Speaker 1: Welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast that brings you
Speaker 1: the news, trends, culture and what parents are thinking about.
Speaker 2: I'm Monique Bolly.
Speaker 3: I'm Amelia Laster, and I'm Stacy Higgs.
Speaker 2: Coming up on today's show.
Speaker 3: Our Australian Parents.
Speaker 4: Okay, a huge new survey and the stat that shocked
Speaker 4: us all.
Speaker 5: And do you apologize for your kid just being themselves?
Speaker 5: I may have been guilty of this on my little
Speaker 5: recent trip to Fiji, and I'm going to tell you
Speaker 5: why it's not necessarily a good thing.
Speaker 1: And why parents everywhere are putting YouTube on this week
Speaker 1: and saying it's Danny.
Speaker 2: Go, Go Go.
Speaker 4: But first, there's one celebrity that is guaranteed to light
Speaker 4: up all my group chats with enthusiasm, and it is
Speaker 4: actual godess who walks among us, Hannah Waddingham.
Speaker 3: I love her.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, he's the amazing thing about Hannah. She is
Speaker 4: a six foot blonde with a four octave range who
Speaker 4: somehow makes us feel like we can relate to her. Yeah,
Speaker 4: well you two can because you're very tall, but yes,
Speaker 4: for the rest of us, she's She's a tall goddess
Speaker 4: who nonetheless seems relatable And yes, We know her from
Speaker 4: Teddler so from Game of Thrones as well, but here
Speaker 4: she is with some of the very best parenting advice
Speaker 4: you will ever hear.
Speaker 6: I'm not a small woman in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 6: Do I like to look after myself?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 6: Am I obsessed with that? Absolutely not. So she sees
Speaker 6: me eating crisps, eating chips, eating you and we'll go
Speaker 6: for a burger, well, you know, and I will always
Speaker 6: make sure we do that.
Speaker 4: That's Hannah talking about her daughter, who was twelve, who
Speaker 4: is she's raising as a single parent. I also didn't
Speaker 4: know when I was researching Hannah's life story that she
Speaker 4: briefly emigrated to Australia in twenty.
Speaker 3: Twelve for lofe.
Speaker 4: It didn't work out, but still, yeah, she has Australian
Speaker 4: her fast.
Speaker 3: Yeah we could have claimed her.
Speaker 2: God, oh we still can.
Speaker 1: Anyone that spends any time here were like Australia's own Hannah.
Speaker 3: Stacy.
Speaker 4: Did you love this advice from our Hannah about eating
Speaker 4: in front of girls as much as I did?
Speaker 3: Yes? I did.
Speaker 5: I really loved it because it feels like the complete
Speaker 5: antithesis of like the arm and moms of the nineties.
Speaker 3: Look, I feel like you didn't really see your.
Speaker 5: Mum's eating, like they're always on a diet or doing
Speaker 5: something super restrictive. And it's sad that it has to
Speaker 5: be a conscious thought of, like I need to make
Speaker 5: sure she sees me enjoy food and see that I'm
Speaker 5: getting energy from that and all of those things. But
Speaker 5: I love that that's something she's been conscious of, particularly
Speaker 5: given the world that she is in and what we're
Speaker 5: seeing on red carpet.
Speaker 3: It's great.
Speaker 1: I have a personal running tally, as you both know,
Speaker 1: called Great Dads of the Internet, and I have a
Speaker 1: new candidate this week. It's Diplo. Please welcome to the
Speaker 1: Honor Board. The DJ Diplo. Now I didn't know who
Speaker 1: Diplo was, but he's one of the biggest DJs on
Speaker 1: the planet. He's played at Coachella, the Grammys, Burning men.
Speaker 1: Couldn't tell you a single Diplo song. Do you know
Speaker 1: any Diplo?
Speaker 3: I do?
Speaker 5: I do because it's not his voice on them. They're
Speaker 5: all these songs that you'll go, oh my God, yes
Speaker 5: I know that song, and they're they're kind of his mixes.
Speaker 5: I don't know how DJs work, but he's a very
Speaker 5: successful one and I assume a very comtensive one.
Speaker 3: To be fair.
Speaker 4: Of any of the three of us knew who Diplo was,
Speaker 4: it would be Stacy's.
Speaker 3: It's very I know totally.
Speaker 2: Well, so he's a really big deal.
Speaker 1: And he DJ'ed his son's kindergarten graduation this week. He
Speaker 1: called it, and I quote, the most important set of
Speaker 1: my career and.
Speaker 2: The most exclusive party of the year.
Speaker 1: And he asked all the five year olds if they
Speaker 1: were ready to get crazy, but he did it in
Speaker 1: the most gentle way. Have a listen to this, you
Speaker 1: already get crazy.
Speaker 4: I found myself wondering how long the waiting list is
Speaker 4: for the preschool that Diplow sends is, because I bet
Speaker 4: it's a long one.
Speaker 5: Well, now they know that, like they just went to
Speaker 5: a concert that would cost other people like one hundred
Speaker 5: thousand dollars to get him to their venue, like.
Speaker 3: He's a big dog.
Speaker 5: And I loved the vision of all the parents standing
Speaker 5: around the outside like trying to act cool, like they
Speaker 5: didn't just want to be right down the front.
Speaker 2: Like what like was it the PTA the Parents Committee?
Speaker 1: Like someone would have said, Hey, ask Diplo, ask you to
Speaker 1: do this, just asking me if you'll do it the graduate.
Speaker 1: One of those poor parents had to ring diploy him.
Speaker 4: At the school yards that message to Diplo that starts,
Speaker 4: Hey Diplo, we haven't met yet, but I'm a big
Speaker 4: fan of your work. But the thing is, this was
Speaker 4: a risky.
Speaker 5: Move because no one is a harsher critic than a kid,
Speaker 5: Like five year olds don't care if you're Diplow. And
Speaker 5: he did the riskiest thing of all by playing new
Speaker 5: music like he said, this is one of my new tracks.
Speaker 5: And I'm like, dude, that is so risky, Like they
Speaker 5: would be there going like Cao, Damon Honters.
Speaker 2: You yeah, play chicken.
Speaker 1: Good audio.
Speaker 3: I love I loved it.
Speaker 4: Every now and then you see something so startling on
Speaker 4: your feed that it stops your scroll. For moms this week,
Speaker 4: that was dip blow for me. It was a single
Speaker 4: stat from the largest ever survey of Australian parents, which
Speaker 4: was done late last year by a not for profit
Speaker 4: called the Parenting Research Center. Can I say, first of all,
Speaker 4: I'm so glad there is a place called the Parenting
Speaker 4: Research Centers, like they're doing important work. The stat was
Speaker 4: that almost sixty percent of Australian parents are experiencing psychological
Speaker 4: distress as a result of the challenges that they're confronting
Speaker 4: in parenting. That was across all demographics, all types of parents,
Speaker 4: all across the country.
Speaker 3: They are struggled.
Speaker 2: And this was quite a large survey.
Speaker 1: It wasn't Amelia like, this isn't one of those pr
Speaker 1: surveys where they've talked to seventeen people on.
Speaker 4: Ever survey of Australian parents. It was a serious survey
Speaker 4: and the researchers identified a couple of different buckets or
Speaker 4: sources for that distress loneliness, self doubt, and in particular
Speaker 4: they single that a lack of self compassion. So this
Speaker 4: toought me in my tracks because to be honest, what
Speaker 4: it immediately made me feel was less alone that how
Speaker 4: hard This isn't just in my head Mon's Did you
Speaker 4: have that response.
Speaker 1: As I sit my coffee in survival mode right now
Speaker 1: as I sit here, Yeah, I did have the same response.
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, Oh, when it's actually documented research,
Speaker 1: Now there's data points on why we're all feeling this way.
Speaker 1: Because this is the conversation I have every day with
Speaker 1: my girlfriends in our group chats, in our coffee catch ups,
Speaker 1: it's how are you going, I'm purely in survival mode.
Speaker 1: This was really good reporting by the ABC's Conna Duffy.
Speaker 1: He went out and he spoke to this woman who
Speaker 1: had four children, and she said it best and she
Speaker 1: said the thing that a lot of us are thinking,
Speaker 1: which is I'm exhausted. I feel like I'm in survival
Speaker 1: mode all the time. I don't really feel like I'm
Speaker 1: living life. And when you dig down into it, you
Speaker 1: said it was sixty percent of parents feeling psychological stress.
Speaker 1: But the really telling thing for me, the worrying thing
Speaker 1: for me and for the experts at the Parenting Research
Speaker 1: Center said that twelve percent of Australian parents are reporting
Speaker 1: psychological distress in the high range. So that's clinical levels
Speaker 1: of anxiety in depression. That is more than one in ten.
Speaker 1: That is every sports team that you're in, that's one
Speaker 1: parent that's at clinical levels of anxiety and depression. In
Speaker 1: the average school classroom it's three to four parents. Like
Speaker 1: this is significant numbers. And why they're worried about this
Speaker 1: is because if you are in that state of psychological distress,
Speaker 1: you are not going to parent.
Speaker 2: As well as you can.
Speaker 1: You know, you're less likely to do kind of parenting
Speaker 1: behaviors that are going to lead to good outcomes to children. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: experts are really worried about this. Yeah, and parents are
Speaker 1: really worried about this.
Speaker 4: It was a great article one that was summarizing the
Speaker 4: findings on the ABC website. Another part of the article
Speaker 4: that's stuck out to me is that they interviewed a
Speaker 4: demographer from A and U named Liz Allen. She made
Speaker 4: this really interesting point that parents are having fewer kids,
Speaker 4: not because they want to, but because she said in
Speaker 4: this phrase really stuck with me, they are worried about tomorrow.
Speaker 4: And I thought to myself, what a perfect encapsulation of
Speaker 4: what parents are, what's at the top of many parents'
Speaker 4: minds these days. And she identified a whole host of
Speaker 4: things that would be familiar to everyone, housing, affordability, economic security,
Speaker 4: climate change.
Speaker 3: AI. I just love how she packaged.
Speaker 4: All of those big concerns up into that idea of
Speaker 4: worried about tomorrow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I feel like I've got a theory that
Speaker 5: I would like to bring to the table of something
Speaker 5: else that I lay it on top Like I think, Yeah,
Speaker 5: there's all the obvious stuff we talk about, like money,
Speaker 5: like housing, affordability. They are all things that put the
Speaker 5: pressure on us. But this may seem silly that I
Speaker 5: got this from a TikTok clip, but I haven't stopped
Speaker 5: thinking about it. I want to play it to you
Speaker 5: with a woman talking about why she thinks kind of
Speaker 5: parents in the nineties had a bit of an easier
Speaker 5: goal of it compared.
Speaker 3: To us now. There are so many things I think
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 7: They did not know what the inside of anybody's house
Speaker 7: looked like unless they personally went there, Like comparison had
Speaker 7: to be at an all time low. Not only did
Speaker 7: they not know what the inside of anybody else's house
Speaker 7: look like unless they went there, but they also had.
Speaker 8: No idea what anybody else was doing. They were completely
Speaker 8: where they were, so when they were when my mom
Speaker 8: was at home with me, that's the only place she was.
Speaker 8: When my mom was pushing me on the swing set,
Speaker 8: she wasn't also having like three different conversations on her
Speaker 8: phone and ordering groceries like I was the only one
Speaker 8: she was talking to.
Speaker 7: I was the only one she could talk to.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 5: I think it's that I haven't stopped thinking about that
Speaker 5: thing of not knowing what the inside of someone else's
Speaker 5: house looks like. And maybe that sounds simplistic, but I
Speaker 5: think it's just an example of how much less information
Speaker 5: was on parents' minds. Like I think we're just we've
Speaker 5: got comparison. Lay it on top of all of these
Speaker 5: things that are going on fast. I mean, I think
Speaker 5: back I had three different night light slash sound machines
Speaker 5: because of all this information i'd read about brown noise
Speaker 5: and red light. And you know, it's just feels like
Speaker 5: an avalanche on top of you of information and everyone's
Speaker 5: trying to do the right thing, and that I think
Speaker 5: is adding to why we're finding it harder and why
Speaker 5: it is harder, not just that we're finding it harder us.
Speaker 4: Today, I was talking to some colleagues here at Mamma
Speaker 4: Mia about a video that we'd seen on Instagram recently
Speaker 4: that we were really annoyed by, where as a parenting
Speaker 4: influencer was kind of haranguing parents about this is the
Speaker 4: wrong thing to do, this is the right thing to do,
Speaker 4: and just being constantly told that the way you parent
Speaker 4: could be better, could be perfected, the way you're doing
Speaker 4: it is wrong. It just feels it's very demoralizing yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm going to take your argument. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: I'm going to rail against it. I'm going to disagree
Speaker 1: with it respectfully, because your argument, Stacy, is predicated on
Speaker 1: the fact that it's an individual problem that we are
Speaker 1: all overwhelmed and burnt out because we are taking on
Speaker 1: too much information. But experts are saying and the kind
Speaker 1: of the landscape is saying that that's not the.
Speaker 2: Case, it's not always the case.
Speaker 1: That Actually what it is is that structural supports are
Speaker 1: not keeping up with how modern parenting has changed. And
Speaker 1: I'm also seeing a lot of nineties nostalgia parenting in
Speaker 1: my feed. You know, parents better in the nineties. Let's
Speaker 1: all parent like nineties parents. But I want to rail
Speaker 1: against that.
Speaker 2: I think it's.
Speaker 1: Romanticizing something that was going on back then, and we
Speaker 1: don't know what parents.
Speaker 2: Of course, nineties parenting feels better to us.
Speaker 1: We were children and our parents probably protected us from
Speaker 1: a lot that was going on, and they faced different
Speaker 1: kinds of pressures. They abously put this article up on
Speaker 1: the Instagram and there were some great comments on there,
Speaker 1: and one of them was, I'm not burnt out from parenting,
Speaker 1: I'm burnt out from expectations to parent like I don't
Speaker 1: work full time and work like I'm not a parent,
Speaker 1: And I think that's a really big difference from the nineties.
Speaker 1: In the nineties, when you worked, it was often economic
Speaker 1: conditions were different, so one income families could sustain, you know,
Speaker 1: three to four children sometimes, and now that's not the
Speaker 1: case anymore. Both parents have to work. But not only that,
Speaker 1: you never feel like you switch off. You feel like
Speaker 1: you are constantly being pulled in these different directions because
Speaker 1: of phones, because of globalization, Like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: just the world has changed, and I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: the village that we speak of is there anymore in
Speaker 1: the way that it was in the nineties.
Speaker 4: But I also think how I think that's really true,
Speaker 4: Mon's and I appreciate you zooming out there and reminding
Speaker 4: us that this is not just our fault for scrolling TikTok,
Speaker 4: really is something that's happening out in the world. That said,
Speaker 4: I think the way that we think of children and
Speaker 4: our job as parents has also changed since the nineties.
Speaker 4: This crystallized for me the other day because I was
Speaker 4: reading a discussion online where someone said that a stranger
Speaker 4: harangued his kids in the street and sort of accused
Speaker 4: them of breaking a flower pot outside this person's house
Speaker 4: and they hadn't broken the flower pot. But this dad
Speaker 4: was really worried because he said, my children were harangued
Speaker 4: and abused by this stranger, and I'm really worried about
Speaker 4: the trauma of that.
Speaker 3: And the top comment on the post.
Speaker 4: Said that this person recalls doing clean Up Australia. Remember
Speaker 4: clean Up Australia started in the nineties, and they were
Speaker 4: like cleaning up a beach and this sort of middle
Speaker 4: aged man walks by and goes, you little shits belong
Speaker 4: in jail because he didn't understand what they were doing.
Speaker 4: But the point was like we had children were not
Speaker 4: quite as poseted as they are now, Like that was
Speaker 4: not an unusual event in the nineties to be sort
Speaker 4: of harangued or disciplined by a stranger, whereas now as parents,
Speaker 4: we conceive of that as trauma.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like the rains are really tight, aren't they.
Speaker 5: So it's when we take on a lot more responsibility
Speaker 5: over our child and the end product that they are,
Speaker 5: Like it's like we're.
Speaker 3: Trying to produce something.
Speaker 4: The kids just like, oh, someone call me a little shit.
Speaker 4: That's kind of rude day Yeah, yeah, totally. But what's
Speaker 4: the answer here? Like it is so much harder? Is
Speaker 4: it more just solidarity in the shittiness? Like is it
Speaker 4: that we're seeing from this that so many people are
Speaker 4: feeling this way? Is it kind of comfort in that
Speaker 4: everyone's feeling this way? Like what's what's the way out
Speaker 4: of it? I think that really helps Stacy to hear
Speaker 4: that other people are going through it for sure, Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: it feels like it makes me feel less alone.
Speaker 2: Gear change.
Speaker 1: Now I have a no context TikTok grab to play
Speaker 1: both of you.
Speaker 2: I kind of listen to this.
Speaker 3: Who wants to go see gam gam and Pamby? You
Speaker 3: guys want to see me mon goop goop?
Speaker 9: Look who's coming up the drive where it's Gma and
Speaker 9: Rumpel steel Skin.
Speaker 3: I want to spend the night with Grandma and Gatak.
Speaker 9: Who wants to go see Moonpie and poop deck Pappy?
Speaker 3: You guys want to get dropped off a Grandma and
Speaker 3: Robert House.
Speaker 1: Favorite? Can we just for a moment just take a
Speaker 1: beat and talk about what's happening to grandparents' names? Because
Speaker 1: Grandma and Grandpa are dead guys, you now have to
Speaker 1: be Gma, Moonpie Popsy.
Speaker 2: What this going on? I went, grandma and grandpa get daggy.
Speaker 4: I have the answer. When boomers became grandma and grandpa.
Speaker 4: So that's when Sagi they could not handle those old names.
Speaker 3: They couldn't like. That's when it happened things like they
Speaker 3: don't want to feel old, like.
Speaker 4: They called baby boomers. They're still coming to grips of
Speaker 4: the fact that they're no longer babies.
Speaker 3: That's true. There are some crazy ones out there.
Speaker 9: I love that.
Speaker 5: I really don't feel like his joke then, was that
Speaker 5: far fetched. I feel like I felt I've heard most
Speaker 5: of them.
Speaker 3: Into something absolutely true.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Sometimes you don't even know someone's talking about their grandparents.
Speaker 4: The names are getting so far fetched.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've thought of a formula to work out our
Speaker 1: grandparent name JOHNN.
Speaker 3: Here it please please?
Speaker 1: Okay, So you start with the first letter of your name, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then go backwards a letter. So let's start with you, Stacy.
Speaker 1: So go backwards in the alphabet, go backwards in the Okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what letter have you got? Okay, Now you need
Speaker 1: to choose one of the following vibes. Okay, classical, whimsical,
Speaker 1: Feryl or wellness.
Speaker 3: I mean I'm going to go Feryl, of course.
Speaker 2: Or rather that's your name.
Speaker 1: Rasa Okay, I like it, thank you, okay, Bobby Rasa
Speaker 1: merely I go backwards in.
Speaker 3: There for that what I said? And I want Ferrol.
Speaker 2: Oh your zaza.
Speaker 3: Wait, tell me what I would have been if I
Speaker 3: was whimsical.
Speaker 1: If you're whimsicll, you'd beat re re.
Speaker 3: Oh that's kind of cute. I can't do that. What
Speaker 3: are you? Which one are you choosing? What am I?
Speaker 1: LM N l M l Okay, I'm gonna go. I
Speaker 1: can't go feral. You both chose Ferrel. I'll go wellness.
Speaker 1: Leaf leafy, leaf y.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mon's I think it's leaf leaf right.
Speaker 4: I'm a bit of a rap like leaf yeah yeah,
Speaker 4: like gam gam you can be leaf leaf yeah, nice
Speaker 4: leaf leaf.
Speaker 3: As you both know.
Speaker 5: Because I've I've made you look at pictures of my
Speaker 5: holiday at nauseum. I went to Fiji a couple of
Speaker 5: weeks ago and I said two particular words on repeat.
Speaker 5: One of them was, of course, bull because it is
Speaker 5: law that you say buller to every person you pass
Speaker 5: in Fiji, which is lovely and the second.
Speaker 2: The other word margarita.
Speaker 5: Actually yeah, was all inclusive was probably the other thing
Speaker 5: I would say, Yeah, there was a lot of margeritis consumed.
Speaker 5: But the other popular word that I said a lot
Speaker 5: more than I thought I wouldn't to the point where
Speaker 5: I noticed this on my holiday was sorry. And it
Speaker 5: wasn't for something that I was doing. It was for
Speaker 5: something that my daughter wasn't doing. So the Fijian people,
Speaker 5: if you've been, will know they're incredibly friendly and welcoming
Speaker 5: and love children and always will you know, try and
Speaker 5: engage your children, which is which is such a gorgeous
Speaker 5: part of their culture. But my daughter finds it quite
Speaker 5: tricky to engage with new people that she's that she's
Speaker 5: not familiar with, and in a lot of those places
Speaker 5: they're kind of coming out of nowhere as you're going
Speaker 5: in and out of a restaurant trying to talk to her.
Speaker 5: And I found, I mean, it's a good thing as
Speaker 5: a parent in one way for stranger danger purposes that
Speaker 5: your child is not overly familiar. But on the other hand,
Speaker 5: it can feel like a bit of a nightmare because
Speaker 5: your child's behaviors at odds with how people are naturally
Speaker 5: just stick expecting them to act, And so I found myself.
Speaker 3: Saying, oh, sorry, she's just a bit shy. Sorry, she's
Speaker 3: just a bit tired.
Speaker 4: Like I was coming up with all these reasons, like,
Speaker 4: have you guys done this before? Have you found you've
Speaker 4: done that just in public?
Speaker 7: I have?
Speaker 1: But I want to just get a clarifying question, if
Speaker 1: I may, What do you mean by saying how people
Speaker 1: expect them to react?
Speaker 2: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 8: Well?
Speaker 5: Yeah, like I think we can all admit that an
Speaker 5: ideal scenario for us if someone, you know, a waiter
Speaker 5: came up to our child in a cafe, would be
Speaker 5: that they would say, hello, may I please have a milkshake?
Speaker 5: Thank you, and engage with that person and look at
Speaker 5: that person. But for little kids, a lot of the
Speaker 5: time that's quite a difficult thing to do.
Speaker 3: And a lot of this is me. I know this,
Speaker 3: you know, a.
Speaker 5: Lot of this is the reflection of you, And that's
Speaker 5: that's the problem, is that you're kind of going or
Speaker 5: they're not acting in the way that this person may expect.
Speaker 3: Them to act.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, okay, And that was that was something that
Speaker 5: I was kind of noticing that I was doing a
Speaker 5: lot and then when I got home, I saw an
Speaker 5: article that really called me out the second I saw
Speaker 5: the headline, which was stop apologizing for your kid's personality.
Speaker 5: So the author, Samantha Drby, talked about how this can
Speaker 5: happen with all kinds of kids, like not just shy kids.
Speaker 5: It could be like restless kids who are moving around
Speaker 5: a lot in the restaurant.
Speaker 4: It could be kids who are overly keen to chat
Speaker 4: and you know, go up to strangers and regale them
Speaker 4: with stories of their favorite pokemon.
Speaker 5: Like this happens across the board. And so she spoke
Speaker 5: to a doctor who said kids may absorb that message
Speaker 5: that who they are is inconvenient or embarrassing over time.
Speaker 5: That can shape how they see themselves far more than
Speaker 5: any stranger's reaction ever could.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not supposed to call kids shy anymore? Have
Speaker 2: you heard this? Yes, you're not supposed to say, oh
Speaker 2: they're shy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bad word.
Speaker 2: I don't know why.
Speaker 5: I think you're putting a label on them, and so
Speaker 5: they're hearing that word on repeat, and then they will
Speaker 5: become that. But I don't know what the solution is
Speaker 5: that in that scenario, Well, there was.
Speaker 4: This illution put forward in the article, which is a
Speaker 4: phrase I always find it useful to get a script
Speaker 4: yes of what you say. And the phrase that they
Speaker 4: suggest is I'm not troubled by my child's behavior. So
Speaker 4: if someone is like, your child is being very wrafunctious,
Speaker 4: for instance, you could say I'm not troubled by my
Speaker 4: child's behavior, which is a little bit of a mouthful.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I guess it's just getting that distinction clear maybe in
Speaker 5: our own heads about what's the difference between like inconvenience
Speaker 5: and rudeness, Like of pause, we don't want to tolerate
Speaker 5: rudeness with them. Of course, that's something they're going to
Speaker 5: be out in the world. They need to learn how to,
Speaker 5: you know, how to interact with other people, and we
Speaker 5: need to call them out on that. But is it
Speaker 5: just an inconvenience that it's not an ideal interaction, But
Speaker 5: it's not actually a problem. They're not doing any harm.
Speaker 1: This is such a can of worms because I think,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to zoom out, Amelia, I'm sorry, but
Speaker 1: we have a generation.
Speaker 2: Can you apologize for being yourself?
Speaker 3: Mond's yeah, I apologizing for your personality?
Speaker 1: Manique Bolli, Yeah, all right, if I won't apologize to
Speaker 1: my personality. I read an article this week about how
Speaker 1: there's a whole generation of kids, teenagers who do not
Speaker 1: know how to close a conversation. So they don't understand
Speaker 1: how to wrap one up because they have spent their
Speaker 1: lives communicating on screens and on messenger and when you finish,
Speaker 1: the conversation never ends. You just kind of walk away
Speaker 1: and don't continue its. Yes, those skills haven't translated into
Speaker 1: real life. So I read this story about this family
Speaker 1: who at dinner time at the table, they take turns
Speaker 1: practicing how to close the conversation, like how to wrap
Speaker 1: it up.
Speaker 2: And I do think that these soft skills, these social skills, we.
Speaker 1: Might have a bit of a gap with kids, and
Speaker 1: I wonder whether it's something that schools not need to
Speaker 1: start to pick up. I know this is controversial, and
Speaker 1: in America, some schools have started these kind of soft
Speaker 1: skills lessons to teach kids around social what's appropriate, how
Speaker 1: do you read a room, how do you understand someone's
Speaker 1: feelings and react in the situation. And in the US
Speaker 1: it's become really divisive because a lot of the conservatives
Speaker 1: there say, get your miths off it. That's a parent's
Speaker 1: job and it's not the job for the schools. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. I think soft skills are really hard.
Speaker 1: And if you have a child who is ASD and
Speaker 1: they don't understand those kinds of skills, they do need
Speaker 1: to be learned. And it's like someone who's neuro typical
Speaker 1: and who just innately understands them. It's like, how do
Speaker 1: you teach that to someone? It's really tricky. I've taken
Speaker 1: it down to totally different tach, a big tax. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I won't apologize.
Speaker 4: No, I love that, tach, but you're making me think
Speaker 4: that even as the conservatives are sort of saying man
Speaker 4: as is something parents have to teach. I think the
Speaker 4: sort of ultra progressive position would be that kids are
Speaker 4: not public property. That it just because a stranger, just
Speaker 4: because a person out of the world chooses to interact
Speaker 4: with your child, your child is not under any obligation
Speaker 4: to respond along the lines that that person might want,
Speaker 4: particularly given that that person might come from a very
Speaker 4: different generation with very different expectations. You know, manners change
Speaker 4: over time too. Sometimes in public I've noticed if someone
Speaker 4: talks to one of my children and maybe ask them
Speaker 4: like where they're going or what their favorite subject at
Speaker 4: school is, and they don't necessarily feel like speaking. My
Speaker 4: instinct is always to sort of prompt them to speak,
Speaker 4: to say, speak to the nice lady. And then I
Speaker 4: realized that a much more powerful way of showing them
Speaker 4: what to do would be to speak on their behalf
Speaker 4: in a way that I would hope they would want
Speaker 4: to speak. So like if they say, where are you going,
Speaker 4: I might say, well, we're going to a party right now.
Speaker 4: Rather than constantly sort of elbowing the child to speak,
Speaker 4: maybe I can model it for them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And this article spoke a lot as well about
Speaker 5: that balance of not wanting to dim their light, as
Speaker 5: in like not wanting to dim their personal like if
Speaker 5: they're really rambunctious or they're really inquisitive and want to
Speaker 5: go up and ask people lots of questions about themselves,
Speaker 5: like random questions, to not try and stamp that out
Speaker 5: of them. But how, you know, how do you strike
Speaker 5: that balance between those things? But I think, as you said,
Speaker 5: it's more I guess modeling, because when you put the
Speaker 5: pressure on and say say what we're doing, or say
Speaker 5: bull look at the perse se that you know that's
Speaker 5: that's never going to get literally everyone, Yeah, everyone ends
Speaker 5: up having a miserable time, but they have.
Speaker 1: To live in the world, and the world sometimes is uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: And Amelia, I know, like your intentions are good and
Speaker 1: I'd probably do the same thing, but it's a little
Speaker 1: bit snowplow to come in over the top and say, well,
Speaker 1: we're doing this, Like kids need to be uncomfortable and
Speaker 1: they kind of need to learn the skills.
Speaker 2: We can't always pull them out of danger the skills.
Speaker 4: I think my bigger point is that the skills might
Speaker 4: be changing.
Speaker 3: Like, Yeah, the idea of like is it.
Speaker 4: Is it necess necessarily expected that when some person that
Speaker 4: they've never met before comes up to them on the
Speaker 4: street because kids used to be regarded more as public
Speaker 4: property than they are now, and engages them in conversation.
Speaker 4: Isn't necessarily on the kid to have to respond to
Speaker 4: this person. Like if a random man walks up to
Speaker 4: me on the street and says, are you going to
Speaker 4: a party later in that nice dress?
Speaker 3: I don't have to respond to him. So one might
Speaker 3: ask why we expect kids to have to always.
Speaker 4: Engage with strangers just because strangers choose to engage with them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, good call.
Speaker 1: All right, after that depth, let's come back up to
Speaker 1: the surface and talk about things that we're recommending this week.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the things that we're loving sick really,
Speaker 1: or that we want you to go and try in
Speaker 1: your because you've got so much free time in your hands.
Speaker 2: All right, Stacy, what have you got?
Speaker 5: Mine is a bit of a nineties throwback. I completely
Speaker 5: forgot that these existed. I loved them as a kid,
Speaker 5: and I've just bought them for my daughter. See monkeys,
Speaker 5: So I don't know what this is. What did you
Speaker 5: have sea monkeys?
Speaker 3: Mons?
Speaker 1: No, we weren't a rich family. Only the rich families
Speaker 1: had sea monkey Stacy. They show nice flex Stacy. No,
Speaker 1: rich families have ponies.
Speaker 3: Rich families don't have literally rolls, Roy.
Speaker 4: Stacey, stop stop making drinks with your ice machine that's
Speaker 4: built into the fridge, and explain to us what a
Speaker 4: sea monkey just.
Speaker 3: Cost about three bucks back in the day.
Speaker 5: They are now the grand total of eighteen dollars to
Speaker 5: buy sea monkeys, which is.
Speaker 9: A lot better than three bucks back in the day
Speaker 9: could buy a house. Well, they're a lot better than
Speaker 9: like trying to buy my kid a dog or a cat.
Speaker 9: Or something like that that's going to be a long
Speaker 9: term investment. I was like, let's start with sea monkeys.
Speaker 9: I don't really understand what they are, but it's this little.
Speaker 2: I think they're a bacteria. Stacey, Oh my god.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 5: It's a little plastic tank, like a little fish tank
Speaker 5: that you get and you can get them a Kmar.
Speaker 5: You can get them on Amazon, little tank and you
Speaker 5: put this little sachet of stuff in. Right by the
Speaker 5: next day they look like little seahorses.
Speaker 3: I find that very uncertainly.
Speaker 2: Are they dead? Are the still alive?
Speaker 4: How do you think that you can get the same
Speaker 4: result by leaving milk in the fridge for three weeks.
Speaker 3: I'm not really sure. I'm only one day in it.
Speaker 3: Just let me have my whimsy.
Speaker 5: You know, we always talk about a whimsy deficit, and
Speaker 5: I just think what is more whimsical than owning little
Speaker 5: magical berries that flow around the aquarium. I think they're
Speaker 5: great and everyone should get them. It's like a tamagotchi,
Speaker 5: you know, low steaks pet, a tamagotchi.
Speaker 3: Bit gems. Yeah, yeah, bring gems into your house. That's
Speaker 3: what I'm recommending.
Speaker 4: I also have something from my childhood which is hopefully
Speaker 4: a bit more hygienic. It's called The Kid's Book of
Speaker 4: Paper Love, and.
Speaker 5: That does sound more hygienic. Fine, I'll give you that
Speaker 5: this book. I didn't know these books existed. So basically
Speaker 5: I was a kid who would raise the office supplies
Speaker 5: when my parents took me into their office. Yes, I
Speaker 5: was like stealing all the post it notes, like I
Speaker 5: probably started the global financial crisis or something. But anyway,
Speaker 5: I loved paper and stationery as a kid. And then
Speaker 5: I've discovered recently that there are these books.
Speaker 4: They're paperback books that you can buy on Amazon because
Speaker 4: they are I think they're books from the US, so
Speaker 4: they're actually quite hard to find in bookshops here. But
Speaker 4: they're full of like paper delights, so everything from wrapping
Speaker 4: paper to like fans, to stickers to like little like
Speaker 4: little things you can cut out and like put on
Speaker 4: a little display, and they're just like these little books
Speaker 4: of July. So you like pull them out and it's
Speaker 4: all cute and it's just great for a rainy day.
Speaker 4: They cost you about twenty two dollars. Their very existence
Speaker 4: like brings happiness to me. I could lie and tell
Speaker 4: you it's about scissor skills. But really, I just love
Speaker 4: paper and I want my kids to love it too.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my kid's very into paper. I'm going to get
Speaker 3: this because they sound fun. Yeah, they're great.
Speaker 2: That's really cool.
Speaker 1: It has had a terrible flashback when you said raiding
Speaker 1: your parents' office supplies. When I was like six, I
Speaker 1: went through this phase of really loving tuna, like canned tuna,
Speaker 1: and one day I used to tip it out into
Speaker 1: an ice cream container and just eat it. I know,
Speaker 1: I was just doing the protein gains.
Speaker 2: And I was a kid.
Speaker 4: This is way before my time, like a champion athlete
Speaker 4: because of protein maxing from the age of six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's impressive.
Speaker 1: And one day my dad took us to his work
Speaker 1: and he worked in a nice office, and some inexplicable reason,
Speaker 1: I put the tuna container in his filing cabinet and
Speaker 1: shut the.
Speaker 2: Door on it, and then we went home for the weekend.
Speaker 1: And when he went back to work on Monday, the
Speaker 1: whole office stunk like tuna, and everyone was like and
Speaker 1: he found the offending to anyway, did he just have
Speaker 1: that terrible flashback?
Speaker 2: He didn't lose his.
Speaker 1: Job, but he came home like with a face of
Speaker 1: thunder and I blamed my baby sister.
Speaker 2: I'm really sorry, Bridget, and I'm sorry Dad, Dad.
Speaker 3: We have a whimsy to deficit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my anti recommendation. Don't give you kids tuna
Speaker 1: in an ice cream container for real, though, My recommendation
Speaker 1: this week is to put YouTube on.
Speaker 2: I know what, I know me saying this.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you it takes a lot for me to
Speaker 1: put YouTube on in my house, but I'm doing it,
Speaker 1: and I'm putting it on Danny Go this weekend. If
Speaker 1: you have kids under the age of eight, you would
Speaker 1: know Danny Go. He's a children's YouTube entertaining He's now
Speaker 1: on Netflix. We've talked about him before. His channel has
Speaker 1: nearly five billion views, and last Wednesday, Danny Go announced
Speaker 1: that his son, his fourteen year old son Isaac, had died.
Speaker 1: Isaac had a rare genetic disorder that led to cancer,
Speaker 1: and Danny Go he'd been open about it. In December
Speaker 1: last year, he was diagnosed with stage three cancer, and
Speaker 1: Danny Go canceled his tour to sort of care for
Speaker 1: him in his last months. Now, the amazing thing that's
Speaker 1: happened this week is that every parent in my life
Speaker 1: has started deliberately playing Danny Go videos just to generate
Speaker 1: views and push the algorithm money and so that these
Speaker 1: videos can send the family money. It's sort of like
Speaker 1: a really modern day Mata YouTube kind of go fundme,
Speaker 1: where there's this collective grief around Danny Go and his
Speaker 1: family and his wife who's in his videos as well,
Speaker 1: and everyone. Every parent I notice feels so helpless and
Speaker 1: heartbroken by it. And it's just this tiny little act
Speaker 1: of saying we're here. You know, have more views, have
Speaker 1: more clicks, have more views, have more views, have more
Speaker 1: money for your family, for your terrible, terrible situation. So
Speaker 1: that's my recommendation is put Danny Go on and let
Speaker 1: it run. Just let it run as much as you like,
Speaker 1: and just watch this man be so joyful and whimsical
Speaker 1: for your children, and try not to sob openly.
Speaker 4: We don't recommend sea monkeys, can I just say overall
Speaker 4: concern that was setting some sort of public health mind
Speaker 4: the dud record of the week.
Speaker 2: You're just hilarious.
Speaker 3: I'll report back next week on my progress with the
Speaker 3: sea monkeys. I love like I got this for my daughter.
Speaker 3: It's chargealy for me, Like I'm.
Speaker 5: So bumped by these sea moneys, and you won't apologize.
Speaker 1: I won't.
Speaker 3: I will not apologize for my whimsical personality.
Speaker 4: I will not.
Speaker 1: Can we get some show sea monkeys and just put
Speaker 1: them in the background of our video and they can
Speaker 1: just become part of our community?
Speaker 4: Oh my god?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we'll look after them for the whole
Speaker 1: two hours that they'll live, and then we'll flash them
Speaker 1: down the toilet work.
Speaker 5: I definitely won't lose interest in them in two weeks
Speaker 5: and forget to feed them.
Speaker 3: Definitely not.
Speaker 1: Definitely.
Speaker 2: That's what we all need.
Speaker 1: We all need just something else to take care of
Speaker 1: in our lives, don't we. All right, that is all
Speaker 1: we have time for this week on Parenting Out Loud.
Speaker 1: Thank you for spending your time with us. Hey, it's
Speaker 1: like side note.
Speaker 2: I know we're not supposed to toot our own horn, but.
Speaker 1: The show is growing and growing and we think it's
Speaker 1: because you're sharing it with other parents that you know.
Speaker 1: So thank you for sharing it, thank you for following
Speaker 1: it and liking it, and thank you for coming back
Speaker 1: here every Saturday to listen to some smart parenting content.
Speaker 1: We love that you're part of our community and that
Speaker 1: you're getting behind us.
Speaker 2: And we're here for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 5: The comments have been so lovely. I'm always lurking. I'm
Speaker 5: always scared to look, but then when I lurk, I'm like,
Speaker 5: look at these excellent people like they're always really good feedback.
Speaker 5: Really yeah, I just love it. So thank you to
Speaker 5: everyone who's taken the time to do that. It's really
Speaker 5: kind and what yeah if you're so, yes, Hello, have
Speaker 5: a great week.
Speaker 2: We will be back here next Saturday morning.
Speaker 1: Mum and mea acknowledges the traditional owners of the land
Speaker 1: on which we have recorded this podcast.