instill joy in
you and then you can kind of be passing it.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Doubt that because then you can also not only you
role modeling for your kids and they're seeing you reading
books and avidly reading books, but you can also teach
them that they don't have to finish a book that
they don't like. Yeah, but if you borrow some book
from the library that you think they're going to love
and they just hate them, put it down and find
something else.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
The point about them seeing you read books is really
important and the modeling of it, because in our family life,
I would often put the kids to better then go
to bed and read it.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
They would never see.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Me reading a book because it's something you do alone
at night in your own bedroom. So what we've done
in our house is I flipped it and it's this
habit stacking as well. So when I put my kids
to bed, I have to stay in the room with them.
So what I've started doing is I bought an Eaty
Biddy book light and I've just every time I put
them to bed, I lie on the floor and just
read my book. So they see me reading. And now
(24:33):
it's become part of our nightly routine. It's like a
habit force to read.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Great good.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I think the book like costs me like fifteen bucks
on Amazon, and it's forcing me to read and it's enjoyable,
and it's also modeling that reading's good.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
All Right, It's time for recommendations, and these are things
that we're loving or that are making our lives easier.
And the first one from Stacy today is one that
I have begged her to bring. It's very much parenting
adjacent and it's this. I see Stacy early in the
morning when we record this, and she always looks pulled together,
and that's because she's always wearing a very iconic lip.
(25:08):
And yes, I said lip like I was a personal
a lip. It's always a singular. It's a singular lip. Stacy,
tell us your secret.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Okay. So I actually got this reco from our lifestyle
editor Amy Clark. I stole it from her because she
was wearing it. I find lipsticks hard, like I smudge them.
They end up on my teeth. I don't want to reapply.
So this one's a lip oil, like a tinted lip POI.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Which just sounds so nice.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yeah. So it's by Nick, So it's called the Nick's
Fat Oil Lip Drip and the shade is Newsfeed, which
I thought was very appropriate for my job. It's twenty bucks,
but it's always on sale, so I got it for
ten bucks in price line. But it is just like
a nice soft red and when I put it on,
you always give me compliments, which I love.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
So I just wear it for you. Mostly it makes
you look like Kate Middleton.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Thank you. What a compliment. Yeah, so I'll be wearing
it until the grave.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yes, I needed this this week because I discovered that
my children had found my Shanti Hayley.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
I don't know if I'm saying that right. It's a lipstick.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
It sounds expensive saying it right, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
This is a seventy seven dollars that they took and
painted their faces with it. No, like, why don't you
choose the Kmart lipstick?
Speaker 4 (26:22):
No, I just can't.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I can't say I'll be getting their Nick's Fat Oil
lip drip.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, that's great. What's yours this week?
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Mon's okay, little gear change.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I have a recommendation for a podcast episode this week,
and I'm going to try and talk about this without crying.
It's an episode of conversations, and I've listened to hundreds
of episodes of conversations in my life. I used to
manage that team at the ABC, but this one absolutely
broke me into a million pieces. It's conversations with Paul Field. Now,
(26:53):
he is the former managing director of the Wiggles. So
the Field family sort of starred the Wiggles. He's been
a bad call the Cockroaches. He's now an ambassador for
Sid's Red Nose Day. He talks about the loss of
his baby daughter, Bernadette. A trigger warning on this The
content is hard to listen to. It's just such a
(27:15):
deeply emotional and moving episode, and he really talks about
the devastation they felt, but also the compassion shown to
them by all the people around them. I think it's
the best episode of Conversations I've ever heard, and in fact,
Richard Widler, who hosts Conversations, says, that is the saddest
thing I have ever heard.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
It's beautiful, it's important.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
I think it's extraordinary that a man can talk about
something that happened to him, you know, in the seventies.
This was and he still talks about it like it
happened yesterday, and it was just so beautiful and moving.
What about you, Amelia, what are you recommending?
Speaker 3 (28:00):
I've got something that is not moving, but it is
very relaxing. Went to Cole's on the weekend and thought
it was a win because took the kids and they
wanted to go toy shop. But then I said no,
we're just going grocery shopping. Now, apparently Cole's has a
toy aisle. I mean why, but We're walking down this
toy aisle and I realize I'm not getting out of
their alives. So I tell them, Look, you can pick
(28:22):
up something that is not primarily made of plastic and
ideally under twenty dollars, and we pick up the Kawaii
as in the Japanese word for cute, the Kawaii rock
painting kit. It is five dollars and we had some
of the most fun I've had in ages. It was
a Saturday afternoon. I put on some fleetwood mac and
we painted rocks together. Look, the kit does come with rocks,
(28:45):
but I'm pretty sure if you have children at home,
they can probably source some artisanal rocks for you to
add to your collection to paint. And I just went
completely ham on this. I started painting rocks after the
kids had gone to bed, and have now considered opening
a market stall to sell them because I think I
have kind of a talent.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Wow, I was going to say, did you get really
possessive of the rocks? And these are.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Do with the rocks once you've painted them? Do you
stick little eyes on them.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
No, you just like put them tastefully around your house.
So it's true that in Japan you'll see quite often
like a window sill will have a couple of beautiful
rocks on it. They're probably not painted the lurid colors
that I've painted mine, But you know what, like, don't
mock my hobby. Like I love story painting, I'm very
good at it, and because I was in a school captain,
(29:39):
I do have to embrace these high points when they happen.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Oh, we're going to start getting them as gifts from you.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
For instance, you'd be lucky, Stacy, You'd be lucky.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
I'm laughing because I saw this TikTok this week that
I laughed out loud so hard at it. It's about
this mum and daughter who play a trick on their
dad and the daughter gives themm a gift and it's
a rock wrapped up and they pretend it's come from
this shop called Anthropology, and they pretend it was like
this extremely precious, like very expensive rock, and the dad's
(30:09):
face in the background is just like I don't get it,
and then he's like, I could have got you a
rock like that like, we have rocks like that in
the garden, and she was like, you don't understand.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
It's anthropology.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
That's you now, Amelia, just like laying your rocks around
your house, your precious rocks. Ah, that's all we have
time for today. Hey, if there's one thing I know
about podcasts, it's that word of mouth is really the
way that people discover them. So got a favor to ask.
If you like this show, tell someone about it because
people trust other recommendations from other people.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
And also, here's the other thing.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
There's some statistic where people listen to eight podcasts a
week and people are always searching for new ones to discover,
so new good ones. So if you tell just one
person about parenting out Loud, we would love that big.
Thanks to our team, Junior content Producer Tessa Kotovic, our
senior producer Leah Porges and Executive producer Sashatanic and the
(31:04):
group ep At Mum and Maya Is Ruth Devine. Have
a great week. We'll be back in the speed next
Saturday morning.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Go paint some rocks.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Bye bye bye, Yah
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
the traditional owners of the land and waters that this
podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast for parents who
don't always listen to parenting podcasts. We bring you the news,
the trends, the culture, and what parents are thinking about.
I'm Monique Bowley. I'm an eldest daughter. I am a
school captain and a sports captain.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I'm Stacey Hicks. I am also an eldest daughter, also
a school captain and was a prefect too.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
And I'm Amelia last I'm a youngest child Type B
and was never even a prefect. And I'm feeling a
lot of stifling school captain energy here today.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, we had a big response last week, didn't we
to the eldest Daughter conversation. You must have felt very
outnumbered by all the eldest daughtersts. And I'm just going
to wait for Tenaylor Swift's next song. I was the
school captain and that's so hard for me. I guess
I'm here to break the rules. Coming up on today's show,
some very well read people gave advice on how to
(01:22):
find more time for reading and it annoyed the hell
out of one of us. I'll let you guess which.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I want to talk about some dads who are in
their feelings this week and why that's so unusual.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
And there's a name for the period of life that
we're all in, where the wolves closing. We've got young
kids and careers and expectations.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Welcome to the squeeze.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
But first, there was a very awkward moment on Taylor
Swift's publicity to our for her new album, The Life
of the show Girl, and I am the resident Swifty.
I feel it is my duty to bring it to
you today. This is BBC Radio two Scott Mills talking
to Taylor. Take a listen, Taylor, don't tell me this
is your last album?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
What No?
Speaker 5 (02:01):
I just saw some fast going well, she's going to
get married and there's going to last album.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
An sharckingly offensive thing to say.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Absolutely, it is not.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
It's not why people get married.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
No, exactly so.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
That they can right as if Teleswift is ever going
to stop working.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I know it's the funniest thing. And I love that
he said. I'm seeing some people, some people are saying
that I don't think we've ever actually seen anyone say that.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
That's so true.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I went deep into the annals of swifty fandom to
try and find who was saying this, and I can't
Stacy is it because the lyrics of her songs are
very sort of let's have kids and get married and
settled down.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
She does have one song wish List where she does
talk about having a couple of kids and that life.
But I mean, every woman in music at the top
of her game right now is married or has children
like Beyonce Rihanna. I don't know why that's been put
onto tail.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
To be fair, Rihanna has not released any new music
in a very long time.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Maybe he's onto something, maybe she's going to slow down.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
What I want to talk about today is the dads,
because the dads this week have been really in their
feelings and that's kind of unusual to hear dad's talk
about the challenges of being a dad. The first dad
that I want to bring to the table is George Clooney.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Oh hot dad.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, I'm always happy to bring him to the table.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Please bring him more.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I've mentioned on the show before that I once had
the chance to speak to him on the phone for
an hour for an interview, and he was just as
delightful as he appears. He's promoting his new movie, Jay
Kelly with Adam Samoa, and that movie is about a
guy in midlife who kind of comes to regret the
fact that he hasn't spent enough time with his children.
So he's been talking a lot on red carpets and
(03:41):
at premieres about how he achieves the juggle in his
life between work and family life. We never hear from
dads about the juggle. Let's hear what he had to
say about that to Fox Extra.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
You know, I think you probably have these same conversations,
and most people we know in almost every industry had
the conversations of I wish I'd been able to spend
I wish I hadn't missed this thing that my kids
were doing, but I was working. And so it's coming
to terms with the sacrifice you make to succeed. You know,
I'm not that mass rush to succeed anymore. I've had
(04:13):
my career in many ways, and you know, things were
winding down in a way. So I get to be
home with my kids a lot, and it's fun. You know,
I'm still young. Enough that I can run around with them.
That's going away quickly. Well, I can still do it
right now, and so you know, I'm having a really
fun time.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I love this just as a quick refresher. Georgia's sixty four.
He's been married to his wife a mile for eleven years.
They celebrated their anniversary last month, and they have eight
year old twins, Alexander and Ella. Why isn't so rare
to hear dad's talk about the juggle moons?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
We still act like dad's juggling is groundbreaking and mom's
juggling is just any other day of the week. I
think it feels rare because men are socialized to see
work as their identity and family is their hobby.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
It's just flipping the script.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah. I think it's probably also, in George's case, a
case for having children older, like that he can wind
down his career. Now. That's probably a reason that it
would be good for him to do that, because then
he's got that quality time with his kids not always
achievable for everyone.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
And it is hard, this juggle. And we had another
dad talk about it this week, Prince William. He gave
a very revealing interview on a new travel show which
is hosted by Eugene Levy of Shit's Creek Fame. It's
on Apple TV. It's called The Reluctant Traveler, and he
opened up about what weighs on him.
Speaker 6 (05:34):
History doesn't overwhelm you, Is there anything that does?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (05:38):
I think stuffing with family overwhelms me quite a bit.
You know, worry, your stress around family side of things,
that does overwhelm me quite a bit. But in terms of,
you know, doing the job and things like that, I
don't feel too overwhelmed by that.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
You can tell that it's so hard for him to
talk about his private life. I kind of feel for
him in this clip.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I am obsessed with this episode. I'm obsessed with this
PR strategy. Why Eugene Levy and why a show called
The Reluctant Traveler such a weird PR move? So lots
of people are saying this is Wills at his most revealing.
He talks about the monarchy, He talks about how he
wants to bring change in, he talks about how important
(06:22):
his family is, and all of his pundits are saying
this is a side to Wills that we haven't seen before.
So my question is why Eugene Levy, and I think
it's because he's not part of the Royal Rota, so
he's not gonna get tough questions. He's a safe pair
of hands. He's Canadian. You know, Canada's part of the Commonwealth,
so it's probably some sort of like soft diplomacy to
(06:44):
give Canada an interview with Prince William. The reason I'm
obsessed with this he's so charismatic and charming. I cannot
believe it. He's so likable. He's writing a scooter, He's like,
I'm just a regular dad. He just shows enormous emotional range.
So he goes from really charming, funny, witty and quick
(07:05):
and then when he talks about his family, you can
see how difficult it is for him. I just I
loved it. I was obsessessed with it.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
See the strategy worked on on She's into it.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Did it really did?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And I think what it's giving is a man who's
had therapy, and it's giving a man who's now a
dad and who is reflecting on how he was parented.
And there are some very pointed things he says in
this episode about the way that he was parented and
how he wants to be different. You've heard of burnout,
(07:37):
you've heard of the mental load. But there's a new
name for this particular period of life that so many
women in their thirties and forties are in, and it's
called the squeeze. Now, this is a term that economist
Carinthlo has coined. She's got a new book called Having
It All. She basically says, the squeeze is that particularly brutal,
(08:01):
exhausting stage of life when all the pressures converge on
you at once. This is particularly pertinent to me because Amelia,
I quit my job because of the square ease.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Am I fucked? Have I fucked myself?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
No?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
And I don't think you fucked yourself. I love this
term because it gives a name to something that is
such a familiar feeling, which is when you are feeling
maximum pressure at work and maximum pressure at home, and
there's a part of you that thinks, this is why
we used to have just one breadwinner in the household,
(08:36):
this is why we used to have just the dad
work because it was easier. If you sat down to
redesign the economic system, you would never have designed it
so that in women's fertile years, they are also being
asked to make enough money to pay for a mortgage
in Australia in twenty twenty five. What's really interesting about
this is how she came to this idea of the squeeze.
(08:58):
She went viral for an article in The Cut in August.
The headline was this economist crunched the numbers and stopped
dating men. So she took what she found out very personally.
She had a first chiallenge twenty seventeen. She was holding
down a very demanding academic job, and she kept finding
that the division of household labor between her and her
husband was consistently unfair. She was the primary breadwinner in
(09:21):
the relationship, and yet she was also having to do
the laundry and the administrative tasks and the cleaning of
the house. And so she decided it just wasn't going
to get better, so she left and, in her own words,
become a lesbian as an evidence based decision. So that's
really an example of heteropessimism, which is one response to
(09:41):
this idea of the squeeze, right Like one response is
just to say the problem is not structural, The problem
is just with being in heterosexual relationships.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
But surely this is a problem not just for hetero couples, Like,
I'm sure there are a lot of same sex couples,
all solo parents who would be saying this is the
same for me, Like we're both working so hard and
we're both parenting and in the trenches there. So I
do think there are a lot of people who are
feeling the squeeze at this point in their lives.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
She is really quick to say that it's not the
only way to cope with this really objectively difficult period
of life. I think what she would say is careers
themselves are changing a lot, and what she wants you
to do now that you know about the squeeze is
look ahead to other women in your field, in your
industry and see whether or not they come through the squeeze,
and then advance. If you can't see role models of
(10:32):
older women doing what you want to do, that means
you need to change course. That's part of the whole
point of the squeeze is like, at this point in
your life, at this pivotal moment, make sure that when
you come out the other end of this, you have
a path forward in what you want to do, because
if you don't, you need to think about doing something else.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I think what you say, Mom's about quitting your job
when you feel that squeeze. We're seeing that a lot
more with Like I know a lot of women have
quit their jobs even without something to necessarily go to next,
but because they go, well, something's got to give, Like
I'm getting squeezed. I can't return the children. The only
thing that you can let go of there is the job.
And it's for that very reason that you're saying, Amelia,
to pivot to something, something else, because that squeeze just
(11:12):
becomes too much. But I love this term because I
feel like we always talk about being stretched, but what
it is is a squeeze, Isn't it Like it does
feel like the walls are closing in around you as
you're trying to keep up with all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
This is every conversation I have with every working mother
is about the squeeze. Are we the first generation to
feel the squeeze this hard?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yes? And I think we are also the first generation
to not necessarily have a nice trajectory out of the squeeze.
I think that's really what she's getting at when she says,
look ahead, look beyond the squeeze, because there's no guarantees
that we can rise up a corporate ladder in the
way that we used to, particularly with artificial intelligence coming
(11:50):
down the pike. She has another useful term here, actually,
which is utility function. She says, look at what you
want out of life, because when you come out of
that squeeze, when your kids are older and they need
you less, when you have more money because you're not
having to deal with childcare costs as much, for instance,
and maybe you'll be paying off your mortgage. When you
have that more mind and more time, what do you
(12:11):
want to do with that. You've got to start thinking
about that now when you're in the squeeze. By the
time you come out of it, it's going to be
too late.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
So I read about this in a substat called culture
Study by Ann Helen Peterson. She says that this concept
is paradigm shifting. I don't understand why is it paradigm shifting.
It's just saying what's existing? How is it paradigm shifting?
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Because I think she's reminding you that this is temporary.
This is not going to last forever.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
But is it temporary? Because all I could think about
when we were talking about this was a lot of
women choose to go to part time work, or a
lot of women are in careers where a lot of women,
a lot of people are in careers where it's not
necessarily you stay in that job and you'll get that
next promotion. Like we spoke about it out loud the
other day, people are job hugging, Like people are holding
on to those roles so you can't.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Necessarily if what's job hugging job huggings.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Instead of job hopping. If you listen to Friday's episode,
spoke about how like instead of everyone moving around to jobs,
everyone wants stability now, So everyone's holding onto jobs whether
they like them or not, just so that they have
the flexibility and guaranteed income coming in.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
That's so interesting.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
We've seen the death of the girl boss and the
hustle culture. Is it a response to that?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah. My theory on it was a little bit that
we now value flexibility so much more now than we
value money. Like we want to be able to have
the option to work at home, or to take the
day off to get our child in the afternoon, whatever
it may be. And you've kind of got to earn flexibility,
like you can't go into a job from the get
go and get that huge and people are holding on
a lot longer. But also if you're in an industry
(13:48):
where there isn't necessarily that climb, like if you're working
in hospitality and working in a cafe, like there might
not be the promise of more money coming down the pipeline.
Sure your children will be older, but don't they say,
like bigger children, bigger problems like that you're dealing with more,
helping them with more.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Look to be honest, you've hit on my secret response
to this. So I started off by being like, it's great,
and it is great. I love having a term to
put around a feeling or an emotion. But I've got
to reveal to you that as I was reading, I
felt anxiety because I felt like Karna was describing a
world which I don't live in the idea that I'm
(14:26):
going to eventually make more and more money. That's not
the future I see. I see a future where, in fact,
if anything, my earning power is becoming more and more
volatile and more and more uncertain. So I see a
future where the kids need me less, I'm making less money.
This is not what she's describing. No, and I felt
a lot of anxiety about that.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Is it a kind of privileged theory, because you're right,
does this apply to people who are in insecure work,
people who are like nurses or teachers and things like that.
It feels like this theory of the squeeze only really
applies to people in maybe white college jobs who can
climb the greasy.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Pop well, not even white college jobs. I would argue
that with the AI revolution that's coming, I don't think
white collar jobs have the predictability and the stability that
they used to have. So I wonder if she's actually
just talking about academia, which is where she's from. Maybe
she feels that in that industry there is still a
very clear path forward to advance yourself and to make
more and more money. But you know, there's also that
(15:26):
concept of the salary mountain that you climb throughout your
life and you do reach peak earning power, and for
men and women, that comes at a different age on average.
I think for women it's probably around late thirties, early forties.
So that's weighing on me as well.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Here.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
I think the squeeze is predicated on the idea that
I'm going to keep making more money and I'm not
seeing that.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
No. I read an article this week that made me
puff a fish. It actually annoyed the shit out of me.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
If I'm being honest and I have to make puffs
for fish. Yeah, do you mean like you get all
lights spiky about it.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah. It made me like tense up, get really annoyed,
like get my hackles up about it. And it was
this piece in the cart which should not have annoyed
me as much as it did, let me be clear,
called eighteen well read people on how they find time
for books. So the author Jasmine voj Dani, asked a
whole heap of notable people how they find time to read.
And some had really strict targets, like they were reading
(16:23):
like one hundred pages a day, and some were much
more chill about it and just kind of would find
these small moments and that'll kind of added up to
like a couple of hours reading every single day. And
most of them were editors and writers. And before you ask, yes,
a lot of them had children. Because that was my
initial annoyance was I was like, yeah, but they won't
have kids, but a lot of them did. I feel
like I used to have endless time for books, and
(16:45):
that seems to have evaporated. What I want to know is,
do you feel like it's just as easy as just
doing it more? Is that really the answer?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
I actually thought it had a lot of really actionable
tips in there. Like one of my favorites was from
Molly Young, who's a book critic who I love. She wrote,
I treat my phone like poison. I leave the house
as much as possible without it. After I had a kid,
people were like, what if there's an emergency, every fucking
person on earth has a phone, I'll ask the person
sitting eight inches away. I find myself thinking about that
(17:16):
a lot now that I've read that, thinking maybe I
can leave my phone at home, Maybe I can take
a book on the bus instead of dooms.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, some of them really do feel like very radical ideas,
But then when they break it down, you're like, oh, yeah,
I could actually just not be on my phone once.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Do you think you can start leaving your phone at
home so you can read books?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
After I read this article, I left my phone at
home to go and spend time with the neighbors and
the children.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
It was amazing. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Did it go okay, it was so great, actually a
really iconic afternoon in the neighborhood. What I'm interested in
is how defensive you sound, Stacy. Has this touched a
nerve for you?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
It really has, And when I interrogate why that is,
I think it's because a lot of the people had
very simple ways to do this, and a lot of
it involved their phone, and that is where my time
is going, Like even as a parent. A lot of
them were parents as well, giving their reasonings and when
they find time to do this. At the heart of it,
(18:13):
it's that I'm choosing to scroll instead of choosing to read.
And I have often kind of blamed parenthood for, oh,
I have no time for myself. I have no time
to do nothing. But I think it's that it's been
replaced by that little hit, instant hit you get of
doing a scroll. When these people were saying in a
lot of ways, you don't need optimal reading conditions, like
(18:34):
you don't need to be completely alone in the house
with no one there, in a really comfortable chair. A
lot of them were just saying, you know, just read
when you take your child to swimming practice, or just
read for ten minutes while you heat up dinner, and
I think it is probably a muscle that I need
to train to be doing that more.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I read a start this week that said that for
young people growing up now under the edge of eighteen,
they're estimated that they're going to spend twenty five years
of their life on their phone. Yeah. Oh, that's canes
me like a ton of bricks. Yeah. So there were
a couple of common threads in there about how to
avoid that fate. One of them was paper books, they
keep your concentration and focus more than reading on your phone.
(19:12):
Another one was being more mindful about your phone usage.
And then a third thread that I noticed was that
people who read a lot talk about raising readers. That
was a phrase that was coming up time and time again. So,
for instance, one of them said that she is raising
readers by modeling for them, that reading is a great
(19:33):
thing to do. MERV. M Ray, who is a contributing
writer at The New Yorker and a professor, said I
just don't do anything else. We don't have a television,
I'm not on TikTok or doing any form of scrolling
social media. I can't remember the last time I saw
a movie. I don't actually have any habits except to
just be reading all the time. It was annoying and
it made me feel bad, but it also got me
(19:54):
thinking about the notion of raising readers. That's different from
reading to your kids. That's raising people who want to
pick up books. I wanted to pose a maybe a
bit of a controversial question to you both, which is,
why is it important to raise readers in an ag
where so few people do read? Is it still important
or is it just a way of boasting? Is it
(20:15):
just to thing to boast about. I've raised readers.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
When I was a child, someone asked me why I
loved reading. I was a massive bookworm, and I still
remember my answer. Reading is the one place where you
get to go into another world.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
And I remember as a kid my mind.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Being blown that I could pick up a story and
be transported into another world. That is not something you
can get from mindlessly watching Minecraft or Gabby's Doghouse. There's
such a magic to reading books that we might have
lost that we probably need to recapture.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
That's hard to describe to a kid.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
It's something that they kind of had to discover on
their own, but we have to facilitate that discovery. I'm
sure there's lots of research about why it's good for
our brains and vocabulary and all the academic stuff, but
it's also magical in the way that we can discover
and embed ourselves in stories and understand different perspectives and
be someone else for a little while.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, we're focusing on it being an academic thing or
something that's going to get us a head in life,
but what we're forgetting is the joy and just the
enjoyment out of reading. More.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
I'm going to be the pragmatic one because I was
not a school captain and saying it does get you
ahead in life. It's worth throwing this research in because
it's really striking, which is that reading for pleasure is
one of the strongest predictors of future academic success. And
here's the really interesting part of that fact. That is
true regardless of socioeconomic background. So so many predictors of
(21:39):
academic success are actually just simply tied to how much
money your parents have. But this is the one that
can catapult people up the socioeconomic ladder, and it's reading.
It's basically a magic bullet for getting a head in life.
I found that really sort of galvanizing because it's just
so clear this research. It got me thinking about how
(22:02):
we can implement some practical tips to raise readers because
I'm not doing a very good job of it myself.
There's a former Australian Teacher of the Year named Megan.
She's written a book called Raising Readers about how to
instill and I thought this word was interesting, a joy
of reading in children. That word joy is really interesting
because so often when we have this screens discussion, we're
never talking about joy. Kids are not driving joy from
(22:24):
watching screens, they're just basically addicted to them. And she's
got lots of practical tips, but one that I liked
in particular was that she said, when your kids are
a little bit older and they're tackling chapter books, you
can just read the first chapter of the book with
them and then just leave the book lying around and
then eventually they might pick it up if their interest
(22:44):
is piqued, and they might read the book. And I
thought that was a really practical way to start raising readers.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Yeah, this discussion reminded me of an article we have
on Mama Mia by Zoe Rochford, and she wrote about
how she read sixty books in a year with two
young kids. So she has two under three, and she
was saying that a lot of it was about doing
communal reading. So she's like groundbreaking, I know. But go
to the library because it entertains them, no matter their age,
to be a round the books and picking up those
(23:12):
books and you can read there. You can be modeling
it to them there. And the other one she was
saying was exactly what you said about joy. Don't finish
a book if you're not enjoying it, Like, don't be
reading books because that's the hot new book. Like if
you're into Cowboy smart, read Cowboy Smart. That's where I
didn't know that was a genre. Now, yeah, that should
(23:33):
be first on our list. But you know, don't worry
if you're in a slump, Like, don't be reading something
just because it's seen as the call book or the
best seller. Pick up something that will instill joy in
you and then you can kind of be passing it.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Doubt that because then you can also not only you
role modeling for your kids and they're seeing you reading
books and avidly reading books, but you can also teach
them that they don't have to finish a book that
they don't like. Yeah, but if you borrow some book
from the library that you think they're going to love
and they just hate them, put it down and find
something else.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
The point about them seeing you read books is really
important and the modeling of it, because in our family life,
I would often put the kids to better then go
to bed and read it.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
They would never see.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Me reading a book because it's something you do alone
at night in your own bedroom. So what we've done
in our house is I flipped it and it's this
habit stacking as well. So when I put my kids
to bed, I have to stay in the room with them.
So what I've started doing is I bought an Eaty
Biddy book light and I've just every time I put
them to bed, I lie on the floor and just
read my book. So they see me reading. And now
(24:33):
it's become part of our nightly routine. It's like a
habit force to read.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Great good.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I think the book like costs me like fifteen bucks
on Amazon, and it's forcing me to read and it's enjoyable,
and it's also modeling that reading's good.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
All Right, It's time for recommendations, and these are things
that we're loving or that are making our lives easier.
And the first one from Stacy today is one that
I have begged her to bring. It's very much parenting
adjacent and it's this. I see Stacy early in the
morning when we record this, and she always looks pulled together,
and that's because she's always wearing a very iconic lip.
(25:08):
And yes, I said lip like I was a personal
a lip. It's always a singular. It's a singular lip. Stacy,
tell us your secret.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Okay. So I actually got this reco from our lifestyle
editor Amy Clark. I stole it from her because she
was wearing it. I find lipsticks hard, like I smudge them.
They end up on my teeth. I don't want to reapply.
So this one's a lip oil, like a tinted lip POI.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Which just sounds so nice.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yeah. So it's by Nick, So it's called the Nick's
Fat Oil Lip Drip and the shade is Newsfeed, which
I thought was very appropriate for my job. It's twenty bucks,
but it's always on sale, so I got it for
ten bucks in price line. But it is just like
a nice soft red and when I put it on,
you always give me compliments, which I love.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
So I just wear it for you. Mostly it makes
you look like Kate Middleton.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Thank you. What a compliment. Yeah, so I'll be wearing
it until the grave.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yes, I needed this this week because I discovered that
my children had found my Shanti Hayley.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
I don't know if I'm saying that right. It's a lipstick.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
It sounds expensive saying it right, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
This is a seventy seven dollars that they took and
painted their faces with it. No, like, why don't you
choose the Kmart lipstick?
Speaker 4 (26:22):
No, I just can't.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I can't say I'll be getting their Nick's Fat Oil
lip drip.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, that's great. What's yours this week?
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Mon's okay, little gear change.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I have a recommendation for a podcast episode this week,
and I'm going to try and talk about this without crying.
It's an episode of conversations, and I've listened to hundreds
of episodes of conversations in my life. I used to
manage that team at the ABC, but this one absolutely
broke me into a million pieces. It's conversations with Paul Field. Now,
(26:53):
he is the former managing director of the Wiggles. So
the Field family sort of starred the Wiggles. He's been
a bad call the Cockroaches. He's now an ambassador for
Sid's Red Nose Day. He talks about the loss of
his baby daughter, Bernadette. A trigger warning on this The
content is hard to listen to. It's just such a
(27:15):
deeply emotional and moving episode, and he really talks about
the devastation they felt, but also the compassion shown to
them by all the people around them. I think it's
the best episode of Conversations I've ever heard, and in fact,
Richard Widler, who hosts Conversations, says, that is the saddest
thing I have ever heard.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
It's beautiful, it's important.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
I think it's extraordinary that a man can talk about
something that happened to him, you know, in the seventies.
This was and he still talks about it like it
happened yesterday, and it was just so beautiful and moving.
What about you, Amelia, what are you recommending?
Speaker 3 (28:00):
I've got something that is not moving, but it is
very relaxing. Went to Cole's on the weekend and thought
it was a win because took the kids and they
wanted to go toy shop. But then I said no,
we're just going grocery shopping. Now, apparently Cole's has a
toy aisle. I mean why, but We're walking down this
toy aisle and I realize I'm not getting out of
their alives. So I tell them, Look, you can pick
(28:22):
up something that is not primarily made of plastic and
ideally under twenty dollars, and we pick up the Kawaii
as in the Japanese word for cute, the Kawaii rock
painting kit. It is five dollars and we had some
of the most fun I've had in ages. It was
a Saturday afternoon. I put on some fleetwood mac and
we painted rocks together. Look, the kit does come with rocks,
(28:45):
but I'm pretty sure if you have children at home,
they can probably source some artisanal rocks for you to
add to your collection to paint. And I just went
completely ham on this. I started painting rocks after the
kids had gone to bed, and have now considered opening
a market stall to sell them because I think I
have kind of a talent.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Wow, I was going to say, did you get really
possessive of the rocks? And these are.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Do with the rocks once you've painted them? Do you
stick little eyes on them.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
No, you just like put them tastefully around your house.
So it's true that in Japan you'll see quite often
like a window sill will have a couple of beautiful
rocks on it. They're probably not painted the lurid colors
that I've painted mine, But you know what, like, don't
mock my hobby. Like I love story painting, I'm very
good at it, and because I was in a school captain,
(29:39):
I do have to embrace these high points when they happen.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Oh, we're going to start getting them as gifts from you.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
For instance, you'd be lucky, Stacy, You'd be lucky.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
I'm laughing because I saw this TikTok this week that
I laughed out loud so hard at it. It's about
this mum and daughter who play a trick on their
dad and the daughter gives themm a gift and it's
a rock wrapped up and they pretend it's come from
this shop called Anthropology, and they pretend it was like
this extremely precious, like very expensive rock, and the dad's
(30:09):
face in the background is just like I don't get it,
and then he's like, I could have got you a
rock like that like, we have rocks like that in
the garden, and she was like, you don't understand.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
It's anthropology.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
That's you now, Amelia, just like laying your rocks around
your house, your precious rocks. Ah, that's all we have
time for today. Hey, if there's one thing I know
about podcasts, it's that word of mouth is really the
way that people discover them. So got a favor to ask.
If you like this show, tell someone about it because
people trust other recommendations from other people.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
And also, here's the other thing.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
There's some statistic where people listen to eight podcasts a
week and people are always searching for new ones to discover,
so new good ones. So if you tell just one
person about parenting out Loud, we would love that big.
Thanks to our team, Junior content Producer Tessa Kotovic, our
senior producer Leah Porges and Executive producer Sashatanic and the
(31:04):
group ep At Mum and Maya Is Ruth Devine. Have
a great week. We'll be back in the speed next
Saturday morning.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Go paint some rocks.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Bye bye bye, Yah
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