September 12, 2025 • 51 mins
Welcome to Parenting Out Loud where you can be sure you're kicking off your weekend right.
Monz, Amelia and Stacey are here to unpack the week once more — through the wild, wonderful lens of parenthood.
On the show this week:
-
KPop Demon Hunters is smashing records. Kids love it, parents ADORE it so, what’s behind all the hype?
-
Tracking apps: a non-negotiable today, or are we just spying on the ones we love?
-
The evidence that says having kids young is a good idea. We’re not completely sold, but we are talking about it.
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And Anne Hathaway: the quiet queen of gentle parenting who put the paps in their place.
Settle in — it’s the group chat you won’t want to mute.
Plus, it’s our recommendations:
🎁 Stacey recommends a 'shit bits box' to save your sanity.
🛏️ Amelia has discovered the first kids' bedtime book that she’s actually enjoyed herself.
🧇 And Monz has got a heartwarming TV show for the family to enjoy.
Support independent women's media
What To Listen To Next:
- Don't miss an episode of Parenting Out Loud
- 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
- The Ms Rachel Controversy & The Great Kids Vs Friendships Debate
- A New Co-Parenting Rule & The 100% Work Dilemma
- The Death Of The Dining Table & 'Outdated' Schooling
- Grandparents — It's Time For Your Performance Review
- Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts
What to read:
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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 Muma Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
the traditional owners of the land and waters that this
podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to Parenting Out Loud. This is the podcast for
parents who don't always listen to parenting podcasts. It's the culture,
it's the trends, it's a zeitgeist, it's Marbo, it's the vibe.
I'm Monique Bolli.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I'm Amelia Lastra and I love that castle shut up.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
And I am Stacy Higgs.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
First up, thank you for all the years. On last
week's show, so many of you dming us people loving
it sick and heaps of non parents just here for it.
So we love that. And Ladies number two on the
Apple charts.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Who I love that?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
That seems huge?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Are we stars now?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I think we are.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
We've made it fine Diary of a CEO, which feels
so validating because in twenty twenty five, parenting culture has
become like an startup, right.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yes, and both cultures lack sleep. I feel that's true.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, you're giving your all and not getting a lot time.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, both cultures relentless. Coming up on today's show, K
Pop Demon Hunters, you might have heard it rippling through
the culture. We're going to talk about why it's so huge.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Men parent or tracking apps are booming, but do children
have a right to privacy?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I really want to get into this thauny debate with you.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
And a man has made a case for why we
should be having kids younger, and he actually might convince
you it's a good idea. Maybe maybe we'll see.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
But first, did you guys see Anne Hathaway gentle parent
the paparazzi? I feel like this. I saw this video
on Instagram a few times. It's been viewed over sixty
million times. She was on the set of The Devil
Wears prior to Too, which has had a lot of
paparazzi interest, Like there's things being leaked from set, there's
lots of images coming out. But on this particular day,
the paparazzi pack were bickering and she walked over. She
(02:06):
had this big smile and just completely diffuse the situation.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
You're going to have to give us like a reenactment,
mons like what was she doing? Calm zen Master.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
We can't play this on the show because Muma Mia
does not endorse paparazzi shots or videos, so I'm going
to explain to you instead. She walks over to the pack.
She has an open palm. She has a very calm
and present stance, and she says, you guys have got
to relax. There are children on set today. Does everybody
know there are children on set? So everyone's going to relax.
(02:39):
We're going to have a very nice day because we
have children. It was very calm, very demure, very Okay,
everyone's having some feelings right now, but this is the boundary.
And it was so fantastic. I tried it on my
own kids as well today like it worked. It worked
on my four year old. It also worked on the paparazzi.
(03:00):
They all sort of diffused and said, oh, yes, thank you, ma'am.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I feel like.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Anne Hathaway was born to gentle parents. First of all,
she has an amazing voice. Second of all, I remember
reading an interview with her when her kids were a
little younger, and she said that she had stopped drinking
because she found that she was more present with them
during the week, in particular when she sort of just
ruled out drinking. So every time I have a glass
(03:25):
of wine on a weeknight, I think of Anne Hathaway
and how she is present and I am not okay
and another mum doing it right this week, I need
to talk about Queen Mary. So she's just given us
all the masterclass in how to react when your kids
do stupid shit. So our very own Tazzyborn, Queen of Denmark.
She was at this public engagement and.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
A reporter asked her what she thought of her daughter
Isabella's outfit when she attended.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Have you seen this?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Remember this? The princess wore a T shirt that had
something rude on it.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Right, Yes, it was quite rude. So it loosely translates
to f tim yesterday with an arrow pointing to the
right kind of light those shirts from the nineties that
said I'm with stupid and then pointed to the right
of view.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
I would be so worried wearing that T shirt that
like on the bus yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Or that someone inappropriate walks up like your brother or
your dad walks up next to you. Very risky shirt.
But for context, it's lyrics from the band that she
was watching at the festival, and so this reporter asked,
what did you think of this? And Queen Mary gave
the most perfect response in Danish, So I have studied
(04:33):
this clip with forensic levels of investigation. The smile on
her face doesn't crack, it doesn't break even for a second.
She just does a slight raise of the eyebrows, very demure,
and just says. MY first thought was are you completely confused?
Ha ha ha.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
But let's just put.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It this way, some decisions are better than others. Isn't
a great response, Like I feel like this was the
perfect way of saying I don't agree with it, but
she can do what she wants and I'm not going
to put her down in front of you. I loved it.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
What do you think imagine being a royal and how
having the balls to wear a T shirt that's got
the F word on it? Like are you okay? Isabella?
Like do you put any weight behind birth order impact
on personality? So if you think about Isabella Princess Isabella
Henriette to Ingrid Muggaree, she's the middle child. Her older
(05:27):
brother is first in line to the throne, so he's
going to be king, and her younger siblings are twins, right,
so it's attention on him, attention on them. Is this
just like the middle child going attention.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
To me, and she's Prince Harry in the birth order
when you think about it, like she's the second in
line to the throne. She's the Prince Harry equivalent of Denmark.
So I feel like she can be a bit more
cheeky with her behavior. And she is eighteen, she's an adult.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
She also has form in the area of breaking protocol.
So you might remember she had an official portrait where
she was wearing this orange gown and this teal sash,
she had the tiara, the turquoise earrings and she was
holding her phone.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
She was kind of the first royal to do so,
and it was apparently Mary Our Mary's idea like this
intentionally modern touch to like symbolize a modern princess and
kind of a nod to her generation. But what's interesting
is the Danes mostly love it. Like this TV presenter
Jim Linfield I saw this on Facebook. He said, I
love that our royal youngsters also have personality and courage
(06:34):
and they don't follow the neat, pleated flow. The time
of the ladies in the hat is over. Princess Isabella
is in. People are getting around it.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
They're such a modern, cool royal family. I feel like
they're rode bikes everywhere. It's so different to the British
royal family totally.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
And I think you can actually buy this shirt online,
so we can drop a link in the show notes
if anyone wants a T shirt that says ftim yesterday,
it's available.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Oh to be eighteen to not have the front to
low fully developed. I love it. It feels like the
whole world is talking about kay Pop Demon Hunters. It's
not a great name, is it. Let's just get that
out of the way. It feels like a placeholder name.
It feels like they were thinking this is just the
(07:19):
working title, and they were like, you know what, let's just.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Call it this.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
This is just what it is.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I kept seeing it on Netflix.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
I think it came out in June, and I kept
seeing it pushed on me. I was like, this sounds ridiculous.
I'm not gonna watch it. But then one day my
children had been possessed by K Pop Demon Hunters. They
chose to watch it by themselves, and now it's all
we listen to.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah. So this little animated movie has completely captured the
attention of kids the world over and adults too. It's
now Netflix's most watched movie ever, Wow, two hundred and
thirty six million views, and the soundtracks made history too.
It's the first movie soundtrack to have four simultaneous top
ten hits on the Billboard Top one hundred and Golden
(08:01):
has hit number one. So if you're thinking I have
seen this, I haven't clicked on it. It looks horrid
on Netflix. It's a terrible placeholder name. But should I
be worried if my kids are obsessed with this? The
answer is, don't worry. This is excellent, and I want
to talk about why. Top line. It follows a fictional
K pop girl group now k pop stands for Korean pop,
(08:24):
and they're also Demon Hunters. It's written and directed by
Maggie Kang. It's about these three girls where demons lurk everywhere,
but their music protects the world from the demons of
Korean folklore. So in a sentence, it's basically girl pop
group save the world. This movie goes so hard and
(08:45):
it is so good. Like in the first eight minutes
I thought, what is this? I cannot look away and
it's not what I thought it would be at all,
and I'm obsessed with it. Have you guys seen it
so good.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I hadn't, and you two convinced me to watch this,
and now the songs are on repeat in my head
like I can't get it out. It's the catchiest ear.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Whem.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I'm happy it's there. It's not even annoying me that
these songs are in my head. It's absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah, it's fun, it's funny, it's really tightly written, it's
beautiful to watch. The music is just all bangers. But
beyond that, I want to talk about the messages in it,
because I think it's really solid, and I think Disney
would be looking at this and thinking, shit, our brain
is over. They would be sitting around the bardroom head
(09:30):
in hands I reckon. So firstly, it's very girl power,
so the girls are at the center of this instead
of being passive and pretty pop idols, they're warriors and
it's their voices that are the weapons. So that's doing
two interesting things. Firstly, it centers art and music as
the thing that will save us, like music's going to
(09:52):
save us, which I think is a really good message
right now for the world. And secondly, it's flipping the
script on female pop stars, like this thing that's often
commodified their voices actually is what gives this group power.
It's really heavily about friendship. So these three girls are
all each other's anchors. There's no male savior rushing in,
(10:14):
and it's got all these amazing girlhood coded moments like goofy, messy,
really silly energy and Maggie Kang, the director, said in
Glamour that she grew up watching Disney princesses and thought
that's not me. I'm goofy and I'm awkward and I'm
gross sometimes, and she wanted to put that version of
girlhood on screen. Did you guys notice that?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, that's a big thing that stuck out to me, Like,
I know, you kind of sold this to me as
this is a great show to watch with your kids.
But my overriding thought when I was watching it is
this isn't for the kids. This is for the women
who love girl groups and want to relive that fandom
and girlhood. And it just happens to be done in
a format that your kids will be But we.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Did you think it was inappropriate for kids, or more
just that kids wouldn't get as much out of it.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I just feel like kids wouldn't get as much out
of it. I mean, the demons, depending on your kids age,
probably might freak them out a little bit. But I think, like,
you know, it's no scarier than in Lion King him
falling off the rock or the Scary step Mother Entangled. Like,
there's always dark themes in kids shows, so I could
definitely overlook that. I definitely though, felt like it was
more for us. I felt like it was very much
(11:25):
a movie for us. Here's what I loved about it.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
When I was growing up, I was not even aware
of South Korea. I consumed almost exclusively American content, with
a little bit of British and a tiny bit of
Australian content sprinkled in. I just think it's so brilliant
that the first big cultural touchstone for Generation Alpha is
(11:48):
a non Western.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Creation, which is this movie.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
And there's Korean language in the songs, as I discovered
because my kids wanted to write out the lyrics to them,
and then we realized there's a bunch of Korean lyrics
in them. There are Korean locations, there's nods to Korean myths.
Of course, the very plot is sort of premised on
the idea of Korean demons and folklore. It's part of
this wave of Korean culture which is not as how you,
(12:14):
which has sort of taken over the world in recent years.
But I love that this is the first big moment
for this generation and it's not Western. I found it
really interesting to learn that even though the characters speak English,
their mouth movements actually match or reflect Korean pronunciation. So
little details like that the producer and the filmmakers really
(12:35):
wanted to get across an authentic picture of Korean culture
today and the ultimate message of reclaiming your identity and
being true to yourself. It feels almost subversive right now
in a political environment both in Australia and the US
and in other Western countries where that whole idea of immigration, pluralism,
multiculturalism is under attack from some sectors.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
And Mum and mea is entertainment writer Chelsea Hoy. She
loved this movie. She was a very early adopter of
this movie and he's a big fan of the k
pop craze and said that it does feel very true
to that genre while bringing in this whole other group
of people now that get to enjoy that. And she
wrote for the site we can link the story in
our show notes. But bringing it back to what you
(13:19):
said about female friendship Monds, she said that that was
what felt like the best part of this film was
that it perfectly captures friendship in all its chaotic glory.
She said, the silliness, the unhinged chaos, it's so girlhood coded.
This is exactly how close friends should interact. It's messy, supportive, ridiculous,
and fiercely loyal all at the same time. Each girl
(13:40):
has her own struggles, dreams, growth, arc and the film
takes time to develop them all properly, and that the
banter feels natural and lived in, so their conflicts feel real,
but their bond feels very unbreakable. And I think that's
an excellent message for our girls to be growing up.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
With well and our boys.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
I love the fact that ye for boys and girls,
this is a vital window when they are young to
kind of shape their perceptions of the world and what
relationships are. And I've noticed that when boys watch that
movie too, it's not centering asexual romance, it's centering friendship.
And that's just as powerful a message for boys to
receive as for girls.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah. Absolutely, it's very emotionally intelligent, Like I was comparing
it to what we grew up with when we were kids,
and it's sort of we had the Goonies, the Sandlot Kids,
Lion King, I guess was really big beating the Beast,
which is super problematic.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
A lad and super problematic, a lot of like mediation
of other.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Cultures and all centered on men. Here's the small problem
with it is that the men actually don't come off
very well in this movie. So Mark Lee wrote in
Northwest Asian Weekly that once again Asian men get thrown
under the bus, and he was arguing that at first glance,
(14:57):
this looks like a win for Asian representation, Like the
women are very stylish and confident and heroic, but the
men in this film are either villains or they're passive
like the Sarja boys. They don't speak. None of them
have really a speaking role, so they're completely silenced, or
they're just playing useless like their manager that the girls have.
(15:18):
The other main male character is basically like a buffoon.
So it does leave the guys with almost nothing. But
I was thinking about childhood movies we had it. I
was arguing with my sister about this. She was saying,
don't worry about the man, like they've had their time
in the sun. If you think about the childhood movies
we had, it was Goonies, All boys, Sandlot Kids, All boys,
(15:39):
Lion King, a big boy dies and a little boy
takes over, you know, and a weird evil boy uncle,
Beauty and the Beast. Like the smart girl marries her
captor to save her dad. So it's nice to see
this tide turning in kids pop culture towards more female centric,
smart movies.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
I can see that critique though, because in cell culture
is really a big thing in Korea too, and this
idea of young men feeling left behind as young women
are empowered and are hitting educational goals and career goals
in a way that they're kind of lapping men is
just as big an issue there as it is in
(16:18):
Western cultures. So I think that's an important perspective to
bring in. I guess the other thing that I think
kids are really connecting with here, which we haven't yet
touched on, is the way that it blurs the lines
between the digital and virtual world and real world in
a way that feels so on point and so relevant
for Generation Alpha. They are more than digital natives. Their
(16:40):
world is shaped by the Internet and by online culture,
and this movie just blurs those boundaries in such a
sort of neat and clever way. Think about the way
on the end credits, this isn't a spoiler. You see
the women who are actually doing the singing in the
studio recording the songs, so you get reminded that this
is the real world. There is also the virtual world
(17:02):
that you've been watching in the movie, and the two
of them, it's really hard to tell where one ends
and the other begins. One interesting cultural reason for that
is that South Korea got internet in a widespread way
a lot earlier than the rest of the world. They
found out that broadband was delivered their back in twenty
ten to basically all houses, and so I think that's
part of the reason why they're able to sort of
tap into a digital native culture in such a convincing way.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
For young kids, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
It's quite TikTok coded as well, so in the way
that Stacy said before that this is a movie for
really for adults, it does that beautiful thing where it
toes the line between youth culture and adult themes. So
in the first few minutes we meet the girls, they're
on their private jet and they're having this big feast
of food, and that feels TikTok coded to me, because
(17:47):
there is this subculture on TikTok of I think it's
called muckbang, where people buy Korean food and then film
themselves eating it, And so I think there's all these
like digital moments throughout the show that kids would connect
with in a way that people who don't live their
life on TikTok probably wouldn't. But the other thing that
really stood out to me was how inclusive this show was.
(18:10):
So the fans of this girl group, they're not just silly,
screaming teenage girls. It's everyone. You see all ages, all
body types, all genders. You see blokey men crying, you
see elderly women with their little fan clubs. Zoe, one
of the characters, talks about the colors in her head
and taking off her mask, which some people have said
(18:32):
is coded as she's neurodivergent, and a lot of fans
have read roomy. The main character is queer. Even the
rival boy band has pink hair and sort of effeminate
looking soft men. So the whole world of it is
very fluid and very inclusive.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
That's a great point, and it makes me reflect on
the fact that, you know, there are all sorts of
downsides to not having a monoculture anymore, like the fact
that everyone's listening to their own music, everyone's watching their
own TikTok algorithm. But every now and then something hits
that the whole world enjoys, and that brings us back
to the monoculture that we used to have. And I've
(19:09):
found that I'm reconnect with friends who I've sort of
fallen out of touch with because our kids are sharing
videos of themselves dancing to Golden and it's just so
nice for the whole world at this kind of moment
to be able to enjoy the same thing at the
same time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, My only criticism when Monzie mentioned about the inclusiveness,
I think that was great from the fan perspective. But
my only thing that bugged me was that the three
main girl band members are all incredibly thin and attractive,
and when they're showing other body types in the movie,
but they're not showing them on them, that was the
only thing where I went, Oh, when they're talking about
(19:46):
consuming ten thousand calories before they go on stage. I
wish that that hadn't been part of it because you
kind of don't want that to be the focus.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, like I can't argue with that. I think that's
a really valid point though. I was listening to a
podcast with Jayha Kim. She studies K pop, and she
was talking about how K pop is this extremely manufactured
and controlled machine, and how women n in K pop
have to diet like they're really controlled. They have to
(20:14):
look a certain way. So I guess in some sense
it's true to the K pop culture. But yeah, I
do agree skinny, hot girls save.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
In the world. And it's even at the point, as
you say about the dancers from the show, Novak Djokovic
even when you want to match. Last week did a
little dance from one of the songs.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
And I said, most lovable thing he's ever done in it.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I know, that's what I thought.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I was like, do I like him now?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
He did one of the dancers in tribute to his daughter.
He said, she's been teaching me how to do these
dances from K pop demon Hunters. So it's at that level,
like it's just permeated the culture in such a massive way,
which is great to see everyone can enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
The demons are funny. They're not scary. If you're thinking, arna, oh,
my kid's watching demons, they're quite funny. They poke fun
at themselves like. It's a ten out of ten for me.
I loved it.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
There are a lot of questions that parents these days
are having to ask themselves and answer that previous generations
of parents did not have to deal with. One of
those questions, a really, really tricky one to answer, is
whether or not to use a tracking app on your kids. Now,
Mon's and Stacy, you're probably not yet at the stage
(21:24):
where you're thinking about that. I am sort of approaching
that stage, and to be honest, I just don't know
what I'm going to do.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
But lots and lots of.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Parents have asked this question and decided yes, they do
want to know where their children are, and there are
lots of reasons why they do that. For instance, experts
say that for parents of children with autism, a tracking
app can be really helpful, particularly when wandering off is common.
There are lots of reasons why they do it, but
(21:53):
we don't yet really understand what the effects of using
these tracking apps will be on the children who are constantly.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Surveyed by them.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
So we have some clues that are emerging. I should
say they've become really ubiquitous. One of the most popular apps,
Life three sixty, is now on four fourteen percent of
all phones in the US.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
What really, Yeah, it's crazy right.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
And in Australia one in five parents attracting their children,
whether it's through an air tag or Lie three sixty
or another app. We've got some stats coming out about
what it's doing to kids to feel constantly surveyed. A
recent survey that Australia's e Safety Commissioner did looked at
the effects on young people's attitudes to relationships and specifically
(22:37):
intimate relationships, and they discovered that a full twenty percent
of eighteen to twenty four year olds think that it's
reasonable to track the location of their intimate partners. That's
higher than any other age group. And remember this is
the age group that came of age being trapped by
their parents. It's alarming. I think I'm going to put
my cards on the table here. I haven't decided yet
(22:59):
what to do about the tracking apps. There are unforeseen
consequences of children going up knowing that their parents know
exactly where they are at all times, and it's a
real grey area, and it raises lots of uncomfortable questions.
Do children are they entitled to privacy? Do we need
to get their consent to use these apps? What does
(23:19):
it mean to link surveillance and love in this way?
Is this just the price of safety these days? You know,
as I was thinking about this, I came across a
great quote from Tina Fey about photoshop. She said, and
I want to get it right because she's so clever.
It is an appalling and tragic reflection on the moral
decay of our society, unless I need it, in which case,
everybody be cool.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I suspect that's.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Where I'm going to land on the whole tracking apps thing,
But I also wanted to intellectualize it and overthink it first.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
So Stacy, what do you think? Do you think you'll
use a tracking app?
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah? Of course, I bloody will, Like I didn't even
think this was a question. Everybody's doing that now. I
have friends who track their kids, track their husbands, track
their son's girlfriend. Like. It's all very normal now. And
our kids are growing up in that generation where they're
tracking their friends even on Snapchat. They're used to sharing
that they're not used to the level of obviously that
we had. So I very much feel that this is
(24:12):
going to be the norm going forward. I must admit
it's something that I think, well, yeah, that probably would
make me feel better knowing where she is. But I
kind of wanted to interrogate, like, what's our fear, Like
what's our fear around not knowing their every move? And
I guess the one that's at the top of the
list I think you'd probably both agree is that they'll
get taken, Like that's the thing you're worried about, is
(24:34):
that they'll get taken or they're a missing person and
you don't know where they are. And so I looked
into that and the stats of that, and it's so
minuscule compared to our population. Like Dennis Moriarty wrote this
piece where he quoted the National Missing Person's Coordination Center,
and they track the number of missing child cases throughout
the decades. So when we're looking back at the seventies,
(24:55):
it was eighteen, in the eighties, it was eleven children
nineties fifteen, and then it drops way down four in
the two thousands and five in the twenty ten.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Do they know why there's been such a drop. I
mean those are small numbers to begin with, small.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Numbers when you consider like the growth of people that
we've had in the country as well. Not to say
that we ever want that to be happening to any child,
But the world is by and large a safer place
now than it was then. But I wonder whether it's
a chicken and egg. It's a bit safer now because
we have the technology to be able to know where
everyone is. What do you think mons.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Safety doesn't sell product, Stacy, Yeah, you said the magic
word just before fear. And these companies they don't care
about your kids. They care about their shareholders. Life three
sixty is a tech company and they have built a
(25:52):
product on anxious millennial parents, on catastrophizing situations and marketing
with fear. Have you seen the ad for this product?
Cop this? You are my whole wide world, my joy,
my baby girl. You'll never know how much I love you.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
When you're gone. I just thinks of you dying.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Mom.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
What every time you leave my safe when you drive
a schoolish stay out at night? This is where I
got to the million ways ins I my brain and
what you could die at any given time.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
That's to range.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
That does make me very anxious.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
When you go to marketing school, you know what they say,
They say like marketing one oh one. Fear based marketing
works because it hits the oldest part of our brain,
like the survival instinct. And for parents, the stakes are
really high because you're talking about your children. So I
just think we need to take a zoom back and go,
(26:56):
are they just exploiting a fear that we have that
doesn't exist, Stacy, because as you say, the data shows
that we actually are living quite in safe times, particularly
in Australia. Yeah, notwithstanding your point about autism and about
some parents really needing this for certain reasons. But what
I think is really interesting is what the experts are
(27:19):
saying about this. I've been reading The Anxious Generation by
Jonathan hit He wrote this best selling book. Lots of
people are talking about it, and he calls this phenomenon
safety ism, and he says the research around this is
really consistent, like hovering, tracking doesn't reduce anxiety. It actually
makes kids and parents more anxious, and you see it
(27:42):
in the data everywhere. So Deacon University found that Australian
parents are the most risk averse in the world. Four
out of five won't let their kids do risky things.
There was this University of Michigan study that found that
half of parents won't even let their tween walk to
a friend's house or go to another aisle in the supermarket,
like parents will not let their kids go to Aisle
(28:04):
three to collect a can of beans. And what this
is doing is making kids depressed and anxious more than
ever and parents too. And so the experts are saying
the solution to this anxious generation is not tracking them
or texting them. You have to let them go into
the big wide world. And when we stop children taking
(28:24):
any risks, we actually block them with this safetyism. We
block them from overcoming anxiety, managing risk, learning to be
self governing like, all of which are essential skills to
becoming an adult.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
The other thing that Hite says is that we have
set up a division between the real world and the
online world that says that the real world is more
dangerous than the online world, and kids get a lesson
from this. He says that they can retreat into their phones,
where they're not monitored and where they can roam freely,
and that world is actually more dangerous than the real
(28:57):
world that we're monitoring them in. So I know it
starts to feel overwhelming them because when you say, thinking
about the supermarket aisle, I don't know if I have
necessarily consciously let my kids go into a different isle
in the supermarket. One way to get around that is
that Jonathan Hite has this organization called let Grow that
I know you've come across Tummons and that website. The
(29:18):
let Grow website has a ton of useful information and
practical tips on how you can start letting go of
your kids and let them into the world. And they
even have this little card you can print out there
that your child can carry that says, I am not
a neglected child. I am a child whose parents want
me to be able to walk around in the world.
(29:39):
Here is their number if you have any questions. And
I think that's a brilliant idea.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
That's so interesting. Maybe it is a case of that
we're worrying about the wrong thing. Like it's like when
people are worried about getting on a plane and the
plane crashing, but then they'll jump in their car every
day after a couple of glasses of wine and not
think twice about it, Like really, we're thinking that the
danger is when they're out and about without us. But
a lot of the danger is the phone. Like we're
seeing time and time again study showing that phones are
(30:05):
the damaging thing to their mental health and they're overall
well being, like to their resilience. Yeah, we're saying, here,
have the phone, never leave it alone. You must take
this with you so that I don't lose you. It's
kind of like misdirected fear. I think I saw.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
An article that said that in twenty twenty three, stalking
victims filed a class action lawsuit against this company Life
three sixty and against tile and against Amazon for essentially
promoting stalking, specifically multiple privacy law violations. And there was
this article in the Washington Post as well that said
(30:40):
that parents are using this location sharing feature to track
their teenage and adult children in ways that resemble emotional abuse.
So you talked about that before, Amelia, Like, is it
a thin end of the wedge? Are we teaching our
kids that surveillance is normal and surveillance is love? And
what does that say?
Speaker 4 (30:58):
And I think we're teaching each other that too. The
New South Wales Crime Commission has actually highlighted the use
of these apps in both domestic violence and organized crime settings.
In a lot of intimate partner violence situations, these apps
are used to control, and I wonder if we're just
becoming used to having people on demand and having information
(31:18):
about people on demand in a way that isn't just
done reasonable for kids, but it's also bleeding into our
other relationships.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
And it's like the app doesn't guarantee the safety. It's
telling you where they are, but it's not telling you
the circumstances of that location and how safe they'd be
when they're there, Like you might be seeing them at
their friend's house, there could be a party going on,
all sorts of strangers there. So it's not like a
fail safe. It doesn't account for everything that could go wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
So true, Stacy. Also, kids are savvy. They're going to
find a workaround for this anyway. They're going to put
their phone under their pillow at home and then have
a burn a phone that they're using at a party.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
That's exactly right. I found this awesome article Juliet Weisfogel
wrote for She Knows, a teens guide to temporarily Regaining Freedom,
where she's written all about the hacks that she used
when her mum put the tracking apps on her phone
when she was a fourteen year old and got sneaking
out the window. On the ways that she got around it,
so there were different things she did, like turning off
(32:16):
the Bluetooth at home and the Wi Fi so that
the app would know that that was her last location,
and then sneaking out the window to a party. But
I thought the best one that she gave his advice,
which is so funny, really crazy idea to get around it.
She suggested leave your phone at home and go to
the party. But I thought the best part was that
she said they still took their laptops because they needed
(32:38):
a way to communicate and to uber home afterwards. So
they've got a bit of technology on them anyway, they
can't escape it.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
And that said I'm getting a bit of deja vu here,
which is before I had kids, I said I'd never
let them watch TV. I reserve the right to use
tracking apps the minute I feel I need to. Yeah,
some sad news cross my feed this week. Every reject
shop in Australia is about to disappear for good. No
I love the Reject Shop, and I also love the
(33:07):
top comment on this news from a Reddit post about
the ree Shop. No longer will I be able to
tell my sister that's where my mum and dad bought her.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
That was a classic. I pulled that one a couple
of times too.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Look, it's probably a deep psychological problem I have.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
But the Reject Shop really.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Brings out my latent hoarding instincts. I go in there
with my little basket, and because everything is so aggressively
and reasonably priced, I just want it all, and it
makes me feel like it can be a different kind
of parent. This is the kind of parent who has
a craft draw as opposed to just piles of nonsense,
the kind who sharpens her kid's pencils every evening while
(33:47):
thinking about the masterpieces that they're going to create the
next day that she's not going to throw out when
no one's looking back, instead curate in a perfect scrap
book that she also got at the reject Shop, And
the kind of parent who creates seasonal tablescapes. I really
want to be one of those parents who celebrates the
coming of spring with some pastels.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah, I get that feeling in Ikia, this is too okay,
that's yours. That's my reject shop.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
Look, that's why I really want to pour out a
bottle of aggressively centered off brand bubble bath for the
reject Shop.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
You know exactly what you're talking.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
I can smell the smell as you said.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
It's blue, right, it's blue blue.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
And you're like, is this going to make my children's skin.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Break out in a rash?
Speaker 4 (34:33):
Maybe, but they're gonna have fun doing it and it's
going to be a thing.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Reject Shop. Thank you for the good times.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
Remember when Tony Abbott, I'm wittingly posed in front of
its signage on a campaign stop in Canberra before the election,
he laves or that wonderful Thank you for making school
holidays bearable. Thank you for the competitively priced water colors,
thank you for the Okay, I've just been told by
their producers that in fact, it's just being renamed, and
(35:02):
they're telling me that it's going to be okay. It's
going to be called something called Dolorama, which is apparently
a Canadian chain that just doesn't.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Have the same ring.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
And I am going to suspend judgment on this and
wait to go and see it. But in the meantime,
thank you for the good chimes. Thank you for the
hairspray I have that has the name It's giving Glam.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
They sell Impulse Body Spray. There, guys, stop up now. Oh.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
I read a sub set this week called once Again
I Wish I had kids younger that I have been
busting to talk to you too about because I know
you'll have a lot of feelings. Jim Dalrymple, who was
thirty six when he had his first child, said he
started thinking about the pros and cons of having kids
younger when the CEO of an AI company, Brad Weiss,
tweeted having kids before thirty is how you stay generationally poor,
(35:57):
and it caused quite the debate. So why is later
Clara Frad that what he meant is that having kids
young eats up your cash flow and your time, which
makes having kids sound like dodgy investment properties and fair
kind of does. But Dalrymple argues that the opposite might
be true when you consider what you could gain laiter
down the track by having kids early. So he says
(36:18):
in his piece, if I become a grandparent at sixty
two rather than seventy two, I might be able to
provide ten years of full time care for my grandkids.
This could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to
my descendants. That's not generational poverty, it's generational wealth. Suddenly,
having kids young is a financial advantage. And his whole
point is by having kids sooner, we can give ourselves
(36:41):
a more active, involved village, which is something a lot
of us millennials say that we don't really have, is
an involved village. He makes the point that millennials complain
that they don't have a village, but then go out
and make choices that will actively ensure our children also
don't have a village. This is very simplistic, like he
acknowledges that not everyone is going to have a village
just by compressing the time span between generations. Some people
(37:04):
won't have a village, whether they have a baby at
twenty two or they have one at forty two. But
the point is that we could rethink the way families
are helping each other. So Mon's do you wish you
got cracking sooner? Now that you heard this.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Argument, Jim, Jim, Jim, I see your argument. I accept
your argument. What I don't accept is the thing that
he's missed entirely, which is the reason so many of
us don't have babies until like our thirties and older.
It's not just because we're making a choice about that.
(37:38):
There are all these systemic reasons, like there are huge
socio economic and social drivers that are related to this.
And here's my receipts. In Australia, the average age of
first time mums is twenty nine point nine years, so
almost thirty. In the nineteen seventies, which is where Jim
wants to live, it was twenty three. Demographers and social
(38:03):
researchers have looked at this, They're like, why are people
having babies older? Here's why women are spending more years
in higher education, They're establishing careers. There are enormous economic
pressures on us right now. There's insecure work, there's better contraception,
which means more control over timing. Meeting someone is a
(38:23):
shit show. People are marrying their partners much later, So
the average age at marriage in Australia is now thirty
two for women thirty four for men. That's ten years
later than in the nineteen seventy so that pushes berths
further out. Also, FYI it takes ten years now to
say for a house deposits. So I just think, yeah,
cool story, Jim. I see that, but the data doesn't
(38:46):
quite match up. And I think that that's the piece
that was missing for me here is it's not a
personal choice to have kids later. There's all these other
things happening around us. This is not just in Australia.
This is globally. If you zoom out, this is happening
across the EU. It's happening in Italy, Greece and Ireland,
it's happening in Asia. Maternal age is rising everywhere. There
(39:09):
are very few that are bucking the trend. Here it's
sort of rural India and some parts of northern Europe,
but mostly the average age of parents is rising because
we are being structurally funneled into it from all the
precious Jim.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
I didn't like the article either at first. I did
at first.
Speaker 4 (39:30):
I read it and look, it's like everything you disagree
with politically often there's a kernel of truth in it.
And that's why on first read I was kind of
seduced by his thesis.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yes, I thought, it's true.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
You know, when you have children older, your parents are older,
they are less interchanging nappies because they are enjoying their retirement.
And you're older, so it's harder to wake up in
the morning.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
None of this can be disputed. Getting older in general
is not great and your energy levels do drop.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
But then I started to think about what Jim was saying,
and I realized that he was missing an elephant in
the room, and that elephant is women. He says, no,
it's fine to have children young, because it turns out
that men who have children young actually make more money
than men who have children later. And then I thought
(40:24):
to myself, yeah, but women who have children younger make
less money than women who have children later. And you
know why that is. It's because the motherhood penalty is real.
The Australian Breer Statistics shows that women reduce their paid
work hours by about thirty five percent across the first
five years after the arrival of children. Australia has one
(40:46):
of the highest rates of part time work by women
in the OECD.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
In some ways, that's great.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
It means we get a lot more flexibility when our
children are young to give them the time that we
want to give them. In other ways, it means we're
missing out on income for retirement and for financial security
and stability because we're looking after children and we're taking
ourselves out of full time work. So the motherhood penalty
for women is real, and it's even more real when
you have kids younger. The other problem with it is
(41:15):
that when we talk about the village, let's be real,
we're talking about grandmothers, right.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
That is so true. That's what the village is.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
The village is just a series of grandmothers making crow
shaped blankets and doing the stuff.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah, it's the unpaid labor that women get loved with.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Again, good point, Amilia.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
And the thing about grandmothers is they're not paid for
what they do. The village is unpaid labor and that's wonderful.
Grandmothers want to do it, they love their grandkids. But
we can't get away from the fact that we're basically
saying that we want more unpaid labor by women. And
one way Australians are actually pushing to strengthen that village
(41:54):
is they're pushing to include grandparents in the government childcare subsidy.
Parents around the nation are actually putting together a petition
for the Prime Minister to say why shouldn't grandparents get
the same kinds of financial reimbursement as other types of care,
and I think that's a real solid step forward rather
than saying that women should take themselves out of the
(42:15):
workplace earlier to have children.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah, and it's also in an ideal world that would
be lovely if you had your children earlier your parents
are around to help you, But you can't bet on
the fact that once you get there, your parents will
be around to help you. Like that's assuming that nothing
will go wrong for them physically or health wise.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
And assuming they're alive exactly, they have a relationship with
you as well, that's it.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
That's not guaranteed that they're even going to be there.
And as you say, they're not paid workers. They can
change their mind at any time and say I'm not
helping you with this. Your kids are brat, you're on
your own, so you're not guaranteeing yourself a village. Obviously,
in an ideal world that would be lovely, But why
would I risk it and risk my earning capacity to
have a child earlier? On what if?
Speaker 4 (42:58):
Sorry, Jim, I love that more men are writing about parenting,
And yes, I think Jim's got a terrific newsletter, which
I have subscribed to because I do want to hear
more perspectives from men, and it's really refreshing to have
a man talk frankly about his regrets in fatherhood. But
turns out he really is pushing an gender. He also
writes for a conservative think tank in the US that's
(43:20):
dedicated to strengthening marriage hint heterosexual marriage and families.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
And I think blessed Jim, Like, even if we subscribe
to this idea that we should be having them younger,
I think we can all probably admit whether we it's
not a great trait. But when you hear of someone
who's had a baby at twenty two, twenty three, your
first question is, one was that on purpose? Did they
mean to do that? And two? How are they going
to do this now? Who's going to help them look
(43:47):
after that baby? How are they going to move ahead
in their career? Like I get secondhand stress for women
that have them younger because I think about how hard
it would be to parent at that age.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
It will help out.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah, good Stacy, what.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
They've got all the energy in the world. That's the
best age to be a parent.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
That's what you say that's true, but it is a
young person's game. And that is the thing. Like, really,
when you look at all of the studies around when
is actually best for us to conceal even when would
equate to the lowest risk pregnancy, it is in our
mid twenties to late twenties, Like that is when we
should be having them, but we're just too busy getting
our shit in order to do.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
It all right. To wrap up today's show, we're going
to share the things that we're loving, sick, things that
we might text to our friends or put in the
mums group chat. Amelia.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
So, I have discovered a book series that I want
to read just as much, if not more than my children.
And it's called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. This is
a series that inspires absolute devotion and adoration and people.
And I guess I've been living under a rock because
I only recently discovered it. The book started coming out
in two thousand and five that by an author called
(44:51):
Rick Reordan.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
I pick one up at the.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
Bookshop and I took it to the counter and the
young woman behind the counter literally gasped and said, this
is the book that got me into reading. And now
she works at a bookshop, so she's very into reading.
And I took it home and started reading it to
my children, and look, they think it's fine. I'm obsessed.
I'm now like, can we start doing bedtime reading at
(45:13):
six point thirty when bedtime is eight, just so we
can read more of the books. There are fantasy series.
They are about a twelve year old kid who travels
across America to recover Zusa's lightning Bolt. They're based on
Greek mythology. They're so exciting, they're so gripping, and they're
a page turner for kids and adults alike.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
That's great. I love that. Did you start with a
particular one? Is it a series that you have to
start at zero? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (45:38):
Start at zero. The first book's called The Lightning Thief.
But there's so many in the series. So the good
news is you have a lot of great reading ahead
of you.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
I've been reading Rolldal to my kids, whoa role like whoa?
The world has changed. I was reading The Magic finger
to the Middle of Night. Do you remember this one?
The kids have guns in it.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Is the Gunner Magic Fingers.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah. Wow, it's just like wow. Another time Rodal did
not give a shit about like being careful around language,
or he's just yeah, it's really cool to read Stacy. Stacy,
what are you recommending?
Speaker 1 (46:16):
So despite us onthing doing this show for a few weeks,
I felt like I had run out of recommendations yesterday,
and I of course made that my husband's problem. I
was like, do a lap of the house, look around
at our daughter's stuff and see if there's anything that
I should be recommending. And as I've got him on
that wild Goose chase, I found the thing that I
wanted to recommend. So it only cost me twelve dollars
(46:39):
and I bought it five years ago and I still
use it every single day and they still have them.
I've checked. It's a nappy caddy from Kmart, so I'm
well out of the nappy stage. But they're just a
cute little box, chic looking little box with a handle
on the top, and I use it now as like
the shit bits box. So you know when you find
like a piece of a toy and you have no
(47:00):
idea where the rest of that toy is and you
put it in that pile next to your fruit bowl,
like where Pemish and Andy talk about this podcast.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
Why do you know about my house?
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Because we all have identical houses, and you just end
up with all this crap that you don't know where
it's meant to go. And all my daughter's like hair stuff.
You know, you're the curl cream and the tangling brush
and all those bits. I use that nappy caddy still
for all of those bits, And now I've got a
second one to stop the fruit bowl pile from piling up.
(47:30):
So I just pulled all the little bits in there
and figure it out later. That's later mess problem.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Are you literally recommending a bin like a bin?
Speaker 1 (47:38):
No? They are things that you can't throw out, yes.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
Because you know that the kid's going to be like,
where is the one small bit of a toy that
I desperately need?
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yes, exactly, you need them at some point maybe, but
you can't throw them out. So that's where this stuff goes.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Doesn't it stink though, from all the nappy odor that
seeped into the plastic.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
No, I don't know about your nappy. No, I'm not
taling about a nappy bin, mons. I'm talking about a
little square box with a little handle on top. The
dirty nappies never went anywhere here. It was the one
that you keep like the wives, the clean nappies, gotcha,
the moisturizer. Okay, all right, Oh my god, no, that
(48:20):
bin is long gone. That bin has gone to the
tip that was foul, never to be returned to my house.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
My god, I thought you were just throwing everything in
the stinking like oh yeah, here for that.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Anyway, they're like ten to twenty bucks at kmar and
we'll put a link to one.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Of lid on It Stacy, so you can cover the
ship bits.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
No, the bits are free and loose, but it's fine.
Got confused shit bits? You're imaging little bits of shit
in there. Yeah, I'm so sorry. That's on mem On's.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
That's what's your.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Reco I've got this this hidden Netflix gem that I
can't stop watching right now, neither can my kids. It's
not K Pop Demon Hunters. It's Toddler's Running Errands. It's
a show called Old Enough. It's a Japanese show where
they send two three and four year olds into the
world to run errands completely on their own, and then
(49:13):
they film them with hidden cameras.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Have they got tracking apps?
Speaker 2 (49:16):
I must know there are no tracking apps.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
Literally.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
I watched one last night where a woman said to
her three year old, take my pants to the store
and get them mended. And I cannot stop watching it.
It's equal parts adorable and terrifying. Like you will laugh,
you will gasp, you'll cheer for these toddlers, like these preschoolers.
And my kids love it too, even though they can't
(49:40):
quite understand it because it's in Japanese, so they're subtitles,
but they can't completely read them all. It's going to
make you want to send your kids out for errands
too without a tracker, which is, you know, sometimes a
good thing.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
How successful are they fulfilling the errands? Did she get
the pants hand?
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Yes, they do the most amazing things, some of these kids,
and they show you during the show. They say they
have to walk three hundred meters, they need to cross
two roads, so they set it up. And yes, these
kids are so capable at such young age. It's amazing
to watch. And now since we've watched it, my kids
keep saying, Mum, send me on an errand I want
to go to the shops by myself.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
So this is definitely watching this great wreck.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
You know what, We'll put a link to all of
our reps in the show notes in case your brain
is a sieve. That is all we have time for
this week on Parenting out Loud. Now, last week I
told you something I was not supposed to tell you all.
I said, Hey, we're in the Mama Mea out Loud
feed for just a few weeks. So if you like
this show, come and follow it, because if you don't,
(50:42):
it might not survive. That's actually a reality. I've got
a fun fact for you both. There are ten times
the amount of people listening to this in the Mama
Mea out Loud feed compared to the Parenting out Loud feed.
One in ten people went and followed and the rest
were like nah nah. So I want to say huge
thank you to the people who did. You are elite,
(51:02):
you're in the one percent. You are the early adopters.
Thank you, and for the rest of you. If you
do like this show, come on over to the Parenting
out Loud feed and if not, you know what will
be out of your hair in a couple of weeks.
The best way to help us is to just do that.
So search for Parenting out Loud in your podcast app,
find the show it's a purple logo, and hit follow
(51:24):
and then maybe, just maybe we will get to number
one ahead of Dari of A CEO. A huge thank
you to our team, the group ep Is, Ruth Devine, produces,
Leah Porgus and Sashatanic and researcher Tessa Kodovich. Have a
great week. We'll talk to you next Saturday morning.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
See you then Bye,
You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
the traditional owners of the land and waters that this
podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to Parenting Out Loud. This is the podcast for
parents who don't always listen to parenting podcasts. It's the culture,
it's the trends, it's a zeitgeist, it's Marbo, it's the vibe.
I'm Monique Bolli.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I'm Amelia Lastra and I love that castle shut up.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
And I am Stacy Higgs.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
First up, thank you for all the years. On last
week's show, so many of you dming us people loving
it sick and heaps of non parents just here for it.
So we love that. And Ladies number two on the
Apple charts.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Who I love that?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
That seems huge?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Are we stars now?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I think we are.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
We've made it fine Diary of a CEO, which feels
so validating because in twenty twenty five, parenting culture has
become like an startup, right.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yes, and both cultures lack sleep. I feel that's true.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, you're giving your all and not getting a lot time.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, both cultures relentless. Coming up on today's show, K
Pop Demon Hunters, you might have heard it rippling through
the culture. We're going to talk about why it's so huge.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Men parent or tracking apps are booming, but do children
have a right to privacy?
Speaker 3 (01:33):
I really want to get into this thauny debate with you.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
And a man has made a case for why we
should be having kids younger, and he actually might convince
you it's a good idea. Maybe maybe we'll see.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
But first, did you guys see Anne Hathaway gentle parent
the paparazzi? I feel like this. I saw this video
on Instagram a few times. It's been viewed over sixty
million times. She was on the set of The Devil
Wears prior to Too, which has had a lot of
paparazzi interest, Like there's things being leaked from set, there's
lots of images coming out. But on this particular day,
the paparazzi pack were bickering and she walked over. She
(02:06):
had this big smile and just completely diffuse the situation.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
You're going to have to give us like a reenactment,
mons like what was she doing? Calm zen Master.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
We can't play this on the show because Muma Mia
does not endorse paparazzi shots or videos, so I'm going
to explain to you instead. She walks over to the pack.
She has an open palm. She has a very calm
and present stance, and she says, you guys have got
to relax. There are children on set today. Does everybody
know there are children on set? So everyone's going to relax.
(02:39):
We're going to have a very nice day because we
have children. It was very calm, very demure, very Okay,
everyone's having some feelings right now, but this is the boundary.
And it was so fantastic. I tried it on my
own kids as well today like it worked. It worked
on my four year old. It also worked on the paparazzi.
(03:00):
They all sort of diffused and said, oh, yes, thank you, ma'am.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I feel like.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Anne Hathaway was born to gentle parents. First of all,
she has an amazing voice. Second of all, I remember
reading an interview with her when her kids were a
little younger, and she said that she had stopped drinking
because she found that she was more present with them
during the week, in particular when she sort of just
ruled out drinking. So every time I have a glass
(03:25):
of wine on a weeknight, I think of Anne Hathaway
and how she is present and I am not okay
and another mum doing it right this week, I need
to talk about Queen Mary. So she's just given us
all the masterclass in how to react when your kids
do stupid shit. So our very own Tazzyborn, Queen of Denmark.
She was at this public engagement and.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
A reporter asked her what she thought of her daughter
Isabella's outfit when she attended.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Have you seen this?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Remember this? The princess wore a T shirt that had
something rude on it.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Right, Yes, it was quite rude. So it loosely translates
to f tim yesterday with an arrow pointing to the
right kind of light those shirts from the nineties that
said I'm with stupid and then pointed to the right
of view.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
I would be so worried wearing that T shirt that
like on the bus yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Or that someone inappropriate walks up like your brother or
your dad walks up next to you. Very risky shirt.
But for context, it's lyrics from the band that she
was watching at the festival, and so this reporter asked,
what did you think of this? And Queen Mary gave
the most perfect response in Danish, So I have studied
(04:33):
this clip with forensic levels of investigation. The smile on
her face doesn't crack, it doesn't break even for a second.
She just does a slight raise of the eyebrows, very demure,
and just says. MY first thought was are you completely confused?
Ha ha ha.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
But let's just put.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It this way, some decisions are better than others. Isn't
a great response, Like I feel like this was the
perfect way of saying I don't agree with it, but
she can do what she wants and I'm not going
to put her down in front of you. I loved it.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
What do you think imagine being a royal and how
having the balls to wear a T shirt that's got
the F word on it? Like are you okay? Isabella?
Like do you put any weight behind birth order impact
on personality? So if you think about Isabella Princess Isabella
Henriette to Ingrid Muggaree, she's the middle child. Her older
(05:27):
brother is first in line to the throne, so he's
going to be king, and her younger siblings are twins, right,
so it's attention on him, attention on them. Is this
just like the middle child going attention.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
To me, and she's Prince Harry in the birth order
when you think about it, like she's the second in
line to the throne. She's the Prince Harry equivalent of Denmark.
So I feel like she can be a bit more
cheeky with her behavior. And she is eighteen, she's an adult.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
She also has form in the area of breaking protocol.
So you might remember she had an official portrait where
she was wearing this orange gown and this teal sash,
she had the tiara, the turquoise earrings and she was
holding her phone.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
She was kind of the first royal to do so,
and it was apparently Mary Our Mary's idea like this
intentionally modern touch to like symbolize a modern princess and
kind of a nod to her generation. But what's interesting
is the Danes mostly love it. Like this TV presenter
Jim Linfield I saw this on Facebook. He said, I
love that our royal youngsters also have personality and courage
(06:34):
and they don't follow the neat, pleated flow. The time
of the ladies in the hat is over. Princess Isabella
is in. People are getting around it.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
They're such a modern, cool royal family. I feel like
they're rode bikes everywhere. It's so different to the British
royal family totally.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
And I think you can actually buy this shirt online,
so we can drop a link in the show notes
if anyone wants a T shirt that says ftim yesterday,
it's available.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Oh to be eighteen to not have the front to
low fully developed. I love it. It feels like the
whole world is talking about kay Pop Demon Hunters. It's
not a great name, is it. Let's just get that
out of the way. It feels like a placeholder name.
It feels like they were thinking this is just the
(07:19):
working title, and they were like, you know what, let's just.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Call it this.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
This is just what it is.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
I kept seeing it on Netflix.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
I think it came out in June, and I kept
seeing it pushed on me. I was like, this sounds ridiculous.
I'm not gonna watch it. But then one day my
children had been possessed by K Pop Demon Hunters. They
chose to watch it by themselves, and now it's all
we listen to.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah. So this little animated movie has completely captured the
attention of kids the world over and adults too. It's
now Netflix's most watched movie ever, Wow, two hundred and
thirty six million views, and the soundtracks made history too.
It's the first movie soundtrack to have four simultaneous top
ten hits on the Billboard Top one hundred and Golden
(08:01):
has hit number one. So if you're thinking I have
seen this, I haven't clicked on it. It looks horrid
on Netflix. It's a terrible placeholder name. But should I
be worried if my kids are obsessed with this? The
answer is, don't worry. This is excellent, and I want
to talk about why. Top line. It follows a fictional
K pop girl group now k pop stands for Korean pop,
(08:24):
and they're also Demon Hunters. It's written and directed by
Maggie Kang. It's about these three girls where demons lurk everywhere,
but their music protects the world from the demons of
Korean folklore. So in a sentence, it's basically girl pop
group save the world. This movie goes so hard and
(08:45):
it is so good. Like in the first eight minutes
I thought, what is this? I cannot look away and
it's not what I thought it would be at all,
and I'm obsessed with it. Have you guys seen it
so good.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I hadn't, and you two convinced me to watch this,
and now the songs are on repeat in my head
like I can't get it out. It's the catchiest ear.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Whem.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I'm happy it's there. It's not even annoying me that
these songs are in my head. It's absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah, it's fun, it's funny, it's really tightly written, it's
beautiful to watch. The music is just all bangers. But
beyond that, I want to talk about the messages in it,
because I think it's really solid, and I think Disney
would be looking at this and thinking, shit, our brain
is over. They would be sitting around the bardroom head
(09:30):
in hands I reckon. So firstly, it's very girl power,
so the girls are at the center of this instead
of being passive and pretty pop idols, they're warriors and
it's their voices that are the weapons. So that's doing
two interesting things. Firstly, it centers art and music as
the thing that will save us, like music's going to
(09:52):
save us, which I think is a really good message
right now for the world. And secondly, it's flipping the
script on female pop stars, like this thing that's often
commodified their voices actually is what gives this group power.
It's really heavily about friendship. So these three girls are
all each other's anchors. There's no male savior rushing in,
(10:14):
and it's got all these amazing girlhood coded moments like goofy, messy,
really silly energy and Maggie Kang, the director, said in
Glamour that she grew up watching Disney princesses and thought
that's not me. I'm goofy and I'm awkward and I'm
gross sometimes, and she wanted to put that version of
girlhood on screen. Did you guys notice that?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah, that's a big thing that stuck out to me, Like,
I know, you kind of sold this to me as
this is a great show to watch with your kids.
But my overriding thought when I was watching it is
this isn't for the kids. This is for the women
who love girl groups and want to relive that fandom
and girlhood. And it just happens to be done in
a format that your kids will be But we.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Did you think it was inappropriate for kids, or more
just that kids wouldn't get as much out of it.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I just feel like kids wouldn't get as much out
of it. I mean, the demons, depending on your kids age,
probably might freak them out a little bit. But I think, like,
you know, it's no scarier than in Lion King him
falling off the rock or the Scary step Mother Entangled. Like,
there's always dark themes in kids shows, so I could
definitely overlook that. I definitely though, felt like it was
more for us. I felt like it was very much
(11:25):
a movie for us. Here's what I loved about it.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
When I was growing up, I was not even aware
of South Korea. I consumed almost exclusively American content, with
a little bit of British and a tiny bit of
Australian content sprinkled in. I just think it's so brilliant
that the first big cultural touchstone for Generation Alpha is
(11:48):
a non Western.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Creation, which is this movie.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
And there's Korean language in the songs, as I discovered
because my kids wanted to write out the lyrics to them,
and then we realized there's a bunch of Korean lyrics
in them. There are Korean locations, there's nods to Korean myths.
Of course, the very plot is sort of premised on
the idea of Korean demons and folklore. It's part of
this wave of Korean culture which is not as how you,
(12:14):
which has sort of taken over the world in recent years.
But I love that this is the first big moment
for this generation and it's not Western. I found it
really interesting to learn that even though the characters speak English,
their mouth movements actually match or reflect Korean pronunciation. So
little details like that the producer and the filmmakers really
(12:35):
wanted to get across an authentic picture of Korean culture
today and the ultimate message of reclaiming your identity and
being true to yourself. It feels almost subversive right now
in a political environment both in Australia and the US
and in other Western countries where that whole idea of immigration, pluralism,
multiculturalism is under attack from some sectors.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
And Mum and mea is entertainment writer Chelsea Hoy. She
loved this movie. She was a very early adopter of
this movie and he's a big fan of the k
pop craze and said that it does feel very true
to that genre while bringing in this whole other group
of people now that get to enjoy that. And she
wrote for the site we can link the story in
our show notes. But bringing it back to what you
(13:19):
said about female friendship Monds, she said that that was
what felt like the best part of this film was
that it perfectly captures friendship in all its chaotic glory.
She said, the silliness, the unhinged chaos, it's so girlhood coded.
This is exactly how close friends should interact. It's messy, supportive, ridiculous,
and fiercely loyal all at the same time. Each girl
(13:40):
has her own struggles, dreams, growth, arc and the film
takes time to develop them all properly, and that the
banter feels natural and lived in, so their conflicts feel real,
but their bond feels very unbreakable. And I think that's
an excellent message for our girls to be growing up.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
With well and our boys.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
I love the fact that ye for boys and girls,
this is a vital window when they are young to
kind of shape their perceptions of the world and what
relationships are. And I've noticed that when boys watch that
movie too, it's not centering asexual romance, it's centering friendship.
And that's just as powerful a message for boys to
receive as for girls.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah. Absolutely, it's very emotionally intelligent, Like I was comparing
it to what we grew up with when we were kids,
and it's sort of we had the Goonies, the Sandlot Kids,
Lion King, I guess was really big beating the Beast,
which is super problematic.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
A lad and super problematic, a lot of like mediation
of other.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Cultures and all centered on men. Here's the small problem
with it is that the men actually don't come off
very well in this movie. So Mark Lee wrote in
Northwest Asian Weekly that once again Asian men get thrown
under the bus, and he was arguing that at first glance,
(14:57):
this looks like a win for Asian representation, Like the
women are very stylish and confident and heroic, but the
men in this film are either villains or they're passive
like the Sarja boys. They don't speak. None of them
have really a speaking role, so they're completely silenced, or
they're just playing useless like their manager that the girls have.
(15:18):
The other main male character is basically like a buffoon.
So it does leave the guys with almost nothing. But
I was thinking about childhood movies we had it. I
was arguing with my sister about this. She was saying,
don't worry about the man, like they've had their time
in the sun. If you think about the childhood movies
we had, it was Goonies, All boys, Sandlot Kids, All boys,
(15:39):
Lion King, a big boy dies and a little boy
takes over, you know, and a weird evil boy uncle,
Beauty and the Beast. Like the smart girl marries her
captor to save her dad. So it's nice to see
this tide turning in kids pop culture towards more female centric,
smart movies.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
I can see that critique though, because in cell culture
is really a big thing in Korea too, and this
idea of young men feeling left behind as young women
are empowered and are hitting educational goals and career goals
in a way that they're kind of lapping men is
just as big an issue there as it is in
(16:18):
Western cultures. So I think that's an important perspective to
bring in. I guess the other thing that I think
kids are really connecting with here, which we haven't yet
touched on, is the way that it blurs the lines
between the digital and virtual world and real world in
a way that feels so on point and so relevant
for Generation Alpha. They are more than digital natives. Their
(16:40):
world is shaped by the Internet and by online culture,
and this movie just blurs those boundaries in such a
sort of neat and clever way. Think about the way
on the end credits, this isn't a spoiler. You see
the women who are actually doing the singing in the
studio recording the songs, so you get reminded that this
is the real world. There is also the virtual world
(17:02):
that you've been watching in the movie, and the two
of them, it's really hard to tell where one ends
and the other begins. One interesting cultural reason for that
is that South Korea got internet in a widespread way
a lot earlier than the rest of the world. They
found out that broadband was delivered their back in twenty
ten to basically all houses, and so I think that's
part of the reason why they're able to sort of
tap into a digital native culture in such a convincing way.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
For young kids, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
It's quite TikTok coded as well, so in the way
that Stacy said before that this is a movie for
really for adults, it does that beautiful thing where it
toes the line between youth culture and adult themes. So
in the first few minutes we meet the girls, they're
on their private jet and they're having this big feast
of food, and that feels TikTok coded to me, because
(17:47):
there is this subculture on TikTok of I think it's
called muckbang, where people buy Korean food and then film
themselves eating it, And so I think there's all these
like digital moments throughout the show that kids would connect
with in a way that people who don't live their
life on TikTok probably wouldn't. But the other thing that
really stood out to me was how inclusive this show was.
(18:10):
So the fans of this girl group, they're not just silly,
screaming teenage girls. It's everyone. You see all ages, all
body types, all genders. You see blokey men crying, you
see elderly women with their little fan clubs. Zoe, one
of the characters, talks about the colors in her head
and taking off her mask, which some people have said
(18:32):
is coded as she's neurodivergent, and a lot of fans
have read roomy. The main character is queer. Even the
rival boy band has pink hair and sort of effeminate
looking soft men. So the whole world of it is
very fluid and very inclusive.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
That's a great point, and it makes me reflect on
the fact that, you know, there are all sorts of
downsides to not having a monoculture anymore, like the fact
that everyone's listening to their own music, everyone's watching their
own TikTok algorithm. But every now and then something hits
that the whole world enjoys, and that brings us back
to the monoculture that we used to have. And I've
(19:09):
found that I'm reconnect with friends who I've sort of
fallen out of touch with because our kids are sharing
videos of themselves dancing to Golden and it's just so
nice for the whole world at this kind of moment
to be able to enjoy the same thing at the
same time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, My only criticism when Monzie mentioned about the inclusiveness,
I think that was great from the fan perspective. But
my only thing that bugged me was that the three
main girl band members are all incredibly thin and attractive,
and when they're showing other body types in the movie,
but they're not showing them on them, that was the
only thing where I went, Oh, when they're talking about
(19:46):
consuming ten thousand calories before they go on stage. I
wish that that hadn't been part of it because you
kind of don't want that to be the focus.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah, like I can't argue with that. I think that's
a really valid point though. I was listening to a
podcast with Jayha Kim. She studies K pop, and she
was talking about how K pop is this extremely manufactured
and controlled machine, and how women n in K pop
have to diet like they're really controlled. They have to
(20:14):
look a certain way. So I guess in some sense
it's true to the K pop culture. But yeah, I
do agree skinny, hot girls save.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
In the world. And it's even at the point, as
you say about the dancers from the show, Novak Djokovic
even when you want to match. Last week did a
little dance from one of the songs.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
And I said, most lovable thing he's ever done in it.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I know, that's what I thought.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I was like, do I like him now?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
He did one of the dancers in tribute to his daughter.
He said, she's been teaching me how to do these
dances from K pop demon Hunters. So it's at that level,
like it's just permeated the culture in such a massive way,
which is great to see everyone can enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
The demons are funny. They're not scary. If you're thinking, arna, oh,
my kid's watching demons, they're quite funny. They poke fun
at themselves like. It's a ten out of ten for me.
I loved it.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
There are a lot of questions that parents these days
are having to ask themselves and answer that previous generations
of parents did not have to deal with. One of
those questions, a really, really tricky one to answer, is
whether or not to use a tracking app on your kids. Now,
Mon's and Stacy, you're probably not yet at the stage
(21:24):
where you're thinking about that. I am sort of approaching
that stage, and to be honest, I just don't know
what I'm going to do.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
But lots and lots of.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Parents have asked this question and decided yes, they do
want to know where their children are, and there are
lots of reasons why they do that. For instance, experts
say that for parents of children with autism, a tracking
app can be really helpful, particularly when wandering off is common.
There are lots of reasons why they do it, but
(21:53):
we don't yet really understand what the effects of using
these tracking apps will be on the children who are constantly.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Surveyed by them.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
So we have some clues that are emerging. I should
say they've become really ubiquitous. One of the most popular apps,
Life three sixty, is now on four fourteen percent of
all phones in the US.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
What really, Yeah, it's crazy right.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
And in Australia one in five parents attracting their children,
whether it's through an air tag or Lie three sixty
or another app. We've got some stats coming out about
what it's doing to kids to feel constantly surveyed. A
recent survey that Australia's e Safety Commissioner did looked at
the effects on young people's attitudes to relationships and specifically
(22:37):
intimate relationships, and they discovered that a full twenty percent
of eighteen to twenty four year olds think that it's
reasonable to track the location of their intimate partners. That's
higher than any other age group. And remember this is
the age group that came of age being trapped by
their parents. It's alarming. I think I'm going to put
my cards on the table here. I haven't decided yet
(22:59):
what to do about the tracking apps. There are unforeseen
consequences of children going up knowing that their parents know
exactly where they are at all times, and it's a
real grey area, and it raises lots of uncomfortable questions.
Do children are they entitled to privacy? Do we need
to get their consent to use these apps? What does
(23:19):
it mean to link surveillance and love in this way?
Is this just the price of safety these days? You know,
as I was thinking about this, I came across a
great quote from Tina Fey about photoshop. She said, and
I want to get it right because she's so clever.
It is an appalling and tragic reflection on the moral
decay of our society, unless I need it, in which case,
everybody be cool.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I suspect that's.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Where I'm going to land on the whole tracking apps thing,
But I also wanted to intellectualize it and overthink it first.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
So Stacy, what do you think? Do you think you'll
use a tracking app?
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah? Of course, I bloody will, Like I didn't even
think this was a question. Everybody's doing that now. I
have friends who track their kids, track their husbands, track
their son's girlfriend. Like. It's all very normal now. And
our kids are growing up in that generation where they're
tracking their friends even on Snapchat. They're used to sharing
that they're not used to the level of obviously that
we had. So I very much feel that this is
(24:12):
going to be the norm going forward. I must admit
it's something that I think, well, yeah, that probably would
make me feel better knowing where she is. But I
kind of wanted to interrogate, like, what's our fear, Like
what's our fear around not knowing their every move? And
I guess the one that's at the top of the
list I think you'd probably both agree is that they'll
get taken, Like that's the thing you're worried about, is
(24:34):
that they'll get taken or they're a missing person and
you don't know where they are. And so I looked
into that and the stats of that, and it's so
minuscule compared to our population. Like Dennis Moriarty wrote this
piece where he quoted the National Missing Person's Coordination Center,
and they track the number of missing child cases throughout
the decades. So when we're looking back at the seventies,
(24:55):
it was eighteen, in the eighties, it was eleven children
nineties fifteen, and then it drops way down four in
the two thousands and five in the twenty ten.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Do they know why there's been such a drop. I
mean those are small numbers to begin with, small.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Numbers when you consider like the growth of people that
we've had in the country as well. Not to say
that we ever want that to be happening to any child,
But the world is by and large a safer place
now than it was then. But I wonder whether it's
a chicken and egg. It's a bit safer now because
we have the technology to be able to know where
everyone is. What do you think mons.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Safety doesn't sell product, Stacy, Yeah, you said the magic
word just before fear. And these companies they don't care
about your kids. They care about their shareholders. Life three
sixty is a tech company and they have built a
(25:52):
product on anxious millennial parents, on catastrophizing situations and marketing
with fear. Have you seen the ad for this product?
Cop this? You are my whole wide world, my joy,
my baby girl. You'll never know how much I love you.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
When you're gone. I just thinks of you dying.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
Mom.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
What every time you leave my safe when you drive
a schoolish stay out at night? This is where I
got to the million ways ins I my brain and
what you could die at any given time.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
That's to range.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
That does make me very anxious.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
When you go to marketing school, you know what they say,
They say like marketing one oh one. Fear based marketing
works because it hits the oldest part of our brain,
like the survival instinct. And for parents, the stakes are
really high because you're talking about your children. So I
just think we need to take a zoom back and go,
(26:56):
are they just exploiting a fear that we have that
doesn't exist, Stacy, because as you say, the data shows
that we actually are living quite in safe times, particularly
in Australia. Yeah, notwithstanding your point about autism and about
some parents really needing this for certain reasons. But what
I think is really interesting is what the experts are
(27:19):
saying about this. I've been reading The Anxious Generation by
Jonathan hit He wrote this best selling book. Lots of
people are talking about it, and he calls this phenomenon
safety ism, and he says the research around this is
really consistent, like hovering, tracking doesn't reduce anxiety. It actually
makes kids and parents more anxious, and you see it
(27:42):
in the data everywhere. So Deacon University found that Australian
parents are the most risk averse in the world. Four
out of five won't let their kids do risky things.
There was this University of Michigan study that found that
half of parents won't even let their tween walk to
a friend's house or go to another aisle in the supermarket,
like parents will not let their kids go to Aisle
(28:04):
three to collect a can of beans. And what this
is doing is making kids depressed and anxious more than
ever and parents too. And so the experts are saying
the solution to this anxious generation is not tracking them
or texting them. You have to let them go into
the big wide world. And when we stop children taking
(28:24):
any risks, we actually block them with this safetyism. We
block them from overcoming anxiety, managing risk, learning to be
self governing like, all of which are essential skills to
becoming an adult.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
The other thing that Hite says is that we have
set up a division between the real world and the
online world that says that the real world is more
dangerous than the online world, and kids get a lesson
from this. He says that they can retreat into their phones,
where they're not monitored and where they can roam freely,
and that world is actually more dangerous than the real
(28:57):
world that we're monitoring them in. So I know it
starts to feel overwhelming them because when you say, thinking
about the supermarket aisle, I don't know if I have
necessarily consciously let my kids go into a different isle
in the supermarket. One way to get around that is
that Jonathan Hite has this organization called let Grow that
I know you've come across Tummons and that website. The
(29:18):
let Grow website has a ton of useful information and
practical tips on how you can start letting go of
your kids and let them into the world. And they
even have this little card you can print out there
that your child can carry that says, I am not
a neglected child. I am a child whose parents want
me to be able to walk around in the world.
(29:39):
Here is their number if you have any questions. And
I think that's a brilliant idea.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
That's so interesting. Maybe it is a case of that
we're worrying about the wrong thing. Like it's like when
people are worried about getting on a plane and the
plane crashing, but then they'll jump in their car every
day after a couple of glasses of wine and not
think twice about it, Like really, we're thinking that the
danger is when they're out and about without us. But
a lot of the danger is the phone. Like we're
seeing time and time again study showing that phones are
(30:05):
the damaging thing to their mental health and they're overall
well being, like to their resilience. Yeah, we're saying, here,
have the phone, never leave it alone. You must take
this with you so that I don't lose you. It's
kind of like misdirected fear. I think I saw.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
An article that said that in twenty twenty three, stalking
victims filed a class action lawsuit against this company Life
three sixty and against tile and against Amazon for essentially
promoting stalking, specifically multiple privacy law violations. And there was
this article in the Washington Post as well that said
(30:40):
that parents are using this location sharing feature to track
their teenage and adult children in ways that resemble emotional abuse.
So you talked about that before, Amelia, Like, is it
a thin end of the wedge? Are we teaching our
kids that surveillance is normal and surveillance is love? And
what does that say?
Speaker 4 (30:58):
And I think we're teaching each other that too. The
New South Wales Crime Commission has actually highlighted the use
of these apps in both domestic violence and organized crime settings.
In a lot of intimate partner violence situations, these apps
are used to control, and I wonder if we're just
becoming used to having people on demand and having information
(31:18):
about people on demand in a way that isn't just
done reasonable for kids, but it's also bleeding into our
other relationships.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
And it's like the app doesn't guarantee the safety. It's
telling you where they are, but it's not telling you
the circumstances of that location and how safe they'd be
when they're there, Like you might be seeing them at
their friend's house, there could be a party going on,
all sorts of strangers there. So it's not like a
fail safe. It doesn't account for everything that could go wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
So true, Stacy. Also, kids are savvy. They're going to
find a workaround for this anyway. They're going to put
their phone under their pillow at home and then have
a burn a phone that they're using at a party.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
That's exactly right. I found this awesome article Juliet Weisfogel
wrote for She Knows, a teens guide to temporarily Regaining Freedom,
where she's written all about the hacks that she used
when her mum put the tracking apps on her phone
when she was a fourteen year old and got sneaking
out the window. On the ways that she got around it,
so there were different things she did, like turning off
(32:16):
the Bluetooth at home and the Wi Fi so that
the app would know that that was her last location,
and then sneaking out the window to a party. But
I thought the best one that she gave his advice,
which is so funny, really crazy idea to get around it.
She suggested leave your phone at home and go to
the party. But I thought the best part was that
she said they still took their laptops because they needed
(32:38):
a way to communicate and to uber home afterwards. So
they've got a bit of technology on them anyway, they
can't escape it.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
And that said I'm getting a bit of deja vu here,
which is before I had kids, I said I'd never
let them watch TV. I reserve the right to use
tracking apps the minute I feel I need to. Yeah,
some sad news cross my feed this week. Every reject
shop in Australia is about to disappear for good. No
I love the Reject Shop, and I also love the
(33:07):
top comment on this news from a Reddit post about
the ree Shop. No longer will I be able to
tell my sister that's where my mum and dad bought her.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
That was a classic. I pulled that one a couple
of times too.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Look, it's probably a deep psychological problem I have.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
But the Reject Shop really.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Brings out my latent hoarding instincts. I go in there
with my little basket, and because everything is so aggressively
and reasonably priced, I just want it all, and it
makes me feel like it can be a different kind
of parent. This is the kind of parent who has
a craft draw as opposed to just piles of nonsense,
the kind who sharpens her kid's pencils every evening while
(33:47):
thinking about the masterpieces that they're going to create the
next day that she's not going to throw out when
no one's looking back, instead curate in a perfect scrap
book that she also got at the reject Shop, And
the kind of parent who creates seasonal tablescapes. I really
want to be one of those parents who celebrates the
coming of spring with some pastels.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah, I get that feeling in Ikia, this is too okay,
that's yours. That's my reject shop.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
Look, that's why I really want to pour out a
bottle of aggressively centered off brand bubble bath for the
reject Shop.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
You know exactly what you're talking.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
I can smell the smell as you said.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
It's blue, right, it's blue blue.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
And you're like, is this going to make my children's skin.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Break out in a rash?
Speaker 4 (34:33):
Maybe, but they're gonna have fun doing it and it's
going to be a thing.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Reject Shop. Thank you for the good times.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
Remember when Tony Abbott, I'm wittingly posed in front of
its signage on a campaign stop in Canberra before the election,
he laves or that wonderful Thank you for making school
holidays bearable. Thank you for the competitively priced water colors,
thank you for the Okay, I've just been told by
their producers that in fact, it's just being renamed, and
(35:02):
they're telling me that it's going to be okay. It's
going to be called something called Dolorama, which is apparently
a Canadian chain that just doesn't.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Have the same ring.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
And I am going to suspend judgment on this and
wait to go and see it. But in the meantime,
thank you for the good chimes. Thank you for the
hairspray I have that has the name It's giving Glam.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
They sell Impulse Body Spray. There, guys, stop up now. Oh.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
I read a sub set this week called once Again
I Wish I had kids younger that I have been
busting to talk to you too about because I know
you'll have a lot of feelings. Jim Dalrymple, who was
thirty six when he had his first child, said he
started thinking about the pros and cons of having kids
younger when the CEO of an AI company, Brad Weiss,
tweeted having kids before thirty is how you stay generationally poor,
(35:57):
and it caused quite the debate. So why is later
Clara Frad that what he meant is that having kids
young eats up your cash flow and your time, which
makes having kids sound like dodgy investment properties and fair
kind of does. But Dalrymple argues that the opposite might
be true when you consider what you could gain laiter
down the track by having kids early. So he says
(36:18):
in his piece, if I become a grandparent at sixty
two rather than seventy two, I might be able to
provide ten years of full time care for my grandkids.
This could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to
my descendants. That's not generational poverty, it's generational wealth. Suddenly,
having kids young is a financial advantage. And his whole
point is by having kids sooner, we can give ourselves
(36:41):
a more active, involved village, which is something a lot
of us millennials say that we don't really have, is
an involved village. He makes the point that millennials complain
that they don't have a village, but then go out
and make choices that will actively ensure our children also
don't have a village. This is very simplistic, like he
acknowledges that not everyone is going to have a village
just by compressing the time span between generations. Some people
(37:04):
won't have a village, whether they have a baby at
twenty two or they have one at forty two. But
the point is that we could rethink the way families
are helping each other. So Mon's do you wish you
got cracking sooner? Now that you heard this.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Argument, Jim, Jim, Jim, I see your argument. I accept
your argument. What I don't accept is the thing that
he's missed entirely, which is the reason so many of
us don't have babies until like our thirties and older.
It's not just because we're making a choice about that.
(37:38):
There are all these systemic reasons, like there are huge
socio economic and social drivers that are related to this.
And here's my receipts. In Australia, the average age of
first time mums is twenty nine point nine years, so
almost thirty. In the nineteen seventies, which is where Jim
wants to live, it was twenty three. Demographers and social
(38:03):
researchers have looked at this, They're like, why are people
having babies older? Here's why women are spending more years
in higher education, They're establishing careers. There are enormous economic
pressures on us right now. There's insecure work, there's better contraception,
which means more control over timing. Meeting someone is a
(38:23):
shit show. People are marrying their partners much later, So
the average age at marriage in Australia is now thirty
two for women thirty four for men. That's ten years
later than in the nineteen seventy so that pushes berths
further out. Also, FYI it takes ten years now to
say for a house deposits. So I just think, yeah,
cool story, Jim. I see that, but the data doesn't
(38:46):
quite match up. And I think that that's the piece
that was missing for me here is it's not a
personal choice to have kids later. There's all these other
things happening around us. This is not just in Australia.
This is globally. If you zoom out, this is happening
across the EU. It's happening in Italy, Greece and Ireland,
it's happening in Asia. Maternal age is rising everywhere. There
(39:09):
are very few that are bucking the trend. Here it's
sort of rural India and some parts of northern Europe,
but mostly the average age of parents is rising because
we are being structurally funneled into it from all the
precious Jim.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
I didn't like the article either at first. I did
at first.
Speaker 4 (39:30):
I read it and look, it's like everything you disagree
with politically often there's a kernel of truth in it.
And that's why on first read I was kind of
seduced by his thesis.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yes, I thought, it's true.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
You know, when you have children older, your parents are older,
they are less interchanging nappies because they are enjoying their retirement.
And you're older, so it's harder to wake up in
the morning.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
None of this can be disputed. Getting older in general
is not great and your energy levels do drop.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
But then I started to think about what Jim was saying,
and I realized that he was missing an elephant in
the room, and that elephant is women. He says, no,
it's fine to have children young, because it turns out
that men who have children young actually make more money
than men who have children later. And then I thought
(40:24):
to myself, yeah, but women who have children younger make
less money than women who have children later. And you
know why that is. It's because the motherhood penalty is real.
The Australian Breer Statistics shows that women reduce their paid
work hours by about thirty five percent across the first
five years after the arrival of children. Australia has one
(40:46):
of the highest rates of part time work by women
in the OECD.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
In some ways, that's great.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
It means we get a lot more flexibility when our
children are young to give them the time that we
want to give them. In other ways, it means we're
missing out on income for retirement and for financial security
and stability because we're looking after children and we're taking
ourselves out of full time work. So the motherhood penalty
for women is real, and it's even more real when
you have kids younger. The other problem with it is
(41:15):
that when we talk about the village, let's be real,
we're talking about grandmothers, right.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
That is so true. That's what the village is.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
The village is just a series of grandmothers making crow
shaped blankets and doing the stuff.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah, it's the unpaid labor that women get loved with.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Again, good point, Amilia.
Speaker 4 (41:34):
And the thing about grandmothers is they're not paid for
what they do. The village is unpaid labor and that's wonderful.
Grandmothers want to do it, they love their grandkids. But
we can't get away from the fact that we're basically
saying that we want more unpaid labor by women. And
one way Australians are actually pushing to strengthen that village
(41:54):
is they're pushing to include grandparents in the government childcare subsidy.
Parents around the nation are actually putting together a petition
for the Prime Minister to say why shouldn't grandparents get
the same kinds of financial reimbursement as other types of care,
and I think that's a real solid step forward rather
than saying that women should take themselves out of the
(42:15):
workplace earlier to have children.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah, and it's also in an ideal world that would
be lovely if you had your children earlier your parents
are around to help you, But you can't bet on
the fact that once you get there, your parents will
be around to help you. Like that's assuming that nothing
will go wrong for them physically or health wise.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
And assuming they're alive exactly, they have a relationship with
you as well, that's it.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
That's not guaranteed that they're even going to be there.
And as you say, they're not paid workers. They can
change their mind at any time and say I'm not
helping you with this. Your kids are brat, you're on
your own, so you're not guaranteeing yourself a village. Obviously,
in an ideal world that would be lovely, But why
would I risk it and risk my earning capacity to
have a child earlier? On what if?
Speaker 4 (42:58):
Sorry, Jim, I love that more men are writing about parenting,
And yes, I think Jim's got a terrific newsletter, which
I have subscribed to because I do want to hear
more perspectives from men, and it's really refreshing to have
a man talk frankly about his regrets in fatherhood. But
turns out he really is pushing an gender. He also
writes for a conservative think tank in the US that's
(43:20):
dedicated to strengthening marriage hint heterosexual marriage and families.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
And I think blessed Jim, Like, even if we subscribe
to this idea that we should be having them younger,
I think we can all probably admit whether we it's
not a great trait. But when you hear of someone
who's had a baby at twenty two, twenty three, your
first question is, one was that on purpose? Did they
mean to do that? And two? How are they going
to do this now? Who's going to help them look
(43:47):
after that baby? How are they going to move ahead
in their career? Like I get secondhand stress for women
that have them younger because I think about how hard
it would be to parent at that age.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
It will help out.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah, good Stacy, what.
Speaker 2 (43:59):
They've got all the energy in the world. That's the
best age to be a parent.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
That's what you say that's true, but it is a
young person's game. And that is the thing. Like, really,
when you look at all of the studies around when
is actually best for us to conceal even when would
equate to the lowest risk pregnancy, it is in our
mid twenties to late twenties, Like that is when we
should be having them, but we're just too busy getting
our shit in order to do.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
It all right. To wrap up today's show, we're going
to share the things that we're loving, sick, things that
we might text to our friends or put in the
mums group chat. Amelia.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
So, I have discovered a book series that I want
to read just as much, if not more than my children.
And it's called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. This is
a series that inspires absolute devotion and adoration and people.
And I guess I've been living under a rock because
I only recently discovered it. The book started coming out
in two thousand and five that by an author called
(44:51):
Rick Reordan.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
I pick one up at the.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
Bookshop and I took it to the counter and the
young woman behind the counter literally gasped and said, this
is the book that got me into reading. And now
she works at a bookshop, so she's very into reading.
And I took it home and started reading it to
my children, and look, they think it's fine. I'm obsessed.
I'm now like, can we start doing bedtime reading at
(45:13):
six point thirty when bedtime is eight, just so we
can read more of the books. There are fantasy series.
They are about a twelve year old kid who travels
across America to recover Zusa's lightning Bolt. They're based on
Greek mythology. They're so exciting, they're so gripping, and they're
a page turner for kids and adults alike.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
That's great. I love that. Did you start with a
particular one? Is it a series that you have to
start at zero? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (45:38):
Start at zero. The first book's called The Lightning Thief.
But there's so many in the series. So the good
news is you have a lot of great reading ahead
of you.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
I've been reading Rolldal to my kids, whoa role like whoa?
The world has changed. I was reading The Magic finger
to the Middle of Night. Do you remember this one?
The kids have guns in it.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Is the Gunner Magic Fingers.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah. Wow, it's just like wow. Another time Rodal did
not give a shit about like being careful around language,
or he's just yeah, it's really cool to read Stacy. Stacy,
what are you recommending?
Speaker 1 (46:16):
So despite us onthing doing this show for a few weeks,
I felt like I had run out of recommendations yesterday,
and I of course made that my husband's problem. I
was like, do a lap of the house, look around
at our daughter's stuff and see if there's anything that
I should be recommending. And as I've got him on
that wild Goose chase, I found the thing that I
wanted to recommend. So it only cost me twelve dollars
(46:39):
and I bought it five years ago and I still
use it every single day and they still have them.
I've checked. It's a nappy caddy from Kmart, so I'm
well out of the nappy stage. But they're just a
cute little box, chic looking little box with a handle
on the top, and I use it now as like
the shit bits box. So you know when you find
like a piece of a toy and you have no
(47:00):
idea where the rest of that toy is and you
put it in that pile next to your fruit bowl,
like where Pemish and Andy talk about this podcast.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
Why do you know about my house?
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Because we all have identical houses, and you just end
up with all this crap that you don't know where
it's meant to go. And all my daughter's like hair stuff.
You know, you're the curl cream and the tangling brush
and all those bits. I use that nappy caddy still
for all of those bits, And now I've got a
second one to stop the fruit bowl pile from piling up.
(47:30):
So I just pulled all the little bits in there
and figure it out later. That's later mess problem.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
Are you literally recommending a bin like a bin?
Speaker 1 (47:38):
No? They are things that you can't throw out, yes.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
Because you know that the kid's going to be like,
where is the one small bit of a toy that
I desperately need?
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yes, exactly, you need them at some point maybe, but
you can't throw them out. So that's where this stuff goes.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Doesn't it stink though, from all the nappy odor that
seeped into the plastic.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
No, I don't know about your nappy. No, I'm not
taling about a nappy bin, mons. I'm talking about a
little square box with a little handle on top. The
dirty nappies never went anywhere here. It was the one
that you keep like the wives, the clean nappies, gotcha,
the moisturizer. Okay, all right, Oh my god, no, that
(48:20):
bin is long gone. That bin has gone to the
tip that was foul, never to be returned to my house.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
My god, I thought you were just throwing everything in
the stinking like oh yeah, here for that.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Anyway, they're like ten to twenty bucks at kmar and
we'll put a link to one.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Of lid on It Stacy, so you can cover the
ship bits.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
No, the bits are free and loose, but it's fine.
Got confused shit bits? You're imaging little bits of shit
in there. Yeah, I'm so sorry. That's on mem On's.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
That's what's your.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Reco I've got this this hidden Netflix gem that I
can't stop watching right now, neither can my kids. It's
not K Pop Demon Hunters. It's Toddler's Running Errands. It's
a show called Old Enough. It's a Japanese show where
they send two three and four year olds into the
world to run errands completely on their own, and then
(49:13):
they film them with hidden cameras.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Have they got tracking apps?
Speaker 2 (49:16):
I must know there are no tracking apps.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
Literally.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
I watched one last night where a woman said to
her three year old, take my pants to the store
and get them mended. And I cannot stop watching it.
It's equal parts adorable and terrifying. Like you will laugh,
you will gasp, you'll cheer for these toddlers, like these preschoolers.
And my kids love it too, even though they can't
(49:40):
quite understand it because it's in Japanese, so they're subtitles,
but they can't completely read them all. It's going to
make you want to send your kids out for errands
too without a tracker, which is, you know, sometimes a
good thing.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
How successful are they fulfilling the errands? Did she get
the pants hand?
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Yes, they do the most amazing things, some of these kids,
and they show you during the show. They say they
have to walk three hundred meters, they need to cross
two roads, so they set it up. And yes, these
kids are so capable at such young age. It's amazing
to watch. And now since we've watched it, my kids
keep saying, Mum, send me on an errand I want
to go to the shops by myself.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
So this is definitely watching this great wreck.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
You know what, We'll put a link to all of
our reps in the show notes in case your brain
is a sieve. That is all we have time for
this week on Parenting out Loud. Now, last week I
told you something I was not supposed to tell you all.
I said, Hey, we're in the Mama Mea out Loud
feed for just a few weeks. So if you like
this show, come and follow it, because if you don't,
(50:42):
it might not survive. That's actually a reality. I've got
a fun fact for you both. There are ten times
the amount of people listening to this in the Mama
Mea out Loud feed compared to the Parenting out Loud feed.
One in ten people went and followed and the rest
were like nah nah. So I want to say huge
thank you to the people who did. You are elite,
(51:02):
you're in the one percent. You are the early adopters.
Thank you, and for the rest of you. If you
do like this show, come on over to the Parenting
out Loud feed and if not, you know what will
be out of your hair in a couple of weeks.
The best way to help us is to just do that.
So search for Parenting out Loud in your podcast app,
find the show it's a purple logo, and hit follow
(51:24):
and then maybe, just maybe we will get to number
one ahead of Dari of A CEO. A huge thank
you to our team, the group ep Is, Ruth Devine, produces,
Leah Porgus and Sashatanic and researcher Tessa Kodovich. Have a
great week. We'll talk to you next Saturday morning.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
See you then Bye,
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