Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast of parents
Speaker 2: who don't always listen to parenting podcasts. We talk about
Speaker 2: the news and the trends and the culture, and we
Speaker 2: read everything on the internet so that you don't have to.
Speaker 2: I'm Monique Bowley, I'm Amelia Laster, and I'm Stacy Hicks.
Speaker 2: Coming up on today's show, the Kardashian whisperer and CEO
Speaker 2: who says three hours with her kids is enough? I
Speaker 2: mean fair? Is it rage bait or is it actually genius?
Speaker 3: And did millennials kill kids sport?
Speaker 4: We have a theory, and Mon's has a genius low
Speaker 4: cost school holiday idea, and Stacy has another one of
Speaker 4: her deranged TV recommendations.
Speaker 1: But first, but first, two.
Speaker 4: Incidents last Saturday got me thinking about whether we're back
Speaker 4: in kids should be seen and not heard territory. Now
Speaker 4: I've told you both about them, but I want to
Speaker 4: hear your thoughts. I haven't heard what you think about
Speaker 4: what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The second, do you tell us anything?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: We just say save it, save it for the pod.
Speaker 3: We're not going to tell you and we're on air.
Speaker 4: So both of these happened on Saturday last Saturday. The
Speaker 4: first one was that I am now doing a weights
Speaker 4: class on Saturday.
Speaker 1: Excellent, So Pracey inspired me.
Speaker 4: And it's my attempt to not fall off the aging
Speaker 4: cliff at forty four.
Speaker 1: Apparently you got to lift weights to.
Speaker 2: Not fall off the loving it Amelia and.
Speaker 4: I'm lifting my weights and it's an outdoors class by
Speaker 4: an oval, and I see that there is a roaming,
Speaker 4: marauding gang of probably like ten to twelve preteen boys
Speaker 4: on bikes, regular bikes, not your bikes, regular bikes, just
Speaker 4: kind of zooming around near the oval, making a lot
Speaker 4: of noise, doing dangerous things. They have a makeshift round
Speaker 4: that they're all like riding their bikes up. I'm really
Speaker 4: worried about their collar bones, and my first instinct, I'm
Speaker 4: not gonna lie. My first instinct was they're making a
Speaker 4: lot of noise and that is very dangerous. But then
Speaker 4: my second thought was, this is exactly what children should
Speaker 4: be doing, being together outside, doing something physical, taking risks.
Speaker 4: Why am I condemning them for it. So that was
Speaker 4: the first thing that happened, and then shortly after that,
Speaker 4: I went to the park with my children and my
Speaker 4: friend's children. And there was a group of three five
Speaker 4: to seven year olds playing two boys on one girl.
Speaker 1: That was our collective group.
Speaker 4: And we were at a picnic table nearby, and a
Speaker 4: man comes up to me. That's never a story, is that.
Speaker 4: A man comes up to me and he says, are
Speaker 4: those your children?
Speaker 3: Hang on?
Speaker 2: How what was his tone?
Speaker 4: You just you know what his time was whatever the
Speaker 4: equivalent of Karen is for a man.
Speaker 1: That's what he was giving.
Speaker 2: Colin and.
Speaker 3: Colin energy.
Speaker 4: And he says to me, yeah, those are your children.
Speaker 4: I say yes, I mean I didn't want to split hairs.
Speaker 4: Some of them were, some of them weren't. He said,
Speaker 4: the boys are playing with a stick, and that is
Speaker 4: very dangerous. And I thought, news at eleven boys playing
Speaker 4: with a stick. Stop the presses. This is unprecedented. Forget
Speaker 4: Trump and Iran boys are playing with a stick. We
Speaker 4: must stop them. So, instead of responding with anything sarcastic
Speaker 4: or outwardly aggressive, I thanked him for his input and
Speaker 4: continued gabbing away with my friends.
Speaker 2: Did he just scuttle astic?
Speaker 1: He continued, is weird walk around a children's playground?
Speaker 3: But it's so interesting that you say, like even you
Speaker 3: had that reaction to other kids well around, but it's
Speaker 3: because we don't see it anymore. It's like an endangered space.
Speaker 1: And this is what I wanted to ask you both about.
Speaker 4: I do think that the Victorian adage of children should
Speaker 4: be seen and not heard has come back with screens
Speaker 4: because we're so used to seeing mute, silent still children
Speaker 4: enraptured by a screen in public spaces because parents have
Speaker 4: been shamed into doing that as a way of keeping
Speaker 4: them quiet. That that's our expected way of interacting with
Speaker 4: children now. And when children are doing something, making noise,
Speaker 4: moving around, doing exactly what Jonathan Hate says we should do,
Speaker 4: we get freaked out about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't disagree. I think you're right. I think
Speaker 2: the only reasonable rational response is to push your kids
Speaker 2: out in the yard and say, make as much noise
Speaker 2: as possible. Yeah, do not go quietly into the gentle night,
Speaker 2: no screen, thank you.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: Speaking of keeping kids quiet, parents have now figured out
Speaker 3: that there was a hack for stopping a tantrum all along,
Speaker 3: and all we needed to do was summon the power
Speaker 3: of them. Most millennial name that has ever existed, Jessica,
Speaker 3: What okay? You're not seen this around.
Speaker 4: Everywhere we're talking about this, and I didn't understand there.
Speaker 3: Are videos everywhere parents doing it, and I tried it.
Speaker 3: On the week it is, there will be a kid,
Speaker 3: a toddler. Usually you know, we're talking two three, losing
Speaker 3: the plot really just about you know, those ones where
Speaker 3: they're about to spiral and the parent, just in the
Speaker 3: middle of it starts going Jessica Jessica, looking around for
Speaker 3: a fictitious Jessica.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: They stop instantly. It is like a switch is flicked.
Speaker 3: They stop. And I tried this, and I have a
Speaker 3: five year old, so I thought she might be more
Speaker 3: evolved than this. It worked. She looked around, like, what
Speaker 3: are you doing?
Speaker 2: It just like interrupts a little Jessica Jessica, as if
Speaker 2: she's about to go right around the corner.
Speaker 3: And there's something about a lot of parenting experts are
Speaker 3: now weighing in and saying it's because kids can kind
Speaker 3: of only focus on one thing at a time, that
Speaker 3: it's the randomness of the Jessica like being so unexpected
Speaker 3: that they shift gears. They can't they can't continue the
Speaker 3: tantrum because they're suddenly concerned that your fictitious friend is
Speaker 3: about to rock up. Okay, studies have not been done
Speaker 3: yet to decide whether other names work. We might be
Speaker 3: able to yell Mon's Amelia who knows, but it works.
Speaker 3: And the funniest thing is all the Jessica's in the comments,
Speaker 3: being like, I'm busy, I've been called on a hundreds,
Speaker 3: I'm on my way. But yeah, it seems to work.
Speaker 2: Okay, excellent. I think if we can ask our listeners
Speaker 2: to try it. Yes, it's the todd the tantrum hat. Yeah,
Speaker 2: yelling out Jessica and then yeah, report back in the
Speaker 2: comments or in comments on Spotify or on podcast Apple
Speaker 2: reviews would be good. Also, perhaps we can use it
Speaker 2: as a safe word on this show, because I am
Speaker 2: going to have a tantrum a little bit later about
Speaker 2: one of the topics we're talking about, and so if
Speaker 2: I get to deep in, I just want to hear Jessica.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, we'll cut you off.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, Jessica will all right? Many hours a day
Speaker 2: you spend with your kids? Oh my god. A headline
Speaker 2: in the Wall Street Journal caught my attention this week,
Speaker 2: and I want to go there. The headline was the
Speaker 2: Kardashian whisper who says three hours with her kids is enough.
Speaker 2: And the profile was a woman called Emma Greed. Now,
Speaker 2: if you don't know who she is, she was the
Speaker 2: co founder of Skims. She also works on Good American.
Speaker 4: With She has an amazing up in council housing in
Speaker 4: the UK and is now a self made billionaire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she is the CEO of multiple billion dollar brands.
Speaker 2: She also has four children, and she's written a book
Speaker 2: that's going to be published next week called Start with Yourself,
Speaker 2: sort of a self help CEO boss bitch kind of book.
Speaker 3: This is like the opposite to what you guys spoke
Speaker 3: about on the show last week with the you finish,
Speaker 3: you go last, Like this is the opposite. She's like, no,
Speaker 3: it's me first.
Speaker 2: It absolutely is Stacy. Now, the part that everyone is
Speaker 2: talking about in this profile piece in the book is
Speaker 2: how she calls herself a max three hour mum. On
Speaker 2: a weekend, she'll spend from nine till midday with her
Speaker 2: children and after that she's done and she's off to activities,
Speaker 2: which she says fill her cup. She doesn't engage in
Speaker 2: any of the busy work of parenting, so she won't
Speaker 2: be reading school emails or newsletters. She doesn't do lunchboxes,
Speaker 2: she doesn't engage in any activities that she thinks are overparenting. Instead,
Speaker 2: she says the time she spends with her kids is
Speaker 2: high impact, core memory times. So it's all killer, no
Speaker 2: filler for Emma Greed, What did you think when you
Speaker 2: read this, Amelia?
Speaker 4: I went on a real journey with it, because at
Speaker 4: first I thought hard relate, like I would prefer to
Speaker 4: do things on Saturday that were not exclusively with my children,
Speaker 4: such as my weights class. But she had me until
Speaker 4: she compared time spent with her children to limited edition
Speaker 4: fashion collabs. This is when she mentioned that she's all
Speaker 4: about creating high impact core memories. Some of these sample
Speaker 4: she used with fishing trips or New York getaways. Now
Speaker 4: my issue with that is I have no problem with
Speaker 4: women filling their cup and trying to make quality time
Speaker 4: as opposed to just a quantity of time with their children.
Speaker 4: But I just don't think that kids' core memories are
Speaker 4: what adults want them to be. When I look back
Speaker 4: at my core memories, it wasn't necessarily the high impact
Speaker 4: quality time that crystallized in my mind. It was, in fact,
Speaker 4: regular everyday, banal moments that just seem to feel really
Speaker 4: cozy and encapsulate the closeness of family life, like how
Speaker 4: we always used to have a big fry up breakfast
Speaker 4: on Saturday mornings, or we went to Blockbuster on Friday nights.
Speaker 4: I don't think either of those are high impact core memories.
Speaker 3: One of my favorite memories with my dad is going
Speaker 3: to the tip. I can remember it so clearly. Anymore,
Speaker 3: we need to go to the tip too.
Speaker 2: Did you get to sit on the back of the trailott?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yes, why I remember it? And you're right, like, that's
Speaker 3: the most That is not a limited edition. That's it's
Speaker 3: not a fashion. No, that is not a fashion No,
Speaker 3: it's the complete opposite. But I think we have to
Speaker 3: acknowledge as well what she said and what I did
Speaker 3: like about this, because I was the same as you, Amelia,
Speaker 3: where I was like, well, like that would be nice.
Speaker 3: Of course, that would be nice. She is very upfront
Speaker 3: about saying how much help she has, which I do
Speaker 3: appreciate because it makes you feel like, well, this person
Speaker 3: just is in a bit of a different realm.
Speaker 4: Including multiple nannies, yeah, and a chef, so she can
Speaker 4: opt out of those things that she thinks are you know,
Speaker 4: too intensive, Like none of us would like to make
Speaker 4: the lunch boxes, but someone's got to do it.
Speaker 3: But they've got someone who can do it.
Speaker 2: So I went down a massive emmagred rabbit hole because
Speaker 2: I didn't know really much about her or who she
Speaker 2: was or what she stood for. And there are a
Speaker 2: couple of things that she's doing that I think are
Speaker 2: pretty radical. One of the ones is that she kind
Speaker 2: of removes the apology layer of a working mother. You know,
Speaker 2: when you work, and there's this layer of guilt and
Speaker 2: it's I'm sorry, I have to go to work. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I have to go to Sydney. I am I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. Have a listened to what she says about
Speaker 2: this on the j Shatty podcast.
Speaker 5: On purpose, I was constantly in some cycle of apologies.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry that I'm leaving, I'm sorry that I'm going
Speaker 5: to New York, I'm sorry that I'll be back late tonight.
Speaker 5: And what I realized is that I created a narrative
Speaker 5: that I didn't really like what I was doing. So
Speaker 5: I'm working really hard to let my kids know, Yeah,
Speaker 5: like I'm not the mom that is out every drop off.
Speaker 5: I'm not the mom that is volunteering at the school.
Speaker 5: But guess what, there are all of these other amazing
Speaker 5: things that I do that I enjoy.
Speaker 2: That feels radical to me to stop apologizing for being
Speaker 2: a working mother, and it is just and this is
Speaker 2: what I do, and I enjoy doing it.
Speaker 3: Because the second you start apologizing, it's the second they're
Speaker 3: kind of getting that narrative in their head ye that
Speaker 3: you have something to be sorry for, like that you're
Speaker 3: doing that because you don't want to be with them,
Speaker 3: And that's just not the case. You're either doing it
Speaker 3: because you enjoy it, or you're doing it because you
Speaker 3: need to make money to raise them.
Speaker 2: So I really love that. But the other I just
Speaker 2: want to zoom out for a minute and just I'm
Speaker 2: a bit done with the way that we talk to
Speaker 2: successful women. And I know this is a bit like
Speaker 2: small f feminist, but this piece isn't just like a
Speaker 2: profile of a successful business founder. It has this like
Speaker 2: overlay of mum. Like no one's asking Jeff Bezos how
Speaker 2: many hours he spends with his children on a weekend.
Speaker 2: No one's asking Elon Musk. It just feels like it
Speaker 2: feels like a trap. These articles are pretending to be
Speaker 2: about like ambition and modern success. But the headline is
Speaker 2: about how much time she spends with their kids.
Speaker 4: Well, and they clearly thought they were stoking outrage with that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they like it was picking the most impleammatory part of it,
Speaker 4: when in fact, what she's saying is you need to
Speaker 4: be comfortable with trade offs.
Speaker 1: That's very much the bottom line of her message.
Speaker 4: It's like, you can't do everything, figure out what your
Speaker 4: priorities are and then unapologetically go after them.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The other thing I heard her talk about on this
Speaker 2: podcast was she's not lying anymore. She said women have
Speaker 2: just got to stop lying about the amount of help
Speaker 2: they get and about how they feel about things. And
Speaker 2: I think it's gonna ruffle some feathers, but I think
Speaker 2: she's doing like it's for the greater good.
Speaker 5: Right, I just stopped lying about it. I started to say,
Speaker 5: this is really hard. I really have to make difficult choices.
Speaker 5: And when I made choices that were seemingly selfish or
Speaker 5: about me, I stopped hiding them because I thought that
Speaker 5: was doing a disservice to other women.
Speaker 4: Why do you think women do lie about how much
Speaker 4: help they have and how they're balancing everything.
Speaker 2: I don't know, what do you think, I don't.
Speaker 3: I think it's probably competitiveness, Yeah, probably probably, and probably
Speaker 3: a little bit of guilt because you know that other
Speaker 3: people don't have that same amount of help. Like, if
Speaker 3: you're in a position where you can afford a lot
Speaker 3: of that help, that's amazing. I mean, it does make
Speaker 3: you look like a more competent person that you can
Speaker 3: do all of these things. So it's probably guilt.
Speaker 1: I think it's.
Speaker 4: Also that women are taught that there are finite resources
Speaker 4: out there and that we're having to compete with each
Speaker 4: other for them feel that way. They don't feel that
Speaker 4: there's a limited pool that just all of mankind has
Speaker 4: to attain. And I think for women that's why we
Speaker 4: do shrod a lot of how we parent in secrecy,
Speaker 4: because I think we've been taught to feel zealous and
Speaker 4: protective of what we have.
Speaker 2: It's also like we're expected to do it all so
Speaker 2: all pretending that we are, aren't we.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that's the thing that's interesting about
Speaker 3: her is that she's kind of making something clear that
Speaker 3: I think we all know is that nothing really responsibilities
Speaker 3: didn't get taken off women. Other ones got at it
Speaker 3: on top like we got. Yeah, okay, go and achieve
Speaker 3: your dreams. But you've still got to do all of
Speaker 3: this stuff as well. And what she's saying is something
Speaker 3: has to give. You will have to do less in
Speaker 3: one of those spaces, either parenting or work, you will
Speaker 3: have to do less. So just pick what that is
Speaker 3: and go with it, and don't keep apologizing for it.
Speaker 1: That said, what three hours would you pick?
Speaker 3: I would pick eight eleven am obviously, well, I mean
Speaker 3: maybe PM if they go to bit early, you're not
Speaker 3: doing anything. I would pick eight to eleven am because
Speaker 3: there's no meals happening in that time, but optimum mood
Speaker 3: before they cried out eight to eleven with a protein
Speaker 3: rich breakfast immediately before my shift begins.
Speaker 2: Yes, hours, I'm not picking five till eight pm.
Speaker 3: You mean the ones that we get, the ones that
Speaker 3: we are doing every week night. Yeah, no, no one's
Speaker 3: no one's opting for those. So I'm at the point
Speaker 3: where I am thinking about sport for my daughter. I'm
Speaker 3: thinking about it a lot.
Speaker 2: I'm cracking my knuckles because I'm stretching to get ready
Speaker 2: for this conversation.
Speaker 3: Waiting for me to ask about this. I am looking
Speaker 3: around going what's the most expensive, what's the best for teamwork,
Speaker 3: what has the least annoying training schedule? What time are
Speaker 3: the games? And I'm gonna be honest, I'm scared because
Speaker 3: every single person I know with older kids who are
Speaker 3: kind of in that system of sport, it doesn't look fun,
Speaker 3: it's expensive, and it seems to take up every single
Speaker 3: minute they have, like they're not enjoying it. I've never
Speaker 3: had one of my friends be like, yay, I get
Speaker 3: to sit in a field at eight am on Saturday
Speaker 3: instead of hanging out with you, Like that's just not
Speaker 3: that's not the narrative. And then I saw a clip
Speaker 3: this week that perfectly summed up what I think is
Speaker 3: wrong with kids' sport in twenty twenty six. It's from
Speaker 3: the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. This is Glennan
Speaker 3: Doyle and Abby Wombach and then Glenn's sister Amanda is
Speaker 3: on it as well, and she says this, it's so brilliant.
Speaker 2: Shout out to the parents who have kids in sports.
Speaker 2: It's not It's awful, is what it is.
Speaker 6: It's awful.
Speaker 3: Half the time.
Speaker 6: I want to just stand up in the middle and
Speaker 6: being like we're doing this on purpose, for the purposes
Speaker 6: of fun. And I'm looking around and all the parents
Speaker 6: either look pest that they're a kid in playing, pissed
Speaker 6: that they're not playing like they should be because of
Speaker 6: all the training and the money that they put into them,
Speaker 6: mad at the coach for running a play. The coaches
Speaker 6: are mad at the kids. This isn't an elective thing
Speaker 6: in our life. This is something that no one has
Speaker 6: to do, and we're all came here to do it.
Speaker 3: And raise your hand if.
Speaker 2: Any of you are having fun?
Speaker 1: What a great question?
Speaker 3: Isn't it great? And now, like Amelia, I don't want
Speaker 3: to make judgments about your sporting prowess, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to hedge your bet. But Mon's is the sportiest of
Speaker 3: the three.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably right.
Speaker 3: What do you think is going on here?
Speaker 2: Was okay?
Speaker 3: That affair?
Speaker 1: When did? And was it always like this?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: No it wasn't. Sport is broken. And there are a
Speaker 2: few things that I'm seeing and I'm hearing and I'm
Speaker 2: witnessing that are raising some big alarm bells for me.
Speaker 2: Try not to get bored in this, Amelia. Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: going to try and help you, like to stay interested.
Speaker 1: In glazing my eyes.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: Kids are now being put on pathways at six years old, right,
Speaker 2: Kids as young as eight are doing private strength and
Speaker 2: conditioning sessions in gyms in like academy style trainings. This
Speaker 2: is on top of what they're currently doing with the club.
Speaker 2: Some parents are tracking stats at AFL games like Division
Speaker 2: five games, like there's an AFL scout, like waiting in
Speaker 2: the wings to pick up their child, to pick up
Speaker 2: their underten child. What we are seeing is really worrying
Speaker 2: and it's a structural problem and the reason for it
Speaker 2: is it's the corporatization of sport. Right in Australia. Sport
Speaker 2: used to be about having a go and grassroots and
Speaker 2: everyone is welcome, everyone can do it. But what it
Speaker 2: is now is that we have with these clubs and
Speaker 2: corporations whose best interests are themselves and their own viability.
Speaker 2: So instead of putting the kids at the center of
Speaker 2: what they're doing, they often put themselves or their profit
Speaker 2: or their viability ahead of it, right, which is a problem.
Speaker 1: And it's only the sports associations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, clubs and things. Clubs need to stay alive via money,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's often they'll make decisions based on
Speaker 2: keeping their corporation going rather than what's in the best
Speaker 2: of the kids. So extra trainings and whatever. This is
Speaker 2: following an American model. Okay, now this is not this
Speaker 2: is like not my wheeling.
Speaker 1: This on Americans too.
Speaker 2: In Europe, it's not like this. In Europe, it's sport
Speaker 2: is very social. It's not about competitiveness or who wins
Speaker 2: or who loses. It's actually a much more social approach
Speaker 2: to sport. In Scandinavian countries like Norway, they have actually
Speaker 2: legislated that kids cannot go into specialist programs before the
Speaker 2: age of thirteen, and every kid thirteen they cannot play
Speaker 2: at an adult level until they're thirteen, and they are
Speaker 2: encouraged to play a wide range of sports. Now. As
Speaker 2: a consequence, their sports participation rates are double what they
Speaker 2: are in Australia. Right, every kid in Norwegian countries plays
Speaker 2: sports like ninety percent.
Speaker 4: It's crazy because kids get alienated here, don't they from
Speaker 4: all the pressure.
Speaker 3: Well that's it. It feels like even now when I'm
Speaker 3: looking at it, not even involved in any sport, not
Speaker 3: even knowing what my daughter's ability would be in any sport,
Speaker 3: that I'm kind of like well, you better make the
Speaker 3: right call, because you know, if she's not put at that,
Speaker 3: then she misses a chance to do another sport. And
Speaker 3: if you're saying thirteen, that is such a big gap
Speaker 3: for them to experiment and play, literally play and see
Speaker 3: which of those things they're good which are having to.
Speaker 1: Make the call, and it'll probably make them better sports people. Anyway.
Speaker 4: There's a book called Range by a sports writer named
Speaker 4: David Epstein, and his basic premise is that if you
Speaker 4: look at some of the greatest athletes, they didn't specialize
Speaker 4: until late in the piece, and in fact, getting to
Speaker 4: know their bodies and their physical capabilities across a range
Speaker 4: of different activities stood them in really good stead.
Speaker 2: So yes, the science is there. And I want to
Speaker 2: say to every parent, Michael Jordan didn't start playing basketball
Speaker 2: until he was twelve years old, I, who played for Australia,
Speaker 2: didn't get good until I was fifteen. Like all these
Speaker 2: parents hinge their hopes on their eight year old and
Speaker 2: nine year old, They're not going to be an elite athlete.
Speaker 2: It's not what that's not what creates good elite athletes.
Speaker 2: What the science and the data says is a range
Speaker 2: of sports and keeping them engaged in sports is about
Speaker 2: fun and participation, but it's really hard when all of
Speaker 2: these clubs put pressure and parents too.
Speaker 4: Now, I don't think it's just the clubs, like anecdotally,
Speaker 4: what I've been observing is that parents themselves are putting
Speaker 4: a lot of pressure on kids. And I was speaking
Speaker 4: to a friend, yes in the US, who told me
Speaker 4: that among like super rich parents like you know, one
Speaker 4: percent parents, having kids who are good at sport is
Speaker 4: now seen as a gateway to success in life, which
Speaker 4: used to be academic achievement. So because we live in
Speaker 4: an age of anxiety around what students should even be
Speaker 4: learning in school, or the hyper privileged, parents are saying
Speaker 4: the only short way to success is getting a kid
Speaker 4: who's good at sport, and really putting a lot of
Speaker 4: pressure on kids to perform in sport as a way
Speaker 4: of getting a hat.
Speaker 2: This is such a problem that Sports Medicine Peak bodies,
Speaker 2: the AIS and amongst others had to put out a
Speaker 2: position statement a couple of years ago about kids specializing
Speaker 2: in sport too young. They're seeing so much of it
Speaker 2: that they had to say this is damaging, Please don't
Speaker 2: do it, Please stop doing it. These are the experts
Speaker 2: in it saying just stop, it's much better to play
Speaker 2: a range of sports. But the other thing that's really
Speaker 2: striking is that something I heard Kieran Perkins say. Now
Speaker 2: he was an Olympic swimmer gold medalist fifteen hundred meters.
Speaker 2: I remember watching that when I was a kid, and
Speaker 2: now he's the CEO of the Australian Sports Commission, and
Speaker 2: he was on the sport Ish podcast with Georgie Tricket
Speaker 2: and Livy Trigket's a really good podcast that talks about
Speaker 2: exactly this right participation in sport. And he said, you know,
Speaker 2: these days, when you ask a kid, you say what
Speaker 2: sport do you play? Whereas when I was growing up,
Speaker 2: it was what sports plural do you play? Because it
Speaker 2: was really normal to play many. But now I guess
Speaker 2: the cost of it well and the access to it
Speaker 2: the time exactly.
Speaker 3: Seven eight year olds who are in training three or
Speaker 3: four nights a week and then they play a game
Speaker 3: on the weekend, like, how could you pot? You couldn't,
Speaker 3: You couldn't go and do anything else, and it just
Speaker 3: feels like there's no room for mediocrity now, like you
Speaker 3: can't do it socially, it feels like you're all in
Speaker 3: or you're out.
Speaker 2: You cannot think like that, okay, because if you start
Speaker 2: to think that sport is not for you and your child,
Speaker 2: that is when all that grassroots stuff starts to fall
Speaker 2: away and then we end up only with elite people
Speaker 2: and crazy parents.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: So what I want to say is like the Australian
Speaker 2: Sports Commission is actually so aware of this, and they're
Speaker 2: trying to work on like a participation strategy, which is like, hey,
Speaker 2: remember sport being fun, everyone like, come and play sport
Speaker 2: and just have fun. And what they say, what Georgia
Speaker 2: Trickett said to me today because I rang around, was like, God,
Speaker 2: I get to talk about very Roman empire. We need
Speaker 2: parents like you, Stacey, who aren't super sporty to still
Speaker 2: get your kids into sport and have fun with them, right,
Speaker 2: because the more we can get kids participating, the better
Speaker 2: it is, the better outcomes for everyone.
Speaker 1: But that makes me.
Speaker 4: Feel so much better because I don't have sporty kids
Speaker 4: and I'm plugging away at it, and sometimes I worry
Speaker 4: that they're like a liability to the team.
Speaker 2: But keep plugging, keep plugging, and there is no pressure
Speaker 2: to pick a path. The more they can play the
Speaker 2: better and at any level and free play and whatever
Speaker 2: it is. It doesn't all have to be elite performance pathways.
Speaker 3: This is also a message for those parents as well,
Speaker 3: because it's the parents on the sidelines that can get scary.
Speaker 3: You're like, you're not watching a first grade NRL game here.
Speaker 3: This is like five year olds running around and probably
Speaker 3: running in the wrong direction, Like just let.
Speaker 2: Them something so wild to me. So this year my
Speaker 2: children play club basketball, and the club sent out an email.
Speaker 2: The entire organization of BASWA and South Australia now has
Speaker 2: a red card system for parents on the cymos. If
Speaker 2: you get red carded, you've got That's how bad the
Speaker 2: behaavior is of parents at sport. And this is something
Speaker 2: that happens across all kinds of codes.
Speaker 3: So this is really this is what they need, is
Speaker 3: the non sporty parents, because I want to know if
Speaker 3: the kids are doing it wrong, I'll just.
Speaker 1: Be like, yes, a great benefits to the well, we.
Speaker 3: Should be ambassadors for average sport.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're more important than ever. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: my Roman Empire right. If I wasn't sitting here talking
Speaker 2: about a podcast, I would be trobably trying to work
Speaker 2: for the Australian Sports Commission and get more kids playing sport.
Speaker 2: And if it's your Roman Empire two are you're interested
Speaker 2: in it? Go and listen to sport Ish. It's a
Speaker 2: really good podcast run by these two women, two intelligent mums.
Speaker 2: Libby Tricket, Olympic swimmer and her sister in law Georgie Trickett,
Speaker 2: and they are trying to spread the word to exactly
Speaker 2: parents like you. Stacy and Amelia.
Speaker 4: Well, it's time for that part of the show where
Speaker 4: we tell you the things that we are loving. Sick
Speaker 4: and Mon's I know you're excited about yours.
Speaker 1: Let's go.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so I have it's school holidays right,
Speaker 2: oh god, how are we going to fill the days?
Speaker 2: I have three low cost school holiday ideas or burn
Speaker 2: half a day? Okay Number one. This is when you're
Speaker 2: feeling good at the start of school holidays. You've got
Speaker 2: the energy. Go to the art gallery. I'll tell you why.
Speaker 2: It's free and it burns half a day and there's
Speaker 2: cool things to look at and most of the art
Speaker 2: galleries are so thankful that children are there and they're
Speaker 2: like pro kids, pro kids. They have like a little
Speaker 2: studio that kids can do fun art things in and
Speaker 2: it costs you nothing except to stand there and say,
Speaker 2: don't touch anything, all right. My second idea is called
Speaker 2: beach patrol. If you live near a beach or you
Speaker 2: don't take a trip to the beach, and tell your
Speaker 2: children they are on beach patrol and give them each
Speaker 2: a bag and they have to fill it with rubbish.
Speaker 2: I'm not joking. I did this with my kids and
Speaker 2: they thought they were the Octennaughts cleaning up the beach
Speaker 2: and they loved it.
Speaker 3: Yes, and have looked so smug to the other parents.
Speaker 2: No, they are all probably other parents like why she
Speaker 2: letting her kids pick up syringes on the beach, but
Speaker 2: dress warmly, they don't feel the cold beaches in autumn. Lovely,
Speaker 2: Just say your job is to pick up the rubbish
Speaker 2: like the oxen Norts, would you know? And yeah, beach
Speaker 2: patrol is a real winner in my house. And the
Speaker 2: third one is called rock bottom Bunnings. Now save this
Speaker 2: for on a day when you're feeling so low, like
Speaker 2: you're a low ebb. You might be hung over, you
Speaker 2: might just be done, burnt out or over stimulated. And
Speaker 2: what you do is you take your children to Bunnings
Speaker 2: and you give them five dollars and you can say
Speaker 2: you can buy whatever you want. It will blow their minds.
Speaker 2: It's a warehouse, it has pieces of pipe, it has
Speaker 2: little screws and knobs. You can say, sure you want
Speaker 2: a plant, of course you can. Let's go look at
Speaker 2: the plumbing aisle. Their minds will be blown. And it
Speaker 2: definitely because there's always playground in a Bunnings too, right,
Speaker 2: It's a really good way to burn half a day.
Speaker 2: And if you're lucky, your Bunnings will also have a
Speaker 2: cafe so you can like have the coffee while they're
Speaker 2: on the playground, and it just is a really good
Speaker 2: time was stuff.
Speaker 4: And then you're done with your Emma Gred three hours
Speaker 4: and you hand them off to the naw.
Speaker 3: Yeah, perfect, love perfect.
Speaker 1: I have a book series called Brinkley Yearbook.
Speaker 4: I discovered these at the library because I feel like
Speaker 4: they plug an interesting hole or a difficult, awkward moment
Speaker 4: in reading development where kids are too old for picture
Speaker 4: books that are not yet on chapter books and their
Speaker 4: graphic novels.
Speaker 1: They're set in kind of upper primary and.
Speaker 4: I love books where you get to know, like all
Speaker 4: the kids at a school Hating Alison Ashley was my
Speaker 4: favorite book growing up, so it's giving Hating Alison Ashley.
Speaker 4: It's set in an upper primary level, but it's perfect
Speaker 4: for like those kids who are maybe in year one
Speaker 4: who are looking for an in between book. They're by
Speaker 4: an author called Sarah Sachs. The first one is called
Speaker 4: Picture Day. There's three that.
Speaker 1: Are out at the moment.
Speaker 4: They're very believable plots, Like my kids really liked that
Speaker 4: in one of the books, this girl has a big
Speaker 4: crush on someone and she gets embarrassed around him, and
Speaker 4: they know.
Speaker 1: They're fievable for the age group.
Speaker 4: They're not overly sanitized, very diverse set of characters, and
Speaker 4: get them from.
Speaker 1: Your local library.
Speaker 2: Yes, what's it called.
Speaker 1: The Brinkley Yearbook? B R I N.
Speaker 3: K Ellieway, exactly cute. I've gone a bit rogue this
Speaker 3: week and have two. I've broken the rules as well.
Speaker 3: You had three, yes, so I figure I can have
Speaker 3: two and it's fine. My first is just a terrible,
Speaker 3: great show to watch on it.
Speaker 1: That's kind of your beat on this podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm never going to bring you a highbrow documentary or
Speaker 3: like a drama. It's always going to be this type
Speaker 3: of show. I'm so sorry, but just trust me alone.
Speaker 1: Don't apologize.
Speaker 3: You're right, No, use your your afternoon filling your cup
Speaker 3: watching this show instead of with your children. It's age
Speaker 3: of attraction. Have you seen this?
Speaker 1: Is this the one about people who are very different ages?
Speaker 3: Yes, so it's forty. They put forty people into this retreat,
Speaker 3: so it's like twenty men twenty women. The only thing
Speaker 3: they are not allowed to ask one another is what
Speaker 3: is your age? Not allowed to tell each other their
Speaker 3: age under any circumstance. And you also don't know their age. Okay,
Speaker 3: So as they start dating, so they speed date everyone.
Speaker 3: They all date each other at least once, and then
Speaker 3: they start gravitating towards people. Now, some of them are
Speaker 3: obviously younger or older, but some of them are like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, Like this person could be fifty, yeah,
Speaker 3: this person could be twenty. If they decide that's the
Speaker 3: person they want to stick with. In the retreat, they
Speaker 3: have to go to the promise room and then reveal
Speaker 3: their ages to one another and give each other a ring,
Speaker 3: like not an engagement ring, but like a promise ring.
Speaker 4: I assumes ring come out after they've said their ages,
Speaker 4: no before so they do it, and then they tell
Speaker 4: each other the ages and the promise ring is legally
Speaker 4: bind you.
Speaker 3: Yes, you cannot take it off ever again. And some
Speaker 3: of them are.
Speaker 2: Cooked, like really, oh car.
Speaker 3: And it's so interesting because some of them where they
Speaker 3: are perfectly reasonable, you know, like where they're like two
Speaker 3: or three years difference four or five, you just never
Speaker 3: see them again in one episode and then they're like, bye,
Speaker 3: we care about these people over here with a thirty
Speaker 3: three year age gap. It is wild. And then they
Speaker 3: move in together immediately, date for the length of the experiment,
Speaker 3: and then decide if they're going to make it on
Speaker 3: the outside. And I've spoiler looked up a lot of them.
Speaker 3: Some of them are still together, some of them not,
Speaker 3: but some of them are.
Speaker 2: During TV execs are just like, what stories?
Speaker 3: What else can we do?
Speaker 2: What stories do people click on? All the time? Now
Speaker 2: everyone likes an age gap? Oh I've got an idea
Speaker 2: for a show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so juicy, it's great to watch. And then
Speaker 3: my other just little bonus, tiny reco is something I
Speaker 3: listen It's a song. I listened to it three times
Speaker 3: this morning and was like, I could listen to this
Speaker 3: five hundred times in a row and not get sick
Speaker 3: of it. It's Harry Styles has done a cover of
Speaker 3: Everybody Wants to Rule the World.
Speaker 1: I love now.
Speaker 3: I clearly sing it like Harry does. It is the
Speaker 3: best cover of a song I've ever heard. It's amazingly
Speaker 3: that's amazing. Mike was on like he was, he's amazing.
Speaker 3: You need to need to listen.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 4: I looked it up on it wasn't on Spotify. I
Speaker 4: guess you have to go to YouTube. That's the annoying thing.
Speaker 3: You do. Have to listen to it on YouTube instead
Speaker 3: of on Spotify. And I'm hoping they'll put it on
Speaker 3: there at some point because it's.
Speaker 1: Got a saxophone, which I was not expecting.
Speaker 3: He's got a brass band in it. Like it's it's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's great.
Speaker 2: That's so good. Yeah, thank you for your rex. That
Speaker 2: is what we have time for this week on Parenting
Speaker 2: Out Loud. So if you're listening, if you're watching sport,
Speaker 2: good on you don get red carded. Good luck these
Speaker 2: school holidays, and a big thanks to our team that
Speaker 2: works on this show. Our exec producer is Sashtanic, our
Speaker 2: audio producers Jacob brown a Content manager of Podcasts is
Speaker 2: to Listen Asas and Group executive producer is Ruth Divine.
Speaker 2: Have a great week. We'll be back in this feed
Speaker 2: next Saturday morning.
Speaker 3: You're just some sports.
Speaker 2: Yeah bye bye bye.
Speaker 3: Mumma.
Speaker 2: Me acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which
Speaker 2: we have recorded this podcast.