Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. So I'm editing a
Speaker 2: video about Labia and you guys are all saying it,
Speaker 2: and then I've got my phone and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden it goes silent, and I'm like, why isn't volume working?
Speaker 2: So I turn the volume up the loudest and I'm
Speaker 2: just like, why isn't it And I hear Maya's voice
Speaker 2: yelling LaBier from my car on the street.
Speaker 3: Hello, and welcome to MoMA.
Speaker 2: Me are out loud and to our Friday show, where it.
Speaker 3: Is a news free zone.
Speaker 2: Today is Friday, the twenty first of February, and I
Speaker 2: am Jesse Stephens.
Speaker 1: I'm mea Friedman, and I'm Amelia Lister.
Speaker 2: And on the show today the sibling feud that sent
Speaker 2: me out down a week long rabbit hole and left
Speaker 2: us asking is sibling therapy a thing?
Speaker 3: Should it be?
Speaker 2: Plus recommendation, something a bit sexy, something a bit controversial?
Speaker 2: And the book Amelia can't stop talking about and our
Speaker 2: best and worst of the week. From an embarrassing moment,
Speaker 2: one of us thinks she's beautiful. That's not me and
Speaker 2: the genes that transformed or wardrobe, but first meya.
Speaker 1: In case you missed it, languishing is back.
Speaker 4: You might be triggered by that word because it was
Speaker 4: a mid and immediately post pandemic term for that feeling
Speaker 4: that everything is just a bit well. You'll be surprised
Speaker 4: to know, or maybe you won't. It's officially a thing again.
Speaker 4: Australians are doing it very very well. We are champion
Speaker 4: languishers at the top of the leaderboard. A study of
Speaker 4: sixteen thousand people following their well being over a five
Speaker 4: year period found that one in five were languishing. So
Speaker 4: things like you might be struggling with your relationships, you
Speaker 4: might not be experiencing as much joy as you used to,
Speaker 4: You're not really setting the same amount of goals, You're
Speaker 4: missing that forward energy, and you feel a bit stuck
Speaker 4: and stagnant.
Speaker 1: Jesse, isn't this just called February?
Speaker 2: I think that might be part of it, but I
Speaker 2: also think there's something else going on. I was reading
Speaker 2: an article by Adam Grant that he wrote during COVID
Speaker 2: about this languishing phenomenon, and he said that it is
Speaker 2: the emotion that sits between depression and flourishing, and that
Speaker 2: a lot of people who.
Speaker 1: What's a pretty broad spectrum though.
Speaker 2: Yes, but he was saying that one of the biggest
Speaker 2: predictors for depression or anxiety in the future is that
Speaker 2: you're languishing in this moment. You don't feel like you're flourishing.
Speaker 2: And I was thinking about it in the work context,
Speaker 2: and how when you have a job that is very pecy,
Speaker 2: say it's very You're constantly distracted and pulled in different directions.
Speaker 2: It's really hard to get into a state of flow.
Speaker 2: And he says that flow is the antidote, like finding
Speaker 2: yourself able to immerse, even if it's in your personal life,
Speaker 2: if it's reading or gardening or whatever it is. Flow
Speaker 2: is the opposite to languishing. And I thought, I can
Speaker 2: see how we kind of we struggle with goal setting
Speaker 2: or feeling a sense of achievement or joy in the workplace.
Speaker 2: We're constantly going from one task to another.
Speaker 4: But Amreilya, isn't there a case to be made for
Speaker 4: languishing being just a symptom of we need to just
Speaker 4: stop and catch our breath for a second.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've heard a lot about languishing lately like you have.
Speaker 5: Sometimes I hear gen Z refer to it as bed rot.
Speaker 5: I think that's part of the same phenomenon. I just
Speaker 5: sounded really old. And I also recall Megan Markle when
Speaker 5: she was interviewed on her Chua to Africa in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 5: and she distinguished between surviving and thriving. And really that's
Speaker 5: what we're talking about here, the difference between surviving and thriving.
Speaker 1: But we can't be flourishing and thriving and kicking goals
Speaker 1: and inflow all the time. Have we just become completely
Speaker 1: unable to accept any form of stacey No, no, no.
Speaker 2: But languishing is about numbness. It's about not actually feeling anything.
Speaker 5: I think this is all a little bit overrated. I
Speaker 5: think a lot of these trend stories, Oh we're all
Speaker 5: feeling one way.
Speaker 1: It means that the.
Speaker 5: Writer is in a certain life state and they feel
Speaker 5: that way.
Speaker 1: I have to be.
Speaker 5: The annoying one here and say I'm not currently languishing.
Speaker 5: And that's because, as of a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 5: I have both children in primary school. Both of my
Speaker 5: children and I talk to women about this. In the
Speaker 5: lead up to this event, and they got this far
Speaker 5: off look in their eyes, and they would say, everything's
Speaker 5: about to change. You're about to discover your life again.
Speaker 5: You're about to feel in control again. And it didn't
Speaker 5: fully make sense to me because school still ends at
Speaker 5: three o'clock. It's not like I have this entire day
Speaker 5: to play with. But it's true. There's something about moving
Speaker 5: into that life stage where it's more predictable, it's less expensive,
Speaker 5: you know where your day's going to go in the
Speaker 5: shape of it for the most part, and I feel
Speaker 5: like I'm not languishing anymore. I think there's something to
Speaker 5: having small children, which is maybe endemic to languishing.
Speaker 2: I wonder if, and it's interesting because it's languishing in
Speaker 2: your professional life. I wonder if this is what I
Speaker 2: was referring to a few weeks ago when I talked
Speaker 2: about not wanting anything. I was really I was at
Speaker 2: work and going, I'm really it's not like I'm not
Speaker 2: enjoying it when I'm here, but I don't have any
Speaker 2: clear goals. You're living two distinct lives. You don't feel
Speaker 2: fully in it.
Speaker 4: I think languishing is maybe I heard Glennon Doyle describe
Speaker 4: it once when she was talking about in a slightly
Speaker 4: different context, being on the landing where she'd actually had
Speaker 4: a relapse in her eating disorder, and she said, I
Speaker 4: was sort of you know, if you look at that,
Speaker 4: or sort of falling down or going down the stairs,
Speaker 4: and then I'm at the landing where I'm not falling anymore,
Speaker 4: but I haven't started going up yet and recovering, and
Speaker 4: I like that idea of a landing. Languishing is almost
Speaker 4: you know, used to say, oh I'm languishing. That used
Speaker 4: to be something that was very indulgent, like I'm languishing
Speaker 4: in bed, like, oh, it's so delicious. Now it feels
Speaker 4: really negative, like bedrot and oh no, I'm languishing. And
Speaker 4: of course anything connected to the pandemic is languishing. But
Speaker 4: I think there's a lot to be said and we
Speaker 4: shouldn't demonize just not being productive or maybe that phase
Speaker 4: while you're going through a change.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I reckon, it's about how long you in it.
Speaker 2: I think that if you feel like you've been languishing
Speaker 2: for four years, you feel like your life isn't going
Speaker 2: anywhere and you have no control over what's happening, then
Speaker 2: that's probably a sign there's something wrong, whereas languishing, I've
Speaker 2: had it described to me as ebb and flow, like
Speaker 2: sometimes you're in flow and sometimes life ebbs. That's okay
Speaker 2: to sit in that too.
Speaker 1: When have I every time? I always say how great
Speaker 1: your house looks? Say look at all your new ship.
Speaker 1: You show you a meeting. This isn't here to sit
Speaker 1: and talk about this? What is that your.
Speaker 6: Seriously?
Speaker 1: What is wrong with you?
Speaker 6: You know what?
Speaker 3: David, you get murdered first for when it's no, you
Speaker 3: get murdered.
Speaker 6: David, you get murdered first.
Speaker 5: No you vote for me?
Speaker 4: No? Why? No?
Speaker 5: Why?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 5: Just?
Speaker 1: I love you? I really I love you, but I
Speaker 1: cannot stomach you.
Speaker 4: I'm the other spot.
Speaker 2: Sibling relationships, one of the most significant attachments of our
Speaker 2: lives and also one of our biggest blind spots, are
Speaker 2: having a moment. Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis fame,
Speaker 2: who had a fight fifteen years ago and then publicly
Speaker 2: feuded for more than a decade, have recently reconciled with
Speaker 2: their tour coming later this year. But the story that
Speaker 2: got us thinking about the complexity of sibling relationships this week,
Speaker 2: with the explosive accounts being shared by the Murdocks who
Speaker 2: managed to make succession look like play school. Maya, you
Speaker 2: have fallen into this rabbit hole, very very deep. We've
Speaker 2: been trying to get you out. Can you briefly explain
Speaker 2: to us what has happened with the Murdock siblings and
Speaker 2: why their names are suddenly everywhere? Because wasn't it It was
Speaker 2: New York Times, it was The Atlantic. I was seeing
Speaker 2: it all over the Sydney Morning Herald and the age
Speaker 2: over the weekend.
Speaker 4: The weekend was like my super Bowl because twenty eight
Speaker 4: thousand words of Murdock gossip or succession really gossip, dropped
Speaker 4: over the weekend. As you said, there were these two
Speaker 4: very big stories based on all the transcripts that have
Speaker 4: come out of a big court case between different members
Speaker 4: of the murder family against each other, and also an
Speaker 4: interview that James Murdock, who is the youngest of Rupert
Speaker 4: Murdock's sons, he gave to The Atlantic and he's been talking,
Speaker 4: He and his wife have been talking to his journalists
Speaker 4: for a year about all of this stuff, about his
Speaker 4: estrangement and about the estrangement from not just his father
Speaker 4: but also his brother, and the various estrangements between all
Speaker 4: the different siblings at different times.
Speaker 5: Miya, can I just interrupt and say, it's so interesting
Speaker 5: he chose to talk to that particular writer, Mackay Coppins
Speaker 5: at The Atlantic, because that writer is most well known
Speaker 5: for writing very sympathetically and very fairly about the Republican
Speaker 5: right in the US, and specifically about the influence of
Speaker 5: Evangelical Christianity on the Republican right in the US. And
Speaker 5: I find it fascinating that he chose someone who he
Speaker 5: must know his dad's probably quite sympathetic with a lot
Speaker 5: of these causes that this reporter writes about.
Speaker 1: Right, So he didn't choose a well known liberal commentation.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: The whole thing was just extraordinary because, you know, in
Speaker 4: succession was huge, as it has been for the last
Speaker 4: few years, there've been a lot of speculation that it
Speaker 4: was based on the Murdocks and that people within the
Speaker 4: Murdoch family suspected of each other of leaking to the writers.
Speaker 4: It's now alleged in this one of these articles that
Speaker 4: perhaps it was one of Liz Murdocks, one of the
Speaker 4: daughters her ex husband, who was leaking. But what was
Speaker 4: so interesting about this and what sort of was at
Speaker 4: the heart of it is that you know, in the
Speaker 4: last season of Succession Logan, the patriarch dies and all
Speaker 4: of his children aren't ready for what to do, and
Speaker 4: it's a bit of a shit show. So apparently the
Speaker 4: Murdocks when they watched it, some of the Murdock siblings
Speaker 4: watched it and went, oh shit, what are we going
Speaker 4: to do when dad dies? So it's a case of
Speaker 4: art imitating life that then imitates art because they then
Speaker 4: tried to draw up planned so that they wouldn't end
Speaker 4: up like what was depicted on.
Speaker 2: This Cree show, as it stands, right, So they didn't
Speaker 2: tell Ruper. I read some of this over the weekend.
Speaker 2: So as it stands, there are I think six siblings,
Speaker 2: but the four so you've got Prue, You've got Liz, James,
Speaker 2: and Lachlan, who all have the same those three have
Speaker 2: the same mother.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those four eldest children.
Speaker 4: Prue his first marriage, and then Liz, Lachlan and James
Speaker 4: are from his second marriage to Anna Murdoch.
Speaker 2: So those four are part of a trust and they
Speaker 2: get sort of a vote in what happens to the Murdoch.
Speaker 4: Correct, So all six of his children, this trust was
Speaker 4: written before his youngest two children with Wendy Dang, Grace
Speaker 4: and Chloe, were born. They're now in their early twenties.
Speaker 4: But it was the way for Anna Murdoch when she
Speaker 4: divorced Rupert. Wasn't her decision to divorce. She wanted to
Speaker 4: secure the future of her three children and stepdaughter pru
Speaker 4: who she'd raised as being the equal beneficiaries of Rupert's
Speaker 4: share after he dies. So what happens is that even
Speaker 4: though all six of his children have equal financial share,
Speaker 4: only those four have voting rights.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it comes down to voting rights, and the
Speaker 2: big fallout, as far as I could see, is between
Speaker 2: Lachlan and James.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 2: And what was really revealing and James and father, Yes,
Speaker 2: was James saying the falling out with Lachlan wasn't an accident.
Speaker 2: My father kind of wanted this. He brought us up
Speaker 2: to be at each other's throat exactly.
Speaker 4: So Rupert, who inherited his company from his father and
Speaker 4: grew it enormously, has always played particularly his three middle children, Liz,
Speaker 4: James and Lachland. James and Lochlan are only fifteen months apart.
Speaker 4: They're both in their early fifties. Now, but since they
Speaker 4: were in their sort of teens or early twenties, he's
Speaker 4: always played them or the three of them off against
Speaker 4: each other as to who would be the heir apparent,
Speaker 4: exactly how it goes in succession. It's interesting it never
Speaker 4: occurred to him that it would be Liz. James says
Speaker 4: his father's a misogynist and doesn't believe that his daughters,
Speaker 4: his adult daughters, are even capable of making decisions about
Speaker 4: their own lives, lit alone running a company. So it
Speaker 4: was always between James and Lachlan, and at one stage
Speaker 4: it looked like it was going to be James, and
Speaker 4: then there was the phone hacking scandal in the UK
Speaker 4: and James had to take the fall on behalf of
Speaker 4: the company and on behalf of Rupert some say, and
Speaker 4: so he then had to essentially leave the company. He
Speaker 4: was demoted, and then pretty soon after Lachlan came back
Speaker 4: and it became clear to him that he was being
Speaker 4: pushed aside and Lachlan had pretty much been chosen. So
Speaker 4: he's been estranged from the company and actually speaking out
Speaker 4: against the company. For example in twenty twenty when they
Speaker 4: were the Bushfires in Australia and Rupert's outlets were sort
Speaker 4: of saying it we had nothing to do with climate change.
Speaker 4: James Murdock came out with his wife, the well known
Speaker 4: philanthropists and climate activists and spoke out against News Limited.
Speaker 1: He then had to stand down from the board.
Speaker 4: So he's become more and more estranged, and at various
Speaker 4: times he's also been astranged from his siblings. But it's
Speaker 4: very much a couple of years ago, Rupert pretty much
Speaker 4: confirmed Lachlan is the heir apparent. He's now in charge,
Speaker 4: and the reason that this has all come out is
Speaker 4: that because the all four of them have equal voting rights.
Speaker 4: After Rupert dies, there was some talk that maybe the
Speaker 4: other three would have a coup and kick out Lachlan
Speaker 4: and turn the company instead of it being so conservative
Speaker 4: think of Fox News, move it.
Speaker 1: Further to the left. And Rupert, who's very conservative and
Speaker 1: Lachlan shares those views, thought that was a very bad idea.
Speaker 4: So he tried to basically rip up the trust and
Speaker 4: say to the other children, no, Lachlan is the only
Speaker 4: one I'm crossing you out.
Speaker 1: Oh so he underlined recently underlined or crossed out shit,
Speaker 1: and they of course took him to court and they won.
Speaker 2: The Murdocks, as I've always said, are just like us.
Speaker 2: We have so much in common with this Australian dynasty
Speaker 2: because one in twenty five Australians are affected by family estrangement,
Speaker 2: just like James, and up to thirty percent of people
Speaker 2: experience ongoing conflict with a sibling. So the reasons for this,
Speaker 2: according to Kayla Steel from the Black Dog Institute, are
Speaker 2: things like parental favoritism, conflicting values and lifestyle choices, and
Speaker 2: disruptive family events that can expose unresolved conflicts, think something
Speaker 2: like a parent's death or divorce. And last year saw
Speaker 2: a rise in sibling therapy, which we'll get to because
Speaker 2: there's an example of that in the Murdocks. But one
Speaker 2: realization a lot of siblings have is that for each child,
Speaker 2: they grew up with a different parent. Amelia, do you
Speaker 2: think there is something especially complicated about our relationship with siblings?
Speaker 5: I do, And this came up for me just last week.
Speaker 5: I had dinner with a friend. She and her sister
Speaker 5: are twenty two months apart, and I bring that up
Speaker 5: because Lachlan and James are only fifteen months apart. So
Speaker 5: I'm talking specifically about siblings with not a lot of
Speaker 5: time between them, I imagine the twin experience is a
Speaker 5: different thing again. And she said that they had this
Speaker 5: really emotional conversation recently. They both ended up in tears,
Speaker 5: and her older sister's going through some things, and she said, basically,
Speaker 5: I wish that you hadn't been born, because while I
Speaker 5: love you and I'm so proud of you, you've made
Speaker 5: my life more difficult by being here because people have
Speaker 5: constantly compared them to each other. She's felt like that
Speaker 5: fundamental breach with her parents was when the younger sibling
Speaker 5: came along and diverted the attention away, and to hit
Speaker 5: that kind of primal point with each other well into
Speaker 5: their forties, I thought, just shows how difficult and how
Speaker 5: our sibling relationships are evolving all through our lives.
Speaker 2: Because therapy has historically focused so much on the parent dynamic.
Speaker 4: Right, But yeah, people think of therapy as being for
Speaker 4: romantic relationships or for self discovery and self help.
Speaker 2: Yes, but the thing about siblings is that that's where
Speaker 2: you learn conflict.
Speaker 1: Yeah, family dynamics.
Speaker 5: I think that's a much more exciting and emerging area
Speaker 5: in in clinical psychology at the moment. A therapist told
Speaker 5: me once that families often delegate the emotional processing within
Speaker 5: the family to one member of the family, which really
Speaker 5: resonated with me because I think that's usually the daughter
Speaker 5: in my family, but you're the eldest daughter, there's me
Speaker 5: and my brother. But in the Murdoch family, I think
Speaker 5: it's James. He's the feeling one, the one who emotes
Speaker 5: and processes in public, and clearly his father really resents
Speaker 5: him for that.
Speaker 1: Because the funny thing.
Speaker 5: About that delegation of emotional responsibility is that it doesn't
Speaker 5: mean that people are grateful to you for being the
Speaker 5: one who processes the emotions for the family. It can
Speaker 5: often invoke really complicated feelings for everyone else, and I
Speaker 5: think that's sort of what James is going through. He's
Speaker 5: the one who's been processing in public and he's been
Speaker 5: punished for it.
Speaker 3: I also think that interesting.
Speaker 2: There's something about sibling relationships that feels like incredibly stifling,
Speaker 2: that you can't evolve within them, that you are always
Speaker 2: pigeonholed as a particular type of person that you were
Speaker 2: when you were five, and life is about changing and
Speaker 2: feeling as though in different contexts you're a different type
Speaker 2: of person, and I, at two and a half was
Speaker 2: identified as the bossy one. I was the bossy one,
Speaker 2: and outside my family, I'm not the bossy one. And
Speaker 2: it's so annoying that when I get back into that dynamic,
Speaker 2: not only am I seen as that, but I become that,
Speaker 2: and it can feel like incredibly confronting and li and
Speaker 2: then you look around and you go none of you
Speaker 2: even know me, which I can feel within all the
Speaker 2: dynamics of siblings.
Speaker 5: Well, that's exactly what happened with the Murdocks, because so James,
Speaker 5: according to the Atlantic article, was pigeonholeders the rebel.
Speaker 1: Early on he died his hair.
Speaker 5: He was clearly very brilliant, but sort of enjoyed doing
Speaker 5: things like drawing cartoons instead of studying hard at university.
Speaker 1: Lochlin was much more the.
Speaker 5: Apple of his father's eye, the one who fell in
Speaker 5: line with his father's expectations, most.
Speaker 4: Like him, the most likely values point of view. From
Speaker 4: a lot of yeah, he modeled himself on his father
Speaker 4: a lot more than any of his other siblings.
Speaker 5: But then when Lochlin escaped the Murdoch Empire to come
Speaker 5: back to Australia, when he and his father had a
Speaker 5: big breach in the early two thousands. James tried to
Speaker 5: inhabit the role of father's apple of his eye and
Speaker 5: tried to dress like his father and act like his father,
Speaker 5: and his father hated that because the family dynamic depends
Speaker 5: on people continuing to play that role even as they
Speaker 5: as individuals change and rebel against it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's so so interesting. I also had a therapist
Speaker 4: once tell me that a lot of people go to
Speaker 4: therapy and their siblings come up in therapy, and a
Speaker 4: lot of people feel very guilty and conflicted about the
Speaker 4: fact that they don't have close relationships with their siblings
Speaker 4: as adults. Might have actually been Esther Perell who talked
Speaker 4: about this, not my therapist. I'm getting them confused. But
Speaker 4: then she said, it's actually really uncommon to have a
Speaker 4: close relationship with a sibling when you're an.
Speaker 1: Adult, probably precisely because of this. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: And it's almost like Jesse when you were saying about
Speaker 4: how you got frozen. You know how people say celebrities
Speaker 4: get frozen at the age they became famous. There's something
Speaker 4: about having siblings. A dynamic gets frozen in your childhood.
Speaker 4: I don't know, necessarily in what part of your childhood
Speaker 4: because those dynamics can change, I guess, but that dynamic
Speaker 4: you don't get the opportunity to grow out of them exactly.
Speaker 2: I've heard it referred to as a shadow relationship. So
Speaker 2: you have this defining relationship with certain dynamics that include
Speaker 2: behavior that probably wouldn't be legitimate anywhere else in your life.
Speaker 2: The way that siblings fight, the names they call each
Speaker 2: other would not be appropriate often between a partner or
Speaker 2: a friend or a boss, but siblings kind of get
Speaker 2: away with it. But the shadow is that you then
Speaker 2: bring I was reading this therapist say, you bring that
Speaker 2: to every relationship you enter. So whether it's a type
Speaker 2: of attachment where you felt like you were parenting the
Speaker 2: other one, or you felt constantly in conflict or competition,
Speaker 2: it defines. The therapist was saying, you see people get
Speaker 2: locked into sort of a spouse relationship, and when they
Speaker 2: turned to the sibling relationship, they went, that's actually what's
Speaker 2: informed it.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating.
Speaker 4: One of the things I always ask people with multiple
Speaker 4: children of any age really is what's the dynamic like
Speaker 4: between the children, because I always find that fascinating and
Speaker 4: it can be so different why do you think it
Speaker 4: is that so many siblings when they fall out, they
Speaker 4: fall out in ways that are kind of can be catastrophic.
Speaker 5: It's because it's so deeply painful. And I speak from experience,
Speaker 5: because my brother and I went through a period of
Speaker 5: estrangement earlier in my life. We probably only didn't speak
Speaker 5: for about six months, but I think it might have
Speaker 5: been the most difficult six months of my life.
Speaker 1: And why do you think that?
Speaker 5: Because it's such a primal relationship. You assume that, like
Speaker 5: your parents, your sibling is always going to be there
Speaker 5: and you're going to get that unconditional love, and I
Speaker 5: suppose you do in a certain way, but it's also
Speaker 5: more volatile.
Speaker 4: Always a relationship based on competition, competition for your parents' affection,
Speaker 4: time love.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's necessarily that, or if it's
Speaker 2: just so complicated because so much is unsaid, like there
Speaker 2: are so many entrenched dynamics. I think there's also an
Speaker 2: element of My mum has lost two siblings recently, and
Speaker 2: we were talking about how it feels like the death
Speaker 2: of childhood, and I think that estrangement does that too.
Speaker 2: There's such an innocence often to your early years in
Speaker 2: a nostalgia if you had a pleasant upbringing where it
Speaker 2: felt simple that then you get into adulthood and all these,
Speaker 2: as they say, almost triggers. Whether it's things going on
Speaker 2: with your parents or your own families, it comes up
Speaker 2: and it just makes a mess of it. And I
Speaker 2: heard this hourglass theory of sibling relationships, which is a
Speaker 2: real closeness. When your kids midlife, you tend to separate.
Speaker 2: And then this therapist was saying that towards old age,
Speaker 2: when people look towards end of life or going I
Speaker 2: don't know how much long I'm going to be here,
Speaker 2: there is this real desire that kicks in to get
Speaker 2: close to your siblings again.
Speaker 4: It can also cascade down when your siblings have children
Speaker 4: and you see how your parents are with your children
Speaker 4: versus your siblings' children, and you can see sometimes that
Speaker 4: that can cause like that jealousy and that rival, which
Speaker 4: is feels silly to another adult. I've seen it play
Speaker 4: out in families where they get jealous of the grandparents'
Speaker 4: relationship with certain grandchildren. I was talking to one woman
Speaker 4: once since she's like was talking about her favorite grandchild.
Speaker 4: Her three daughters were like laughing because they just know
Speaker 4: that that's the favorite grandchild.
Speaker 1: I think at the.
Speaker 4: Heart of your relationships with your siblings, particularly with estrangements,
Speaker 4: is that we're all just wounded children, right, And when
Speaker 4: you're in your wounded child self, you're not thinking rationally,
Speaker 4: you're not perhaps behaving in the best or most mature way.
Speaker 4: But it can be really hard to be anything other
Speaker 4: than that wounded child when you're dealing with your siblings.
Speaker 2: And to be a child is to be in a
Speaker 2: state of narcissism. My childhood I refer to it as
Speaker 2: my childhood, and Clari always laughs at me because it's
Speaker 2: as though she wasn't there, But like, I have these
Speaker 2: memories and there were side characters, but really, Jesse's childhood
Speaker 2: is a narrative that is told from Jesse's point of view.
Speaker 1: It's funny you say that because when my father is
Speaker 1: with his siblings, he taught about my mother.
Speaker 3: I do the same. I do the same.
Speaker 2: And then you have a brother say that this thing
Speaker 2: happened or that they felt as though this dynamic existed,
Speaker 2: and you're like, well, that fundamentally conflicts with my memory
Speaker 2: of my childhood, and you can't reconcile that you lived
Speaker 2: in the same house and yet lived totally different lives.
Speaker 4: And then of of course being a parent watching dynamics
Speaker 4: established between your children, watching those sibling dynamics and sometimes
Speaker 4: really hard to know when to intervene and when not
Speaker 4: and how much you just have to let play things out,
Speaker 4: and watching allegiances change over the years and dynamics change
Speaker 4: over the years. Like Remy and Luca, for example, they're
Speaker 4: eleven years apart, so for most of Remy's life, Luca
Speaker 4: was like a third parent to him, and they kind
Speaker 4: of what are they going to have in common? But
Speaker 4: now Luca's twenty seven and Remy sixteen, and the.
Speaker 1: Gap has just closed.
Speaker 4: I think Luca's gotten less mature and Remy's got more mature,
Speaker 4: and they've kind of met in the middle, and so
Speaker 4: that's that's like a delight. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: I also know people whose children are estranged from each other,
Speaker 4: and it is apparently gut ranging for them.
Speaker 2: Amelia, did you know that Maya has a real complicated
Speaker 2: relationship with her parents' dog, that she has a real
Speaker 2: jealous relationship, like it's the other sibling, Like Maya has
Speaker 2: a real you should look at Maya looking at this dog.
Speaker 5: I was kind of bring up maybe a more interesting example,
Speaker 5: which is the Kennedy family, you know, the American political dynasty,
Speaker 5: and we'll talk about them a little bit later in
Speaker 5: this podcast.
Speaker 1: But John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy were two
Speaker 1: American politicians. John F.
Speaker 5: Kennedy was assassinated and his wife Jackie and Nassis started
Speaker 5: an affair in the aftermath of the assassination in her
Speaker 5: grief with Robert F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy, his brother who was then also assassinated, who was.
Speaker 5: Then also assassinated. And you might remember also that Joe
Speaker 5: Biden's son Bo died of brain cancer, and then his
Speaker 5: other son Hunter started a relationship with Bo's wife. And
Speaker 5: you look at those stories and they seem kind of
Speaker 5: preposterous almost, or.
Speaker 1: Just that, but they're not.
Speaker 5: Because the thing about siblings is, and to your earlier
Speaker 5: question here about why they cut so deep when they
Speaker 5: go wrong, your sibling is like a carbon copy but
Speaker 5: with some key fundamental differences, and so it's like Uncanny
Speaker 5: Valley looking at that siblings. No wonder this often happens
Speaker 5: where siblings end up in relationships with their siblings' former partners.
Speaker 4: That is so true so the Murdocks did go to
Speaker 4: therapy just like it was depicted in succession. In about
Speaker 4: twenty ten, Rupert called them all to like a weekend
Speaker 4: of therapy in the Southern Highlands, Yes, in New South Wales,
Speaker 4: and it was according to James, it went very badly.
Speaker 4: I think it came up in the court case as well.
Speaker 4: But they all felt like they were just being manipulated
Speaker 4: and it was all just like gas lighting and recriminations
Speaker 4: and all of those things. And James made the comment
Speaker 4: that the therapist was a bit outmatched.
Speaker 3: Can you there's no therapist who is qualified.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 5: I had to bring up Rupert is clearly a man
Speaker 5: of astonishing pettiness and I know we love microaggressions on
Speaker 5: the show. One amazing revelation that I had to bring
Speaker 5: up with the group is did you hear that when
Speaker 5: Jerry Hall moved out of their bell A home after
Speaker 5: Jerry Hall was married to Rupert for a time, he
Speaker 5: sent her an email divorcing her.
Speaker 3: Actually she has micro that's a bit micro petty.
Speaker 5: She had to provide receipts of her belongings to prove
Speaker 5: that they belonged to her.
Speaker 1: I wish you could take them out of the house.
Speaker 1: No therapist could compete with that.
Speaker 3: No one is cheaper than a rich person, No one.
Speaker 1: Out loud is in a moment.
Speaker 4: We've got some recommendations that were a little excited about,
Speaker 4: and one of them is a little bit sexy.
Speaker 1: Vibes ideas atmosphere, something casual, something fun. This is my
Speaker 1: best recommendation.
Speaker 4: It's Friday, so we're going to help set up your
Speaker 4: weekend with our best recommendations.
Speaker 1: Amelia, do you want to go first? I would love to.
Speaker 5: My recommendation is something that I mentioned before, which is
Speaker 5: a book called Ask Not The Kennedys and the Women
Speaker 5: They Destroyed?
Speaker 2: Is this a new book, because I think I've heard
Speaker 2: people talking about.
Speaker 1: This new wish.
Speaker 4: You told me you were reading a book about the
Speaker 4: Kennedy women, and I went and bought it, and I
Speaker 4: bought the wrong book.
Speaker 1: But I'm deeply engraced in that.
Speaker 5: So this is by Maureen Callahan. The reason I wanted
Speaker 5: to read it. I was never that interested in the
Speaker 5: Kennedy's camelot political dynasty. Knew vaguely who they were, but
Speaker 5: would never have thought to read a book about them.
Speaker 1: Two things changed. The first, Robert F.
Speaker 5: Kennedy Junior and his deep weirdness. You recall the stories,
Speaker 5: the worm in his brain, the dumping, the bear in
Speaker 5: Central Park.
Speaker 1: He's a weird guy.
Speaker 5: And then he had the relationship with the journalist Olivia Nuzzy.
Speaker 5: I wanted to know how he turned out so weird.
Speaker 2: Because I kept going, isn't this a respectable fan like.
Speaker 1: Exactly family is going on? Yeah.
Speaker 4: Fun fact, if you're watching White Lotus Patrick Schwartzenegger, who
Speaker 4: plays Saxon, the eldest son of the southern couple in
Speaker 4: White Lotus, he's a Kennedy.
Speaker 1: You can tell that by looking at his hair and
Speaker 1: his jaw.
Speaker 5: The second is that MEA and I have developed this
Speaker 5: all abiding love that I know you've spoken of on
Speaker 5: the show. For Carolyne Bassett Kennedy, who was the wife
Speaker 5: of John F. Kennedy Junior. They died very tragically in
Speaker 5: a plane crash in the late nineties. She very much
Speaker 5: embodied nineties style. I love the nineties. I grew up
Speaker 5: in the nineties. I want to inhale everything about them.
Speaker 5: So those two things made me think I need to
Speaker 5: learn more about the Kennedys and this so called Kennedy curse.
Speaker 1: You hear about it. I've ever heard that expression.
Speaker 5: These stories in this book are extraordinary. The weirdness of
Speaker 5: this family, the depravity of it, really just blows your mind.
Speaker 1: It was like a ton of children, right, big Catholic family.
Speaker 5: There were eleven children in the family of John F.
Speaker 5: Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, the original ones, and they
Speaker 5: have always treated women badly, both women within the family,
Speaker 5: women who have married into the family, women who have
Speaker 5: dated members of the family have ended up dead, mentally unwell,
Speaker 5: deeply depressed.
Speaker 1: It was not one of the eleven siblings, a girl
Speaker 1: who had a mental illness, and she was just sent
Speaker 1: away for her whole life.
Speaker 5: She was sent away for her whole life. Her parents
Speaker 5: never visited her and silent her away to an asylum
Speaker 5: and in England they were living in the US, they
Speaker 5: never saw her again. You just learned something in every chapter. So,
Speaker 5: for instance, I had no idea that both Robert F.
Speaker 5: Kennedy and John F. Kennedy were both having an affair
Speaker 5: with Marilyn Monroe at the same time.
Speaker 3: So did they know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was part of the whole the whole shebang weird.
Speaker 5: There was multiple instances of this in the family. Also
Speaker 5: another crazy story is Ted Kennedy, who was the brother
Speaker 5: of Robert and John and was regarded as a bit
Speaker 5: of a screw up, but when they were both assassinated,
Speaker 5: all the political hopes turned to him. The problem was
Speaker 5: that he when he was very drunk one day, as
Speaker 5: he often was, he he drove off a bridge and
Speaker 5: a woman was in the car with him, and the
Speaker 5: car drove off the bridge, sunk to the bottom of
Speaker 5: the ocean. He got out, but he left her in
Speaker 5: the car.
Speaker 1: It's a succession, and didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 5: Didn't tell anyone until the next morning, and they could
Speaker 5: have rescued her if he told someone. And during that
Speaker 5: night he was staying at a hotel, he complained about
Speaker 5: how much noise the people in the room next to
Speaker 5: him were making.
Speaker 1: Couldn't sleep.
Speaker 2: So he's just can I asked, JFK was nice guy?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 1: No, none of them was JFK.
Speaker 4: The dad, No, no, no, heng one, the one who married
Speaker 4: Carolyn Kennedy. It's interesting because I'm reading the book about
Speaker 4: Carolyn that really goes into a lot of detail about him.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a.
Speaker 4: Terrible person, and he had chronic undiagnosed adhd that I've
Speaker 4: diagnosed by reading it, and I think that's part of
Speaker 4: you know, he was a chosen son. He was the
Speaker 4: Lachlan Murdock of that family. I mean, JFK only had
Speaker 4: two kids. He wasn't necessarily the guy you wanted to
Speaker 4: be married to. I don't think he was a cheaterah
Speaker 4: like his dad, but he was fairly volatile. And yeah,
Speaker 4: I think he was pretty selfish in terms of the
Speaker 4: Kennedy men are all about themselves.
Speaker 5: I'm fascinating apart from the sort of tabloidy interest of it,
Speaker 5: which is definitely there for me. As I'm getting older,
Speaker 5: I'm finding that I'm more interested in reading nonfiction. I
Speaker 5: never used to read nonfiction, and now I like to
Speaker 5: read about how children are raised, why people turn out
Speaker 5: the way they do, family dynamics. There's plenty of family
Speaker 5: dynamics to analyze here.
Speaker 4: By all accounts, he was a lovely person and given
Speaker 4: the life that he grew up in, was very very normal,
Speaker 4: Like he liked to just go rollerblading in the streets
Speaker 4: of New York and everyone said he was a really nice,
Speaker 4: good person. So he wasn't awful, but was complicated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're all very complicated.
Speaker 5: He saw his father get shot and die when he
Speaker 5: was four years old, so that's going to be a.
Speaker 2: Trauma, intergenerational trauma, maya, what's your recommendation.
Speaker 1: It's very different.
Speaker 4: Do you know that the most searched for term by
Speaker 4: women looking for porn is lesbian and threesome. They're two
Speaker 4: of the top terms. And we know this here at
Speaker 4: MMA MEA because we have just launched a new it's
Speaker 4: not really a podcast, it's like an audio erotica series.
Speaker 4: It's called Butter and it's basically we're sort of dropping
Speaker 4: the episodes in batches with spice ratings.
Speaker 1: It's sort of erotic fiction.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you remember back in the nineties
Speaker 4: there was a big surge in erotic fiction.
Speaker 1: Now there are the.
Speaker 4: Fourth Wing books, which some people refer to as very smart.
Speaker 4: Of course, there's fifty Shades of Gray. So there's a
Speaker 4: long history of women being interested in erotica instead of
Speaker 4: you know, close up bits of porn, which some women
Speaker 4: are into, but a lot of women like a different experience.
Speaker 4: So we have got these stories. They're all from a
Speaker 4: woman's point of view. The idea is that it could
Speaker 4: be you and We've got voiceover artists from different ages
Speaker 4: and different backgrounds to reflect as many different sort of
Speaker 4: women's fantasies as possible. Threesomes, lesbians, butt play. Princess plugs apparently.
Speaker 1: Are a thing.
Speaker 3: What a princess like?
Speaker 4: Bdsm It's a nice word for a butt plug. Some
Speaker 4: people are into that. All of those are either already
Speaker 4: released or coming ha ha. Here's a little excerpt as
Speaker 4: to how it sounds.
Speaker 6: She knows she's caught me out. She leans forward, gaze
Speaker 6: fixed on mine, her full lips tease a smile as
Speaker 6: she stands and holds out a hand, tilts her head slightly,
Speaker 6: a silent invitation.
Speaker 7: I make my way to the bar, flashing the bartender.
Speaker 7: What I hope is a confident smile. I'd like a
Speaker 7: red wine, please, I tell him something I don't know bold.
Speaker 4: These are, honestly so, they're so good. Producer Ruth has
Speaker 4: a little tip. Make sure if you're listening in your AirPod.
Speaker 4: It's probably not something to listen to you on speaker
Speaker 4: unless you're alone.
Speaker 1: But if you're listening on your eropods, make sure they're charged.
Speaker 4: Because she was listening in a public place and then
Speaker 4: she didn't realize that her AirPods had run out of
Speaker 4: bat trees and it just was coming through the speaker.
Speaker 4: We did this survey and we wanted to find out
Speaker 4: what fantasies women had and what sort of language did
Speaker 4: women want to use. So, for example, nobody liked the
Speaker 4: term velvet mound.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes you can be yeah, so it's all.
Speaker 4: Just you know, the favorite I love this favorite places
Speaker 4: for a fantasy to take place. We're in your own bed,
Speaker 4: followed by hotel room. There's some languishing going on. It's
Speaker 4: fantasies for lazy girls. So we will put a link
Speaker 4: in the show notes or just search Butter, Yes, Butter
Speaker 4: wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: My recommendation, Amelia, have you seen the movie The Apprentice yet?
Speaker 1: No? I can't tell me why I should. Okay, yes, Hello,
Speaker 1: this is Donald Trump from mister Cohne. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Donald Who Roy Kohn, nice to meet you, the Roy
Speaker 1: Cohn You're brutal, guilty as John.
Speaker 6: How You'm always went Who's rules. The first rule is attack, attack, attack.
Speaker 7: It's going to be the finest building in the city,
Speaker 7: maybe the country, in the world.
Speaker 3: Have you heard of it, ma'am?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I can't bear it. I can have to
Speaker 1: work out needs to sell that interesting.
Speaker 2: So I'm the one who's not actually very interested in
Speaker 2: Donald Trump and who really leans out of the news cycle.
Speaker 2: And yet I had seen articles about this movie and
Speaker 2: how it was struggling to find a distributor in the
Speaker 2: US because Trump's lawyers were saying, you can't show this movie.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: It stars Jeremy Strong, who we know from Succession and
Speaker 2: The Apprentice is I went in knowing nothing about this story.
Speaker 2: Jeremy Strong plays Roy Kohane and Cohne was essentially Trump's mentor,
Speaker 2: and it follows a very specific period of Trump's life,
Speaker 2: like his ascension through New York socialite kind of life.
Speaker 2: And it is so revealing to see those relationships that
Speaker 2: he had, the way he treated his mentor, his relationship with.
Speaker 3: I think it was his first wife that it.
Speaker 1: Follows, Avana. That was Avana Trump.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really really interesting. I don't want to
Speaker 2: tell you too much about it, but it's pretty damning
Speaker 2: in terms.
Speaker 1: Of I'm so shocked.
Speaker 5: Does it show that he's not a nice guy?
Speaker 3: You know what?
Speaker 1: It's like.
Speaker 3: I had heard a lot of stories from us.
Speaker 1: And you were like, I'm not sure. I do my
Speaker 1: own research.
Speaker 2: You know what, You hear the big stories, but sometimes
Speaker 2: you just need to see the little.
Speaker 1: Story and a lot of my cropettiness, you just need to.
Speaker 2: See the little way that he engaged with this mentor
Speaker 2: and his relationship with his father. Again, it is very
Speaker 2: the Murdocks. It is very the Kennedy's in terms.
Speaker 1: Of he never had his father's approval.
Speaker 3: Oh what happened to his Like, I didn't know any
Speaker 3: of this.
Speaker 1: So it's brother died of our colorism, right, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why he doesn't drink yep.
Speaker 3: And so except for Dieko.
Speaker 2: Jeremy Strong and a bunch of others from the film
Speaker 2: were nominated for Academy Awards, like this is a very
Speaker 2: in terms of reviews and stuff like this has been
Speaker 2: very very highly reviewed. So it is called The Apprentice.
Speaker 2: It is on stan It is definitely worth a watch.
Speaker 2: After the break our best and Worst of the Week
Speaker 2: out loud as.
Speaker 4: If you want to listen to us every day of
Speaker 4: the week, you can get access to exclusive segments on
Speaker 4: Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Speaker 1: By becoming a Mum and mea subscriber.
Speaker 4: Follow the link in the show notes to subscribe and
Speaker 4: support us, and a big thank you to all our
Speaker 4: current subscribers.
Speaker 1: It's time for Best and.
Speaker 4: Worst, which is the part of the show where we
Speaker 4: share a little more from our personal lives.
Speaker 1: Amelia, you're the guest. Yes, go okay, I'll start with worst.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit heavy.
Speaker 5: I have a son and a daughter, and as mentioned,
Speaker 5: they've both started school four and six twenty two months.
Speaker 1: The four year old, who was a girl.
Speaker 5: Had an accident at school about a year ago, and
Speaker 5: she has a scar on her forehead.
Speaker 1: A couple of things have happened recently that are very
Speaker 1: upsetting to do with this scar.
Speaker 5: So I've had two men, i'd say probably in their
Speaker 5: fifties in my suburb say unpleasant things about the scar.
Speaker 5: The other day, I was walking down the street with
Speaker 5: her and a man walks past and he.
Speaker 1: Says, nice bra.
Speaker 5: And I think that's weird because I'm wearing a black
Speaker 5: crew neck T shirt. You know, sometimes you wear something
Speaker 5: and you're a bit conscious it shows your bra. But
Speaker 5: I thought, no, I'm wearing a T shirt. Doesn't and
Speaker 5: also shut up.
Speaker 1: But I was a little unnerved, and then it hit
Speaker 1: me he had said nice scar to my four year
Speaker 1: old daughter.
Speaker 5: And then a couple of months before that, we had
Speaker 5: been getting her face painted and a man walks past
Speaker 5: and he says that it's an improvement that she's getting
Speaker 5: a face painted.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, what sort of a grown man to
Speaker 1: comments on the appearance of a child little and negatively.
Speaker 5: So those are what I would deem matcrow aggressions. But
Speaker 5: I've got some microaggressions to share too. The other day,
Speaker 5: I was sitting at the bus stop with my two children,
Speaker 5: and an old man who I'm sure meant well, says
Speaker 5: to my daughter, I like your skirt. And she's very
Speaker 5: shy and as is appropriate with a man she's never
Speaker 5: met before. He's talking to her in public, and she
Speaker 5: kind of, you know, looked demure, and then he said,
Speaker 5: are you going to a party? And she didn't really
Speaker 5: want to talk to him anymore, and so I said, yes,
Speaker 5: we are, and then I moved her away from him,
Speaker 5: and then he started marstering under his breath about how
Speaker 5: rude she was what And I just thought to myself,
Speaker 5: my son loves fashion just as much as my daughter,
Speaker 5: because their children and they haven't yet been taught that
Speaker 5: only girls are allowed to be interested in fashion, he
Speaker 5: has a favorite T shirt? Has anyone ever said to
Speaker 5: him nice T shirt going to a party? Can you
Speaker 5: imagine it would be absurd to say that to a boy?
Speaker 5: And then, just generally, I noticed that her behavior is
Speaker 5: policed a lot more than his. So on a bus, like,
Speaker 5: if she's not sitting down, the bus driver will have
Speaker 5: no problems shouting at her to sit down. Fine, the
Speaker 5: bus driver's got a job to do. The bus driver
Speaker 5: needs to keep her safe. But I wonder why it's
Speaker 5: never my son who's told to sit down in that way,
Speaker 5: or why it's never my son who's told that he's
Speaker 5: blocking the pavement in my suburb, which is filled with
Speaker 5: rather grumpy old people talk to you by strangers. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: So I've got a control group. My control group is
Speaker 5: my son, because they're very similar in age, they look
Speaker 5: very similar, and one of them gets told things in
Speaker 5: public that the other doesn't. The conclusion that I come
Speaker 5: to is that we are still treating girls like public property.
Speaker 5: We still think that girls are up for debate. If
Speaker 5: a girl's walking down the street, how does she look,
Speaker 5: how is she acting? Is she meeting my standards? Is
Speaker 5: she acting the way I want her? To act.
Speaker 1: If not, I will give her some feedback.
Speaker 5: And boys, already at six, we're taught that boys don't
Speaker 5: get that kind of feedback. Boys are a little bit
Speaker 5: more serious that they just have a little bit more
Speaker 5: of that. To be clear, I don't want people chiding
Speaker 5: my son any more than I want them reprimanding my
Speaker 5: daughter or commenting on my daughter. But it's very striking
Speaker 5: to me that they are treated so differently in public.
Speaker 4: I keep thinking about the scene in Barbie where she
Speaker 4: comes to Earth and she's like, I've got this weird
Speaker 4: feeling I've never had before. It's like awareness, but of myself.
Speaker 4: It's like what it would be like to grow up
Speaker 4: in a world where you weren't aware of being perceived,
Speaker 4: which which is being a boy essentially in our society.
Speaker 1: As a girl, you learn it. It's the soup wes women, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, Wow, what's your best?
Speaker 5: My best is that I have finally settled on my
Speaker 5: mum uniform. It's taken as discussed many years. What I
Speaker 5: struggled with after having children and figuring out what to
Speaker 5: wear is I didn't want to wear ath leisure to
Speaker 5: say do school pickup, but I didn't want to what's.
Speaker 4: Wrong with jesse toe? What's wrong with the camel toe?
Speaker 4: Jesse happy with that?
Speaker 1: Leisure?
Speaker 5: Has he ever felt right to me since the pandemic?
Speaker 5: Maybe it's because I watch too much of it then
Speaker 5: Now it just feels like too much in public. So
Speaker 5: now I've hit on a item of clothing I always
Speaker 5: scratched my head about, and that is a barrel leg gene.
Speaker 5: I am accepting questions on this. I know it's controversial.
Speaker 5: So you might know these as horseshoe jeans cowboys, we
Speaker 5: know them as barrel jene. I mean, it's not a
Speaker 5: good name. And they look ridiculous. The concept of them
Speaker 5: is ridiculous. You put them on and it feels like
Speaker 5: you're a little bit edgier and a little bit cooler
Speaker 5: than you actually are. So you can get away with
Speaker 5: sort of of throwing on the rest of your outfit
Speaker 5: because you're already wearing something edgy and like a bit
Speaker 5: more pushing of the jeans are saying I know what's
Speaker 5: going on. My jeans are saying I know what's going on.
Speaker 5: And then that allows me to have a side part.
Speaker 5: You see what I'm saying, my millennial instinct.
Speaker 2: No, I read an article the other day. You know
Speaker 2: what the headline was, side part it's back.
Speaker 1: It's because they're actually more flattering.
Speaker 3: I think they are too hot.
Speaker 2: Take I need to know where you got those janes.
Speaker 3: Where you got She also.
Speaker 4: Wears white barrel jeans. I can attest they look really
Speaker 4: good on you, so inspired by you because you or
Speaker 4: them to a dinner that we had, I was like,
Speaker 4: they're amazing. Okay, I'm going to give them a guy.
Speaker 4: So before Christmas, I went and I tried on some
Speaker 4: pairs of barrel leg jeans.
Speaker 1: Do you feel good? And them? I looked ridiculous. I
Speaker 1: just looked ridiculous.
Speaker 2: You know what, Melia is tall? I think you can
Speaker 2: get away with it with a bit of heart. I
Speaker 2: think you're too short for.
Speaker 4: That's too I think I am. And what's also interesting
Speaker 4: that I thought the white was a bold choice, especially
Speaker 4: from other of young children. Bold choice white, I was phenomenal.
Speaker 3: I love white jeans too.
Speaker 5: Bo Yeah, okay, So I got them In Brisbane. I
Speaker 5: went on a girl's trip away and we went shopping
Speaker 5: because I never have time to go shopping anywhere, so
Speaker 5: we finally had time to sort of try on clothes
Speaker 5: as opposed to sort of walking into Vinnie's and grabbing
Speaker 5: anything that fits me and walking out. So that was
Speaker 5: a nice novelty. They're citizens of humanity. Okay, they're the
Speaker 5: white barrel leg and I wear them, and I'm just
Speaker 5: like I'm wearing a side part. I'm wearing not very
Speaker 5: trendy sneakers and a very old T shirt. But it
Speaker 5: doesn't matter because I'm barrel legged.
Speaker 3: I love it all right, I'm going to do my west.
Speaker 2: So we were recording this podcast at a separate studio recently,
Speaker 2: and for some reason when we're at that studio, every
Speaker 2: one of our cars somehow got damage.
Speaker 1: Dash about it driving reversed into trees. Okay that other
Speaker 1: people like cars swipe.
Speaker 3: Mine was swine side.
Speaker 2: So my little mirror was knocked off anyway. So I
Speaker 2: just send the car blah blah blah. I get a
Speaker 2: car back, drive it home, go to turn on the
Speaker 2: next day, battery done. So to get the NRMA to
Speaker 2: come over. So Anna Ram comes over and sort of
Speaker 2: side plot. My big job for February of this year
Speaker 2: has been mummyer out loud socials. So I've been having
Speaker 2: so much fun on TikTok and Instagram.
Speaker 1: And you're not languishing, you are.
Speaker 2: I'm flourishing, not with my socials. So anyway, the NM
Speaker 2: gets there and I'm like, look, I have a baby napping.
Speaker 2: I went inside and did some work while they got
Speaker 2: the car started. Anyway, I'm sitting on my phone and
Speaker 2: you know the video that I did about how apparently
Speaker 2: we'd been mispronouncing the word labia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's labia. Did you know that I didn't.
Speaker 2: Okay, apparently it's labia. So I'm editing a video about
Speaker 2: LaBier and you guys are all saying it, and then
Speaker 2: I'm I've got my phone and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: it goes silent, and I'm like, why isn't my.
Speaker 3: My volume working?
Speaker 2: So I turned the volume up the loudest and I'm
Speaker 2: just like, why isn't it And I hear Maya's voice
Speaker 2: yelling LaBier from my car on the street because it's
Speaker 2: coming through my car.
Speaker 3: Radious, it is.
Speaker 1: Literally an urban nightmare. That's not a safe work place
Speaker 1: for that man.
Speaker 2: That man was just trying to do his job, and
Speaker 2: he's got you yelling LaBier through my car.
Speaker 1: Play at least now I know it's now to pronounce it.
Speaker 3: And the thing was. I was still like, this isn't working.
Speaker 3: It's getting louder and louder.
Speaker 2: And then that man was so traumatized that he somehow
Speaker 2: disconnected my car play and it's just.
Speaker 3: Never gonna work again.
Speaker 1: Did he say anything to you?
Speaker 2: I just stayed inside and I was like, clearly it's ready,
Speaker 2: but I don't want to go outside.
Speaker 1: I can never see him again.
Speaker 2: And then he was like to speak of babies away,
Speaker 2: I've got to go bye.
Speaker 3: Do you know how to say labia?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: So that ruined my day?
Speaker 1: That's so good.
Speaker 2: My best is swimming lessons. So we have started a
Speaker 2: swimming lesson.
Speaker 1: I thought that was your worst last week.
Speaker 2: Well, last week we had lesson one and Luna was
Speaker 2: would we say expelled? I think we'd say expelled.
Speaker 1: I think she's self selected out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so she had a total meltdown, like your little
Speaker 2: girl shy. Lunar is shy, and part of the swimming
Speaker 2: lessons is being held by the instructor and Luna is like,
Speaker 2: absolutely not.
Speaker 1: She got very clear boundaries.
Speaker 3: She's got clear boundaries, and she just went, let's get
Speaker 3: out of the pool.
Speaker 2: So we needed to get out early and we just
Speaker 2: watched the lesson all week I was trying to bring
Speaker 2: up swimming lessons and be like, waking up so much fun.
Speaker 1: It's overell, I'm learning this, yeah.
Speaker 3: I thought.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't know, warming her up to it,
Speaker 2: and every time I'd bring it up, she was like, oh, wait,
Speaker 2: all done, all done, and I was like, no, no, we
Speaker 2: got to go on Friday. So we get there on Friday.
Speaker 2: She sees the pool, she doesn't cry, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: this is good. And then we get in the pool.
Speaker 2: She got a little bit upset, she was a little
Speaker 2: bit not happy, and then there was no languishing in
Speaker 2: that pool. She flourished. She loved it, she was smiling.
Speaker 2: I was so crowd and I was like, this is resilience.
Speaker 2: We have shown resilience as just a little girl, Claire,
Speaker 2: and I kept saying, you are most improved. Because her
Speaker 2: cousin Matilda is also in the class. Matilda is very good.
Speaker 2: She's best and fairest, we've decided, because she approaches everything
Speaker 2: with enthusiasm. But I was so proud that Luna could
Speaker 2: come back and just like throw herself into it, which
Speaker 2: is basically a thought now.
Speaker 4: When Jesse was describing how badly Luna hated the assuming
Speaker 4: lesson Claire was like Matilda. By contrast, exclusively experienced joy in.
Speaker 1: The pulpit loves it.
Speaker 4: My worst was Monday's show. I'm hoping that out louders
Speaker 4: won't go, yeah, it's pretty shit.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the show that was shit.
Speaker 4: It was me, and I know that our incredible production
Speaker 4: team will have edited it to make me sound better.
Speaker 4: But what's interesting, I'd say I'm pretty good at podcasting.
Speaker 4: I've been doing it quite a long time. I would
Speaker 4: say I have way more than the ten thousand hours
Speaker 4: that you require to become good at something. But what's
Speaker 4: interesting about this job is that sometimes you can I
Speaker 4: can surprise myself with being absolutely rubbish, and I just was,
Speaker 4: and I don't know why. Sometimes there are different reasons
Speaker 4: that I've been rubbish in the past. Sometimes it's a
Speaker 4: lack of preparation. That wasn't the case this time. I
Speaker 4: was prepared.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's too much preparation.
Speaker 4: Sometimes yes, you have to just be like Goldilocks and
Speaker 4: get just the right amount.
Speaker 1: I was using a bit of AI for my preparation.
Speaker 1: I think that contributed to it.
Speaker 4: I just couldn't find my groove and I just couldn't
Speaker 4: say what I and I also my medication. I'd had
Speaker 4: too much tea, so I was feeling very sort of
Speaker 4: jittery something.
Speaker 1: Thanks for making me feel better, but I think it.
Speaker 5: Was just me.
Speaker 3: What was your best?
Speaker 4: My best is very superficial and it is my hair.
Speaker 4: Never in my life would I've ever said my hair
Speaker 4: is my best. I don't think my hair is exceptional hair,
Speaker 4: but in terms of my hair's individual life cycle and
Speaker 4: how I have felt about my hair during my life,
Speaker 4: I'm really happy with it at the moment. If a
Speaker 4: color our colorist l who cuts O colors my hair
Speaker 4: and your hair and Holy's hair, now, I just leave
Speaker 4: it to her. I'm one of those people that are like,
Speaker 4: what do you think it looks great?
Speaker 1: She just does it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really like it. I think that that color
Speaker 3: is quite in.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what she does to the color.
Speaker 1: I have no input.
Speaker 4: I'm growing it a little bit, so I'm liking it.
Speaker 4: For a long time, I had it quite short and
Speaker 4: Bobby and I'm using I bought a dice and air straight,
Speaker 4: which I'm no I'm converting everybody.
Speaker 1: To you know that.
Speaker 5: I came into the office a few months ago and
Speaker 5: you just looked at me and said, you need a
Speaker 5: dyceon estray to everyone.
Speaker 4: And I don't want to make my recommendation because it's
Speaker 4: really expensive and I don't want people to feel bad.
Speaker 1: It's like seven hundred dollars. Apparently the shar is really good.
Speaker 4: What exactly, I'm sure there are dupes, but what it
Speaker 4: does is that it blow dries your hair and straightens
Speaker 4: it at the same time, and it goes from wet
Speaker 4: to dry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all in white.
Speaker 5: And you know how some people like you and me,
Speaker 5: we're just never being good at doing I no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: No no no, It's just not something. And I'm not interested
Speaker 1: in getting blow dryes.
Speaker 4: I hate going to the hairdresser, so it's now become
Speaker 4: my I would save it in a fire purchase. So
Speaker 4: the combination of my mine Air Straight and Elle has
Speaker 4: just been making me very happy.
Speaker 2: That's all we have time for today. A big thank
Speaker 2: you to you the out louders for listening to today's show.
Speaker 2: We will be back in your ears next week.
Speaker 1: Maya, do you want me to read us out?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 1: I do, Okay.
Speaker 4: A big thank you to our team, who we will
Speaker 4: now name Group Executive Producer Ruth Divine. Executive producer Emmeline Gazillas.
Speaker 4: Our audio producer is Leah porg Just, our video producer
Speaker 4: is Josh Green. Our interns at Tessa and Coco.
Speaker 2: And if you are looking for something else to listen to,
Speaker 2: may I suggest yesterday's very naughty subscriber episode. It was
Speaker 2: so naughty we couldn't do it here.
Speaker 1: We're a bit inspired by butter.
Speaker 2: A little bit, a little bit. Have you seen Baby
Speaker 2: Go yet a million?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Loved it, loved.
Speaker 3: It, Thank you.
Speaker 2: So we have a theory that a I'm trying to
Speaker 2: think how many letters it has in cases listening letters.
Speaker 1: Type of sexual act is back.
Speaker 2: It's going to be big of the digital the digital variety.
Speaker 2: There is an act that's back, and apparently there is
Speaker 2: one generation that is having the best sex. And we
Speaker 2: have a very sexy discussion we do. So you can
Speaker 2: listen to that by the link in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Bye bye.
Speaker 1: Shout out to any Muma Maya subscribers listening. If you
Speaker 1: love the show and want to support us as well,
Speaker 1: subscribing to Mom and Maya is the very best way
Speaker 1: to do so. There is a link in the episode
Speaker 1: description