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Speaker 1: Every one of our children is going to go through

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Speaker 1: a write a passage. The question is are they going

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Speaker 1: to create their own with the potential disastrous impact.

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Speaker 2: Well, can we do something.

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Speaker 1: That's really healthy, positive and supports them in the next stage.

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Speaker 3: Giday, Welcome to the show. This is better than Yesterday.

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Speaker 4: Useful tools and useful conversations to help make your day

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Speaker 4: to day better than yesterday. Every week since twenty thirteen.

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Speaker 4: Min I'm Sloshi Ginsburg. Thank you so much for being here.

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Speaker 4: Thanks for downloading the show. If you're new, hey, welcome.

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Speaker 4: Got a question when you think about rights of passage,

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Speaker 4: what do you think about the first time you snuck out,

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Speaker 4: first time you got drunk, first time you are I

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Speaker 4: don't know, got into a fight.

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Speaker 3: Maybe they were r all on the same night.

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Speaker 4: And our culture, a right of passage is associated with

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Speaker 4: becoming an adult, but it's also often associated with some

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Speaker 4: rather negative behaviors. Yet for the vast majority of human existence,

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Speaker 4: countless indigenous cultures across the world have had some sort

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Speaker 4: of guided ritual which transitions their children into adults. And

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Speaker 4: there's immense power in that that we don't do it

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Speaker 4: really in our modern culture. So what if we lost

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Speaker 4: by not having modern rights of passage, what could we

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Speaker 4: stand to gain by finding a way to bring them back. Today,

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Speaker 4: we are going to speak with the man who is

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Speaker 4: literally Father of the Year, doctor Arna Rubinstein, OAM Father

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Speaker 4: of the Year twenty twenty five. He's a doctor, counselor, mentor, speaker,

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Speaker 4: author and co founder and CEO of the Rights of

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Speaker 4: Passage Institute. In this conversation, we talk about the crucial

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Speaker 4: elements involved in a writer passage, what we are seeing

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Speaker 4: in our young men and women when they don't have

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Speaker 4: these rights of passage, and what it feels like to

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Speaker 4: get off the plane from burning man, drop your bags,

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Speaker 4: walk into my studio and record a podcast, because that's

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Speaker 4: exactly what happened. The conversations absolutely captivating. We'll get right

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Speaker 4: to it after the break. Right before we get to

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Speaker 4: doctor Arna Rubinstein.

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Speaker 3: So what now?

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Speaker 1: What?

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Speaker 4: The live tour is on sale right now. The book

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Speaker 4: has been out for a while. You can get that

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Speaker 4: in the show notes right now. But me and Cam

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Speaker 4: are going on the road. We're doing a live show Brisbane, Perth,

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Speaker 4: Melbourne and Sydney.

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Speaker 3: We are coming to you.

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Speaker 4: We are performing the book live on stage, like when

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Speaker 4: the Flaming Lips performed the entire album of Yashimi Battles

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Speaker 4: the Pink Robots.

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Speaker 3: It's that but with a book. I can't wait for

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Speaker 3: you to see it. Links are in the show notes.

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Speaker 4: It's going to be a rad night out and I

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Speaker 4: can't wait for you to come and say hello. Let's

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Speaker 4: get to my guest. This is my fabulous conversation with

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Speaker 4: doctor Arna Rubinstein. He's the founder of the Rights of

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Speaker 4: Passage Institute. To find out more about that, Rights of

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Speaker 4: Passage Institute dot org. Enjoy the conversation.

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Speaker 3: How are you, Ana, I'm good.

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Speaker 2: I'm tired.

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Speaker 1: I've had a big, big journey getting here the last

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Speaker 1: few days, but I'm here.

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Speaker 4: You were on the black Rock Player with I Want

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Speaker 4: one hundred thousand Other Burners.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, something like that.

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Speaker 1: It's an extraordinary thing that at the age of sixty one,

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Speaker 1: I did my virgin burn and I'll never be the same.

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Speaker 4: Burning man for most people might be aware of it,

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Speaker 4: but it's sometimes amazing. It's sometimes a mud pit. I

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Speaker 4: believe it was a catastrophic dust storm healscape.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: We it took us twenty two hours in the queue

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Speaker 1: to get in in our Fortunately we had an RV,

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Speaker 1: but you know, I thought it was going to take

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Speaker 1: us maybe two three hours. Twenty two hours after we

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Speaker 1: left we were in so the whole epit but incredible,

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Speaker 1: futuristic and you know, it's a hedonistic, debauched event, but

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Speaker 1: it's amazing. It's probably the greatest party on earth. And

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Speaker 1: it's also like being in Babylon, and so there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of you know, contradictions happening at the same time.

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Speaker 1: But I was fascinating to see it, and I'm glad

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Speaker 1: I went.

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Speaker 4: Would have been hard to look at with your eye

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Speaker 4: on ceremony and ritual and rites of passage, it would

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Speaker 4: have been hard to look at it, and particularly with

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Speaker 4: the men in the cohort there to not kind of

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Speaker 4: go oh, I can see what's happening to here.

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Speaker 3: I understand this well.

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Speaker 1: Part of what I was there doing was giving a

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Speaker 1: presentation on whether burning Man is actually a right of

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Speaker 1: passage and has all the elements of a right of

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Speaker 1: passage because we're separated from our normal day to day

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Speaker 1: environment and there's potential for transformation and then there's the integration.

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Speaker 1: But what it really comes down to is if people

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Speaker 1: go there just to get messed up, and you know,

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Speaker 1: do as much damage themselves and others as they can.

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Speaker 2: That's definitely not a right of passage.

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Speaker 1: That's just as you know, it's a harmful activity. The

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Speaker 1: potential at burning Man, and why I think burning Man

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Speaker 1: was actually originally brought into the world, was have insights

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Speaker 1: into who you could be and what you really want

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Speaker 1: to do with your life, and what parts of your

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Speaker 1: life are actually bullshit, but you're just doing them anyway

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Speaker 1: because that's what you've been doing for so long. And

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Speaker 1: for the people who go there and really have significant

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Speaker 1: realizations about things, they want to change, things they want

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Speaker 1: to do, the vision that they want to live their

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Speaker 1: life and can then go home and take those things

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Speaker 1: with them and do that, that is actually a right

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Speaker 1: of passage. So there is potential for that to happen,

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Speaker 1: but you know, it doesn't automatically happen.

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Speaker 4: There's been a lot of experiments over history of consciously

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Speaker 4: built communities, not the communities that we kind of arrive into.

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Speaker 4: They generally don't end well. Like most communes that were

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Speaker 4: created with the best of intent generally don't work out

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Speaker 4: in the end.

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Speaker 3: So it's a hard thing to do it correct.

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Speaker 1: And I moved to Byron Bay over thirty years ago,

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Speaker 1: and I was very interested in communities, and I found

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Speaker 1: exactly that that the majority of communities that were set

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Speaker 1: up did not go well. You'd get, you know, ten

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Speaker 1: to fifteen people buying a piece of land together and

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Speaker 1: you know, living in their particular part on the land,

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Speaker 1: and everyone thinking this is amazing. And then there's some

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Speaker 1: roadworks that need to be done and two or three

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Speaker 1: people say, well, I'm not putting in money for that,

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Speaker 1: or someone gets a dog that barks all night, or

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Speaker 1: someone sleeps with someone else's partner, or you know, any

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Speaker 1: one of a million things of people break up and

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Speaker 1: then the dynamic changes, and unfortunately, a lot of the

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Speaker 1: communities often ended up disastrously. And what I did find

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Speaker 1: is that the communities that worked well were the ones

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Speaker 1: that had a common vision but also had a place

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Speaker 1: where people could get their own space and be separately

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Speaker 1: in the community, as opposed to living with each other

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Speaker 1: the entire time and having to have meetings until one

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Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning about all sorts of different things

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Speaker 1: and wanting to kill each other. And it's an incredibly

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Speaker 1: interesting topic which we could talk about for this whole

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Speaker 1: PODCAS think.

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Speaker 4: It's the idea of anyone that was like for me,

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Speaker 4: anyone that thinks I don't know free market economics, that's

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Speaker 4: the answer. Like, just look at any community that was

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Speaker 4: based on some sort of altruistic visionary goal of this

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Speaker 4: is what a utopian human community would look like.

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Speaker 3: Like, Yeah, but.

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Speaker 4: It's got humans in it, that's your problem. Yeah, And

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Speaker 4: humans are greedy, and humans are driven by desire, and

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Speaker 4: humans sometimes have lower impulse control than others. And you

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Speaker 4: know it's if you don't factor that in and have

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Speaker 4: corrections for that, you're cant out up in trouble.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, as it happens.

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Speaker 1: I am fascinated by community because I think one of

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Speaker 1: the things that we most need, in fact is community.

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Speaker 1: And I'm also fascinated by human behavior having been a

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Speaker 1: doctor and in the work that I do and starting

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Speaker 1: at a sort of a micro level.

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Speaker 2: You know, you and I don't know each other.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to be nice implied to each other

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Speaker 1: today and we're going to go as far as we

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Speaker 1: can in this conversation.

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Speaker 2: Fantastic.

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Speaker 1: But if we lived and worked together after a week

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Speaker 1: and month, three months, you cross what I call the

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Speaker 1: intimacy line. And once we cross the intimacy line. I

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Speaker 1: get all of you and you get all of me,

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Speaker 1: which means I get all of the stuff that happened

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Speaker 1: to you growing up, all of your trauma, the relationship

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Speaker 1: you had with your dad, you know, the relationship you.

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Speaker 2: Had with you, the bully at school, and all of that.

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Speaker 1: And that's going to create a whole new realm of

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Speaker 1: relationship between us. And if we can't resolve that, then

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Speaker 1: the dangers that ends up in conflict and we start

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Speaker 1: triggering each other. And you know, it's easy to write

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Speaker 1: off community, but what we actually are yearning for is community.

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Speaker 1: And I believe one of the most significant issues is

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Speaker 1: that because we've lost community, people are living individualistically and

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Speaker 1: thinking just about themselves and that sort of goes on

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Speaker 1: into major problems throughout every aspect of life. And so

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Speaker 1: part of it is actually about, well, how do we

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Speaker 1: create healthy communities, And it means being able to have

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Speaker 1: honest conversations, being able to be vulnerable. There are ways

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Speaker 1: to do it, but it definitely takes work.

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Speaker 4: You don't accidentally get you know, we don't get born

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Speaker 4: with this stuff. We have to deliberately chase it down.

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Speaker 4: The intimacy line that you mentioned is also that anyone

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Speaker 4: that's worked with someone quite closely for a while will

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Speaker 4: know exactly that how was work. All the first six

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Speaker 4: months were okay, yeah, and now the guy that hired me,

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Speaker 4: he just I can't figure it out.

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Speaker 1: That's right, I hate him. He's an ogre, he's a

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Speaker 1: bully or you know.

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Speaker 3: Oh man.

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Speaker 4: In my case, it was like, ah, it was the

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Speaker 4: moment where I made that person my dad and they

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Speaker 4: didn't realize it. And so every time that they did

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Speaker 4: not like something that I did, I would They had

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Speaker 4: no idea why I was being did and I was

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Speaker 4: bestowing upon them something that they didn't didn't need or

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Speaker 4: didn't want.

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Speaker 3: But it made it hold on. I really weird.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and I happened to have exactly that problem of

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Speaker 1: a lot of people protect dad energy onto me. And

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Speaker 1: I actually just won the Australian Father of the Year.

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Speaker 1: So you know, it's just going to get worse. And

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Speaker 1: there are people who love me and there are people

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Speaker 1: who who hate me and they've never met me, right,

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Speaker 1: and so yes, all of these projections are a big thing.

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Speaker 1: But when we can actually sit down and talk about

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Speaker 1: it and start with the conversation around well, actually, what

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Speaker 1: was your relationship with your dad, and what's my relationship

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Speaker 1: being like with my dad? And we can actually see

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Speaker 1: the other person as a person. It is possible to

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Speaker 1: significantly shift things. And you know, we were at one

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Speaker 1: stage born into communities. I look at my mother, you know,

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Speaker 1: sixty years ago she was in a community in Perth.

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Speaker 1: Every Sunday they would go and have lunch with Grandma.

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Speaker 1: All the family would be there. They'd all be asking

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Speaker 1: whatever the kids are doing and how they're going, and

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Speaker 1: all of that community was natural.

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Speaker 2: But now everybody's.

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Speaker 1: Moved away and people live all over the place, so

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Speaker 1: people want community, and that the simplest option we're getting

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Speaker 1: at the moment is online, you know, social media, friends,

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Speaker 1: all of that stuff.

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Speaker 2: But that is clearly not community.

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Speaker 3: No, it's anything. It's monetized that need.

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Speaker 4: We think we might get a little bit of it,

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Speaker 4: We might get enough or not quite enough, so we

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Speaker 4: keep scrolling or keep engaging, but it's not what we

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Speaker 4: what we actually need. You kind of just you are

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Speaker 4: the Australian Father of the Year for twenty twenty five

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Speaker 4: and it is the thing that we sometimes call ourselves.

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Speaker 4: I will tell you my father a year story that

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Speaker 4: happened last weekend when we fuck up like a father

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Speaker 4: a year. Yeah, I'm sure you've done that any farther.

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Speaker 4: Everyone makes mistakes. What is it like when you get

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Speaker 4: the phone call?

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Speaker 1: Well, when I got the phone call and they said, oh,

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Speaker 1: we're just ringing to tell you that you've been awarded

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Speaker 1: the Australian Father of the Year, my first thought was, oh,

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Speaker 1: my gosh, what am I going to tell my kids?

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Speaker 1: You know, how are they going to feel about this?

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Speaker 1: And knowing them, they're going to say, well, they didn't

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Speaker 1: ask us, we weren't consulted. So I was alectually quite

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Speaker 1: confronted by the whole thing because I certainly haven't been

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Speaker 1: the perfect father.

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Speaker 2: And you know, when I really sat.

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Speaker 1: Down to it about it, I came to the conclusion

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Speaker 1: there is no such thing as a perfect father.

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Speaker 2: We're all just trying to do the best we can.

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Speaker 1: You know, you're making vortex canons for your six year

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Speaker 1: old's birthday tomorrow. And I got my son over here

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Speaker 1: for the award and we just went on the news

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Speaker 1: together and he was chuffed as anything. And you know,

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Speaker 1: there are things that I've done well, there mistakes that

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Speaker 1: I made. But I think the thing about being a

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Speaker 1: father is trying to do it as well as we

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Speaker 1: can and keep learning and growing, and it's a really

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Speaker 1: serious role and topic.

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Speaker 2: And so there's that aspect of it. And then the

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Speaker 2: other thing for me around.

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Speaker 1: The award is the is the work that we do

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Speaker 1: with creating rights of passage for teenagers and that I'm

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Speaker 1: very passionate about it, and I feel like this award

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Speaker 1: will hopefully really help to take this work more into

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Speaker 1: the mainstream, which is where we really want it.

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Speaker 4: I was confronted quite intensely with the rights of passage

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Speaker 4: in my own life when I watched our eldert. She's

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Speaker 4: now twenty one, but she did the last two years

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Speaker 4: of high school on a zoom call and missed all

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Speaker 4: of those things that you know, hanging out in the

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Speaker 4: holidays or you know, your formal or you know whatever.

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Speaker 4: It was like, she missed so many of these things,

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Speaker 4: and so school was over, but it was the day

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Speaker 4: was exactly the same as the day before, yeah, you know,

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Speaker 4: And they ended up organizing some events for themselves and

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Speaker 4: they managed to put that sort of stuff together. But

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Speaker 4: without these signposts, it can be it can be quite

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Speaker 4: difficult to know to know when something's over. You know,

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Speaker 4: it's a quote from someone I know who gave up

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Speaker 4: smoking three times.

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Speaker 3: Like why do you do it? You know it's trouble

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Speaker 3: for you.

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Speaker 4: They're like, oh, because that's when I know the meal

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Speaker 4: is over. Y right, there has to be a kind

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Speaker 4: of a full stop and a moment where we all

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Speaker 4: agree this is a thing. But as you mentioned, community

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Speaker 4: was it was built in to our society, and rights

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Speaker 4: of passage were similarly built into our society.

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Speaker 1: Well, the community ran the rights of passage. Rights a

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Speaker 1: passage were a community event, and I studied rights of

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Speaker 1: passage all over the world. Actually, going back a bit

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Speaker 1: before that, I was a doctor. I was an emergency

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Speaker 1: medicine doctor for fifteen years, and I saw an emergency

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Speaker 1: what I call an overrepresentation of young people. Boys coming

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Speaker 1: in who crashed a car and killed their mates, or

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Speaker 1: who'd jumped off a tower and broken their legs or

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Speaker 1: their backs, or overdosed on drugs or gotten into a fight,

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Speaker 1: or you know, anyone of any stupid thing they could

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Speaker 1: do in order to try and make themselves feel like

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Speaker 1: an adult. And girls who were coming in, you know,

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Speaker 1: doing something with someone that they'd never done before while

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Speaker 1: they were drunk and you know, especially at things like

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Speaker 1: schoolies in Byron Bay where I used to work, and

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Speaker 1: I was just seeing that these young these kids were

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Speaker 1: doing things that were going to impact on them for

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Speaker 1: the rest of their lives, that they would regret forever.

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Speaker 1: And I started looking around and found that every indigenous

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Speaker 1: and traditional community.

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Speaker 2: All over the world would have a rite.

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Speaker 1: Of passage to who acknowledge and celebrate the fact that

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Speaker 1: there is a line and there's a time when they

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Speaker 1: move from being children to being adults. And when they're children,

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Speaker 1: you want to let them be children. But if they remain,

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Speaker 1: if you don't have a healthy write passage and they

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Speaker 1: stay children, then the danger is that even when they're adults,

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Speaker 1: they're still thinking and acting like children, and that is

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Speaker 1: a major problem.

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Speaker 4: I don't know what the female version of the name is,

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Speaker 4: but we all know a man child, yeah, yeah, and

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Speaker 4: it can be. I've met a bunch of them working

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Speaker 4: on a show like The Bachelor or Bachelorette, when there

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Speaker 4: would be lots of men.

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Speaker 3: I found it really fascinating.

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Speaker 4: I'd meet guys who are twenty seven, lived at home,

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Speaker 4: had never introduced a women to their parents, like you're

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Speaker 4: just a giant teenager.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, more than that. More than that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I wrote a model and the different between

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Speaker 1: a boy and a man, and we talk about a

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Speaker 1: boy thinks, you know, your six year old, they think

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Speaker 1: they're the center of the universe. That's fine. They want power,

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Speaker 1: they want everything for themselves. They never take they don't

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Speaker 1: take responsibility for their actions or their emotions. They can

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Speaker 1: never be wrong, and they want a mother to be

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Speaker 1: their servant and do everything for them. And that's fine

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Speaker 1: for a six year old. But if you end up

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Speaker 1: with an adult man who still thinks he's the center

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Speaker 1: of the universe and you know, loses his temper when

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Speaker 1: he doesn't get what he wants and just wants power,

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Speaker 1: and you know, thinks he's going to live forever and

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Speaker 1: thinks that women are there for him.

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Speaker 3: To serve responsibility for his choice. Correct.

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Speaker 1: And if that man then becomes the head of a

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Speaker 1: major company or run or becomes elected, you know, to

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Speaker 1: run a country and can start wars and impose all

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Speaker 1: sorts of rules, and you know, it's a major problem.

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Speaker 1: And unfortunately, I actually think that we live in a

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Speaker 1: world that is run by boys, and we need to

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Speaker 1: live in a wather that's run by good men.

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Speaker 2: And powerful women.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I'm you've got I'm already excited here,

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Speaker 1: We're about ten minutes into our podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm excited.

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Speaker 1: But as I look into it, what I realize is

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Speaker 1: that in the Indigenous rights of passage, one of the

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Speaker 1: things that would happen is when boys went through their

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Speaker 1: right of passage at fourteen fifteen, let's say, or thirteen

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Speaker 1: around that time. Part of it would be the boys

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Speaker 1: would be humbled, and part of the humbling is realizing

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Speaker 1: it's not just about me. I'm not the center of

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Speaker 1: the universe. I actually have a role and my actions

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Speaker 1: affect others in my community, and my main role is

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Speaker 1: to do good and to be a part of the community.

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Speaker 1: So the boys would be humbled and the girls would

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Speaker 1: be empowered, and they would realize from their right passages

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Speaker 1: that within themselves they had great capacity and strength, and

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Speaker 1: you know, it was inside them. And when that doesn't happen,

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Speaker 1: the girls end up thinking they have to be small,

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Speaker 1: and they don't go for the promotion, and they go

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Speaker 1: with the wrong guy just because he looked at them

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Speaker 1: a certain way or whatever.

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Speaker 2: And I see more the.

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Speaker 1: Impact of us not having healthy rights of passage, and

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Speaker 1: I also see, because we've been hearing this for thirty years,

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Speaker 1: that when we put people through a healthy writer passage,

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Speaker 1: the young men who come out a beautiful young man,

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Speaker 1: and that the young women who come out know themselves,

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Speaker 1: listen to their inner voice, trust their own intuition, support

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Speaker 1: each other.

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Speaker 2: You know, it changes their lives.

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Speaker 4: Taking a break from Anna, doctor Arna Rubinstein back in

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Speaker 4: a moment, the right of passages that you've studied, I

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Speaker 4: certainly haven't studied as much as you have, but I

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Speaker 4: am aware of them.

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Speaker 3: It's not just the kid that is.

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Speaker 4: They were the three phase, the separation, the transformation, and

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Speaker 4: the reintegration. I wrote a story about separation, transformation, reintegration

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Speaker 4: because I had some I wrote a short story, a

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Speaker 4: true story about when some neighbors moved in next door

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Speaker 4: and they were bikers, and I, for the first time,

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Speaker 4: only in my life ever, I snuck out of my

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Speaker 4: house to go on It was one of their fortieth birthdays.

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Speaker 4: And the way they looked at me when I showed

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Speaker 4: back up after I'd already said good night, was like

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Speaker 4: here he.

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Speaker 3: Is, Ah, there's the boy, He's become the man.

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Speaker 4: It was only because there was bottles of gym beam

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Speaker 4: with a green label in there that I know it

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Speaker 4: was fifteen. I have a very different relationship to Aghalla now.

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Speaker 4: But the separation, it's not just for the child, it's

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Speaker 4: also for the parents. It's for the parents to also

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Speaker 4: say goodbye, because yeah, you know, I love that wolf.

403
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Speaker 4: He sleeps in our bed. He still shows up. He's massive.

404
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Speaker 4: He kicks me in this splane all night long. But

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Speaker 4: I know one day it's going to stop.

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Speaker 1: You don't want him still sleeping in your bed when

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Speaker 1: he's twenty five to thirty.

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Speaker 3: No, that'd be a problem.

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Speaker 4: And like today he rode his bicycle to school really

410
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Speaker 4: really well. Part of my heart breaks because like, oh

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Speaker 4: fuck you can I ride a bike really well? And

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Speaker 4: a little part of the part that needs me is gone.

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Speaker 4: And that's the part that some parents, I can understand why,

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Speaker 4: really have a hard time letting go of. Can you

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Speaker 4: talk to me a bit about how important is for

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Speaker 4: the parent to allow the child to do this?

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Speaker 2: Oh, it's critical, it's critical.

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Speaker 1: I look at it like life is like a staircase,

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Speaker 1: and each step is a different stage of life, from

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Speaker 1: baby to child, to able to ride your bike to school.

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Speaker 2: To young adult to add a home parent.

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Speaker 1: If you become a parent, job things elder, and we're

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Speaker 1: all on that staircase.

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Speaker 2: We're all somewhere on the staircase.

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Speaker 1: And when the child moves, say from child to young adult,

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Speaker 1: their parents also need to move give them the space.

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Speaker 1: And also, you know when that happens, you know, my

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Speaker 1: sons have done that now, so that puts me at

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Speaker 1: a different place on the staircase. And if we don't

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Speaker 1: do that, and parents don't want to move, they want

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Speaker 1: to hold on. And when that happens, if your child

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Speaker 1: goes for a right of passage and moves into the

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Speaker 1: space of a young man, but goes home and the

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Speaker 1: parents still treat them like they're a child, they'll go

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Speaker 1: back to being a child and it won't go well.

436
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Speaker 1: It actually often starts a war in the household. And

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Speaker 1: you know, if there are any women who are listening

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Speaker 1: to this podcast, they will know men who when they

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00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:25,200
Speaker 1: get go home or with their mothers, go back to

440
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Speaker 1: being children again. And it's not a healthy thing. And

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Speaker 1: it's actually incredibly unhealthy for the children. So most of

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Speaker 1: the camps that we run we do children together with

443
00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:41,120
Speaker 1: parents so that they're both going through the right of passage.

444
00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:43,480
Speaker 2: And you know, that's very powerful.

445
00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:46,480
Speaker 1: It can be as powerful, if not more powerful, for

446
00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:49,359
Speaker 1: the parents in the short term, because then also we

447
00:21:49,400 --> 00:21:51,879
Speaker 1: have to think, oh, well, I'm moving more towards elderhood

448
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:53,560
Speaker 1: and what am I going to do with the rest

449
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:54,159
Speaker 1: of my life?

450
00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:55,439
Speaker 2: And how do I want to be?

451
00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:59,080
Speaker 1: And when you live in a society where elderhood, instead

452
00:21:59,119 --> 00:22:02,560
Speaker 1: of being respected and honored, is looked down upon and

453
00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:06,000
Speaker 1: is tied in with shame, you know, it's not easy

454
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:08,720
Speaker 1: to move into that space. Whereas this is where it's

455
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:12,280
Speaker 1: really interesting. In the traditional and indigenous communities, the most

456
00:22:12,359 --> 00:22:15,879
Speaker 1: respect went to the elders. In our community, the most

457
00:22:16,040 --> 00:22:21,080
Speaker 1: sort of respect in worship goes to young youthful you know,

458
00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:24,119
Speaker 1: airheads fucking say it.

459
00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:26,399
Speaker 2: Well, they're not all we heads, but don't understand we

460
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:27,120
Speaker 2: worship youth.

461
00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:29,880
Speaker 1: I mean we have songs like forever Young, I want

462
00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:33,080
Speaker 1: to be for ever young. Yeah, as opposed to you know, hey,

463
00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:34,760
Speaker 1: let's really respect the elders.

464
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 3: Yeah.

465
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:38,159
Speaker 4: Yeah, you've got an answer to the problem that I have,

466
00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 4: you know, can you tell me, Like.

467
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:43,359
Speaker 3: No, I'll be just fine, I'll figure it out myself.

468
00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:44,480
Speaker 3: What do you know, oh man?

469
00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:47,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, which is weird because like right now I'm certainly

470
00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:51,240
Speaker 4: I'm fifty one and my career is changing very intentionally.

471
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:54,040
Speaker 4: It was like, oh, oh this is ages, Oh this

472
00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:57,080
Speaker 4: is interesting, and it's full on because I've never experienced

473
00:22:57,080 --> 00:22:58,320
Speaker 4: it before in my life.

474
00:22:58,320 --> 00:23:01,200
Speaker 3: But that's that's by the by when people think.

475
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:02,760
Speaker 1: It's not actually by the bye, we don't need to

476
00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:04,439
Speaker 1: talk about it now, but it's actually not. By the way,

477
00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 1: it's actually very important. And you're at a stage where

478
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:13,160
Speaker 1: I actually call it magi, which is the Sufi word

479
00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:16,560
Speaker 1: for wizard. And you would have one foot in man

480
00:23:16,680 --> 00:23:19,120
Speaker 1: and one foot in elder, and by that I mean

481
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:20,800
Speaker 1: you'll still be strong, and you'll still be able to

482
00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 1: do lots of things, but not like when you are thirty.

483
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:26,640
Speaker 1: Oh no, and you've got some wisdom, not like you'll

484
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:29,080
Speaker 1: have when you're seven or eighty. And so it's actually

485
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 1: a really powerful time that you're talking about between so

486
00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:34,160
Speaker 1: I don't know it starts somewhere around forty five fifty

487
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 1: and goes to about sixty five that in between space,

488
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:41,400
Speaker 1: and to recognize that, you know you're I would say,

489
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:44,080
Speaker 1: so you're fifty one, I'm sixty one. You know, it

490
00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 1: becomes it's no longer about empire building, you know, it

491
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,800
Speaker 1: becomes more about family, and it becomes more about support

492
00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: in the next generation, becoming loving rather than competitive, and

493
00:23:55,760 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: it's not about being right or wrong anymore.

494
00:23:58,200 --> 00:23:59,680
Speaker 2: And you know, so things do.

495
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 4: But we had a Father's Day race at Wolfe School

496
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 4: this morning, and like, like, look.

497
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 3: I had to win.

498
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:10,119
Speaker 4: I had to throw the egginspoon race because I was

499
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:13,200
Speaker 4: going to beat him. He's still figuring out that race

500
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:16,200
Speaker 4: means someone will beat you. Yeah, he's still getting there.

501
00:24:16,280 --> 00:24:18,320
Speaker 4: I'm trying to get him to the point where it's

502
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:22,120
Speaker 4: okay if you don't win. He's still figuring out how

503
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 4: it's okay. But sport does play a role in helping

504
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 4: our young people understand how the world works.

505
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: I had a policy of beating my kids for as

506
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 1: long as I could, and I told them I was

507
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 1: going to I told them, I said, I'm going to

508
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:37,119
Speaker 1: beat you for as long as I can, because as

509
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:39,919
Speaker 1: soon as you start beating me at something, you'll be

510
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 1: beating me at that forever.

511
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:41,720
Speaker 4: Yeah.

512
00:24:42,119 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: And I remember the first time they beat me in

513
00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:45,920
Speaker 1: an arcade game, one of those racing games.

514
00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:47,480
Speaker 2: I'm like, hang on, we're going to play again.

515
00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:50,400
Speaker 1: That was like that couldn't have happened, you know, and

516
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 1: now my son is you know, six foot five ways

517
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 1: over one hundred kilograms and still wants to wrestle me

518
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:56,800
Speaker 1: to submission.

519
00:24:57,280 --> 00:24:59,520
Speaker 2: And I'm like, don't hurt daddy, don't hurt daddy.

520
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 1: But you know they know that when they started beating me,

521
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 1: they legitimately and validly did it.

522
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 4: That is yeah, I'm going to this is a thing

523
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 4: I'm going to need to get into the right of

524
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 4: passage that when you speak about indigenous things, and I'm

525
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 4: fascinated by how indigenous cultures and you know, religion systemaize

526
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:24,600
Speaker 4: a lot of things that their brain needs anyway, you know,

527
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,880
Speaker 4: just to make sure this stuff happened. There was healing,

528
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:30,600
Speaker 4: There was rights of passage and ritual around birth and

529
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:34,720
Speaker 4: death and you know, maturation and puberty and stuff like this,

530
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 4: because they just figured out all the ones that we

531
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:37,360
Speaker 4: do this with do better.

532
00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 3: We just do better when we get this together right.

533
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:43,920
Speaker 4: But it's also like, oh, bullet ants, Like it doesn't

534
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:46,800
Speaker 4: always have to be well, no, we don't circumcise.

535
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 3: You when you're six days old, we will wait till

536
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 3: we're fourteen.

537
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 4: Like it doesn't always have to be an immense amount

538
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 4: of pain, but there is an amount of discomfort involved.

539
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:54,160
Speaker 3: Now why is that?

540
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's go back to the first thing he said.

541
00:25:57,359 --> 00:25:59,720
Speaker 1: First of all, there's like this staircase that I talked about.

542
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 1: The staircase is sort of usually to do with stages

543
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 1: of life, child, young adult, and elder, for example. And

544
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:08,399
Speaker 1: then at the same time as there's a staircase that

545
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:13,159
Speaker 1: goes up, there's a spiral that goes down, and in

546
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: that spiral is disappointment, loss of dreams, failure, grief, loss

547
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: of loved ones, death, and all of those things will

548
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:25,440
Speaker 1: happen to us.

549
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 2: At stages in our lives.

550
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 1: And in the same way as the steps need to

551
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 1: be managed well, those spiral moments need to be managed well.

552
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: And the majority of the time they're actually not. I mean,

553
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 1: how many people as a doctor I've seen who someone

554
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: dies and it's never talked about. It's pushed to the side,

555
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:46,159
Speaker 1: or something bad happens and it's like ignored or you know,

556
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:49,479
Speaker 1: and it doesn't go away. It just lives inside us

557
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:52,159
Speaker 1: then and creates all sorts of other problems and addictions

558
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:55,440
Speaker 1: and all of that. And rights of passage are the

559
00:26:56,359 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: actual perfect and appropriate way to manage not only those

560
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: staircase times in our lives, those age times, but those

561
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:07,200
Speaker 1: difficult times in our lives. And then there are four

562
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: things that I've recognized that are always present in a

563
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:10,959
Speaker 1: writer passage.

564
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 2: And the first is the sharing of stories.

565
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,880
Speaker 1: So as our children go through different stages in their lives,

566
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:20,199
Speaker 1: or we do, or something happens, it's really important that

567
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: we share stories about anything and everything to do with

568
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: that time, our own stories and the stories of everyone involved.

569
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:30,439
Speaker 1: The next thing is there's always a challenge. Rights of

570
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 1: passage are challenging. Now the thing is that challenge will

571
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: be different at different times in our lives. So you

572
00:27:37,560 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 1: mentioned bullet ants, and it's actually the Saterre Mahwe tribe

573
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,119
Speaker 1: in Brazil who make these gloves and get these bullet

574
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: ants that have the worst bite known to man. And

575
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:49,479
Speaker 1: this was a specific thing for teenage boys. And in

576
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: the communities they recognize that teenage boys need some physical

577
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 1: challenge that actually exposes them to the possibility of.

578
00:27:57,800 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 2: Death or extreme pain.

579
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: The mass I warrior boys had to go out and

580
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:05,479
Speaker 1: kill a wild animal, preferably a lion with a spears.

581
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: I tell Mahi used the bullet ants in other ones

582
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 1: in Vanuatu, they jumped off big towers made of bamboo

583
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: and tied a vine around their ankle, and there was

584
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 1: the possibility of death. Now we say that's ridiculous, we

585
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 1: can't do that. But in my work as an emergency

586
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 1: medicine doctor, what I saw was time and time again

587
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: boys who they didn't do bullet ants, but they would

588
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: stick cigarette butts between their arms and the one who

589
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: pulled away first lost the competition. Or they'd jump off

590
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: a crane into Darling Harbor and one of them wouldn't

591
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 1: come back up again. Or they'd drive their car, you know, say, boys,

592
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 1: would I've been doing things.

593
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 4: I've been in the boot of a Mazda six to six?

594
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 4: Has it got air out the back of Brookfield?

595
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 2: There you go?

596
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 3: All right, there you go.

597
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 1: So there's this thing in boys that they need to

598
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: do it, but when there's no men facilitating it, the

599
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: dangers they go too far. And you know, look, the

600
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: truth is, back in those days, they would they would

601
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 1: take twenty boys out and maybe only bring fifteen back.

602
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 1: Jesus and they'd say, well, you know that's how it goes.

603
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: Those are the five weren't supposed to come back. You know,

604
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: when we do our work, if we take twenty boys.

605
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: We have to bring twenty back every single time. But

606
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: we're losing We're losing kids. We're losing kids in car accidents,

607
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: We're losing kids to drugs, fights, suicide, We're losing them.

608
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 1: So it's like, how can we do it in a

609
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: way that it creates what it needs to create but

610
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: doesn't kill them, doesn't maim them.

611
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 2: And then those challenges change.

612
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 1: So I'm going through a ride of passage now at

613
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: sixty one, as I'm moving into elderhood. But I don't

614
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: need to do these incredibly physically difficult things, you know.

615
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 1: I don't need to serf the biggest waves I can,

616
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 1: or write the biggest climb the highest mountains. My challenges

617
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: are much more psychological, spiritual, even emotional. And what you

618
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 1: were talking about around fifty one and how you manage that, well,

619
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: you know, there's so the challenges are still there, but

620
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: the challenges change at different times. The appropriate challenge is

621
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: different at different ages.

622
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 4: Is the idea of the indigenous culture. You know you

623
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 4: did from what I know about it, it was always

624
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 4: managed as well as they could.

625
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:17,720
Speaker 3: Like say, for example, a.

626
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 4: Kid has to I can't remember where it was in

627
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 4: the world, had to spend a night alone, but all

628
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 4: the other men in the tribe would be down the

629
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 4: hill making the exact replica noises of the animals that

630
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 4: are there to eat them.

631
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 2: That was one of the Native American Indian tribes.

632
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 4: And like someone's watching the kid the whole time, but

633
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 4: the kid can't see them because they haven't taught them

634
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 4: how to like the stealth mode yet. Yeah, but the

635
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 4: kids fucking I'm going to die, Yeah, completely safe.

636
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, they want them to feel fear. They want them

637
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: to know that there's that possibility. So you know, our

638
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 1: challenge is how can we create these challenges and to

639
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 1: be honest, get the parents out of the way so

640
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 1: that we can do it, because if we don't do it,

641
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: as I said already, they'll get near bloody carr and

642
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:00,479
Speaker 1: do something stupid. Or you know, every know of our

643
00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: children is going to go through a write a passage.

644
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 1: The question is are they going to create their own

645
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: with the potential disastrous impact, or can we do something

646
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 1: that's really healthy, positive and supports him in the next stage.

647
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: Because the challenge is actually only one part of the

648
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 1: writer passage. Hearing the stories of elders is another really

649
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 1: important part about it. So you know, with boys, they

650
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 1: want to hear about what it's like to be a man.

651
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: And so when we sit with men around and the

652
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: men tell stories about when they were that age, the

653
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 1: relationship they had with their own fathers, you know, their

654
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 1: successes and failures, the boys will sit there.

655
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 2: For hours and listen.

656
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 1: And similarly with girls, and I would like to talk

657
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: about girls rights and passage, but just complete this bit

658
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:45,719
Speaker 1: on the boys stories a challenge. We also get them

659
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 1: to create a vision for who do they want to be,

660
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: what sort of young men, what sort of man do

661
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 1: they want to be, what's important to them?

662
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 2: And what they come up with is beautiful.

663
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: And then the fourth element that's always in a writer,

664
00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 1: passage comes from this indigenous belief that every child is different,

665
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: and every child is born with their own innate qualities,

666
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 1: their own gifts, talents, genius, and spirit, and the role

667
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: of the community is to recognize and bring out those gifts.

668
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: So both your children will be completely different and now

669
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 1: both have their own you know, you'll already be able

670
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: to see their spirit. And if we can bring that

671
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:24,640
Speaker 1: out and encourage that and then help them to use

672
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: that in a positive way, that's when they're going to shine.

673
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: But if no one sees them, if they don't understand

674
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 1: or value their own gifts, the danger is that they

675
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 1: get sucked into thinking like you know what social media

676
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: and the algorithms are telling them that they all have

677
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 1: to look the same way, be a certain size, be

678
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: a certain shape, have certain clothes, drink certain stuff.

679
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 2: And that's where we actually get the problems.

680
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 1: So when we can actually, you know, when we do

681
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: our programs, we get the men, starting with the fathers.

682
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: If we have the fathers there to tell each of

683
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: the boys the gifts that we see in each of them,

684
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 1: the spirit that we see seeing each of them.

685
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 2: And you see these kids grow.

686
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 1: It's like a plant that hasn't been warded for months

687
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: and you bought it and that you come back later

688
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 1: that afternoon and it's you know, we see these kids grow.

689
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 1: And when they've heard the stories of men and been

690
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 1: out to ask questions, gone through a challenge, created a vision,

691
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 1: and being honored, that is a life changing experience for them.

692
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 4: We got really lucky with g and we were able

693
00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 4: to get her into the kind of school we're able

694
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 4: to afford to get her in the kind of school

695
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 4: that took this kind of stuff very very seriously with

696
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 4: the young it all girls school, and the systemaized way

697
00:33:35,440 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 4: that they spoke to them. And for example, what I

698
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 4: loved about it when they were studying maths, right or whatever,

699
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 4: when they talked about it's the only one I can remember,

700
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:48,960
Speaker 4: like quadratic equations. They would bring up a woman in

701
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 4: history who used this to do something they only ever

702
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 4: used powerful women to demonstrate, and that would be.

703
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:56,960
Speaker 3: In bio, in science whatever.

704
00:33:57,120 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 4: Fantastic and these were the scientists that they talked about

705
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 4: when they talked about the discovery, the thing they showed

706
00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 4: the woman that used it, and so that was the normality,

707
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 4: is like, of course women are amazing and.

708
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 2: Inspired them, yeah, abs fuckingly yeah.

709
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 4: And the way that they talk to them and the

710
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 4: way that they gather them together and pulled them together,

711
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 4: you know, it went a long way to helping her

712
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:19,680
Speaker 4: become the woman that she is. Because if they do

713
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:21,399
Speaker 4: the work that the parent can't do because it has

714
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 4: to be work done, that isn't the parent. We'll talk

715
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 4: about that in a second, But what's the difference between

716
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 4: the teenage girl's right of passage that you mentioned, the empowering,

717
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 4: the making them bigger if it's not pain and humbling

718
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 4: and death is around the corner, what is it.

719
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, look, we're getting into big generalizations now, and

720
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 1: we know that the world is a lot less generalized.

721
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: And you know, back in the day, it was very

722
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,240
Speaker 1: clear a boy became a man and a girl became

723
00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:48,280
Speaker 1: a woman, and now.

724
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 2: There's a lot more crossover.

725
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 1: But from the studies I did in traditional rights of passage,

726
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 1: where the boys, one was about being able to face

727
00:34:57,760 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: fear and pain of me. For the girls, a lot

728
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:02,720
Speaker 1: of it was actually going inside. And in a number

729
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 1: of the indigenous communities, when the girls started reach puberty,

730
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:09,319
Speaker 1: they would be put in a heart, or they would

731
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 1: be put in even a hollow tree, and the elder

732
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 1: women would come and bring them food and tell them

733
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:16,240
Speaker 1: stories and teach them things.

734
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 2: But the principle was for.

735
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 1: The girls to go inside and learn to trust their

736
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 1: inner voice and their cycles.

737
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 2: The whole cycles thing is so important for the women.

738
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: And you know, when I used to work in emergency

739
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 1: medicine and the girls had come in and they'd done

740
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 1: something they were going to regret forevery the night before,

741
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:36,840
Speaker 1: and I'd say to them, you know, did you know

742
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: before you did that that it was not a good idea?

743
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 1: Did you know it was going to go badly? And

744
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:44,320
Speaker 1: most commonly the girls would look at me and they'd go, yes,

745
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 1: they knew the voice was there, but they didn't trust

746
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:49,400
Speaker 1: it and listen to it. And if we did nothing

747
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: more than teach girls to trust that in a voice,

748
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:55,439
Speaker 1: we'd already be doing a good thing. And interesting, I'd

749
00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:57,439
Speaker 1: say to the boys, you know, when they've done their

750
00:35:57,480 --> 00:35:59,759
Speaker 1: stupid thing, did you know that it was a bad idea?

751
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:00,839
Speaker 2: I was going to go bad?

752
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 1: And the boys would look at me and they'd go, Nah,

753
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 1: they didn't even think about it.

754
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 2: They just saw glory.

755
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 3: Their brains have wired very differently at those ages, right.

756
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 1: So a big part for the girls was that insight

757
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,879
Speaker 1: and also building community that they learned to trust each

758
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:19,320
Speaker 1: other and when they don't get that, then they actually

759
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:23,759
Speaker 1: go into competition with each other. And also encouraging the

760
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: girls that they are important and they can do anything,

761
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:32,360
Speaker 1: and empowering them. And you know, I have a great

762
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:34,719
Speaker 1: concern about what's happening with girls, and I actually work

763
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:36,840
Speaker 1: in the you know, the biggest girls school in the

764
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 1: Southern Hemisphere had three suicides in twelve months. And yeah,

765
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 1: and I got contacted the head mistress, she's a legend,

766
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:49,399
Speaker 1: contacted me the day after and we had a big

767
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:50,880
Speaker 1: you know, she asked.

768
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 2: Me if i'd help, and I said, yeah, I will

769
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:52,960
Speaker 2: do anything I can.

770
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: And that school has actually created a retreat center and

771
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,400
Speaker 1: all the girls in year nine go there for a

772
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 1: month at a time in small groups over the year,

773
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,759
Speaker 1: and it's all about creating a healthy ride of passage

774
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:08,719
Speaker 1: to support these girls as they.

775
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:09,800
Speaker 2: Are becoming young women.

776
00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:12,919
Speaker 1: And we want to see that in schools all over

777
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 1: the country because when you think about what girls are

778
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 1: seeing on social media.

779
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 2: And they believe it, they think it's true. They think that.

780
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:23,240
Speaker 1: Unless it's tall and skinny, you know, with big breasts

781
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 1: and blonde hair and perfect teeth and you know, unblemish skin,

782
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 1: they think they've got a major problem. We talk about

783
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 1: with boys toxic masculinity, and what we're talking about more

784
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 1: and more with girls is toxic perfectionism, where they think

785
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 1: they have to be perfect and if they're not, it's

786
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:43,359
Speaker 1: a disaster, and that creates so much stress and anxiety,

787
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:47,440
Speaker 1: and it's you know, I actually believe our education system

788
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 1: has a lot to answer for at the moment, and

789
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:51,240
Speaker 1: I actually believe it's broken.

790
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 4: But if you've got the opportunity to intervene at a

791
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:59,480
Speaker 4: societal level through something like state education. We already have pe,

792
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:03,800
Speaker 4: you know, we have music, we have functional relationship skills

793
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:06,360
Speaker 4: that come through lunchtimes and figuring things out, like we're

794
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 4: generally socializing our people through this system. There's an opportunity

795
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:13,280
Speaker 4: for an intervention, of course there is, which is quite exciting.

796
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:16,360
Speaker 1: And what we're realizing is that, you know, the whole

797
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 1: emphasis on academics and the year twelve score has been

798
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:21,720
Speaker 1: the most important thing in the world is no longer

799
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 1: if it.

800
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 2: Ever was true.

801
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 1: In fact, the research has shown out that your child's

802
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 1: year twelve mark is not going to be the major

803
00:38:29,680 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 1: determinant of their future success. It is not that you know,

804
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 1: when I grew up, it was all about your year

805
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: twelve mark. And what they've clearly shown in multiple research

806
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 1: around the world is that what children need now is

807
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:48,760
Speaker 1: they call them twenty first century life skills, resilience, adaptability,

808
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 1: emotional intelligence, to have a vision and purpose, a growth mindset.

809
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:57,480
Speaker 1: That is what's going to determine success because all of

810
00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 1: the academic information is now on our phones and our computers.

811
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 1: You know, if I want to design a swimming pool,

812
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 1: I just have to ask Siri, you know. And so

813
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:10,399
Speaker 1: that is what we really need to be focusing on,

814
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: because the kids who come out and they've got the

815
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:16,280
Speaker 1: academic mark but no social skills, they're really.

816
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:16,760
Speaker 2: Going to struggle.

817
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 1: And parents are now as interested in the well being

818
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 1: programs of schools as they are and the academic outcomes

819
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:26,600
Speaker 1: when they're choosing a school for their kids, which is

820
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:29,719
Speaker 1: saying parents are worried. Any parent who has a kid

821
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 1: under fifteen has to be worried.

822
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:32,840
Speaker 2: At the moment.

823
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:43,880
Speaker 4: I have spent time in countries when national services. I

824
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:46,479
Speaker 4: think one thing I found was really interesting is that

825
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 4: the danger of pub violence that I had grown up

826
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:56,399
Speaker 4: with wasn't there at all because everyone knows everyone has

827
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:58,759
Speaker 4: been through the same training. They also know that I

828
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:00,799
Speaker 4: don't know which one is the commando, No do I

829
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:02,360
Speaker 4: know which ones to cook, So I'm not going to

830
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 4: fuck with anybody. So no one was a threat to anybody.

831
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 4: But because they also have this communal thing of like

832
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 4: we all did this thing together. You might be a

833
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 4: stranger to me, but I know exactly what you did

834
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 4: for those three years of your life because I did

835
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 4: the same thing. And we have this common experience. And

836
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 4: I asked this friend of mine about her child who

837
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:20,279
Speaker 4: was finishing high school and office coming. It's like, how

838
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 4: do you feel. I'm terrified, right, But the deal is

839
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:26,319
Speaker 4: you give them a boy and they give you back

840
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 4: a man. And I wondered what your thoughts were on,

841
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 4: whether it be military or other some sort of structural

842
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 4: thing like that, and is there value? Do you see

843
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 4: a value in something like that?

844
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 1: So I don't think there's any one thing that will

845
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 1: suit every single child. And for some people, national service

846
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 1: is something that can actually completely turn them around. And

847
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:50,719
Speaker 1: I've also been in countries and spent time countries where

848
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:54,440
Speaker 1: it's compulsory. My biggest concern with national service is that

849
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:58,880
Speaker 1: generally the philosophy is we break you down first so

850
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 1: we can build you up, and we will give you

851
00:41:01,719 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: our values and our beliefs, and you will follow orders

852
00:41:05,040 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 1: and you will do what we tell you, even if

853
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 1: it means you're going to die and it's not the

854
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: right thing, and you know, et cetera, et cetera. So

855
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: I do have significant concerns with you know, who's running

856
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:18,160
Speaker 1: the who's making the decisions that the people in the

857
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:21,239
Speaker 1: national is it a boy or a man straight away.

858
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 4: As a leader, I guess it's more the idea of

859
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 4: what society do you get if you know that everyone

860
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 4: in the room has done this right of passage, every

861
00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 4: man and woman that you can lay eyes on.

862
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 1: We get a form of community, so that it is

863
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 1: a community. The army is a community, and they should

864
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:38,439
Speaker 1: in theory be looking after each other.

865
00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 2: But we do still hear terrible stories.

866
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:43,920
Speaker 1: About things that happen in the army and hazing, and

867
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 1: when the new recruits come in, they're really bastardized, you know,

868
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:52,840
Speaker 1: And that is an example of unfacilitated rights of passage.

869
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:55,759
Speaker 1: And when peers are creating it, they'll do terrible things

870
00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:57,759
Speaker 1: to the things to the new ones, and then as

871
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 1: soon as those new ones get to any form of power,

872
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:03,080
Speaker 1: they will do the same thing to the next round

873
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 1: coming through. So I'm definitely not a fan of compulsory

874
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:10,719
Speaker 1: national service, but I have definitely seen young men who've

875
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:13,560
Speaker 1: gone through in national service and it has been in

876
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:14,839
Speaker 1: fact the making of them.

877
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:16,359
Speaker 2: So it's a mixed bag there.

878
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:20,839
Speaker 4: I would agree when I look at my own life,

879
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:27,200
Speaker 4: something if it wasn't military, something like that could have

880
00:42:27,280 --> 00:42:29,480
Speaker 4: brought me the life skills that otherwise wasn't going to

881
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:33,279
Speaker 4: get something, because event what happens is even someone who

882
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:35,360
Speaker 4: however they got brought up, they get spat out the

883
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:37,359
Speaker 4: other side. They know the brush their teeth, they notice

884
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 4: and up on time. They know to how to not

885
00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 4: follow instructions. At least, you know, they become more valuable

886
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 4: in the community.

887
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:48,360
Speaker 3: I went through many, many.

888
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 4: Uncomfortable meetings at HR because I just didn't know how

889
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:51,600
Speaker 4: the world works.

890
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:55,840
Speaker 1: If you'd grown up in indigenal, in an indigenous community

891
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 1: at whatever age fourteen fifteen fifteen, the men in the

892
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:01,799
Speaker 1: community would have come and taken you, that's the first thing.

893
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:04,759
Speaker 1: Your parents would not have come along, and you would

894
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:08,359
Speaker 1: have spent anywhere from a week to five years with

895
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: the men, learning basic life skills, hearing stories, getting in

896
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: touch with your spirit and who you are, working out

897
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,799
Speaker 1: your particular role in the community. And they would have

898
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: guided you through that, and when they felt it was completed,

899
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:26,920
Speaker 1: then you would have been put back into the community,

900
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:30,400
Speaker 1: but as a man, not as a boy. You know,

901
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:32,880
Speaker 1: in some of the Papua New Guinean communities, the boys

902
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:36,799
Speaker 1: were taken away for five years and they didn't see

903
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 1: their mothers. They didn't see their families for five years,

904
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:42,880
Speaker 1: but when they came back it was with incredible respect.

905
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,840
Speaker 1: But they were not boys, and there was this very

906
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 1: clear line of childhood has finished. Now you're a young man,

907
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 1: and we need you in the community. We need what

908
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 1: you have to offer, and we need you there as

909
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: a man, as an adult, not as a child.

910
00:43:57,080 --> 00:43:59,239
Speaker 3: There's a part of us that is wired to look

911
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:01,879
Speaker 3: for I know, for boys.

912
00:44:01,880 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 4: I don't know if it's the same for women, but

913
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:06,440
Speaker 4: as part of us is why to look for a

914
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:09,239
Speaker 4: man who is similar age to our own father, but

915
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:13,399
Speaker 4: not our father at around fourteen fifteen years old? How

916
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 4: can we support the people around us who have kids

917
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 4: of that age to do that? I mean, I find

918
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:21,919
Speaker 4: that really brilliant that it just happens in our brains.

919
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 4: Like I won't listen to a thing you say, but

920
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 4: that guy who told me the same sentence that's the truth.

921
00:44:25,719 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know I'll do that.

922
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:29,920
Speaker 4: Like when your own sons were younger, was there a

923
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 4: man around them? What can we do for own our

924
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:35,359
Speaker 4: own kids to help those people be around for them. Well?

925
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 1: I work in a lot of communities and I always

926
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:39,960
Speaker 1: say to them, and when we run rights a passage

927
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:41,520
Speaker 1: or when we set something up, I always say to

928
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 1: the men and the women, it's really important that we're

929
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:46,959
Speaker 1: not just here for our own child, that we're actually

930
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 1: here for all of the children, and that we're sort

931
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 1: of like creating an umbrella of adults. And you know,

932
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:54,200
Speaker 1: one of the things I say to parents is get

933
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 1: to know your children's friends and have them know that

934
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:00,759
Speaker 1: if they ever have a problem, they can come to you.

935
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: And I definitely had men who my sons could go

936
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:06,759
Speaker 1: to and who my sons were very close to, and

937
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:09,919
Speaker 1: I think that's a really important thing to set up.

938
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 1: And I also say to the man, you know, there

939
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:13,719
Speaker 1: may well come a time when you can have a

940
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: better conversation with your son's friend than you can with

941
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: your own son.

942
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 2: It's actually a really beautiful time thing.

943
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: And you know, it's not only at you know, fourteen

944
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:26,640
Speaker 1: or whatever that boys are wanting that I find throughout

945
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 1: their whole lives. Boys are wanting old older man, or

946
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:32,719
Speaker 1: men are wanting older men. And I still want it

947
00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:35,839
Speaker 1: who I can speak to. I mean, my father's ninety five,

948
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 1: and bless him, you know, when I go over there,

949
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:40,800
Speaker 1: he just wants to tell me how to live my life.

950
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 2: And what to do.

951
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 1: And you know, I actually, you know, I got an

952
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:48,120
Speaker 1: Order of Australia a year ago and I literally had

953
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:50,799
Speaker 1: a thousand people from around the world ring me up,

954
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:53,719
Speaker 1: text me social media and congratulate me. And when I

955
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: told my dad, he says to me, well, Anna, now

956
00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 1: that you've won this award, you better have a serious

957
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:01,840
Speaker 1: look at your behavior.

958
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 2: You know, it is funny.

959
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:08,759
Speaker 1: The only way I can deal with it is by

960
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 1: laughing around it.

961
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 3: You have to.

962
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:12,799
Speaker 1: But he actually mentioned it, and so you know, he

963
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 1: still sees me as a fourteen year old, right, And

964
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:17,719
Speaker 1: yet I have other men in my life, and it

965
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 1: gets harder as you get older. But I have men

966
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 1: who are seventy and you know, close to eighty, who

967
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:25,319
Speaker 1: I have deep respect for, and I can go and

968
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: I can sit with him, and I can have conversations

969
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:30,760
Speaker 1: with them that I can't have with other people because

970
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: they've been they've been at my age, they've been older them.

971
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:37,359
Speaker 1: You know, they just know stuff. And I love that.

972
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 1: I love being with older men who know that. And

973
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many young men I have

974
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 1: in my life, anywhere from twenty to fifty, and they

975
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:49,800
Speaker 1: want that from me, you know, they just want to

976
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 1: come and spend time with me, go for a surf,

977
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 1: sit in the sawn, I have a walk on the land, and.

978
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:56,560
Speaker 2: Just just be able to ask questions and just be

979
00:46:56,560 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 2: able to hear stories. And it's a really special thing

980
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:00,839
Speaker 2: to do.

981
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:03,440
Speaker 1: And I think it's a super important role for us

982
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 1: as we get older, to be able to have those

983
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:08,839
Speaker 1: conversations with those who are younger than us. And there

984
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 1: are women as well who want that, you know, the

985
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 1: whole thing with women and fathers and that relationship. I

986
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 1: was told years ago that there's research which shows that

987
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:23,360
Speaker 1: the better a girl's relationship is with her father, the

988
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 1: older she's likely to be when she loses her virginity,

989
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 1: which is so interesting. It makes so much sense because

990
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:32,359
Speaker 1: if she's got a good, healthy relationship with her father

991
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 1: and can talk to him and you know, get advice

992
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:38,880
Speaker 1: and share things, as opposed to not talking to her

993
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:42,520
Speaker 1: father and hating her father but still warning that older

994
00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 1: man energy, then what is she prepared to give to

995
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:47,960
Speaker 1: get that older man energy from somewhere else?

996
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 2: And you know, we don't want that.

997
00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 4: And that's to say that's help and how in my

998
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,319
Speaker 4: experience as a as a teenage boy and someone who

999
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 4: survived my early twenties, all the nefarious and perilous stuff

1000
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,680
Speaker 4: that happened. If I think about it, it was to

1001
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:05,360
Speaker 4: get the energy and the approval of other men around me,

1002
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:06,799
Speaker 4: particularly older men.

1003
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 2: Father hunger.

1004
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:09,960
Speaker 4: Absolutely, yeah, I would see it all the time. When

1005
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:12,799
Speaker 4: we did those bachelorette and stuff like that. There was

1006
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 4: one guy one particularly, we never really cast anything off,

1007
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:17,680
Speaker 4: but he was like it was rigged and it was

1008
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 4: a big fellow and lovely guy. It's forty one. The

1009
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:22,719
Speaker 4: other guys just kind of wind up like in an

1010
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:26,360
Speaker 4: Attenburgh documentary, you know, in order of age, and just

1011
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 4: did anything. He said, Yeah, they didn't. These are all guys.

1012
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 4: We've got their own businesses. They've got six packs. You know,

1013
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:32,799
Speaker 4: they're amazing. But they're like, what do you reckon?

1014
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 3: What do you think?

1015
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 2: Mate?

1016
00:48:33,880 --> 00:48:36,919
Speaker 3: Like they wouldn't have It was amazing how it just happened.

1017
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:38,919
Speaker 2: There you go, Yeah, it was fit does.

1018
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 1: And when we know that, we actually realized the responsibility

1019
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 1: of having the age and having the wisdom and how

1020
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:49,480
Speaker 1: we can really support these younger people who they want it,

1021
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 1: they're looking for it.

1022
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 4: I got really lucky that this was kind of structurally

1023
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 4: put into my life as I've got sober because it's

1024
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 4: a part of the sobariety fellowship that I'm a part of,

1025
00:48:58,239 --> 00:49:01,520
Speaker 4: is you find someone who's further along than you are.

1026
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:04,760
Speaker 4: They could be younger than you, but they're further along

1027
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 4: with you then you and in their sobriety adventures and

1028
00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 4: they help guide you and you ask them questions and

1029
00:49:12,040 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 4: they tell you just fucking don't do what you think

1030
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:16,319
Speaker 4: to do, just do this, and it all worked out,

1031
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 4: which is wild. So the idea of sponsorship in a

1032
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:24,720
Speaker 4: sobriety fellowship is really really powerful, and sponsoring other people

1033
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:28,759
Speaker 4: as well is really powerful, and it kind of systematizes that.

1034
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 4: But you don't have to be in a sobriety fellowship

1035
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:32,319
Speaker 4: to access that.

1036
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:33,480
Speaker 3: You can choose people.

1037
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:36,920
Speaker 1: But you're describing, by the way, a healthy community. Coming

1038
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 1: back to what we talked about earlier, I think AA

1039
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:44,480
Speaker 1: and the other sobriety communities are predominantly a healthy community

1040
00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 1: where there's network set up and support and those.

1041
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 2: Who the elders, because elderhood.

1042
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:52,680
Speaker 1: Is not necessarily based on age, no no, and so

1043
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:54,839
Speaker 1: the ones who are the elders in the community are

1044
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:58,120
Speaker 1: supporting the younger ones. And you have a buddy or

1045
00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: a partner, or a mentor, whatever you call it, you know,

1046
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 1: And in a lot of healthy communities, every boy and

1047
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:06,920
Speaker 1: every girl had a mentor, and the mentor was someone

1048
00:50:06,920 --> 00:50:09,440
Speaker 1: from outside of the family. And I mean, when I

1049
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:11,000
Speaker 1: was fourteen, I had a mentor. He used to tate

1050
00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 1: me fishing in Victoria. Would go out on the bay

1051
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:15,800
Speaker 1: and sit in his boat, and he tell me stories.

1052
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 1: And he was quite quite a guy. And I would

1053
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:20,359
Speaker 1: just sit and listen for hours, and I could ask

1054
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:21,640
Speaker 1: him any questions I wanted.

1055
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:22,359
Speaker 2: And you know, I.

1056
00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:25,840
Speaker 1: Worshiped that man because he treated me like someone who

1057
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:27,320
Speaker 1: was important enough.

1058
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:29,440
Speaker 2: To share stories with and to answer questions to. And

1059
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:31,120
Speaker 2: you know, I learned a lot of him.

1060
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:32,799
Speaker 4: And this is what the bikers next door were to

1061
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:36,480
Speaker 4: me when I was fifteen. These guys spoke to me like,

1062
00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 4: that is an interesting question, Let me think about that.

1063
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:40,839
Speaker 4: And they spoke to me as if what I had,

1064
00:50:41,120 --> 00:50:43,960
Speaker 4: my question was worth answering and worth their time. And

1065
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:46,279
Speaker 4: I was like, I was getting this from a bunch

1066
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 4: of long hairs with sleeve tattoos, back when sleeve tattoos

1067
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:50,919
Speaker 4: meant you don't ever work a regular job. Yeah, all right,

1068
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 4: And that was such a profound thing for me to

1069
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:55,560
Speaker 4: have these men speak to me like I was I'm

1070
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 4: Matt at yep.

1071
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:59,320
Speaker 1: But the thing that people don't realize is that whilst

1072
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:02,640
Speaker 1: that is so beneficial to you, mentoring goes both ways,

1073
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 1: and for them to have someone listening to them, who

1074
00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:08,520
Speaker 1: they can share their wisdom with, who they can think

1075
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:11,880
Speaker 1: about it is actually highly beneficial to them. And so

1076
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,680
Speaker 1: you know, not only do young people need mentors, but

1077
00:51:15,760 --> 00:51:18,880
Speaker 1: the older people need someone to mentor.

1078
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:20,879
Speaker 4: They got real excited when I'd figured out because they

1079
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 4: I listened to some of this and I've figured out

1080
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 4: how to play Matt Taylor chain on the guitar.

1081
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:27,840
Speaker 3: They're like, oh, he's planet. He's like a planet.

1082
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:31,160
Speaker 1: And that's that story thing, you know. The young and

1083
00:51:31,280 --> 00:51:32,960
Speaker 1: this is in the right of passaging. The young need

1084
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:35,839
Speaker 1: to hear stories of elders, but the elders need someone

1085
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:37,000
Speaker 1: to tell their stories too.

1086
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:37,719
Speaker 4: You know.

1087
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 2: That's why grandchildren and grandparents are so beautiful together. In fact,

1088
00:51:41,640 --> 00:51:42,000
Speaker 2: there's a.

1089
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:45,759
Speaker 1: Saying that grandchildren and grandparents have a special bond because

1090
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:46,880
Speaker 1: they have a common enemy.

1091
00:51:50,680 --> 00:51:52,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what goes on there is that the.

1092
00:51:54,440 --> 00:51:57,040
Speaker 1: Children get seen by the grandparents who tell them how

1093
00:51:57,040 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 1: fabulous and beautiful are and have time for them, which

1094
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:01,720
Speaker 1: is what the children want. The parents are too busy

1095
00:52:01,719 --> 00:52:05,000
Speaker 1: and doing their thing. And for the grandparents, from the children,

1096
00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:08,239
Speaker 1: they get energy, and they get purpose, and they get

1097
00:52:08,239 --> 00:52:09,680
Speaker 1: someone to tell their stories to.

1098
00:52:09,800 --> 00:52:12,879
Speaker 2: And so it's a really beautiful relationship.

1099
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:17,759
Speaker 4: I'm really aware that. So my wife's from Fiji and

1100
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 4: there's quite the diaspora throughout Australia. As you know, we

1101
00:52:20,920 --> 00:52:23,600
Speaker 4: have a minimum cohort of twenty six if we're going

1102
00:52:23,600 --> 00:52:26,279
Speaker 4: to have something, that's the smallest amount of people we

1103
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:29,400
Speaker 4: can invite before someone gets upset. All right, But these

1104
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:32,240
Speaker 4: are also people that she has no blood relation to, okay,

1105
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:34,759
Speaker 4: because it's a parent's friends kids, and she calls them

1106
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:37,800
Speaker 4: cousin and she grew up with just this gigantic, roaming

1107
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 4: pack of people. I had a little bit of that embrisbone,

1108
00:52:42,080 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 4: but nothing like that. And what we're trying to do

1109
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:47,680
Speaker 4: with Wolf, because he's got cousin as well, just trying

1110
00:52:47,719 --> 00:52:49,239
Speaker 4: as much as we can, even though they're on the

1111
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 4: other side of the city, as much as we can

1112
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:53,640
Speaker 4: just get him around these boys who are older than

1113
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 4: him as much as possible, rather than it's a FaceTime

1114
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:01,360
Speaker 4: call or it's on the phone to pack his life

1115
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:04,799
Speaker 4: with more people that aren't his parents, to have more

1116
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:05,799
Speaker 4: things to bounce off.

1117
00:53:06,040 --> 00:53:08,160
Speaker 1: Well, clearly you don't want to be doing everything online

1118
00:53:08,400 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 1: and on FaceTime. But the other thing that you mentioned there,

1119
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:14,680
Speaker 1: which I love, is when you have different ages, then

1120
00:53:14,719 --> 00:53:17,600
Speaker 1: everybody sort of slots into their right place. If you

1121
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:19,799
Speaker 1: get a group of six year olds together, then they

1122
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:23,000
Speaker 1: just start screaming and yelling and running full speed, you know,

1123
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 1: and someone gets hurt and anything like that. But when

1124
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:27,279
Speaker 1: you've got you know, six year olds, ten year old,

1125
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:29,880
Speaker 1: fifteen year old and eighteen year old, then you actually

1126
00:53:29,960 --> 00:53:32,520
Speaker 1: see that the fifteen year old start to look after

1127
00:53:32,560 --> 00:53:33,239
Speaker 1: the six year old.

1128
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:34,799
Speaker 2: Twenty year old say you're wrong.

1129
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:39,560
Speaker 1: So I always love the diversity of age thing.

1130
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:43,280
Speaker 4: So when you do the programs that you do with people,

1131
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:44,640
Speaker 4: how old?

1132
00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 3: I mean you said?

1133
00:53:46,239 --> 00:53:48,400
Speaker 4: Somebody I've met twelve year old sort of twelve year

1134
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 4: old the other day at the pub for this kid's party.

1135
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:53,400
Speaker 3: He was told to me, how are you twelve?

1136
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:56,880
Speaker 4: The guy was like, as a gigantic, but he's got

1137
00:53:56,880 --> 00:53:58,600
Speaker 4: the brain of a twelve year old. But then some

1138
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:00,560
Speaker 4: fifteen year old as a fifteen years all my life?

1139
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:03,080
Speaker 4: Who the hormones hadn't shot up yet. He was still

1140
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:05,719
Speaker 4: talking about lego. Yeah, you know, at what point.

1141
00:54:05,800 --> 00:54:09,200
Speaker 1: It's not just based on age, it's actually based on

1142
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:13,440
Speaker 1: where they are emotionally, and often was actually the grandparents

1143
00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:16,200
Speaker 1: or the elders who decided when they were ready, because

1144
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:18,240
Speaker 1: the parents would actually either hold them back.

1145
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:20,919
Speaker 2: Too long, oh don't take my child, don't or want

1146
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:21,560
Speaker 2: to get them in there.

1147
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:23,880
Speaker 1: When you're doing your programs, what do you tell parents,

1148
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:26,920
Speaker 1: We say sort of fourteen to seventeen, somewhere in that

1149
00:54:26,960 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 1: time when they're changing, when they start locking the door

1150
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:31,799
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, when they grunt, when they tell you

1151
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:33,719
Speaker 1: to fuck off, when they don't want to talk to

1152
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:34,440
Speaker 1: you anymore.

1153
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:37,480
Speaker 2: You know, that's when you start something's changing.

1154
00:54:38,040 --> 00:54:40,200
Speaker 1: That's when you start getting an indication that it's the

1155
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:43,360
Speaker 1: right time to do it. So most of our programs

1156
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:45,440
Speaker 1: are sort of fourteen to seventeen. If you get them

1157
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:47,719
Speaker 1: when they're too young, they don't get it. You know,

1158
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:49,479
Speaker 1: they can maybe say the right things, but they don't

1159
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 1: get it. So, and it's actually gotten older in the

1160
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 1: last ten years or so because technology in many ways

1161
00:54:56,040 --> 00:54:57,920
Speaker 1: has held them back. Right, you know, they're in their

1162
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:00,440
Speaker 1: room and they're seeing all these things on tech knowlogy,

1163
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:03,399
Speaker 1: but they're not actually out on their bikes and down

1164
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:06,719
Speaker 1: the park or down the river experiencing in the same

1165
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 1: way as they were And same for the girls around

1166
00:55:10,520 --> 00:55:13,719
Speaker 1: fourteen to seventeen. But we also have some junior programs,

1167
00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:16,239
Speaker 1: just overnight programs of seven to eleven year olds, and

1168
00:55:16,760 --> 00:55:19,360
Speaker 1: a big part of that is parenting skills. Just teaching

1169
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:24,160
Speaker 1: parents sensible parenting, which unbelievably a lot don't know about.

1170
00:55:24,520 --> 00:55:27,359
Speaker 1: I mean, they did some research recently which showed that

1171
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:31,800
Speaker 1: children and who have dinner with their parents three times

1172
00:55:31,840 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 1: a week or more do better than those who don't.

1173
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:37,880
Speaker 1: And I was amazed, like, why would they do that research.

1174
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:41,200
Speaker 1: Doesn't every parent have dinner with their children every day?

1175
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:42,000
Speaker 2: They don't.

1176
00:55:42,680 --> 00:55:45,479
Speaker 1: Kids are in the bedroom on their computer, Dads having

1177
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 1: TV dinners, Mums just eating.

1178
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:49,600
Speaker 2: When she can't Like whoa really?

1179
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:54,440
Speaker 1: So just teaching parents sensible parenting, like have dinners a

1180
00:55:54,440 --> 00:55:57,560
Speaker 1: few times, have a check in, don't just be on

1181
00:55:57,600 --> 00:55:59,920
Speaker 1: your phones at the table, Go around the table and

1182
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:01,360
Speaker 1: everybody gets to say.

1183
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:01,759
Speaker 2: What went well?

1184
00:56:01,800 --> 00:56:04,279
Speaker 1: You know rose thorn banana pil for example, what was

1185
00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 1: good today? Anything difficult today, anything funny or weird or

1186
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:11,240
Speaker 1: unusual happening today. Then start you doing a conversation. Parents

1187
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:15,560
Speaker 1: I found are so appreciative of basic parenting tips.

1188
00:56:17,280 --> 00:56:18,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they need that.

1189
00:56:18,360 --> 00:56:20,279
Speaker 1: So we do the junior programs, and then we do

1190
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:22,640
Speaker 1: the rights of passage programs when they're older, and then

1191
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:24,680
Speaker 1: we actually get the kids who've been on our rights.

1192
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:27,560
Speaker 1: The passage can come back as returning young men and

1193
00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:28,520
Speaker 1: returning young women.

1194
00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:32,200
Speaker 2: And in fact, our senior facilitator, who's thirty eight.

1195
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:35,000
Speaker 1: Has two sons of his own, and who's our program manager.

1196
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:37,720
Speaker 1: He did his ride a passage when he was fourteen

1197
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:40,239
Speaker 1: and I was his facilitator. Wow, and now he's in

1198
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:41,279
Speaker 1: charge of the programs.

1199
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:43,520
Speaker 4: I was going to ask, you know, what's it like

1200
00:56:43,640 --> 00:56:46,960
Speaker 4: seeing the men and women have gone through it now

1201
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:49,840
Speaker 4: and how do they how do they describe the differences

1202
00:56:49,880 --> 00:56:52,000
Speaker 4: in their lives to friends of theirs that haven't gone

1203
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:52,680
Speaker 4: through something like this.

1204
00:56:53,040 --> 00:56:55,040
Speaker 2: Well, I can just see the differences.

1205
00:56:55,080 --> 00:56:55,239
Speaker 3: You know.

1206
00:56:55,239 --> 00:56:57,319
Speaker 1: If I see one of them in the street and

1207
00:56:57,400 --> 00:56:59,759
Speaker 1: I say to them, how are you, they'll actually tell me,

1208
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:02,839
Speaker 1: as opposed to saying good, They'll tell me how it's

1209
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:04,719
Speaker 1: going at home. They'll tell me how it's going with

1210
00:57:04,719 --> 00:57:06,839
Speaker 1: a partner, or how they want a partner and can't

1211
00:57:06,880 --> 00:57:09,160
Speaker 1: get a partner, or that they've been getting in trouble,

1212
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:11,839
Speaker 1: and they know that they can tell me whatever they

1213
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:14,279
Speaker 1: need or want to tell me. I'm not there to

1214
00:57:14,320 --> 00:57:16,800
Speaker 1: tell them off what. I'll just listen and say, well,

1215
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:18,440
Speaker 1: maybe you thought of trying this or that. You know,

1216
00:57:18,520 --> 00:57:21,640
Speaker 1: I can see they are different kids, you know. And

1217
00:57:21,680 --> 00:57:23,640
Speaker 1: in our community. It was interesting a few years ago

1218
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:25,840
Speaker 1: there were some kids going around doing car washes and

1219
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:28,080
Speaker 1: I heard a story of a woman and some kids

1220
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:29,919
Speaker 1: came around and said, can we wash your car? Bob

1221
00:57:29,960 --> 00:57:32,360
Speaker 1: a job and some money, and she initially said no,

1222
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:35,480
Speaker 1: and then she somehow found out that those boys had

1223
00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:37,800
Speaker 1: been on one of our camps. And when she found out,

1224
00:57:37,840 --> 00:57:40,400
Speaker 1: she said, you can wash the car and I'll pay

1225
00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:44,120
Speaker 1: you for it. So the community actually knows about the work.

1226
00:57:44,160 --> 00:57:47,240
Speaker 1: And you know, we've now set up programs in maybe

1227
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:50,720
Speaker 1: seventy places around Australia and twenty five countries around the

1228
00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:54,000
Speaker 1: world and had you know, around half a million people

1229
00:57:54,040 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 1: coming through and it's a thing now and we want

1230
00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:00,640
Speaker 1: it to be mainstream again. We want every boy and

1231
00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:03,120
Speaker 1: every girl to have an opportunity to go through a

1232
00:58:03,160 --> 00:58:06,160
Speaker 1: healthy rite of passage, to hear the stories of elders,

1233
00:58:06,400 --> 00:58:09,800
Speaker 1: to go through appropriate challenges, to create a vision for

1234
00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:12,240
Speaker 1: who they want to be, and to be honored by

1235
00:58:12,320 --> 00:58:16,760
Speaker 1: elders who see them and you know, tell them the

1236
00:58:16,800 --> 00:58:18,120
Speaker 1: beautiful things they see about.

1237
00:58:18,240 --> 00:58:20,240
Speaker 4: I'm mad for it and I think it'll be long

1238
00:58:20,280 --> 00:58:22,280
Speaker 4: between between now and when you see me, and we'll

1239
00:58:22,280 --> 00:58:23,680
Speaker 4: fore you an attent somewhere up at your place.

1240
00:58:23,720 --> 00:58:24,160
Speaker 2: Fabulous.

1241
00:58:24,160 --> 00:58:26,280
Speaker 1: We'd love to, and you know, so we do. I

1242
00:58:26,360 --> 00:58:28,320
Speaker 1: have a property at Mulmbimbi and byron by on Hunt

1243
00:58:28,320 --> 00:58:31,560
Speaker 1: and fifty acres which is purpose built for these camps

1244
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: and we have people come from around Australia and overseas,

1245
00:58:34,680 --> 00:58:37,280
Speaker 1: and we also set up in schools and communities. And

1246
00:58:37,480 --> 00:58:39,600
Speaker 1: if we can get the parents along, that's fantastic, but

1247
00:58:39,640 --> 00:58:41,880
Speaker 1: if we can't, we do a lot of work now

1248
00:58:41,880 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: with school camps.

1249
00:58:42,880 --> 00:58:45,040
Speaker 2: So a typical school camp, kids.

1250
00:58:44,840 --> 00:58:47,080
Speaker 1: Go away, they go bike riding, they go abs sale

1251
00:58:47,120 --> 00:58:48,080
Speaker 1: and they go kayaking.

1252
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:49,240
Speaker 2: They stay up late at night.

1253
00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 1: They get through three or four days of doing that,

1254
00:58:51,240 --> 00:58:53,960
Speaker 1: come home, throw their clothes on the ground and the laundry,

1255
00:58:54,080 --> 00:58:56,760
Speaker 1: eat everything in the fridge, go to bed for fourteen hours,

1256
00:58:57,000 --> 00:58:59,440
Speaker 1: get up and go back to school tick. The school's

1257
00:58:59,440 --> 00:59:01,680
Speaker 1: done it, we say, well, that could actually be an

1258
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:05,240
Speaker 1: incredible personal development right, a passage opportunity. If we took

1259
00:59:05,280 --> 00:59:08,320
Speaker 1: an hour each evening and got the kids sharing their

1260
00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:11,120
Speaker 1: stories with each other and talking about their challenges and

1261
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:14,040
Speaker 1: creating a vision and honored them and did a process

1262
00:59:14,040 --> 00:59:16,280
Speaker 1: with the parents while the kids are away, and had

1263
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:18,080
Speaker 1: the parents are there at the end to welcome the

1264
00:59:18,160 --> 00:59:20,880
Speaker 1: kids back, and the kids share some commitments that they've

1265
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:23,640
Speaker 1: made about what they want to do differently. And you

1266
00:59:23,640 --> 00:59:25,440
Speaker 1: know that the schools are doing this and going, oh

1267
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:28,600
Speaker 1: my god, these are the best camps we've ever done.

1268
00:59:28,680 --> 00:59:31,560
Speaker 1: We can't believe the impact is happening. And that's what

1269
00:59:31,640 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 1: we want to be doing more and more all around it.

1270
00:59:34,280 --> 00:59:35,400
Speaker 1: We want that to be normal.

1271
00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:37,000
Speaker 3: I want it to be normal.

1272
00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:40,080
Speaker 4: And thank you for coming in, man, and thank you,

1273
00:59:40,160 --> 00:59:42,240
Speaker 4: like my father of your story very quickly is I

1274
00:59:42,760 --> 00:59:44,720
Speaker 4: you know what it's got. I'm not saying this to

1275
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:47,680
Speaker 4: make myselfs awesome, but my father to your story on Saturday, well,

1276
00:59:47,680 --> 00:59:49,680
Speaker 4: if we had his last rugby game of the places

1277
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:53,040
Speaker 4: touch it was over and manly, so we drove all

1278
00:59:53,040 --> 00:59:54,800
Speaker 4: the way over there and it was hard getting about.

1279
00:59:54,800 --> 00:59:56,400
Speaker 4: It was real early got out the door. I was

1280
00:59:56,440 --> 00:59:59,400
Speaker 4: on the other side of the harbor tune. It was like, fuck,

1281
00:59:59,440 --> 01:00:03,040
Speaker 4: I forgot you fucking rugby boots. And he was in

1282
01:00:03,040 --> 01:00:06,840
Speaker 4: his gun boots because had been muddy and call him

1283
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:08,080
Speaker 4: a neighbors saying can you throw them at uba?

1284
01:00:08,120 --> 01:00:08,600
Speaker 3: Da da da?

1285
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:11,040
Speaker 4: And he's in the back and he says, don't worry, dad,

1286
01:00:11,360 --> 01:00:14,720
Speaker 4: I'll run on my rugby boots and I'll play hard anyway.

1287
01:00:15,800 --> 01:00:16,600
Speaker 3: And he blood he did.

1288
01:00:16,680 --> 01:00:18,880
Speaker 4: The uber showed up Muhammed, brought them with me and

1289
01:00:19,160 --> 01:00:20,680
Speaker 4: thanks to humored high five them and get them in

1290
01:00:20,720 --> 01:00:23,240
Speaker 4: the game two and three. But he won the like

1291
01:00:23,640 --> 01:00:25,880
Speaker 4: the best kind of you know, trying hardest guy. But

1292
01:00:25,880 --> 01:00:28,000
Speaker 4: I've got photos with him in gum boots holding the ball,

1293
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:30,560
Speaker 4: just fucking fanging it. And so a father of the

1294
01:00:30,640 --> 01:00:32,880
Speaker 4: year forgot his boots, but also father of the year.

1295
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 4: He went ahead and did it. And I'm just fucking

1296
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:37,440
Speaker 4: thrilled over that.

1297
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:38,880
Speaker 3: I love that amazing.

1298
01:00:39,320 --> 01:00:41,560
Speaker 1: And I have a suggestion for you, given that it's

1299
01:00:41,600 --> 01:00:45,040
Speaker 1: your son's sixth birthday tomorrow, take it or leave it.

1300
01:00:45,080 --> 01:00:45,600
Speaker 2: I have to do it.

1301
01:00:45,600 --> 01:00:47,080
Speaker 1: You can edit it out of this if you don't

1302
01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:48,680
Speaker 1: do it. But a beautiful thing to do is have

1303
01:00:48,720 --> 01:00:52,600
Speaker 1: a fantastic party. Yeah, whatever canon thing that you've made.

1304
01:00:52,720 --> 01:00:55,080
Speaker 1: But then at some point see your kid on a

1305
01:00:55,160 --> 01:00:58,080
Speaker 1: chair or something in front of everyone, and tell him

1306
01:00:58,400 --> 01:01:00,280
Speaker 1: in front of others one or two things that you

1307
01:01:00,360 --> 01:01:01,520
Speaker 1: really love about him.

1308
01:01:01,560 --> 01:01:02,800
Speaker 2: And where you see that.

1309
01:01:03,760 --> 01:01:06,480
Speaker 1: You know, like if you might talk about the rugby

1310
01:01:06,480 --> 01:01:08,600
Speaker 1: and he say, I think you're brave and courageous and

1311
01:01:08,640 --> 01:01:10,760
Speaker 1: I saw an example of that. So you name the

1312
01:01:10,800 --> 01:01:12,920
Speaker 1: thing and you actually say when you've seen it, and

1313
01:01:12,960 --> 01:01:15,320
Speaker 1: then see if there are any of the other adults around,

1314
01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:17,760
Speaker 1: like his mother or anyone who wants to say something

1315
01:01:17,760 --> 01:01:19,280
Speaker 1: to him. And then see if there are any of

1316
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:22,680
Speaker 1: the kids want to tell Wolfy why they love him,

1317
01:01:22,720 --> 01:01:25,480
Speaker 1: what they think is special about him. It's an honoring

1318
01:01:26,440 --> 01:01:28,760
Speaker 1: and you know you've got to get them a little

1319
01:01:28,800 --> 01:01:30,200
Speaker 1: You've got to pick the time. You don't do it

1320
01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:32,400
Speaker 1: straight after you've given them red lemonade, na.

1321
01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:32,520
Speaker 4: No.

1322
01:01:32,920 --> 01:01:34,440
Speaker 2: But you can set it up beautifully.

1323
01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:36,000
Speaker 3: It's a pretty good idea.

1324
01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:37,720
Speaker 2: And you know it's a beautiful thing.

1325
01:01:37,960 --> 01:01:42,360
Speaker 1: And he will he will remember that he's not allowed

1326
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:43,640
Speaker 1: to say a word while it's happening.

1327
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:45,240
Speaker 2: He's not allowed to say a word.

1328
01:01:45,960 --> 01:01:50,080
Speaker 4: I will do I'll put it to the committee, but

1329
01:01:50,160 --> 01:01:51,400
Speaker 4: I reckon that we can make that get out of

1330
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:51,880
Speaker 4: the line.

1331
01:01:52,240 --> 01:01:53,520
Speaker 3: I know you're busy. I know you've got to get

1332
01:01:53,560 --> 01:01:53,920
Speaker 3: something else.

1333
01:01:53,920 --> 01:01:56,320
Speaker 2: Thanks for coming in, man, that was freaking awesome, absolute pleasure.

1334
01:01:56,440 --> 01:01:56,800
Speaker 2: Thank you.

1335
01:01:56,840 --> 01:02:01,800
Speaker 3: Thanks brother. And that was doctor Arna Rubinstein.

1336
01:02:01,880 --> 01:02:04,440
Speaker 4: He is the founder co founder of the Rights of

1337
01:02:04,440 --> 01:02:07,400
Speaker 4: Passage Institute. You can find out more about their Rights

1338
01:02:07,400 --> 01:02:10,760
Speaker 4: of Passage Institute dot org. Once again, I'd love to

1339
01:02:10,760 --> 01:02:12,760
Speaker 4: come and see you. Get your tickets fort So what

1340
01:02:12,880 --> 01:02:16,360
Speaker 4: now what the live show cam Walker Struthless and I

1341
01:02:16,440 --> 01:02:19,720
Speaker 4: are going on the road around the country Perth, Brisbane,

1342
01:02:19,840 --> 01:02:22,680
Speaker 4: Melbourne and Sydney. The link is in the show notes

1343
01:02:22,960 --> 01:02:25,480
Speaker 4: and it'll be a freaking top night gigs at the

1344
01:02:25,560 --> 01:02:26,240
Speaker 4: end of October.

1345
01:02:27,040 --> 01:02:29,760
Speaker 3: I'll be back here on Monday. Thanks for listening. See

1346
01:02:29,760 --> 01:02:30,000
Speaker 3: you then.