WEBVTT - The Boy ‘Mom’ Trap & Actually, We’ve Met 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.960 Hello, and welcome to Mamma Mia out loud. It's what 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:09.400 women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the third of June. 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:12.760 I'm Hollyween, I'm Clere Stephens, and I'm Amelia Lost. 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.200 And here's what has made our agenda for today. 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.720 The boy mum controversy that has me terrified for the 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:21.079 next phase of my life. 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.280 The one thing you should never say when you meet someone, 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:25.160 or is it? 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:29.080 And women shouldn't be allowed to write books discuss but 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:36.120 first just putting it out there controversial opinions Wednesday anyway, First, 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.879 in case you missed it, suns shining in Europe and 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.360 so the tennis is happening. I'm sports correspondent for today. 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:45.560 Oh we've been passing that mic around last week. 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:49.360 It was wow. I don't know how much I trust this, 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.360 especially not with tennis better with football tennis not so much. 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:56.800 But anyway, I'm going to give it a go. Because 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.400 there is this thing, this tournament called Roland Garros, which 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:01.320 is also Therench Open. I had to make sure they 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:04.200 were the same thing. They are the same thing, just 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:05.240 like Wimbledon. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:07.759 Land, Like who's rolling exactly? 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:11.160 Who is Roland? An answer to that, weren't they and 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.120 this week there was a bit of a ding dong 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:17.200 at the French Open over some umpires being women. 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.920 Oh oh my god, I know, I'm shocked. 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:21.399 Now. 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:26.440 To be clear, the umpires who get to adjudicate over 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:30.800 the big Grand Slam titles, so French Open, US Open, Wimbledon, 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.600 not the Open, et cetera, are called the gold badge ones. 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:35.760 So they are the top of their field, just like 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.400 in any other sport. You don't just pull the volunteer 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.600 referee from Saturday football and put them on the ground final. 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:44.080 So these are the these are the big guns. But 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:49.520 in a game that was played by Paraguayan Adolfo Daniel Valeo, 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:54.640 he criticized his female umpire and said that this level 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:59.560 of game should only be umpired by a man. His 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:02.200 game was five hours long, which he's like, that's really 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:06.040 really long, Oh my gosh. And it was hot and 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.200 the crowd got rowdy. And we have talked a little 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:10.160 bit lately, if we've talked about tennis at all, about 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.320 how the polite like just sitting around and doing little 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:16.760 finger claps, that tennis is over. Everybody yells now, and 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:20.080 his words were a game like this, he got asked 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:22.560 whether or not. He thought it should have been umpired 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:24.640 by a woman, by a magazine called Clay Magazine, And 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.080 he said it has to be refereed by a man 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.400 because it's a very demanding crowd and you need a 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.720 lot of strength to go against the crowd. It's not 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:35.600 normal for the crowd to be shouting for a full 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.040 minute without any play in a match where the physical 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.079 aspect matters so much. If you give a player a 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:41.640 lot of time, he's going to take a marriage of it. 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:44.640 So basically, he's making the point that an umpire, A 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:47.040 big part of what a tennis umpire does is they 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.399 tell the crowd to shut up. And what he's insinuating 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:54.000 here is the crowd wouldn't listen because the umpire was 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.280 a woman, thoughts, and he lost. To be clear, he 0:02:57.360 --> 0:02:58.160 lost this patch. 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.239 He lost, and he lost to a seventeen year old, 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:07.240 and I think his ego was probably just a little 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.680 bit bruised. My favorite thing about this story is that 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.120 he got fined so much money he. 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.760 Did, even though he went to notesap and apologized on Instagram. 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.359 Yeah, got fined like half his earnings from the tournament. 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.880 But I saw a really good clip of Andy Roddick 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.399 talking about this, and I just I love when it's 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:31.480 men who come to the defense of a female umpire, 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.000 And he just said, he was like, mate, focus less 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.200 on the gender of the umpire and focus more on 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:39.880 the fact that you couldn't beat a kid. 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:43.800 Do you want it? Scot Form on this? Doesn't he 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.000 in a good way? Hasn't he also spoken out in 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.400 the past about making sure that women get the same 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:49.560 prize money as men. 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:51.960 Yeah, and I think it is part of a I 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:53.960 like that they've taken it seriously because it is a 0:03:53.960 --> 0:04:01.560 bigger conversation in tennis that there is not necessarily parody 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.360 between men and women or there I think there is parody, 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.440 but there's some controversy about that. There people who say 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.960 that there shouldn't be and there are such a small 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.320 number of female umpires at this level, and then to 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:20.160 have them kind of stigmatized in this way. I'm really 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:21.560 really glad they took it seriously. 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.520 Okay, but here's a tiny devil's advocate here, right What 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:27.919 if what his point that he's making, which is that 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:31.400 the crowd isn't listening to her, isn't that on the like, 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.720 doesn't that tell you a truth? About the crowd because 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:34.599 maybe it's true. 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:38.080 I went through the comment section on one of the 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.720 articles about this, and everyone was like, you just have 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:45.520 to think about that teacher you had in like year six, 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.039 who could command the whole frickin' room. I'm sorry, but 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.680 people listen to women, and people listen to women with authority. 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:57.000 I just don't believe that that was the case. In 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.599 a few weeks, I am going to enter a brand 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.480 new clas and a recent online controversy is making me 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:07.880 feel very, very weird about it. Once this baby is born, 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.640 I believe a lovely midwife will fill out some paperwork, 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.480 give me a badge, and officially christen me a boy mom. 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.719 Boy mom, boy mom. I don't I do not consent. 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:24.279 That's what they say when you have a boy mom. 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:28.080 Somehow, the Internet has told me this is fundamentally different 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:30.720 to being a girl mom, even though I believe that 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.160 gender is mostly a social construct, and I don't really 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.360 understand why I would feel any differently towards this little 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.200 boy than I do towards my little girl. Apparently, the 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:43.440 simple fact that during conception, it was a y chromosome 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.839 that fertilized one of my eggs I am now going 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.040 to be a boy mom. I'm a fundamentally different kind 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:51.880 of person. Holly, you're a boy mom. Familia, you're a 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:52.320 boy mom. 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:52.719 I am. 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.600 And so is a woman named Jenny Molin. She is 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.320 an actress. She was in the TV show Angel And 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.800 she was also brief flee in Girls And she's a 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:07.960 writer and the ex wife of actor Jason Biggs. She's 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:11.080 also a mum to two boys. That is obviously the 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:12.320 overarching identity. 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:14.960 Yes, boy mo. I reckon too that there would be 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.440 some boy moms who would be policing the identity of 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:20.760 boy mom and say, maybe you have to have only. 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:22.240 Boys, yeah, to be a boy mum. 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:26.440 That's true, but you know whatever, I actually know that's 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.320 very true. But I think we all are like half 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:33.960 boy moms. This week, she has made headlines for sharing 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.320 a photo of herself lying on top of her twelve 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.359 year old son in bed, and the original caption was 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.000 your eldest son will be the most toxic guy you 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:46.680 ever date. She yes, so she ended up removing that caption. 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.800 I don't mind the picture, but the caption is troubling me. 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:50.560 Yeah. 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:55.599 So comments called the post creepy, wildly inappropriate, disturbing. The 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:59.560 photo itself again was not that controversial. 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:02.400 I do have although there are issues with this, which 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:04.479 we'll get to. I do have an issue with people 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:08.240 policing parental affection on the internet. It's like, if you 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:10.640 see David Beckham kissing his daughter. 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:10.920 It's eh. 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:13.920 And if you see a boy posing with his mum 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.559 in a bikini, it's ooh. It's like, you're making it weird. 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:18.840 Guys, you're making it weird. 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.400 All families are different in terms of their physical affection. 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.560 She did put it on the grid. It's an odd moment. 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:26.320 I should put it on the grid. 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.560 Made also made odder by the camps. 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.800 But it seems that the photo then reminded people of 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:36.960 a substack post she had published a few weeks ago 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:40.240 in early May, and it was called please Stay, I 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.000 want you, I need you, Oh God. And apparently that 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:43.840 is a Benson bit. 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:47.040 Yeah, I want you, I need you, Oh God. 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:47.440 Yeah. 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:49.080 They so. 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:52.560 I don't understand Holly and her pop music being up 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:56.520 to date with everything anyway, that's another conversation. But it 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:58.880 was about her twelve year old son. And here are 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:03.400 some quotes from that post. It opens with call me 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:06.200 old fashioned, but I only want my sons to marry 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:09.880 women with dead mothers, so it's my only shot at 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:13.440 staying relevant, of seeming useful, and of winning by comparison. 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:15.960 Please tell me she's joke, she says. 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:18.559 Several months ago, my eldest was texting with a girl. 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.120 She was twelve, but I could already tell my brand 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.000 of toxic. She was bossing him around and using big words, 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.040 and he was utterly spun. I complained to Jason, her 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.240 husband at the time, that I wanted to intervene before 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.680 he got hurt, and that she wasn't even hotter than me. 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:37.840 Please start joking, but Jason insisted I let him make 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:45.000 his own mistakes. Then she writes about how the abandonment 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:48.840 we eventually endure as boy Morm's is uniquely cruel because 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:52.640 it begins as worship. They arrive obsessed, dependent, adoring. They 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.800 think we're magic. We think we're magic. We spend years 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.600 being the center of their emotional world, only to slowly 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:00.719 watch them build one without us. 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:02.120 That's true of all children. 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:06.840 Yes, it's actually kind of like a human race, evolutionary 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:11.680 thing that we have helpless babies, yeah, who then become 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:13.800 less helpless as time goes on. 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:17.920 Yes, not so much about needing them to then be 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:22.600 with somebody with a dead mother. But the final couple 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.679 of lines of her substract were I'm still in it, 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.480 but also somehow outside of it, fully aware I'm living 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:30.880 through the longest goodbye of my life. I pray that 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:32.560 at least one of them is gay. 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:33.520 That's referring to it. 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:36.520 I worry that there's some part of her here that 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:39.120 is not joking. And the line that sort of gave 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.080 it away for me is when she writes, I've never 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.200 been broken up with yeah, which, first of all, lady, 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:47.680 you have never lived. Being broken up with is the 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.800 greatest experience. I recommend it to everyone. She goes on 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.400 to it, I've never been into someone who wasn't just 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:57.800 slightly more into me, which is a really annoying sing. 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.680 But now karma going to make me pay in spades, 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:03.640 more likely in the form of some crazy bit. She 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:06.800 was going to weaponize my flaws in therapy and melt 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.720 or my jewelry. I have a little bit of a 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:11.960 theory as to why she's sort of. 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:14.640 That's a rich text me working through some. 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:17.800 Boy mom feelings on the internet at this particular time, 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:20.200 and I think a lot of this has to do 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.200 with her divorce from Jason Biggs. Now that name might 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.200 be familiar. He was in American Pie. He was the 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:29.640 kid in American Pie who put his penis in a 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:31.240 pie or something. Yeah, what happened. 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:32.400 I feel like he did a lot of things. 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.520 But that divorce was confirmed to People magazine only two 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.760 weeks ago, so clearly, I think this is a situation 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.960 where a couple is working through some complicated relationship dynamics, 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.600 triangulating those If you'll allow me to esk to parrel 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:54.280 this situation through the suns, they have a weird dynamic. 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.080 I looked back in twenty nineteen. Yeah, I went into 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:01.280 Jason Biggs Instagram from twenty nineteen. There is an Instagram 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.679 post where Jenny is embracing their son in happier times. 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:06.640 They're on a holiday. They've go to Germany every year 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:10.240 on holiday. The caption on this was there used to 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:12.640 be a time when my wife wanted to ca noodle 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.760 with me on a mountaintop. And at that point, I 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:18.200 think the two of you are feeding off each other 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:20.400 with this, because I get that that's a joke. I 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.080 get that it's all said tongue in cheek. But when 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.440 you are making jokes that are premised on the idea 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:30.720 that your son has replaced you romantically in some way, 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.840 that's just there's a kernel there if that's how he 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:35.240 views their son. 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:40.160 Yes, and but I think that's true. There's clearly a 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.080 lot of stuff going on here, and I you know, 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:44.439 we're getting to it later in the conversation with today, 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:46.280 we're going to be talking about women getting attacked for 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:48.360 telling their stories and like she's allowed to write what 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.000 she wants and think what she wants. But you're right 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.920 that there's a specific dynamic going on. But this is 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:56.200 much broader than that, the boy mom thing and the 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.200 whole like I don't want them to get married, I 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:00.440 don't want them to leave me. I don't like and 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:02.400 the you know you can get a bumper stickers like 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.240 daughters are for life and you know sons will break, 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.360 like all that stuff. It's not specific to these two people. 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:10.840 This is a much bigger thing, and I find it 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:14.679 really interesting now. Mia wrote about this a few years ago. 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.040 She one of the most viral things she's ever written, 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.080 and we've talked about it on the show several times since. 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.040 Was about how watching your son growing up will be 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.200 like the longest breakup of your life. And that hit 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:28.200 a lot of nerves with people in a good way, 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.040 resonated with them, and got shared enormously well. It also 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.200 got a little bit of criticism from corners, which was 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:38.120 a misunderstanding of what Mia meant. But also I think 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.840 it's a trap for girls because we talk about boys 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:45.040 and girls so differently in this way where we say 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:47.840 he's gonna grow up and leave me one day, he's 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:49.440 going to live his own life and he's not going 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:51.760 to be around to satisfy all my nurturing needs all 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.559 the time. She on the other hand, he's going to 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:59.120 stay close, never leave, never leave, fulfill all my needs, 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:03.040 look after me. When I it's like, guys, haven't we 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:03.760 moved past this? 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:03.840 This? 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.760 That might be what happens, but it also might not 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:11.000 be what happens. Like this very stereotypical sort of jail 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.800 we put girls in, which is that they are emotionally 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.480 responsible for everyone around them all the time, and men 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.440 are expected to go off and be emotionally responsible for 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:22.880 other people. Can't we kind of move on. 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:24.120 From that this? 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:29.080 I remember seeing the criticism to MEA's article at the 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:31.720 time and it was a very small proportion of people 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:35.160 who read the article. There were so many who it 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.320 resonated with and they shared it and there were lots 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:43.320 of tears, But basically part of me was there. She wrote, 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:45.880 there are so many batshit crazy things about being a parent, 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:48.600 and one that definitely wasn't in the brochure is the 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:52.000 way you don't actually parent one person, You parent many, 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.400 many different people who are all your child. And that 0:13:56.840 --> 0:14:02.000 idea is something that now having experience parenthood, I am 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.840 so aware of and thought that she stated so so 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.520 so eloquently, and the fact that I mean, I've got 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.000 a toddler and I'm seeing the distance that she's having 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:15.240 experiences without me, and she's becoming a person where I'm 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:16.880 not the only influence in her life. 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:21.480 That's a very complicated thing that only continues to be complicated. 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:27.040 Yes, but what I struggle with is there is a 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.760 kernel of truth in this in that if I look 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.280 at my life, and if you look at all the research, 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:40.920 it is daughters who end up caring for parents as 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.840 they age. It is daughters who do a lot of that, 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.040 the mental load of maintaining the family not always, and 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:53.600 men do less of it. So I think women's anxiety 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:59.320 about it or mother's anxiety about it is somewhat valid. 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:05.280 But the line between a sexual romantic relationship and a 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:09.240 maternal relationship, I just don't see why that's being blursh. 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:10.200 It's very confused. 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.880 I find a bit very I know these things are true, 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:15.840 but then I will always question how much of it 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:17.920 is true, because it's just what we keep telling everybody 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.320 all the time. Because women's lives have changed enormously. Their 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.680 social mobility is different, their professional arcs are different, A 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.120 whole lot of things are changing very quickly for women. 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.720 And so if we just keep insisting though that these 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.400 are truths, these are unquestionable truths, that your son will 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.200 be swallowed up by some other woman. And it's this 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:39.920 idea that I find strange, that men can be taken 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.960 and stolen and they belong to you like none of 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:47.000 our children actually belong to us, And that is one 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.640 of the most enormous realizations you go through as they 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:54.320 grow up. And so I just I wonder is that 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:56.560 if we keep saying these things over and over again, 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.960 we just continue to reinforce them. Right, girls can all 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.800 so move off and move into the other worlds. Some 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.440 men stay close. Some men run away from their overbearing 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:10.800 mothers because they daughters do the same. 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.960 They keep writing weird shit on the internet. As moms 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:19.680 who have a boy and a girl each, is there 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:21.680 something different about having a boy? 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:26.800 No? I find okay, so mystifying okay, and I'm I 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:30.440 want to ask you why you think the boy moms 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:34.320 who have the bumper stickers, why do they want to 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:35.680 tell us that they're a boy mom? 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.800 Okay. I actually have a theory about this, and I've 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.080 experienced it a little bit with this pregnancy. There are 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:46.400 people where when you say, oh, I'm having a boy, 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:51.200 they say, are you disappointed? And I think that I 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:55.520 find that up setting, like. 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.480 Like, are there really people who say that, yeah, because 0:16:58.560 --> 0:16:59.800 boys are hard at work. 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:05.520 I've thought about it a lot and I find it 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:06.760 really really distressing. 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.520 And in fact, there was a study done at the 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.040 start of this year that said, for the first time, 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.280 this is an Australian study, for the first time, parents 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.360 expressed a preference more for having a girl than having 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:21.320 a boy. So there really is a bit of a 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:25.120 sort of sense now that boys are hard work, trouble. 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:27.640 They're all going to grow up to be like adolescents 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.840 the TV show and that you just rather have a nice, 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:31.800 well behaved go. Yeah. 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:33.640 But there's a flip side to that, which is, as 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.080 soon as you have a girl who enters puberty, everyone 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:38.480 will go, oh, you've got trouble. 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:42.199 So you don't get that for boys entering puberty. It's 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:42.480 a girl. 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.680 It's different. So the stereotypes tend to be that little 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:47.480 boys are a handful, So you'll hear a lot of 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:51.280 boy moms and this is entirely valid. Again from my experience, 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.840 it's not necessarily that blanket true because I have a son, 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:56.760 for example, who doesn't like sport and a daughter who's 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:58.960 crazy about it. So you know, the world moves in 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:03.880 mysterious ways. But to generalize broadly, the stereotypes are as 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:05.719 a boy mum when the kid is little, they'll never 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:07.399 sit still, they'll be running around, You'll have a lot 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:09.000 of balls in your house. It'll be you know, you'll 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:11.359 constantly be apologizing to people because they've smashed a window 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:14.639 or whatever. And there's definitely truth in that. Whereas girls 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.080 sit nicely in color at the playdates, and you'll hear 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.600 a lot of moms talk about that in a very 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:22.240 real way, and it's true. Then when they get towards 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:25.560 like teenage years, you'll get they're like, oh, but girls, 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:27.600 there's so much trouble. I hope you've got a shotgun. 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:28.920 I hope she's not going to wear that. I hope 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:31.800 she's not going to go there. Like, so, you can't 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:36.440 win in these gender stereotypes. My experience, my personal experience, 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:38.560 has been that those stereotypes have not played out to 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:42.840 be true. My personal experience in my family and my 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:45.199 in law's family as not that it's turned out to 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.119 be true that it's the women who do all the caring. 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.520 My mother in law lived with her son right up 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.159 to her death, and her daughter has never lived anywhere. 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.000 Like you know, I think that all of these things 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:57.680 that you know, and I've moved to the other side 0:18:57.680 --> 0:18:59.240 of the world and my brother lives around the corner 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.480 from my parents, Like, I just think we get lazy 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.760 with these stereotypes, even though of course there is truth 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:06.640 to them. 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.400 Yeah, there's a general there's a generalization. But I do 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:14.280 think that the boy moms are trying to reclaim a 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.520 little pat of their own and say that there's basically 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:21.600 something sacred and special about being a boy mum, and 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:23.600 I completely understand that response. 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.280 Yeah, particularly since the tide has turned in terms of 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:28.240 stereotypes and what people want. 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:30.600 Do you think that I know, I keep asking the 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:32.440 same question, but I just have to ask you because 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:34.640 you might know more about her than me. Is sheer 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.080 comedy writer? Is this satire? 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:38.399 Okay? 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:41.960 I have a thing I need to say about satire. 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.400 You can't just write something and then say it satire. 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.880 This happens so often where people are like, it's satirical, 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.359 and it's like, I want you to define satire and 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.360 then tell me how the thing that you wrote actually 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.359 fit that, because I don't think that people saying it 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:05.080 satire actually understand what satire is. Is she Is she 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:11.520 seeing a little instinct that she has and exaggerating it. Maybe, 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:12.840 but it's not. 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.359 It's not making a clever comment, no point, And in 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.040 the context of the divorce. It has to be seen 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.600 in that context. Yeah, that this is the way people 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:26.560 communicate when communication between them has broken down. This is 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.960 all about what's going on between her and Jason out 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:33.040 ladders in a moment. Is a whole generation using the 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:37.840