Speaker 1: Welcome to Parenting Out Loud. This is the podcast for
Speaker 1: parents who don't always listen to parenting type podcasts. Instead,
Speaker 1: we like to take a look at the news and
Speaker 1: culture and trends and kind of put our little microscope
Speaker 1: on it and go, mmm, what does this all mean?
Speaker 1: And why does parenting feel so hard?
Speaker 2: Right now?
Speaker 1: It's not your fault, that's the top line. It's not
Speaker 1: your fault. I'm Monique Bolli, I'm Amelia Lesta, and I
Speaker 1: am not Stacy Hickause.
Speaker 2: I am grac Ery Bray back again. Gross yay, thanks
Speaker 2: for having me.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys are surviving ushy season, happy ushi
Speaker 1: season that we laugh. We've had the Comm Games recently,
Speaker 1: we've had the World Cup, we've had the Tour de France.
Speaker 1: But in my house, the great competition is for the ushi.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's wild.
Speaker 3: Now is the ushi an erasa?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: Is that true? Because my children are telling me things
Speaker 3: about them and I don't even know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know either, but I was thinking reflecting.
Speaker 3: On this, I actually don't know what they are.
Speaker 2: I don't know what.
Speaker 5: I might have a one year old, but so obviously
Speaker 5: she's not interested in them. But they're in my house
Speaker 5: still because my husband is.
Speaker 2: Interested in them.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's like, oh, we can get one of those
Speaker 3: ushes and husband.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's working. It's cross generational. Amelia, you are the
Speaker 1: flocked bulls eye of my life. I need you to
Speaker 1: know that.
Speaker 2: Do you know what that means?
Speaker 1: No, blocked bull's.
Speaker 2: Eye is the rarest or. She it's you.
Speaker 3: You're a rare stick on the top of a pencil.
Speaker 2: And have me rush something out.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, what are we talking about today?
Speaker 5: Well, from enjoy this newborn bubble to you only have
Speaker 5: eighteen summers with your children? When does the pressure of
Speaker 5: nostalgia become too much?
Speaker 3: And should book week be canceled? I want to have
Speaker 3: a debate.
Speaker 1: I'm ready. I'm cracking my knuckles.
Speaker 3: I was on that debating team in high school.
Speaker 1: I'm just feeling shit. Yeah, I'm gonna lease all right?
Speaker 1: And are you a dishwasher? Dad? Theory that we cannot
Speaker 1: stop thinking about. But first, in case you missed it,
Speaker 1: we like to just take a scroll through the algorithm
Speaker 1: and see what's kind of popping up and around in
Speaker 1: the news. And I want to start out with a
Speaker 1: little Ossie Hollywood parenting story. So This is from the
Speaker 1: House of Kidman. Nicole Kidman, her daughter, Sunday Rose is
Speaker 1: evidently a really famous model. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: knew this, but she's like Catwalk Coture, she models for Deal.
Speaker 1: She's very high up right. But the story this week
Speaker 1: was that Nicole was talking to Entertainment tonight and she
Speaker 1: told this story about how before Sunday Rose started modeling,
Speaker 1: Nicole went to her mum and said, Mum, Sunday Rose
Speaker 1: wants to, you know, be a model. Do you think
Speaker 1: I should let her? And Nicole Kidman's mother said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to because I let you, And so Nicole
Speaker 1: Kidman's mum. At fourteen, Nicole really wanted to become an actress.
Speaker 1: Her mum said, look, if you want to follow your passion,
Speaker 1: then absolutely, let's make.
Speaker 2: It happen for you. You should do it.
Speaker 1: So that's why Nicole Kidmen started acting. Her mum kind
Speaker 1: of gave her the green light, and Nicole Kidman described
Speaker 1: it as her mother Janelle's parting gift. I also read
Speaker 1: that Sunday Roses big catwalk debut, her big sort of
Speaker 1: Courtua catwalk debut came just one week after Janelle died,
Speaker 1: so poetic.
Speaker 3: I love Nicole Kidman's the way she talks about her
Speaker 3: relationship with both of her parents. She was obviously very
Speaker 3: close to both of them, and she's also written beautifully
Speaker 3: about about grief and how difficult it's been in the
Speaker 3: wake of her parents passing in the Nine Newspapers fairly recently.
Speaker 3: That said, can I admit I feel a tiny bit
Speaker 3: conflicted about the idea of yes, pursue your passions no
Speaker 3: matter what at age fourteen, because you know, setting aside
Speaker 3: the fact that obviously Nicole Kidmen's mother did an amazing
Speaker 3: job raising her, and I'm sure is also doing an
Speaker 3: amazing job raising her children. Just speaking for myself here,
Speaker 3: I'd be worried about the idea that modeling is such
Speaker 3: an exploited of industry. It's predicated on values that might
Speaker 3: put a lot of pressure on young people at an
Speaker 3: impressionable age. I don't know. I just it got me thinking,
Speaker 3: is what I'll say. It got me thinking about whether
Speaker 3: I would I would follow that advice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that might be true.
Speaker 1: But she's also an Aussie, right, and Aussie models do
Speaker 1: it differently. Amelia like el McPherson, blaze the trail like
Speaker 1: we're good. We're good, and she's got all those really
Speaker 1: good family structures around her. Yeah, that's true, but keep
Speaker 1: the faith.
Speaker 5: What do you think about if they want if your
Speaker 5: child wanted to get into like rugby and like the
Speaker 5: because that's one of the things that we think about
Speaker 5: of contact sports and CTE, like, if they go, well,
Speaker 5: that's my dream, but I would be hesitant about that.
Speaker 5: Do you feel similar, Like is it just the modeling
Speaker 5: toxicity that gives you anxiety around that, or would you
Speaker 5: feel similarly if it was a contact sport.
Speaker 3: Now it's a really good question because my son has
Speaker 3: been playing rugby this season and I hate it so
Speaker 3: much and I won't go to the games now they
Speaker 3: happen to also be very early on a Saturday morning.
Speaker 3: That it has nothing to do with it, it does
Speaker 3: make me really uncomfortable. So I guess I've answered your
Speaker 3: question with Ultimately, it's really hard to say no to
Speaker 3: your children when they want to do something, And maybe
Speaker 3: that's what Nicole's mum was kind of getting at, like,
Speaker 3: if you stand in the way of your child's dream,
Speaker 3: they can find a way around you. You may as
Speaker 3: well offer them your blessing and your cooperation. In case
Speaker 3: you missed it, the AI bros are determined to find
Speaker 3: ways for your children to get more dependent on AI.
Speaker 3: Sam Altman, who was the head of Open AI, who
Speaker 3: became a father last year, he wrote something on social
Speaker 3: media a few days ago that the Internet got kind
Speaker 3: of angry at him for he wrote, cool use of
Speaker 3: chat GPT, I heard last night. Connect your family calendars
Speaker 3: and explain your kids interests every morning for the drive
Speaker 3: to school. Have it make a podcast that talks about
Speaker 3: one kid's soccer game that afternoon, one kid's upcoming birthday,
Speaker 3: some news, etc. The top tweet in response reads, what
Speaker 3: if you just talk to your children? Now? Obviously I
Speaker 3: agree with this, and I find AI creepy and scary,
Speaker 3: But to be completely real with you for a second,
Speaker 3: my kids would love this so much more than me
Speaker 3: talking to them.
Speaker 2: They just would.
Speaker 5: I find that disappointing because I don't believe that you're
Speaker 5: a very interesting person, Amelia, But I take issue with
Speaker 5: Sam Altonman as a human being.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: That's cool, though, Grace, because he's a bit of a
Speaker 3: friend of the pod. We talked on this podcast a
Speaker 3: while back about how he said that he didn't know
Speaker 3: how anyone raised children before Ai.
Speaker 2: Oh so how is Ai really raising children?
Speaker 3: He's making podcast?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, well, also that's what I do as
Speaker 2: a job. That's that's ironic.
Speaker 5: So he did say in his ex profile he says
Speaker 5: Ai is cool, I guess, and he's non capitalized the
Speaker 5: I in I guess which people have said that Sam
Speaker 5: Bltman just likes to be cool and it's cool to
Speaker 5: not capitalize things. So he's really trying to connect with
Speaker 5: the people, which makes me feel like cool, but it
Speaker 5: makes me feel like he's more of a robot than
Speaker 5: an actual human being. He might be this whole companion
Speaker 5: podcast for parents and kids. These actually already exist without
Speaker 5: chat GPT having to make them. We have them here
Speaker 5: at Muma Mea. It's called That's Incredible Stories to Share
Speaker 5: with Kids, and about four people made it.
Speaker 2: So I just wanted to plug that. I don't like this.
Speaker 5: Technology can create something for you to share, or you
Speaker 5: can outsource it technology to yeah to create a connection.
Speaker 5: I just but I'm one of these people, to quote
Speaker 5: Kleare Stevens from Muma Mer out Loud podcast, because I
Speaker 5: don't trust people who have a heart on for Ai
Speaker 5: and I am one of those people.
Speaker 1: I think this is inspirational. I think I might get
Speaker 1: AI to make me a podcast. Here's an idea. It's
Speaker 1: Father Christmas every day on the drivers school being like,
Speaker 1: I'm watching you, I saw what you did yesterday out.
Speaker 2: So you're using it as an emotional weapon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what the big tech guys are doing. Maybe
Speaker 1: on Ard.
Speaker 3: Sam wasn't the only tech billionaire who offered some parenting
Speaker 3: tips this week, so a San Francisco based tech ceo
Speaker 3: they all called Nicholas Charaier offered his own idea. He
Speaker 3: writes this was also an ex of course, Toddler spent
Speaker 3: her first night ever sleeping with someone else in the
Speaker 3: same room, her Toddler cousin. They of course spoke for
Speaker 3: over an hour in a very nonsensical Toddler dialect, going
Speaker 3: over important questions about themselves, life in the universe, recorded
Speaker 3: everything in high quality by sneaking a mic in there.
Speaker 3: Gave the very long recording to Claude, which is an
Speaker 3: AI agent. No built a private web page for the
Speaker 3: whole family with the audio split into clips, all named
Speaker 3: and trimmed Your joy from everyone. AI is pretty great.
Speaker 5: Isn't this illegal to record? Illegal without their knowledge. I mean,
Speaker 5: you can't get Todd let Ustart a consent form, but
Speaker 5: still there is some type of Big brother creepiness happening there.
Speaker 3: I've got an idea for everyone in San Francisco who's
Speaker 3: running a multi billion dollar AI company, Play your kids
Speaker 3: parenting out Loud, a wholesome mix of reportage and commentary
Speaker 3: on issues that are important to them.
Speaker 2: That's a good sales pitch.
Speaker 3: So we make a big deal on this show about
Speaker 3: how we are not like other parenting podcasts. So it's
Speaker 3: for that reason. I'm not gonna belabor the fact that
Speaker 3: book Week is coming up. I'm not gonna win sure
Speaker 3: about it. I'm not gonna bitch. I'm not gonna moan
Speaker 3: about how my kids refuse to come up with a
Speaker 3: costume that is not in fact from a book, but
Speaker 3: is rather a movie character or a soccer player. No,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna do any of those things. Instead, what
Speaker 3: we like to do on this show is go thinky
Speaker 3: and deep. And I read an eye about Bookweek that
Speaker 3: went thinky and deep. It was called Book Week's Quiet
Speaker 3: Equity Problem, and it was in The Educator Australia. But
Speaker 3: before we get to that, thinky deep peace, Grace. I
Speaker 3: see you looking a little bit confused. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Look, I do have a one year old, so I'm
Speaker 5: not quite at the stage of book Week, and I
Speaker 5: guess the way I approach this is with whimsy, because
Speaker 5: everything is new, everything is a first, everything is delightful,
Speaker 5: like she's, you know, pointing at things and making me
Speaker 5: go over to them.
Speaker 2: And at the moment, that's delightful.
Speaker 5: And I'm sure within even a month that's going to
Speaker 5: start to wait and be a little bit annoying. So
Speaker 5: when I think about book Week, I think of that
Speaker 5: sounds wonderful. That sounds wonderful, And I guess I don't
Speaker 5: know the politics of it, and I do want to
Speaker 5: take this opportunity to get some forecasting from you both.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, one of my first questions is is it actually
Speaker 5: a whole week? Are we talking five costumes or are
Speaker 5: we talking one?
Speaker 3: Good question? Just one right. I don't know how you
Speaker 3: do things in South Australia. You might have like five
Speaker 3: costumes there.
Speaker 1: Oh god, no, no, I think it runs for an
Speaker 1: entire week. I guess your school or your early education
Speaker 1: center or your KINDI would choose a day, select a day,
Speaker 1: and then there is a parade and a celebration. And
Speaker 1: also I think the school runs other kind of things
Speaker 1: that aren't front facing, like within the week they might
Speaker 1: run Little Vincent, the library or things like that. The
Speaker 1: super Bowl, the super Bowl moment, the AFL Grand Final
Speaker 1: is the parade.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's generally term three ish, okay, term three ish,
Speaker 3: So it's coming up for it certainly in New South
Speaker 3: Wales and I don't know about other states, but it's
Speaker 3: coming up in New South Wales. So it is on
Speaker 3: the radar of parents, and they are starting to freak out.
Speaker 5: Right, Okay, because when you say freak out, is there
Speaker 5: a personality divide in a who purchases a costume versus
Speaker 5: who makes me?
Speaker 3: Yes, you're looking at the personality divide.
Speaker 2: This is literally the divide.
Speaker 5: I'm inter se of the Venn diagram meets correct.
Speaker 3: I mean, Mon's how long have you had your Bookweek
Speaker 3: costumes planned for at this point? Is there a Facebook
Speaker 3: group called Bookweek Costumes Galore that you're a member of.
Speaker 1: There's not, but I've been thinking about since January.
Speaker 2: She's going to start for Facebook.
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about since January because my vision, here's
Speaker 1: my vision.
Speaker 2: This year.
Speaker 1: So in previous years I did The Enormous Crocodile, which
Speaker 1: is a classic book in this house, Rolldaal the original version,
Speaker 1: and I handmade a giant crocodile costume, including a helmet
Speaker 1: that had like a large Quentin Blake esque cardboard crocodile
Speaker 1: head on it. And it was it was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: It was a beautiful piece of art. I had a
Speaker 1: sewing gin, I had the hot glue gun. I spread
Speaker 1: myself out in a lounge room. I was loving myself sick.
Speaker 1: And this is my dilemma, is because I'm that mother
Speaker 1: that runs like off, for God's sake, did you have to?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: But I love it. I love it, Grace, I enjoy it.
Speaker 1: It's a craft outlet for me. Oh God, I know
Speaker 1: how this sounds.
Speaker 3: I think this nicely segs into the problem with bookwek Like,
Speaker 3: I think that's wonderful Mond's but I think that it
Speaker 3: brings up the issue of how different the book week
Speaker 3: experience can be for different parents. And so this article
Speaker 3: in The Educator, the author is coming from an unusual
Speaker 3: angle because she says she runs a business that helps
Speaker 3: families come up with costumes. Oh and she writes, I
Speaker 3: don't think bookwek Costume Day is really a costume problem.
Speaker 3: It is a communication and equity problem. She says. A
Speaker 3: family with time, money and a craft cupboard can turn
Speaker 3: short notice into a fun project, but a parent working
Speaker 3: late shifts, a family watching every dollar, A child new
Speaker 3: to Australia who does not yet know the classic characters
Speaker 3: will experience it very differently.
Speaker 5: And do you feel like the kids like when you're
Speaker 5: kids have participated, do they talk about other people's costumes?
Speaker 5: Or is the dialogue between parents going like.
Speaker 2: You notice question what other kids are doing and you
Speaker 2: kind of make a judgment of.
Speaker 3: The pression ones. I don't know what do you think?
Speaker 3: Do you think the kids feel competitive?
Speaker 1: Not at all? And I don't even know that the
Speaker 1: parents do either. My experience of it has just been
Speaker 1: one joyful, whimsical laugh fest. But you're not aware of
Speaker 1: the gym's out there, but you're aware that.
Speaker 3: I'm sure that you have friends for whom bookweek is
Speaker 3: not a joyfest, right, who find it to be a
Speaker 3: source of pressure and stress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. I think that's very true. And
Speaker 1: I think that this is what I loved about this
Speaker 1: article is that it's very real that families who are
Speaker 1: watching every dollar. The line that really got me was,
Speaker 1: as you said, Amelia, a child new to Australia who
Speaker 1: doesn't know the classic characters, who doesn't know the language, ye,
Speaker 1: who doesn't have easy access to online shopping or shops
Speaker 1: you know, is going to They're going to experience it
Speaker 1: really really differently.
Speaker 3: The comparison for me is Halloween, because that's another opportunity
Speaker 3: for kids to dress up in costumes. And we've litigated
Speaker 3: Halloween on the show before. Mons and I famously almost
Speaker 3: came to blows on the subject, but then she came
Speaker 3: round to my point of view because I was on
Speaker 3: the debating team and now likes Halloween. The thing that
Speaker 3: is the difference between Halloween and Book Week is that
Speaker 3: Halloween is optional. It's celebrated outside of school, and it's
Speaker 3: an opt in activity that isn't highlighting difference in a
Speaker 3: place where everyone's meant to be on a level playing field.
Speaker 1: I'm going to protect Book Week at all costs because
Speaker 1: I think there are ways to make the playing field
Speaker 1: more equal, and we will get to that. But I
Speaker 1: do think reading has bad pr around it. It needs
Speaker 1: Book Week more than ever it is competing against screens,
Speaker 1: it's competing against dwindling attention spans. We've talked about the
Speaker 1: decline of reading on this show before, and the thing
Speaker 1: I love about Bookweek, I think is that it is
Speaker 1: one of the last kind of commercial free spaces that
Speaker 1: children have in a world where it does feel like
Speaker 1: brands are pushed on kids all the time. They're increasingly
Speaker 1: being sold products where their attention is just being relentlessly
Speaker 1: pursued by screens and technology. It's this kind of one space,
Speaker 1: this one beautiful little space that just asks nothing of
Speaker 1: them except like, what book do you love? And that
Speaker 1: is so wholesome, it's so pure, it must be protected.
Speaker 3: When you put it that way, it is really beautiful.
Speaker 3: But at least in my experience, very few kids are
Speaker 3: actually dressing up as books.
Speaker 2: What do they dress up as?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 5: Can you does it just become a fancy dress thing
Speaker 5: of Like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like I said, it's like a soccer star
Speaker 3: or a TV character or a movie character. A lot
Speaker 3: of star wars, a lot of a lot of I
Speaker 3: think we'll see a lot of sports this year, particularly
Speaker 3: with the World Cup. I totally get that on as
Speaker 3: just do you really think that this point it's about books,
Speaker 3: even yes it is.
Speaker 1: And to that point, there's this great article on the
Speaker 1: conversation I read a couple of weeks ago from an
Speaker 1: early childhood literacy expert who says, actually, that's great. We
Speaker 1: want children to read and dress up. If their book,
Speaker 1: if the book they're carrying on the day is a
Speaker 1: book about line or messy or a book about star Wars,
Speaker 1: then that's great too, because you just have to provide
Speaker 1: reading for kids whatever facet they're interested in. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about how sport always gets to day, Amelia,
Speaker 1: because if you take the argument against what we should
Speaker 1: cancel book week because it's this, it's not equal, it's
Speaker 1: not entirely equal. No one ever says let's cancel sports
Speaker 1: day because some parents can't you know, some kids have
Speaker 1: better shoes. I can't cope with finding a red scrunchy
Speaker 1: or red hairsprays for the red.
Speaker 3: Rum faster than other kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So instead, what we do with the sports day
Speaker 1: because we know that there are kids who can't run
Speaker 1: like Kathy Freeman, and who can't throw a ball, and
Speaker 1: so what they do is they make it more inclusive.
Speaker 1: You have novelty events you have events where you just
Speaker 1: have to throw a beanbag into a bucket, or you
Speaker 1: get points for cheering really loudly or showing good sportsmanship.
Speaker 1: So I think that's the argument for kind of like
Speaker 1: changing the rules around bookwek that and this article that
Speaker 1: you brought today does talk about several different ways in
Speaker 1: which you can make the playing field of Bookweek a
Speaker 1: little more equal. And one of them is like giving
Speaker 1: parents plenty of notice. The other one is to stop
Speaker 1: giving the grand prize to the best costume, make it
Speaker 1: sort of the best homemade costumes, does homemade props?
Speaker 3: Does your school do prizes for bookweek ones? Because mine doesn't.
Speaker 3: I was surprised that that was even the thing.
Speaker 5: See, I quite like there no prizes, it's just about
Speaker 5: participation in general.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the other thing that I really liked in
Speaker 1: this article is that the school should just keep a
Speaker 1: little spare box of kind of costume pieces for any
Speaker 1: kids that forget or kids that have access to a costume,
Speaker 1: so that they feel included on the day as well.
Speaker 3: I love that. Did you dodge my question on what's
Speaker 3: happening this year? Or do you not want to unveil
Speaker 3: it yet?
Speaker 1: Yeah, here's My dulama is that my vision was grug,
Speaker 1: a giant grug, and the way I was going to
Speaker 1: do it was like varying sizes of hoops so that
Speaker 1: the grugs When you put the grug on, it expands
Speaker 1: into a giant grug with paper like sort of a
Speaker 1: giant with streamers flowing off it. My children don't want
Speaker 1: to be grug. They don't want to be Grug.
Speaker 5: Okay, I think this is the most beautiful idea ones
Speaker 5: because again over one year old, she's obsessed with the
Speaker 5: book Grug, like I don't know what it is like
Speaker 5: like it might be the shape of it or the
Speaker 5: like the colors on it, but she always brings that book.
Speaker 2: There's not a lot of storyline to it.
Speaker 1: He's the king of Australian literature. Hey, Grace, do you
Speaker 1: think side note that Grug and the snake have some
Speaker 1: frije on?
Speaker 2: Well going on?
Speaker 5: I think I've only got the New South Wales free
Speaker 5: free book of Grug that I was given in like
Speaker 5: my little pack, and it's just the one about how
Speaker 5: grug becomes grug.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't do for a son in New South Wales.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Australia, Yeah, I don't know if I'm not imagining
Speaker 5: he's only found just found his hut.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 1: With the grug dream dashed and my workload ever increasing
Speaker 1: in my life and I'm dropping every ball all over
Speaker 1: the place, It's probably going to be a kmart costume
Speaker 1: for us this ye, And I'm okay with that. That's fine,
Speaker 1: that's great.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: If you've been on TikTok or reels this week, you
Speaker 1: might have seen this clip about how to spot a
Speaker 1: dishwasher dad. It's this comedian Mary Beth Barone, and she
Speaker 1: has a special on Netflix. She does this bit about
Speaker 1: white dads, and she says, there's two types. You've either
Speaker 1: got the dad who cares deeply about how the dishwasher
Speaker 1: is loaded, or you've got the dad who cheats on
Speaker 1: your mum.
Speaker 4: Have a listen to this, and most specially I talk
Speaker 4: about how there's two tapes of weight dads. You either
Speaker 4: have a weight dad who cares how you load the dishwasher,
Speaker 4: or you have a white dad that cheats on your mom.
Speaker 4: I grew up with a dishwasher dad. I'm very privileged.
Speaker 4: So if you're dating someone and you want to look
Speaker 4: out for some indications that they might one day grow
Speaker 4: into a dishwasher, Dad, I would honestly say, if they
Speaker 4: collect things to a reasonable extent, maybe not like leaning
Speaker 4: into the hoarding, or honestly if they like build stuff
Speaker 4: with legos, also reasonable. It shouldn't take up like half
Speaker 4: of the living room. But if they have like little
Speaker 4: things that they care about and they take good care of,
Speaker 4: it means that they understand that certain things are delicate,
Speaker 4: they need to be cared for, they need to be dusted.
Speaker 4: That that person I could see there's like a linear
Speaker 4: path to dishwasher, Dad.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, how do you spot a dishwasher?
Speaker 2: Dad?
Speaker 5: I think they've got they're putting cups in a dishwasher
Speaker 5: at like a degree angle for like optimum cleaning, but
Speaker 5: also to make sure it doesn't pull the water.
Speaker 2: You know, they they're making sure each You.
Speaker 3: Got told that phrase doesn't pull the water by a dishwasher, Dad,
Speaker 3: You cannot tell me you came up with that yourself.
Speaker 2: I think it's because my husband is absolutely a disad
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 3: He has said this to you.
Speaker 5: He has demanded it off me to how to stack
Speaker 5: the dishwasher. Because in my work life I am type A.
Speaker 5: In my personal life, I am type B type B
Speaker 5: minus potentially. And to the point with the stacking the dishwasher,
Speaker 5: he just says, please don't touch it, just leave your
Speaker 5: dishes on the side, because I would like to do it.
Speaker 5: And sometimes when I do stack it, he'll look at
Speaker 5: it and be like, I can see your ideas that
Speaker 5: you've had there, but they haven't quite worked out for you,
Speaker 5: have they? And I'm like, it's fine, but I have
Speaker 5: a dishwasher, dad, And.
Speaker 1: Were there signs when you were dating early on that
Speaker 1: would lead to him being a dishwashed at.
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 5: He So, he's a cybersecurity software engineer and he has
Speaker 5: flip cards to help him study for job interviews. And
Speaker 5: I was bantering with it. Well, I thought it was banter.
Speaker 5: It wasn't when I was trying to quiz him and
Speaker 5: I said something wasn't right and he's like, no, that's right,
Speaker 5: that's and he couldn't banter about it. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 5: you are, You're very He's a type A human in
Speaker 5: work and in life.
Speaker 3: Okay, now I have to know how you met because
Speaker 3: that's a very different field to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we dating application software.
Speaker 5: Application software excellent, hinge most more specifically, but I don't.
Speaker 5: Maybe I wonder if I'm not a dishwasher dad because
Speaker 5: I can't, but I'm not. I'm hoping I'm not a
Speaker 5: cheating person either. But yeah, but I can't think of
Speaker 5: anything worse than like rules around.
Speaker 3: Dish Yeah, I think this is just a rule for dads. Okay,
Speaker 3: neither dishwashers or cheats.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I do feel bad for the dad's listening going. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm neither. I'm sort of in that beij Maybe we
Speaker 1: need a category of just like average beige dad, just
Speaker 1: like neither he nor there. I don't know their couch dad.
Speaker 1: They are just sitting there. They're reliable, their comfy, they
Speaker 1: might have crumb on them. Yeah, they're just they're just
Speaker 1: always there. They're great. They're neither offensive nor offense or.
Speaker 5: An antique lamp dad. Nice to be there, doesn't do much.
Speaker 5: Or what about coaster dad.
Speaker 3: That's definitely a type a coast coast dad, or maybe
Speaker 3: coast dad's are also dishwashing dads. Dads or like I
Speaker 3: respect wood, you must put a coaster down.
Speaker 2: That means like they respect objects.
Speaker 3: I think that's you dad. It's another spin on dishwasher dad.
Speaker 3: If you meet a guy who loves coasters, you've probably
Speaker 3: got dishwash your dad.
Speaker 2: That's a good way. But look, lots of love for
Speaker 2: the dishwasher.
Speaker 3: Dad's are married to one. They're the best? Are you?
Speaker 3: And you think I have been married to someone who
Speaker 3: isn't a dishwasher dad? Do I look like I know
Speaker 3: how to stack a dishwasher?
Speaker 1: I'm the same. I stuck a dishwasher like a take
Speaker 1: a mess. God, No, you think I'm type I'm not.
Speaker 3: No, you're maybe soaking some things in like a like
Speaker 3: trademark by car Vinegar Solutions yourself.
Speaker 1: That's true. I do washing the laundry. The law is
Speaker 1: my domain. Okay.
Speaker 3: Also, I'm pretty sure you once recommended dishwasher powder on
Speaker 3: the show as opposed to a dish washer tablet because
Speaker 3: you said it was cheaper. Yeah, so you clearly are
Speaker 3: thinking about dishwashers. Sometimes I'm not going.
Speaker 5: To putting it in there, but yeah, I think I've
Speaker 5: stacked a dishwasher like it's a it's a like how
Speaker 5: much can you fit in there?
Speaker 2: To task and then like.
Speaker 1: You have to test it. It's a challenge for the
Speaker 1: dish washers.
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, that's a nicer read on it. Yeah,
Speaker 5: let's say that. But my them half my stuff comes
Speaker 5: out like not clean because it doesn't fit getting the graces.
Speaker 3: My stuff also comes out not clean, but you know
Speaker 3: what it is done. And I always say to my
Speaker 3: dishwasher dad, husband, would you rather that the dishes don't
Speaker 3: get half cleaned? Would you rather that they just sit
Speaker 3: there for days? Yeah? At least I'm getting it done. Yeah,
Speaker 3: tell us your best dishwasher stacking tips. We want to
Speaker 3: learn from the masters, and we don't want to hear
Speaker 3: from the cheetahs with their best tips they can rack off.
Speaker 5: I want you both to picture this or maybe remember this,
Speaker 5: because I'm sure you will.
Speaker 2: You haven't slept in days. Who nipples are bleeding?
Speaker 5: The only communication you've had with your partner is arguing
Speaker 5: about why the baby is awake?
Speaker 2: Are they too cold, they're too hot.
Speaker 5: They're over tired, They're not tired enough. And then you
Speaker 5: receive a text or it's a well meaning stranger looking
Speaker 5: at your child, approaching them too close on the street
Speaker 5: and they say, soak it up, they're only this little Once.
Speaker 5: There's a recent substack from a writer for Tessa Latifi
Speaker 5: and she's campaigning to cancel that phrase. And it's this
Speaker 5: quote that had me almost weeping in agreement. She said,
Speaker 5: as a mum of a five weeks old, I'm here
Speaker 5: to say, stop saying this shit. It is basically impossible
Speaker 5: to soak in the newborn bubble when you're in it,
Speaker 5: and the pressure to do so makes me feel like
Speaker 5: I'm already failing my daughter. That resonated me with me
Speaker 5: so much because I feel like I've only just come
Speaker 5: out of the newborn bubble in a way that I
Speaker 5: can look back at that time and enjoy it from
Speaker 5: the outside and from months away from those kind of
Speaker 5: five weeks and the amount of times that people said,
Speaker 5: enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's magical.
Speaker 5: It's wonderful that I did feel like this woman and
Speaker 5: I did feel like I was failing her my daughter.
Speaker 2: Did you guys experience this?
Speaker 1: So I don't know if I'm going to agree. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to put a different, just slightly different
Speaker 1: lens on this because I think you're right. It's a
Speaker 1: bubble of terror, right, is a bubble of fear and
Speaker 1: sleep deprivation and adrenaline and bleeding nipples. And if Fanny's
Speaker 1: holing out of your pants, and it's just there's so
Speaker 1: much crying as well. But I do think the bubble
Speaker 1: has got the wrong It's the wrong word to use.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to argue in defense of the bubble
Speaker 1: in one minute, Amelia, what do you have to say?
Speaker 3: It just brought back a memory. I think people say
Speaker 3: this about kids in general, not just babies. I remember
Speaker 3: when I was in primary school and I was walking
Speaker 3: home from school with my grandmother who would pick me up,
Speaker 3: and we passed another elderly person on the street. He
Speaker 3: had a walking stick and as he walking past us,
Speaker 3: he kind of had a Gandolf vibe about him, and
Speaker 3: he turns to me He's like, enjoy it. These are
Speaker 3: the best days of your life, referring to school. And
Speaker 3: even at the time, even as a primary school student,
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, well, what am I meant to do with that?
Speaker 3: What am I meant to do with that advice? Like
Speaker 3: I can't enjoy it in an uncomplicated way, like today
Speaker 3: was stressful, Like primary school can be stressful. We forget that.
Speaker 3: But I guess what's interesting about this substack piece is
Speaker 3: that the person who wrote it has a five week
Speaker 3: old She's sitting down to write when she probably hasn't
Speaker 3: slept in days, and there's something there's something in that
Speaker 3: advice that says you won't always feel this way. And
Speaker 3: I guess maybe that that's useful to some degree.
Speaker 5: All right, Mon's I'm ready for you to defend it.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I think what people say when they mean the bubble,
Speaker 1: and this is what I understand it now. Looking back.
Speaker 1: Let's say you have an uncomplicated birth, you have a
Speaker 1: baby that first four to air hours is a bubble.
Speaker 1: And here's why I think it means. It's how it's
Speaker 1: that feeling of how the world stops. And I understand
Speaker 1: not every mother gets this experience, but it is that
Speaker 1: feeling of time suspends and everyone's really gentle on you,
Speaker 1: and you don't know if it's day or if it's night.
Speaker 1: And you have one job, one job only, and that
Speaker 1: is just to sniff and feed and care for and
Speaker 1: touch and be with this thing that you have made right,
Speaker 1: and I think it's this kind of beautiful. Not beautiful,
Speaker 1: it's terrifying, but it's that liminal space. And I think
Speaker 1: when we talk about a bubble, it's what's around it.
Speaker 1: It's like you are the rawst and the most vulnerable
Speaker 1: that you have ever been in those first two days
Speaker 1: after giving birth.
Speaker 2: The bubble is what.
Speaker 1: Is created around you so that you can just fully
Speaker 1: focus on the enormous thing that you have just done.
Speaker 1: And I was lucky enough to experience that twice, and
Speaker 1: I do know that not every woman does. But I
Speaker 1: think what this article is talking about, like, I think
Speaker 1: that that bubble lasts a very short time and then
Speaker 1: it's back to the reality. And I think what's interesting
Speaker 1: about this article is it kind of puts a name
Speaker 1: to this pressure that you feel as a parent now,
Speaker 1: which is ever increasing, and it's probably social media. We
Speaker 1: have to feel nostalgic while things are happening. It's this always, oh,
Speaker 1: you've only got they're only little for this amount of time,
Speaker 1: and you only get eighteen summers with them, and you
Speaker 1: have to soak up every minute right now. And that
Speaker 1: is not how nostalgia works, and it's not helpful.
Speaker 3: And the fetishizing of lasts as well, like last time,
Speaker 3: you'll never know, the last time you pick up your
Speaker 3: child and things like that. Yeah, that tyranny of enjoy
Speaker 3: every moment it does extend to all of childhood because
Speaker 3: that you've only got eighteen summers. Thing is essentially saying
Speaker 3: the exact same thing over eighteen years. And yeah, there
Speaker 3: was an article in Mother Jones this week that kind
Speaker 3: of tried to defend it. And I'm curious to know
Speaker 3: if this works for you, Grace, because you're closer to
Speaker 3: the newborn bubble as it were either of us. It
Speaker 3: said that, yeah, Okay, it can be annoying, it can
Speaker 3: put pressure on you, but it also captures the most
Speaker 3: cosmic thing about child rearing, a corny, if useful reminder
Speaker 3: to drop that bad habit of constantly counting down to
Speaker 3: the next activity, whatever thing gets me closer to an
Speaker 3: imaginary finish line.
Speaker 5: I still think, yes, probably I am too close to
Speaker 5: find any sense of whimsy about it. Even listening to
Speaker 5: you to describe Mond's those kind of first forty eight hours,
Speaker 5: I was like for me, it was like the first
Speaker 5: seven weeks were like what the hell is happening? Like
Speaker 5: I really struggled to find.
Speaker 2: A connection.
Speaker 5: Like I had a tough feeding journey as well, which
Speaker 5: I don't think helps. Like we got there in the end,
Speaker 5: but like we had to do additional weigh ins, and
Speaker 5: because she wasn't putting on she was like the sixth
Speaker 5: percentile when she was born. Now she's like eighty something
Speaker 5: because she loves food. But I kind of attached that
Speaker 5: time to like feeling like my body was failing her,
Speaker 5: especially that like I labored for two days but then
Speaker 5: ended up in a C section, so I felt like
Speaker 5: I'd failed.
Speaker 2: And then I was failing again.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I understand the you have no other job,
Speaker 5: and I can agree with that bubble of it, because
Speaker 5: it's true you're in this this whirlwind. And like I
Speaker 5: was talking about it with my husband the other day,
Speaker 5: of like what did we do every day? And I
Speaker 5: have absolutely no idea how we passed those days until we,
Speaker 5: as you just said, Amelia, counted down to the next
Speaker 5: activity of like all right, we're going into a wake window.
Speaker 5: All right, we're going into a sleep cycle. And that
Speaker 5: is kind of your life. But how finding.
Speaker 2: Joy within early motherhood.
Speaker 5: I think I felt my first bit of joy around
Speaker 5: seven or eight weeks, but actually enjoying being a mother
Speaker 5: was like five to six months. Another mom and me,
Speaker 5: and Mum said to me when I was talking about this,
Speaker 5: because I'm similar to Stacy, I'm at one and done
Speaker 5: mom and happy with that decision. The only thing that
Speaker 5: makes me want to have a second child is that
Speaker 5: I want to be able to do the newborn bubble
Speaker 5: and do it better and I want to enjoy it.
Speaker 3: You'll never do it.
Speaker 5: I'll never And this is what they said, is like,
Speaker 5: you want to be able to do it better, but
Speaker 5: you want to be able to do it better for
Speaker 5: your first child, and you're never going to get that again.
Speaker 2: So and this was her beautiful advice.
Speaker 5: She goes, So, now your job is to become the
Speaker 5: village for the next mom. And I love that idea
Speaker 5: that there's you know, you've had that moment of your
Speaker 5: sitting on the couch at three am in the in
Speaker 5: the dark, being like, I feel so lonely and this
Speaker 5: is terrible. But you know what, there's going to be
Speaker 5: another mom that goes, is going to be sitting alone,
Speaker 5: cradling a baby, alone in the dark, and I'll text
Speaker 5: her and you know, make her realize that she's not alone.
Speaker 5: And I went through that to make somebody else feel
Speaker 5: not as alone. So yeah, yeah, it's maybe in a
Speaker 5: year's time I will have that joy in the nostalgia
Speaker 5: of it, But at this present moment, I feel like
Speaker 5: I'm still too close.
Speaker 1: You're so, it's so, you're so right, Grace. And I
Speaker 1: think when people say enjoy the love bubble, it just
Speaker 1: discounts every experience that mothers have, Like, I think the
Speaker 1: love bubble is really probably just it's not helpful. And
Speaker 1: you know, often in culture we come across phrases that
Speaker 1: we feel are outdated or don't capture or how something's
Speaker 1: really like anymore. Maybe love Maybe this the newborn bubble
Speaker 1: is one of them, like maybe it's become kind of
Speaker 1: it kind of feels on the nose to say it
Speaker 1: to people knowing what you know now right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: The one thing a friend wrote to me in a card,
Speaker 5: which was the best thing that I heard within this time,
Speaker 5: because a lot of people were like, you must be
Speaker 5: loving it, you must be loving it and saying all
Speaker 5: of this stuff like welcome to the best club in
Speaker 5: the world. And my friend just wrote in a card,
Speaker 5: enjoy getting to know each other. And that kind of
Speaker 5: released me from something. And that's what I write to
Speaker 5: people who knows.
Speaker 3: I think, Look, whether or not it's helpful or not,
Speaker 3: I think it's tapping into a human nature idea that
Speaker 3: the most difficult moments are often the ones that you
Speaker 3: end up savoring the most and with a little bit
Speaker 3: of distance on early childhood. I have to say it's
Speaker 3: turning out to be true for me.
Speaker 1: All Right, It's time for recommendations where we like to
Speaker 1: bring you all the things I trying, watching doing, and
Speaker 1: that we recommend to you are very good friends and
Speaker 1: other parents. Amelia, what have you got this week?
Speaker 3: Look, I've got to sleep spray and that's because I've
Speaker 3: heard the fixes on how to get a better night's
Speaker 3: sleep from the experts and I'm not doing them instead
Speaker 3: because I will scrawl my phone before bed. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I have to know what Reddit says before I hit
Speaker 3: the hay. So instead I'm just going to spray the
Speaker 3: room with this spray. It's from the good Night Company.
Speaker 3: It's an Australian company founded by two best friends who
Speaker 3: are mums. What's not to like? It's forty five dollars.
Speaker 3: It's called the Deep Sleep Mist. It's that kind of
Speaker 3: combo of like little treat and also self help. Smells delightful.
Speaker 2: On the pillow on your face.
Speaker 3: No, it's ambient, like you said, spray around the room.
Speaker 3: It's got Frankinson's sweet orange, lavender and rose it's just
Speaker 3: become a nice little ritual. Mom's I see you've got
Speaker 3: ted Lasso. Can you explain why you're excited about this?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well because season four dropped this week, and okay, I
Speaker 1: haven't watched it yet. Am I still allowed to recommend it.
Speaker 1: I've watched all the other three seasons, and when I
Speaker 1: saw it was coming back, I was like, oh, yepie
Speaker 1: do because it's such a smooth brain watch. You know
Speaker 1: it's all gonna work out fine. You know that nothing
Speaker 1: like majorly upsettings ever gonna really happen. Like, it's just
Speaker 1: really nice co viewing when you want something kind of
Speaker 1: inoffensive and just easy to watch. So yeah, ted laso
Speaker 1: Sill and Hannah Waddingham is mesmerizing. I would watch her
Speaker 1: for a million hours. She's the reason I watch. I
Speaker 1: don't give a shit about ted Lasso, it's her that
Speaker 1: I want to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's a nice What have you got?
Speaker 5: I have a recommendation of to book yourself a staycation.
Speaker 5: Now I know that you do what is it hotel hotel?
Speaker 5: What do you do mons the.
Speaker 1: Hotel at home?
Speaker 5: Like a hotel at home? Well, I'm suggesting a hotel hotel. Okay,
Speaker 5: so I'm in the stage of like daycare, daycare illnesses
Speaker 5: and sleep progressions, and it was like a five week block, Imo, I.
Speaker 2: Enjoy it well at last.
Speaker 5: So we had like five weeks of back to back
Speaker 5: sicknesses and then I or just she was not sleeping
Speaker 5: because she was sick. I don't know either way, I
Speaker 5: wasn't sleeping, and I was like, Wow, this is what
Speaker 5: hell is like. I think I think I found hell.
Speaker 5: And then my husband was like, go stay in a
Speaker 5: hotel for the night.
Speaker 3: Go have the name a dish washer.
Speaker 2: He's a dishwasher. And I booked.
Speaker 5: I've got a quite nice hotel. It's near the office.
Speaker 5: It was two hundred and twenty dollars. And I tell
Speaker 5: you what a therapy appointment before the rebate, it's two
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty dollars. Well, my particular therapist, and it
Speaker 5: was the best sixteen hours of my life.
Speaker 3: It's such a good. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: It was just the like.
Speaker 5: It's not like I slept any better, Like I still
Speaker 5: kind of woke up at one, four and six, but
Speaker 5: it just turned my quarters all down.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't repaintive. Can you please paint I'm salivating
Speaker 1: at this time. My mouth's wading paint the picture. Were
Speaker 1: you in the bed watching like the block or something
Speaker 1: on the teeth?
Speaker 2: I was watching the pit for the second time, okay,
Speaker 2: and I cut it.
Speaker 1: Tea for dinner.
Speaker 5: I got room service wine because there was an organic
Speaker 5: wine shop downstairs, so they stuck their wine, and I
Speaker 5: got uber eats delivered. I had a long, hot shower,
Speaker 5: I put a face mask on. I sat there, but
Speaker 5: I was so like enjoying what I didn't even finish
Speaker 5: my glass of wine, which is wild for me. And
Speaker 5: then I read a book. And then in the morning,
Speaker 5: I drank three cups of tea in bed and read
Speaker 5: a book. And then when I walked to the train
Speaker 5: station to get home, I noticed I was even walking slower,
Speaker 5: like my whole pace my body had just completely slowed down.
Speaker 5: So I know that it might sound boogie or we
Speaker 5: might be like, no, it's too decinent to do that,
Speaker 5: but it was two hundred and twenty dollars, and we
Speaker 5: want to now make it quarterly so we each have
Speaker 5: some decompression times.
Speaker 1: All right, That is all we have time for this week.
Speaker 1: I'm parenting out loud. Thank you for spending your time
Speaker 1: with us on your very busy weekend. We'd love spending
Speaker 1: it with you. We hope we've made you think about
Speaker 1: a few things. Have a great week, and we'll be
Speaker 1: back in this speed again next Saturday morning. Mom and
Speaker 1: Me acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which
Speaker 1: we have recorded this podcast.