Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mama Miya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3: Hi Kateline Brooke here dropping into your feed with a
Speaker 3: very special gift. And I say gift because what you're
Speaker 3: about to hear will fill you with all of the
Speaker 3: warm feelings and it should make you want to call
Speaker 3: your best friend. This is an episode of Holly Wainwright's
Speaker 3: podcast Mid her guests Oh My Goodness, Amanda Keller A
Speaker 3: Piece of Gold, and her beautiful best friend Anita McGregor.
Speaker 3: You'll know Amanda from her many decades as an Australian
Speaker 3: television and radio presenter, comedian, writer, actor and journalist, and
Speaker 3: you'll likely be meeting her best friend, Anita, a forensic psychologist,
Speaker 3: for the first time, but you'll very quickly understand why
Speaker 3: these two have been inseparable since they first met seventeen
Speaker 3: years ago. This conversation goes everywhere from the things your
Speaker 3: friends can hold your hand true and what they can't,
Speaker 3: and when or eve you should ever offer your best
Speaker 3: friend feedback. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Mead.
Speaker 2: I met my soulmate when I was eleven. The way
Speaker 2: I remember it is that our respective mothers banned us
Speaker 2: from going to some party or other, and instead it
Speaker 2: was suggested that we have a sleepover together. We were furious.
Speaker 2: Forty two years later and any time I get to
Speaker 2: have a sleepover with my best and oldest friend Lindsey,
Speaker 2: I will take it. It doesn't happen often because we live
Speaker 2: on opposite sides of the world. When I was twenty three,
Speaker 2: Lindsay was at London's Heathrow Airport to wave me off
Speaker 2: as I traveled to Australia for a year long traveling adventure.
Speaker 2: We cried and we cried, and that year has turned
Speaker 2: into thirty thirty years. And yet if we get the
Speaker 2: opportunity to spend even a few days together anywhere in
Speaker 2: the world, those days are worth years, and we still
Speaker 2: cry at airports. I also, as a fifty three year
Speaker 2: old woman, still have regular sleepovers with another great maid
Speaker 2: of mine, Penny, my treasure weekends away with a pick
Speaker 2: and Mix bag of my closest friends. I have mates
Speaker 2: I message daily and beloved ones I don't speak to
Speaker 2: for months. I have new friends I already can't imagine
Speaker 2: life without, and friends I share professional passions with to
Speaker 2: whom I owe a great deal. I'm bragging now and
Speaker 2: you know it. Because friendship, if you're lucky enough to
Speaker 2: have it in your life, is the greatest privilege of
Speaker 2: all and the thing that makes an enormous difference to
Speaker 2: our happiness and our well being. And one of the
Speaker 2: profound joys of getting older is getting to write new
Speaker 2: pages into your friendship histories and mark birthdays. The losses
Speaker 2: and the struggles, and the splits and the bad days
Speaker 2: all scroll out across pages that bound together tell us
Speaker 2: everything about ourselves and each other. I also have ex friends.
Speaker 2: You probably do too, relationships that ended mid sentence, leaving
Speaker 2: unsatisfying blank pages, and I've mourned them like old lovers,
Speaker 2: and I've wrestled with how to heal rifts may be
Speaker 2: left too long to revive. Because friends are the loves
Speaker 2: of our lives, as the iconic, aspirational, sometimes toxic Carrie
Speaker 2: Bradshaw's Girl Gang told us back when we were young,
Speaker 2: and in the manner of loves of our lives, they
Speaker 2: run the gammer of being the best and worst of us.
Speaker 2: They lift you higher, and they break your fucking heart,
Speaker 2: and respect must be paid here's a raised, steaming tea mug.
Speaker 2: To the friend you can itch your hormone patch in
Speaker 2: front of, who will walk beside you in your stupid
Speaker 2: weighted vest, who will congratulate you for your teeny weeny
Speaker 2: tomato harvest and agree that your partner is a dickhead
Speaker 2: today and a hero tomorrow. Who sees you through your job,
Speaker 2: through your children, through what your body's doing today. Who
Speaker 2: knows your mum's not been well. Who knows when your
Speaker 2: next appointment is. Who knows when to ask if you're
Speaker 2: okay and when to shut the hell up. Who dropped
Speaker 2: the meme of your dreams in the group chat on
Speaker 2: a bad day, and will sing in the car with
Speaker 2: you at the top of your terrible voices when life
Speaker 2: feels right. The friends who know the backstory, who indulge
Speaker 2: your tantrums just enough. To the deep grown up friendships
Speaker 2: and the ones forged over silly shared enthusiasms. To the
Speaker 2: ones who live next door and the ones on the
Speaker 2: other side of the world, and the ones who aren't
Speaker 2: here anymore. Soul mats all, Hello, I'm Holly Wainwright, and
Speaker 2: I am mid midlife, mid family, mid midlife crisis Number eight.
Speaker 2: We've been away for a while, and now we're back.
Speaker 2: This is season four, a mid the show for gen
Speaker 2: X women who are anything but, and over the next
Speaker 2: eight episodes, I'm going to be talking to grown up women,
Speaker 2: some of whom you know, some you'll be meeting for
Speaker 2: the first time, who have great stories and spot on
Speaker 2: insights into the things that make a life. I always
Speaker 2: say we've got no time or tolerance for small talk
Speaker 2: by the time we get here, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: everything is heavy, quite the opposite. I know that right now,
Speaker 2: I'm searching for conversations that cheer me, that soothe me,
Speaker 2: that make me laugh, make me hopeful, distract me from
Speaker 2: the enormous and tiny challenges that we're all wading through
Speaker 2: every day in our real lives and out in the
Speaker 2: big scary world. Some of the conversations we've got for
Speaker 2: you here are about things like shamefree sex, and falling
Speaker 2: in love again after a big split, about reinvention after
Speaker 2: a massive career crash, about caring for our aging parents,
Speaker 2: and about hair and a lot more too. So I
Speaker 2: hope you I'm going to love season four. But today
Speaker 2: I'm having a conversation about something I've been dying to
Speaker 2: talk about with people I've been dying to talk to.
Speaker 2: I think you probably all know who Amanda Keller is.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you really quickly just in case, that she's
Speaker 2: an accomplished and experienced media everything. She's a TV host
Speaker 2: and an award winning rating topping breakfast radio legend. But
Speaker 2: I'm going to stop talking because what I've got Amanda
Speaker 2: to come in and tell us about was none of that, really,
Speaker 2: even though we obviously go there a little bit. I
Speaker 2: invited her and her best friend to come in and
Speaker 2: talk about friendship. The person sitting beside Amanda in this
Speaker 2: conversation is her equally accomplished and impressive best friend, Anita McGregor.
Speaker 2: The two make their own podcasts together, which you'll hear
Speaker 2: about obviously, but I predict that five minutes into this
Speaker 2: you'll be as obsessed with Anita as I am, and
Speaker 2: with their friendship. And now I really am going to
Speaker 2: stop talking, because the first thing I asked Amanda and
Speaker 2: Nita to do was to introduce each other through a
Speaker 2: best friend's eyes to you.
Speaker 4: Yes, Anita McGregor, by profession, is a forensic psychologist. I
Speaker 4: only mentioned the profession is because it gives her an
Speaker 4: insight into society that many of us wouldn't normally have,
Speaker 4: and you do it with such kindness. I'm always amazed
Speaker 4: at the respect you give your clients. These are people
Speaker 4: who are before the courts, people who have transgressed, people
Speaker 4: who might be major sex offenders, people who are living
Speaker 4: really tough lives.
Speaker 5: And the delicacy with.
Speaker 4: Which you treat them and the respect you give them
Speaker 4: and their place in society, I find is a very
Speaker 4: refreshing take. So that's why you're a very interesting person
Speaker 4: to have in the room to reflect on anyone talking
Speaker 4: about society, life, rules, justice.
Speaker 5: You're a great calming voice.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 5: And she's a scrag scrag favorite strat favorites.
Speaker 2: Well, the pressure is on them.
Speaker 1: Something nice about that wasn't what was in my head.
Speaker 6: This is my friend Amanda Keller, who, gosh, I would
Speaker 6: imagine everyone in Australia knows of you that you are
Speaker 6: a radio broadcaster, you are a TV star. You are
Speaker 6: but you are also more than that. You are a wife,
Speaker 6: you are a mother, you are a great friend, an
Speaker 6: intrepid walker with me.
Speaker 1: You are all those things and.
Speaker 6: The thing that I think that is the most amazing
Speaker 6: quality of you is that when people ask you know,
Speaker 6: oh you know Amanda Keller, you know what she like?
Speaker 6: And I think my response is generally, you know how
Speaker 6: kind and generous she seems, you know on the air
Speaker 6: on the TV. That's exactly what you get. She is
Speaker 6: kind and she is generous and I love her.
Speaker 5: Oh it's lovely.
Speaker 2: And she didn't wood, not even once. Beautiful and nada.
Speaker 2: You're from Canada, I am. And you met Amanda quite
Speaker 2: early in your time in Australia, within about a month.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me how we met? Story?
Speaker 6: Oh, so we meet cute, I meet cute. Yes, so
Speaker 6: we had moved here. It was supposed to be like
Speaker 6: a two year adventure. My husband had been offered a
Speaker 6: contract to work and I thought, oh, it's going to
Speaker 6: be just such a fun thing.
Speaker 1: I didn't know a soul.
Speaker 6: I'd never been here, and we had rented a place
Speaker 6: in Coujie at the recommendation of one of my husband's workmates,
Speaker 6: and we had just got all the shipment in. I
Speaker 6: was exhausted and I went for a massage with a
Speaker 6: friend of ours, Jackie Racist, and she said, Oh, you're
Speaker 6: new here, why don't you come there's a Dancing with
Speaker 6: the Stars on which I didn't know. I had no
Speaker 6: idea what the show was. And my friend and Amanda
Speaker 6: is dancing in it. Why don't you come over and
Speaker 6: watch this? And I thought this is weird, but I
Speaker 6: went and I watched.
Speaker 4: Because you didn't know Jackie either, I don't know how
Speaker 4: jack here you had to step over the friendship divide
Speaker 4: with her to beginning.
Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely, And so saw you on Dancing with the Stars.
Speaker 6: Had no idea, and then you invited us out to
Speaker 6: it was a charity thing, and I went out and
Speaker 6: met you there and all these people were pointing and going,
Speaker 6: that's Amanda Keller.
Speaker 1: I had no idea.
Speaker 6: And then, you know, so we just kind of got
Speaker 6: to know each other that way, with me just being
Speaker 6: completely naive to you know, the world of Amanda Keller,
Speaker 6: and which was really actually kind of a nice way
Speaker 6: to do it, because I, you know, I think I
Speaker 6: would have probably been intimidated or weirded out or something,
Speaker 6: and I just wasn't. And so yeah, and then we
Speaker 6: started started dating friendship.
Speaker 5: Dating friendship.
Speaker 2: When you're new in a new country, you have some
Speaker 2: friendship vacancies that need filling.
Speaker 6: Oh, It's a scary thing is on the one hand,
Speaker 6: there's just this I can be whoever I want. But
Speaker 6: on the other hand, it's like nobody knows. Like those
Speaker 6: friendships that you have with people that you've known since
Speaker 6: you've been kids, or university or kids, you know, when
Speaker 6: you've had kids, and there's this kind of shorthand that
Speaker 6: you have as a friend, and I didn't have any
Speaker 6: of that. So there it was a double edged sword
Speaker 6: for for quite a while.
Speaker 2: It's like nobody knows me, and it's like nobody knows me,
Speaker 2: but Amanda, you presumably didn't necessarily have very many vacancies.
Speaker 2: How did Anita get.
Speaker 5: Questions? She's got an enormous chick.
Speaker 1: I'm for assistance.
Speaker 4: I just think there was some hugely common ground in
Speaker 4: our nature's maybe because I don't actually know how to
Speaker 4: answer that question.
Speaker 5: We would start to.
Speaker 4: Go for walks as a group, but as a group
Speaker 4: we would socialize, and then you and I kind of
Speaker 4: splinted off at some point and we'd go for weekly
Speaker 4: walks and just talk. And I don't know how to
Speaker 4: be more specific than that. It kind of just evolved
Speaker 4: really that it wasn't like we were starstruck with each
Speaker 4: other when we saw each other and fell in love.
Speaker 5: It just evolved.
Speaker 4: And often in those big groups you form your little
Speaker 4: factions within them. Factions is a harsh word, but your
Speaker 4: little friendship groups within them. And we kind of splint
Speaker 4: it off and made one of those a little satellite.
Speaker 2: And was there a moment when you kind of went, oh,
Speaker 2: we're definitely going to be friends or was it just
Speaker 2: that slow burn? Oh I'm gonna I need to call Anita.
Speaker 2: I want to tell Anita that like that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I really think it was a slow burn.
Speaker 5: I think so too.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting how much when people meet Anita as
Speaker 4: a psychologist for you, but I reckon you. Probably a
Speaker 4: see of people saying, don't analyze me, thinking that that's
Speaker 4: what she'll do. And I laugh when I hear that.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, I find it so interesting
Speaker 4: that I blab about every single thing to you in
Speaker 4: my life and you answer with friendship, never with I
Speaker 4: never feel your sounds terrible, never being professional.
Speaker 1: Your sometimes I really am.
Speaker 4: There's never a you know what you should do, there's
Speaker 4: never any of I never think, oh, that's right, you're
Speaker 4: a psychologist. I never ever feel that we meet as friends,
Speaker 4: and I don't know how you separate the two.
Speaker 5: I don't know how you do that.
Speaker 6: I you know, I think for the most part the
Speaker 6: it well, because I've been a psychologist for over thirty years,
Speaker 6: like half my life, more than half my life.
Speaker 1: That it's you know, just the.
Speaker 6: That main idea about I'm going to listen is, you know,
Speaker 6: that's kind of my life as a psychologist, but it's
Speaker 6: also my life as a friend. And I you know,
Speaker 6: I don't give advice to my clients either, really, so
Speaker 6: it feels pretty comfortable in doing that.
Speaker 2: I think some people would be really jealous that you're
Speaker 2: best friend's a psychologists, because you would imagine that you'd
Speaker 2: be like, you know, we all go through things, particularly
Speaker 2: midlife can get very rolling pastry, and you're like free therapy.
Speaker 5: But it's interesting, it never feels like therapy.
Speaker 4: But though maybe subconsciously, and I don't know if it's
Speaker 4: subconscious for you, but maybe you're like a border Collie
Speaker 4: like my dog that kind of just subtly hurts me somewhere. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I'm not even aware of it.
Speaker 2: I was listening to your show recently to double a Chattery,
Speaker 2: and I think Amanda you were talking about and I've
Speaker 2: been doing this too, reframing I have to with I
Speaker 2: get to gratitude. And I was listening to your conversation,
Speaker 2: and if I was in your shoes, Amanda, I would
Speaker 2: have been looking for approval from Anita on that like that.
Speaker 2: She goes, that's very good. I know.
Speaker 7: I find myself saying to her, I read this incredible
Speaker 7: theme in Dolly magazine, like I must tell you the
Speaker 7: most basic psychological things I've read and you and like,
Speaker 7: I've been seeing this incredible person. She said, I should
Speaker 7: try this and you must go God.
Speaker 2: But you were great, Anita, because you said something like
Speaker 2: and how's it going for you? Like, which is a
Speaker 2: therapistic thing to say in a way, but like, but
Speaker 2: exactly what you need and you are like, it's helping,
Speaker 2: it's helping. So I imagine that that is it's not
Speaker 2: a deliberate dynamic, but it must be great.
Speaker 4: But I never feel self conscious saying to Anita the dumbest,
Speaker 4: most basic way I cope with anything, and you never
Speaker 4: make me feel judged, and sometimes like it's only now
Speaker 4: talking to you, Holly, I think, yeah, actually, how embarrassing
Speaker 4: that I've said to Anita here's an interesting psychology you
Speaker 4: probably haven't.
Speaker 5: Heard Of't be grateful.
Speaker 4: Apparently, it's really let me introduce her to it, Anita can't.
Speaker 1: Let's try that.
Speaker 2: Well, at the risk of doing the same thing to
Speaker 2: it now, I was going to say that there's a
Speaker 2: lot of studies out there that friendship is absolutely crucial
Speaker 2: to our mental health, right and connection, and there's a
Speaker 2: lot of sort of handringing about that. Maybe as a community,
Speaker 2: as a world, we're getting less connected and we're finding
Speaker 2: friendships harder because we fear the judgment that comes with it,
Speaker 2: or we're not sure how to connect, or we're just
Speaker 2: not in the same physical spaces to connect. I mean,
Speaker 2: what do you inter One of the things that mid
Speaker 2: listeners tell me all the time is it's their girlfriends often.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're friends, but their girlfriends often that save them,
Speaker 2: that get them through the hard times. Do you think
Speaker 2: that we're in a crisis of connection? And are we
Speaker 2: right to think that our friendships are the things that
Speaker 2: keep us saying.
Speaker 6: There's a big part of me that would just like
Speaker 6: to answer, yes, it's a crisis. We need you know,
Speaker 6: we've really disconnected and all that. But I was actually
Speaker 6: just recently reading some research that really delighted me that
Speaker 6: was talking about. It was mostly about adolescent mental health,
Speaker 6: but what they were talking about is that often we're
Speaker 6: looking about like how many friends do we have?
Speaker 1: And you know, but the.
Speaker 6: Research actually is much more supportive of having one or
Speaker 6: two really good friends, and because once you get into
Speaker 6: a bigger like any more than three or four and
Speaker 6: we've all been there where you get into a bigger
Speaker 6: friendship group and it does split into like not I
Speaker 6: know you were saying factions, and sometimes it is, but
Speaker 6: it's you know, it's like she likes me better, and
Speaker 6: you know, you've get all the way left.
Speaker 2: I wasn't invited on that wall.
Speaker 6: Course, yeah yeah, or you know they've they've organized to
Speaker 6: do something and I'm not there, And especially with social media,
Speaker 6: that can be so hurtful. So I actually was really
Speaker 6: encouraged by the idea that, yes, there is a disconnection,
Speaker 6: and yet the answer isn't I need one hundred friends
Speaker 6: and I need to be out and doing things every night.
Speaker 6: The idea, sometimes, I think, is more about finding those
Speaker 6: those opportunities to get deeper with somebody, to be a
Speaker 6: little bit vulnerable with somebody, and to see whether you
Speaker 6: can create that friendship you know, like you know, sometimes
Speaker 6: it's not you know, just falling in love in a friendship,
Speaker 6: but it's sometimes it is that slow burn. And you know,
Speaker 6: there's there's also riches that research that says you need
Speaker 6: to spend about one thousand hours with somebody to actually
Speaker 6: create that depth, that that history with each other.
Speaker 4: It's one thousand dollars a lot puts. What's that in
Speaker 4: a context of a week or a year. I can't
Speaker 4: do the meths on it.
Speaker 6: I don't know, And I mean I don't know how
Speaker 6: they count that. I mean, it is it just a
Speaker 6: text to each other?
Speaker 1: Does that count?
Speaker 5: But?
Speaker 6: I mean I think that we can connect in a
Speaker 6: lot of different ways now.
Speaker 2: Because people worry about their friendship connections faltering as life changes. Right,
Speaker 2: so you two have been friends for the best part
Speaker 2: of two decades. Right, busy people, big jobs in different ways.
Speaker 2: How practically do you stay connected to your friends? Is
Speaker 2: like little kids to big kids, Career shifts, geographical moves
Speaker 2: like are you schedule people? Are you like it's every Wednesday?
Speaker 2: I mean, how do you do that?
Speaker 5: It's interesting.
Speaker 4: Before I get to how we do it, I often
Speaker 4: feel anxiety around the fact I'm not very good at
Speaker 4: it with a lot of people and a text may
Speaker 4: come up let's get together, and I have a panic
Speaker 4: over it. I never do that with you, Anita, And
Speaker 4: there are some friends where you go, I'll get to
Speaker 4: you and I can get to you, or let's put
Speaker 4: it in the diary for the future. I'm not really
Speaker 4: I don't have time right now that can fill me
Speaker 4: with anxiety, so I can limit my work. But sometimes
Speaker 4: it's the social stuff that I find I'm not very
Speaker 4: good at limiting, and that makes me panic.
Speaker 2: I feel the same way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And one of the reasons why we bought a
Speaker 4: place on the South Coast was so that I could
Speaker 4: say I'm not here this week because I will fill
Speaker 4: every gap if people ask me to, whether I want
Speaker 4: to or not.
Speaker 2: Do you fill the gaps because you feel anxious to
Speaker 2: have the space, or do you feel gaps as a people?
Speaker 2: Please fill the gaps?
Speaker 4: People, please, And to let people down and they're my
Speaker 4: friends and I haven't seen them for a while, and
Speaker 4: that's what friends do.
Speaker 6: But you have gotten much better, or at least with me.
Speaker 1: I'm saying no.
Speaker 6: Of you know, kind of saying I don't want to
Speaker 6: do this now, or I can't do this, or I
Speaker 6: don't have the energy, or those kinds of which is
Speaker 6: you know, I think a lovely thing that friends can
Speaker 6: do with each other. But we and we're not exactly
Speaker 6: schedule people, but other than we have a standing date
Speaker 6: at least once on the weekend to go for a
Speaker 6: while when we're in town.
Speaker 4: And now that you've moved further away, that now involves
Speaker 4: a car. We used to just meet down at the
Speaker 4: beach and go for a walk, so one of us
Speaker 4: has to get up half an hour earlier and be
Speaker 4: ready earlier. The first time I went to Anita's new
Speaker 4: place with my dog, I was very.
Speaker 2: Rude of her to move, and I could feel it.
Speaker 2: An you moved like a few So you've moved across town.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's probably about half an hour away. Twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: Twenty minutes.
Speaker 4: Well, my dog must have taken it very personally because
Speaker 4: when you went to Anita's new but she just had
Speaker 4: the carpets, claimed many has never done this before. She
Speaker 4: went in and did a giant whee on then.
Speaker 5: You come out. It was awful, awful.
Speaker 4: But I find also physically as things get harder for me.
Speaker 4: I've had two hit replacements and I've got a thritis
Speaker 4: in my back.
Speaker 5: We all do it some we've all got stuff.
Speaker 4: But there's some days we'll say to Anita, I had
Speaker 4: I was filming this week or whatever it is, and
Speaker 4: I stood up all week. I'm just too sort of
Speaker 4: go for a walk. So I'm being more diligent with
Speaker 4: myself in protecting myself. But I know I can say
Speaker 4: that to you With other people, I may not know
Speaker 4: I can say to you, sorry about that. I just
Speaker 4: feel crap today.
Speaker 2: Do you think it's the mark of good friendship. I
Speaker 2: think I heard a conversation that you were where you
Speaker 2: were talking about how a good friendship is someone can
Speaker 2: come over to your house and you don't feel like
Speaker 2: you have to tidy, you know, you have to feel
Speaker 2: like you have to tidy the counters or whatever. I'm
Speaker 2: not a natural hostess. It sends me into a panic
Speaker 2: if somebody is coming to my house. But is it
Speaker 2: also a sign of good friendship that when you do
Speaker 2: say I just don't have the energy or there's just
Speaker 2: too many other demands that they're not going to get
Speaker 2: offended by that.
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And I'm trying to push through worrying about that
Speaker 4: that this is what I have, this is what I
Speaker 4: have to do to survive today. Not survive that's overly dramatic,
Speaker 4: but you know I work hard all week as many
Speaker 4: of us do stuff and stuff and stuff, and you
Speaker 4: get to the weekend and think, I just don't have
Speaker 4: anyemy to tick it up earlier this morning.
Speaker 5: And go for a walk.
Speaker 1: You're doing a very good job at ignoring my tears
Speaker 1: that you know.
Speaker 5: What's she doing.
Speaker 4: She's put on the water works, hasn't she She's going
Speaker 4: with the waterworks. But also what I love about our
Speaker 4: friendship is that you mentioned before about being vulnerable and eata.
Speaker 4: You can bitch and moan about your husband, about your parents,
Speaker 4: about you, anything, and it's such a safe space that
Speaker 4: you know that that isn't the mark of that relationship
Speaker 4: that you're having. That's just how you're feeling Today's like
Speaker 4: you could never tell your mum how you if you
Speaker 4: had a fight with your boyfriend or your husband, because
Speaker 4: they would never get over it, they'd mark them forever.
Speaker 4: Whereas I feel quite safe sharing that stuff with you
Speaker 4: when we.
Speaker 6: Have I love early in our friendship, I think that
Speaker 6: remember we had a conversation that one of us was
Speaker 6: saying something about our husband, and you know, and and
Speaker 6: we said, let's recognize that I might like if it
Speaker 6: was me, I might be mad at Emmett right now.
Speaker 6: And you get to hear this, but you don't get
Speaker 6: to hear us make up. You don't get to hear
Speaker 6: the conversation that happens after when we resolve things.
Speaker 1: You don't get to hear any of that.
Speaker 6: So you know, you need that cognitive process to kind
Speaker 6: of say I get that, you know, I might be
Speaker 6: mad at Emmett today, but you know we have a
Speaker 6: long term marriage, and so we're going to get through it.
Speaker 4: And that's the stuff you never see in popular culture.
Speaker 4: You never see the boring bits in the middle where
Speaker 4: things get resolved, because that's not interesting to anybody.
Speaker 2: It's true, I often wonder this as we get older
Speaker 2: and wise, there are lots of things happen. Do you
Speaker 2: think friends, good friends call each other out when they're
Speaker 2: being unreasonable, you know, maybe making choices that aren't good
Speaker 2: for them, Or do you think that good friends are
Speaker 2: always the supportive rock. That's what I'm always wrestling with
Speaker 2: is whether you you know that where people say the
Speaker 2: people closer to you should be the ones you say
Speaker 2: you need to stop doing that thing, or whether they're
Speaker 2: the ones who are the understanding ones. What do you think?
Speaker 4: I'm highly sensitive, and so I judge the messenger very harshly.
Speaker 4: And even though in an ideal world you say yes,
Speaker 4: you're you know, practically you want your friends to tell
Speaker 4: you that, I don't think I want to hear it.
Speaker 5: How do you feel?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you know that friend And I'm not saying
Speaker 2: any wanted this, but the friend who is always complaining
Speaker 2: about their husband or their job or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: or you know, something in their lifestyle. Always at what
Speaker 2: point do good friends say? Hey?
Speaker 6: I think it depends on the friendship. Like like you
Speaker 6: and I have had that conversation that you know, if
Speaker 6: I looked really terrible in an outfit, you wouldn't tell
Speaker 6: me that.
Speaker 5: I would never tell you.
Speaker 6: They never tell even though I'd want to hear it.
Speaker 6: Like I'm really big on feedback, and so I gut
Speaker 6: that that would make you feel uncomfortable, even though I'd
Speaker 6: like to hear it. And so, and I recognize that
Speaker 6: you are sensitive, and so.
Speaker 4: All my outfits terrible. It's all I've heard in this
Speaker 4: entire conversation, she's mean to.
Speaker 1: Talk to you about it.
Speaker 5: We've had this.
Speaker 4: We actually have had this conversation. I wrote a book
Speaker 4: a number of years ago and Anita wanted to read it,
Speaker 4: and I said, oh, here it is, just thinking, I'm just.
Speaker 5: Passing it over.
Speaker 4: And she said, how would you how do you take
Speaker 4: feedback feedback?
Speaker 1: Because I didn't know.
Speaker 5: Like, I was like, you're an educator't me?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean that's my that's my life, you know,
Speaker 6: teaching students and stuff and giving feedback.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm really like, I was like, do you
Speaker 1: do you?
Speaker 6: And then and it was like hmm, and so we
Speaker 6: just that's a great book, Amanda.
Speaker 2: I'm like, mate, your job is to tell me everything
Speaker 2: I do is great, because there are plenty of other
Speaker 2: people in my life we're going to tell me.
Speaker 5: That it's not.
Speaker 6: But I have friendships where I could say that too,
Speaker 6: and I have colleagues that I you know, that's the
Speaker 6: basis of our work relationship where we give each other
Speaker 6: really strong feedback, and you know, certainly with my supervisors
Speaker 6: and and that kind of stuff. So there, I think
Speaker 6: it depends on the friendship, and it depends on the topic,
Speaker 6: because there may be topics where you know, I may
Speaker 6: think that I don't know, like I mean, if I
Speaker 6: thought that you were being really overreacting to something.
Speaker 4: Actually we had this conversation recently. Is that I was
Speaker 4: overreacting to something. I was cranky about about ten things.
Speaker 4: And you showed me a clip of a woman who
Speaker 4: had a nail in her head and she was talking
Speaker 4: to her husband and she was and she was saying,
Speaker 4: I just don't feel right.
Speaker 5: You're not supporting me enough.
Speaker 4: And he's trying to say, we've got a nail in
Speaker 4: your head, and she said, no, no, no, this this,
Speaker 4: and he said, no, you've got a nail in your head.
Speaker 4: And finally he says, oh, sweetheart, I hear what she's saying.
Speaker 4: You're not feeling going. She's just thank you. And I've
Speaker 4: been thinking about that a lot, because you probably observed me.
Speaker 4: My husband's done well, and so I'm looking at the
Speaker 4: world through a filter. And you were saying, you know,
Speaker 4: you're seeing all this with a nail in your head.
Speaker 4: I didn't know what to do about the nail, but
Speaker 4: I thought, yes, but I am seeing the world. I
Speaker 4: do have a nail in my head, so I didn't
Speaker 4: know how to process the fact that I do have
Speaker 4: a nail in my head. But that's one of the
Speaker 4: only times where I thought, you're trying to tell me
Speaker 4: something here. I'm not sure exactly what it is, because
Speaker 4: I know that I know that I'm having a negative
Speaker 4: moment or a depressive moment, or an angry moment where
Speaker 4: I'm seeing everything through that veil and I'm aware of it.
Speaker 4: But on the other hand, I think, well, here's why,
Speaker 4: because some things.
Speaker 6: Came pretty shite, and your natural stat is to be
Speaker 6: optimistic and see things, you know, very positively. I cannot
Speaker 6: remember what was going through my head at the time
Speaker 6: I showed it. I you know that that it was
Speaker 6: probably something that I had showed a class or something.
Speaker 6: I probably was thinking about how hard you were seeing
Speaker 6: the world at the time.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because also you would have heard the term
Speaker 2: a million times about toxic positivity, where we're encouraged by
Speaker 2: pop culture and you know, sort of leaking for one
Speaker 2: of a better term, therapy, speaking to everyday life, to
Speaker 2: put a positive spin on everything and to see everything
Speaker 2: as a lesson. And you know what am I learning
Speaker 2: from this today? And I'm sure this you know whereas
Speaker 2: sometimes things are just terrible shit and.
Speaker 5: You need to sit in the shammer into your own hair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and just sit and feel the nail. Just
Speaker 1: step field.
Speaker 5: But it did give me a really good perspective.
Speaker 4: I just thought, yes, I am being this today, and
Speaker 4: I probably won't be this tomorrow, but I'm seeing a
Speaker 4: whole lot of good things.
Speaker 5: It was because I'm talking about how.
Speaker 4: People were trying to help and I was getting cranky
Speaker 4: at everything. I think that was it. I just needed
Speaker 4: a shift in perspective.
Speaker 2: More of my conversation with best friends Amanda Keller and
Speaker 2: Anita McGregor after this short break stay with us. We've
Speaker 2: touched on a couple of these in this conversation, I think,
Speaker 2: but in which ways are you similar? In which ways
Speaker 2: are you different? So we've acknowledged here that Amanda is
Speaker 2: the sensitive one, and you would be more straight talking
Speaker 2: if she wasn't such a snowflake.
Speaker 4: Interestingly, I have a job where I get rated and
Speaker 4: judged by ratings and constant I don't read a lot
Speaker 4: of social media feedback because I just wouldn't be able
Speaker 4: to handle it. So ironically, in my work life, it's
Speaker 4: constant judgment and constant feedback and constant feedback.
Speaker 2: I think that's probably why in your personal life you're
Speaker 2: also a.
Speaker 5: Bit like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's try to put the blinkers on. How are
Speaker 4: we similar, Anita, let's ask the grown up?
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, it is interesting that that. You know,
Speaker 6: when we go to your place on the South Coast
Speaker 6: and we spend a weekend together, we will spend days.
Speaker 1: You know, what are we going to eat? What are
Speaker 1: we going to do?
Speaker 6: And we generally end up eating you know, sardines on toast,
Speaker 6: and we end up reading books together or playing dominoes
Speaker 6: when we can, and you know, so it's the similarities
Speaker 6: are that that. It's a funny thing to say because
Speaker 6: I tend to get up at about you get up
Speaker 6: at what four for work, Yeah, And I usually get
Speaker 6: up at about four thirty, just because that's when my
Speaker 6: you know, my brain starts turning on. And so it's
Speaker 6: I think that because we're both mourning people and we
Speaker 6: both have very similar kind of rhythms about how our
Speaker 6: lives and our work, you know, just go.
Speaker 5: I think that's right.
Speaker 4: And we do kitchen time very well together, yeah, which
Speaker 4: I think is a big part of a great friendship.
Speaker 5: Is that we plann what are we going to eat?
Speaker 5: When are doing this and not being this?
Speaker 4: And we chop chop chop, and I'm going to put
Speaker 4: this on and we potter very well together and then
Speaker 4: we sit down and read very well together comfortably.
Speaker 5: You can't do that with everybody.
Speaker 2: No, you can't. You can't do that with that. You
Speaker 2: can't have that away time where you're not doing, doing
Speaker 2: doing all the time. Is it hard to have a
Speaker 2: friend who's in the public eye, Anita, a best friend
Speaker 2: who's in the public eye, And do you feel defensive
Speaker 2: of her? And when there's invasions of your privacy? And
Speaker 2: do you not talk about work?
Speaker 1: I am protective of you in that I don't.
Speaker 6: I don't often like because you know, by my nature,
Speaker 6: I'm quite private, you know, part of it's just who
Speaker 6: I am, but it's part of it has been my
Speaker 6: profession as well, and so I recognize the need for
Speaker 6: some sense of privacy. So I'm protective of that. I
Speaker 6: don't tell a lot of people that we're friends. I mean,
Speaker 6: it's kind of.
Speaker 2: Hard not to now now now you've got public we're
Speaker 2: going to Esky podcast.
Speaker 1: It is, yeah, so.
Speaker 5: It must it might manifest itself strangely.
Speaker 4: For example, when we went to see Kat Stevens and
Speaker 4: this guy asked Anita to take a photo of me
Speaker 4: and him, and then he came back after interval and said, well,
Speaker 4: I've been looking for you.
Speaker 5: That was a terrible closure, and.
Speaker 4: I thought sorry for Anita because she hasn't asked to
Speaker 4: be dragged into this.
Speaker 1: It was hilarious. So I took a picture on the
Speaker 1: top of his head.
Speaker 2: Like you totally asked for talking about the podcast, because
Speaker 2: your conversation, your chemistry on that is so brilliant, and
Speaker 2: as you you're I'm sure you had an instinct, Amanda,
Speaker 2: because you knew that Anita's, as you've said in her introduction,
Speaker 2: just such an interesting thinker in terms of what you
Speaker 2: talk about. So you must have been like, this is
Speaker 2: going to be good. But was it also just an
Speaker 2: excuse to spend more time together.
Speaker 5: Oh, it absolutely was. It was all of those things.
Speaker 4: But we'd often talk about things on the walk that
Speaker 4: I think other people might like to be part of
Speaker 4: this conversation too, Because I'd come from things from one
Speaker 4: perspective and Anita would come from a completely different perspective.
Speaker 4: I thought that would be an interesting thing for people
Speaker 4: to hear, because you know, a million people have podcasts
Speaker 4: and have opinions and have things to say. But I
Speaker 4: thought I haven't heard somebody like Anita.
Speaker 2: Do you disagree very much in terms of on issues
Speaker 2: and things that are happening in the world, because so
Speaker 2: on Mama, MI are out loud, which I obviously do
Speaker 2: with two of my good friends. But we do disagree,
Speaker 2: and people often say that must be really hard. And
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is true or not. You
Speaker 2: probably do know an to and it's true or not.
Speaker 2: But somebody said, if you can disagree on the details,
Speaker 2: but if your values are shared, it's easier.
Speaker 6: I think her values are definitely share. I don't think
Speaker 6: that we've ever had any bigger disagreements.
Speaker 1: We tend to.
Speaker 6: You know. What I find is really interesting is that
Speaker 6: Amanda has been my educator in you know, political things,
Speaker 6: Australian history that you know that you know who's you know,
Speaker 6: what's happened in austral.
Speaker 5: History of Peter Andre, that kind of stuff, that kind.
Speaker 6: Of stuff, the really important stuff that culture yeah yeah,
Speaker 6: but yeah, pop culture, but also kind of just historical things.
Speaker 6: And so we tend You're right, we tend to come
Speaker 6: at things with from different angles. But but I think
Speaker 6: under the underlying that is that similarity and values.
Speaker 4: We did a podcast the week of the terrible Bondi stabbings,
Speaker 4: and I was so grateful to have somebody like Anita
Speaker 4: to give a perspective on this in that the media
Speaker 4: was filled with stories about we're not doing enough for
Speaker 4: the victims, and it's so true, but you came at
Speaker 4: it from a different perspective, which was you work every
Speaker 4: day with the perpetrators, and we need to fix the
Speaker 4: problem upstream. We need to invest in the perpetrators. And
Speaker 4: people didn't want to hear about They didn't want him
Speaker 4: to be part of the conversation, they didn't want any
Speaker 4: of that kind of discussed. And it's true that our
Speaker 4: sympathies were downstream, but we were never going to fix
Speaker 4: it until we looked upstream. You spoke with such sympathy
Speaker 4: and clarity about the kind of people that are upstream
Speaker 4: and why we need to help them.
Speaker 5: HM.
Speaker 6: So yeah, but I think that that again your compassion
Speaker 6: for you know, your broad audience, like it's you know,
Speaker 6: you were asking before about is it tough to have
Speaker 6: you know, somebody who's in the public eye as a friend.
Speaker 1: But you know, one of the things.
Speaker 6: That the toughest part is that when you know, we'll
Speaker 6: be out at an event and people stop Amanda, you know,
Speaker 6: and we'll sometimes be in the middle of a conversation,
Speaker 6: but you are often always so kind and willing, and
Speaker 6: you know, so you come from a position of compassion
Speaker 6: as well that you recognize that it is you know,
Speaker 6: the people who listen to you deserve some of your time.
Speaker 4: Well, it's a privilege to be called somebody's friend, that
Speaker 4: they feel they know you and worry about you and
Speaker 4: think about you and care about you and want to
Speaker 4: come up and say hellow, I see.
Speaker 5: That is a privilege.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I want to ask you both because obviously you
Speaker 2: have started the podcast, you both have big careers. Really
Speaker 2: I want to know how you're, just in terms of
Speaker 2: general wisdom, how your attitude to work and ambition is
Speaker 2: at this point in your lives, because you've made a
Speaker 2: decision to start this new project, which requires commitment, promotion,
Speaker 2: all of those things.
Speaker 4: It's funny that, like I've just come back onto the
Speaker 4: radio that were in the second week, part of me goes,
Speaker 4: oh god, that's right, I'm sixty three this year. Part
Speaker 4: of me thinks this schedule is hard, But I thought
Speaker 4: that I don't know what I pictured when I was younger,
Speaker 4: But I thought the dailiness of radio would have worn
Speaker 4: me down by now. But it's hard with my shifting
Speaker 4: fortunes at home in terms of my husband not being well.
Speaker 5: Is that I need. I now know somewhere to go
Speaker 5: every day.
Speaker 4: I need an alarm clock to go off in the
Speaker 4: morning and for me to go somewhere where I'm fully
Speaker 4: engaged for a chunk of hours of the day, where
Speaker 4: I laugh, I cry, I listen to other people's stories.
Speaker 4: You scratch the surface and everybody has a story. I've
Speaker 4: spoken about this about the word sounder, which means the
Speaker 4: gradual realization that everybody is going through something, something good,
Speaker 4: something sad, and I'm aware of that. With a radio audience,
Speaker 4: they're having their best and their worst days and you're
Speaker 4: not even aware of it, but you're on the ride
Speaker 4: with them. And so I find being there is a
Speaker 4: great equalizer for me. If I think if I was
Speaker 4: just sitting at home, I would wallow. So by the
Speaker 4: time in my life I thought I'd be wrapping this up,
Speaker 4: I actually realize how much I.
Speaker 5: Need it at the moment.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting because a large part of, you know,
Speaker 2: our shifting perspectives is dealing with things that you didn't
Speaker 2: think were going to happen. So, I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 2: that when you were working in breakfast radio every day
Speaker 2: when the boys were small, you have two sons, that
Speaker 2: was a different kind of challenge and you probably thought, well,
Speaker 2: when they're older, it's all going to be easier and whatever.
Speaker 2: And then life throws you a curveball in the form
Speaker 2: of a health, yeah crisis, and work takes a different form. Again.
Speaker 4: Interesting, it kind of saves me, I think. But An
Speaker 4: here and I often talk about this about and we've
Speaker 4: got friends who are at the point of wondering what
Speaker 4: retirement looks like and how we.
Speaker 5: Feel about that.
Speaker 4: And it's that old trope of and I don't agree
Speaker 4: with it, of you put too much stock in your job.
Speaker 4: That's not who people are. But I think there's a
Speaker 4: lot of pride in the jobs that we do, and
Speaker 4: it's okay to be defined by that to a certain extent.
Speaker 4: You know, you don't have to go and pash a
Speaker 4: dolphin every day and work one day a year to
Speaker 4: be a true person. That's not where you necessarily find yourself.
Speaker 4: And I know a lot of people say, oh, they've retired,
Speaker 4: and few why don't I do it years ago? Because
Speaker 4: you don't know yourself. I love what I get from
Speaker 4: the work I do.
Speaker 6: I love the idea that at my age, I'm still contributing,
Speaker 6: and and in fact I have I think I have
Speaker 6: a lot to contribute. And it's I don't feel as
Speaker 6: though I'm done, and I don't know what done would
Speaker 6: look like. But when I think about all the people
Speaker 6: that you know, we've talked, you know to some of
Speaker 6: who have gone to you know, you know, that retirement place,
Speaker 6: and that they're you know, and they're enjoying life, and
Speaker 6: and that's awesome. I'm happy that they are doing that
Speaker 6: and that they're finding that that part of their lives.
Speaker 6: I just can't see myself not doing what I'm doing
Speaker 6: right now. I can see, you know, somewhere in the distance,
Speaker 6: that there will be something else, but I'm not quite
Speaker 6: there yet.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because on that changing perspectives things. Do you
Speaker 2: think that when you were younger, you thought, you know,
Speaker 2: how you were saying, Amanda, I thought breakfast radio would
Speaker 2: have wore me down, did you. When you're twenty and
Speaker 2: you think about forty, you're like, oh, you know, I'll
Speaker 2: definitely be wanting to put my feet up or whatever,
Speaker 2: and or it'll look like this and it'll feel like that.
Speaker 2: And then you get there and you're like spring chicken,
Speaker 2: and then and like you're you're saying, I'm not done.
Speaker 2: Is that's really resonates because that's what I feel. I'm
Speaker 2: fifty three, so but I'm like, I don't feel and
Speaker 2: I still feel like I've got so much to learn
Speaker 2: and give and do. I'm getting started, but it feels
Speaker 2: sometimes like the wider world is like slow down, calm down,
Speaker 2: back off.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I get a lot of that, why are
Speaker 4: you still doing this? I get quite blatantly people saying,
Speaker 4: oh my god, don't you want to give it up?
Speaker 4: Because to other people, that early alarm clock, that daily
Speaker 4: thing might seem like a chore.
Speaker 5: It doesn't feel like that to me.
Speaker 4: It's a gift that I get to share my perspective
Speaker 4: on whatever I feel like every day.
Speaker 5: So I don't see it that way.
Speaker 4: When I was younger, I pictured being sixty like being
Speaker 4: like that painting of Whistler's mother just you know, in
Speaker 4: a rocking chair or wearing black. It's all over because
Speaker 4: I didn't have role models who were working women, let
Speaker 4: alone women who work this long. So all of this
Speaker 4: is new, I think for all of us. But I
Speaker 4: can see why in the media, I'm probably the last
Speaker 4: of a certain dinosaur, and I have no interest in reinventing.
Speaker 4: I don't give a rats about starting a new project
Speaker 4: integrated into a blah blah and a blah blah. I'm
Speaker 4: happy to ride this wave that I'm on and then
Speaker 4: when it's time, hopefully I can do a delicate dismount.
Speaker 4: You can never you never assume that, either in the
Speaker 4: media or in life. We're talking about that in terms
Speaker 4: of your home life, but your professional life too. You
Speaker 4: assume that there's a delicate dismount when you hit the shore.
Speaker 4: But maybe you've put in a wave and you've got
Speaker 4: sand through a gust and you just don't know what's there.
Speaker 2: But also you're really really good at what you do
Speaker 2: because you've been doing it. It's like there's a bit
Speaker 2: of a dismissal of experience that I feel as a
Speaker 2: and maybe because the way we see women, particularly women
Speaker 2: in the public eye, but not only certainly a lot
Speaker 2: in other fields too, are like, oh, do you really
Speaker 2: still have something to offer? It's like, I know what
Speaker 2: I'm doing.
Speaker 6: There's the word that's kind of rolling around my head
Speaker 6: right now, and it feels uncomfortable in some ways. Is
Speaker 6: like being a role model for being older and successful
Speaker 6: and still you know, being able to contribute. And it's
Speaker 6: you know, it's interesting because the students that I teach
Speaker 6: now are often in their early twenties, early mid twenties,
Speaker 6: and they, you know, I'm the age of some of
Speaker 6: their parents and even some of their could it be
Speaker 6: possible their grandparents, and you know, you kind of think
Speaker 6: they're probably they have a picture in their head of
Speaker 6: what an old person, what they are, what they can do.
Speaker 6: And I don't mind that the students see me cycling
Speaker 6: to UNI or you know, to the clinic and you know,
Speaker 6: coming in and teaching, and I like that maybe there
Speaker 6: is an aspect where we can kind of break some
Speaker 6: ideas about you know, what an older woman can be.
Speaker 4: And there was I think it was the West Australian
Speaker 4: Premier at one point said we've cracked down on racism, sexism.
Speaker 4: He said agism is the last big one, and he
Speaker 4: was just suggesting that let's look at the potency of
Speaker 4: language around it, not just that dismissive yeah boomer stuff,
Speaker 4: but also how people in the older generation think younger
Speaker 4: people are. But it seems that people trying to re
Speaker 4: enter the workforce and be validated is really hard as
Speaker 4: you get older. Maybe is that evolutionary that at some
Speaker 4: point you'd need you should be moving away for others?
Speaker 4: Is there something maybe bigger in there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and maybe there's a panic that our generations never
Speaker 2: going to go.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's right, We're going to own all the big
Speaker 4: houses and will never go.
Speaker 2: We're going to figure out how to live forever, like
Speaker 2: die in Silicon Valley. Yes, And we're just we're never
Speaker 2: going anywhere.
Speaker 4: So maybe the younger generations have a right to be
Speaker 4: anxious that the old we're still hanging around. When are
Speaker 4: we going to move over and let someone else have
Speaker 4: a crack at it.
Speaker 2: The rest of my conversation with Amanda Keller and Anita
Speaker 2: McGregor best Friends, Colleagues, truth Tellers after the Break Did
Speaker 2: you have strong female friendship role modeled to you by
Speaker 2: your own mothers?
Speaker 6: Do you think, oh, my mother's bridge club, Absolutely that
Speaker 6: was you know, every I think it was every Tuesday
Speaker 6: and they, yeah, there was an end and she had
Speaker 6: my mom had a friend Eileen, who she talked to
Speaker 6: every morning. You know, there is just that connection that
Speaker 6: it was just checking in, how are you doing that
Speaker 6: kind of thing. So yeah, I think it was. It
Speaker 6: was an important part, especially since my mom, you know,
Speaker 6: after she got married, didn't work after a while.
Speaker 2: So connection my.
Speaker 5: Mom had that with her sisters. She was very close
Speaker 5: to her sisters.
Speaker 4: They all lived in different places around Australia, spoke constantly,
Speaker 4: a very very tight unit, a very big clan of
Speaker 4: a gaggle of them, and I felt we were the
Speaker 4: only offshoot in Sydney. And there's just my brother and
Speaker 4: I and very close to all our cousins for a
Speaker 4: number of years, and since Mom passed away twenty years ago.
Speaker 4: Now it's a shock for me to say that to
Speaker 4: you them my lost mom twenty years ago. But the
Speaker 4: women are the keepers of those sort of connections and
Speaker 4: I've kind of lost track with cousins and things like
Speaker 4: that because it was Mum that held all that together.
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear you tell me a little bit
Speaker 2: about what life's like with your adult children.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: I was listening to Double a Chattery the other day
Speaker 2: and you were both talking about the summer hot Well,
Speaker 2: not summer holidays for you, Anita, because you went to
Speaker 2: Canada where it sounded so cold. Never need to go there.
Speaker 5: In winter.
Speaker 2: I grew up in Manchester, Englhend. That was plenty cold
Speaker 2: enough for me and Amanda. You went away with your boys,
Speaker 2: who are not boys anymore but men. My children are teenagers.
Speaker 2: I'm seeing the pull away, the closed bedroom door, the
Speaker 2: next phase of parenting. Me and Brent talk about it
Speaker 2: all the time. Tell me the good things about the
Speaker 2: kids being grown up. You're a grandma, I needed.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not yet because when you when you have
Speaker 4: your children at one hundred and fifty eight, it does
Speaker 4: take a.
Speaker 5: Little bit longer.
Speaker 4: That I dreaded the boys leaving home. But the dread
Speaker 4: was harder than the reality. Oh that's yes, because you
Speaker 4: live with the dread from the minute they're born, and
Speaker 4: then when it actually happens, it's almost like you've kind
Speaker 4: of quarterized the wound a little bit, and I found,
Speaker 4: actually I'm surviving.
Speaker 5: This is okay.
Speaker 4: I remember when both boys got big, and I'd be
Speaker 4: in a restaurant and I turn behind me think it
Speaker 4: was the way I think, oh my god, that's liam.
Speaker 4: So the physicality surprised me. And the way you express
Speaker 4: your love for them is different. You don't hug them
Speaker 4: as much, you know when they're little and you hold
Speaker 4: their hands. And suddenly, as a mum with a teenage boy,
Speaker 4: how do you.
Speaker 5: Express that love?
Speaker 2: That's harder that I want you to touch them all
Speaker 2: the time. It's so selfish of that.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 4: And the grace with which you have to read the
Speaker 4: mood and not grope them around the neck.
Speaker 5: And my daughter walks past me.
Speaker 2: Now I just try to get a whiff of her, like, yeah, yes,
Speaker 2: because you.
Speaker 4: Don't want to be that needy parent. But I'm finding
Speaker 4: now neither of my sons live at home. They've been
Speaker 4: on various campuses and things. And because I get up
Speaker 4: so early in the morning, them coming to live at
Speaker 4: home again sort of, my younger son would get home
Speaker 4: at two and I have to get up at four.
Speaker 5: Was all getting bit hard.
Speaker 4: But a valuable lesson I learned was with my younger
Speaker 4: son when he went moved on campus. Every conversation I
Speaker 4: had with him was telling him, don't forget to do this.
Speaker 4: You don't forget to do that. You stuffed this up,
Speaker 4: You've got a blah blah blah. There was an agenda
Speaker 4: for every conversation. I could tell because my mum used
Speaker 4: to do that to me and it was so hard
Speaker 4: to get hold of him. I've chosen to have agender
Speaker 4: free conversations with him, and now he calls me every day,
Speaker 4: as does my oldest son.
Speaker 5: They both we all speak every day.
Speaker 4: But it's only when I stopped telling Jack what to
Speaker 4: do and nagging him about have you done it?
Speaker 5: Have you done it?
Speaker 2: That's interesting. So it was a very deliberate choice for
Speaker 2: your part. I'm not going to be doing have you done?
Speaker 2: Have you thought about it?
Speaker 4: And sometimes I got to the end of the conversation
Speaker 4: and I almost had to physically stitch my lips closed.
Speaker 4: And then what I might do is just a quick
Speaker 4: follow up text, don't forget to blah blah blah. But
Speaker 4: after we'd had a nice conversation, you did.
Speaker 6: Such a good job, and that that was horrid was
Speaker 6: it was very hard for me.
Speaker 2: But that's a really good piece of advice.
Speaker 4: I've told the psychologist all about it.
Speaker 5: Does she get right I've got a gold start.
Speaker 6: You did.
Speaker 2: That's hard, it's really but I can entirely see how
Speaker 2: that because when I think about when we think about
Speaker 2: our own relationships with our parents perhaps and how freeing
Speaker 2: it felt to not have that constant surveillance. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: want if you want to be letting out the rope
Speaker 2: and for them to come back. It can't feel like
Speaker 2: they're constantly just going to be going. You haven't got
Speaker 2: your hair?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 2: What when was the last time you watched?
Speaker 5: Had you paid that parking five?
Speaker 2: Exactly? Tell me, Anita, how you're finding face family life.
Speaker 6: My sons are both in their early thirties. One is
Speaker 6: in Sydney here, the older one, and the younger one
Speaker 6: is in Vancouver.
Speaker 2: Did they both come with you when you Okay?
Speaker 6: So they were they were fourteen fifteen. Yeah, there were
Speaker 6: teenagers when we came over. And my older son has
Speaker 6: stayed in Sydney, but my younger son moved to Barthurst
Speaker 6: to go and do a degree at the same Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and he was.
Speaker 4: He became sort of an emergency paramedic who now works
Speaker 4: in all kinds of tricky places.
Speaker 5: I took rather different routs.
Speaker 4: Both very important life an emergency with a time call
Speaker 4: if anyone needs one.
Speaker 6: So yeah, so so so my son went, and my
Speaker 6: younger one moved when he was eighteen to Bathurst and
Speaker 6: then immediately after his degree, moved to London and was
Speaker 6: a paramedic there right through the pandemic, right through everything,
Speaker 6: and then has just recently moved to Vancouver. And so
Speaker 6: it's you know, he went away early, and we had
Speaker 6: to kind of negotiate what that looked like. And I
Speaker 6: was thinking about what we were, you know, talking about
Speaker 6: them going away and wanting.
Speaker 1: That whiff of them. And he gets me.
Speaker 6: Now when we were leaving to come back to Sydney,
Speaker 6: you know, we were at the area port and and
Speaker 6: you know, I look at him and you know, give
Speaker 6: the great big hug, and I'm like trying to hold
Speaker 6: it together. And then you know, he hugs my husband
Speaker 6: and then he looks at me and he goes, you
Speaker 6: get one more and gives me another one, and it
Speaker 6: just you know, it's it's everything I need. And and
Speaker 6: so it's it's they do come back, and they come
Speaker 6: back as these amazing human beings that you've raised, and
Speaker 6: it's it is a different relationship.
Speaker 1: It is a I love.
Speaker 6: I love my sons, and I love that they are
Speaker 6: very different from each other, just kind of like Liam
Speaker 6: and Jack are, and that they are creating these very different,
Speaker 6: very amazing lives for themselves.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's it's pretty cool.
Speaker 6: And and and as you said, I'm now a grandma
Speaker 6: and I get to go and is the grand is that?
Speaker 6: Is that your Sydney son or my Sydney son? So
Speaker 6: I yeah, so he's he's local. So I get to
Speaker 6: go and and take care of him. And and you know,
Speaker 6: a little Logan and he's like a year and a
Speaker 6: half now, and he's just a bundle of joy.
Speaker 1: He is.
Speaker 6: I did not think I could lose my mind again
Speaker 6: like this, And I have everybody.
Speaker 2: Says Mia, who obviously we're exactly the same age. But
Speaker 2: I had my kids late in Burner Commons, and so
Speaker 2: she's granny now my kids are still kids, and she's
Speaker 2: just besotted.
Speaker 5: That's exactly the word I use A lot of us
Speaker 5: used to talk about.
Speaker 4: I think it's when you become a grandparent when your
Speaker 4: kids are older, you think, was I present enough?
Speaker 5: Because when you're in the midst of it.
Speaker 4: And you're raising a child and you're trying to keep
Speaker 4: them alive and stop them putting a cigarette butt in
Speaker 4: their mouths that they found at the beach, and all
Speaker 4: of that stuff.
Speaker 5: You don't have time to just look at them and breathe.
Speaker 4: And as grand and as a parent of teenage, you think,
Speaker 4: why didn't I make more of those years when I
Speaker 4: held their hands? And when I go to the South Coast,
Speaker 4: I think, oh, we couldn't have afforded to buy a
Speaker 4: holiday house then, and they had weekend football. But I thought, well,
Speaker 4: I wish I could. I wish I had one day
Speaker 4: where there were toddlers again. Their lands makest want to cry.
Speaker 4: But it's only when you get older and become like
Speaker 4: a grandparent you can actually give the time to just
Speaker 4: seeing and being and smelling without the anxiety of it.
Speaker 4: So we judge ourselves, I think, for not being present enough,
Speaker 4: but how could we be?
Speaker 1: But it's the I was going. I was building forts
Speaker 1: the other day with.
Speaker 6: With little Logan, and you know, he was giggling, I
Speaker 6: was giggling and I and I just stopped in the
Speaker 6: middle of it and just kind of recognized this is
Speaker 6: this is that moment where I get to just spend
Speaker 6: it and and I don't have to worry about, you know,
Speaker 6: washing his clothes or doing anything.
Speaker 1: I just get to go and spend some time with him.
Speaker 2: Recognizing those moments is one of the gifts of being
Speaker 2: a bit older and wiser, I think, don't you. I
Speaker 2: heard you say this, Amanda on your show when you're
Speaker 2: talking about the holiday you've just taken with your boys.
Speaker 2: You're getting drunk with them in a.
Speaker 6: Bar and.
Speaker 5: Dreadful thing to do.
Speaker 2: And he said it was like this bubble you knew,
Speaker 2: you knew in the moment, like this is one of
Speaker 2: those times.
Speaker 4: Yes, And I think that's really what life is, and
Speaker 4: that's all we're entitled to, that whole. Anita and I
Speaker 4: talk a lot about this, of the nature of happiness
Speaker 4: and putting up signs saying happiness in your house and
Speaker 4: all of that, and putting out manifestations. It's not the
Speaker 4: human condition to be happy all the time, but to
Speaker 4: recognize them when they come along is the gift.
Speaker 6: I think, and enjoy you just you can. You can
Speaker 6: try to grasp it, but it's so ephemeral. It's just
Speaker 6: it comes and it goes whenever it wants.
Speaker 2: So I'm sure that, look, I'm going to try and
Speaker 2: land the plane really neatly here regard looking at the dismountain,
Speaker 2: because I'm going to say that I'm sure that the
Speaker 2: two of you get a lot of those happiness bubble
Speaker 2: moments together, right Like you a very good friend, someone
Speaker 2: who will figuratively and literally hold your hand through all
Speaker 2: the shit and all the happy moments is a very
Speaker 2: special thing to have, right So I'm sure you too
Speaker 2: sometimes are in that bubble too, absolutely.
Speaker 6: And I think that's why we have the glimmers, you know,
Speaker 6: instead of the triggers.
Speaker 2: I need to talk to you about the glimmers because
Speaker 2: I love that part of your show. You end it
Speaker 2: with a glimmer. And I have a very good friend
Speaker 2: who has been going through some very difficult health stuff,
Speaker 2: and we don't live in the same place, and every
Speaker 2: day we send each other a photograph glimmer of the
Speaker 2: one thing in our day that made us I love
Speaker 2: like happy. So it might be a particularly good cup
Speaker 2: of tea, or it might be an amazing thing that
Speaker 2: happened at work, or it might be a flower.
Speaker 1: Or the kid I had a good hair day.
Speaker 2: A glimmer a day, I believe keeps.
Speaker 5: It's funny how hard I find it to find them.
Speaker 4: My natural humor goes to not sarcasm, but finding something
Speaker 4: like if something terrible happens, to turn it into a joke.
Speaker 4: But I find it hard to look for the natural
Speaker 4: happiness in things though, I think, as you said, an needier.
Speaker 4: I think I'm an optimistic person, but I sometimes have
Speaker 4: to turn turn an a caustic joke into something uplifting,
Speaker 4: which isn't my nature.
Speaker 2: Well that's but also the humor is a survival I
Speaker 2: mean if you can't laugh, and also that's something you
Speaker 2: can also do with someone you're really intimate with, is
Speaker 2: laugh about the difficult health things or the things they
Speaker 2: don't on your house that you couldn't joke with about.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely. That is my complete survival mechanism. And I've
Speaker 4: talked that to my children, particularly my younger son when
Speaker 4: things are going skew with because he wants to do
Speaker 4: a bit of stand up, I said, just store it up,
Speaker 4: to turn it into a joke before anyone else can.
Speaker 4: That's kind of save yourself. Is kind of the lesson
Speaker 4: I've told him along the way is make you make
Speaker 4: the joke about yourself before anyone else can.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: For my pleasure sharing.
Speaker 2: Letting me be the third wheel in this.
Speaker 5: Please, I've kind of enjoyed Algogo mobile.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I didn't quite make myself the third wheel
Speaker 2: in that glorious friendship duo, but you can tell how
Speaker 2: hard I tried. I was really angling from an invite
Speaker 2: to dinner. It was a bit embarrassing for everyone, really,
Speaker 2: but I just loved that conversation. And if you have
Speaker 2: a friendship like Amanda and Anita's, send this episode to
Speaker 2: your best friend. Tell them that you love them and
Speaker 2: tell them that they're a scrag. And if you want
Speaker 2: to hear more from these two together, go and check
Speaker 2: out Double a Chattery. That's their podcast and there's a
Speaker 2: link to it in the show notes. And Amanda is
Speaker 2: hosting a new TV show on the ABC about families.
Speaker 2: It's called the Role of a Lifetime and you can
Speaker 2: have a nosey at that too. And if you're just
Speaker 2: discovering mid thanks to Amanda and Anita, welcome. If you
Speaker 2: want to hear more conversations that will lift you up
Speaker 2: rather than push you down, may I recommend you scroll
Speaker 2: back in our feed to hear Casey Chambers talking keeping
Speaker 2: her dickhead list Bruna Papenrea on Ambition, Gina Chick on Truth,
Speaker 2: and one of my all time favorites, Virginia Trioli on
Speaker 2: small Joys, which we all need lots of right now.
Speaker 2: A massive thanks to our mid team, our executive producer
Speaker 2: i am A Brown, our senior producer Grace Ruvre, our
Speaker 2: producer Charlie Blackman, and we've had audio production from Jacob Round.
Speaker 2: They are all such talented people who help us bring
Speaker 2: you your show. And if you haven't had enough of
Speaker 2: me yet, I can't imagine that. Follow me on Instagram,
Speaker 2: or sign up for my newsletter, or listen to me
Speaker 2: and my great mates Mia Friedman and Jesse Stevens talk
Speaker 2: about fifteen thousand times a week on Mom and Me
Speaker 2: Are Out Loud. Is that an exaggeration maybe? But links
Speaker 2: to all that are in our show notes and I'll
Speaker 2: see you back here next week. Bye,