Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mamma Mea acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
Speaker 1: is recorded on. I met my soulmate when I was eleven.
Speaker 1: The way I remember it is that our respective mothers
Speaker 1: banned us from going to some party or other, and
Speaker 1: instead it was suggested that we have a sleepover together.
Speaker 1: We were furious forty two years later, and any time
Speaker 1: I get to have a sleepover with my best and
Speaker 1: oldest friend Lindsey, I will take it. It doesn't happen
Speaker 1: often because we live on opposite sides of the world.
Speaker 1: When I was twenty three, Lindsay was at London's Heathrow
Speaker 1: Airport to wave me off as I traveled to Australia
Speaker 1: for a year long traveling adventure. We cried and we cried,
Speaker 1: and that year has turned into thirty thirty years. And
Speaker 1: yet if we get the opportunity I need to spend
Speaker 1: even a few days together anywhere in the world, those
Speaker 1: days are worth years, and we still cry at airports.
Speaker 1: I also, as a fifty three year old woman, still
Speaker 1: have regular sleepovers with another great maid of mine, Penny.
Speaker 1: My treasure weekends away with a pick and mix bag
Speaker 1: of my closest friends. I have mates I message daily,
Speaker 1: and beloved ones I don't speak to for months. I
Speaker 1: have new friends I already can't imagine life without, and
Speaker 1: friends I share professional passions with to whom I owe
Speaker 1: a great deal. I'm bragging now, and you know it,
Speaker 1: because friendship, if you're lucky enough to have it in
Speaker 1: your life, is the greatest privilege of all and the
Speaker 1: thing that makes an enormous difference to our happiness and
Speaker 1: our well being. And one of the profound joys of
Speaker 1: getting older is getting to write new pages into your
Speaker 1: friendship histories. The landmark birthdays, the losses and the struggles
Speaker 1: and the splits and the bad days all scroll out
Speaker 1: across pages that bound together tell us everything about ourselves
Speaker 1: and each other. I also have ex friends. You probably
Speaker 1: do too, relationships that ended mid sentence, leaving unsatisfying blank pages,
Speaker 1: and I've mourned them like old lovers, and I've wrestled
Speaker 1: with how to heal rifts may be left too long
Speaker 1: to revive because friends are the loves of our lives.
Speaker 1: As the iconic, aspirational, sometimes toxic Carrie Bradshaw's Girl Gang
Speaker 1: told us back when we were young, and in the
Speaker 1: manner of loves of our lives, they run the gamut
Speaker 1: of being the best and worst of us. They lift
Speaker 1: you higher, and they break your fucking heart, and respect
Speaker 1: must be paid. Here's a raised, steaming tea mug to
Speaker 1: the friend you can itch your hormone patch in front of.
Speaker 2: Who will walk.
Speaker 1: Beside you in your stupid weighted vest, who will congratulate
Speaker 1: you for your teeny weeney tomato harvest and agree that
Speaker 1: your partner is a dickhead today and a hero tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Who sees you through your job, through your children, through
Speaker 1: what your body's doing today. Who knows your mum's not
Speaker 1: been well, Who knows when your next appointment is. Who
Speaker 1: knows when to ask if you're okay and when to
Speaker 1: shut the hell up. Who dropped the meme of your
Speaker 1: dreams in the group chat on a bad day, and
Speaker 1: will sing in the car with you at the top
Speaker 1: of your terrible voices when life feels right. The friends
Speaker 1: who know the backstory, who indulge your tantrums just enough.
Speaker 1: To the deep grown up friendships and the ones forged
Speaker 1: over silly shared enthusiasms. To the ones who live next
Speaker 1: door and the ones on the other side of the world,
Speaker 1: and the ones who aren't here anymore. Soul mates.
Speaker 2: All Hello, I'm Holly.
Speaker 1: Wainwright and I am Mid Midlife, mid Family, mid Midlife
Speaker 1: Crisis number eight. We've been away for a while, and
Speaker 1: now we're back. This is season four of Mid, the
Speaker 1: show for gen X women who are anything but, And
Speaker 1: over the next eight episodes, I'm going to be talking
Speaker 1: to grown up women, some of whom you know, some
Speaker 1: you'll be meeting for the first time, who have great
Speaker 1: stories and spot on insights into the things that make
Speaker 1: a life. I always say we've got no time or
Speaker 1: tolerance for small talk by the time we get here,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean everything is heavy, quite the opposite.
Speaker 1: I know that right now I'm searching for conversations that
Speaker 1: cheer me, that soothe me, that make me laugh, make
Speaker 1: me hopeful, distract me from the enormous and tiny challenges
Speaker 1: that we're all wading through every day in our real
Speaker 1: lives and out in the big scary world. Some of
Speaker 1: the conversations we've got for you here are about things
Speaker 1: like shamefree sex, and falling in love again after a
Speaker 1: big split, about reinvention after a massive career crash, about
Speaker 1: caring for our aging parents, and about hair and a
Speaker 1: lot more too. So I hope you're going to love
Speaker 1: season four. But today I'm having a conversation about something
Speaker 1: I've been dying to talk about with people I've been
Speaker 1: dying to talk to. I think you probably all know
Speaker 1: who Amanda Keller is. I'll tell you really quickly just
Speaker 1: in case, that she's an accomplished and experienced media everything.
Speaker 1: She's a TV host and an award winning, rating topping
Speaker 1: breakfast radio legend. But I'm going to stop talking because
Speaker 1: what I've got Amanda to come in and tell us
Speaker 1: about was none of that, really, even though we obviously
Speaker 1: go there a little bit. I invited her and her
Speaker 1: best friend to come in and talk about friendship. The
Speaker 1: person sitting beside Amanda in this conversation is her equally
Speaker 1: accomplished and impressive best friend, Anita McGregor. The two make
Speaker 1: their own podcasts together, which you'll hear about, obviously, but
Speaker 1: I predict that five minutes into this you'll be as
Speaker 1: obsessed with Anita as I am, and with their friendship.
Speaker 1: And now I really am going to stop talking because
Speaker 1: the first thing I asked Amanda and Nita to do
Speaker 1: was to introduce each other through a best friend's eyes
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 2: Yes, Anita McGregor, by profession is a forensic psychologist. I
Speaker 2: only mentioned the profession is because it gives her an
Speaker 2: insight into society that many of us wouldn't normally have,
Speaker 2: and you do it with such kindness. I'm always amazed
Speaker 2: at the respect you give your clients. These are people
Speaker 2: who are before the courts, people who have transgressed, people
Speaker 2: who might be major sex offenders, people who are living
Speaker 2: really tough lives. And the delicacy with which you treat
Speaker 2: them and the respect you give them and their place
Speaker 2: in society, I find is a very refreshing take. So
Speaker 2: that's why you're a very interesting person to have in
Speaker 2: the room to reflect on anyone talking about society, life, rules, justice.
Speaker 2: You're a great calming voice, Thank you, And she's.
Speaker 3: A scragg favorite.
Speaker 1: The pressure is on them. Something nice about.
Speaker 4: That wasn't what was in my head.
Speaker 3: This is my friend Amanda Keller, who, gosh, I would
Speaker 3: imagine everyone in Australia knows of you that you are
Speaker 3: a radio broadcaster, you are a TV star. You are,
Speaker 3: but you are also more than that. You are a wife,
Speaker 3: You are a mother. You are a great friend, an
Speaker 3: intrepid walker with me. You are all those things. And
Speaker 3: the thing that I think that is the most amazing
Speaker 3: quality of you is that when people ask you know,
Speaker 3: oh you know Amanda Keller, you know what she like?
Speaker 3: And I think my response is generally, you know how
Speaker 3: kind and generous she seems, you know on the air
Speaker 3: on the TV. That's exactly what you get. She is
Speaker 3: kind and she is generous and I love her.
Speaker 2: Oh it's lovely. And she didn't use the wood, not
Speaker 2: even once.
Speaker 1: Beautiful. You're from Canada, I am. And you met Amanda
Speaker 1: quite early in your time in Australia, within about a month.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me how we met? Story?
Speaker 3: Oh, so we meet cute, I meet cute. Yes, So
Speaker 3: we had moved here. It was supposed to be like
Speaker 3: a two year adventure. My husband had been offered a
Speaker 3: contract to work and I thought, oh, it's going to
Speaker 3: be just such a fun thing.
Speaker 4: I didn't know a soul.
Speaker 3: I'd never been here, and we had rented a place
Speaker 3: in Coujie at the recommendation of one of my husband's workmates,
Speaker 3: and we had just got all the shipment in I
Speaker 3: was exhausted, and I went for a massage with a
Speaker 3: friend of ours, Jackie Racist, and she said, oh, you're
Speaker 3: new here, why don't you come. There's a Dancing with
Speaker 3: the Stars on which I didn't know. I had no
Speaker 3: idea what the show was. And my friend Amanda is
Speaker 3: dancing in it. Why don't you come over and watch this?
Speaker 3: And I thought this is weird, but I went and
Speaker 3: I watched.
Speaker 2: Because you didn't know Jackie either. I don't know how Jackie,
Speaker 2: you had to step over the friendship divide with her
Speaker 2: to beginning.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, And so saw you on Dancing with the Stars,
Speaker 3: had no idea, and then you invited us out to
Speaker 3: it was a charity thing, and I went out and
Speaker 3: met you there and all these people were pointing and going,
Speaker 3: that's Amanda Keller. I had no idea. And then, you know,
Speaker 3: so we just kind of got to know each other
Speaker 3: that way, with me just being completely naive to you know,
Speaker 3: the world of Amanda Keller, and which was really actually
Speaker 3: kind of a nice way to do it, because I,
Speaker 3: you know, I think I would have probably been intimidated
Speaker 3: or weirded out or something, and I just wasn't. And
Speaker 3: so yeah, and then we started started dating friendship, dating friendship.
Speaker 1: When you're new in a new country, you have some
Speaker 1: friendship vacancies that need filling.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's a scary thing. This is on the one hand,
Speaker 3: there's just this I can be whoever I want. But
Speaker 3: on the other hand, it's like nobody knows. Like those
Speaker 3: friendships that you have with people that you've known since
Speaker 3: you've been kids or university or kids, you know, when
Speaker 3: you've had kids, and there's this kind of shorthand that
Speaker 3: you have as a friend. And I didn't have any
Speaker 3: of that. So there it was a double edged sword
Speaker 3: for for quite a while.
Speaker 1: It's like nobody knows me, and it's like nobody knows me.
Speaker 1: But Amanda, you presumably didn't necessarily have very many vacancies.
Speaker 1: How did Anita get.
Speaker 2: Questions? Actually's got an enormous checkbook.
Speaker 4: I'm for assistance.
Speaker 2: I just think there was some hugely common ground in
Speaker 2: our natures, maybe because I don't actually know how to
Speaker 2: answer that question. We would start to go for walks
Speaker 2: as a group, but as a group we would socialize,
Speaker 2: and then you and I kind of splinted off at
Speaker 2: some point and we'd go for weekly walks and just talk.
Speaker 2: And I don't know how to be more specific than that.
Speaker 2: It kind of just evolved, really that. It wasn't like
Speaker 2: we were starstruck with each other when we saw each
Speaker 2: other and fell in love. It just evolved. And often
Speaker 2: in those big groups you form your little factions within them.
Speaker 2: Factions is a harsh word, but your little friendship groups
Speaker 2: within them. And we kind of splint it off and
Speaker 2: made one of those a little satellite.
Speaker 1: And was there a moment when you kind of went, oh,
Speaker 1: we're definitely going to be friends or was it just
Speaker 1: that slow burn? Oh, I'm gonna I need to call Anita.
Speaker 1: I want to tell Anita that like that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: I really think it was a slow burn.
Speaker 2: I think so too. And it's interesting how much when
Speaker 2: people meet Anita as a psychologist, I'm speaking for you,
Speaker 2: but I reckon you probably a seeker, People saying don't
Speaker 2: analyze me, thinking that that's what she'll do. And I
Speaker 2: laugh when I hear that. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: I find it so interesting that I blab about every
Speaker 2: single thing to you in my life and you answer
Speaker 2: with friendship, never with I never feel your sounds terrible,
Speaker 2: never being professional.
Speaker 4: Your Sometimes I really am.
Speaker 2: There's never a you know, what you should do, there's
Speaker 2: never any of I never think, oh, that's right, you're
Speaker 2: a psychologist. I never ever feel that we meet as friends.
Speaker 2: And I don't know how you separate the two. I
Speaker 2: don't know how you do that.
Speaker 3: I you know, I think for the most part the
Speaker 3: it well, because I've been a psychologist for over thirty years,
Speaker 3: like half my life, more than half my life, that
Speaker 3: it's you know, just the that main idea about I'm
Speaker 3: going to listen is, you know, that's kind of my
Speaker 3: life as a psychologist, but it's also my life as
Speaker 3: a friend. And I you know, I don't give advice
Speaker 3: to my clients either, really, so it feels pretty comfortable
Speaker 3: in doing that.
Speaker 1: I think some people would be really jealous that you're
Speaker 1: best friends are psychologists, because you would imagine that you'd
Speaker 1: be like, you know, we all go through things, particularly
Speaker 1: midlife can get very rolling coastry, and you're like free therapy.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting, it never feels like therapy. But though
Speaker 2: maybe subconsciously, and I don't know if it's subconscious for you,
Speaker 2: but maybe you're like a border collie, like my dog
Speaker 2: that kind of just subtly hurts me somewhere. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I'm not even aware of it.
Speaker 1: I was listening to your show recently, to double a Chattery,
Speaker 1: and I think, Amanda, you were talking about and I've
Speaker 1: been doing this too, reframing I have to with I
Speaker 1: get to gratitude. And I was listening to your conversation,
Speaker 1: and if I was in your shoes, Amandra would have
Speaker 1: been looking for approval from Anita.
Speaker 2: On that like that.
Speaker 1: She goes, that's very good.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 5: I find myself saying to her, I read this incredible
Speaker 5: theme in Dolly Dizine, like I must tell you the
Speaker 5: most basic psychological things I've read in you, and like
Speaker 5: I've been seeing this incredible person. She said, I should
Speaker 5: try this and you must go.
Speaker 1: God. But you were great, Anita, because you said something
Speaker 1: like and how's it going for you? Like, which is
Speaker 1: a therapistic thing to say in a way, but but
Speaker 1: exactly what you need and you are like, it's helping,
Speaker 1: it's helping. So I imagine that that is it's not a
Speaker 1: deliberate dynamic, but it must be great.
Speaker 2: But I never feel self conscious saying to Anita the dumbest,
Speaker 2: most basic way I cope with anything, and you never
Speaker 2: make me feel judged and sometimes like it's only now
Speaker 2: talking to you, Holly, I think, Yeah, actually, how embarrassing
Speaker 2: that I've said to Anita. Here's some interesting psychology you
Speaker 2: probably haven't heard of. You be grateful apparently it's really
Speaker 2: let me introduce you to Anita for an excellent concept.
Speaker 2: Let's try that.
Speaker 1: Well, at the risk of doing the same thing to
Speaker 1: it now.
Speaker 5: I was going to.
Speaker 1: Say that there's a lot of studies out there that
Speaker 1: friendship is absolutely crucial to our mental health, right and connection,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of sort of handringing about that.
Speaker 1: Maybe as a community, as a world, we're getting less
Speaker 1: connected and we're finding friendships harder because we fear the
Speaker 1: judgment that comes with it, or we're not sure how
Speaker 1: to connect, or we're just not in the same physical
Speaker 1: spaces to connect. I mean, what do you inter One
Speaker 1: of the things that mid listeners tell me all the
Speaker 1: time is it's their girlfriends often I mean their friends,
Speaker 1: but their girlfriends often that save them, that get them
Speaker 1: through the hard times. Do you think that we're in
Speaker 1: a crisis of connection? And are we right to think
Speaker 1: that our friendships are the things that keep us saying.
Speaker 3: There's a big part of me that would just like
Speaker 3: to answer, yes, it's a crisis, we need you know,
Speaker 3: we've really disconnected and all that. But I was actually
Speaker 3: just recently reading some research that really delighted me that
Speaker 3: was talking about It was mostly about adolescent mental health,
Speaker 3: but what they were talking about is that often we're
Speaker 3: looking about like how many.
Speaker 4: Friends do we have?
Speaker 3: And you know, but the research actually is much more
Speaker 3: supportive of having one or two really good friends, and
Speaker 3: because once you get into a bigger like any more
Speaker 3: than three or four and we've all been there where
Speaker 3: you get into a bigger friendship group and it does
Speaker 3: split into like not I know you were saying factions,
Speaker 3: and sometimes.
Speaker 4: It is, but it's you know, it's like she likes me.
Speaker 3: Better, and you know, you've get all the way left again.
Speaker 1: I wasn't invited on that wall.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, or you know, they've they've organized to do
Speaker 3: something and I'm not there, And especially with social media,
Speaker 3: that can be so hurtful. So I actually was really
Speaker 3: encouraged by the idea that yes, there is a disconnection,
Speaker 3: and yet the answer isn't I need one hundred friends
Speaker 3: and I need to be out and doing things every night.
Speaker 3: The idea sometimes, I think, is more about finding those
Speaker 3: those opportunities to get deeper with somebody, to be a
Speaker 3: little bit vulnerable with somebody, and to see whether you
Speaker 3: can create that friendship you know, like you know, sometimes
Speaker 3: it's not, you know, just falling in love in a friendship,
Speaker 3: but it's sometimes it is that slow burn. And you know,
Speaker 3: there's there's also riches that research that says you need
Speaker 3: to spend about one thousand hours with somebody to actually
Speaker 3: create that depth, that that history with each other.
Speaker 2: It's one thousand hours a lot puts. What's that in
Speaker 2: a context of a week or a year. I can't
Speaker 2: do the mets on it.
Speaker 3: I don't know, and I mean I don't know how
Speaker 3: they count that. I mean, it's it is it just
Speaker 3: a text to each other?
Speaker 4: Does that count?
Speaker 3: But I mean, I think that we can connect in
Speaker 3: a lot of different ways now.
Speaker 1: Because people worry about their friendship connections faltering as life changes. Right,
Speaker 1: so you two have been friends for the best part
Speaker 1: of two decades. Right, Busy people, big jobs in different ways,
Speaker 1: How practically do you stay connected to your friends? Is
Speaker 1: like little kids to big kids. Career shifts, geographical moves
Speaker 1: like are you schedule people? Are you like it's every Wednesday?
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you do It's interesting?
Speaker 2: Before I get to how we do it, I often
Speaker 2: feel anxiety around the fact I'm not very good at
Speaker 2: it with a lot of people, and a text may
Speaker 2: come up let's get together, and I have a panic
Speaker 2: over it. I never do that with you, Anita, And
Speaker 2: there are some friends where you go I'll get to you,
Speaker 2: and I can get to you, or let's put it
Speaker 2: in the diary for the future. I don't have time
Speaker 2: right now that can fill me with anxiety, so I
Speaker 2: can limit my work. But sometimes it's the social stuff
Speaker 2: that I find I'm not very good at limiting, and
Speaker 2: that makes me panic.
Speaker 1: I feel the same way.
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why we bought a place
Speaker 2: on the South Coast was so that I could say
Speaker 2: I'm not here this week because I will fill every
Speaker 2: gap if people ask me to, whether I want to
Speaker 2: or not.
Speaker 1: Do you fill the gaps because you feel anxious to
Speaker 1: have the space.
Speaker 2: Or do you feel gaps as a people? Please fill
Speaker 2: the ga people please? And not wanting to let people down.
Speaker 2: And they're my friends and I haven't seen them for
Speaker 2: a while that's what friends do, but.
Speaker 3: You have gotten much better, or at least with me, I'm
Speaker 3: saying no of you know, kind of saying I don't
Speaker 3: want to do this now, or I can't do this,
Speaker 3: or I don't have the energy, or those kinds of
Speaker 3: which is you know, I think a lovely thing that
Speaker 3: friends can do with each other. But we and we're
Speaker 3: not exactly schedule people, but other than we have a
Speaker 3: standing date at least once on the weekend to go
Speaker 3: for a while when we're in town.
Speaker 2: And now that you've moved further away, that now involves
Speaker 2: a car. We used to just meet down at the
Speaker 2: beach and go for a walk, so one of us
Speaker 2: has to get up half an hour earlier and be
Speaker 2: ready earlier. The first time I went to Anita's new
Speaker 2: place with my dog, I.
Speaker 1: Was very rude of her to move and I could
Speaker 1: feel it. Anita, you moved like a few so you've
Speaker 1: moved across town.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's probably about half an hour away. Twenty minutes.
Speaker 4: Twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: Well, my dog must have taken it very personally because
Speaker 2: when you went to Anita's new but she just had
Speaker 2: the carpets climed. Minnie has never done this before. She
Speaker 2: went in and did a giant wheel on their new car.
Speaker 4: Out it was it was awful, awful.
Speaker 2: But I've i'd also physically as things get harder for me,
Speaker 2: I've had two hit replacements and I've got a thritis
Speaker 2: in my back. We all do it some We've all
Speaker 2: got stuff. But there's some days we'll say to Anita,
Speaker 2: I had I was filming this week or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: and I stood up all week. I'm just too sort
Speaker 2: of go for a walk. So I'm being more diligent
Speaker 2: with myself in protecting myself. But I know I can
Speaker 2: say that to you, and with other people I may not.
Speaker 2: I know I can say to you, sorry about that. I
Speaker 2: just feel crap today.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's the mark of good friendship? I
Speaker 1: think I heard a conversation that you were where you
Speaker 1: were talking about how a good friendship is someone can
Speaker 1: come over to your house and you don't feel like
Speaker 1: you have to tidy. You know, you don't have to
Speaker 1: feel like you have to tidy the counters or whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm not a natural hostess. It sends me into a
Speaker 1: panic if somebody is coming to my house. But is
Speaker 1: it also a sign of good friendship that when you
Speaker 1: do say I just don't have the energy or there's
Speaker 1: just too many other demands that they're not going to
Speaker 1: get offended by that.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And I'm trying to push through worrying about that.
Speaker 2: This is what I have, This is what I have
Speaker 2: to do to survive today. Not survive that's overly dramatic,
Speaker 2: But you know I work hard all week, as many
Speaker 2: of us do stuff and stuff and stuff, and you
Speaker 2: get to the week and you think I just don't
Speaker 2: have anyemy to tick it up earlier this morning and
Speaker 2: go for a walk.
Speaker 4: You're doing a very good job at ignoring my tears
Speaker 4: that you know.
Speaker 2: What's she doing? She's put on the water works, hasn't
Speaker 2: she She's going with the waterworks. But also what I
Speaker 2: love about our friendship is that you mentioned before about
Speaker 2: being vulnerable and eata. You can bitch and moan about
Speaker 2: your husband, about your parents, about you, anything, and it's
Speaker 2: such a safe space that you know that that isn't
Speaker 2: the mark of that relationship that you're having. That's just
Speaker 2: how you're feeling Today's like you could never tell your
Speaker 2: mum how you if you had a fight with your
Speaker 2: boyfriend or your husband because they would never get over it,
Speaker 2: they'd mark them forever. Whereas I feel quite safe sharing
Speaker 2: that stuff with you.
Speaker 3: Well, we have I love early in our friendship. I
Speaker 3: think that Remember we had a conversation that one of
Speaker 3: us was saying something about our husband and you know,
Speaker 3: and and we said, let's recognize that I might like
Speaker 3: if it was me, I might be mad at Emmett
Speaker 3: right now. And you get to hear this, But you
Speaker 3: don't get to hear us make up. You don't get
Speaker 3: to hear the conversation that happens after when we resolve things.
Speaker 4: You don't get to hear any of that.
Speaker 3: So you know, you need that cognitive process to kind
Speaker 3: of say I get that, you know, I might be
Speaker 3: mad at emmat today, but you know we have a
Speaker 3: long term marriage and so we're going to get through it.
Speaker 2: And that's the stuff you never see in popular culture.
Speaker 2: You never see the boring bits in the middle where
Speaker 2: things get resolved, because that's not interesting to anybody.
Speaker 1: It's true, I often wonder this as we get older
Speaker 1: and wiser, are lots of things happen. Do you think
Speaker 1: friends good friends call each other out when they're being unreasonable,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe making choices that aren't good for them,
Speaker 1: or do you think that good friends are always the
Speaker 1: supportive rock. That's what I'm always wrestling with is whether
Speaker 1: you you know that where people say the people closer
Speaker 1: to you should be the ones you say you need
Speaker 1: to stop doing that thing, or whether they're the ones
Speaker 1: who are the understanding ones.
Speaker 4: What do you think?
Speaker 2: I'm highly sensitive, and so I judge the messenger very harshly.
Speaker 2: And even though in an ideal world you say yes,
Speaker 2: you're you know, practically you want your friends to tell
Speaker 2: you that, I don't think I want to hear it.
Speaker 2: How do you feel?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you know that friend And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: any wanted this, but the friend who is always complaining
Speaker 1: about their husband or their job or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: or you know, something in their lifestyle. Always at what
Speaker 1: point do good friends say?
Speaker 2: Hey?
Speaker 4: I think it depends on the friendship.
Speaker 3: Like, like you and I have had that conversation that
Speaker 3: you know, if I looked really terrible in an outfit,
Speaker 3: you wouldn't tell me that. I would never tell you that,
Speaker 3: never to even though I'd want to hear it. Like
Speaker 3: I'm really big on feedback, and so I I gubt
Speaker 3: that that would make you feel uncomfortable, even though I'd
Speaker 3: like to hear it, and so and I recognize that
Speaker 3: you are sensitive, and so.
Speaker 2: All my outfits terrible. It's all I've heard in this
Speaker 2: entire conversation.
Speaker 1: She's to talk to you about it.
Speaker 2: We've had this. We actually have had this conversation. I
Speaker 2: wrote a book a number of years ago and Anita
Speaker 2: wanted to read it, and I said, oh, here, it is,
Speaker 2: just thinking. I'm just passing it over. And she said,
Speaker 2: how would you how do you take feedback feedback?
Speaker 3: Because I didn't know, Like, I was like, you're an
Speaker 3: educatorn't me. Yeah, I mean that's my that's my life,
Speaker 3: you know, teaching students and stuff and giving feedback.
Speaker 4: So I'm I'm really like, I was like, do you
Speaker 4: do you?
Speaker 3: And then and it was like hmm, and so we
Speaker 3: just that's a great book, Amanda.
Speaker 1: I'm like, mate, your job is to tell me everything
Speaker 1: I do is great, because there are plenty of other
Speaker 1: people in my life we're going to tell me that
Speaker 1: it's not.
Speaker 3: But I have friendships where I could say that too,
Speaker 3: and I have colleagues that I you know, that's the
Speaker 3: basis of our work relationship. Where we give each other
Speaker 3: really strong feedback, and you know, certainly with my supervisors
Speaker 3: and that kind of stuff. So there, I think it
Speaker 3: depends on the friendship, and it depends on the topic
Speaker 3: because there may be topics where you know, I may
Speaker 3: think that I don't know, like I mean, if I
Speaker 3: thought that you were being really overreacting to something.
Speaker 2: Actually we had this conversation recently, is that I was
Speaker 2: overreacting to something. I was cranky about about ten things.
Speaker 2: And you showed me a clip of a woman who
Speaker 2: had a nail in her head and she was talking
Speaker 2: to her husband and she was and she was saying,
Speaker 2: I just don't feel right. You're not supporting me enough.
Speaker 2: And he's trying to say, we've got a nail in
Speaker 2: your head and she said, no, no, no, this is
Speaker 2: and he said, no, you've got a nail in your
Speaker 2: head and fine, and he says, oh, sweeth, how'd I
Speaker 2: hear what you're saying? You're not feel to go? Just
Speaker 2: thank you? And I've been thinking about that a lot,
Speaker 2: because you probably observed me. My husband's done well, and
Speaker 2: so I'm looking at the world through a filter and
Speaker 2: you were saying, you know, you're seeing all this with
Speaker 2: a nail in your head. I didn't know what to
Speaker 2: do about the nail, but I thought, yes, but I
Speaker 2: am seeing the world, I do have a nail in
Speaker 2: my head, So I didn't know how to process the
Speaker 2: fact that I do have a nail in my head.
Speaker 2: But that's one of the only times where I thought,
Speaker 2: you're trying to tell me something here. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: exactly what it is, because I know that I know
Speaker 2: that I'm having a negative moment or a depressive moment
Speaker 2: or an angry moment where I'm seeing everything through that
Speaker 2: veil and I'm aware of it. But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: I think, well, here's why, because something's.
Speaker 3: Came pretty shit, and your natural status to be optimst
Speaker 3: stick and see things you know very positively. I cannot
Speaker 3: remember what was going through my head at the time
Speaker 3: I showed it. I you know that it was probably
Speaker 3: something that I had showed a class or something I
Speaker 3: probably was thinking about how hard you were seeing the
Speaker 3: world at the time.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because also you would have heard the term
Speaker 1: a million times about toxic positivity, where we're encouraged by
Speaker 1: pop culture and you know, sort of leaking for one
Speaker 1: of a better term therapy speak into everyday life, to
Speaker 1: put a positive spin on everything and to see everything
Speaker 1: as a lesson. And you know what, am I learning
Speaker 1: from this today? And I'm sure this you know, whereas
Speaker 1: sometimes things are just terrible shit and you need to
Speaker 1: sit in.
Speaker 2: The shammer and oil into your own hair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and just sit and feel the nail, just
Speaker 1: step field.
Speaker 2: But it did give me a really good perspective. I
Speaker 2: just thought, yes, I am being this today and I
Speaker 2: probably won't be this tomorrow, but I'm seeing a whole
Speaker 2: lot of good things. It was because I'm talking about
Speaker 2: how people were trying to help. I was getting cranky
Speaker 2: at everything. I think that was it. I just needed
Speaker 2: a shift in perspective.
Speaker 1: More of my conversation with best friends Amanda Keller and
Speaker 1: Anita McGregor after this short break stay with us. We've
Speaker 1: touched on a couple of these in this conversation, I think,
Speaker 1: but in which ways are you similar? In which ways
Speaker 1: are you different? So we've acknowledged here that Amanda is
Speaker 1: the sensitive one, and you would be more straight talking
Speaker 1: if she wasn't such a snowflake.
Speaker 2: Interestingly, I have a job where I get rated and
Speaker 2: judged by ratings and constant. I don't read a lot
Speaker 2: of social media feedback because I just wouldn't be able
Speaker 2: to handle it. So ironically, in my work life it's
Speaker 2: constant judgment and constant feedback and constant feedback.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably why in your personal life you're
Speaker 1: also a bit like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's try to put the blinkers on. How are
Speaker 2: we similar Anita, let's ask for grown up.
Speaker 3: You know, it is in trusting that that you know,
Speaker 3: when we go to your place on the South Coast
Speaker 3: and we spend a weekend together, we will spend.
Speaker 4: Days you know, what are we going to eat? What
Speaker 4: are we going to do?
Speaker 3: And we generally end up eating you know, sardines on toast,
Speaker 3: and we end up reading books together or playing dominoes
Speaker 3: when we can, and you know, so it's the similarities
Speaker 3: are that that. It's a funny thing to say, because
Speaker 3: I tend to get up at about you get up
Speaker 3: at what four for work? Yeah, And I usually get
Speaker 3: up at about four thirty just because that's when my
Speaker 3: you know, my brain starts turning on. And so it's
Speaker 3: I think that because we're both mourning people and we
Speaker 3: both have very similar kind of rhythms about how our
Speaker 3: lives and our work, you know, just go.
Speaker 2: I think that's right. And we do kitchen time very
Speaker 2: well together, yeah, which I think is a big part
Speaker 2: of a great friendship is that we we plan what
Speaker 2: are we going to eat? When are doing this and
Speaker 2: not being this, and we chop chop chop, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to put this on, and we pot a very
Speaker 2: well together and then we sit down and read very
Speaker 2: well together comfortably. You can't do that with everybody.
Speaker 1: Now, you can't. You can't do that with that. You
Speaker 1: can't have that away time where you're not doing doing
Speaker 1: doing all the time. Is it hard to have a
Speaker 1: friend who's in the public eye, Anita, a best friend
Speaker 1: who's in the public eye, And do you feel defensive
Speaker 1: of her? And when there's invasions of your privacy? And
Speaker 1: do you not talk about work?
Speaker 4: I am protective of you in that.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't often like because you know, by my nature,
Speaker 3: I'm quite private, you know, part of it's just who
Speaker 3: I am, but it's part of it has been my
Speaker 3: profession as well, and so I recognize the need for
Speaker 3: some sense of privacy. So I'm protective of that. I
Speaker 3: don't tell a lot of people that we're friends. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's kind of hard not to now now you've got
Speaker 3: public that we're.
Speaker 1: Going to Esky podcast.
Speaker 4: It is, yeah, so.
Speaker 2: It must It might manifest itself strangely. For example, when
Speaker 2: we went to see Kat Stevens and this guy asked
Speaker 2: Anita to take a photo of me and him, and
Speaker 2: then it came back after interval and said, well, I've
Speaker 2: been looking for you. That was a terrible croosure, and
Speaker 2: I thought sorry for Anita because she hasn't asked to
Speaker 2: be dragged into this.
Speaker 1: It was hilarious.
Speaker 2: So I took a picture at the top of his head,
Speaker 2: like you totally asked for.
Speaker 1: Talking about the podcast, because your conversation, your chemistry on
Speaker 1: that is so brilliant. And as you you're I'm sure
Speaker 1: you had an instinct, Amanda, because you knew that Anita's,
Speaker 1: as you said in her introduction, just such an interesting
Speaker 1: thinker in terms of what you talk about. So you
Speaker 1: must have been like, this is going to be good.
Speaker 1: But was it also just an excuse to spend more
Speaker 1: time together.
Speaker 2: Oh, it absolutely was. It was all of those things.
Speaker 2: But we'd often talk about things on the walk that
Speaker 2: I think other people might like to be part of
Speaker 2: this conversation too, because I'd come from things from one
Speaker 2: perspective and Anita would come from a completely different perspective.
Speaker 2: I thought that would be an interesting thing for people
Speaker 2: to hear, because you know, a million people have podcasts
Speaker 2: and have opinions and have things to say. But I thought,
Speaker 2: I haven't heard somebody like Anita.
Speaker 1: Do you disagree very much in terms of on issues
Speaker 1: and things that are happening in the world, because so
Speaker 1: on Mama, MI are out loud, which I obviously do
Speaker 1: with two of my good friends. But we do disagree,
Speaker 1: and people often say that must be really hard. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is true or not. You
Speaker 1: probably do know a to and it's true or not.
Speaker 1: But somebody said, if you can disagree on the details,
Speaker 1: but if your values are shared, it's easier.
Speaker 3: I think our values are definitely shared. I don't think
Speaker 3: that we've ever had any bigger disagreements.
Speaker 4: We tend to.
Speaker 3: You know. What I find is really interesting is that
Speaker 3: Amanda has been my educator in you know, political things,
Speaker 3: Australian history that you know, the you know who's you know,
Speaker 3: what's happened in.
Speaker 2: Os history of Peter Andre that kind of stuff, that kind.
Speaker 4: Of stuff, the really important stuff that culture.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but yeah, pop culture, but also kind of
Speaker 3: just historical things. And so we tend You're right, we
Speaker 3: tend to come at things with from different angles. But
Speaker 3: but I think under the underlying now is that similarity
Speaker 3: and values.
Speaker 2: We did a podcast the week of the terrible Bondi stabbings,
Speaker 2: and I was so grateful to have somebody like Anita
Speaker 2: to give a perspective on this in that the media
Speaker 2: was filled with stories about we're not doing enough for
Speaker 2: the victims, and it's so true, but you came at
Speaker 2: it from a different perspective, which was you work every
Speaker 2: day with the perpetrators, and we need to fix the
Speaker 2: problem upstream. We need to invest in the perpetrate. And
Speaker 2: people didn't want to hear about They didn't want him
Speaker 2: to be part of the conversation, they didn't want any
Speaker 2: of that kind of discussed. And it's true that our
Speaker 2: sympathies were downstream, but we were never going to fix
Speaker 2: it until we looked upstream. You spoke with such sympathy
Speaker 2: and clarity about the kind of people that are upstream
Speaker 2: and why we need to help them.
Speaker 3: M So yeah, but I think that that again your
Speaker 3: compassion for you know, your broad audience, like it's you know,
Speaker 3: you were asking before about is it tough to have,
Speaker 3: you know, somebody who's in the public eye as a friend.
Speaker 3: But you know, one of the things that the toughest
Speaker 3: part is that when you know, we'll be out at
Speaker 3: an event and people stop, Amanda, you know, and we'll
Speaker 3: sometimes be in the middle of a.
Speaker 4: Conversation, but you are often always.
Speaker 3: So kind and willing, and you know, so you come
Speaker 3: from a position of compassion as well that you you
Speaker 3: recognize that it is you know, the people who listen.
Speaker 4: To you deserve some of your time.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a privilege to be called somebody's friend, that
Speaker 2: they feel they know you and worry about you and
Speaker 2: think about you and care about you and want to
Speaker 2: come up and say hello. I see that is a privilege.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. I want to ask you both because obviously
Speaker 1: you have started the podcast, you both have big careers.
Speaker 1: Really I want to know how you're just in terms
Speaker 1: of general wisdom, how your attitude to work and ambition
Speaker 1: is at this point in your lives. Because you made
Speaker 1: a decision to start this new project, which requires commitment, promotion,
Speaker 1: all of those things.
Speaker 2: It's funny that I've just come back onto the radio
Speaker 2: that were in the second week. Part of me goes,
Speaker 2: oh god, that's right. I'm sixty three this year. Part
Speaker 2: of me thinks this schedule is hard. But I thought
Speaker 2: that I I don't know what I picked when I
Speaker 2: was younger, but I thought the dailiness of radio would
Speaker 2: have worn me down by now. But it's hard with
Speaker 2: my shifting fortunes at home in terms of my husband
Speaker 2: not being well. Is that I need I now know
Speaker 2: somewhere to go every day. I need an alarm clock
Speaker 2: to go off in the morning and for me to
Speaker 2: go somewhere where I'm fully engaged for a chunk of
Speaker 2: hours of the day, where I laugh, I cry, I
Speaker 2: listen to other people's stories. You scratch the surface and
Speaker 2: everybody has a story. I think I've spoken about this
Speaker 2: about the word sounder, which means the gradual realization that
Speaker 2: everybody is going through something, something good, something sad, and
Speaker 2: I'm aware of that. With a radio audience, they're having
Speaker 2: their best and their worst days and you're not even
Speaker 2: aware of it, but you're on the ride with them.
Speaker 2: And so I find being there is a great equalizer
Speaker 2: for me. If I think if I was just sitting
Speaker 2: at home, I would wallow. So by the time in
Speaker 2: my life I thought i'd be wrapping this up, I
Speaker 2: actually realize how much I need it at the moment.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting because a large part of, you know,
Speaker 1: our shifting perspectives is dealing with things that you didn't
Speaker 1: think were going to happen. So, I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: that when you were working in breakfast radio every day
Speaker 1: when the boys were small, you have two sons, that
Speaker 1: was a different kind of challenge, and you probably thought, well,
Speaker 1: when they're older, it's all going to be easier and whatever.
Speaker 1: And then life throws you a curveball in the form
Speaker 1: of a health yeah crisis, and work takes a different form.
Speaker 2: Again interesting, it kind of saves me, I think. But
Speaker 2: An here and I often talk about this about and
Speaker 2: we've got friends who are at the point of wondering
Speaker 2: what retirement looks like and how we feel about that.
Speaker 2: And it's that old trope of and I don't agree
Speaker 2: with it, of you put too much stock in your job.
Speaker 2: That's not who people are. But I think there's a
Speaker 2: lot of pride in the jobs that we do and
Speaker 2: it's okay to be defined by that to a certain extent.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't have to go and pash a
Speaker 2: dolphin every day and work one day a year to
Speaker 2: be a true person. That's not where you necessarily find yourself.
Speaker 2: And I know a lot of people say they've retired
Speaker 2: and few why don't I do it easy ago? Because
Speaker 2: you don't know yourself. I love what I get from
Speaker 2: the work I do.
Speaker 3: I love the idea that at my age, I'm still contributing,
Speaker 3: and and in fact I have I think I have
Speaker 3: a lot to contribute. And it's I don't feel as
Speaker 3: though I'm done, and I don't know what done would
Speaker 3: look like. But when I think about all the people
Speaker 3: that you know, we've talked, you know, to some of
Speaker 3: who have gone to you know, you know, that retirement place,
Speaker 3: and that they're you know, and they're enjoying life, and
Speaker 3: and that's awesome. I'm happy that they are doing that
Speaker 3: and that they're finding that that part of their lives.
Speaker 3: I just can't see myself not doing what I'm doing
Speaker 3: right now. I can see, you know, somewhere in the distance,
Speaker 3: that there will be something else, but I'm not quite
Speaker 3: there yet.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I'm not changing perspectives things. Do you
Speaker 1: think that when you were younger, you know how you
Speaker 1: were saying, Amanda, I thought breakfast radio would have wore
Speaker 1: me down? Did you? When you're twenty and you think
Speaker 1: about forty, you're like, oh, you know, I'll definitely be
Speaker 1: wanting to put my feet up or whatever, and or
Speaker 1: it'll look like this and it'll feel like that. And
Speaker 1: then you get there and you're like spring chicken, and
Speaker 1: then and like you're you're saying, I'm not done. Is
Speaker 1: that's really resonates because that's what I feel. I'm fifty three,
Speaker 1: so but I'm like, I don't feel and I still
Speaker 1: feel like I've got so much to learn and give
Speaker 1: and do. I'm getting started, but it feels sometimes like
Speaker 1: the wider world is like slow down, calm down, back off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I get a lot of that, why are
Speaker 2: you still doing this? I get quite blatantly people saying,
Speaker 2: oh my god, don't you want to give it up?
Speaker 2: Because to other people, that early alarm clock, that daily
Speaker 2: thing might seem like a chore. It doesn't feel like that.
Speaker 2: To me. It's a gift that I get to share
Speaker 2: my perspective on whatever. I feel like every day, so
Speaker 2: I don't see it that way. When I was young,
Speaker 2: I pictured being sixty, like being like that painting of
Speaker 2: Whistler's mother, just you know, in a rocking chair or
Speaker 2: wearing black. It's all over because I didn't have role
Speaker 2: models who were working women, let alone women who work
Speaker 2: this long. So all of this is new, I think
Speaker 2: for all of us. But I can see why in
Speaker 2: the media, I'm probably the last of a certain dinosaur,
Speaker 2: and I have no interest in reinventing. I don't give
Speaker 2: a rats about starting a new project integrated into a
Speaker 2: blah blah and a blah blah. I'm happy to ride
Speaker 2: this wave that I'm on, and then when it's time,
Speaker 2: hopefully I can do a delicate dismount. You can never
Speaker 2: you never assume that, either in the media or in life.
Speaker 2: We're talking about that in terms of your home life,
Speaker 2: but your professional life too. You assume that there's a
Speaker 2: delicate dismount when you hit the shore. But maybe you've
Speaker 2: put in a wave and you've got sand through your
Speaker 2: gust it and you just don't know what's there.
Speaker 1: But also, you're really really good at what you do
Speaker 1: because you've been doing it it's like there's a bit
Speaker 1: of a dismissal of experience that I feel is a
Speaker 1: maybe because the way we see women, particularly women in
Speaker 1: the public eye, but not only certainly a lot in
Speaker 1: other fields too, are like, oh, do you really still
Speaker 1: have something to offer? It's like, I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 3: There's the word that's kind of rolling around my head
Speaker 3: right now, and it feels uncomfortable in some ways. Is
Speaker 3: like being a role model for being older and successful
Speaker 3: and still you know, being able to contribute. And it's
Speaker 3: you know, it's interesting because the students that I teach
Speaker 3: now are often in their early twenties, early mid twenties,
Speaker 3: and they, you know, I'm the age of some of
Speaker 3: their parents and even some of their could it be
Speaker 3: possible their grandparents, and you know, you kind of think
Speaker 3: they're probably they have a picture in their head of
Speaker 3: what an old person, what they are, what they can do.
Speaker 3: And I don't mind that the students seeming cycling to
Speaker 3: UNI or you know, to the clinic and you know,
Speaker 3: coming in and teaching, and I like that maybe there
Speaker 3: is an aspect where we can kind of break some
Speaker 3: ideas about you know, what an older woman can be.
Speaker 2: And there was. I think it was. The West Australian
Speaker 2: Premier at one point said we've cracked down on racism, sexism.
Speaker 2: He said agism is the last big one, and he
Speaker 2: was just suggesting that let's look at the potency of
Speaker 2: language around it, not just that dismissive yeah boomer stuff,
Speaker 2: but also how people in the older generation think younger
Speaker 2: people are. But it seems that people trying to re
Speaker 2: enter the workforce and be validated is really hard as
Speaker 2: you get older. Maybe is that evolutionary that at some
Speaker 2: point you'd need you should be moving away for others?
Speaker 2: Is there something maybe bigger in there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And maybe there's a panic that our generation's never
Speaker 1: going to go.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, you're going to own all the big
Speaker 2: houses and never go We're going to figure out how
Speaker 2: to live forever, like die in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, and we're never going anywhere.
Speaker 2: So maybe the younger generations have a right to be
Speaker 2: anxious that the old we're still hanging around. When are
Speaker 2: we going to move over and let someone else have
Speaker 2: a crack at it.
Speaker 1: The rest of my conversation with Amanda Kella and Anita
Speaker 1: McGregor best friends, colleagues, Truth tellers after the break. Did
Speaker 1: you have strong female friendship role modeled to you by
Speaker 1: your own mothers?
Speaker 4: Do you think, oh, my mother's Bridge Club.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that was you know every I think it was
Speaker 3: every Tuesday and they, Yeah, there was an and she
Speaker 3: had My mom had a friend Eileen, who she talked
Speaker 3: to every morning.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: There was just that connection that it was just checking in,
Speaker 3: how are you doing that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 3: It was an important part, especially since my mom, you know,
Speaker 3: after she got married, didn't work after a while.
Speaker 1: So connection my.
Speaker 2: Mom had that with her sisters. She was very close
Speaker 2: to her sisters. They all lived in different places around Australia,
Speaker 2: spoke constantly, a very very tight unit, a very big
Speaker 2: clan of a gaggle of them, and I felt we
Speaker 2: were the only offshoot in Sydney. And there's just my
Speaker 2: brother and I and very close to all our cousins
Speaker 2: for a number of years, and since Mom passed away
Speaker 2: twenty years ago. Now it's a shock for me to
Speaker 2: say that to you them. I lost Mom twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: But the women are the keepers of those sort of
Speaker 2: connections and I've kind of lost track with cousins and
Speaker 2: things like that, because it was Mum that held all
Speaker 2: that together.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear you tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: about what life's like with your adult children now. I
Speaker 1: was listening to Double a Chattery the other day and
Speaker 1: you were both talking about the summer hot Well, not
Speaker 1: summer holidays for you, Anita, because you went to Canada
Speaker 1: where it sounded so cold. Never need to go there.
Speaker 2: In winter.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Manchester, Englhend. That was plenty of
Speaker 1: coldenough for me and Amanda. You went away with your boys,
Speaker 1: who were not boys anymore but men. My children are teenagers.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing the pull away, the closed bedroom door, the
Speaker 1: next phase of parenting. Me and Brent talk about it
Speaker 1: all the time. Tell me the good things about the
Speaker 1: kids being grown up. You're a grandma, I needed.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not yet, because when you have your children
Speaker 2: at one hundred and fifty eight, it does take a
Speaker 2: little bit longer. That I dreaded the boys leaving home.
Speaker 2: But the dread was harder than the reality. That's yes,
Speaker 2: because you live with the dread from the minute they're born,
Speaker 2: and then when it actually happens, it's almost like you've
Speaker 2: kind of cauterized the wound a little bit, and I found,
Speaker 2: actually I'm surviving. This is okay. I remember when both
Speaker 2: boys got big and I'd be in a restaurant and
Speaker 2: I turned behind me think it was the way I think,
Speaker 2: oh my god, that's Liam. So the physicality surprised me.
Speaker 2: And the way you express your love for them is different.
Speaker 2: You don't hug them as much, you know when they're
Speaker 2: little and you hold their hands, And suddenly, as a
Speaker 2: mom with a teenage boy, how do you express that love?
Speaker 1: That's harder that I want you to touch them all
Speaker 1: the time. It's so selfish of that, I know.
Speaker 2: And the grace with which you have to read the
Speaker 2: mood and not grope them around the neck. And my
Speaker 2: daughter walks past.
Speaker 1: Me and our lad just trying to get a whiff
Speaker 1: of her.
Speaker 5: Like yes, because you don't want to be that needy parent.
Speaker 2: But I'm finding now neither of my sons live at home.
Speaker 2: They've been on various campuses and things, and because I
Speaker 2: get up so early in the morning, them coming to
Speaker 2: live at home again sort of my younger son would
Speaker 2: get home at two and I have to get up
Speaker 2: at four. Was all getting bit hard, but a valuable
Speaker 2: lesson I learned was with my younger son that when
Speaker 2: he went moved on on campus, every conversation I had
Speaker 2: with him was telling him, don't forget to do this,
Speaker 2: You don't forget to do that. You stuffed this up,
Speaker 2: You've got a blah blah blah. There was an agenda
Speaker 2: for every conversation. I could tell because my mum used
Speaker 2: to do that to me, and it was so hard
Speaker 2: to get hold of him. I've chosen to have agender
Speaker 2: free conversations with him, and now he calls me every day,
Speaker 2: as does my oldest son. They both we all speak
Speaker 2: every day. But it's only when I stopped telling Jack
Speaker 2: what to do and nagging him about have you done it?
Speaker 2: Have you done it?
Speaker 1: That's interesting. So it was a very deliberate choice part,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be doing have you done?
Speaker 2: Have you thought about it? And sometimes I got to
Speaker 2: the end of the conversation and I almost had to
Speaker 2: physically stitch my lips closed. And then what I might
Speaker 2: do is just a quick follow up text, don't forget
Speaker 2: to blah blah blah. But after we'd had a nice conversation, you.
Speaker 3: Did such a good job, and now that was.
Speaker 2: It was very hard for me.
Speaker 1: But that's a really good piece of advice.
Speaker 2: I've told the psychologist all about it. I got a goal.
Speaker 1: You did. That's hard, it's really but I can entirely
Speaker 1: see how that because when I think about when we
Speaker 1: think about our own relationships with our parents perhaps and
Speaker 1: how freeing it felt to not have that constant surveillance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want if you want to be letting out the
Speaker 1: rope and for them to come back. It can't feel
Speaker 1: like they're constantly just going to be going. You haven't
Speaker 1: got your hair. When was the last time you watched?
Speaker 2: Had you paid that parking file? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Tell me, Anita, how you're finding face family life.
Speaker 3: My sons are both in their early thirties. One is
Speaker 3: in Sydney here, the older one, and the younger one
Speaker 3: is in Vancouver.
Speaker 1: Did they both come with you when you Okay?
Speaker 3: So they were they were fourteen fifteen? Yeah, there were
Speaker 3: teenagers when we came over. And my older son has
Speaker 3: stayed in Sydney, but my younger son moved to Barthurst
Speaker 3: to go and do a degree at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and he.
Speaker 2: Was he became sort of an emergency the paramedic who
Speaker 2: now works in all kinds of tricky places. I took
Speaker 2: rather different rooks, both very important life an emergency with
Speaker 2: a time call if anyone needs one.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so so so my son went and my
Speaker 3: younger one moved when he was eighteen to Bathurst and
Speaker 3: then immediately after his degree moved to London and was
Speaker 3: a paramedic there right through the pandemic, right through everything,
Speaker 3: and then has just recently moved to Vancouver.
Speaker 4: And so it's you know, he.
Speaker 3: Went away early, and we had to kind of negotiate
Speaker 3: what that looked like. And I was thinking about what
Speaker 3: we were, you know, talking about them going away and wanting.
Speaker 4: That whiff of them. And he gets me.
Speaker 3: Now when we were leaving to come back to Sydney,
Speaker 3: you know, we were at the airport and you know,
Speaker 3: I look at him and you know, give the great
Speaker 3: big hug, and I'm like trying to hold it together.
Speaker 3: And then you know, he hugs my husband and then
Speaker 3: he looks me at me and he goes, you get
Speaker 3: one more and gives me another one, and it just
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's everything I need. And and so
Speaker 3: it's it's they do come back, and they come back
Speaker 3: as these amazing human beings that you've raised. And it's
Speaker 3: it is a different relationship. It is a I love.
Speaker 3: I love my sons, and I love that they are
Speaker 3: very different from each other, just kind of like Liam
Speaker 3: and Jack are, and that they are creating these very different,
Speaker 3: very amazing lives for themselves.
Speaker 4: And yeah, it's it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: And and and as you said, I'm now a grandma
Speaker 3: and I get to go and is the grand is
Speaker 3: that your Sydney son or my Sydney son? So I yeah,
Speaker 3: so he's he's local. So I get to go in
Speaker 3: and take care of him. And and you know, a
Speaker 3: little Logan and he's like a year and a half now,
Speaker 3: and he's just a bundle of joy.
Speaker 4: He just is is.
Speaker 3: I did not think I could lose my mind again
Speaker 3: like this, And I have everybody.
Speaker 1: Says Mia, who obviously we're exactly the same age. But
Speaker 1: I had my kids late Inurnder Commons, and so she's
Speaker 1: granny now my kids are still kids, and she's just besotted.
Speaker 2: That's exactly the word a lot of us used to
Speaker 2: talk about. I think it's when you become a grandparent
Speaker 2: when your kids are older, you think, was I present enough?
Speaker 2: Because when you're in the midst of it and you're
Speaker 2: raising a child and you're trying to keep them alive
Speaker 2: and stop them putting a cigarette butt in their mouths
Speaker 2: that they found at the beach and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2: You don't have time to just look at them and breathe.
Speaker 2: And as grand and as a parent of teenage, you think,
Speaker 2: why didn't I make more of those years when I
Speaker 2: held their hands? And when I go to the South Coast,
Speaker 2: I think, oh, we couldn't have afforded to buy a
Speaker 2: holiday house then, and they had weekend football. But I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I wish, I wish I had one day where they
Speaker 2: were toddlers again and I hold their lands. It makes
Speaker 2: you want to cry. But it's only when you get
Speaker 2: older and become like a grandparent you can actually give
Speaker 2: the time to just seeing and being and smelling without
Speaker 2: the anxiety of it. So we judge ourselves, I think,
Speaker 2: for not being present enough, but how could we be?
Speaker 4: But it's the I was going.
Speaker 3: I was building forts the other day with with little Logan,
Speaker 3: and you know, he was giggling, I was giggling, and
Speaker 3: I and I just stopped in the middle of it
Speaker 3: and just kind of recognized this is this is that
Speaker 3: moment where I get to just spend it and and
Speaker 3: I don't have to worry about, you know, washing his
Speaker 3: clothes or doing anything.
Speaker 4: I just get to go and spend some time with him.
Speaker 1: Recognizing those moments is one of the gifts of being
Speaker 1: a bit older and wiser. I think, don't you. I
Speaker 1: heard you say this, Amanda on your show when you're
Speaker 1: talking about the holiday I have just taken with your boys.
Speaker 1: You're getting drunk with them in a bar and.
Speaker 2: Dreadful thing to do.
Speaker 1: And he was, and he said it was like this
Speaker 1: bubble you knew, you knew in the moment, like this
Speaker 1: is one of those times.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I think that's really what life is, and
Speaker 2: that's all we're entitled to, that whole. Anita and I
Speaker 2: talk a lot about this, of the nature of happiness
Speaker 2: and putting up signs saying happiness in your house and
Speaker 2: all of that, and putting out the manifestations. It's not
Speaker 2: the human condition to be happy all the time, but
Speaker 2: to recognize them when they come along is the gift.
Speaker 3: I think, and enjoy you just you can. You can
Speaker 3: try to grasp it, but it's so ephemeral. It's just
Speaker 3: it comes and it goes whenever it wants.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure that, look, I'm going to try and
Speaker 1: land the plane really neatly.
Speaker 2: Here regard looking at the dismount.
Speaker 1: Because I'm going to say that I'm sure that the
Speaker 1: two of you get a lot of those happiness bubble
Speaker 1: moments together, right Like you a very good friend, someone
Speaker 1: who will figuratively and literally hold your hand through all
Speaker 1: the shit and all the happy moments is a very
Speaker 1: special thing to have, right So I'm sure you too
Speaker 1: sometimes are in that bubble too, and.
Speaker 3: I think that's why we have the glimmers instead of
Speaker 3: the triggers.
Speaker 1: I need to talk to you about the glimmers because
Speaker 1: I love that part of your show. You end it
Speaker 1: with a glimmer. And I have a very good friend
Speaker 1: who has been going through some very difficult health stuff,
Speaker 1: and we don't live in the same place, and every
Speaker 1: day we send each other a photograph glimmer of the
Speaker 1: one thing in our day that made us I love
Speaker 1: like happy. So it might be a particularly good cup
Speaker 1: of tea, or it might be an amazing thing that
Speaker 1: happened at work, or it might be a flower or
Speaker 1: the kid I had a good hair day, a glimmer
Speaker 1: a day. I believe keeps.
Speaker 2: It's funny how hard I find it to find them.
Speaker 2: My natural humor goes to not sarcasm, but finding something
Speaker 2: like if something terrible happens, to turn it into a joke.
Speaker 2: But I find it hard to look for the natural
Speaker 2: happiness in things, even though I think, as you said,
Speaker 2: an itedier, I think I'm an optimistic person, but I
Speaker 2: sometimes have to turn it all stick joke into something uplifting,
Speaker 2: which isn't my nature.
Speaker 1: Well that's but also the humor is a survival I
Speaker 1: mean if you can't laugh, and also that's something you
Speaker 1: can also do with someone you're really intimate with, is
Speaker 1: laugh about the difficult health things or the things they
Speaker 1: don't on your house that you couldn't joke with.
Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely absolutely. That is my complete survival mechanism. And
Speaker 2: I've talked that to my children, particularly my younger son
Speaker 2: when things are going skew with because he wants to
Speaker 2: do a bit of stand up, I said, just store
Speaker 2: it up, to turn it into a joke before anyone
Speaker 2: else can. That's kind of save yourself. Is kind of
Speaker 2: the lesson I've told him along the way is make
Speaker 2: you make you make the joke about yourself before anyone
Speaker 2: else can.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for what my pleasure sharing,
Speaker 1: letting me be the third wheel in this Please.
Speaker 2: I've kind of enjoyed Algogo mobile.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I didn't quite make myself the third wheel
Speaker 1: in that glorious friendship duo, but you can tell how
Speaker 1: hard I tried. I was really angling from an invite
Speaker 1: to dinner. It was a bit embarrassing for everyone, really,
Speaker 1: but I just loved that conversation. And if you have
Speaker 1: a friendship like Amanda and Anita's, send this episode to
Speaker 1: your best friend. Tell them that you love them and
Speaker 1: tell them that they're a scrag. And if you want
Speaker 1: to hear more from these two together, go and check
Speaker 1: out Double a Chattery. That's their podcast and there's a
Speaker 1: link to it in the show notes. And Amandra is
Speaker 1: hosting a new TV show on the ABC about families.
Speaker 1: It's called the Role of a Lifetime and you can
Speaker 1: have a nosey at that too. And if you're just
Speaker 1: discovering mid thanks to Amanda and Anita, welcome. If you
Speaker 1: want to hear more conversations that will lift you up
Speaker 1: rather than push you down, may I recommend you scroll
Speaker 1: back in our feed to hear Casey Chambers talking about
Speaker 1: keeping her dickhead list, Bruna Papenrea on ambition, Gina Chick
Speaker 1: on truth, and one of my all time favorites, Virginia
Speaker 1: Trioli on small joys, which we all need lots of
Speaker 1: right now. A massive thanks to our mid team, our
Speaker 1: executive producer I am A Brown, our senior producer, Grace Ruverre,
Speaker 1: our producer Charlie Blackman, and we've had audio production from
Speaker 1: Jacob Rownd. They are all such talented people who help
Speaker 1: us bring you your show. And if you haven't had
Speaker 1: enough of me yet, I can't imagine that. Follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram, or sign up for my newsletter, or listen
Speaker 1: to me and my great mates Mia Friedman and Jesse
Speaker 1: Stevens talk about fifteen thousand times a week on Mom
Speaker 1: and Me Are Out Loud. Is that an exaggeration maybe?
Speaker 1: But links to all that are in our show notes
Speaker 1: and I'll see you back here next week. Bye,