Speaker 1: Apogae Production. Welcome back to another episode of Am I
Speaker 1: A Bad Mum? Podcast? I do feel like a bad
Speaker 1: mum today. You know, you just have those moments and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, do things so much better?
Speaker 2: What could possibly have gone on?
Speaker 1: I think when you see how other people do it,
Speaker 1: the choices that they make, and again we're seeing that,
Speaker 1: so you know it might not be actually what's happening.
Speaker 1: But then I'm like, I then have like this spiral
Speaker 1: of looking back at how I've reacted to things and
Speaker 1: how I've done certain things and gone probably want to
Speaker 1: changed that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I come in here and we do this podcast,
Speaker 2: and I think maybe once a week I've touched base
Speaker 2: with you and gone, ah shit, Like I get it.
Speaker 1: We're all there.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I don't know. This whole
Speaker 2: guilt piece that we just continually stick on as moms
Speaker 2: and dads and grandparents, it's becoming wearing, Katie. I'm getting
Speaker 2: tired of this mother guilt. I beat myself up because
Speaker 2: of the way that I react to Elsie, even though
Speaker 2: Elsie was so rude to me this morning, But then
Speaker 2: I'm the one beating myself up. I don't know where
Speaker 2: I stand Katie this parenting thing. Yeah, like you're beating
Speaker 2: yourself up. I'm beating myself up.
Speaker 1: Are they No, Well, it depends on the kids, because
Speaker 1: I definitely think I have one that's like whatever, fuck you,
Speaker 1: and off she goes with a day. I have another
Speaker 1: one who will if we have an argument in the morning,
Speaker 1: I'll get a text. Yeah right, and she's not okay
Speaker 1: with carry on her day until she knows that it's
Speaker 1: been solved. It's a nice trade.
Speaker 2: I don't mind that trade.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's like, well, in the moment, you didn't
Speaker 1: fucking care.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've probably got one of each as well. The
Speaker 2: one that's like fuck it, I don't care is the
Speaker 2: second born that walked out of the gate this morning
Speaker 2: like I was the bad person, feeling hurt by her,
Speaker 2: like dismissal of me and telling me to shush because
Speaker 2: I'm too loud. She's trying to listen to something, but
Speaker 2: like did it numerous times. Yeah, I said to her,
Speaker 2: excuse me, like why are you speaking to me like that?
Speaker 2: She went sh I went silent, and I just walked out.
Speaker 2: Then we passed each other at the gate. She just
Speaker 2: looked at me like I was again the problem for
Speaker 2: telling how to get off her iPad whilst walking to school. Honestly,
Speaker 2: it is wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're always the problem, and that doesn't stop. Like
Speaker 1: I know that you look at me with my grown up,
Speaker 1: seen year old now and think it might get better.
Speaker 1: Well it doesn't. It gets worse, my friend to get
Speaker 1: so much worse. Am I a bad mum for treating
Speaker 1: them like primary school kids. They are constantly saying to me,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have to have a bedtime, we shouldn't bring
Speaker 1: our screens down. We're sixteen, we're almost adults. We could
Speaker 1: move out. In fact, Amelia even said to me the
Speaker 1: other night, she went, I can have sex. I can.
Speaker 1: She was listening all the things that you can do.
Speaker 1: I can drive. I turned around and went, but you
Speaker 1: don't act like sixteen year old. When you act like
Speaker 1: you're sixteen, I will treat you like you're sixteen because
Speaker 1: at the moment you are not acting like that. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why. Rite we introduced a homework needs
Speaker 1: to be done by eight thirty rule.
Speaker 2: I love this rule, and I'm gonna let you explain
Speaker 2: it all. But I love this rule. I've actually in
Speaker 2: my head deeper over this because I was like, I
Speaker 2: love this rule. I don't see any holes in it.
Speaker 1: Because my life at the moment or up until this rule.
Speaker 1: Although the rule hasn't fully come into force because there's
Speaker 1: been some pushback.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some teething issues before it's landed.
Speaker 1: Yet my thing is right. We get home normally by
Speaker 1: four pm. That gives you four and a half hours
Speaker 1: from four pm to eight thirty pm to get your
Speaker 1: work done. It's not going to take that long. If
Speaker 1: you've got it done by five, great, You've then got
Speaker 1: your own time. What has been happening is they fuck
Speaker 1: around wonderful TikTok scrolling. This is the example. Right the
Speaker 1: other day, Amelia starts her homework at nine point fifteen.
Speaker 1: What are you doing? Screens are supposed to come down
Speaker 1: by nine o'clock? What are you doing starting it? I
Speaker 1: need to do this. I've got an assignment this due.
Speaker 1: I was like, why are you doing it now?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Because I didn't have any other time. I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: what about the fact that we got home at four?
Speaker 1: What about that whole time? Like, it's now nine to fifteen,
Speaker 1: that's what fun It's a lot of hours. What is
Speaker 1: that for? Five?
Speaker 2: Six?
Speaker 1: Seven eight. That's five over five hours, a lot of hours.
Speaker 1: What are you doing in that time? Well, I had
Speaker 1: to have dinner, it didn't take five hours. I had
Speaker 1: a shower that didn't take five hours. I mean it
Speaker 1: could over leg out. I mean yeah, typical sixteen and
Speaker 1: she's making up all these excuses. Rachel. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: let me have a look at your phone. Let me
Speaker 1: have a look at what you were actually doing for
Speaker 1: that whole time. Three hours on TikTok de pop for
Speaker 1: like an hour and a half. So started her homework.
Speaker 1: At nine point fifteen. I went to bed. I was like, whatever,
Speaker 1: fucking do it all night for all I care. And
Speaker 1: then my head, I'm still like, if she's up till midnight,
Speaker 1: she's gonna be horrible tomorrow.
Speaker 2: It's like the next three days, it's like, yeah, i'ck
Speaker 2: on effect of it. And they think that they're just
Speaker 2: gonna be a okay, And.
Speaker 1: That still happens with them, Like they think they can
Speaker 1: stay up all night long, and then they wonder why
Speaker 1: they're so emotional the next day, and I'm like, because
Speaker 1: you're tired. And then they turn around to me and go,
Speaker 1: everything you say is because we're tired, Like, if we're
Speaker 1: not feeling well, you're tired. If I'm emotional, if I'm
Speaker 1: upset by something.
Speaker 2: Tired, absolutely exhausted.
Speaker 1: How so it's a mom answer. I was so mad
Speaker 1: when I saw the amount of times she spent on
Speaker 1: TikTok and the amount of times she'd spent on deep op,
Speaker 1: and I was like, this has to stop. We are
Speaker 1: bringing in a new rule, and the rule is that
Speaker 1: homework has to be done by eight thirty PM. And
Speaker 1: there was pushback and there was arguing, and there was
Speaker 1: rudeness and attacking us. And I've told all of my
Speaker 1: teachers and they think it's ridiculous. I emailed their head
Speaker 1: of house yesterday, rach I emailed her and I said,
Speaker 1: this is what's been going on tonight. Can you please
Speaker 1: help with getting them to manage their time for their
Speaker 1: assignments because this is what's just happened. She's telling me.
Speaker 1: All our teachers say it's ridiculous at sixty. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you don't have to go to bet at hate thirty.
Speaker 1: And you're also not giving them any context. The context
Speaker 1: is that you spent five hours scrolling on your phone yep,
Speaker 1: and then you started your assignment at nine point fifteen.
Speaker 1: So when your teachers say that it's ridiculous that you
Speaker 1: have to stop homework at eight thirty, it's because you
Speaker 1: didn't give them context.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what you're teaching them is that it's like such
Speaker 2: a long time and easily done on a device, just
Speaker 2: scrolling in the depths of nothing. And I get it,
Speaker 2: we all do it, but it's like this whole piece
Speaker 2: of like your brain is not developed with the logic
Speaker 2: to go, I'm wasting three hours of my five hour
Speaker 2: bracket of getting my assignment done.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: I get that you've had a really busy day at
Speaker 2: school and that whole six hours that you went to
Speaker 2: school it's very draining on your brain. But also what
Speaker 2: you're doing right now, it's like self soothing, self numbing,
Speaker 2: Like it's not good for you. What you're doing is
Speaker 2: not good for you. You could be doing a lot
Speaker 2: of other things that's going to be a little bit more,
Speaker 2: you know, counterproductive.
Speaker 1: It feels so much nicer to get the work done first,
Speaker 1: Like I don't understand when that clicks in. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: do you know the problem is right, I can say
Speaker 1: to them, leave your phones down here, and they will
Speaker 1: just because everything's on the laptop. This is the problem
Speaker 1: with Apple. Apple is the problem. Yeah, they talk to
Speaker 1: each other, the phone talks to the laptop. Everything's on there.
Speaker 1: They still get Snapchat on there, They've still got TikTok
Speaker 1: on there. Like, everything's still there. They actually don't really
Speaker 1: give a shit if they have to leave their phones downstairs.
Speaker 1: And then you can't not let them have their laptops
Speaker 1: because they can't do their work. You also, because I've
Speaker 1: contemplated everything, right, I've also contemplated switching off the Wi
Speaker 1: Fi and they can't do their assignments without the Wi Fi.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: Is it access to everything?
Speaker 2: Everything?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And it's a really hard one because we've had like
Speaker 2: some really cool discussions around the idea of like over
Speaker 2: restricting kids with devices and then the free range sort
Speaker 2: of parenting with devices. And you know, your girls are
Speaker 2: in well and truly in that next bracket of like
Speaker 2: you know, sixteen, they're officially allowed on social media.
Speaker 1: La la la, all that stuff that goes with it.
Speaker 2: Right. I think every one of them has got hurdles,
Speaker 2: every single one of them. But as adults, Katie, we
Speaker 2: don't have the brain capacity sometimes to put our phones
Speaker 2: down when they are unhealthy for us. So then as
Speaker 2: a sixteen year old when it's all sparkling, it's all
Speaker 2: like so overwhelming. How do they know to do this?
Speaker 2: I know that we like you know, could bang on
Speaker 2: all day about devices and stuff like this. You're in
Speaker 2: a really hard basket with this. But going back to
Speaker 2: what the rule was, I think it's great. I think
Speaker 2: what you're doing, my honest opinion, would be constructing an
Speaker 2: area downstairs where the homework must be done. You're not
Speaker 2: controlling them, you're not doing that, but it's just like
Speaker 2: overseeing that they're actually sitting there doing that rather than
Speaker 2: sitting on snap and I just go like, don't want
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 1: Fucking up there every ten minutes checking what they do.
Speaker 1: It's stressful for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think for us obviously, Grace is
Speaker 2: just starting right and the use of laptop is only
Speaker 2: for school and so to do her homework, We've got
Speaker 2: an area that I've sort of made like that's where
Speaker 2: you can go and do your homework. Why because you're
Speaker 2: still in view with me, and I know when you're
Speaker 2: fucking around, I know when you're actually doing the work.
Speaker 2: And then you can also lean on me if you
Speaker 2: need a little bit of help, or you want spelling
Speaker 2: or whatever. It is. Your presence and my presence know
Speaker 2: that it's going to be harder to do what you
Speaker 2: want to do. Maybe it's too late, Katie, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Your girls are gonna have to.
Speaker 2: Like learn the hard way, maybe where they just get
Speaker 2: really bad grades, which you don't want.
Speaker 1: They were up until three am on Sunday night. Monday morning,
Speaker 1: three am, Holly was up doing her assignment and then
Speaker 1: she's up again a six. I was like, does that
Speaker 1: not make you feel like She's this makes you feel like,
Speaker 1: oh n, this makes me feel alive. I love living
Speaker 1: on the edge.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: And you're like, is wrong with you