Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA mea podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to a very special episode.
Speaker 1: Of That's Incredible.
Speaker 2: It's all about creativity, and you've got some different hosts today.
Speaker 2: There's me.
Speaker 3: I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm Mia Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2: And we're usually the hosts of Mom and Mia out Loud,
Speaker 2: but that's not all we do. We're also authors, novelist, journalists,
Speaker 2: in the case of my talented friends here, screenwriters and
Speaker 2: TV producers. So in short, we've all made careers, some
Speaker 2: of us in some cases quite long careers. Now. Mia
Speaker 2: out of creativity, and it's also at the core of
Speaker 2: what we like to do, and we're not working. Mia
Speaker 2: is a big fan of what she calls creative rest.
Speaker 2: It might be playing with clothes for me, I might
Speaker 2: be growing colorful things. We are definitely creative people, although
Speaker 2: Jesse is not creative in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: That's a conversations another time.
Speaker 3: The thing is, apparently girls often think that they don't
Speaker 3: have to be creative. I remember sensing this a bit
Speaker 3: in adolescence. I reckon it disappeared for a season, and
Speaker 3: apparently that's actually proven. That is something that happens is.
Speaker 4: That because it's seen as something for childhood that you
Speaker 4: leave behind.
Speaker 3: I think it's also about playing risk, Like I wonder
Speaker 3: if we become risk averse.
Speaker 4: Fear of being judged because Elizabeth Gilbert, I think said,
Speaker 4: when a man puts a work of creative work into
Speaker 4: the world, people debate the work.
Speaker 1: When a woman puts a work.
Speaker 4: Of creativity out into the world, they debate whether she's
Speaker 4: worthy of putting anything out at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I remember being in high school and I love
Speaker 3: public speaking.
Speaker 5: It was my favorite thing.
Speaker 3: I did a speech in front of the school and
Speaker 3: I was so proud of myself, and I remember the
Speaker 3: overwhelming response from other girls was like, who does she
Speaker 3: think she is? To her, it was very very that
Speaker 3: And it's this idea that you kind of have to
Speaker 3: put it away, or that imagination, as you say, mayor
Speaker 3: it's a little bit for childhood. And that's such a
Speaker 3: loss because teenage girls are really, really creative.
Speaker 2: So we wanted to talk to you and maybe your
Speaker 2: daughters as well today about why that's just not true
Speaker 2: and give a bit of insight into our creativity and
Speaker 2: times in our life when we've been more or less creative.
Speaker 2: I want to know about you me, who is one
Speaker 2: of the most creative people that I know in almost
Speaker 2: all areas of your life. If you have always always
Speaker 2: been like that.
Speaker 4: Yes, So it's taken lots of different forms my creativity.
Speaker 4: I've always had a big imagination. But my earliest memory
Speaker 4: of it was my mum got a call when I
Speaker 4: was at preschool, so I would have been about two
Speaker 4: or three. She got a call from my.
Speaker 1: Preschool saying, we're a bit worried.
Speaker 4: We just need to talk to you because it's the
Speaker 4: middle of winter and Maya keeps coming to school. And
Speaker 4: then she disappears in the middle of the day and
Speaker 4: she's just wearing like a little dress and it's freezing outside,
Speaker 4: and we've realized that she's actually bringing spare changes of
Speaker 4: clothes to Kindy in her little Kindy bag and getting
Speaker 4: changed throughout the day, and it's not always seasonally appropriate.
Speaker 4: So I had to have these Kindi bag inspections before
Speaker 4: I went to Kindy.
Speaker 5: You pull out that we should do them.
Speaker 3: We should do them when you walk into the office.
Speaker 3: You came in today with a suitcase, and we said,
Speaker 3: tell us what suitcase? What was in the suitcase?
Speaker 4: As you know if you've been to them on mere office,
Speaker 4: You'll know that I've got a rack in my office
Speaker 4: and I will often get changed during the day. I'm
Speaker 4: having a really early dinner with girlfriends tonight, but I've
Speaker 4: got to make sure that I've got enough time to
Speaker 4: go home and put on another outfit, just because you know. Anyway,
Speaker 4: so that I've always used clothes as a form of
Speaker 4: creative expression, right, and there have been times in my
Speaker 4: life when I haven't, And there've been times when I've
Speaker 4: that's reflective of a really bad headspace.
Speaker 2: Were you one of those kids, because I know I was,
Speaker 2: and I don't know if you were, Jesse who I
Speaker 2: always played imaginary games when I was a kid. I
Speaker 2: always had like narratives going in my head and play
Speaker 2: a lot of imaginary games. So I'd be off in
Speaker 2: the corner playing and it would be my own invented world.
Speaker 1: And I think that that.
Speaker 2: Was a sign for me when I was young, that like,
Speaker 2: I loved disappearing into that and I'd just be off
Speaker 2: in a corner chattering to myself, but I was in
Speaker 2: my own world.
Speaker 1: I'd do it with clothes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's another point which sometimes that gets knocked out
Speaker 2: of you because it's a bit of a weird thing
Speaker 2: to do. Let's be honest, right, And there's a point
Speaker 2: of which someone in your family or your friends would
Speaker 2: be like, why is holy talking.
Speaker 1: To yourself and pretend.
Speaker 2: And then I guess as soon as I was a
Speaker 2: bit older and I realized I could write those worlds down,
Speaker 2: I would fill notebooks with stories and stories that included
Speaker 2: my friends. I used to write these kind of like
Speaker 2: serialized stories that had me and my friends doing these
Speaker 2: crazy things. And so I think that it probably was
Speaker 2: in me from a young age. But what I'd love
Speaker 2: to ask you, Jesse, is I wonder if this sometimes
Speaker 2: when you're a kid, we're kind of told you're either
Speaker 2: creative or your sort of books smart, a bit scientific,
Speaker 2: a bit maththy, and you kind of have to pick right,
Speaker 2: You have to pick a lane. I'm definitely the stereotypical.
Speaker 2: I was good at English and writing and books, and
Speaker 2: I wasn't good at science and maths and things. But
Speaker 2: Jesse is our resonant book smart person. I know me
Speaker 2: is about to say I was good at maths too.
Speaker 1: Just hold it me, act although.
Speaker 4: I did you, but I did maths and it was
Speaker 4: quite well in maths.
Speaker 2: I want to go to Jesse and say, did you
Speaker 2: ever feel that pressure to choose? And were you always
Speaker 2: like a jewel lame person.
Speaker 3: I can remember being in year three and I was really, really,
Speaker 3: really shy kid, and I barely spoke and I cried
Speaker 3: whenever I stood it from the class, and I remember
Speaker 3: the teacher.
Speaker 5: I remember her name, and I remember.
Speaker 3: Her recognizing creativity in me and fostering it, and that
Speaker 3: changed everything.
Speaker 2: How did she do that?
Speaker 3: So I would write stories, fictional stories of things for
Speaker 3: other teachers. I would write the stories, and I was
Speaker 3: a terrible speller, and they would just circle the bad spelling,
Speaker 3: and then I would get disheartened. And she didn't care
Speaker 3: about the spelling. She just thought that it was great
Speaker 3: that I was writing stories. And then she encouraged me.
Speaker 3: I remember there was like a plaything and she actually
Speaker 3: gave me a role or whatever and got me to do.
Speaker 3: Have this weird memory. I don't know why it's stuck.
Speaker 3: You know those things you're like, is this significant? She
Speaker 3: was reading a story to the class. It was a
Speaker 3: description in a book and it was saying that there
Speaker 3: were so many flies that the indigenous person in the
Speaker 3: book was closing their eyes so that the flies didn't
Speaker 3: get in.
Speaker 5: She was reading.
Speaker 3: She looked at me, and I was trying to do
Speaker 3: it like close my eyes. She could clearly see that
Speaker 3: I understood imagery, and like there was.
Speaker 5: A real wow.
Speaker 1: She empathetic with the story told in the character.
Speaker 5: I must have been really little when that happened.
Speaker 3: I find that my journey since has been about trying
Speaker 3: to get back to five because the way it was
Speaker 3: beaten out of me. I feel like with essays and stuff,
Speaker 3: perfectionism meant I wanted to get really good marks. You
Speaker 3: felt like you had to write the same way, and
Speaker 3: you put the creativity to the side, and then the
Speaker 3: inner critic gets so so loud that the creativity is
Speaker 3: totally stifled. I feel like all of it is. I
Speaker 3: sit down sometimes during writing my fiction book, and I
Speaker 3: would go, I wish I was five and I could
Speaker 3: just sit there on my little I had a little
Speaker 3: desk and a little stool and a pen, well, a pencil,
Speaker 3: a pen license, and I would write stories.
Speaker 4: It's interesting that you guys talk about writing a lot
Speaker 4: like I. You know, I loved poetry in English and everything,
Speaker 4: but creativity for me has an been something that has
Speaker 4: required skill. Like one of my fondest memories and what
Speaker 4: I used to love doing was cutting things out of
Speaker 4: magazines to decorate my school diaries and stuff, and decorating
Speaker 4: my folders and my locker and my bedroom, you know,
Speaker 4: putting posters. I still to this day love to blue
Speaker 4: tach things up and play with my personal space, whether
Speaker 4: it's my bedroom or my.
Speaker 1: Office or my wardrobe.
Speaker 4: I like rearranging what I can see. To me, that's
Speaker 4: a form of motive.
Speaker 2: And you're definitely like a sort of three sixty creative
Speaker 2: in that way, right You're always looking at the way
Speaker 2: things look and wanting to change them and thinking.
Speaker 1: Of new ways to do things.
Speaker 2: Because one of the things about creativity is it's not
Speaker 2: just about obviously creating art. Whether that's oh, you want
Speaker 2: to be a writer or you want to be a
Speaker 2: painter or whatever. Creative thinking is probably becoming more and
Speaker 2: more important all the time because the machines are not
Speaker 2: yet as good at that as we are. They may
Speaker 2: become that if we don't foster creativity in kids. I'm
Speaker 2: not in a prescriptive way, but don't encourage them to
Speaker 2: think big picture and live in their imagination. For a
Speaker 2: while and think, well, what would make this better, How
Speaker 2: could this be solved? What is a different way of
Speaker 2: saying this. If we don't do that, then you lose
Speaker 2: something very important that isn't really about writing stories or
Speaker 2: painting pictures.
Speaker 3: And you know what else we lose is the flow skate.
Speaker 3: So you might remember being a kid and whole afternoons
Speaker 3: disappeared and we would play imaginary getting dressed up and
Speaker 3: Claire and I would play a game.
Speaker 1: But I used to make up dances.
Speaker 5: Yes, of course you did.
Speaker 3: And the way that time because you are so involved
Speaker 3: in something and you are this incredible focus, it doesn't
Speaker 3: feel like focus because it's so re energizing, that state
Speaker 3: of flow when you are playing.
Speaker 4: But I was also very lonely because there were no screens.
Speaker 4: I had my brother were.
Speaker 2: Lonely because there were no screens.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes I had.
Speaker 1: I couldn't text my.
Speaker 2: Children listening to this, put your fingers in your ears.
Speaker 1: We all know screens.
Speaker 4: I was lonely because there were no screens. No, but
Speaker 4: there was no option. So I think one of the
Speaker 4: things that Foster's creativity is bored them. Yes, and I'm
Speaker 4: never bored now rarely, but then I was bored all
Speaker 4: the time because there's nothing on television, there was no streaming,
Speaker 4: there was no internet. I had no siblings, I didn't
Speaker 4: have a lot of friends. So I would make up
Speaker 4: dancers and I would, you know, I would be forced
Speaker 4: to be creative. I was never imaginative in the way
Speaker 4: that you two were, And to this day, I'm not
Speaker 4: like I'm in awe of anyone that can write fiction
Speaker 4: because I don't ever make up stories in my head.
Speaker 1: I like the real world, but.
Speaker 4: I like physically expressing myself in it, whether it's doing
Speaker 4: a dance or dressing myself for.
Speaker 2: In a minute, we're going to come back, and I
Speaker 2: want to know from Jesse and Meha, and I'll be
Speaker 2: taking that so about how they keep themselves creative when
Speaker 2: there's so much pressure these days to do a million
Speaker 2: other things. But first, here's a message from Lego. All right,
Speaker 2: I need to hear about your hacks because I write books.
Speaker 2: We all do lots of things, and we've all written books.
Speaker 2: But I am in the middle of writing my fifth novel,
Speaker 2: and I have to say my creative process has been
Speaker 2: heart this time. Right, I've had a bit of writer's block.
Speaker 2: I found it hard to get him flow. There are
Speaker 2: a million things distracting me. I've got a million thoughts
Speaker 2: in my head. I want to know if there have
Speaker 2: been times in your life when you've had a bit
Speaker 2: of a block mea and how you've managed to unblock it.
Speaker 3: You've talked about anxiety being a block for you.
Speaker 4: I've got an image of a toilet plunger. When I
Speaker 4: had a really bad anxiety attack that went for like
Speaker 4: almost two weeks and I was diagnosed and everything. I
Speaker 4: was really worried that I wouldn't be able to write anymore. Ironically,
Speaker 4: when I was writing, it was the only time I
Speaker 4: wasn't anxious, because that state of concentration and flow that
Speaker 4: I will get into if I was writing, and you know,
Speaker 4: this is writing articles for Mamma Mia, I don't write fiction.
Speaker 4: It helped my anxiety.
Speaker 3: So is that creative rest? You know how you recently
Speaker 3: brought up that term. I wonder if for you that
Speaker 3: was almost rest.
Speaker 4: But it was just a distraction really, and so now
Speaker 4: my creative rest. I wear two hats at mum and
Speaker 4: may up. Half of me is the co founder of
Speaker 4: the business, and then half of me is making content
Speaker 4: like podcasts, with you guys, and writing and social and stuff.
Speaker 4: The making of the stuff is the stuff I love.
Speaker 4: And that's probably I don't know, thirty percent of my job,
Speaker 4: maybe forty percent, and I'm always trying to get it
Speaker 4: to be more. And the other part of my job
Speaker 4: really drains me because it is the opposite of being creative.
Speaker 4: I mean, sometimes you can have creative solutions to problems,
Speaker 4: and it's creative for me having ideas that I don't
Speaker 4: necessarily have to execute. But for me, creativity doesn't also
Speaker 4: have to be creative. Rest can come from doing a
Speaker 4: puzzle while I'm listening to an audiobook, or going for
Speaker 4: a walk while I'm listening to a podcast, or rearranging
Speaker 4: my wardrobe, or walking around a shopping center and looking
Speaker 4: at clothes. Someone else has said it's also about regulating emotionally, regulating.
Speaker 4: For me, creativity regulates me emotionally and I need it
Speaker 4: to sort of function it And even Keel, have.
Speaker 2: You ever struggled with your creativity, Jesse, because you certainly
Speaker 2: from the outside seem like an incredibly prolific producer of things,
Speaker 2: of creative projects.
Speaker 3: I think you can produce a project without having any
Speaker 3: creativity and that's the saddest thing you can create, because
Speaker 3: it's really it costs you a lot. And the thing
Speaker 3: that gets in the way of creativity more than anything else,
Speaker 3: it is your worst nightmare that you have to let
Speaker 3: go of, is perfectionism.
Speaker 5: And may you taught me that.
Speaker 2: And girls do suffer from that more than boys statistically, right.
Speaker 2: So it's another reason why maybe little girls stop playing
Speaker 2: and building and inventing things is they're like, but it's
Speaker 2: not good. It's not good perfect, it's not as good
Speaker 2: as the one that I've seen on social or the
Speaker 2: one that that influence is making, or the one my
Speaker 2: brother's making, or so I'm just going to not do it.
Speaker 2: So how do you overcome that?
Speaker 5: And I remember it kicking in in adolescence.
Speaker 3: It was like I would handwrite these stories or I
Speaker 3: I loved drawing, I loved painting, and then I remember
Speaker 3: something happened one day where I would like start writing
Speaker 3: on a page and then I'd be like, my handwriting
Speaker 3: isn't neat enough. I need to redo that, like and
Speaker 3: it would and it was awful. It's like you can't
Speaker 3: get into that state of like REEDA, yeah, exactly. So
Speaker 3: I have found a few things help. I think handwriting
Speaker 3: is really good. And I'm not just talking about writing,
Speaker 3: I'm talking about anything. If you feel like you creatively
Speaker 3: need to get something out a pencil and paper, a
Speaker 3: pen and paper, it's right like that. Oh, so it's
Speaker 3: so freeing. I think going for a walk or being
Speaker 3: in a certain space with absolutely no input, and by
Speaker 3: that I mean spend time in your head. I think
Speaker 3: we're talking about this when we're away, we're snorkeling, and
Speaker 3: I love snorkeling, and I love swimming because there's nothing else.
Speaker 5: And it's like my brain.
Speaker 3: When my mind wanders, it goes to such interesting places,
Speaker 3: and I miss that from childhood. You don't let your
Speaker 3: brain do that if it's just input, input, input.
Speaker 2: So can I ask you just a little bit back
Speaker 2: on the critic, because if we think that maybe some
Speaker 2: little girls and girls are stopping being creative because they're
Speaker 2: worried about what people are going to say to them,
Speaker 2: ye as you've said, Jesse, when you were at school,
Speaker 2: or like who do you think you are?
Speaker 1: Or whatever?
Speaker 2: Have you learned anything that's useful about how to not
Speaker 2: care quite so much about that and still be true
Speaker 2: to what you want to do?
Speaker 3: A few things. I think done is better than perfect.
Speaker 3: You can't edit or rearrange something that you haven't started.
Speaker 3: You've got to just put something down. Sometimes creativity can
Speaker 3: be just for you. It's not a performance. It's not
Speaker 3: for other people to judge. And you can draw something,
Speaker 3: or you can make something and go the best feeling.
Speaker 3: And I, as we say we've all written books. I
Speaker 3: can tell you can write a book and you can
Speaker 3: get a great review or sell x many copies. There
Speaker 3: is nothing like the feeling of feeling proud of something
Speaker 3: you have created. There's nothing else that's going to make
Speaker 3: you the teacher giving your opinion that matters. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: in fact it's in the doing. It's like in the
Speaker 3: doing of something. So the thing that's helped me the
Speaker 3: most has been playing with my now nine month old
Speaker 3: so watching her and it's at the moment the developmental
Speaker 3: stage is putting ball in roundhole, right, So I just
Speaker 3: show her how to do it, and then she doesn't
Speaker 3: do it, and I'm like no, the ball goes in there.
Speaker 5: But then I'm like no, no, no. The thing is
Speaker 5: the playing.
Speaker 3: The thing is that she picks the ball up, tries
Speaker 3: to eat it, and then she throws it at the dog,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, it's the journey, not the destination. I
Speaker 3: love sitting on the floor with her and playing with toys.
Speaker 4: I love it watching her exploring.
Speaker 2: Yes, Mia, what's the best advice you've ever been given
Speaker 2: about not caring about what other people think?
Speaker 4: It's that thing of dance, like no one's watching, right.
Speaker 4: I had a lovely time going to a like an
Speaker 4: all female disco club recently, which that felt really creative,
Speaker 4: like everyone's got a disco for ground ups, yeah, and
Speaker 4: everyone was just dancing and it was just fun because
Speaker 4: no one felt, oh my being judged. Like, as women
Speaker 4: and as girls, we learn very quickly when we're girls
Speaker 4: to be watching ourselves from the outside and judging ourselves
Speaker 4: before someone else judges us.
Speaker 1: And I'm watching at the moment.
Speaker 4: My daughter, who is very creative, and she'll go from
Speaker 4: thing to things. So she was like SeaGlass, hunting for
Speaker 4: ages and collecting sea glass. Now she's just started painting,
Speaker 4: and I'm so envious because she's just having a go.
Speaker 4: She's just like got these canvases and she's just doing
Speaker 4: all these kinds of things, and I'm just like, wow,
Speaker 4: I would feel too vulnerable to put something on canvas.
Speaker 4: I'm very into low stakes creativity, like baking something, making
Speaker 4: a cake, rearranging some pillows on my couch, moving some
Speaker 4: furniture around, like I really like those little light touch
Speaker 4: bits of creativity.
Speaker 3: Polly, how have you with a daughter who is going
Speaker 3: into adolescence? How do you make sure that she doesn't
Speaker 3: let that critic steal creativity from her?
Speaker 2: One of the things I talked to her about a lot,
Speaker 2: because I think it's a there's a point that girls
Speaker 2: go through, as you just said me, a where suddenly
Speaker 2: they feel very visible and everybody's looking and judging, and
Speaker 2: sometimes it can be a bit sad for moms and dads,
Speaker 2: I guess, to see their little creative swirling around girls.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of girls will be literally dancing
Speaker 2: like nobody's watching, playing with their friends, scrapping, not caring
Speaker 2: about stuff, dancing around, creating plays, doing all those things,
Speaker 2: and then suddenly it's like closed down. No oh no,
Speaker 2: it's not cool. It's not and it can be a
Speaker 2: bit heartbreaking even to watch it. We make sure that
Speaker 2: in our house it's very clearly explicitly a silly space.
Speaker 1: Right in ouse, it's a great word. In our house.
Speaker 2: You can be as silly and goofy and uncool as
Speaker 2: you want. You can try out ideas that you might
Speaker 2: not want to say out loud anywhere else. Nobody's judging
Speaker 2: you for whatever. Of course that isn't truth. The siblings
Speaker 2: judge each other all the time. But in theory, you
Speaker 2: can try out anything you want. What's hard. I think
Speaker 2: it's really interesting what you say, Jesse, because what I
Speaker 2: see about my daughter, who I don't think she thinks
Speaker 2: is herself as very creative anymore, but I know it's
Speaker 2: in there, and she's been writing stories for school. She's
Speaker 2: at high school now, and she is a bit paralyzed
Speaker 2: by that. Like it's not perfect. Be embarrassed if I
Speaker 2: had to read this out in front of people. So
Speaker 2: I think all of that stuff about reinforcing this is
Speaker 2: just for you, and as you said me, I just
Speaker 2: have a go Like that is just so important because
Speaker 2: once you lose touch with that part of yourself and
Speaker 2: you lose confidence in it, it's hard to reconnect to
Speaker 2: it sometimes and if an adults find that too, so
Speaker 2: it's really important to almost create a safe space for
Speaker 2: yourself to be.
Speaker 4: This is where I get to be keep the stakes low,
Speaker 4: you know, and silencing that in a critic takes work.
Speaker 3: I think has I from Michelle Obama once. I think
Speaker 3: it was her who said, like, the rest of the world,
Speaker 3: for the rest of your life is going to tell
Speaker 3: you you're an idiot. In your home is where there's
Speaker 3: just unconditional love and unconditional support for everything that you do.
Speaker 3: And I really liked that idea. And I also wish
Speaker 3: that at that adolescent stage someone had told me that
Speaker 3: creativity is messiness.
Speaker 5: That's actually what it is.
Speaker 3: You might not see someone else's creativity and go, wow,
Speaker 3: that's amazing.
Speaker 5: I could never do that.
Speaker 3: No creativity is mess working through stages, and it is
Speaker 3: always imperfect, and the spelling error is a part of it,
Speaker 3: and the color that turned wrong on the canvass part
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: And I think for parents listening to this, it's very hard.
Speaker 2: I find it very hard, and probably because a large
Speaker 2: part of my professional life has been correcting other people's
Speaker 2: mistakes as an editor. You know, when my daughter does
Speaker 2: get me to read her school story, I find it
Speaker 2: very hard to resist the red penurge, right, which is
Speaker 2: what you're talking about, And you have to walk a
Speaker 2: line between obviously we want them to do well, but
Speaker 2: also just addressing the content in its purest form. Like
Speaker 2: if the first thing my daughter hears when I pick
Speaker 2: up a piece of paper something she's written, is like
Speaker 2: you've spelled that wrong. Immediately her shoulders go down.
Speaker 1: Like you said with the teacher, that circled the spelling.
Speaker 5: So it came about the spelling and not the idea
Speaker 5: we need.
Speaker 2: To be And it's very hard because you know, parenting
Speaker 2: is competitive now. Schools are very demanding now. But you've
Speaker 2: also got a police you're in a policeman a bit.
Speaker 5: I think I have.
Speaker 4: A Lego question for you both. When you were kids,
Speaker 4: I still like to build things with Lego. Now we
Speaker 4: buy those kids and do it as a family project.
Speaker 4: But did you like using the bricks to just build
Speaker 4: your own creations or did you like following the instructions
Speaker 4: to build a specific thing? Jesse, Yes, you like to
Speaker 4: build your own theme.
Speaker 3: No, because I needed to do it perfectly, and I
Speaker 3: wish that I hadn't Like, I wish that I had
Speaker 3: let myself do more play with it.
Speaker 2: But instead I'd like to build my own things. Of course,
Speaker 2: my son loves to build a model like, exactly how
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 1: I like to follow instructions, and I always.
Speaker 2: Say take it apart and try I make something else
Speaker 2: from it, And he's like, no, it's perfect.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, yeah, but you could make it better.
Speaker 4: I only ever want to follow directions. I find it
Speaker 4: really intimidating that idea. I wonder if I'm scared of
Speaker 4: being judged.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: You say you love being on the floor playing. I
Speaker 4: found that one of the hardest parts of parenting.
Speaker 1: I hated it.
Speaker 3: You also had three kids, and I'm in the early stage.
Speaker 1: No, no, only one at a time. But I never
Speaker 1: liked it, even from the beginning.
Speaker 4: I just didn't like And when it's like tell me
Speaker 4: a story, I'm like, no, can I read you a story?
Speaker 4: I don't know if I just don't trust my imagination.
Speaker 4: But there's so many different ways of being creative. Yes,
Speaker 4: like my son's super creative. He makes creative breakfasts.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like that, Yeah, which is very handy.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I think we've all learned a lot about creativity and
Speaker 2: I've got some hacks. Thank you for listening to this
Speaker 2: special episode of That's Incredible about our own creative lives.
Speaker 2: We hope it's been helpful and helping you and maybe
Speaker 2: your daughter harness their creativity. If you love this conversation,
Speaker 2: please come over to Mama and me are Out Loud,
Speaker 2: where we talk every day, three of us about all
Speaker 2: kinds of things. But in the meantime, thank you for
Speaker 2: joining us, and thank you to let us.
Speaker 3: Bye bye bye.
Speaker 1: Mamma.
Speaker 5: Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land.
Speaker 4: We have recorded this podcast on the Gattigul people of
Speaker 4: the Eora Nation.
Speaker 3: We pay our respects to their elders past and present,
Speaker 3: and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and torres Rate
Speaker 3: islander cultures.