Speaker 1: Apotiate production. Welcome back to another episode of Am I
Speaker 1: A Bad Mom? Podcast? The question we constantly ask am
Speaker 1: I A Bad mum?
Speaker 2: And the answer will sometimes the answer will sometimes vary,
Speaker 2: but that's okay, that's what we do, what we do
Speaker 2: and why we do it. I think it is a
Speaker 2: lengthy process, this parenting. And we've got friends going through
Speaker 2: different things, Like one of our good friends right now,
Speaker 2: she's going through.
Speaker 1: Teething mh remember that.
Speaker 3: Actually, you know when some people ask you, they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: what did your daughter have get her first time? I
Speaker 3: don't know, yeah, actually don't know whether it was like
Speaker 3: three weeks or six months.
Speaker 2: I also Katie had this moment where I was like,
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be that friend, but she went, oh,
Speaker 2: but you know she's been really grizzly and really snotty,
Speaker 2: and like, you know, her nappies have changed, and I've gone, yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's going to just be all the way through.
Speaker 2: And I was like, felt like that bad friend that
Speaker 2: was like you shouldn't give her the negative. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, I was like, yeah, girlfriend, this is
Speaker 2: only the start.
Speaker 3: And this is only one thing one of the starts.
Speaker 3: Did you suggest putting a bit of whiskey on the gun.
Speaker 3: We survived it. We all had brandy on the gun. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: we did drink a bit too much now because of it, probably.
Speaker 2: But we learn what we do from our parents.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what are we teaching.
Speaker 2: Our kids right now? This is my point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but this is like it's evolution, isn't it Like
Speaker 3: we're evolving because we're getting new information now.
Speaker 1: I mean it's too late for our kids, Like it's they're.
Speaker 3: Done, they're damaged, they're going to need therapy in you know,
Speaker 3: fifteen years time. But we're learning for the grandchildren that generation.
Speaker 2: And I don't even want to think, Katie of us being.
Speaker 3: Like this sounds like a really weird thing to say
Speaker 3: for someone just in their forties, but I'm not not
Speaker 3: looking forward to it really. Yeah, Like obviously I don't
Speaker 3: want it to happen too soon. I don't want them
Speaker 3: to be young mum, no, to have babies, you know,
Speaker 3: in the near future. But I just think you get
Speaker 3: to do the fun parenting and have the fun yeah,
Speaker 3: and not have all the shit like you pass them
Speaker 3: back for the ship. Here you go, here's sleepless nights enjoy,
Speaker 3: here's your attitude. I'll just give them lollies for one night.
Speaker 3: I think my dad's got the right idea. Remember my
Speaker 3: dad said, I'm only ever going to have them for
Speaker 3: one Did you say one night?
Speaker 2: I think it was one night originally, but then he
Speaker 2: stretched it to two and then he was like, why
Speaker 2: did we do that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he said night two.
Speaker 3: Take into the parenting zone and he said, I'm not
Speaker 3: doing that again. No, they were ganging up on him.
Speaker 2: Am I a bad mum for being too strict? This
Speaker 2: comes from a place of like just reflection. We talk
Speaker 2: about that a bit hey on this podcast, of like
Speaker 2: having those moments of reflection, because that's the only way
Speaker 2: that you're going to obviously acknowledge sometimes your I guess
Speaker 2: parts of you that you could work on and get
Speaker 2: better at. And we talk about lengthening the lead, you know,
Speaker 2: like the boundaries. Yeah, she's like letting it slowly expand out.
Speaker 2: And I think at the moment my reflective state has
Speaker 2: been Okay, am I too strict? You know? I have
Speaker 2: like certain things that I'm just I won't budge on.
Speaker 2: Like Grace is eleven and she's like I want a
Speaker 2: phone and I just won't budge on it.
Speaker 1: Do your kids as well.
Speaker 3: Compare you to all their other friends' parents as well,
Speaker 3: because I get all the time and it drives me crazy.
Speaker 3: You're the only parents that don't let us do that.
Speaker 3: You're the only parents that make us have a bed
Speaker 3: to nobody else is, and they shame you time and
Speaker 3: time again. Might even come home and go like Sienna
Speaker 3: thinks that you're too strict, Like, none of my friends
Speaker 3: can believe how strict you are. You guys are like
Speaker 3: the worst.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly what I'm getting. I'm getting all of
Speaker 2: those and we're not even at high school yet.
Speaker 3: You know that's rubbish, Like, because I will say to
Speaker 3: the girls all the time, I don't believe you.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that you're no one has a bit.
Speaker 3: I don't believe your friends just can't just scroll the
Speaker 3: night away all through.
Speaker 2: Yes they can. Yeah, But the other part of it
Speaker 2: is is that, Okay, if they can, are we learning anything?
Speaker 2: Like your brain isn't even completely developed to understand why
Speaker 2: you're scrolling and when to switch off from scrolling, because
Speaker 2: like science tells us that even as adults, we don't
Speaker 2: and understand the boundaries of what we're doing when it
Speaker 2: comes to like doom scrolling, or like social media and
Speaker 2: those sorts of things. As an adult, we don't even
Speaker 2: know the cue to switch off, so your brain'sn't even
Speaker 2: fully developed. I have to be like this so that
Speaker 2: I can protect you from this is the kind of
Speaker 2: conversation that I'm having with my children about why I
Speaker 2: do what I do. But then I have this other
Speaker 2: part of me Katie that goes, why the fuck are
Speaker 2: you explaining yourself to your You're eleven year old. That's
Speaker 2: she doesn't give a shit.
Speaker 3: It's one of those as well that she won't even
Speaker 3: understand until she's an adult, Like she will never I
Speaker 3: said to Jay all the time, I'm like, they are
Speaker 3: not going to get this now, Like they.
Speaker 1: Will not appreciate what we're doing now.
Speaker 3: Now they will be older and to adulthoods before they go, oh, I.
Speaker 1: Got why you did that. Yeah, they certainly don't get
Speaker 1: it now.
Speaker 2: But it's like that part though, going back to the
Speaker 2: strict piece of going like, okay, am I too strict?
Speaker 2: And where could I let the leash a little bit longer?
Speaker 2: And then when I do that, what a repercussion is
Speaker 2: going to be? Because I won't know what the repercussions
Speaker 2: are going to be until we're in it, and then
Speaker 2: that's that whole like you know, self development as a parent,
Speaker 2: like me as a human being, but also as a parent,
Speaker 2: like learning and growing and evolving as a parent as
Speaker 2: our children get older, because like my whole belief system
Speaker 2: is around that whole stages and ages. The kids are
Speaker 2: changing and they stages change as they grow that bit older.
Speaker 2: But I believe that we as parents should be growing
Speaker 2: and evolving with them our ideas, our behaviors, the way
Speaker 2: that we show up our actions, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: that lead way louder than just talking the talk kind
Speaker 2: of thing. One is obviously no phones, that's fine. The
Speaker 2: iPad and the screen time I'm very restrictive on. Don't
Speaker 2: get me wrong. They don't miss out on TV and
Speaker 2: Netflix and ABC Kids and whatever they're watching on the TV.
Speaker 2: They don't miss sat on that. So my kids are
Speaker 2: not without But when it comes to screen time, absolutely
Speaker 2: I'm quite restrictive, and I have my reasons why. The
Speaker 2: other part for her is not going to the park
Speaker 2: after school on a Friday, when the rest of the
Speaker 2: whole of the school is going down to the park
Speaker 2: and just up to no good, I won't let her
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: It's what's up to, like just eleven being.
Speaker 2: Rats basically, and that's no disrespect to anyone, but because like,
Speaker 2: the kids are absolutely of age where they're going to
Speaker 2: go on a Friday afternoon and consume loads of sugar
Speaker 2: and then run them up together, And I get that
Speaker 2: that's what we did as kids, right, But at the
Speaker 2: same time, I was like, no, it's just not appropriate,
Speaker 2: age appropriate. It's not age appropriate for you, and you're
Speaker 2: my child.
Speaker 1: Did she want to go on her own with their friends?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Okay, yeah, od right, And so then you're going, Okay,
Speaker 2: why am I the only because I get the whole
Speaker 2: guilt trip every time, You're the only parent that doesn't
Speaker 2: let me go? Right.
Speaker 3: I'd love to know how many moms get the you're
Speaker 3: the only one that doesn't let must do it, because
Speaker 3: I feel like that's every child, every child, and they're
Speaker 3: playing off everyone else against.
Speaker 1: You, right, you know it is because they absolutely are.
Speaker 3: They're making you feel guilty and you feel bad because
Speaker 3: then you question yourself. You go, am I the only
Speaker 3: one that's doing that? In my case? Do teenagers have
Speaker 3: bed times? Because they're telling me, no one does no,
Speaker 3: but you must have you need to get up at
Speaker 3: a certain time, and you certainly My kids have never
Speaker 3: gone through the stage of going, I'm really tired, I'm
Speaker 3: off to bed.
Speaker 1: Never have they done that yet.
Speaker 2: Never. This is what we talk about, which is like
Speaker 2: that whole key to common sense when it kicks in.
Speaker 2: Like what age was that? When I think about back
Speaker 2: to my grade eight to grade twelve, I think I
Speaker 2: still had a restricted bedtime, But my mum very much
Speaker 2: led by. You'll definitely know about it tomorrow when you
Speaker 2: will underperform for netball. You'll be tired through mass, you
Speaker 2: won't learn a thing, and you'll just feel it all day.
Speaker 2: You'll just feel miserable. You'll understand tomorrow why I'm telling
Speaker 2: you to go to bed by nine thirty or something,
Speaker 2: you know, Like she really led by that. So I
Speaker 2: had to learn a few harder days along the line
Speaker 2: to then for me to go, oh, yeah, actually, I'm
Speaker 2: totally okay with going to bed at nine thirty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mine, aren't they?
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you are too strict, can you bring it back?
Speaker 2: Do you reckon? I've got time to bring it back
Speaker 2: without like letting them go wild.
Speaker 3: I think it comes back to the picking your battles
Speaker 3: because there's so many things that you want to implement, right,
Speaker 3: but what's really important and what causes you more stress
Speaker 3: trying to enforce when you're like, fuck it, just let
Speaker 3: them do it.
Speaker 2: The battle part really makes sense, Like.
Speaker 1: What do you really believe in?
Speaker 3: You really believe that you don't want her to have
Speaker 3: a phone right now, And I totally get that, because
Speaker 3: once they've got the phones, then you've got a whole
Speaker 3: new world of problem.
Speaker 2: There's no going back. Though. Yeah, it's another world of problems.
Speaker 2: But I don't believe that you're out there development stage
Speaker 2: to be able to understand the processing part. There's so
Speaker 2: much to it. It is not just like you and
Speaker 2: I when we had a Nokia thirty two ten that
Speaker 2: had like tetras on it or snake, like, it's just
Speaker 2: not the same, you know, And you'd be putting in
Speaker 2: your text message, but you'd be cautious of like the
Speaker 2: amount of characters that you use because it's going to
Speaker 2: cost an extra like twenty cents for your text message.
Speaker 2: We had those, Our kids didn't have those that have
Speaker 2: unlimited access to each other twenty four hours a day
Speaker 2: once they're online.
Speaker 3: I think that's what you're saying is another level of
Speaker 3: parenting as well, like another reason why it's hard for
Speaker 3: us at this age because we've lived the ages of
Speaker 3: not having phones and not having the technology and not
Speaker 3: having Netflix and all the rest of it. That's something
Speaker 3: funny I saw on Instagram the other day where it
Speaker 3: was like, no, wonder we're grumpy. We went out bought
Speaker 3: CD singles every time we liked the song. Then we
Speaker 3: had to move on to MP three's.
Speaker 2: I had a discman, Yeah, but then when the discman
Speaker 2: moved to any shock, and that any shock was like,
Speaker 2: so that you could run with your discman, but I
Speaker 2: was like, so big, didn't even fit in your hand.
Speaker 2: You can't put that in your back pocket or your
Speaker 2: side of your tides. No.
Speaker 3: And before that it was cassettes. We had the cassettes.
Speaker 3: We had to go out by the cassettes. Then we
Speaker 3: had to go out and buy the CDs. Then we
Speaker 3: had to go out and buy the MP three's.
Speaker 1: And now you're asking for us to pay for a subscription.
Speaker 3: So when you say we're doing what our parents did, yeah,
Speaker 3: we are doing an element of what our parents did,
Speaker 3: but we're also doing an element of I've got no
Speaker 3: fucking clue because our parents didn't do this because we
Speaker 3: didn't have the stuff that.
Speaker 1: They have now.
Speaker 3: So we are brand new in the space of parenting
Speaker 3: kids that are growing up with this shit. And so
Speaker 3: in terms of your phone, I would say, hold off
Speaker 3: as long as possible.
Speaker 1: As long as possible was.
Speaker 3: Going to be holding off until everything's on Snapchat. Your
Speaker 3: kid's not going to get invited to any birthday parties
Speaker 3: anymore because they don't see the snaps. Hold off until then.
Speaker 2: And then I'm going to buy them. Even at that
Speaker 2: stage at Bonafone, they're still going to get that Nokia.
Speaker 2: I think it's iconic. I think that everyone has to
Speaker 2: go through a stage of having.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do that, fill up your wine fridge, don't have
Speaker 3: any rules, and just
Speaker 2: Get back let it go.