October 3, 2025 • 35 mins
The kids are at home, the holiday activities are seemingly endless and you probably need a break. So welcome back to the podcast that's not just any parenting podcast.
On the show today:
- You're officially excused from ever attending your child's sport practice. Don't believe us? Just ask the professional soccer player Abby Wambach.
- Plus, are you an eldest daughter? Well, so is Taylor Swift and the birth order theory might explain a lot.
- And, magicians are having a moment. But this time it's not just for the kids. So get the girls over, put the kids to bed and enjoy some whimsy.
And our recommendations:
🗞️ Stacey wants you to check out this great opinion piece on the Australian divorce story to end all Australian divorce stories.
📺 Amelia is recommending The Assembly on ABC IVIEW.
🎄 And Monz (in true eldest daughter fashion) is recommending the Christmas Mums Facebook page for Chrissy inspiration, wholesomeness and some early planning.
Support independent women's media
WHAT TO LISTEN TO:
- Don't miss an episode of Parenting Out Loud
- 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
- Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts
WHAT TO READ:
- OPINION: 'Everyone's saying the same thing about Nicole and Keith's divorce. They're wrong.'
- Forget attachment styles, Birth Order Theory is the new personality reading trend.
- Someone check on the eldest daughters this Christmas.
- 'As the eldest daughter, I felt the most pressure.'
- 'I have a sibling age gap of almost 5 years. Here's why it's so much better.'
THE END BITS:
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GET IN TOUCH:
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Join our Facebook group Mamamia Family to talk about the show.
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CREDITS:
Hosts: Monique Bowley, Stacey Hicks & Amelia Lester
Group Executive Producer: Ruth Devine
Executive Producer: Sasha Tannock
Senior/Audio Producer: Leah
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
waters that this podcast is recorded.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
On Welcome to Parenting Out Loud friends, if you are
new here. This is the podcast for parents who don't
always listen to parenting podcasts, So we bring you the news,
the trends, the culture, and what parents are thinking about.
I'm Monice Bolly and does it make me a bad
(00:42):
person if I laugh at Nicole and Keith means?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I think? So, what's been the best one you saw? Oh?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
The hair straightener one? Oh, it was like they have
to divide up their hair straightness. I laugh and I
feel so guilty.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Look, you can laugh about the memes, don't laugh about
their divorce. But we'll laugh about the memes. They're there
for us. I'm Amelia Lester. I am Stacy Hicks, and
I'm not laughing at the memes so far.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
No, you're better than me.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Coming up on Today Show, Taylor Swift has emotionally ruined
all the elder's daughters across the globe this week, So
we're going to talk about whether there's actually any truth
to the birth order theory.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Plus magicians are having a moment, and not just with kids.
We need to unpack why.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Oh and good news for sports parents. A World Cup
champion says, please stop showing up to kids practice.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
But first, are you guys feeling a bit six seven
this week? Can you explain what this is?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Because I have all of a sudden hearing it everywhere.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, like every school age child I know in Australia
at the moment is just repeating the numbers six seven,
And I made myself the task of finding out why
they're doing this. So they're using this in a variety
of ways, like if someone asked your height, they'll scream
six servern And if like they see the numbers on
the whiteboard at school, they'll say six serven and it's
(02:01):
in that voice always. So this all started with scriller.
What's a scriller, you may ask. That is a rapper
and he has this song called do Dude where he
repeats six.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Seven six seven in the song.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Kids started using this song over the top of mostly
sports video edits like basketball edits. Of their favorite basketball
is one, in particular, Lamello Ball. So he's a Charlotte
Hornets player and he's six seven in height. Ok right,
so this is where it's come from. So they started
using it for this, but now it's just transformed to
(02:36):
the point where kids are just yelling it for fun
or they're using it to mean so. So so if
you say how are you going, they go, oh, six
seven six seven, So basically it means nothing and instead
it's just meaning bit mid.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
I'm really just relieves it has nothing to do with
sixty nine. It doesn't. It's very PG.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Okay, here's something I saw this week for sporting parents.
Do you know Abbi.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Womback, Yes, like Olympian.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Right, She's an Olympian, so she's literally one of the
world's best soccer players. She's a world champion, won two
Olympic Golds. All of that. She dropped a bomb on
her Pop cast this week and said parents need to
stop going to their kids' sports practices. And my ears
pricked up so quickly at this because her reason is great,
have to listen to this.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Are we supposed to go to every practice?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
No, that is not actually on my don'ts list? Do
not go to the practices and watch your children this
is their time and ever ever are no practice because
just think about this practice what is the purpose of practice.
It is not. It's not for the kid to look
over their shoulder and make sure that their mom or
(03:45):
dad or parent is sitting on the sideline watching them.
Practice is for free play for them that there is
nothing that's going to encumber them from trying something new,
making taking a risk, making a mistake, trying something being successful.
Because what we're then doing is we're externalizing all of
our motivation.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Ah, I want this on a T shirt. I want
this tattooed on my body. I want to buy a
billboard of this and put it next to a stadium
or a sports field. Stacey, are we just all completely
over involved sideline parents? Now?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
It's one of those things.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Now I've heard it, it does feel so much like
one of those areas where parents have become overinvolved compared
to previous generations. Like I don't know about you guys.
Growing up, I can't remember my parents being there for
like guitar practice or golf. I also did that for
a while. Don't remember them ever being there for that,
probably because they knew I'd never stick to it. But
I think it is one of those things where you
(04:38):
go parents being their equals, pressure and so when there's pressure,
you probably won't want to do it, So it is
probably a good thing for us to be backing out, Like,
do you think it's maybe a guilt thing as well,
that we feel like we have to be there because
we're not there for other areas of their life.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
I think it's definitely a guilt thing, but I think
that we can apply it to not just sports but everything.
So this immediately made me think about the fact that
in one of my kids' classes, parents are invited to
come into volunteer, and I felt guilty, so of course
I signed up to volunteer. And then my son said
(05:15):
to me, I don't want you coming in, and at
first I was a little bit offended, and well not
at first I was offended, and so I went to
his teacher and I said, he doesn't want me coming
in to help out. Why doesn't he want me coming in?
And she said something very profound, which is that a
lot of students don't want their parents to visit the
classroom because the classroom is a site of learning. It's
(05:37):
therefore a sight of vulnerability. You're trying new things, just
like Abby said in the clip, and they want privacy
for that they want to be able to try new
things without their parents looking at them and observing them.
And I thought that was so profound and it can
be applied to so many areas of life, And if
you think about it, it's not that unusual to want
privacy when you're trying something new. It can be embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
They say the same even with food, like you know
at meal times when you're trying to get your kids
to eat, a lot of the research around that is
that you just need to lean right back, like if
you all laser focused on them and staring at them
while they eat, they will clam up and not want
to do it. So it is about kind of removing
ourselves from situations where we feel like we need to
be right in there to support.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Which is so odd because adults love it when people
lean in and stare at.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Every four years, as someone that played an enormous amount
of sport throughout their whole childhood and then in teen
years and then in adult years, sport lets you learn.
It teaches you who to be, and it's a place
where you can solve problems and negotiate and reconcile things
(06:46):
and kind of work out your internal battles, and that
is something that's going to be difficult to do when
your parents are there watching, And it also undermines the
role of a coach and the role of the one
sort of adult leader in a space. There's all this
research about this about how when kids aren't being directed
(07:06):
or helped and I know, you know, sitting on the
sideline and passively watching a kid doing sport. You would
argue that's actually not directing them or helping them, but
it is. It's this constant understanding that they are being
watched and it changes the dynamic in the room. And
what the researchers say in this is that when you
step back when you are not there, that is the
(07:27):
training ground for them to learn executive function, creativity, social skills,
resilience to take risks to fail. And the constant oversight
of parents in intensive parenting often says to children, I
don't trust you to do this alone, and that can
erode confidence. So if we step back, if we don't attend,
if we are not there all the time, we show
(07:47):
kids that we believe in their capacity. And I think
this is really important to just step back and let
kids have a space of their own to work out
who they are.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That makes so much sense, And it reminds me also
of how this is one of those instances where sometimes
I feel like we forget that kids are actually human too.
They're not these sort of alien creatures who we have
to do code. No one likes the micromanaging boss. People
like it when their boss trusts them to do what
they are there to do, and children are exactly the same. Yeah,
(08:21):
you're so right, Like if someone's there asking you about
your every task and making sure you're doing it the
right way, even if they're being encouraging, Like even if
you're on the sideline giving them so much support with
every mistake they make, you're still there interrupting their flow
and interrupting their focus and interrupting their chance to make
a mistake and stuff it up and correct it themselves.
So we really are like taking away their autonomy in
(08:43):
a big way. It's really interesting that she's framed it
like that, because I've never thought about it that way.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
There's also a part of it where if you go
and toil over something by yourself or with a group
of your peers for a long time and your parents
aren't there to watch you at the point that when
they are you get to show them how far you've come.
And one of the defining moments of my life was
when I was living away from home. I was at
the AIS on a baskeball scholarship. I was toiling away
(09:10):
every single day and then the moment that it came
together was for me was I was playing for Australia
in a World Championships and I'd been traveling with this
team overseas for a long time and then at the
first game of the World Championships, I looked up into
the crowd singing the national anthem and my parents were
there and it was like, look what I've done. I
get to show you what I've been doing this whole
(09:31):
time without you being there, and now you're there to
see the kind of fruits of the labor. And that
was like one of those defining moments. And it wouldn't
have been as significant if they were at every single
game and practice and been my shadow the whole time.
It was look at me, I get to grow up.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Okay, that just gave me gooes find yeah me too.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
That's so lovely and yeah so true. So we all
just need to back off. Really, so my close personal
friend Taylor Swift released an album this week called Life
of a show Girl, and before anyone even heard the album,
there was mass hysteria about track five, the most important
track every time on the album, because it is called
Eldest Daughter, and it's brought up a kind of a
(10:09):
bigger conversation around birth order. So lots of people were
reacting to this saying, you know, this is going to
be one for the girls who never feel like they're
good enough. They're the chronic people pleases of the family.
And it reminded me of this podcast. Doctor Gabor Marte
was on the Mel Robins podcast speaking about birth order
and how much birth order can affect the type of
(10:30):
person you are.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
No siblings grow up in the same house, no siblings
have the same parents, no siblings have the same family,
no siblings have the same childhood. Why not the whole
lot of reasons. Number one, there's the birth order. Parents
don't relate to the first child the way they were
to the second child. Then there's gender differences. And I'm
not going word by their parents love the kids or not.
I'm talking about what actually happens. The child doesn't experience
(10:53):
the parents love the child experiences the way the parents
shows up Number two. The parts relationship might be in
a different phase one child and another. Then the parents
might be in a different economic situation, The parents laves
may be different.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
And he goes on to say, even it blew my mind.
Isn't it so interesting? No child is raised in the
same household? Oh? And he goes on to say, even
if even if you could give every single one of
your children, say you had three children, and you could
give them the same exact parenting at the same exact
moment in time, then temperament comes into that as well.
(11:26):
So it's how they experience you as much as what
you are giving them. How much do you buy into
the concept of birth order affecting your personality type?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Like?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Do we need to check on all their eldest daughters?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I have a few questions before we get there. Does
Taylor Swift have siblings?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
She does, so she is the eldest daughter with a
younger brother, Austin.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Is there any science behind birth order?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Like?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Is there any research, any proper psychological studies behind it?
Speaker 1 (11:54):
There is some research, and very loosely speaking, here are
the generalizations that they've decided can be attributed to each child.
So firstborns tend to bask in their parents' presence, sometimes
called mini adults because they've spent so much time with
our adults, kind of one on one, and that undivided attention,
researchers think is why they are often overachievers, because they
(12:19):
tend to have had all the expectations placed on them,
and then they want to live up to those expectations,
and they tend to be Type A personalities as well
as a result. I know you were both eldest daughters.
Mons played a sport for Australia. You played golf. Tell
us about.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Whether you and you're an editor? You're an editor of
a website.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Now, yes, you are? You Type A Type A to
a T like.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I think I very much play into the birth order theory.
I think every characteristic that's listed for an eldest daughter
I generally seem to play into what about you Mon's.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah, I'm a Type A with a Type B rising.
I think I want to be Type B. Yeah, I
am a Type A.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
All type as want to be Type B.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
That's a classic trait of a type A is that.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
We want to be type B. We just won't. Middle
children tend to go with the flow. They tend to
have really I thought this was interesting. They tend to
have really strongly just with their friends because they're the
ones who are often overlooked in their immediate family. And
then youngest children get the most lass a fair parenting.
They tend to be adventurous and attention seeking. I am
(13:23):
a youngest child and this is true of me. And
also youngest children tend to be type B because people
are just entranced by how cute they are when they
walk in a room, so we don't have to perform
at a high level.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
That's what I always say, when you walk into a room,
how cute you are.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
And that's why I didn't play sport for Australia. So
research shows actually that many famous actors and comedians tend
to be the babies of their family. So it's interesting
that Taylor's kind of bucking that trend a little bit.
Her family very much like organize their lives around the
building of her career. They moved to Nashville when she
was a teenager to pursue her interest in country music,
(13:58):
and interestingly, Austin Swift, three years younger than her, I
went onto his Instagram and did a bit of a
deep dive. They have a lovely relationship. It seems he
now is in charge of licensing music for her, but
he's written some really beautiful things about her on Instagram.
For instance, he's written, I've always had a best friend,
a role model, and a caring, tireless, dedicated champion in
(14:19):
my corner, which I just think is like, when is
my brother going to write that about me? And when
she released Evermore, that second album she released during the pandemic,
he wrote, as a brother and a friend, I couldn't
be more proud. I mean, isn't that just lovely? It's
so lovely.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
But don't you think the things he's saying are kind
of things that you would say about a parent, Like
I have a bit of a theory about eldest daughters
and why we kind of assign so much about personality
type two being an eldest daughter, And I think it's
because very often, if the eldest is a girl, there's
(14:55):
what they call parentification, so where they become kind of
the secondary caregiver or the third caregiver to the younger siblings,
and they kind of become that mediator between the parents
especially if there's any tension in the household. The eldest
daughter becomes the middle men between the parents and the
younger sibling. They take on that kind of more nurturing
role for them, and so I think they probably do
(15:17):
build up feelings of resentment towards the younger siblings.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I want to ask the two oldest daughters about the
idea that parents get better at parenting when they get
more practice. Are you both aware of the fact that
your parents refined their parenting as they went along and
that you got the novices.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
I don't believe that. I don't believe they refine it.
I believe they probably relax There a noose about it.
Like if you think about the difference between how you
parent your first child and then the subsequent ones, you
are way more relaxed with subsequent children.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
But this is like saying where the first pancake and
the first pancake you make is always exactly is always
a bit rubbish, and it's the second one where you
just go, yeah, I've got this, like I'll give it
a flip. Whatever however it turns out is fine, and
so that's always the better one. So yeah, like maybe
there is so in being the youngers. I want to
(16:11):
be the youngers.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Can we go back to Taylor Swift for a minute.
If you index the eldest Daughter traits against what Taylor
Swift does, she does seem to be kind of the
embodiment of eldest daughter energy. So there's the overachievement, there's
the perfectionism, there's the type a personality. There's the productivity
which just seems to be astronomical. There's the reliability. She
(16:35):
reliably releases albums all the time. Even that decision to
re record that entire back catalog was very eldest daughter
coded of I will control this, I will make this right.
So I do feel like this track five is probably
that nod to understanding, like her drive and her perfectionism.
But my question for you, Stacy, as the top tier
(16:55):
Swifty in this group, once Taylor Swift gives something cultural gravitas,
So once she releases this, once the eldest Daughter is
out in the cultural space, are we going to see
a big movement here once she names this? Are we
going to see a whole mainstream movement of els oldest
daughter stuff, merch movements, all the kind of mainstream hype
(17:16):
around a thing.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I feel like we almost already are just from the
track list. Like when people saw that, I could not
believe the amount of tiktoks. I saw like they definitely
know me my algorithm because I was getting all of
these videos and it very much was a we've got permission.
We're proud to be the eldest, Like look at look
at our icon in being an eldest daughter in Taylor
Swift and what she does, like the length she goes
(17:39):
to in her career and in her life, and it
kind of just gives you permission to lean into that
if that's who you are.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Does birth order? Is it giving astrology a little bit
like you see a label, you know the way that
astrology you read your horoscope and you can kind of
take anything out of it that you need to. So
these ideas about birth order where you're the responsible one,
you're the peacekeeper, you're the baby in the clown and
you kind of grab onto it. Is it just that
we're searching for meaning and so anytime someone puts out
(18:07):
a theory of like here's you already made identity, we
kind of cling onto it because it feels good to
sort yourself into a type and to feel like, oh, yeah,
I understand that.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I don't think it's astrology. I think it's real. Like
Dr gab Or Marte was talking about, there are facts here.
As parents have more children, they're going to be changing
their parenting style over time.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Absolutely, I don't believe in astrology at all because I'm
the most unscorpio scorpio that's ever existed. People often say
that to me, but I am the most eldest daughter,
eldest daughter that's ever existed. So I just feel like,
anecdotally from what I see with everyone, I feel like
you can pretty easily pick who are the eldest, who
are the middle, who are the youngest. It definitely does
(18:48):
feel like there's something in it. And I've even seen
experts talking about the birth order renewal. So when there's
a big age gap, so I think they say the
number is five and up, so more than a five
year age gap between children, it starts again. I'm glad
you mentioned this because increasingly that there's also a focus
on the gap between children. Yeah, being definitive and is
(19:11):
sort of setting the tone in a family. And an
interesting fact is that over the last fifty years, the
average gap between siblings has widened, and it's going to
continue to widen. Apparently that it's become quite a distinct trend.
Of course, I think that's got a lot to do
with contraception and having more life options for women. But
that bigger age gap, psychologists say, can actually soften the
(19:34):
blow for an older sibling when the new baby comes
along and diverts attention. So in that way, maybe the
birth order thing will become less pronounced as the age
gap becomes wider between kids. Every now and then a
topic comes along where I just simply have to talk
about it, and I think I scare people with my enthusiasm.
(19:54):
But the time has come for that topic, and this
week it is magic.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Magic is back, and we need to figure out why
party magician TikTok is a thing. It is full of
card tricks and vanishing doves and top hats, and it's
not just kids who are in love with magic these days.
There's a lot of twenty seven year old at birthday
parties doing a lot of dramatic shrieking and jumping to
the point where you know those tiktoks where the camera
(20:20):
like moves and shakes and you can't really see what's happening,
because it looks like an earthquake. That's what happens when
a trick happens on party magicians.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I'm suddenly seeing fully grown adults, like instead of having
any sort of entertainment, instead of going out to a club,
but they are hiring magicians into their house.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
This is right, is exactly Okay.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
It's almost like maybe people are drinking less now, so
maybe they're wanting that alternative like entertainment and group activity
that they can do that doesn't involve that. And it
kind of feels like what coloring was ten years ago.
Remember everyone suddenly got obsessed with coloring again, Like it's
just looking for a group hobby that we can do
that doesn't revolve around getting black out drunk.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Cosmopolitan has reported on this trend, and it says that
the reason why we're getting in on this pastime that
is very traditionally for kids is because young adults are
in and I love this phrase deep whimsy deficiency. We
are They say that after formative years spent in quarantine
and a shaky entry into adulthood, young people in particular
(21:19):
are experiencing historic levels of unhappiness, which is exactly why
magic and the escapism of magic is primed for a comeback.
Mon's it feels like when we were growing up as
elder millennials, magic was everywhere. Remember David Copperfield marrying Claudia Schiffer.
I mean, magicians were marrying supermodels. Back then. There was
(21:40):
the Now You See Me film series, which was about
illusionists during bank heists. So I guess my real question
for you it isn't why magic is making a comeback,
It is why did it ever go away?
Speaker 3 (21:52):
It's such a good question. I don't have the answer.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Because it did. For like two decades there was no magic.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I guess things become unfashionable and then they become fashionable again,
and it's like a new generation is discovering this thing
that we got so much joy out of. I went
so deep on this, I confess I did roll my
eye and then I was like, no, no, I'll trust
Amelia Lester. So I went onto TikTok. This is so
fun to watch. It's the screaming, the gasping, the shrieking
(22:20):
in wonder. It's really fantastic to see. And it says
a lot about our craving to be kids again and
I think that this article is right. With all the pandemic,
the economic instability, all the bad news in the world,
we want to just forget it all and look at
a rabbit in a hat. I want to ask you, Stacy,
do you think that it says something deeper about how
(22:42):
adults are just now struggling with being adults.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yeah, definitely, And I think we're seeing this a lot
across the culture, Like I know on Mama Mia, we've
definitely done a lot of articles around the trends of
adults now with collecting as well, like they're collecting Sonny angels,
they're collecting squish mellows, they're collecting La booboos, like if
you haven't seen them, the charm creatures that people are
attaching to their bags. And I think it's because it's
(23:06):
a return to surprise, Like we don't get surprised and
delight that much when we're adults, Like we kind of
know everything we can know. We can find out the
gender of our baby pretty early if we want, Like
nothing is a surprise to us now. And then with
La booboos, they're in a magic rapper so that you
can't see what they are, so we're giving ourselves that
(23:27):
little ooh ah, And I feel like that's what magic
does as well.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Right, It's almost like a jolt. Yeah, it can be
really sort of surprising, and I started to understand the
appeal of magic or unpack it. I used to live
in Washington, DC and the most popular children's entertainer in Washington,
DC is a man called the Great Zacchini. He's a magician.
There have been like very long Washington Post articles written
(23:51):
about him and how famous he is. One time I
tried to employ him for a child's birthday party, and
it was honestly like trying to contact a member of
the mafia. Like you have to call this number and
leave a message for him, and then in his voicemail,
he says, I could call you back at any time,
and if I can't reach you, I'm not going to
call you back again. So you call him, you leave
(24:12):
this message basically begging him to come to your child.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
What was your message? What did you say? Did you
rehearse it ahead of time?
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yes, And you have to express a willingness for him
to come whenever he is available. So the concept of
having him for your child's actual birthday, forget about it.
He's way too in demand.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
For that, so he could to show up to like
Sunday dinner and you have to bow down and.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Basically so you have to be like high Great Zacchini.
I've heard so many wonderful things about you, and I
have a very respectful four year old who would really
appreciate you coming to celebrate her birthday. Not on her birthday, obviously,
but at any time in the second half of this year.
That would be amazing. Thank you so much for me.
Back I did the Great KIKKINI come immediately, and he goes,
(24:54):
I can do fourteenth of October at two thirty. This
was not a convenient time for me, nor was it
my child's birthday. But I said great, because you cannot
turn down the Great Zacchini. And then he explains to
me that I need payment immediately, the full payment, not
just a deposit. It needs to be sent to my
bank account immediately to secure your spot. If I do
(25:14):
not receive your payment by midnight tonight, you do not
have the spot. So I say to my partner, we
need to send this large amount of money to a
bank account named the Great Zacchini immediately, and so he
rolled his eyes, but we did send the money to
the Great Zacchini, he did come to the party. All
of this is to say, here is why magic is
loved by everyone. It's not even about the tricks themselves.
(25:36):
The Great Szacchini's appeal is that he's tremendously silly. He
has the children like rolling around on the floor laughing.
The magic is actually not very impressive. It's like a
couple of slights of hand with like a pack of cards.
But really, why he's so famous and why he's so
compelling as an entertainer is because he is bending the
rules of what we are taught is how you're meant
(25:58):
to behave, and specifically how adults are meant to behave.
He is so silly, and the children cannot believe that
here is a grown up who was behaving in all
the ways that they are told that grown ups should
not behave. And that is, I think think the core
of why magic is appealing. It's because it's bending rules.
It's making us think that things that we thought were
the case are not the case.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
In a world where informations just at our fingertips NonStop,
is magic the last place where everyone in the room
is completely clueless and there's just.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
No great, Yeah, definitely, and I want to watch a
magic show now.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Weirdly, I have another magic story which is going to,
I think prove my point, which is that kids don't
care about the magic itself. Okay, so when I was
a child, I lived in India and one time I
went to a birthday party and a man came to
the birthday party who proceeded to lie on the floor,
cover himself with a blanket and levitate. He levitated off
(26:53):
the floor. Do not ask me how this literally happened.
There were adults in the room. He was floating off
the floor like that. Clearly the blanket had something to
do with it, but he was nonetheless off the floor.
Do you think any of the kids in the room cared.
They don't actually care about the trip. They just want
the surprise, the delight and the sheer unexpected nature of it.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
And I think that's the thing though, if adults are
going to get back into magic now, is that we
do just have to sit back and not try and
figure it out. Because I feel like adults have a
really bad tendency to need to know the answers and
to be like, oh, well it must be you know,
a trick door or at the back, or it must
be some sort of mechanism. Like part of the beauty
of magic is not knowing the answers, and I think
(27:37):
it's okay if we don't know the answers sometimes.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Yes, I think magic could be the perfect art form
for this generation. Magic is quick and wondrous, and it
requires attention and you have to be paying attention, and
it moves fast, much like the algorithm. So maybe magic
will be the art form that sustains in this time
of just dwindling attention spans.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
You just said the word that I think is key attention.
It captures our attention in a way that we're trying
to figure out what's going on. And you're so right
that that ability to get people's attention fully for a
short perioderiod of time, that is what makes it perfect.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Okay, before we wrap today's show, we like to bring
you things that we're recommending. It's kind of the greatest
hits of our lives since we've discovered things, we've watched
scene bought, the stuff that's worth spending your time and
attention on. Stacy, what have you got this week?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Okay, So everyone this week's obviously been talking about Nicole
Kidman and Keith Urban's divorce. There is so much out
the hair about their separation announcement, but there's a piece
that's actually worth your time on Mum and Mia this
week called Everyone's saying the same thing about Nicole and
Keith's divorce, They're wrong by Jessica Clark. She's done such
a beautiful opinion piece about the fact that the general
(28:51):
sentiment seems to be love is dead and what a
tragedy that that relationship ended. And her opinion, which she's
so beautifully written about, will put the link in the
show notes, is that nineteen years in any type of
relationship should not be considered a failure. She speaks from
a place of being divorced herself and talking about how
important that relationship was in her life and how we
(29:14):
should reframe that. And we had such beautiful responses from
the audience, so I'd love everyone to read it.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
What's your reco mons?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I know it's October, but I want to talk about Christmas.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Don't come at me, oh God, already, no, no.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
No, do not roll your eyes. If Christmas is your
Roman Empire. And there are a lot of people out
there for whom it is who spend their whole year
looking forward to it. I have a Facebook group for
you to indulge yourself. It's called Christmas Mums Australia. This
is literally a Facebook group of mums for whom Christmas
is their personality. It's me, guys, it's me. This Facebook
(29:51):
group is my secret delight. They are sloper what's coming
out in Kmart and Target. They are in the stores,
they are taking photos. They are debating the best advent calendars.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
They are tagged event calendars. The calendars already.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
If you haven't got one already, get onto the Christmas months.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Where is the best advent calendar time?
Speaker 3 (30:10):
It depends what esthetic you're going for. This is what
the group's about. They will tell you exactly what to
buy an eight year old girl a fourteen year old boy.
Basically they do all the heavy lifting around Christmas while
I sit back and just read it and just get
so immersed in how nuts it all is. I love it.
It's dopamine without spending any money. Now listen. The caveat
(30:32):
is this, sometimes it can become overwhelming. So small doses
of Christmas Mum's Australia, because you'll start to get you'll
start to scroll, You'll start your heart will rate will
start to increase. You'll think, shit, I haven't organized myself yet.
It's still October. You're okay, okay, So small doses of
this group for anyone that just loves to lurk in
other people's homes, other people's brains, and just people who
(30:54):
are mad about Christmas.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
I don't think I can go in there.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
This is rolling your eyes at me.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
What is this? Because it's making me anxious, frankly, because
you're making me think that I have to think about
Christmas when I've got Halloween to prepare for.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Exactly Amelia type B. Okay, maybe this isn't the group
A type A.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Group full of eldest daughters. I can tell you that
mine is a TV show because I'm type B. I
have a TV show to recommend. It's called The Assembly,
a show on ABC that's just come back for its
second season. It's not a show about parenting. The premise
is that Lee Sales mentors a group of aspiring journalism
students with autism, and they ask no holds barred questions
(31:37):
of Australian public figures, basically, and you get some really
surprising and beautiful moments and interactions. I'd recommend starting the
season one. The first episode is with Sam Neil and
the students make him blush. They ask him questions that
make him incredibly uncomfortable. And also he's just so handsome,
is Sam Neior. He's just such a lovely, charming, handsome
(32:00):
person to spend some time with. But the moment I
wanted to bring to you both is from the season
two premiere. It's with the actor Richard Rocksborough. And this
moment will stop you in your tracks. Grab some tissues
and listen.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
You have three children, baby day babies forever. They grow
taller and grow into themselves and develop a beautiful brain.
Have they made you aware of time and that youth
does not last forever?
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (32:27):
My god, yes they have, they have. I think you know,
it's a really interesting thing becoming a parent because you
because it brings as much fear with it as it
does love, and you spend your life trying to combat
(32:48):
the fear to the kind of exactly the same shape
as love. It's like love's shadow, and that's fear that
you have that anything bad would happen to them. So yeah,
they do make you really aware of mortality and all
(33:09):
the other things that go.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
With Oh love Shadow. That show, I'll tell you the
question is so beautiful. That show will just fill you
up and I just can't recommend it. But Christmas Mom
sounds great too. Months since Mom sounds.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Great, I won't be going in there. Keep me out.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
That's how we're different. As eldest daughter's monds. I'm not
going in there now.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
I feel like a jerk when you're bringing the feels
and loves Shadow. Look, that's what you love about this show.
It swings and roundabouts. It's light and shade, and that
is us done for the day. Thank you to the
parenting out louders that are hyping us up with reviews.
In Apple podcasts, the challenge is to write a review
in gentle parenting speak. And I was laughing out loud
(33:53):
this week and what came through. I have to say
you all understood the brief. Here's a couple of my favorites.
So this one was left by someone called love the
pod girls. The headline is space for Big Feelings. I
love the way you all held space for each other's
thoughts and emotions last episode. Navigating big feelings can be
(34:14):
really tricky. Sometimes I'm proud of you for trying your best.
And then this one was my favorite of the week
from Amy Lee Lauren. She says, Wow, Amelia, Mon and Stacy,
you have been so creative. I can see how much
time and love you have put into your colorful purple
and yellow branding. And the content for each episode is
(34:37):
being a podcaster making your heart happy. My heart is
so happy seeing how happy you are. Amy Lee, you
win like you nailed that, so good, so good. Thank
you for joining us this week and look at you.
You did the whole episode start to finish, and that
shows such focus. Does listening to us make your brain
(34:59):
feel sparkly because ours does too. So if your heart
feels ready, leave us a review and please tap follow,
but only if it feels good in your body doing
such important listening work. Hey, and a big thanks to
the team this week, Tessakovic, Sashatanic, Leoporgos and the group
ep Is Ruth Divine. See you next week.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Bye you bye,
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
waters that this podcast is recorded.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
On Welcome to Parenting Out Loud friends, if you are
new here. This is the podcast for parents who don't
always listen to parenting podcasts, So we bring you the news,
the trends, the culture, and what parents are thinking about.
I'm Monice Bolly and does it make me a bad
(00:42):
person if I laugh at Nicole and Keith means?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I think? So, what's been the best one you saw? Oh?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
The hair straightener one? Oh, it was like they have
to divide up their hair straightness. I laugh and I
feel so guilty.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Look, you can laugh about the memes, don't laugh about
their divorce. But we'll laugh about the memes. They're there
for us. I'm Amelia Lester. I am Stacy Hicks, and
I'm not laughing at the memes so far.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
No, you're better than me.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Coming up on Today Show, Taylor Swift has emotionally ruined
all the elder's daughters across the globe this week, So
we're going to talk about whether there's actually any truth
to the birth order theory.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Plus magicians are having a moment, and not just with kids.
We need to unpack why.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Oh and good news for sports parents. A World Cup
champion says, please stop showing up to kids practice.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
But first, are you guys feeling a bit six seven
this week? Can you explain what this is?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Because I have all of a sudden hearing it everywhere.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, like every school age child I know in Australia
at the moment is just repeating the numbers six seven,
And I made myself the task of finding out why
they're doing this. So they're using this in a variety
of ways, like if someone asked your height, they'll scream
six servern And if like they see the numbers on
the whiteboard at school, they'll say six serven and it's
(02:01):
in that voice always. So this all started with scriller.
What's a scriller, you may ask. That is a rapper
and he has this song called do Dude where he
repeats six.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Seven six seven in the song.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Kids started using this song over the top of mostly
sports video edits like basketball edits. Of their favorite basketball
is one, in particular, Lamello Ball. So he's a Charlotte
Hornets player and he's six seven in height. Ok right,
so this is where it's come from. So they started
using it for this, but now it's just transformed to
(02:36):
the point where kids are just yelling it for fun
or they're using it to mean so. So so if
you say how are you going, they go, oh, six
seven six seven, So basically it means nothing and instead
it's just meaning bit mid.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
I'm really just relieves it has nothing to do with
sixty nine. It doesn't. It's very PG.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Okay, here's something I saw this week for sporting parents.
Do you know Abbi.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Womback, Yes, like Olympian.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Right, She's an Olympian, so she's literally one of the
world's best soccer players. She's a world champion, won two
Olympic Golds. All of that. She dropped a bomb on
her Pop cast this week and said parents need to
stop going to their kids' sports practices. And my ears
pricked up so quickly at this because her reason is great,
have to listen to this.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Are we supposed to go to every practice?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
No, that is not actually on my don'ts list? Do
not go to the practices and watch your children this
is their time and ever ever are no practice because
just think about this practice what is the purpose of practice.
It is not. It's not for the kid to look
over their shoulder and make sure that their mom or
(03:45):
dad or parent is sitting on the sideline watching them.
Practice is for free play for them that there is
nothing that's going to encumber them from trying something new,
making taking a risk, making a mistake, trying something being successful.
Because what we're then doing is we're externalizing all of
our motivation.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Ah, I want this on a T shirt. I want
this tattooed on my body. I want to buy a
billboard of this and put it next to a stadium
or a sports field. Stacey, are we just all completely
over involved sideline parents? Now?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
It's one of those things.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Now I've heard it, it does feel so much like
one of those areas where parents have become overinvolved compared
to previous generations. Like I don't know about you guys.
Growing up, I can't remember my parents being there for
like guitar practice or golf. I also did that for
a while. Don't remember them ever being there for that,
probably because they knew I'd never stick to it. But
I think it is one of those things where you
(04:38):
go parents being their equals, pressure and so when there's pressure,
you probably won't want to do it, So it is
probably a good thing for us to be backing out, Like,
do you think it's maybe a guilt thing as well,
that we feel like we have to be there because
we're not there for other areas of their life.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
I think it's definitely a guilt thing, but I think
that we can apply it to not just sports but everything.
So this immediately made me think about the fact that
in one of my kids' classes, parents are invited to
come into volunteer, and I felt guilty, so of course
I signed up to volunteer. And then my son said
(05:15):
to me, I don't want you coming in, and at
first I was a little bit offended, and well not
at first I was offended, and so I went to
his teacher and I said, he doesn't want me coming
in to help out. Why doesn't he want me coming in?
And she said something very profound, which is that a
lot of students don't want their parents to visit the
classroom because the classroom is a site of learning. It's
(05:37):
therefore a sight of vulnerability. You're trying new things, just
like Abby said in the clip, and they want privacy
for that they want to be able to try new
things without their parents looking at them and observing them.
And I thought that was so profound and it can
be applied to so many areas of life, And if
you think about it, it's not that unusual to want
privacy when you're trying something new. It can be embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
They say the same even with food, like you know
at meal times when you're trying to get your kids
to eat, a lot of the research around that is
that you just need to lean right back, like if
you all laser focused on them and staring at them
while they eat, they will clam up and not want
to do it. So it is about kind of removing
ourselves from situations where we feel like we need to
be right in there to support.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Which is so odd because adults love it when people
lean in and stare at.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Every four years, as someone that played an enormous amount
of sport throughout their whole childhood and then in teen
years and then in adult years, sport lets you learn.
It teaches you who to be, and it's a place
where you can solve problems and negotiate and reconcile things
(06:46):
and kind of work out your internal battles, and that
is something that's going to be difficult to do when
your parents are there watching, And it also undermines the
role of a coach and the role of the one
sort of adult leader in a space. There's all this
research about this about how when kids aren't being directed
(07:06):
or helped and I know, you know, sitting on the
sideline and passively watching a kid doing sport. You would
argue that's actually not directing them or helping them, but
it is. It's this constant understanding that they are being
watched and it changes the dynamic in the room. And
what the researchers say in this is that when you
step back when you are not there, that is the
(07:27):
training ground for them to learn executive function, creativity, social skills,
resilience to take risks to fail. And the constant oversight
of parents in intensive parenting often says to children, I
don't trust you to do this alone, and that can
erode confidence. So if we step back, if we don't attend,
if we are not there all the time, we show
(07:47):
kids that we believe in their capacity. And I think
this is really important to just step back and let
kids have a space of their own to work out
who they are.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That makes so much sense, And it reminds me also
of how this is one of those instances where sometimes
I feel like we forget that kids are actually human too.
They're not these sort of alien creatures who we have
to do code. No one likes the micromanaging boss. People
like it when their boss trusts them to do what
they are there to do, and children are exactly the same. Yeah,
(08:21):
you're so right, Like if someone's there asking you about
your every task and making sure you're doing it the
right way, even if they're being encouraging, Like even if
you're on the sideline giving them so much support with
every mistake they make, you're still there interrupting their flow
and interrupting their focus and interrupting their chance to make
a mistake and stuff it up and correct it themselves.
So we really are like taking away their autonomy in
(08:43):
a big way. It's really interesting that she's framed it
like that, because I've never thought about it that way.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
There's also a part of it where if you go
and toil over something by yourself or with a group
of your peers for a long time and your parents
aren't there to watch you at the point that when
they are you get to show them how far you've come.
And one of the defining moments of my life was
when I was living away from home. I was at
the AIS on a baskeball scholarship. I was toiling away
(09:10):
every single day and then the moment that it came
together was for me was I was playing for Australia
in a World Championships and I'd been traveling with this
team overseas for a long time and then at the
first game of the World Championships, I looked up into
the crowd singing the national anthem and my parents were
there and it was like, look what I've done. I
get to show you what I've been doing this whole
(09:31):
time without you being there, and now you're there to
see the kind of fruits of the labor. And that
was like one of those defining moments. And it wouldn't
have been as significant if they were at every single
game and practice and been my shadow the whole time.
It was look at me, I get to grow up.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Okay, that just gave me gooes find yeah me too.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
That's so lovely and yeah so true. So we all
just need to back off. Really, so my close personal
friend Taylor Swift released an album this week called Life
of a show Girl, and before anyone even heard the album,
there was mass hysteria about track five, the most important
track every time on the album, because it is called
Eldest Daughter, and it's brought up a kind of a
(10:09):
bigger conversation around birth order. So lots of people were
reacting to this saying, you know, this is going to
be one for the girls who never feel like they're
good enough. They're the chronic people pleases of the family.
And it reminded me of this podcast. Doctor Gabor Marte
was on the Mel Robins podcast speaking about birth order
and how much birth order can affect the type of
(10:30):
person you are.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
No siblings grow up in the same house, no siblings
have the same parents, no siblings have the same family,
no siblings have the same childhood. Why not the whole
lot of reasons. Number one, there's the birth order. Parents
don't relate to the first child the way they were
to the second child. Then there's gender differences. And I'm
not going word by their parents love the kids or not.
I'm talking about what actually happens. The child doesn't experience
(10:53):
the parents love the child experiences the way the parents
shows up Number two. The parts relationship might be in
a different phase one child and another. Then the parents
might be in a different economic situation, The parents laves
may be different.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
And he goes on to say, even it blew my mind.
Isn't it so interesting? No child is raised in the
same household? Oh? And he goes on to say, even
if even if you could give every single one of
your children, say you had three children, and you could
give them the same exact parenting at the same exact
moment in time, then temperament comes into that as well.
(11:26):
So it's how they experience you as much as what
you are giving them. How much do you buy into
the concept of birth order affecting your personality type?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Like?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Do we need to check on all their eldest daughters?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I have a few questions before we get there. Does
Taylor Swift have siblings?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
She does, so she is the eldest daughter with a
younger brother, Austin.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Is there any science behind birth order?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Like?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Is there any research, any proper psychological studies behind it?
Speaker 1 (11:54):
There is some research, and very loosely speaking, here are
the generalizations that they've decided can be attributed to each child.
So firstborns tend to bask in their parents' presence, sometimes
called mini adults because they've spent so much time with
our adults, kind of one on one, and that undivided attention,
researchers think is why they are often overachievers, because they
(12:19):
tend to have had all the expectations placed on them,
and then they want to live up to those expectations,
and they tend to be Type A personalities as well
as a result. I know you were both eldest daughters.
Mons played a sport for Australia. You played golf. Tell
us about.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Whether you and you're an editor? You're an editor of
a website.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Now, yes, you are? You Type A Type A to
a T like.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I think I very much play into the birth order theory.
I think every characteristic that's listed for an eldest daughter
I generally seem to play into what about you Mon's.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yeah, I'm a Type A with a Type B rising.
I think I want to be Type B. Yeah, I
am a Type A.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
All type as want to be Type B.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
That's a classic trait of a type A is that.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
We want to be type B. We just won't. Middle
children tend to go with the flow. They tend to
have really I thought this was interesting. They tend to
have really strongly just with their friends because they're the
ones who are often overlooked in their immediate family. And
then youngest children get the most lass a fair parenting.
They tend to be adventurous and attention seeking. I am
(13:23):
a youngest child and this is true of me. And
also youngest children tend to be type B because people
are just entranced by how cute they are when they
walk in a room, so we don't have to perform
at a high level.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
That's what I always say, when you walk into a room,
how cute you are.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
And that's why I didn't play sport for Australia. So
research shows actually that many famous actors and comedians tend
to be the babies of their family. So it's interesting
that Taylor's kind of bucking that trend a little bit.
Her family very much like organize their lives around the
building of her career. They moved to Nashville when she
was a teenager to pursue her interest in country music,
(13:58):
and interestingly, Austin Swift, three years younger than her, I
went onto his Instagram and did a bit of a
deep dive. They have a lovely relationship. It seems he
now is in charge of licensing music for her, but
he's written some really beautiful things about her on Instagram.
For instance, he's written, I've always had a best friend,
a role model, and a caring, tireless, dedicated champion in
(14:19):
my corner, which I just think is like, when is
my brother going to write that about me? And when
she released Evermore, that second album she released during the pandemic,
he wrote, as a brother and a friend, I couldn't
be more proud. I mean, isn't that just lovely? It's
so lovely.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
But don't you think the things he's saying are kind
of things that you would say about a parent, Like
I have a bit of a theory about eldest daughters
and why we kind of assign so much about personality
type two being an eldest daughter, And I think it's
because very often, if the eldest is a girl, there's
(14:55):
what they call parentification, so where they become kind of
the secondary caregiver or the third caregiver to the younger siblings,
and they kind of become that mediator between the parents
especially if there's any tension in the household. The eldest
daughter becomes the middle men between the parents and the
younger sibling. They take on that kind of more nurturing
role for them, and so I think they probably do
(15:17):
build up feelings of resentment towards the younger siblings.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I want to ask the two oldest daughters about the
idea that parents get better at parenting when they get
more practice. Are you both aware of the fact that
your parents refined their parenting as they went along and
that you got the novices.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
I don't believe that. I don't believe they refine it.
I believe they probably relax There a noose about it.
Like if you think about the difference between how you
parent your first child and then the subsequent ones, you
are way more relaxed with subsequent children.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
But this is like saying where the first pancake and
the first pancake you make is always exactly is always
a bit rubbish, and it's the second one where you
just go, yeah, I've got this, like I'll give it
a flip. Whatever however it turns out is fine, and
so that's always the better one. So yeah, like maybe
there is so in being the youngers. I want to
(16:11):
be the youngers.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Can we go back to Taylor Swift for a minute.
If you index the eldest Daughter traits against what Taylor
Swift does, she does seem to be kind of the
embodiment of eldest daughter energy. So there's the overachievement, there's
the perfectionism, there's the type a personality. There's the productivity
which just seems to be astronomical. There's the reliability. She
(16:35):
reliably releases albums all the time. Even that decision to
re record that entire back catalog was very eldest daughter
coded of I will control this, I will make this right.
So I do feel like this track five is probably
that nod to understanding, like her drive and her perfectionism.
But my question for you, Stacy, as the top tier
(16:55):
Swifty in this group, once Taylor Swift gives something cultural gravitas,
So once she releases this, once the eldest Daughter is
out in the cultural space, are we going to see
a big movement here once she names this? Are we
going to see a whole mainstream movement of els oldest
daughter stuff, merch movements, all the kind of mainstream hype
(17:16):
around a thing.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
I feel like we almost already are just from the
track list. Like when people saw that, I could not
believe the amount of tiktoks. I saw like they definitely
know me my algorithm because I was getting all of
these videos and it very much was a we've got permission.
We're proud to be the eldest, Like look at look
at our icon in being an eldest daughter in Taylor
Swift and what she does, like the length she goes
(17:39):
to in her career and in her life, and it
kind of just gives you permission to lean into that
if that's who you are.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Does birth order? Is it giving astrology a little bit
like you see a label, you know the way that
astrology you read your horoscope and you can kind of
take anything out of it that you need to. So
these ideas about birth order where you're the responsible one,
you're the peacekeeper, you're the baby in the clown and
you kind of grab onto it. Is it just that
we're searching for meaning and so anytime someone puts out
(18:07):
a theory of like here's you already made identity, we
kind of cling onto it because it feels good to
sort yourself into a type and to feel like, oh, yeah,
I understand that.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
I don't think it's astrology. I think it's real. Like
Dr gab Or Marte was talking about, there are facts here.
As parents have more children, they're going to be changing
their parenting style over time.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Absolutely, I don't believe in astrology at all because I'm
the most unscorpio scorpio that's ever existed. People often say
that to me, but I am the most eldest daughter,
eldest daughter that's ever existed. So I just feel like,
anecdotally from what I see with everyone, I feel like
you can pretty easily pick who are the eldest, who
are the middle, who are the youngest. It definitely does
(18:48):
feel like there's something in it. And I've even seen
experts talking about the birth order renewal. So when there's
a big age gap, so I think they say the
number is five and up, so more than a five
year age gap between children, it starts again. I'm glad
you mentioned this because increasingly that there's also a focus
on the gap between children. Yeah, being definitive and is
(19:11):
sort of setting the tone in a family. And an
interesting fact is that over the last fifty years, the
average gap between siblings has widened, and it's going to
continue to widen. Apparently that it's become quite a distinct trend.
Of course, I think that's got a lot to do
with contraception and having more life options for women. But
that bigger age gap, psychologists say, can actually soften the
(19:34):
blow for an older sibling when the new baby comes
along and diverts attention. So in that way, maybe the
birth order thing will become less pronounced as the age
gap becomes wider between kids. Every now and then a
topic comes along where I just simply have to talk
about it, and I think I scare people with my enthusiasm.
(19:54):
But the time has come for that topic, and this
week it is magic.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Magic is back, and we need to figure out why
party magician TikTok is a thing. It is full of
card tricks and vanishing doves and top hats, and it's
not just kids who are in love with magic these days.
There's a lot of twenty seven year old at birthday
parties doing a lot of dramatic shrieking and jumping to
the point where you know those tiktoks where the camera
(20:20):
like moves and shakes and you can't really see what's happening,
because it looks like an earthquake. That's what happens when
a trick happens on party magicians.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
I'm suddenly seeing fully grown adults, like instead of having
any sort of entertainment, instead of going out to a club,
but they are hiring magicians into their house.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
This is right, is exactly Okay.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
It's almost like maybe people are drinking less now, so
maybe they're wanting that alternative like entertainment and group activity
that they can do that doesn't involve that. And it
kind of feels like what coloring was ten years ago.
Remember everyone suddenly got obsessed with coloring again, Like it's
just looking for a group hobby that we can do
that doesn't revolve around getting black out drunk.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Cosmopolitan has reported on this trend, and it says that
the reason why we're getting in on this pastime that
is very traditionally for kids is because young adults are
in and I love this phrase deep whimsy deficiency. We
are They say that after formative years spent in quarantine
and a shaky entry into adulthood, young people in particular
(21:19):
are experiencing historic levels of unhappiness, which is exactly why
magic and the escapism of magic is primed for a comeback.
Mon's it feels like when we were growing up as
elder millennials, magic was everywhere. Remember David Copperfield marrying Claudia Schiffer.
I mean, magicians were marrying supermodels. Back then. There was
(21:40):
the Now You See Me film series, which was about
illusionists during bank heists. So I guess my real question
for you it isn't why magic is making a comeback,
It is why did it ever go away?
Speaker 3 (21:52):
It's such a good question. I don't have the answer.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Because it did. For like two decades there was no magic.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I guess things become unfashionable and then they become fashionable again,
and it's like a new generation is discovering this thing
that we got so much joy out of. I went
so deep on this, I confess I did roll my
eye and then I was like, no, no, I'll trust
Amelia Lester. So I went onto TikTok. This is so
fun to watch. It's the screaming, the gasping, the shrieking
(22:20):
in wonder. It's really fantastic to see. And it says
a lot about our craving to be kids again and
I think that this article is right. With all the pandemic,
the economic instability, all the bad news in the world,
we want to just forget it all and look at
a rabbit in a hat. I want to ask you, Stacy,
do you think that it says something deeper about how
(22:42):
adults are just now struggling with being adults.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yeah, definitely, And I think we're seeing this a lot
across the culture, Like I know on Mama Mia, we've
definitely done a lot of articles around the trends of
adults now with collecting as well, like they're collecting Sonny angels,
they're collecting squish mellows, they're collecting La booboos, like if
you haven't seen them, the charm creatures that people are
attaching to their bags. And I think it's because it's
(23:06):
a return to surprise, Like we don't get surprised and
delight that much when we're adults, Like we kind of
know everything we can know. We can find out the
gender of our baby pretty early if we want, Like
nothing is a surprise to us now. And then with
La booboos, they're in a magic rapper so that you
can't see what they are, so we're giving ourselves that
(23:27):
little ooh ah, And I feel like that's what magic
does as well.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Right, It's almost like a jolt. Yeah, it can be
really sort of surprising, and I started to understand the
appeal of magic or unpack it. I used to live
in Washington, DC and the most popular children's entertainer in Washington,
DC is a man called the Great Zacchini. He's a magician.
There have been like very long Washington Post articles written
(23:51):
about him and how famous he is. One time I
tried to employ him for a child's birthday party, and
it was honestly like trying to contact a member of
the mafia. Like you have to call this number and
leave a message for him, and then in his voicemail,
he says, I could call you back at any time,
and if I can't reach you, I'm not going to
call you back again. So you call him, you leave
(24:12):
this message basically begging him to come to your child.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
What was your message? What did you say? Did you
rehearse it ahead of time?
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yes, And you have to express a willingness for him
to come whenever he is available. So the concept of
having him for your child's actual birthday, forget about it.
He's way too in demand.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
For that, so he could to show up to like
Sunday dinner and you have to bow down and.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Basically so you have to be like high Great Zacchini.
I've heard so many wonderful things about you, and I
have a very respectful four year old who would really
appreciate you coming to celebrate her birthday. Not on her birthday, obviously,
but at any time in the second half of this year.
That would be amazing. Thank you so much for me.
Back I did the Great KIKKINI come immediately, and he goes,
(24:54):
I can do fourteenth of October at two thirty. This
was not a convenient time for me, nor was it
my child's birthday. But I said great, because you cannot
turn down the Great Zacchini. And then he explains to
me that I need payment immediately, the full payment, not
just a deposit. It needs to be sent to my
bank account immediately to secure your spot. If I do
(25:14):
not receive your payment by midnight tonight, you do not
have the spot. So I say to my partner, we
need to send this large amount of money to a
bank account named the Great Zacchini immediately, and so he
rolled his eyes, but we did send the money to
the Great Zacchini, he did come to the party. All
of this is to say, here is why magic is
loved by everyone. It's not even about the tricks themselves.
(25:36):
The Great Szacchini's appeal is that he's tremendously silly. He
has the children like rolling around on the floor laughing.
The magic is actually not very impressive. It's like a
couple of slights of hand with like a pack of cards.
But really, why he's so famous and why he's so
compelling as an entertainer is because he is bending the
rules of what we are taught is how you're meant
(25:58):
to behave, and specifically how adults are meant to behave.
He is so silly, and the children cannot believe that
here is a grown up who was behaving in all
the ways that they are told that grown ups should
not behave. And that is, I think think the core
of why magic is appealing. It's because it's bending rules.
It's making us think that things that we thought were
the case are not the case.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
In a world where informations just at our fingertips NonStop,
is magic the last place where everyone in the room
is completely clueless and there's just.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
No great, Yeah, definitely, and I want to watch a
magic show now.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Weirdly, I have another magic story which is going to,
I think prove my point, which is that kids don't
care about the magic itself. Okay, so when I was
a child, I lived in India and one time I
went to a birthday party and a man came to
the birthday party who proceeded to lie on the floor,
cover himself with a blanket and levitate. He levitated off
(26:53):
the floor. Do not ask me how this literally happened.
There were adults in the room. He was floating off
the floor like that. Clearly the blanket had something to
do with it, but he was nonetheless off the floor.
Do you think any of the kids in the room cared.
They don't actually care about the trip. They just want
the surprise, the delight and the sheer unexpected nature of it.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
And I think that's the thing though, if adults are
going to get back into magic now, is that we
do just have to sit back and not try and
figure it out. Because I feel like adults have a
really bad tendency to need to know the answers and
to be like, oh, well it must be you know,
a trick door or at the back, or it must
be some sort of mechanism. Like part of the beauty
of magic is not knowing the answers, and I think
(27:37):
it's okay if we don't know the answers sometimes.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Yes, I think magic could be the perfect art form
for this generation. Magic is quick and wondrous, and it
requires attention and you have to be paying attention, and
it moves fast, much like the algorithm. So maybe magic
will be the art form that sustains in this time
of just dwindling attention spans.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
You just said the word that I think is key attention.
It captures our attention in a way that we're trying
to figure out what's going on. And you're so right
that that ability to get people's attention fully for a
short perioderiod of time, that is what makes it perfect.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Okay, before we wrap today's show, we like to bring
you things that we're recommending. It's kind of the greatest
hits of our lives since we've discovered things, we've watched
scene bought, the stuff that's worth spending your time and
attention on. Stacy, what have you got this week?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Okay, So everyone this week's obviously been talking about Nicole
Kidman and Keith Urban's divorce. There is so much out
the hair about their separation announcement, but there's a piece
that's actually worth your time on Mum and Mia this
week called Everyone's saying the same thing about Nicole and
Keith's divorce, They're wrong by Jessica Clark. She's done such
a beautiful opinion piece about the fact that the general
(28:51):
sentiment seems to be love is dead and what a
tragedy that that relationship ended. And her opinion, which she's
so beautifully written about, will put the link in the
show notes, is that nineteen years in any type of
relationship should not be considered a failure. She speaks from
a place of being divorced herself and talking about how
important that relationship was in her life and how we
(29:14):
should reframe that. And we had such beautiful responses from
the audience, so I'd love everyone to read it.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
What's your reco mons?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I know it's October, but I want to talk about Christmas.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Don't come at me, oh God, already, no, no.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
No, do not roll your eyes. If Christmas is your
Roman Empire. And there are a lot of people out
there for whom it is who spend their whole year
looking forward to it. I have a Facebook group for
you to indulge yourself. It's called Christmas Mums Australia. This
is literally a Facebook group of mums for whom Christmas
is their personality. It's me, guys, it's me. This Facebook
(29:51):
group is my secret delight. They are sloper what's coming
out in Kmart and Target. They are in the stores,
they are taking photos. They are debating the best advent calendars.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
They are tagged event calendars. The calendars already.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
If you haven't got one already, get onto the Christmas months.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Where is the best advent calendar time?
Speaker 3 (30:10):
It depends what esthetic you're going for. This is what
the group's about. They will tell you exactly what to
buy an eight year old girl a fourteen year old boy.
Basically they do all the heavy lifting around Christmas while
I sit back and just read it and just get
so immersed in how nuts it all is. I love it.
It's dopamine without spending any money. Now listen. The caveat
(30:32):
is this, sometimes it can become overwhelming. So small doses
of Christmas Mum's Australia, because you'll start to get you'll
start to scroll, You'll start your heart will rate will
start to increase. You'll think, shit, I haven't organized myself yet.
It's still October. You're okay, okay, So small doses of
this group for anyone that just loves to lurk in
other people's homes, other people's brains, and just people who
(30:54):
are mad about Christmas.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
I don't think I can go in there.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
This is rolling your eyes at me.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
What is this? Because it's making me anxious, frankly, because
you're making me think that I have to think about
Christmas when I've got Halloween to prepare for.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Exactly Amelia type B. Okay, maybe this isn't the group
A type A.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Group full of eldest daughters. I can tell you that
mine is a TV show because I'm type B. I
have a TV show to recommend. It's called The Assembly,
a show on ABC that's just come back for its
second season. It's not a show about parenting. The premise
is that Lee Sales mentors a group of aspiring journalism
students with autism, and they ask no holds barred questions
(31:37):
of Australian public figures, basically, and you get some really
surprising and beautiful moments and interactions. I'd recommend starting the
season one. The first episode is with Sam Neil and
the students make him blush. They ask him questions that
make him incredibly uncomfortable. And also he's just so handsome,
is Sam Neior. He's just such a lovely, charming, handsome
(32:00):
person to spend some time with. But the moment I
wanted to bring to you both is from the season
two premiere. It's with the actor Richard Rocksborough. And this
moment will stop you in your tracks. Grab some tissues
and listen.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
You have three children, baby day babies forever. They grow
taller and grow into themselves and develop a beautiful brain.
Have they made you aware of time and that youth
does not last forever?
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (32:27):
My god, yes they have, they have. I think you know,
it's a really interesting thing becoming a parent because you
because it brings as much fear with it as it
does love, and you spend your life trying to combat
(32:48):
the fear to the kind of exactly the same shape
as love. It's like love's shadow, and that's fear that
you have that anything bad would happen to them. So yeah,
they do make you really aware of mortality and all
(33:09):
the other things that go.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
With Oh love Shadow. That show, I'll tell you the
question is so beautiful. That show will just fill you
up and I just can't recommend it. But Christmas Mom
sounds great too. Months since Mom sounds.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Great, I won't be going in there. Keep me out.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
That's how we're different. As eldest daughter's monds. I'm not
going in there now.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
I feel like a jerk when you're bringing the feels
and loves Shadow. Look, that's what you love about this show.
It swings and roundabouts. It's light and shade, and that
is us done for the day. Thank you to the
parenting out louders that are hyping us up with reviews.
In Apple podcasts, the challenge is to write a review
in gentle parenting speak. And I was laughing out loud
(33:53):
this week and what came through. I have to say
you all understood the brief. Here's a couple of my favorites.
So this one was left by someone called love the
pod girls. The headline is space for Big Feelings. I
love the way you all held space for each other's
thoughts and emotions last episode. Navigating big feelings can be
(34:14):
really tricky. Sometimes I'm proud of you for trying your best.
And then this one was my favorite of the week
from Amy Lee Lauren. She says, Wow, Amelia, Mon and Stacy,
you have been so creative. I can see how much
time and love you have put into your colorful purple
and yellow branding. And the content for each episode is
(34:37):
being a podcaster making your heart happy. My heart is
so happy seeing how happy you are. Amy Lee, you
win like you nailed that, so good, so good. Thank
you for joining us this week and look at you.
You did the whole episode start to finish, and that
shows such focus. Does listening to us make your brain
(34:59):
feel sparkly because ours does too. So if your heart
feels ready, leave us a review and please tap follow,
but only if it feels good in your body doing
such important listening work. Hey, and a big thanks to
the team this week, Tessakovic, Sashatanic, Leoporgos and the group
ep Is Ruth Divine. See you next week.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Bye you bye,
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