Speaker 1: You're listening to a mother and mea podcast. You were
Speaker 1: so pretty jesty.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: I was just thinking I just looked very, very washed down.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear you complain anymore. Very best.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to say, Mary best to you anytime time.
Speaker 3: Well, I was saying that how many times did she have?
Speaker 3: I think she's got at least three sets? And she
Speaker 3: was all right, So I'm like, mate, I can do it.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to MoMA Mia out loud. It's what
Speaker 2: women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the twelfth of November.
Speaker 2: I'm Holly Wayne Wright, I'm Amelia Lester.
Speaker 3: And I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2: And here's what's made our agenda for today.
Speaker 1: A sixty five year old woman was denied custody of
Speaker 1: her fifteenth child by US court. Now that story is wild,
Speaker 1: and we will bring you all the details about it,
Speaker 1: but it's also provoked a lot of debate around the
Speaker 1: office here about why old moms get so many feelings
Speaker 1: and so much outrage and old dad is just going
Speaker 1: to pass.
Speaker 3: I was late to this record because I cornered me
Speaker 3: out and we just couldn't stop talking about it. I
Speaker 3: have so many thoughts about this story. I'm desperate to
Speaker 3: talk about it.
Speaker 2: Also, what's a grief vampire? And why is an alleged
Speaker 2: one filling theaters around Australia this week?
Speaker 3: And Black Friday creep You may have noticed it. I
Speaker 3: very unsurprisingly have some concerns I would like to table.
Speaker 2: But first, in case you missed it, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: you did, Princess Anne is here and nobody cares even
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 3: You didn't put that in my calendar, I know.
Speaker 2: And the given all the who ha, we have a
Speaker 2: Brown Royal tours. It's amazing that the fourth most popular royal.
Speaker 2: Actually I think she's the third one popular royal.
Speaker 3: It's such a lie.
Speaker 2: She's the third most to the UK Government. They survey
Speaker 2: this stuff.
Speaker 3: I couldn't pick her out of a lineup. I probably
Speaker 3: walked past her on the way to the office. There's
Speaker 3: no way I'd advertize her.
Speaker 2: Our producer's husband did walk past. She just walk pretty
Speaker 2: down anyway. She is the third most popular royal because
Speaker 2: she is well known for being the most hard working. Right,
Speaker 2: so the royal ranking as of now, according to the
Speaker 2: UK Government, goes Catherine William and Charlie. There you go
Speaker 2: just I'm telling you if these are facts facts anyway,
Speaker 2: the fact that we don't know I was all very oh, look,
Speaker 2: we only care about royals when they're young and glamorous
Speaker 2: and dah da da dah. But it's actually a little
Speaker 2: bit by design. She's here at the invitation of the
Speaker 2: Australian Army because they're celebrating the centenary of the Royal
Speaker 2: Australian Corps of Signals and she is their colonel in chief.
Speaker 3: So is it Remembering Stay adjacent, Yes.
Speaker 2: It's Remembering Day adjacent. It's their centenary and that is
Speaker 2: an area of the army that doesn't get as much
Speaker 2: glory as a lot of the others because it's not
Speaker 2: a combat wing. But it's like signalers communications support, so
Speaker 2: not unlike Princess and vital to the operation, but not
Speaker 2: necessarily getting all the heralding anyway. So she's here, she's
Speaker 2: doing a few cities. She apparently brings a tiny entrige,
Speaker 2: so just her husband Tim, who inspects the troops with
Speaker 2: her and stuff, her secretary and like one assistant.
Speaker 1: So she does not bring, as Charles's rumor to a
Speaker 1: mobile martini mixer who travels with her everywhere.
Speaker 2: She's really missed a trick there.
Speaker 3: I think she sources them like a lee.
Speaker 2: Well, we do have good Martini tit, so she keeps
Speaker 2: it on the down low. And also none of the
Speaker 2: royal roader have come, so none of the big royal
Speaker 2: reporters are following Anna around. They've all been in Brazil
Speaker 2: photographing William looking handsome on the Amazon and Rememberance Day
Speaker 2: in England where all the other royals have been on display.
Speaker 2: So I just want it out there that there is
Speaker 2: a royal in our midst. But that brings us to
Speaker 2: the other bit of royal gossip from today, Harry and Mix,
Speaker 2: the Dutchess and Duke of wherever it is they live
Speaker 2: these days. Want Sito went to christ Jenna's seventieth birthday
Speaker 2: party that you wonderful people discussed on Monday. It was
Speaker 2: the most star studied of events.
Speaker 1: The fallout continues, it really does.
Speaker 2: They were photographed with Chris, with Kim, with everyone until
Speaker 2: they were okay.
Speaker 3: Can you explain this to me because I keep seeing
Speaker 3: the headline that photos were deleted? So did Chris and
Speaker 3: Kim actually post photos with Meghan Harry and then remove
Speaker 3: those photos? Why?
Speaker 2: Well, This is what we need to unpack because obviously
Speaker 2: there isn't an official line why but as somebody who
Speaker 2: has been following this party obsessively, because I cannot get
Speaker 2: my head around the fact there was a party that
Speaker 2: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Beyonce, like, it just boggles me.
Speaker 2: I can't get my friends in the same room, like anyway.
Speaker 3: I don't, Yeah, your friends aren't.
Speaker 2: Surely are important anyway. I've been following it. So I
Speaker 2: saw all the pictures, and there's Harry and Meg's with
Speaker 2: various Kardashians just last night with the pictures of just
Speaker 2: Meghan and Kim together smiling for the cameras. Today all gone.
Speaker 2: The reporting is that Harry and Meghan requested them to
Speaker 2: be taken down. What do we think about that?
Speaker 1: So some context. On the same night was the biggest
Speaker 1: celebrity event of the year in Los Angeles outside of
Speaker 1: industry events, which is Baby to Baby's gala. Baby to
Speaker 1: Baby is a charity exclusively populated by a less celebrities,
Speaker 1: and everyone wants to be invited to that gala. It's
Speaker 1: like a really big deal to be invited to that gala.
Speaker 1: And Harry Meghan went to that and I think that
Speaker 1: they just sort of thought of Christianna's party is a
Speaker 1: bit of an after party, a bit of a lark
Speaker 1: to go to after the main event of the evening,
Speaker 1: which was again a big deal for them to be
Speaker 1: invited to. And I just think they thought they were
Speaker 1: going to go under the radar.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure you're right that they did, but what
Speaker 2: a stupid thing to think. Have you met a Cardashian before,
Speaker 2: do you think they're not going.
Speaker 1: To be They're not under the radar people.
Speaker 3: So our theory is that Meghan and Harry have asked
Speaker 3: for them removal.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think that's that's clear. But the question
Speaker 1: is why, why do you think?
Speaker 2: Well, I think they immediately I mean, not that this
Speaker 2: is new, but they immediately got a lot of flak
Speaker 2: for being at that party, even though, as discussed, the
Speaker 2: most powerful people in the world were at that party.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of sneering and this shows how far
Speaker 2: from the royal family they've fallen and stuff. I think
Speaker 2: it's not very on brand for Harry, who's still trying
Speaker 2: to keep a foot in the royal camp, to have
Speaker 2: been at that party. But in my opinion, they look
Speaker 2: like idiots for asking those pictures to be taken down.
Speaker 2: Either don't go, or go and know that you're going
Speaker 2: to be photographed. Yeah, they're a picture of Bill Gates
Speaker 2: and Mark Zuckerberg playing what's the thing you play with
Speaker 2: the discs Roulette? And I'm like, if they can be
Speaker 2: photographed at Christians but you're too precious and important.
Speaker 3: Okay, Because the other theory is that it was Remembrance
Speaker 3: Day weekend and now he was wearing his poppies, and
Speaker 3: he was wearing his poppy, which in an American context
Speaker 3: didn't make sense to a lot of.
Speaker 1: Everyone would have thought of it as just sort of
Speaker 1: a corsage flower. By the way, I love his thought
Speaker 1: process on that. So he and Meg's are getting ready,
Speaker 1: He's like, no, it's really important that I wear the
Speaker 1: poppy for Remembrance Day, which is not marked in the US,
Speaker 1: so no one's going to know what I'm doing, but
Speaker 1: it's really important because is there any better way to
Speaker 1: mark and to commemorate the sacrifice of the fallen. Then
Speaker 1: by going to Chris Jenny.
Speaker 3: I'm going to defend him because all this criticism and
Speaker 3: chatter going look over here at what Kate and William
Speaker 3: are doing. They're at all the really long ceremonies in
Speaker 3: their black looking very somber and doing all the royal things.
Speaker 2: It's a big deal.
Speaker 3: And then it is a stark contrast to then see
Speaker 3: Megan and Harry. But of course the context that a
Speaker 3: lot of that reporting missed was how many events Harry
Speaker 3: did that week that were very much in you know,
Speaker 3: his work with Jesse.
Speaker 1: Come on, I did a lot then, to Chris Jenner's
Speaker 1: party at Jeff bezos Man.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think Jesse. I don't have a problem with
Speaker 2: them going, like they should go to all the celebrity
Speaker 2: parties they want to. My problem is going And again
Speaker 2: I'm with you, let's pretend we didn't go, because that
Speaker 2: might be a bad look. It's like, if you're worried
Speaker 2: about your reputation and remembers to and all the things,
Speaker 2: then don't go, just go home after the baby to
Speaker 2: baby and put your feet up, or you go and
Speaker 2: you embrace the fact that you are at a party.
Speaker 3: Own it that.
Speaker 2: Literally exists for the purposes of being shown off on
Speaker 2: social media. I have seen more pictures of that party
Speaker 2: than I've seen of your wedding.
Speaker 3: Oh, one hundred percent. My favorite hobby now is zooming
Speaker 3: in to see what celebrities I can find in the
Speaker 3: background who didn't make it into the foreground, Like it
Speaker 3: is so star studded, it is so fun just own
Speaker 3: that you went.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw this photo. Did you
Speaker 1: see Justin Bieber coming into the party?
Speaker 3: It was side on, so I didn't know it was
Speaker 3: Justin Bieber saw him down there.
Speaker 1: He is famously underdressed. We've seen many pictures of him
Speaker 1: dressed in basketball shorts next to his impeccably dressed wife,
Speaker 1: Haley Bieber. But on this occasion he did wear a suit.
Speaker 1: It's really unfortunate though, because he must have put the
Speaker 1: suit on and then decided that he really needed to
Speaker 1: bake some sour dough, because he did have a little
Speaker 1: bit of flower on his power white powder. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: sometimes you just got to bake a sour dough, don't you.
Speaker 3: Exactly, Or you've just eaten some and you get a
Speaker 3: little bit of a white mark powder, a flower flower.
Speaker 1: My hero of the party, though, is the cranky neighbor
Speaker 1: who called the cops.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're.
Speaker 1: Out, Like this is what we say when we say
Speaker 1: eat the rich. What we really mean is call the
Speaker 1: cops on the rich People's party. Good on?
Speaker 3: You can we urgently talk about Black Friday creep because
Speaker 3: according to my very thorough research, Black Friday sales officially
Speaker 3: twenty eighth of November, and according to Holly wayIn right
Speaker 3: at the top of Today's show, today is only November.
Speaker 3: That's true, So there are days between now and Black Friday.
Speaker 3: So why is the top email in my inbox about
Speaker 3: Black Friday sales?
Speaker 2: They're kicking off in Australia on November the eighteenth, That's
Speaker 2: what I've been told, Like it might be the twenty eighth,
Speaker 2: but I think it starts on the eighteenth. But then
Speaker 2: it's already started.
Speaker 3: On some sites I don't know, they've already kicked off.
Speaker 3: And we are also already in the midst of something
Speaker 3: called click Frenzy.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's that.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Sorry, yeah, I don't know what's click friends.
Speaker 3: Click Frenzy started maybe yesterday and it ends at midnight
Speaker 3: on Friday, and it's three full days of just mad
Speaker 3: internet sales. I guess, so click Frenzy is upon us.
Speaker 1: What about Cyber Monday.
Speaker 3: Cyber Monday is first of December.
Speaker 1: And then there's giving Tuesday. Okay, what's Giving Tuesday.
Speaker 2: It's Giving Tuesday. Really Giving.
Speaker 1: Giving Tuesday is the one where you meant to give
Speaker 1: to charity, and weirdly it hasn't taken off like the
Speaker 1: other That's.
Speaker 2: What I've had off Giving Tuesday, which is the worst
Speaker 2: day of the week.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I have a question. I know this originated
Speaker 3: in the US, the whole Black Friday thing. Can you, Amelia,
Speaker 3: can you explain the context because I'm confused as to
Speaker 3: why the end of November is now I'm being in sale.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's really confusing because of the Black Friday.
Speaker 1: The origins of this will make it even more confusing. Basically,
Speaker 1: around the nineteen eighties in the US, Black Friday emerged
Speaker 1: as the biggest shopping day of the year, and there's
Speaker 1: always a particular date that it's on, and that date
Speaker 1: is the day after Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving is the fourth
Speaker 1: Thursday in November. Now, the reason why that's such a
Speaker 1: big deal to hold on to in the context of
Speaker 1: this conversation is because there's a sort of unspoken rule
Speaker 1: in the US that you do not think or talk
Speaker 1: about Christmas until after Thanksgiving. I like that, and so
Speaker 1: as soon as Thanksgivings over, then you start thinking about Christmas.
Speaker 1: Then you hit the sales. But the problem with this
Speaker 1: Black Friday creep is that even in Australia, no one
Speaker 1: is thinking about Christmas yet.
Speaker 2: I have bad news feel on that front, a Melia,
Speaker 2: because every shop I've been into in the past two
Speaker 2: weeks has all their decorations up. My Walley's bag already
Speaker 2: has ballbles on it. There's a massive Christmas tree in
Speaker 2: the middle of Sydney. We've already started Christmas on the record.
Speaker 2: Last year, I got a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: feed back for my grinchy complaints about Christmas starting too early.
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to do that this year, but noted.
Speaker 2: But I feel like that's part of the problem. Because
Speaker 2: we brought Christmas forward to November one, we have to
Speaker 2: bring shopping.
Speaker 1: We have brought it to November the first. And you
Speaker 1: know how, I know that even in the US Mariah Carey,
Speaker 1: whose song All I Want for Christmas Is You is
Speaker 1: one of the most played songs of all time and
Speaker 1: every year she makes something like ten million dollars off
Speaker 1: the royalties of that one song alone. Now people start
Speaker 1: to say that it's all I want for Christmas season,
Speaker 1: and she's been releasing a video the last few years
Speaker 1: declaring that it is the Christmas season, and this year
Speaker 1: the video hit earlier than ever before. It hit on
Speaker 1: November the first, and speaking to the capitalistic times that
Speaker 1: we live in. It was also a tie in with
Speaker 1: Sephora for a sale that they were having, which was
Speaker 1: a pre Black Friday's sale, a.
Speaker 3: Pre click frenzy. This is my question, John, say, click friendly,
Speaker 3: you're buying into the hype? Am I being frenzy? I
Speaker 3: hate the word? Am I being a grinch? Or maybe
Speaker 3: is this a cost of a living story? Like are
Speaker 3: we so pinched? I think finger wagging too much at
Speaker 3: people who go hard at Black Friday sales is really
Speaker 3: annoying because often there is there are some people who
Speaker 3: are so organized, they've got their Christmas lists, they can
Speaker 3: get good deals like go ahead. But is that what
Speaker 3: this season is about? Is that they know that people
Speaker 3: are trying to be more organized and more intentional or
Speaker 3: is it about over consumerism, marketing spin? This is all terrible, Holly,
Speaker 3: what do you think?
Speaker 2: Well, the serious answer is it's about trying to prop
Speaker 2: up flagging retail sales. Right, So if you talk to
Speaker 2: any business owner. They will tell you that in the
Speaker 2: past couple of years, Christmas is quiet. This is the
Speaker 2: time of year that is crazy. So end of November,
Speaker 2: if you're like a jewelry business online, if you're a lady,
Speaker 2: start at whatever. Lee Campbell says this about Brillow Beauty's
Speaker 2: shifted to now crazy crazy crazy. And then actually, the
Speaker 2: few weeks before Christmas are quiet.
Speaker 3: So we sorry, are we doing our Christmas shopping right now?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: I'm not because I'm a deeply disorganized person.
Speaker 1: But Holly, do you think no? Of course not. You
Speaker 1: think that that is because people are buying stuff online
Speaker 1: these days more than in shops, and so they have
Speaker 1: to build in the shipping time.
Speaker 2: Is that why I reckon? That's a large part of it.
Speaker 2: Although I have heard recently the bricks and mortars on
Speaker 2: its way back in a big way. But if you
Speaker 2: imagine that younger generations in particular do most of their
Speaker 2: shopping online, it's like, get them to start thinking about
Speaker 2: that early, to spread it across time. Now, the thing
Speaker 2: that's tricky is so I feel personally attacked by this
Speaker 2: because I have no idea what to buy anyone for Christmas.
Speaker 2: In November. But this behavior is teaching me, it's training
Speaker 2: me and changing my behavior. In research for this segment today,
Speaker 2: I tick something off my Christmas list because any parent
Speaker 2: of teenager will be familiar with the PowerPoint presentation that
Speaker 2: you would get given that says these are the things
Speaker 2: I would like for Christmas. Please. It always comes with
Speaker 2: the caveat of I don't expect to get them all,
Speaker 2: but here are twenty five expensive things I'd like with links.
Speaker 2: And my daughter started making that one and keeps texting
Speaker 2: me the things. And when I was doing my research
Speaker 2: on Black Friday, I was like, oh, those ogs, they
Speaker 2: are thirty percent off.
Speaker 3: Fantastic done.
Speaker 2: So it's training me, it's changing my behavior. What are
Speaker 2: the bad things you're going to say about this? That's
Speaker 2: just made my life better?
Speaker 3: Okay, the bad things will be that a study came
Speaker 3: out in the last few years that said eighty percent
Speaker 3: of what people buy Black Friday sales is going to
Speaker 3: go into after zero or one use is going to
Speaker 3: go into some sort of landfill.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I've been on my goal this year of not buying
Speaker 3: anything new. I must say I have broken that roll
Speaker 3: a few times. Every time I'm in Westfield I just
Speaker 3: know that there's an out louder I'm tutting, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: no fair, I need some shame.
Speaker 2: No, you are pragnant with twigs.
Speaker 3: It's exactly and like it just is hard. But I
Speaker 3: now can't buy things without seeing the beaches of Ghana,
Speaker 3: where like all the kind of western mess and over
Speaker 3: consumption ends up in landfill. Like that just kind of
Speaker 3: makes me sick. But at the same time, I can
Speaker 3: appreciate that for people who were more organized, these kind
Speaker 3: of sales actually are really helpful. How about your man?
Speaker 1: But they also make us feel bad. Like I saw
Speaker 1: an actual example of an Australian brand sending an email
Speaker 1: out this week that said that they were having their
Speaker 1: Black Friday sale two weeks early. It was on a
Speaker 1: particular day this week. It started at seven am and
Speaker 1: it was thirty percent off sightwide from seven to seven
Speaker 1: thirty am.
Speaker 3: Now that is just ridiculous, and that's you know, it
Speaker 3: is encouraging me to rush and make an impulse, urgent decision,
Speaker 3: which is when we waste as well.
Speaker 1: And that's why I guess I hadn't thought about this before,
Speaker 1: but that's probably why your stat that so many of
Speaker 1: these Black Friday purchases end up in landfill. That's why,
Speaker 1: because we're making them under these incredibly stressful conditions. But
Speaker 1: I want to be clear that my issue here is
Speaker 1: not with the people who take advantage of them. These
Speaker 1: people are amazing people. They are better than everyone at
Speaker 1: this table, and it's because they're just more organized than us.
Speaker 1: And it got me thinking about how there really are
Speaker 1: two types of people in this world. There are the
Speaker 1: people who refuse to pay full price for things, and
Speaker 1: there are the people who know no other way. And
Speaker 1: I think I'm very much in that camp as thinking
Speaker 1: that there's all these sorts of hallmarks of how you
Speaker 1: know if you're the person in that first camp, how
Speaker 1: you know that you're a super organized person. And the
Speaker 1: first one that came to mind, and we were talking
Speaker 1: about this before, was this that person always has a
Speaker 1: cupboard in their house full of presents that they had
Speaker 1: just accumulated throughout the year. They're not going on a
Speaker 1: scramble before a birthday party. They've got some lovely candles
Speaker 1: to give us hostesk gifts.
Speaker 3: Yep, they've got some arm oil, they have blank cards,
Speaker 3: they don't have to rush to bully.
Speaker 1: And stamps for them too, because they still send thank
Speaker 1: you cards by mail.
Speaker 2: That is so.
Speaker 1: Here are some other signs, would you like to hear them?
Speaker 1: Some other signs that you're the sort of person who
Speaker 1: uses the Black Friday sales for good. You wash your
Speaker 1: bras regularly and with a bougie detergent on Sundays.
Speaker 3: Yes, and you have one of those special bags, you know,
Speaker 3: those ones that you put fancy lingerie.
Speaker 1: And when was the last time I washed my bra
Speaker 1: don't come too close. You have a shared family notes
Speaker 1: at doc where you list errands and then check them
Speaker 1: off on them, as opposed to waking up in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night realizing that you never signed up
Speaker 1: for that thing that you were meant to sign up for.
Speaker 1: Here's one. You never eat in your car.
Speaker 2: Most of my meals and.
Speaker 3: They're on my steering wheel.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. You are never without your keep cup.
Speaker 1: Now I work with you both. I know that I used.
Speaker 2: To have a keep cup, but I lost the lid.
Speaker 2: And then it's like that, and I bet that this
Speaker 2: person never loses the lid.
Speaker 3: You kept getting shamed because you were handing them a
Speaker 3: dirty It's true.
Speaker 1: I got two more quickly. You own a shoe tree.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: And finally, your toilet rues bag is the kind that
Speaker 1: you hang on a hook over the door and unfolds
Speaker 1: so you see everything in it, as opposed to having
Speaker 1: that freebie that you got a department store in two
Speaker 1: thousand and night.
Speaker 3: That's so true, rather than going to a hotel and
Speaker 3: for some reason everything is on the floor.
Speaker 1: Look, we salute you people who do these things, and
Speaker 1: we wish you the best of like navigating the Black
Speaker 1: Friday sales.
Speaker 3: But the three of us I feel December two, we're
Speaker 3: going to go. It's time to really take advantage of
Speaker 3: those sales and it's going to be like guys, every
Speaker 3: sale they can't.
Speaker 2: Take the festive stress of shopping on December third. Christmas
Speaker 2: is one of my things I've done all my life.
Speaker 2: And the heart rate, the caffeine intake, the swearing, the
Speaker 2: car park range, like you can't take.
Speaker 3: That Christmas and the debt.
Speaker 2: After the break. What's a grief vampire? Is there a
Speaker 2: chance that they're actually doing good? Doesn't sound likely if
Speaker 2: you haven't noticed Princess Ann on tour because Oasis had
Speaker 2: better bucket hats.
Speaker 3: Let's be honest, did you see the headline that Oasis
Speaker 3: stayed at Sam Wood's holiday house. Oh yes, I did
Speaker 3: on the morning simple then I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 2: And he said the recycling bins were full. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I am not surprised.
Speaker 3: Why have I retained that information?
Speaker 2: Bless them? Anyway, if you haven't noticed the Princess ends
Speaker 2: on tour, you might not know that there's also another
Speaker 2: tour going on that's attracting lots of eye rolls and
Speaker 2: big crowds. Probably the world's most famous medium one, John Edward,
Speaker 2: is in Australia at the moment. He's doing thirteen shows
Speaker 2: in most capital cities over the next few weeks, and
Speaker 2: lots of the events have sold out. Now, Jesse, I
Speaker 2: know you have been to a John Edwood show before.
Speaker 2: What happens there? What's it like?
Speaker 3: I went to one in twenty nineteen at the State Theater.
Speaker 3: Why do you go for a work thing?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: We got work passes Claire and I for story and
Speaker 3: we went, this is going to be really interesting, let's
Speaker 3: recap it. So State Theater I think has two thousand seats.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of people there and we were skeptical,
Speaker 3: cynical all of the things, and the first half of
Speaker 3: it proved that cynicism to be fair. So it was like,
Speaker 3: over here, I'm getting a chipped bone? Is there a
Speaker 3: chipped bone? I'm getting the letter in that was just
Speaker 3: you I'm getting. Yeah, it was a prophecy. It was
Speaker 3: a prophecy there a few years early. But and then
Speaker 3: would hone in on someone and almost get a bit irritated, like,
Speaker 3: come on, do you know someone who died after surgery
Speaker 3: or something? And it's like most of us would know
Speaker 3: someone who died after anyway, also chipped bone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a.
Speaker 3: Really weirdly specific thing. And then there was like this
Speaker 3: irritation and we were going, oh, this is feeling a
Speaker 3: bit awkward. And then it was like the seventh month
Speaker 3: or the seventh of a month mean anything to you.
Speaker 3: And then you start going statistically, come on, it's.
Speaker 1: Five days before quick frenzy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly right, exactly. So it got to that and
Speaker 3: Claire and I went, you know, you could fill the
Speaker 3: room getting a bit lost. The second half had me
Speaker 3: utterly convinced. Oh wow, he absolutely He went to this
Speaker 3: really specific woman and said the Vatican. You went to
Speaker 3: the Vatican. Your father said he heard your prayer and
Speaker 3: I was like, come on, how the hell would and
Speaker 3: this woman just burst out to tears and went, I
Speaker 3: said a prayer and then and then he said, and
Speaker 3: his slippers. You found his slippers, and she had found
Speaker 3: his slippers that morning. And then he said, there's an
Speaker 3: Eric who has a wedding ring. You need to get
Speaker 3: that wedding ring back. And Eric hard the ex fiancee,
Speaker 3: still had the wedding ring, like really specific stuff. He
Speaker 3: got to another woman and said, you're putting off a
Speaker 3: doctor's appointment about your lungs. Why are you doing that?
Speaker 3: You need to go. They're going to give you steroids.
Speaker 3: And that was spot on. So look, do I know
Speaker 3: whether there was some way he had plants in the
Speaker 3: auditorium to kind of get some of that information. I don't.
Speaker 3: But what I did know is that that room walked
Speaker 3: away feeling like they had got something. It was incredibly
Speaker 3: entertaining and for the people who came there bearing their grief,
Speaker 3: there was some resolution for them. That's how I felt.
Speaker 2: Well, not everybody is so stoked about Edward's shows. Right
Speaker 2: in the Sydney Morning, Harold on the Weekend Peter Fitzimon's
Speaker 2: interviewed a woman called Susan Gerbick in an article called
Speaker 2: calling out the Grief Vampires. How John Edward and other
Speaker 2: psychic mediums apply their a moral trade. Gerbik is described
Speaker 2: as a leading American skeptic. Right, and she makes it
Speaker 2: her business to go Your mom and me are out
Speaker 2: loud to leading American skeptic. She makes it her business
Speaker 2: to go around like unmasking people that she considers are
Speaker 2: exploiting the grieving, milking their misery for money. She doesn't
Speaker 2: mince her words about how she feels about them. This
Speaker 2: is one of the quotes. They have no conscience, they're sociopaths.
Speaker 2: They just don't care. They're just looking for grief. They
Speaker 2: can capitalize on by doing tricks that convince paying customers.
Speaker 2: They really are talking to the spirit world. So she
Speaker 2: says that she has exposed certain psychics, and not necessarily
Speaker 2: John Edward for legal reasons. Let's get it out there,
Speaker 2: because he's a medium. He can hear me. He knows
Speaker 2: I'm talking about him, not necessarily Edward. But she says
Speaker 2: that she has unmasked mediums and psychics doing these things
Speaker 2: called cold reads and hot reads. Right, and she says
Speaker 2: a cold read is which something that we might expect
Speaker 2: if you were doing like a one on one, she says,
Speaker 2: You assess someone on how they look, how they sound,
Speaker 2: and what they say. You make observations and assumptions about them,
Speaker 2: and then you throw out baked so a bit like
Speaker 2: exactly what you were saying, so like someone beginning with
Speaker 2: them the seventh chipped bone, Yeah, that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: and then you begin to reel the me because in
Speaker 2: the big audience you see who reacts to that, and
Speaker 2: then you go okay, and then you drill in on there,
Speaker 2: and if you know the right questions to ask, you
Speaker 2: can probably draw out a bit of a story, she says.
Speaker 2: That's generally in the business called a cold read. A
Speaker 2: hot read, she says, which happens less often and is
Speaker 2: obviously more deceitful. She says that you and your staff
Speaker 2: would go through the names of people who are coming
Speaker 2: to a certain audience and go and literally research them.
Speaker 1: And also she's spoken in the past about what she
Speaker 1: believes is the practice of these famous mediums, which is
Speaker 1: that they do plant people in the lobby before the
Speaker 1: show or at halftime at the show. And the example
Speaker 1: here would be perhaps the reason why he knew to
Speaker 1: say to that woman she needs to go to the
Speaker 1: doctor for her lungs. Is maybe she was smoking outside
Speaker 1: before the show? Ah, maybe maybe.
Speaker 2: And she says when she's done stings to expose people,
Speaker 2: she's planted stories. So like herself, she's planted stories and
Speaker 2: then see if they can come up through the psychic
Speaker 2: and they have. So she says that that happens a lot.
Speaker 2: One of the things that's interesting about this, of course,
Speaker 2: is that so this article was very much like these
Speaker 2: are the worst people in the world. I mean, I'm exaggerating.
Speaker 3: She used the word sociopath.
Speaker 2: She did, And there's lots of talk of them being exploitative.
Speaker 2: And she also just says to the argument that would
Speaker 2: come back that it was like, does it really matter
Speaker 2: if it's true or not? If it's comforting, she'd say, well,
Speaker 2: this is basically the question, is it okay to lie
Speaker 2: to make money out of people? What do we think
Speaker 2: about this? I know that Amelia, when we did our
Speaker 2: tarot session a while ago, you were the most skeptical
Speaker 2: amongst us about the whole process. It made you quite uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Do you share that feeling with these guys?
Speaker 1: No, you know, I actually wasn't skeptical. I would characterize
Speaker 1: you as skeptical of the process. I was scared of
Speaker 1: the process.
Speaker 2: Right, That's true.
Speaker 1: And what that meant was I don't actually identify myself
Speaker 1: as a skeptic on this stuff because I just don't know.
Speaker 1: But what it does make me feel is scared. And
Speaker 1: the reason is with the terror was because I felt
Speaker 1: like people often describe a terror reading as like seeing
Speaker 1: a therapist, and my response to that is always like, well,
Speaker 1: I'd prefer to see a therapist because I don't want
Speaker 1: people who don't necessarily bring any expertise rifling through my brain,
Speaker 1: planting stuff there that could psych me out, or that
Speaker 1: could send me down a path that may or may
Speaker 1: not have any bearing on what ends up happening. That's
Speaker 1: why I feel scared about it.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about these guys?
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't know a lot about this guy. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: when I was researching John Edward, I discovered that he
Speaker 1: is unusually popular in Australia. You know how there are
Speaker 1: certain celebrities like Pink psych. He's the Pink of the
Speaker 1: psychic world. He comes to Australia more than any other country.
Speaker 1: And I came across this very telling little incident that
Speaker 1: happened on the project when he was here last in June,
Speaker 1: and I want to play it for you because I
Speaker 1: think it reveals a lot about how he works.
Speaker 2: Let's have a less then, are you feeling anything from
Speaker 2: anyone at the desk right now?
Speaker 1: Not at the moment.
Speaker 2: Not at the moment, I mean I could have done that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: as we continue to ask questions things just I'll tell
Speaker 2: you why, Because.
Speaker 1: If I wind up reading for a host of a
Speaker 1: show and I get something that's private and personal, that
Speaker 1: is not this is not taped, it's live, and it's
Speaker 1: not something that somebody wants to discuss publicly. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: going to say no. So I've had that experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah on radio you can't handle the truth.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But it's a little bit convenient, isn't it that
Speaker 1: the one place where he won't do a read is
Speaker 1: on live television with journalists who might push back. Jesse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I totally see your point. And the cold read
Speaker 3: hot read thing I think is really interesting and I
Speaker 3: always think the world needs both. And I really respected
Speaker 3: the position of fit Simon's and the expert who's dedicated
Speaker 3: our life to going can we please have some rigor
Speaker 3: and research involved in this stuff before we hand over
Speaker 3: our money. However, when something offers a balm for someone's grief,
Speaker 3: and if John Edward and he has said this, my
Speaker 3: job is to make people leave feeling better, it's basically
Speaker 3: do no harm. I don't want to do harm for people.
Speaker 3: And in that article they talked about lies. And I
Speaker 3: find the use of the word lie really interesting because
Speaker 3: do I think John Edward believes what he's doing. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I don't know, but I'm not completely convinced
Speaker 3: that he is a fraud star or a con man
Speaker 3: who gets up and intentionally manipulates people. When I've listened
Speaker 3: to interviews with him, I think he believes what he
Speaker 3: is doing. And there are a lot of things in
Speaker 3: some instances, for example, fertility, I know people who claim
Speaker 3: to be fertility experts that have no expertise, no degrees,
Speaker 3: no research that triggers me like I find it so
Speaker 3: irresponsible and so harmful, and they're giving people advice and whatever.
Speaker 3: But then you know the practice like cupping, where they
Speaker 3: put comes on your back and they did it. A
Speaker 3: research is out on whether or not that's good. I've
Speaker 3: got cupping. I've walked away feeling better acupuncture. Yeah, lots
Speaker 3: of question marks around whether that actually I walk away
Speaker 3: place ebo, eh, I walk away feeling better with this stuff.
Speaker 3: I think grief and death and the afterlife is just
Speaker 3: this massive well of like what balm do people have?
Speaker 3: And if this has them leaving feeling better, I kind
Speaker 3: of think there's space for that.
Speaker 2: Look, I want to agree with you. I've spoken on
Speaker 2: the show before about how Imbrent's family, my partner's family,
Speaker 2: there are psychics, and that my late mother in law
Speaker 2: was a self proclaimed psychic, and I know people who
Speaker 2: she brought so much comfort to with her readings. Now
Speaker 2: I am a skeptic, like I'm born a skeptic, right,
Speaker 2: It's also an area that kind of frightens me, so
Speaker 2: I don't want to go near it. Some people run
Speaker 2: towards that stuff. I'm very much backing out of the
Speaker 2: room going you guys carry on?
Speaker 1: Is that for the same reason that I identify being
Speaker 1: scared of.
Speaker 2: Me plea and I just find it really unnerving. I
Speaker 2: am quite romantic and magical in some way, Like It's
Speaker 2: not that I'm very scientific, fact based in every way,
Speaker 2: but I do find this challenging, and so I probably
Speaker 2: back away from it. But when I began to get
Speaker 2: to know people who lived in this world, basically I
Speaker 2: did really have to reassess my view because I couldn't
Speaker 2: sit there and point at my mother in law, who
Speaker 2: I adored and say you're a liar, like you're you're
Speaker 2: a liar and you're a fraud. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: she was not filling massive theaters and charging large amounts
Speaker 2: of money. You know, she would do a reading for
Speaker 2: someone for free, for a bottle of wine for like,
Speaker 2: you know, she would do it almost as a neighborhood service,
Speaker 2: and whatever the truth of the situation was, very many
Speaker 2: people felt good about what she did. And so, like
Speaker 2: lots of things, I'm not sure how black and white
Speaker 2: it is. When I was doing a bit of digging
Speaker 2: into how many people actually believe this is really interesting
Speaker 2: stat This is an American stat about how many people
Speaker 2: proclaim that they believe in ghosts and the afterlife, and
Speaker 2: it usually sits somewhere around thirty nine to forty one
Speaker 2: percent of people who were like open to that. But
Speaker 2: fifty three percent of Americans say that they've been visited
Speaker 2: by a dead family member. So isn't that weird that
Speaker 2: people actually say they've had lived experience of having contact
Speaker 2: with people they've lost, even if they don't really believe
Speaker 2: it themselves, Because I think that we've all had those
Speaker 2: experiences where, you know, I remember, not long after Julie passed,
Speaker 2: my mother in law, something that she gave me fell
Speaker 2: out of a cupboard onto my head, and I was
Speaker 2: really freaked out because I was thinking about her at
Speaker 2: that moment. I was like, it's a sign, It's a sign,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't like, but
Speaker 2: I think that it's interesting that we can feel things
Speaker 2: sometimes that we don't actually believe in. And I think
Speaker 2: a lot of this stuff lives in that area.
Speaker 3: And this is an imperfect comparison. And I don't want
Speaker 3: to offend anyone, but I know people who I'm close
Speaker 3: to who donate significant amounts of money to different churches
Speaker 3: or not even church, different faiths, the faith that they're
Speaker 3: aligned with. I don't necessarily believe in the god that
Speaker 3: they're aligned with. I don't necessarily believe the exact things
Speaker 3: that they believe. Do I think they have the right
Speaker 3: and do I respect their affiliation with that institution. I
Speaker 3: do and if that makes them feel better, and if
Speaker 3: particular stories and maybe I get a little bit funny
Speaker 3: about any sort of patronizing of any set of beliefs
Speaker 3: that you feel are stupid or can't be proven. I
Speaker 3: have a lot of space for people who kind of
Speaker 3: explore those things and find comfort.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I thought it was a really interesting point you made,
Speaker 1: Jersey about what John Edward himself believes. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: that he insists on describing himself as an entertainer, and
Speaker 1: that is indisputable. He is an entertainer.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, And yeah, his show is listed under art
Speaker 2: theater and comedy. Yeah, so it's a performance.
Speaker 3: That's what when we went our first instinct was this
Speaker 3: feels like a comedy show, except without jokes, but more
Speaker 3: dead people.
Speaker 1: But then it does raise the question of stakes, Like
Speaker 1: if he is an entertainer, then we come back to
Speaker 1: that fundamental question of why does it matter? And this
Speaker 1: interview that we kicked off the segment talking about with
Speaker 1: the sort of renowned leading American skeptic, you end up
Speaker 1: feeling a little bit like she's a bit too invested
Speaker 1: in this thing.
Speaker 2: You know, why is she?
Speaker 3: So she's kind of just as dogmatic as he is.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you, Holly, if this is real,
Speaker 3: because is this ghost again? No, it is not ghosts,
Speaker 3: but it's similar. It's when Brits moved to Australia. Oh,
Speaker 3: it's this phenomenon called the Australia Effect. Right the other
Speaker 3: day I came across it and I was like, well,
Speaker 3: I sit in a podcast studio with a lady with
Speaker 3: a British accent. That's you, Holly, A lady with an
Speaker 3: American accent. That's your Amelia. And I thought, if anyone
Speaker 3: can tell me about the Australia Effect, it's you. Two
Speaker 3: came across this TikTok video of a woman explaining what
Speaker 3: the Australia effect is. Here's what she said.
Speaker 1: Has anyone seen the TikTok trends called the Australia Effect.
Speaker 2: So essentially, it's like British girls will.
Speaker 1: Go over to Australia.
Speaker 2: Before they left, you know, they got full face makeup, massive.
Speaker 1: Lip filler, big eyelashes, you know, the hair extensions, etc.
Speaker 1: Then they moved to Australia. After a bit of time,
Speaker 1: they're they're just like all natural, bare face.
Speaker 2: They're never really weird makeup. Maybe they've taken their extensions out,
Speaker 2: they haven't got lip filler, etc.
Speaker 3: So her name is Nina and she's moved to Wales,
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure. But her theory is that when people
Speaker 3: from overseas moved to Australia, they almost have a glowdown.
Speaker 3: They become more laid back, they stopped doing their hair,
Speaker 3: they stopped trying so hard. Holly, when you moved to Australia,
Speaker 3: did you fall victim to the Australia effect?
Speaker 2: Look, it was a long time ago and lip filler
Speaker 2: and hair extensions weren't really the vibe. But absolutely one
Speaker 2: hundred percent. Yes, this is absolutely one hundred percent, I
Speaker 2: think really, and this is just about assimilation to the
Speaker 2: beauty standards of the place you're living in.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So there is a very classic, often mocked British mainstream
Speaker 2: young female.
Speaker 3: Look Jordy Shop.
Speaker 2: Yeah very much. You see it on every reality show,
Speaker 2: very Love Island, and it's very high maintenance. Let's just
Speaker 2: call it what it is, high maintenance.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And then in Australia, although obviously there are high maintenance
Speaker 2: pockets and all kinds of different cult suburbs coming together
Speaker 2: and every but the predominant kind of mainstream vibe of
Speaker 2: what an Australian particularly. Let's remember that these people often
Speaker 2: come and move to beachy places, so they congregate around
Speaker 2: coastlines in Australian cities, and what they see is people
Speaker 2: getting up at far running outside looking amazing in the
Speaker 2: active where everybody's like just coming out of the surf
Speaker 2: and their hairs and it's a completely different esthetic. So
Speaker 2: I think one hundreds of what happens. And when I
Speaker 2: came and I was young, I was twenty three when
Speaker 2: I came to Australia, that wasn't my look. But within
Speaker 2: weeks months I was like swimmers with the denim mini
Speaker 2: dungarees over the top, like always air dried hair which
Speaker 2: suited me, freckles like, it's just a very much looser vibe.
Speaker 2: It's one hundred percent Tury. You would look weird. I
Speaker 2: mean maybe not again, depending on where you were down
Speaker 2: at Bondie at six am with all of that stuff
Speaker 2: on you.
Speaker 3: Okay, Amelia, you have lived in lots of different places
Speaker 3: all over the world. Do you find that how you dress,
Speaker 3: how you do your makeup, how you do your hair
Speaker 3: changes when you're in Australia.
Speaker 1: It's a really good question. I'm going to push back
Speaker 1: against this idea a little bit. I think that the
Speaker 1: low maintenance look in Australia has become extremely high maintenance
Speaker 1: in recent years. So I came back here to live
Speaker 1: last year, and I think in the last i want
Speaker 1: to say, five to ten years, I see way more
Speaker 1: lip filler here than I do on the East Coast
Speaker 1: of the United States. Just as an example, like that's
Speaker 1: a very popular look here is the lip filler. Fake
Speaker 1: tan is a much bigger thing here than it is
Speaker 1: in the US. And the idea of some people really
Speaker 1: maintain their fake tan all through winter, and they're doing
Speaker 1: it on Sundays when they wash their bras and so on.
Speaker 1: And the hair is the beechy wave takes a lot
Speaker 1: of work, unless you're holy, in which case she does
Speaker 1: have naturally beachy waves, which is annoying. But for most
Speaker 1: of us, beachie waves take work.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I liken this too. When I go on
Speaker 3: a holiday and I pack my straighter and my makeup
Speaker 3: bag and they never come out. It's exadly like that,
Speaker 3: and I go and I just become a coastal goddess,
Speaker 3: and I look in the mirror and I go, you
Speaker 3: look great. Look at you with your like messy hair.
Speaker 3: But if I turned up to an office like that,
Speaker 3: I would look scraggly and just like unkempt or whatever.
Speaker 3: So I wonder if it's more of a coastal thing.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's one hundred percent coastal. Yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 2: it's very much place to a particular stereotype. The young
Speaker 2: women that she's talking about in that video, that's where
Speaker 2: they are. Yeah, you know what I mean, they are
Speaker 2: hanging out in those places. It's not like all of
Speaker 2: Australia is like that or that even a few suburbs
Speaker 2: back from the beach is like that. But there's very
Speaker 2: much a kind of a different aesthetic. It's very well
Speaker 2: documented on the internet. You can find a million tiktoks
Speaker 2: of like taking off my British chav makeup, or going
Speaker 2: from a British girl to an American girl, going from
Speaker 2: a British girl to an Australian girl. Like, there are
Speaker 2: no question different stud And.
Speaker 3: You probably wouldn't walk around Manchester barefoot you've any season
Speaker 3: whereas I do that very Oden.
Speaker 2: You really wouldn't.
Speaker 1: After the break, we're going to unpack the article which
Speaker 1: prompted a very heated debate about old mums.
Speaker 3: Every Tuesday and Thursday, we drop new segments of MUMMYA
Speaker 3: out Loud just for MUMMYA. Subscribers. Follow the link in
Speaker 3: the show notes to get your daily dose of out
Speaker 3: Loud and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.
Speaker 1: Gather around. I'm going to tell you a story that
Speaker 1: a lot of people think of as an urban horror story,
Speaker 1: but this one actually happened, and it was in the
Speaker 1: New York Times recently. Mary Beth Lewis is a retired
Speaker 1: nurse living in the suburbs of New York. She had
Speaker 1: five children with her husband, who was a very very
Speaker 1: busy and important airline pilot. And then just as those
Speaker 1: five children started to leave home they went out into
Speaker 1: university or to the workplace. She got lonely. She was
Speaker 1: in her fifties. She said, I want to have more kids.
Speaker 1: So she used IVF to have twins just before her
Speaker 1: fiftieth birthday. And then in her fifties and I need
Speaker 1: to get this exactly right, she had another daughter. She
Speaker 1: had twin boys. She had a third set of twins
Speaker 1: and a thirteenth child. At sixty two, she's got more children.
Speaker 3: And those children she all physically carried and birthed.
Speaker 1: She physically carried in births. And what I took from
Speaker 1: that is, Jesse, I never want to hear you complain
Speaker 1: about carrying twins again.
Speaker 2: What a lightweight you are? I know, Worry Beth is
Speaker 2: the standard.
Speaker 3: She survived it and did it again and again and
Speaker 3: again in her fifties. I'm finding this. This is inspiration
Speaker 3: pawn for me.
Speaker 1: Okay. So next, what happened is that her husband, who
Speaker 1: had recently retired, said I don't want any more kids.
Speaker 1: But here's the problem. Mary Beth wanted more kids. By
Speaker 1: the way, her adult children at this point are begging
Speaker 1: her not to have more children. They were fairly indulgent
Speaker 1: of the couple of kids that she had first naturally
Speaker 1: in her late fifties, but they didn't want her to
Speaker 1: have more kids because they were looking after these kids.
Speaker 1: The adult kids were looking after the little kids.
Speaker 3: And she used IVF throughout her fifties. Correct, yes, she
Speaker 3: used IVF.
Speaker 1: And then what happened was she went behind her partner's back,
Speaker 1: behind her grown children's backs. She hired a surrogate to
Speaker 1: deliver her full fourteenth and her fifteenth children. This is
Speaker 1: where the troubles begin.
Speaker 2: That this is where the troubles begin.
Speaker 1: I think the.
Speaker 2: Troubles have already begun.
Speaker 1: Her fourteenth and her fifteenth children were taken away from
Speaker 1: her before she even got a chance to meet them.
Speaker 1: Because remember these were children who were delivered by surrogates,
Speaker 1: So before she got to hold these children, they were
Speaker 1: whisked away from her and put into foster care. And
Speaker 1: now she's seventy and pursuing legal action to get those
Speaker 1: kids back.
Speaker 3: Wow, who are not genetically hers doesn't have an egg
Speaker 3: of hers or her husband's sperm, but it shares a
Speaker 3: donor with some of the children she's already had, so
Speaker 3: some of her children would be biological siblings to these twins.
Speaker 3: But she and this is where it gets really complicated too,
Speaker 3: is genetically and gestationally and socially, she hasn't been their mother,
Speaker 3: although she was the one who intended and to be born.
Speaker 2: Because in America, this is something you can pay people
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: Correct, She's paid hundreds of thousands of stars.
Speaker 2: She's basically paid for those children, which I assume is
Speaker 2: part of her legal case.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So she's like, I have bought those children, and yet
Speaker 2: I do not have those children that would be part
Speaker 2: of this, wouldn't it I imagine.
Speaker 1: No, that's a great point. Absolutely, And the judge that
Speaker 1: took the children away from her didn't really have a
Speaker 1: very sound legal reasoning for why he did it. He
Speaker 1: basically made a vibes based decision that she was too
Speaker 1: old to look after these kids.
Speaker 2: Which I think lots of people would probably sympathize with.
Speaker 3: But then what's interesting is how many judges, in cases
Speaker 3: of child protection or you know, due to tragic circumstances,
Speaker 3: you lose a mother or a father, would those children
Speaker 3: then go into the custody of the grandparents. That would
Speaker 3: happen all of the time, and that can't be aged discrimination.
Speaker 1: Ed, right, That's a good point. So this is so
Speaker 1: I want to broaden this out to talk about old
Speaker 1: moms and why we have a revulsion of about them.
Speaker 1: But before I get to that, this story, what did
Speaker 1: it make you feel, Holly?
Speaker 2: It made me very sad. I think this is a
Speaker 2: story of extremes. And I know that you should never
Speaker 2: diagnose people who you know. I'm not a professional, but
Speaker 2: Mary Beth to me seems like she has some mental
Speaker 2: illness issues right the bit, as you said, Amelia, the
Speaker 2: kids left home, and she said, in this article it
Speaker 2: says this is empty. She thought, I don't like this
Speaker 2: at all, but so many women That's what I was
Speaker 2: going to say. But what I'm going to say is
Speaker 2: that's a very familiar feeling to lots of people. They
Speaker 2: don't all go, you know what, I'm going to start
Speaker 2: all over again, like to fulfill that. And it reminded
Speaker 2: me of somebody I met recently who she had quite
Speaker 2: a complicated family, but she said her mother loved babies.
Speaker 1: Loved babies, you hear that often, yep.
Speaker 2: And would foster babies in any kind, but then kind
Speaker 2: of lost interest in them as they got a bit older,
Speaker 2: you know, Like I think there is a point obviously
Speaker 2: at which your urges and your desires clash into the
Speaker 2: well being of kids. Now, you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: Mary Beth, and I'm not qualified to say this, but
Speaker 2: it seems to be that in this very extreme case
Speaker 2: of somebody who is fulfilling, as she says, an emptiness
Speaker 2: in her at some point, isn't it fair enough that
Speaker 2: somebody's going to intervene and say, hey, Mary Beth, maybe
Speaker 2: you should just get some therapy.
Speaker 3: And how the rights of a child intersect with the
Speaker 3: rights of a mother, with the rights of a father,
Speaker 3: and then add on top of all of that reproductive technology.
Speaker 3: Because that's the story here, is that what are the
Speaker 3: ethics the limits of reproductive technology?
Speaker 2: And I'm really uncomfortable to say when is too old
Speaker 2: and for there to be Like in Australia, there aren't
Speaker 2: hard and fast rules, but different states and different clinics
Speaker 2: have their own rules. But generally speaking, mid forties is
Speaker 2: often when IVF clinics will stop treating you. If donors
Speaker 2: are involved, they'll push to fifties. This is obviously there
Speaker 2: is actually firm ruling on it, but that's broadly the
Speaker 2: cutoff is seen to be around that time. You know,
Speaker 2: I was an old mum. I was forty when I
Speaker 2: had my second child, and some people would have thoughts
Speaker 2: about that. You often hear people say it's much better
Speaker 2: to have them young and that you won't be around
Speaker 2: when they're old, and da da da da da. But
Speaker 2: as you pointed out with that example about people who
Speaker 2: lose parents and get put in the care of grandparents,
Speaker 2: it's not like having your kids young inoculates you from
Speaker 2: all those eventualities and means you're definitely going to be
Speaker 2: living down the road from them when they have their
Speaker 2: kids and whatever. So I'm not a believer in like
Speaker 2: this is too old, full stop the end, but I
Speaker 2: think this is an extreme case, and in extreme cases,
Speaker 2: I kind of think the intervention is fair enough.
Speaker 1: No, it is an extreme case, and the starts back
Speaker 1: that up. Only something like twelve hundred American women in
Speaker 1: their fifties gave birth in twenty twenty three, which is
Speaker 1: the most recent year stats have been collected, So it
Speaker 1: is an extreme case. But the reason I get uncomfortable
Speaker 1: hearing people say, well, then they'll never be there for
Speaker 1: your high school graduation and they'll never be able to
Speaker 1: see you grow up. It's like we don't decide whether
Speaker 1: women can have children based on whether we know they'll
Speaker 1: be a good mother or not. And it's getting into
Speaker 1: that issue of like, well, but you won't be a
Speaker 1: good enough mother because you won't be there for the
Speaker 1: high school graduation. And if you go down that path,
Speaker 1: then you're going to start deeming all sorts of mothers
Speaker 1: not particularly good mothers for various reasons because of choices
Speaker 1: they made because of how they live their lives, and
Speaker 1: that's what bothers me about the moralism around it. I
Speaker 1: also want to say that Mary Beth, by all accounts,
Speaker 1: was an excellent mother. And so even in this very
Speaker 1: long New York Times magazine piece which we're talking about,
Speaker 1: which is clearly very skeptical about her case, legally, her
Speaker 1: children talk about she was an amazing mother. She took
Speaker 1: them lots of interesting places, even when they didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and then when they did acquire
Speaker 1: more money, when her husband's career took off, she still
Speaker 1: really wanted to make sure that she was there for
Speaker 1: them and that she was there emotionally for them, which
Speaker 1: by all accounts she was. There's another interesting dynam in
Speaker 1: her story, which is that her husband was clearly a
Speaker 1: very absent father, so he was the primary bread winner
Speaker 1: in that he was this successful commercial airline pilot. He
Speaker 1: was never there, and what the story makes clear is
Speaker 1: that they liked it that way. He liked not being there.
Speaker 1: He liked, as the story says, taking selfies in front
Speaker 1: of the Sydney Opera House when he was down in
Speaker 1: Australia after flying a plane there, or he liked having
Speaker 1: a beer in airport hotel bars at the end of
Speaker 1: a long flight. He didn't particularly want to be there
Speaker 1: for the kids. She loved being there for the kids.
Speaker 1: And I think that adds this whole other complicated wrinkle
Speaker 1: into the story.
Speaker 3: Does And I felt throughout the story an enormous amount
Speaker 3: of empathy for mary Beth. And I kept thinking, there
Speaker 3: is nothing quite like the desire to have children.
Speaker 2: She had thirteen children already. I want to be empathetic, Jesse,
Speaker 2: and I am to a point. But it's not like
Speaker 2: she didn't have children.
Speaker 3: No, no, I know, but like, for example, so I
Speaker 3: had Luna, and then I would have gone to enormous
Speaker 3: lengths to have another baby.
Speaker 2: I know, Jesse. But again, you can't compare yourself.
Speaker 3: Your spot on, your spot on, And that's why I
Speaker 3: kept kind of reminding, like, this is a human being
Speaker 3: who longs for her two children, and I kept kind
Speaker 3: of coming back to the humanity in that experience. The
Speaker 3: other element in terms of reproductive technologies is that they
Speaker 3: could in certain embryo into mary Beth. The twins that
Speaker 3: she had right before her fiftieth birthday nearly killed her.
Speaker 3: Like she had such an awful complication that she could
Speaker 3: have died, and that puts health professionals in such a
Speaker 3: The resources it takes for someone who is fifty five
Speaker 3: fifty nine giving birth to a set of twins like
Speaker 3: that is an enormous.
Speaker 2: So they actually refused, didn't they to let her have
Speaker 2: good lust.
Speaker 3: So they said she wanted to have naturally as in
Speaker 3: birth children after the age of sixty, and they said,
Speaker 3: you've had six seed sections and the scar is paper thing.
Speaker 3: You will bleed to death. If you try and carry
Speaker 3: this child, you'll bleed to death. So that's kind of
Speaker 3: another element. But then it's an uncomfortable conversation because you'd
Speaker 3: never want to shame. What reproductive technology has done for
Speaker 3: same sex couples, for people who would otherwise not have
Speaker 3: children at any age is incredible.
Speaker 2: And also the thing is, as you've touched on, the
Speaker 2: reason why this is quite an interesting thing to consider,
Speaker 2: is that reproductive technology is one thing, but also longevity
Speaker 2: science is another. And we are seeing the people are
Speaker 2: convinced that they can live better, healthier, for longer, and
Speaker 2: that your forties isn't what your forties used to be,
Speaker 2: and your fifties isn't what your fifties used to be.
Speaker 2: And so there is a perception and I've heard it
Speaker 2: talked about on American podcasts and things like that, whatever
Speaker 2: cutoff limit we used to have in our minds for
Speaker 2: when a woman and it's always a woman, as I'm
Speaker 2: sure we're about to get to, but when a woman
Speaker 2: should have a baby like that gate is being bashed
Speaker 2: down with you know, all the supplements and health breakthroughs
Speaker 2: and fertility, and so we are going to have to
Speaker 2: grapple with these issues. But I agree with you Amelia
Speaker 2: that putting moralism around it is nonsense.
Speaker 3: It's dangerous.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, Mary Beth Babe, I think
Speaker 2: maybe thirteen children is enough.
Speaker 1: Mary BET's got some unique problems. But you know what's
Speaker 1: not that extreme is old dads and celebrity old dads.
Speaker 1: There's no tut tutting about them. There is a little
Speaker 1: bit more increasingly, I think, but for a long time
Speaker 1: there it was sort of seen as a mark of
Speaker 1: pride that they were still virile enough to father children.
Speaker 1: And just a couple of extreme examples from the celebrity world.
Speaker 1: Al Pacino became a dad for a fourth time last
Speaker 1: year at eighty three eighty three, and just last month
Speaker 1: Kelsey Grammar, congrats he became a dad for the eighth
Speaker 1: time at seventy. And there is no judge taking those
Speaker 1: children or taking custody of those children away from these
Speaker 1: old dads.
Speaker 2: I now is that there is no judge taking them
Speaker 2: away because they think that they're in the care of
Speaker 2: their younger mothers.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So the age of the women these men are having
Speaker 2: children are spoiler alert Hollway, Yeah, is quite a lot less. However,
Speaker 2: I do feel very judgy about those guys like I do.
Speaker 2: Why do I feel so judgy about that? Why do
Speaker 2: I feel.
Speaker 1: Because science says that as men's sperm gets older, the
Speaker 1: risk of medical complications increases. We don't talk about that
Speaker 1: as much as we do as for women, but it's true.
Speaker 2: And do I also think that the eighty three year
Speaker 2: old al Pacino is you know, I is not.
Speaker 3: Taking the responsibility seriously?
Speaker 2: Well? No. And also, although I very much agree with
Speaker 2: what you said before, Amelia about we don't go around
Speaker 2: saying or you should be able to have children because
Speaker 2: you're going to live a long time and be at
Speaker 2: the graduation, which is a nonsense idea. But al Pacino
Speaker 2: eighty three like it's really not going to be around it.
Speaker 2: So it doesn't feel like the fathering part of that
Speaker 2: is like an active choice more and again, maybe I'm
Speaker 2: judging too much or something that his younger partner wanted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, his job is to exist and a mother's job
Speaker 3: is to do everything else.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: Now, while we're on the topic of parenting, Amelia, you
Speaker 3: cheat on us on Saturdays with Parenting out Loud. Can
Speaker 3: you tell us what is on your agenda for Saturday's episode?
Speaker 1: Yeah, think of me as the Orlando Bloom to your
Speaker 1: Katie part if you will. I do another podcast on
Speaker 1: this network called Parenting out Loud with Mons and Stacy, Yes,
Speaker 1: who are known to the out Loud universe, and it's
Speaker 1: similar to what we chat about here on out Loud.
Speaker 1: It feels very similar. It's not parenting advice. It's not
Speaker 1: oh gosh, I have spit up on my shirt and eyes.
Speaker 3: Like the conversation we just had.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not like a clip art of like a
Speaker 1: working mom with like you know, the laptop and the
Speaker 1: high heels. Like these are real conversations, really thinky conversations
Speaker 1: about what's in the parenting zeitgeist. It's the conversation I
Speaker 1: think the parents really want to have, but which they
Speaker 1: might be too scared to voice out loud and with
Speaker 1: my friends.
Speaker 3: What's Saturday's episode about?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this week we're talking about a very controversial
Speaker 1: new skincare brand has launched for little kids. We're talking
Speaker 1: like three year old.
Speaker 2: I've seen this, Yeah, yeah, and I'm dying to know
Speaker 2: what you think about that.
Speaker 1: Where we got to on that was we sort of
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about whether girlhood is just another consumer
Speaker 1: identity now it's just another thing to buy, another market
Speaker 1: to pitch too, and is that bad? Like how should
Speaker 1: we feel about that? And we also wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about that phrase it takes a village, And where we
Speaker 1: got to is that maybe millennial parents don't want a village,
Speaker 1: Like maybe that's inconvenient, maybe it's too much trouble. Maybe
Speaker 1: we actually don't want a village anymore. Very controversial. So
Speaker 1: search Parenting out loud and hit follow and come join
Speaker 1: us out louders.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being here with us today.
Speaker 2: Remember we're on YouTube and if you watch today's episode
Speaker 2: on YouTube, you would have seen my face when I
Speaker 2: was going can't tell me?
Speaker 1: And your beachy.
Speaker 2: Waves and Beachy Waves. But you can always catch all
Speaker 2: of the episodes on YouTube if you want to. There
Speaker 2: is a link in the show notes. Thank you to
Speaker 2: our amazing team for putting the show together. We'll see
Speaker 2: you tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Bye bye.
Speaker 3: Mar Mayor acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on
Speaker 3: which we have recorded this podcast.