Speaker 1: Welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast where we bring
Speaker 1: you the news and the trends and the culture and
Speaker 1: what parents are thinking about. I'm Monique BOWLEI, I'm Amelia Lester,
Speaker 1: and i am Stacy Higgs. And today big news. We
Speaker 1: are on video on Apple Podcasts. If you want to
Speaker 1: watch our glorious faces you can. Who has time? Not me,
Speaker 1: but it's what the people want.
Speaker 2: You look so chic. Is that a video inspired new
Speaker 2: look for you? Yes, it is. Thank you for noticing you,
Speaker 2: age fashion editor, I'm into it. You do very gener lions.
Speaker 1: Actually, coming up on today's show, what have we got?
Speaker 1: Oh wait, did we say who we are?
Speaker 2: We did? Didn't we?
Speaker 1: Okay, you were just too excited. You were too distracted
Speaker 1: by the factor.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at our own face.
Speaker 1: Yes. So coming up today, apparently you need to perform
Speaker 1: seven specific acts to be considered a supreme adult.
Speaker 3: And we have the list, and look, we're finally going there.
Speaker 3: We need to talk about YouTube.
Speaker 1: And there's a new parenting rule out this week straight
Speaker 1: out of the New York Times. What if being a
Speaker 1: good parent is giving less shits?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And Amelia has this lunch box theory and it's just
Speaker 1: the perfect way to describe modern parenting.
Speaker 2: So we'll get to that too.
Speaker 4: But first we need to talk about the fact that
Speaker 4: the Parenting Out Louders did some boots on the ground
Speaker 4: journalism for.
Speaker 2: Us last week.
Speaker 1: So we obviously spoke about the Jessica hack, where all
Speaker 1: the parents are going around and just yelling the name
Speaker 1: Jessica when their children are mid meltdown. And so the
Speaker 1: Parenting Out Louders delivered they tried it and they say, yes,
Speaker 1: it works as well. And my favorite one is from
Speaker 1: our listener Amy Lee, and so she said she tried
Speaker 1: it and it went wrong, kind of went right, worked,
Speaker 1: but then went wrong. So she said it certainly worked,
Speaker 1: although perhaps not in the way I meant it to.
Speaker 1: My five year old became really confused, and then after
Speaker 1: thirty seconds of me calling Jessica, come here please, she
Speaker 1: proceeded to look at me with terror and screamed ghost,
Speaker 1: to which I had to calm her down from that,
Speaker 1: and she spent the rest of the night by my side.
Speaker 1: So be warned if you're doing the Jessica hack, they
Speaker 1: may think there's an intruder. Look.
Speaker 3: I don't know what this says about me, but I
Speaker 3: did the Jessica hack to my child in front of
Speaker 3: my husband, and he just looked at me like he
Speaker 3: looks at me most of the time, which is a
Speaker 3: look of like vague mystification and confusion, but choosing not
Speaker 3: to inquire as to what the hell I was doing,
Speaker 3: as to who Jessica was and if.
Speaker 4: She was a visitor in your house. Like even the
Speaker 4: celebrities are getting in on it now, right mod.
Speaker 2: Yes, So Jessica Biale.
Speaker 1: This week, celebrity Jessica Bill had this take on TikTok
Speaker 1: because this thing has blown up. It's been ubiquitous all
Speaker 1: over my feed, this Jessica three. So she basically came
Speaker 1: out on behalf of all Jessica's and said, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled to be of service, but can we please
Speaker 1: not traumatize an entire generation to fearing Jessica's.
Speaker 2: Have a listen to what she said, guys.
Speaker 5: I'm not totally sure I feel about this like Jessica
Speaker 5: trend with moms and toddlers and now dogs apparently it's
Speaker 5: working for which is.
Speaker 2: Kind of amazing.
Speaker 5: I'm going to try it on my dogs because I
Speaker 5: feel like half these kids in these videos look petrified.
Speaker 5: I really love that if I can come into your
Speaker 5: household with my name that I share with so many
Speaker 5: other incredible Jessica's around the world, I'm sure and help
Speaker 5: you with your kids tantrum.
Speaker 2: But I sort of feel like these kids are terrified.
Speaker 5: They look terrified and hopeful that Jessica is not going
Speaker 5: to show up. Part of me says wants to say,
Speaker 5: You're welcome, Glad I can be helpful, Glad we all
Speaker 5: of us Jessica's can be helpful.
Speaker 2: And also, please, please, please.
Speaker 5: Don't make your dallar terrified of people named Jessica, because
Speaker 5: we're good people.
Speaker 2: We're nice people.
Speaker 5: We want to help you with the tantrum, but we
Speaker 5: don't want to scare the shit out of your kid.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's already too light because there was
Speaker 1: a story a couple of months ago we run it
Speaker 1: on Mom and Mayor as well about how Jessica is
Speaker 1: the millennial equivalent of a Karen, Like it's that nice,
Speaker 1: this is Jessica if you're a Jessica. So yeah, Jessica's
Speaker 1: are having a pr problem this week.
Speaker 3: And also, Jessica Biale has always been parenting and Jason
Speaker 3: before she had kids, One of my Roman empires is
Speaker 3: that she opened a kids restaurant in the West Village
Speaker 3: of New York called Oh Fudge, but the O was
Speaker 3: spelt au like it was French. Oh Fudge. But she
Speaker 3: did this again before she had children. What would possess
Speaker 3: anyone to open a restaurant for kids before they had children.
Speaker 2: That's cool? Is it still there?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: It was terrible, terrible failure.
Speaker 4: I mean probably on account of the fact you had
Speaker 4: no idea what kids would want from a restaurant. And
Speaker 4: the other thing I noticed in the reviews mods that
Speaker 4: we spoke about in our meeting, and then we said,
Speaker 4: we have to talk about this on the show.
Speaker 2: Do not go any further. We need to bring this
Speaker 2: to the listeners.
Speaker 4: Is that one of the listeners, Alex, and the viewers
Speaker 4: and the viewers and the viewers sorry, sorry, all welcome.
Speaker 4: She was saying she loves the show, and then said,
Speaker 4: side note, I love Monza's Adelaide accent.
Speaker 1: It's a thing, and you told us, I'm surprised it's
Speaker 1: taken so long to come up.
Speaker 2: Actually tell us what it is.
Speaker 4: It's because we're not hearing it. We're not hearing it
Speaker 4: from you. We just hear you as you.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1: I think Adelaide people say things like graph and dance
Speaker 1: instead of so graph instead of graph, dance instead of dance.
Speaker 1: But the big thing that we do is we don't
Speaker 1: say our els like I can't even say l like that.
Speaker 1: For example, how do you say how do.
Speaker 2: You say people? People? People?
Speaker 1: So you say people people with the people, but Adelaid
Speaker 1: people will say people. So there is actually a test
Speaker 1: sentence that will immediately out you as an Adelaide person.
Speaker 1: And I want you to both read this out loud
Speaker 1: of put it in your scripts. Okay, okay, well it's
Speaker 1: the sentence is there for you? Cage Amelia, you go first.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: People from Adelaide pull the foil off the vegetable oil
Speaker 3: bottle at Aldi.
Speaker 1: Okay, people from Adelaide pull the foil off the vegetable
Speaker 1: oil bottle from Aldi.
Speaker 2: How are you going to do this?
Speaker 1: Adelaide people would say that as people from Adelaide pull
Speaker 1: the foil off the vegetable oil bottle.
Speaker 2: I got it, I got it. I can hear it now,
Speaker 2: I can hear it. There's no ls.
Speaker 3: So when you lived in Melbourne for many years, did
Speaker 3: you find yourself because I asked this because moving between
Speaker 3: Australia and America, I have to deal with ours. That's
Speaker 3: my problematic thing because Americans pronounce ours and Australians by
Speaker 3: and large don't. So I'm always like code switching as
Speaker 3: it were when you lived in Melbourne, were you having
Speaker 3: to code switch by inserting l's where you really didn't
Speaker 3: want to insert them?
Speaker 1: My Adelaide accent is too strong. I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: But the thing about the Melbourne accent is they say
Speaker 1: they don't say ease, they say a's, they don't The
Speaker 1: name Ellie becomes Ali, yes, Melbourne becomes Melbourne yes, and.
Speaker 2: We say always instead of always.
Speaker 4: I'm not I'm butchering, but they do say yeah, I
Speaker 4: always do that.
Speaker 2: It's actually beautiful, It's actually so much nice.
Speaker 3: But Sydney is a default accent. Yeah, I'm hearing here
Speaker 3: people in sitting pronounced all letters.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: The sentence that would out you as a Melbournian would
Speaker 1: be Ali goes to the deli for salary.
Speaker 2: Although that sounded a little valley girl. Yeah, yeah, American. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you live and learn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm noticing that something is happening on Netflix lately.
Speaker 1: You guys have probably got it too.
Speaker 4: Suddenly I'm getting served even on my adult profile, not
Speaker 4: even on the kids profile. Shows like Danny Go, which
Speaker 4: is like a really big YouTube series. And we kind
Speaker 4: of saw this start with like Miss Rachel when Miss
Speaker 4: Rachel moved across from YouTube to Netflix.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I did notice this, Stacy, I noticed Blippy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he has moved from well to Netflix now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they're like starting to come across. And the
Speaker 4: one that was a bit of a tipping point for
Speaker 4: me is Salish and Jordan matter.
Speaker 2: Have you seen that?
Speaker 4: They're like huge ahead of them YouTuber's huge and I
Speaker 4: hadn't either until earlier this year because she's sixteen years old.
Speaker 4: Salish she launched a line of beauty products into Sephora,
Speaker 4: and there was like a mob of people like this girl.
Speaker 2: Her dad's profile is thirty.
Speaker 4: Five million subscribers on it and she's been on that
Speaker 4: since she was ten years old.
Speaker 2: She's sixteen now.
Speaker 3: And we started talking about this the other day in
Speaker 3: somewhat alarmed tones.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: For a lot of parents, YouTube on the hierarchy of
Speaker 3: entertainment for kids, YouTube is often thought of as below
Speaker 3: your programs that are on regular conventional TV or on
Speaker 3: regular conventional streaming service. Yes, yeah, And I am guilty
Speaker 3: of this. I sort of seen Netflix as a place where, well,
Speaker 3: at least it's professionals making the TV shows their narrative driven,
Speaker 3: they feature characters, they extend concentration spans. And I've sort
Speaker 3: of been very wary of YouTube because I see it
Speaker 3: as a bit of a wild West. So what does
Speaker 3: it mean when everything is becoming YouTube, when there's a
Speaker 3: youtuberification effect across all entertainment, Is this something we should
Speaker 3: be worried about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, YouTube's band in our house. It didn't used to be.
Speaker 1: It used to be sort of like videos of diggers
Speaker 1: and videos of planes, and the kids could watch in
Speaker 1: the lound room. And I never had a problem with it,
Speaker 1: And in fact, I read some study recently that's like
Speaker 1: seventy percent of kids are watching YouTube.
Speaker 2: Oh so innocent.
Speaker 1: But the turning point for me was a day that
Speaker 1: my kids were watching what I thought was Pepper Pig
Speaker 1: in the lound room. Instead of it being the actual
Speaker 1: children's show, it was this weird Frankenstein version with different voices,
Speaker 1: and the content was really disturbing and weird. It was violent,
Speaker 1: it was a little bit sexual in nature and I
Speaker 1: saw this with my own eyes in my lound room
Speaker 1: and I heard it, and from there, YouTube is a
Speaker 1: hard in this house. It was reported that this was
Speaker 1: happening widely. They were doing it with like sort of
Speaker 1: Elsa videos from Frozen, but I never read the reports.
Speaker 1: That didn't work their way into my algorithm, so I
Speaker 1: had no idea. And then there was the Momo Challenge.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember that in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: where there were reports of this really creepy character like
Speaker 1: coming into videos mid video on YouTube and telling kids
Speaker 1: to self harm. So that's why YouTube is a complete
Speaker 1: ban in our house.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of research around how susceptible kids are
Speaker 3: on YouTube to accessing extreme content, Like researchers found that
Speaker 3: it took thirteen clicks, just thirteen on recommended related videos
Speaker 3: to go from legitimate children's content on the BBC to
Speaker 3: children's characters like Pepper Pig or Elsa dying by suicide
Speaker 3: just and when you think about it, for the little kids,
Speaker 3: thirteen clicks is not very many.
Speaker 2: But I feel like.
Speaker 3: We all kind of know that that, like YouTube's a
Speaker 3: little bit lawless in that way. What I wanted to
Speaker 3: really get at today and get your feelings on is
Speaker 3: maybe this is just us being kind of hopelessly millennial
Speaker 3: about the new technology, because surely all through history, older
Speaker 3: people have been anxious about new forms of entertainment. There
Speaker 3: was panic about the wireless, when radio first came out,
Speaker 3: people were very worried about TV, then video games. Then
Speaker 3: in the nineties it was all about lyrics in rap songs.
Speaker 3: And I'm just wondering whether we are scared of you
Speaker 3: to in part because it's confronting to us.
Speaker 2: We don't understand it. We didn't grow up with it. Stacy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean when I was a teenager, I would spend
Speaker 1: during the school holidays, probably eight hours a day doing
Speaker 1: the sims, you know, like I was on a screen
Speaker 1: for hours and hours and hours. And I know that
Speaker 1: that was a big thing for us, was the Internet age.
Speaker 1: That's going to ruin.
Speaker 4: And then it kind of was like, that's actually okay,
Speaker 4: I'm out the other side of that, and that's okay.
Speaker 4: And I do wonder with this because you know, we
Speaker 4: can sit here and say YouTube's bad and we should
Speaker 4: never have our kids on YouTube. So many kids, as
Speaker 4: you said, so many kids, the majority of kids are
Speaker 4: using YouTube and a lot of it is legitimately good,
Speaker 4: entertaining or educational content. But is it more the platform
Speaker 4: that's the problem rather than the content, Like it's the
Speaker 4: it's the continuous loop and the continuous scroll that becomes
Speaker 4: the issue.
Speaker 1: I'm going to argue against your good content theory there, Stacy. Basically,
Speaker 1: the entire system that makes kids TV in Australia is broken, right,
Speaker 1: It no longer exists. So there used to be a
Speaker 1: quota of Australian children's content on commercial networks, but then
Speaker 1: it COVID. It was like all bets are off, don't
Speaker 1: worry about it, like, just broadcast whatever you can get,
Speaker 1: and they removed this quota and they have never reinstated it.
Speaker 1: So that sort of regulatory framework, which meant that Australian shows,
Speaker 1: like good quality shows had to be commissioned, and all
Speaker 1: these places that were making shows, like local writers and producers,
Speaker 1: they kind of all lost their jobs. It all disappeared
Speaker 1: because that sort of content production stopped because there was
Speaker 1: no one at the top saying this has to be made.
Speaker 1: And the other problem is like global streamers don't always
Speaker 1: want to commission Australian content.
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that, and we should say that just
Speaker 3: as the democratization of all media has led to the
Speaker 3: amplification of marginalized voices and people who otherwise wouldn't have
Speaker 3: seen themselves represented in mainstream media, there are good sides
Speaker 3: to the lowering of the barrier for people to become
Speaker 3: content creators on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: This was an interesting study that I read about done
Speaker 3: in the UK which looked at all the social media
Speaker 3: platforms and their effects on kids, and interestingly, YouTube was
Speaker 3: the only social media platform that was reported to have
Speaker 3: positive benefits for young users, which I thought was interesting.
Speaker 3: This was a study that YouTube pushed very heavily last
Speaker 3: year when the social media band came in, because they
Speaker 3: were trying to say we're not a social media platform
Speaker 3: or an entertainment platform. In the end, the government determined
Speaker 3: that they were a social media platform, that they were
Speaker 3: subject to the same law that the other more typical
Speaker 3: social media platforms were privy to. But I guess, stepping
Speaker 3: back from that, what do we do about the fact
Speaker 3: that our kids preferred entertainment platform is also a social
Speaker 3: media platform is also a wild West.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the thing, and that's why it's feeling more
Speaker 4: gray now because even if you go, okay, well, YouTube's
Speaker 4: band in my household, I'm just gonna you know, they
Speaker 4: can watch things on Netflix kids, or they can watch ABC,
Speaker 4: you know whatever it is. Now Netflix is becoming more
Speaker 4: like the platform you were trying to take them away from,
Speaker 4: Like this show with the father and Daughter so Salation
Speaker 4: Jordan Matter. It's stuff like little challenges that they do
Speaker 4: or harmless pranks, but it's like fast paced, quick cut,
Speaker 4: very short episodes, really exaggerated and really over the top.
Speaker 4: And so it's kind of like, you know, we can
Speaker 4: be going, oh, at least the content on their safe,
Speaker 4: but that's becoming more like that as well.
Speaker 2: So yeah, what where do you go? Or is this
Speaker 2: not actually that much of a problem. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I keep going back and forth on it.
Speaker 1: I think I'm sort of grieving the loss of control
Speaker 1: over what kids watched. Like back in the day, it
Speaker 1: was parents selecting it. It was you would get the
Speaker 1: TV guide in the paper and it was okay, play
Speaker 1: school's on at two thirty, Bananas in pajamas on it
Speaker 1: two forty five, and there was somebody in the background
Speaker 1: of that actually programming it for kids. It was choice regular.
Speaker 1: Wasn't it like it's a pattern. It was that you
Speaker 1: got the same thing at the same time. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like this dopamine spike every time you went to something new.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The algorithm was some man in the eighties just called
Speaker 1: nerv probably going yeah this time, or play this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You're not going to like what the experts say about
Speaker 3: how to how to safely allow your kids to watch
Speaker 3: YouTube ones because I think it was you who mentioned
Speaker 3: before the idea of so many parents use the TV.
Speaker 3: They turn it on and then they go and get
Speaker 3: stuff done. They're folding laundry, they're putting dinner on, they're
Speaker 3: packing lunchboxes.
Speaker 2: Yet the experts say that with YouTube.
Speaker 3: You can't just leave it playing like you can maybe
Speaker 3: ABC kids on iView, and they stress that you've just
Speaker 3: got to be talking to them about what they're watching.
Speaker 3: You've got to be monitoring it, and you've got to
Speaker 3: be teaching them critical thinking skills, which just feels like
Speaker 3: another thing to add to the to do list. Alternatively,
Speaker 3: a friend of mine who is a school counselor, gave
Speaker 3: me a brilliant analogy that she ran by her own
Speaker 3: kids at YouTube I want to see whether you think
Speaker 3: this will work, she explained to her kid. Imagine there's
Speaker 3: a grocery store and there's all this fruit and vegetables
Speaker 3: in the front.
Speaker 2: Section of the grocery store.
Speaker 3: That's the front page of YouTube, like a lot of
Speaker 3: good stuff, a lot of educational content, a lot of documentaries.
Speaker 3: There's a room in the back that just has lollies
Speaker 3: and chips in it, just lollies and chips. Would you
Speaker 3: want to go into that room completely by yourself and
Speaker 3: gorge yourself on lollies and chips? And at first they're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: of course they would, But then they think it through
Speaker 3: when they remember how sick they feel after they eat
Speaker 3: too many lollies, and they say, I guess I need
Speaker 3: to monitor that. Then she asked them, what if some
Speaker 3: of those lollies and chips were poisoned, they were poisoned
Speaker 3: to make you feel sick, do you think that you
Speaker 3: should be let into.
Speaker 2: That room completely by yourself.
Speaker 3: Now, of course it's not going to go textbook perfect
Speaker 3: that the kid realizes that they need supervision. But I
Speaker 3: found that to be a somewhat powerful analogy to share
Speaker 3: with kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that works.
Speaker 4: That's the thing is it's like if we need to
Speaker 4: be there monitoring it and teaching them the critical thinking
Speaker 4: like you said, Like I just don't want to. I
Speaker 4: just don't want it, Like I just don't want to
Speaker 4: be anywhere near it to have to have that layer
Speaker 4: on top of it, like TV's meant to be fun
Speaker 4: and storytelling and education like you said, like we want
Speaker 4: it to be that narrative stuff like you're Blue E's
Speaker 4: and they saying it.
Speaker 2: I like that meally.
Speaker 1: I think that like it being junk for is a
Speaker 1: really good analogy, Like maybe it's just sometimes food.
Speaker 3: Just like Stacy's Junkie TV is a sometimes Yeah, we
Speaker 3: all have our guilty question.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He says a meme doing the Rounds this week that
Speaker 1: basically says to become a fully formed adult, you must
Speaker 1: complete the Seven Wonders. And I sent it to you
Speaker 1: straight away and I was like, how many can you get?
Speaker 2: Oh my god. I opened this.
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm clearly going to get all of these,
Speaker 3: and then I was like I don't like this.
Speaker 2: I don't like, I'm not an adult, I'm not the
Speaker 2: exact same.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, yeah, never mind, So I'm going
Speaker 1: to read them and I want you to tell me
Speaker 1: should we go one at a time? Okay, in order
Speaker 1: to become the supreme adult, you must perform the Seven
Speaker 1: Wonders public speaking.
Speaker 2: We're doing that one. So far, so good. Not being
Speaker 2: afraid of teenagers. So afraid of teenagers. Yeah, they scare me.
Speaker 2: Calling the doctor yourself. Not if I have to, I'm not,
Speaker 2: I have to. I don't like it, but I'll do it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: How about taxes? Taxes is my achilles here.
Speaker 3: I don't understand what they are and I don't want
Speaker 3: to think about them. And a little story as to
Speaker 3: how deeply and competent I am when it comes to
Speaker 3: taxes is I used to live in the US, as
Speaker 3: I mentioned, and I had an accountant in New York
Speaker 3: who did my taxes. And I went back to New
Speaker 3: York for the first time last year after many years away,
Speaker 3: and I had all these family and friends to catch
Speaker 3: up with. But do you know who was top of
Speaker 3: my list that I had to go and see was
Speaker 3: my accountant because if he stops responding to my emails,
Speaker 3: I go to jail.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure that's how.
Speaker 4: You were in the best city in the whole world,
Speaker 4: and you were hanging out with your old account with
Speaker 4: my old accountant who has literal gremlin figurines on his
Speaker 4: day bless, bless.
Speaker 1: I actually think you should get double points then for that, Amelia,
Speaker 1: because that is extremely adult, unresponsible.
Speaker 2: Can you do taxes once?
Speaker 1: I know I'd get someone else to do that. I
Speaker 1: pay someone else to do them. I'm still not entirely
Speaker 1: sure what they are. I don't really understand it. Arguing
Speaker 1: without crying absolutely not.
Speaker 2: I resent this list. I think it's wrong.
Speaker 4: I cry every time, and I have to do that thing,
Speaker 4: you know, like Rachel Green and Friends, where.
Speaker 2: You're like, I don't see this as a weakness, so.
Speaker 1: Embarrassing having a normal sleep passion.
Speaker 4: Look, I would if I didn't have a child that
Speaker 4: interrupted it. I think I'm pretty good at it when
Speaker 4: that doesn't get interrupted.
Speaker 2: But you're an elite sleeper. Yeah, pretty good. I'm not bad. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The last one is the one that got me.
Speaker 1: I got all the way through and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm doing good here, But this was my achilles heel.
Speaker 1: Having an answer to the question what do you want
Speaker 1: to do with your life?
Speaker 3: You just said answer? Did you hear that South Australian accent?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: What do I want to do with my life? I
Speaker 3: guess when I was a kid, I didn't know that
Speaker 3: you could just sort of ramble on into a microphone.
Speaker 2: I know. Think we found it. I think we found it. Okay.
Speaker 1: There was also an article from the New York Times
Speaker 1: this week that is blowing up because it could be
Speaker 1: the solution to modern parenting problems. I read it, I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with it, and I was like, guys, we've done it.
Speaker 1: We have solved parenting. The headline was just three words
Speaker 1: parents consider underachieving, written by journalist Rachel Finzig. She says
Speaker 1: that we've cooked ourselves overachieving and we basically need to
Speaker 1: do less. I'll read you a little bit of it.
Speaker 1: I see you parents who have been killing at this
Speaker 1: school year. You were there for the Halloween parade, the
Speaker 1: Valentine's craft session. You made sure your child was dressed
Speaker 1: up for every school spirit day. While I admire your
Speaker 1: continued enthusiasm, I have very little spirit left. I'm asking
Speaker 1: for your support. I am proposing that we all just
Speaker 1: give up together. I'm just so tired and so bad
Speaker 1: at crafts. A dream of the day we can all
Speaker 1: take get down a notch without shame skipping an event here,
Speaker 1: ignoring a made up holiday there. What I need is
Speaker 1: a quorum, Amelia, Stacy, are you in oh?
Speaker 3: I found this so confronting Mond's you sent two confronting
Speaker 3: things that and the adults thing, because I realized reading
Speaker 3: this that I am the problem. It's me, Hi, I'm
Speaker 3: the problem. It's me because I got this while I
Speaker 3: was on a long weekend away with my kids, and
Speaker 3: I actually thought to myself, we would have to come
Speaker 3: home early from this lovely house in the country because
Speaker 3: the children were bored, and I was gripped with fear
Speaker 3: that they didn't have anything to do, and that I
Speaker 3: couldn't take them to activities, and that I couldn't sign
Speaker 3: up for things, and that I couldn't offer them enriching
Speaker 3: cultural activities.
Speaker 2: And I was like, we just have to leave.
Speaker 3: And understandably I was shot down on that idea, but
Speaker 3: it did make me realized that panic made me realize
Speaker 3: how dependent I am on overscheduling and overbooking to prove something.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the question I want to ask, Stacy,
Speaker 3: Why are we like this? Why are we so broken?
Speaker 3: Why do we think that parenting is a competitive sport.
Speaker 4: I have no idea, and I caught myself do something
Speaker 4: even more ridiculous than that.
Speaker 2: Yesterday.
Speaker 4: My husband was making the lunch box for my daughter
Speaker 4: the other day. We kind of actually, I'm gonna say
Speaker 4: we split it. We probably don't. He probably does it.
Speaker 2: More than me.
Speaker 4: But I noticed when he was doing it that he
Speaker 4: put the wrong crackers in, and I was like, they're
Speaker 4: not the one you wrong.
Speaker 2: Like, just was like this once she likes better than those,
Speaker 2: like they weren't wrong. And then I looked again and
Speaker 2: I'm like, you put a banana.
Speaker 4: But I spoke to her last night and she said
Speaker 4: she wanted watermelon, so I'm like, I wanted to fix it.
Speaker 4: It was ridiculous. I looked at myself. I caught myself
Speaker 4: doing it, and I was like, what are you doing.
Speaker 4: He's done a great job. This can just be left alone.
Speaker 3: I don't even know if our parents even asked us
Speaker 3: what we wanted a lunchbox.
Speaker 1: Therefore, never you guys had a lunchbox. I don't have
Speaker 1: a lunchbox. An apple thrown in a bag.
Speaker 4: And two dollars stuck to the front of a brown
Speaker 4: paper bag.
Speaker 2: Take it, get what you want.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad that you brought that up, because it
Speaker 3: brings me to the lunch box theory.
Speaker 1: Before you get to it, Can I confess my sin
Speaker 1: as well? Yes, I feel that space.
Speaker 2: What about you? I'm the problem too.
Speaker 1: I might have talked about this before on the show,
Speaker 1: but the book week, I'm that mum. I'm that mum
Speaker 1: that goes too hard. And I made an enormous crocodile,
Speaker 1: a roll dull, enormous crocodile. I spent weeks on it,
Speaker 1: and the morning of I mean, obviously the crocodile is
Speaker 1: the best costume to school.
Speaker 2: Make it. I'm that asshole it was.
Speaker 1: I went to spotlight a sewed I got the sewing
Speaker 1: machine out. I made a giant crocodile towel. I made
Speaker 1: a huge cardboard head that I attached to a helmet.
Speaker 1: I know, I hate myself. I hate myself this arm
Speaker 1: and we needs it?
Speaker 2: Does I know? Do you know what awareness is?
Speaker 1: The first step eight is acknowledging our flaws. It's the
Speaker 1: first step.
Speaker 2: Here we are.
Speaker 3: Look, if you're listening to this or watching this and
Speaker 3: you're wondering, am I part of the problem. I have
Speaker 3: a very simple test for you or maybe it's more
Speaker 3: of a theory and involves lunchboxes. Stacey, Funny you mentioned it.
Speaker 3: If you are that parent who thinks when you're putting
Speaker 3: fruit in, I can't just put in the whole orange,
Speaker 3: I have to cut it up and peel it and
Speaker 3: put it into beautiful little segments. You, my friend, are
Speaker 3: the problems. If you are that parent who thinks a
Speaker 3: banana is not an adequate snack, because don't you need
Speaker 3: a little bit of protein on the side and maybe
Speaker 3: some fiber and what in the little snack sized collection
Speaker 3: of cookies or crackers also go well with it, you
Speaker 3: are also the problem.
Speaker 1: That's how you know if you make sushi for the
Speaker 1: school lunch.
Speaker 2: You've done that, haven't you. Yeah, you do that every day.
Speaker 2: If you are the North.
Speaker 3: Korea of parenting, I hate to say it, but you've
Speaker 3: got to stop arming.
Speaker 2: Like this arms race has to end.
Speaker 3: And I want to know why dads don't seem to
Speaker 3: be as implicated in this because your story, Stacey, seems
Speaker 3: to suggest, yeah, if they're hungry, they'll eat eat it prevails.
Speaker 1: They seem to rise above and just go I'm working smarter,
Speaker 1: not harder here, I'm not doing it they take the
Speaker 1: emotion out of it. I don't know whether it's that, like,
Speaker 1: obviously we're making a big, sweeping generalization here, but generally, yes,
Speaker 1: it's the mothers in hetero relationship. You are cutting the
Speaker 1: fruit up and making things into little stars or doing
Speaker 1: little sushi.
Speaker 2: And like we're talking about the mums here, it's not
Speaker 2: just the mums.
Speaker 4: Hello to any of the dads that are cutting up
Speaker 4: star shaped rock melon like you are. You are welcome
Speaker 4: and safe here too. Like whoever makes the lunches their
Speaker 4: rules win? Yeah, exactly, baby steps. Can we just stop
Speaker 4: cutting up the orange? Is that where we start with
Speaker 4: all of this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, where we need to start is collecting up
Speaker 1: all the most overachieving mums a lah, miss dinosaur over here.
Speaker 1: And what if you all in a room and going,
Speaker 1: can we all agree we're dropping the bar, because that's
Speaker 1: the thing.
Speaker 4: We can drop the bar. But then the overachieving ones
Speaker 4: won't drop the bar because they enjoy fruit salad. I
Speaker 4: see you, and I know you're out there and you've
Speaker 4: got to stop. But some of them genuinely get joy
Speaker 4: from it. That's the problem. But we need to say
Speaker 4: you're dragging us down.
Speaker 1: What if we just channel mal Robins and say let them,
Speaker 1: because you're right, some moms really love it. They actually
Speaker 1: get a lot of joy out of it. And you
Speaker 1: just go, Okay, that's that's what you want to do.
Speaker 1: Let them, Let them do the fruit salad. And then
Speaker 1: we just find the mums that underachieve.
Speaker 3: And and our kids are going to get a lot
Speaker 3: of fine modus skills and dexterity from peeling the orange.
Speaker 2: That's right, we're putting challenges.
Speaker 3: I'm doing it again. I'm doing it again. I'm being
Speaker 3: a competitive mother. You're just trying to figure out how
Speaker 3: to get my kids ahead. Look, I think, as you say,
Speaker 3: mom's awareness was the first step. But we want to
Speaker 3: hear also from listeners slash viewers. Yes, if they've done
Speaker 3: the launch box test and how they fared, and also
Speaker 3: if you can do your own taxes, Yeah, that's important.
Speaker 2: Then your the favorites.
Speaker 1: I would also like to know if anyone has any
Speaker 1: advice because I'm a people pleaser of when you're faced
Speaker 1: with an overachieving parent, like how do you pore cold
Speaker 1: water on it? Or how do you differentiate yourself? Like
Speaker 1: I always I often think about what Mia Friedman says
Speaker 1: instead of saying I can't do that, she says I don't.
Speaker 1: So maybe it's oh, I don't cut up fruit for
Speaker 1: the lunch box or I don't make sushi for.
Speaker 2: The lunch box.
Speaker 1: Like how do we because I see a lot of
Speaker 1: overachieving mums in my circles, Like how do you repel?
Speaker 2: Or don't you do? You say? Let them?
Speaker 1: Let them?
Speaker 3: I think it's a good question, and probably look that
Speaker 3: question of why women are more susceptible to this, It
Speaker 3: probably goes back to the idea that women are taught
Speaker 3: by the patriarchy that there are limited and finite resources
Speaker 3: and that we're all in competition with each other, when.
Speaker 2: In fact that's not true.
Speaker 3: But that involves a lifetime of deprogramming. I think in
Speaker 3: the meantime we let them.
Speaker 1: Maybe the point we didn't touch on goes to Amelia's
Speaker 1: point is like millennial mums, who we're talking about, we
Speaker 1: are largely talking about millennial mums here were raised when
Speaker 1: we were growing up and we were at UNI, and
Speaker 1: we were told these messages of you can be anything
Speaker 1: and you need to achieve right, those messages aren't the
Speaker 1: same anymore. Gen zs aren't being told you can achieve
Speaker 1: all the time. That's why they have way better work
Speaker 1: life balance. They have way better boundaries around work. It's
Speaker 1: like we've applied the millennial lessons we were taught in
Speaker 1: careers and climbing ladders to parenting and that's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's this always optimized it's this optimization culture. It's
Speaker 1: really prevalent in our generation, but not so much.
Speaker 2: In gen zs.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and it does feel like this constant need
Speaker 1: to control, like you say, like it's the thing of
Speaker 1: the girl Boss era of to go and do this
Speaker 1: and achieve this, and it feels like you put the.
Speaker 4: Same into parenting. But then you realize that's not how
Speaker 4: parenting works. Like you can put in one hundred percent effort,
Speaker 4: you won't necessarily get one hundred percent return.
Speaker 1: The girl bossification of parenting definitely.
Speaker 3: That point, Stacy, parenting is not about maximum maffe.
Speaker 1: No, it doesn't it and it's never the things even
Speaker 1: we spoke about on the show last week, you were
Speaker 1: saying your favorite things with your parents were like slow
Speaker 1: breakfast in the morning, and I said my favorite was
Speaker 1: going to the tip with my dad, Like, yeah, the
Speaker 1: things that aren't the things where they were high effort.
Speaker 1: It's these things that are kind of the little moments
Speaker 1: and yet we fixate.
Speaker 3: Well, actually playing that on the Froage game, I was like,
Speaker 3: I haven't seen this. Teenagers laugh like this, Yeah, long time.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's time for recommendations. This is the part of
Speaker 1: the show where we bring you things that we're loving.
Speaker 2: Sick. We might have been something.
Speaker 1: We watched or bought, and we would just like to
Speaker 1: gift it to you as a fellow parent in the trenches, Dacy,
Speaker 1: what have you got?
Speaker 4: So, after just going on about quality things to watch
Speaker 4: with your child, one of my favorite childhood Disney movies,
Speaker 4: which I feel like is one of those like deep cuts.
Speaker 4: I don't think a lot of people talk about it.
Speaker 4: It's suddenly on Netflix as well, so they're getting some
Speaker 4: good things as well as the YouTube stuff.
Speaker 2: The Swan Princess. So I do watch this. Oh what
Speaker 2: was it? I was obsessed with this.
Speaker 4: And I like, I literally have not thought about this movie,
Speaker 4: seen this movie in twenty years. And I put it
Speaker 4: on with my daughter last night and I was singing
Speaker 4: all the songs like they just came back to me.
Speaker 4: It's basically the premise is so it's Princess Odette. She's
Speaker 4: like kidnapped by this evil man as per you know
Speaker 4: how they all go, and she's cursed to turn into
Speaker 4: a swan. So she's a swan by day and at night,
Speaker 4: if she's on the lake, she can turn back into
Speaker 4: a princess. And the only thing that can save her
Speaker 4: is true love's first kid.
Speaker 3: That's a great premise. You can't find that on yous Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: And her best friends in it are a French frog
Speaker 4: that's actually voiced by John Cleese, which is fine, cool, and.
Speaker 1: A puffin and a turtle. Like it's so random. It's
Speaker 1: the whole thing is so random, but.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: But my favorite thing about her is that when the
Speaker 1: Prince sees her at the start and says you're so beautiful,
Speaker 1: she goes and what else? And when he couldn't say,
Speaker 1: she said, you can prove your love. Then I'm out
Speaker 1: and left, And.
Speaker 2: I was like, yes, that was in formative for you.
Speaker 4: Yes, nineteen ninety four, this came out. This was a
Speaker 4: bit ahead of its time.
Speaker 2: Did you watch this and enjoy it more than your child?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Because it sounds you really she actually really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: But I was like Wow, the animation is terrible.
Speaker 4: Like a you know, I must have thought this was
Speaker 4: groundbreaking at the time, but I'm singing.
Speaker 2: The songs and being like, ha ha, what about that bit?
Speaker 2: She's like, yeah, mom, cool, because.
Speaker 3: The only thing more stressful than making someone watch something
Speaker 3: you love in front of you is being the person
Speaker 3: who is being made to watch the thing next to
Speaker 3: someone who loves it.
Speaker 4: Yes, although the good indication we kind of we had
Speaker 4: to stop at twenty minutes before the end. She had
Speaker 4: to go to bed last night and the first thing
Speaker 4: she said when she woke up is, Mommy, we haven't
Speaker 4: finished this one, princess.
Speaker 2: So I think that's a pretty good review for her. Yeah,
Speaker 2: mine is so.
Speaker 3: I mentioned my weekend away and being very concerned that
Speaker 3: my children didn't have enough to do. But I had
Speaker 3: packed a card game. It's called Taco Goat Cheese Pizza,
Speaker 3: and I'm genuinely curious. Have either of you heard of this?
Speaker 3: I've seen this, Okay, I had no idea how it works.
Speaker 3: It's fifteen dollars it came out. Look, it's essentially glorified.
Speaker 2: Snap.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to pretend it's not. But here's what
Speaker 3: I will say about it. This was an intergenerational trip away.
Speaker 3: I saw and witness with my own eyes two teenagers
Speaker 3: playing it with their father and all three of them
Speaker 3: were laughing their heads off. Oh ages, that's nice. And
Speaker 3: you know teenagers are scary. They don't laugh at very much,
Speaker 3: but they love this game. And it says it's eight plus.
Speaker 3: I think it can be from around four plus with
Speaker 3: some modifications.
Speaker 2: And it's just very heartwarming and wholesome and fun.
Speaker 3: I didn't get I saw it in kmart, so like,
Speaker 3: you can get it everywhere, right, turn into a drinking
Speaker 3: game if you want some sort of adult entertainment. Okay
Speaker 3: for all ages, mons.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to come crashing down to earth now
Speaker 1: and give you my domestic recognition.
Speaker 2: You're a domestic correspondent. That's your baby.
Speaker 1: We love it, Thank you, thank you. This is going
Speaker 1: off in the Mum's Who Clean Facebook group? Do you
Speaker 1: have children who wet the bed or have sometimes accidents
Speaker 1: in their clothes? And you know how when clothes or
Speaker 1: fabric has urine on it, it has like a certain
Speaker 1: funk about it. The product that you need is called bioz.
Speaker 1: It's on the shelf in the supermarket. It's very nondescript,
Speaker 1: but it has an enzyme in it that breaks down urine.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm recommending this, But why did no
Speaker 1: one tell me about this when like they should give
Speaker 1: you a box of it when you leave the hospital
Speaker 1: with your baby.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I think? I think Jessica Beale
Speaker 2: needed this when she opened her restaurant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, biozet the ballpit for sure. If that's a problem
Speaker 1: in your house and you're just using like your whatever
Speaker 1: normal omo NA get on the biot change.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, I've literally never heard of it, so I
Speaker 4: like that rack.
Speaker 1: That's all we have time for this week. I'm parenting
Speaker 1: out loud. I thank thank you for listening, thank you
Speaker 1: for watching along. A really big thank you to the
Speaker 1: team behind this show that gets it out, makes the videos,
Speaker 1: makes the audio, makes it all sound look great.
Speaker 2: We appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, and we'll be back in this
Speaker 1: speed next Saturday morning. Mom and Mere acknowledges the traditional
Speaker 1: owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.