Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma mea podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to MO.
Speaker 3: When we are out loud is what women are talking
Speaker 3: about on Friday, the sixth of March.
Speaker 2: I'm Hollywayne Wright, I'm Claire Stephen and I'm oh my god,
Speaker 2: I'm a bit nervous.
Speaker 4: She's back from your holiday.
Speaker 2: We became number one holiday.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know what you were on those shows
Speaker 3: that we became number one for, So I think you
Speaker 3: can claim that crown.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Claire. Were you on those show?
Speaker 5: I was here? You were you were? I was like
Speaker 5: in the atmosphere, I remember that. I remember that. Yeah,
Speaker 5: says a lot about me. I'm like, I feel like
Speaker 5: I'm off and around success.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: There is one thing that the out louders need to
Speaker 3: know from you, Emily Vernham. You've just been on holiday
Speaker 3: for pretty.
Speaker 4: Much a month.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 4: How many pairs of nickers did you take?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 2: Okay, great, great question. I overseas for twenty two days,
Speaker 2: so I took thirty two pairs?
Speaker 4: Did you use all of them?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 2: Because I didn't know I had access to a washing machine.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was gonna say, I bet you had access.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like, I think I would own thirty two pairs.
Speaker 2: I didn't. I think the day before I ran to
Speaker 2: kmart in a panic, and yeah, having stock anymore, so
Speaker 2: you have.
Speaker 5: To grab, like you know, when you get to the
Speaker 5: real bottom of the barrel with your undies and you're like,
Speaker 5: these have holes. I had a documents appointment recently in
Speaker 5: a very old pair of undies.
Speaker 3: You had to take an extra bag just for your underwear.
Speaker 3: How loud as If you're wondering why the hell were
Speaker 3: talking about this. One of our most famous debates of
Speaker 3: recent times is how many pairs of underpants you pack
Speaker 3: when you're going away?
Speaker 2: Yeah, thirty two is a bit too much, I will
Speaker 2: say that, will I probably could have won away with twenty.
Speaker 5: There's two week strains here because Holly would have packed three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would have done.
Speaker 3: I would have taken like maybe seven and then you
Speaker 3: just rotate and wash.
Speaker 2: Like anyway, we don't need to go back into that.
Speaker 4: Did you have a great time?
Speaker 2: I had the best, best time. I'm happy to be back.
Speaker 2: But oh my god, I love a holiday. We should
Speaker 2: all be on holiday all the time.
Speaker 5: I want a photo dump of your holiday on the
Speaker 5: out Louders Instagram.
Speaker 2: That's a good idea.
Speaker 5: I need it to everyone can see, Yeah, like obviously
Speaker 5: on yours.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but also for the apes I loud us want
Speaker 3: to see what em did in India.
Speaker 4: Ye, and so do I.
Speaker 3: Anyway, welcome back to our Friday show Mate. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of news going on. You won't hear any of
Speaker 3: it here today, so that's good. But here is what
Speaker 3: is on our agenda. I want to tell you about
Speaker 3: the Internet's new favorite literal girl Boss. She is a
Speaker 3: thirteen year old skincare ce plus.
Speaker 5: We used to be terrified of public speaking, but jen
Speaker 5: Z are terrified of something much smaller and a weekly recos.
Speaker 2: They consist of two podcasts and one very wild book.
Speaker 4: But first, Emily Vernon.
Speaker 2: In case you missed it, no one is wearing mascara anymore.
Speaker 4: I won't hear it.
Speaker 2: I won't have this, Okay, I need to rephrase. The
Speaker 2: cool kids aren't wearing muscara anymore. Seen the headlines, there's
Speaker 2: been a trend. It is called ghost lashes, which means
Speaker 2: slashes without mascara. So this started off in We saw
Speaker 2: it first in the Megala last year where Sophia, Richie
Speaker 2: and Lord weren't wearing mascara, and it was a bit scandalous.
Speaker 2: But then recently on the runways that are happening in
Speaker 2: the last fashion season, none of the models are wearing
Speaker 2: muscara either, And you know what, I'm for it.
Speaker 5: No, No, it's discriminatory against blondes. And it's also discriminatory
Speaker 5: against people with no lips, because you can only wear
Speaker 5: no muscara if you've got a statement lip, otherwise you
Speaker 5: look Onwell.
Speaker 2: I wear a statement lip and no mascara.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I can't because I look like a clown
Speaker 5: because the lips are too things.
Speaker 2: You have to be cool.
Speaker 3: This is the thing about the no mescara kids. Now
Speaker 3: you're on this train right.
Speaker 2: I haven't won mascara at all this year.
Speaker 4: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: The main reason is because I star infection.
Speaker 4: You had it, and so you've had to swear off it.
Speaker 2: I'm scared of it, like I'm deeply scared of it.
Speaker 2: And mascara is messy, it goes everywhere.
Speaker 3: Like I am so wedded to my mascara. It is
Speaker 3: my It's a white tail's nightmare. It's the only thing
Speaker 3: I would take with me, Like I couldn't ever go
Speaker 3: one survivor because I couldn't live with that mascara. It's
Speaker 3: the only thing i'd take on alone in Australia if
Speaker 3: I was on that, I like, mascara is my thing.
Speaker 3: And you're right, Claire, that there is like you know,
Speaker 3: obviously you've got beautiful dark lashes.
Speaker 2: And blessed with very thick dark hair all over my
Speaker 2: body guards. I have to win some of those humehs.
Speaker 3: But and I've got basically white eyelashes. But I've seen
Speaker 3: lots of very fair people with this no mascara trend.
Speaker 2: You're supposed to look like that, right, like that, very then.
Speaker 3: But I also think it's ageist because it makes you
Speaker 3: look younger, no question not wearing mascara.
Speaker 2: They look baby face, these people.
Speaker 3: But when the rest of your face can no longer
Speaker 3: play that game, you just look like an elderly baby.
Speaker 4: So I can't do it.
Speaker 3: Just like the side parts, like the skinny jeans, you
Speaker 3: can take them, take the skinny jeans, but by mascari,
Speaker 3: you will prize it from my cold deadhand them.
Speaker 5: Okay, when was the last time you initiated small talk
Speaker 5: with a stranger in public? I'm finding that there are
Speaker 5: certain things that are massive social lubricants that make it easier.
Speaker 5: I found it a lot easier with a dog when
Speaker 5: I was at the dog park, because you could just
Speaker 5: start conversation about your dog, what breed, et cetera, and.
Speaker 2: Conversation with the owner of the dog with the dog. See,
Speaker 2: that's the thing.
Speaker 5: I find it easier to talk to animals and babies
Speaker 5: for people, so because.
Speaker 2: What are you going to say?
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. But sometimes I'd essentially start talking to the
Speaker 5: dog and it evolves into a conversation with the dog's person.
Speaker 5: And I do the same thing at the park. So
Speaker 5: there's a kid, My daughter has run up to the
Speaker 5: kid to yell at them about something or embrace them aggressively,
Speaker 5: and then you kind of have to talk. And I
Speaker 5: find that quite nice social lubricant. But for a long
Speaker 5: time we've acknowledged that one of our biggest fears as
Speaker 5: human beings is public speaking. But now, according to an
Speaker 5: article in The Guardian by viv grosskop jen Z in particular,
Speaker 5: are terrified of speaking to anyone in public.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: In her column The Stranger Secret, How to talk to
Speaker 5: Anyone and why you should, she recalls being at a
Speaker 5: restaurant and chatting to the waitress about her hometown of
Speaker 5: Soul and what life is like there, and when she left,
Speaker 5: her fifteen year old said to her, how do you
Speaker 5: know if you're allowed to have that conversation like that,
Speaker 5: you're allowed to ask about that and that that person
Speaker 5: is happy to talk about it, And Grosskop said, you
Speaker 5: don't always know. It's okay. It's a risk and you
Speaker 5: have to find out. But that risk taking is disappearing.
Speaker 5: When we're on the train, or we're waiting in line
Speaker 5: at the shops, or we're in a waiting room at
Speaker 5: the doctors. We don't want to talk to anyone and
Speaker 5: we don't want them to talk to us. And I do.
Speaker 4: I want to talk to them.
Speaker 2: Really, I love talking to people. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I'm not scared.
Speaker 5: There's lots of reasons why we've kind of evolved into
Speaker 5: this way. One is noise canceling, headphones, social media phones,
Speaker 5: rise of working from home, touch screens in restaurants and
Speaker 5: self checkouts, death of their spaces, and the pandemic. And
Speaker 5: psychologist Esther Perell calls it a global relational recession, and
Speaker 5: she says the point is not depth, the point is practiced. Yes,
Speaker 5: the gentle strengthening of our social muscles. So Grosscott basically says,
Speaker 5: small talk might not profoundly all to your life, but
Speaker 5: its absence will profoundly alter human life as we know.
Speaker 3: It's crucial. Small talk is absolutely crucial.
Speaker 5: Tell me how you do it, Give me a script.
Speaker 6: All right.
Speaker 3: I'm terrible at small talk in some situations, but good
Speaker 3: in others. So I will always talk to people in
Speaker 3: shops and stuff, always.
Speaker 5: Like the person who runs the shit, yeh.
Speaker 4: The person making your coffee.
Speaker 3: But do you say, though I talk about the weather,
Speaker 3: you start with the boring shit, and before you know it,
Speaker 3: you'll be in there going So, how was that party
Speaker 3: on the weekend?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 2: Did you go to that gear?
Speaker 3: And you've built a tiny little bridge between you that
Speaker 3: isn't meaningful really, but it just makes the world better
Speaker 3: there a bit nicer.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So in the town that I live in, in the
Speaker 3: morning you go the baker for the coffee. Everybody's talking.
Speaker 3: No one knows anyone, but they're all just go blah
Speaker 3: blah blah. I'd had a long conversation with a woman
Speaker 3: the other day about teaching my daughter to drive. I've
Speaker 3: never seen herm before I'll never see her again, Like
Speaker 3: they're just all little bridges out.
Speaker 4: Into the world.
Speaker 3: Although she's so right that it's not important and that's
Speaker 3: not the point of it. You shouldn't go around talking
Speaker 3: to people because like, hey, it's important. You should do
Speaker 3: it just to be a human, But it is one
Speaker 3: of the quickest ways to get you out of a bubble.
Speaker 3: Like if you only ever talk to people who you
Speaker 3: know really well, you're much less likely to ever kind
Speaker 3: of understand anyone else's point of view, even in a
Speaker 3: tiny thing. I'm not suggesting you go in and you
Speaker 3: start going so I ran. Yeah, not that, but just
Speaker 3: you know, all those tiny conversations you have with people
Speaker 3: you bump into, like are more likely to show you
Speaker 3: that other people's experiences aren't yours, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like exactly what you said, Claire. It
Speaker 2: is a generation thing, Like I've noticed my parents are
Speaker 2: really good at small talk and I just kind of
Speaker 2: sit there and like listen in. But I also think
Speaker 2: it's a culture thing. I notice also Americans are really
Speaker 2: good up and I think that's because all of them
Speaker 2: do it. Like if you're sitting on a subway in
Speaker 2: New York, in America, everyone's talking to everyone and they're
Speaker 2: all strangers. However, if you were just sitting a train
Speaker 2: in Australia, a stranger would start to ask you questions.
Speaker 2: You know everyone else is listening in on that conversations
Speaker 2: because it's so rare for it to happen.
Speaker 4: I think it depends.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that everyone on the subway in New
Speaker 3: York is talking to each other like more Americans.
Speaker 2: But it's not weird if they do.
Speaker 3: Americans have fewer boundaries. What I remember, it was a
Speaker 3: young person traveling in the States and I was an
Speaker 3: English person very much then before I live in Australia.
Speaker 3: It's like they would just ask really personal questions. Now
Speaker 3: I'm not advocating for that. They had no boundary about
Speaker 3: jumping straight in with the whole, like so your situation,
Speaker 3: are you married?
Speaker 2: Do you have children?
Speaker 3: Like they're like Americans are really good at that. I'm
Speaker 3: not advocating for that necessarily. It's just politeness, right, English
Speaker 3: people talking about cultural stereotypes. We're very good at small talk,
Speaker 3: but only in a very like oh how about that rain, Like.
Speaker 2: We're really good at that stuff. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I think you're right about generational. I think it's one
Speaker 3: hundred percent true, because do you remember Claire. Even when
Speaker 3: I first started working with you guys, I remember, like
Speaker 3: Claire and Jesse, when they came to work at Mama Mia,
Speaker 3: they would freak out when you ask them how they're
Speaker 3: weekend was in the kitchen.
Speaker 4: What do you want from me?
Speaker 2: I don't want anything. I'm just being polite.
Speaker 5: And I wouldn't do it either, because I was just
Speaker 5: and I think generally I do this in life, and
Speaker 5: I'm only becoming aware of how it comes across. I'm
Speaker 5: just in my own head. So when I turned up
Speaker 5: to work, I'd be thinking, Oh, what am I going
Speaker 5: to pitch? We've got to stand up? What am I
Speaker 5: going to write today? And so I wasn't thinking of
Speaker 5: asking anybody else how they were, And when somebody asked me,
Speaker 5: I was shocked. But I think one thing I thought
Speaker 5: when I read this article was I wonder if one
Speaker 5: of the things contributing to this is our kind of
Speaker 5: cultural conversation about what is offensive and what is not
Speaker 5: right to say to people, and therefore we feel like
Speaker 5: there's less room for mistakes. And I think this in
Speaker 5: terms of small talk, but also just in conversation with
Speaker 5: people you might not know that well where we've got
Speaker 5: really strict boundaries. I know that I've absorbed so much
Speaker 5: about what not to say to someone who's pregnant, what
Speaker 5: not to say to somebody who might be grieving, what
Speaker 5: not to say to somebody at work, and then you
Speaker 5: go to say something, you're so paralyzed by the thought
Speaker 5: you might offend them that you don't say anything. And
Speaker 5: that's a million times worse when the fact is, sometimes
Speaker 5: somebody can come up to you and in Poplar when
Speaker 5: you're bloody pregnant, people say all sorts of things and
Speaker 5: you don't really care. Like sometimes they'll say something quite
Speaker 5: like oh you're big, and then five seconds later the
Speaker 5: conversation has changed. Like an inappropriate comment can lead to
Speaker 5: quite a meaningful interaction. You kind of have to be
Speaker 5: a bit more forgiving.
Speaker 2: I think, what do you think about that? And I
Speaker 2: think it's true. But I also think that there's a
Speaker 2: difference between doing small talk with people you know versus
Speaker 2: doing small talk with strangers. And I think I'm quite
Speaker 2: good at small talk with people I know, because I
Speaker 2: feel safe in that. What's annoying is that if I'm
Speaker 2: with people I know who know me as the talker
Speaker 2: of the group, and then we're in a different environment.
Speaker 2: They expect me to do the work of being the
Speaker 2: small talker with strangers, and I hate that people who
Speaker 2: are talkers know that as well. They know they're the
Speaker 2: talker of the group and they have to take that on.
Speaker 2: That's what I don't like. I also know that there
Speaker 2: are certain situations where I definitely don't want small talk.
Speaker 2: If I'm getting massage, yeah yeah, talk to me. I
Speaker 2: once had a missus who was massaging me, and you
Speaker 2: know when they go to that like where it's like
Speaker 2: your lower back, but it's kind of your bum and
Speaker 2: you kind of have to be like okay because it's
Speaker 2: like you get tents over there too. And she was
Speaker 2: massaging my bum and she was like, whoa, your skin's
Speaker 2: so much lighter on this part of that. Oh no,
Speaker 2: She's like, what is your ethnicity? And I'm like, no time.
Speaker 3: So that strays into like inappropriate things, right, because being
Speaker 3: a fan of small talk doesn't mean that there's like
Speaker 3: an open door for you to just say inappropriate shit.
Speaker 3: Like I think you should pay attention to what's inappropriate.
Speaker 3: But I think a lot of people can tell that, right.
Speaker 3: I was thinking about my kids. I encourage my kids
Speaker 3: to talk to strangers, you know what I mean, not
Speaker 3: in a dangerous way, but it is literally something you
Speaker 3: have to teach them how to do. So go and
Speaker 3: ask the guy where the water is. You know what
Speaker 3: I mean, you're in the sushi place, whatever, Go and
Speaker 3: ask the guy where.
Speaker 5: The water is.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely, not no, absolute. I don't do that as
Speaker 2: a twenty nine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, go and ask the guy where the water is.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: But what I notice is that my kids have quite
Speaker 3: a good radar. So my teenage daughter has quite a
Speaker 3: good radar for if a stranger starts talking to her
Speaker 3: on the train or whatever, if they're.
Speaker 5: Creepy exactly because they.
Speaker 4: Can tell that.
Speaker 3: And she's not bad at small talk because she works
Speaker 3: in a shop, right, like you have to. Hospitality and
Speaker 3: retail is very good for teaching you how to just
Speaker 3: be like and be polite and be nice, but have boundaries.
Speaker 3: And I think that that's really interesting. Even though she's
Speaker 3: kind of been trained in small talk to a wait
Speaker 3: a point, it's certainly not to a point where she
Speaker 3: has to be polite to someone who's being creepy to her.
Speaker 2: There's a line there.
Speaker 3: But you know that, right, Like, if a guy starts
Speaker 3: talking to you in the lift or in the coffee queue,
Speaker 3: you can tell if he's talking to you in a
Speaker 3: creepy way or if he's just trying to be a
Speaker 3: decent person, don't you think.
Speaker 2: Eventually, not always from the get go, Like sometimes you
Speaker 2: can be deep into a conversation and then just swings
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh, you're a bad person.
Speaker 5: Well, this article is quite forgiving of the fact that,
Speaker 5: but there are going to be times when you're not
Speaker 5: in the mood. There are going to be times when
Speaker 5: you open a conversation with somebody else who is not
Speaker 5: in the mood, and the stakes are not that high,
Speaker 5: Like it's okay if you go to talk to someone
Speaker 5: and they don't respond, not the end of the world.
Speaker 5: And if somebody goes short to you, you are not
Speaker 5: expected to always be open to speaking to them. I
Speaker 5: think it is very valid, but a lot of women
Speaker 5: who have had scary experiences with men. I remember being
Speaker 5: in my twenties and I had had a very scary
Speaker 5: experience with a man, and then a week later a
Speaker 5: guy started talking to me on the train, and I
Speaker 5: was so terrified, and he got off at my stop,
Speaker 5: and I was paranoid that he was gonna because he
Speaker 5: was still chatting to me, and I was like, what
Speaker 5: if you know where I live and that's not about him,
Speaker 5: that's about me. But it's also valid, like that is
Speaker 5: a valid boundary. So I think there's so much there.
Speaker 5: But it is a really important skill because I notice
Speaker 5: sometimes with young people, and I'm very empathetic because I
Speaker 5: was the same the young people who don't know how
Speaker 5: to make malfunction.
Speaker 3: Myself won't do it, but that's that's for different reasons,
Speaker 3: and he gets very upset when we try and make
Speaker 3: him do it. But I think even the massage example,
Speaker 3: sometimes if you're.
Speaker 2: In the mood and you like them, you.
Speaker 3: Come out of that kind of interaction with like an
Speaker 3: amazing story, not necessarily a story to tell people, but like, wow,
Speaker 3: I learned all about their life and where their kids,
Speaker 3: what their kids are doing, and how many jobs are
Speaker 3: Like I think it's a window into other people's worlds.
Speaker 3: And maybe I like collecting those, maybe because I'm a writer,
Speaker 3: maybe because I'm nosy. I like collecting stories from people
Speaker 3: I don't know, because otherwise you just in this everybody
Speaker 3: knows everyone. The place I'm terrible at small talk, which
Speaker 3: is ironic, is work functions.
Speaker 4: I hate them.
Speaker 3: Like if I'm at A, I mean obviously, if I'm
Speaker 3: with my friends, it's good and I do it all that.
Speaker 3: I've been doing it for decades, so I can do it.
Speaker 3: But I find that much harder, Like.
Speaker 2: Holly, here's Benny. Benny works at BLA. You work at blah.
Speaker 5: Oh really, I get really, I get really nervous. The
Speaker 5: people I think are the best at small talk who
Speaker 5: I always have the best conversations with a makeup artists,
Speaker 5: oh so good when before I always think before you go,
Speaker 5: if you ever do television and the makeup artist does
Speaker 5: your makeup beforehand, I'm always like, this is a better
Speaker 5: conversation than what we're gonna have because you're a vibe
Speaker 5: and they always just have and I feel very comfortable
Speaker 5: being like, what celebrities have you done makeup for? And
Speaker 5: what were they like? And the last makeup artist I
Speaker 5: talked to did the makeup for a bride on Mauth
Speaker 5: and it was just a really lovely Let's keep this
Speaker 5: small going forever.
Speaker 3: I'd love to know if any out louders have like
Speaker 3: a go to small talk question because we've talked about
Speaker 3: that before sometimes on the show, whether or.
Speaker 4: Not you should say, so, what are you passionate about?
Speaker 5: Right watching?
Speaker 3: Like, I think those kind of fake small talk questions
Speaker 3: are really hard. I'd love to know if anyone's got
Speaker 3: an absolutely I actually saw.
Speaker 2: In an out loudist thread for icebreaker questions, one of
Speaker 2: them was what's the tiniest hill you'll die on?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 5: I love it. I love it that oh, because it
Speaker 5: allows the person the opportunity to be funny, yeah and mean.
Speaker 3: Sometimes in a moment, I'm going to introduce you to
Speaker 3: a thirteen year old ce.
Speaker 7: Out loud as it's MEA and it's Friday. How good
Speaker 7: are we feeling? I am not often summoned by name
Speaker 7: by an out louder in a dilemma, but Vanessa, who
Speaker 7: is wondering whether she should give up her job to
Speaker 7: support her family, asked our advice and name checked me
Speaker 7: as someone who she had in her head. And so
Speaker 7: I listened to everything that you had to say in
Speaker 7: the group. I listened to Amelia, Holly and Jesse's conversation
Speaker 7: on the.
Speaker 2: Show, and I have some thoughts.
Speaker 7: I have some new thoughts I have some possibly controversial thoughts.
Speaker 4: So Amelia and I did a whole.
Speaker 7: Subscriber episode where I have entered the Working Mother Chat.
Speaker 7: It's called Mia Enters the Working Mother Chat. And if
Speaker 7: you want to listen to it right now and you're
Speaker 7: not already a subscriber, follow the link in the show
Speaker 7: notes to hear it immediately and get us in your
Speaker 7: ears five days a week.
Speaker 3: So there's a new, super cool skincare brand sucking up
Speaker 3: a lot of attention online and I'm telling you about
Speaker 3: it because it's CEO is thirteen years old. It's not
Speaker 3: news that the target market for skincare has been getting
Speaker 3: younger and younger and younger. We've talked about it a
Speaker 3: few times, and there are many opinions about that, about
Speaker 3: whether we should be encouraging children to smear the late
Speaker 3: stage capitalism all over their.
Speaker 2: Faces, etc. But it was probably the.
Speaker 3: Next logical conclusion that there would be companies making skincare
Speaker 3: for kids fronted by kits and so meet Coco Grandison.
Speaker 3: Here is a little snippet of Coco.
Speaker 6: Ended up damaging of pugs that were way too harsh
Speaker 6: on my skin. That's when it hit me. I couldn't
Speaker 6: be the only one kids, I guess want skincare actual
Speaker 6: roots wasn't harsh, something gentle, fun and actually made for us.
Speaker 6: So I thought, we're not creating it myself. But start's
Speaker 6: chest as dreaming turning to a real brand. I well,
Speaker 6: at school, I've taken meetings, mom's car keeping classes, friends,
Speaker 6: followball and started building yesterday with my family.
Speaker 3: Right, So a quick explain. Grandison comes from a fancy
Speaker 3: la family. Her dad's a Hollywood entertainment lawyer who represents
Speaker 3: people like Asap Rocky Right. Her mum was a clinical
Speaker 3: researcher before she had her three daughters. According to a
Speaker 3: profile in the Coco was on a plane. I think
Speaker 3: we can just leave. What kind of plane?
Speaker 5: It just sounds like she was having more than small daughter.
Speaker 3: Coco was on a plane with a big businessman friend
Speaker 3: of her parents and talking about how someone should make
Speaker 3: a kid's skin care line that kids actually want to use,
Speaker 3: And apparently the big businessman friends said, I want you
Speaker 3: to have some ideas by the time we land right
Speaker 3: next minute. Somehow, Coco and the Grandisons are working with
Speaker 3: Ron Robinson, who's the cosmetic chemist who helped build road
Speaker 3: for Hailey Beaver so he's a very big deal. He's
Speaker 3: the guy you want if you're starting a skincare line
Speaker 3: next weekend.
Speaker 4: You want to get Ron on the phone.
Speaker 2: If she can, Coco can give me those details.
Speaker 3: Sally a brand was born and now thirteen year old
Speaker 3: Coco is a boss lady. Did you two read this
Speaker 3: profile of the latest beauty girl boss and what did
Speaker 3: you think about Ceo teenagers?
Speaker 5: I'm completely obsessed. She is her mother's boss and their
Speaker 5: sea Sweet is the car. Just her vibe is hilarious.
Speaker 5: I mean, I do want it said that it is
Speaker 5: a genius business move to have a thirteen year old
Speaker 5: as the face of this and all over the instagram
Speaker 5: is her and she's beautiful. That's no coincidence that she
Speaker 5: looks the way she does. But this is very much
Speaker 5: a puppeteer situation. Ron's the big dog.
Speaker 4: I reckon, I reckon, Mom's the big dog.
Speaker 5: Yeah, mom, mom.
Speaker 2: I believed everything. I read this and I immediately felt
Speaker 2: like a huge failure. No, no, I did, and it
Speaker 2: made me think beause not being born to those parents
Speaker 2: in LA, not being on my private jet making up
Speaker 2: business plans. I'm in that generation where, like gen Z
Speaker 2: younger millennial where half my friends are working for companies
Speaker 2: and the other half are doing their own thing. And
Speaker 2: what's really annoying is that the half that are doing
Speaker 2: their own thing are really successful and are really good
Speaker 2: at it. And it's gotten to the stage where if
Speaker 2: I talk to someone under the age of twenty five,
Speaker 2: they're either working on their own brand and are like
Speaker 2: trying to move into that full time, or in their
Speaker 2: head they're basically saying And I had this conversation with
Speaker 2: a younger cousin of mine and he said, I'll work
Speaker 2: at this company for a year, but then I have
Speaker 2: to do my own thing, Like you don't want to
Speaker 2: be staying in a company.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So being an entrepreneur is now exceptionally aspiration, right,
Speaker 3: whereas I think it used to be a little bit like, oh,
Speaker 3: not very secure, not very safe.
Speaker 2: Da da da da dah. But they don't actually know
Speaker 2: what they want to do. They just want to do
Speaker 2: their own thing and they'll eventually figure it out. And
Speaker 2: I do feel a bit sad that I feel like
Speaker 2: we're going to get a whole generation of young people
Speaker 2: in the workforce not really experiencing the workforce. And I
Speaker 2: talk about MoMA Mia all the time and talk about
Speaker 2: how I made my best friends here. And I know
Speaker 2: with my friends who have moved to work on their
Speaker 2: own brands and have moved to freelance, the one thing
Speaker 2: they miss is like friendships. They benefited from making friendships
Speaker 2: when they started in the workforce, but now they don't
Speaker 2: make any friends anymore.
Speaker 3: Because I have a lot of common with Coco because
Speaker 3: she said she was talking to beauty influencers at an
Speaker 3: event and they didn't go to school anymore. They're being homeschool,
Speaker 3: which we'll get to in a minute, and she was like, oh, no,
Speaker 3: I don't want to do that because of my friends.
Speaker 3: She's on Flapo, so I still want to go to school.
Speaker 2: She's a girl.
Speaker 3: She does want to retire at nineteen though she's eighteen
Speaker 3: is too old to be selling skincare.
Speaker 2: At kids, which is like wow.
Speaker 3: And then she wants to go to college, and then
Speaker 3: after college she's going to retire.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I made a list of things that Coco is
Speaker 2: going to be missing out on for doing her own and.
Speaker 5: That's a great way to reframe. It's like gratitude for
Speaker 5: your life instead of Coco.
Speaker 2: Some of them are nice, some of them not so nice.
Speaker 2: So also including friendships, having to travel to the office
Speaker 2: when it's done. The storming, that's an adventure. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: an adventure. Forgetting your lunch at home and buying an
Speaker 2: eighteen dollars sandwich. You've got to experience that at least once.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: The fear of realizing you've forgotten to put your leave
Speaker 2: in and you're already playing. Oh I like where are you?
Speaker 5: Yeah, and Coco is like, wait, I am my boss,
Speaker 5: I am.
Speaker 2: My boss, and this is my own plan. The fear
Speaker 2: of having to call in sick two days in a row.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I know, and sound sick enough.
Speaker 5: Yes, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Pizza parties. You don't get pizza parties in by yourself
Speaker 2: getting drunk with the account's team.
Speaker 4: Pizza is not good for the skin babes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm sure, sure, I know.
Speaker 2: Coco is going to develop some sort of like chili
Speaker 2: oil but for the skin, and it's plumping, but your
Speaker 2: whole skin plumps up.
Speaker 5: Oh my god. Stop.
Speaker 2: And she's so smart and rehearsing on how to ask
Speaker 2: for a pay rise, like I don't know what these
Speaker 2: kids are going to do when it comes to pay rise.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's not just Coco. I do want
Speaker 3: to talk a bit about the corporatization of kids, right,
Speaker 3: because one of the things about this is obviously Coco's
Speaker 3: from a very specific family, and so is the example
Speaker 3: I'm about to give you two. But one thing I
Speaker 3: noticed a lot when I listen or read interviews with
Speaker 3: kind of let's call them the billionaire people, like the
Speaker 3: properly fancy tech people, Hollywood people, you know, is they
Speaker 3: are not and they probably never have. But they're certainly
Speaker 3: not just sending their kids to the local high school anymore,
Speaker 3: where they're sitting there learning about Second Mold War.
Speaker 4: Like you.
Speaker 3: There used to be Hollywood High where literally celebrities did
Speaker 3: send their kids. But I was listening to Kim Kardashian
Speaker 3: talking to her sister about homeschooling their kids and about
Speaker 3: how they tailor their education to their passions, right, And
Speaker 3: I think that although obviously Kim Kardashian is the relatable celebrity, ever,
Speaker 3: I think there is something here about a lot of
Speaker 3: parents in the age of AI and as you say,
Speaker 3: that drive everyone wants to be their own boss, Like, well,
Speaker 3: why would I send them to learn facts at school
Speaker 3: when the robots know all the facts? Google knows all
Speaker 3: the facts. Here's just a little bit of what Kim
Speaker 3: Kardashian said.
Speaker 1: She has a brand building class. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: an actual course and a curriculum of learning, fully interactive learning.
Speaker 1: And so she wanted she had an idea of making
Speaker 1: hats and making jewelry and all the things she wanted
Speaker 1: to make. So we made it a course and she
Speaker 1: has to do the web design, and she has to
Speaker 1: do the budgeting, and she has to go to the
Speaker 1: stores and get materials and sewing, and we do like
Speaker 1: full fashion courses, and she goes to in the summers,
Speaker 1: like to Fit in New York and goes to fashion Camp.
Speaker 3: To be clear, Kim Kardashian was talking about North, who
Speaker 3: is twelve.
Speaker 5: North is my idol.
Speaker 3: Klass thoughts, Okay, thoughts on teaching kids to be brands,
Speaker 3: whether that's smart.
Speaker 5: Two thoughts. One, this isn't actually as revolutionary as it sounds,
Speaker 5: because there has been a movement in education over the
Speaker 5: last i want to say decade towards project based learning
Speaker 5: and project based learning is they do it at my
Speaker 5: dad's school. If anyone ever wants to talk about it,
Speaker 5: he can cheat ear off about it. But it's basically,
Speaker 5: there's like four kids, we're going to build a robot.
Speaker 5: And it's not that you're in science or maths or
Speaker 5: history or whatever. But the idea is you have this
Speaker 5: project to complete and you need to bring in all
Speaker 5: the skills from all these different disciplines in order to
Speaker 5: do it. And Dad's school performs very very well academically.
Speaker 4: And that's what Naught's doing.
Speaker 5: Yes, so it's not actually as absurd as that is
Speaker 5: the idea of learning through a project. And I guess
Speaker 5: the thing I really like about it as well when
Speaker 5: Dad talks about it, is you can find your little
Speaker 5: bit of passion to get you motivated to do the thing,
Speaker 5: like there will be something about building a robot that
Speaker 5: you find particularly fascinating. But the thing about the brand
Speaker 5: building and the thing about Coco, I think you had
Speaker 5: such a good point, m that there's something very individualistic
Speaker 5: and that's a little bit scary going forward that because
Speaker 5: I guess I'll bring in my personal experience here. I'm
Speaker 5: the CEO of Clere Stevens Creative you are, I'm a
Speaker 5: freelancer who sometimes refers to myself as an entrepreneur, and
Speaker 5: sometimes I like to say Cleare Stevens. Creative doesn't open December.
Speaker 5: It's We're closed in December, and it's like, clear, did
Speaker 5: you work this month? And I'm like no. But it
Speaker 5: is lonely and there are parts like for me, that
Speaker 5: you absolutely love about it, but it is very It
Speaker 5: sometimes feels really egotistical, like you're not doing things.
Speaker 2: A lot of it.
Speaker 5: You have to reframe your mind to think what am
Speaker 5: I doing that benefits me? Whereas when you're in the workplace,
Speaker 5: my default and maybe it is good that I'm doing
Speaker 5: this because it's challenging my default, which was I'll do
Speaker 5: everything for everyone else and like kind of leave myself
Speaker 5: just flailing in the background because I've wanted to people please.
Speaker 5: But that's what I worry about with Coco and with
Speaker 5: North that you know, brand building great skill, but how
Speaker 5: about relating to other people and how about contributing to
Speaker 5: society in a way that doesn't directly benefit you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting because in this profile they were talking
Speaker 3: about how because I think the brand has just launched,
Speaker 3: which is why there's all these think pieces about it
Speaker 3: and interviews, but they were talking about the pop up
Speaker 3: that they had at that trendy shopping center in La
Speaker 3: the Growth, and Coco had this hard lesson of like,
Speaker 3: it's kind of embarrassing to be standing at a pop
Speaker 3: up and like saying to people, back to small talk,
Speaker 3: saying to people, hey, do you want to try my
Speaker 3: you know, my face wash? And the friends who don't
Speaker 3: really get it, like why aren't you in Sepphort, Why
Speaker 3: aren't these products in Sephora already? And then some people
Speaker 3: didn't turn up for their shift on the pop up thing,
Speaker 3: and she's like, it's so annoying.
Speaker 2: So she's like learning all those things.
Speaker 3: Possibly the most relatable part of thirteen year old CEO.
Speaker 3: Coco is like another thing that a lot of billionaires
Speaker 3: families do. She's not allowed on social media, even though
Speaker 3: her whole business exists there. And actually this business couldn't
Speaker 3: quite exist in Australia because she's a thirteen year old
Speaker 3: selling to other thirteen year olds on social media and
Speaker 3: you can't do that here anymore.
Speaker 2: But she's not allowed on social media.
Speaker 3: So her mom writes the captions and stuff, and then
Speaker 3: Coco gives her feedback.
Speaker 2: And this is the best bit.
Speaker 4: They said.
Speaker 3: They're sitting in their cargoing through them and Coco's like,
Speaker 3: this is great, this is terrible, this is good because
Speaker 3: I posted it.
Speaker 2: Why did you write slay girl?
Speaker 3: You cannot use the laughing emoji mom or the crying emoji,
Speaker 3: or the party had emoji on somebody's birthday or the
Speaker 3: red heart emoji.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I cried.
Speaker 4: Journalist is like, I asked why.
Speaker 2: And then I realized this was a stupid question. The
Speaker 2: reason is adults don't know.
Speaker 3: And I was like, imagine your thirteen year old kid
Speaker 3: being your boss. I mean, I know, I know a
Speaker 3: lot of teenage parents feel like they're thirteen your kids
Speaker 3: are their boss, or that they're toddlers or their preschoolers
Speaker 3: are their boss.
Speaker 2: But this literally is. And she's just like, Mom, you're
Speaker 2: ruining the brand. You're so embarrassing.
Speaker 5: We're all familiar with the term adolescence. It's what makes
Speaker 5: thirteen year old girls become skincare. But that's not the
Speaker 5: only profound stage of human development where we experience biological, psychological,
Speaker 5: and emotional growth. When you become a mother, your brain rewires,
Speaker 5: your body changes, your identity transforms, and the word for
Speaker 5: that process, that neurological reorganization, is matrescence. So I've been
Speaker 5: familiar with this term for a while because we've covered
Speaker 5: it at Mummeya. And actually I became really interested in
Speaker 5: it in about the week before I gave birth because
Speaker 5: I had this weird feeling of being between two stay
Speaker 5: and I kept trying to google, like, wor is happening
Speaker 5: to me emotionally? And I found the most beautiful writing
Speaker 5: from other women that described exactly what's happening to your brain.
Speaker 5: But a new campaign by Peanut, which is an app
Speaker 5: for connecting mums, in collaboration with Tommy Tippy, who make
Speaker 5: products for expressing and feeding, is lobbying for the inclusion
Speaker 5: of matrescence in the dictionary. So the president of Peanut
Speaker 5: is Michelle Battersby, who people might have heard of the
Speaker 5: Friend of the Pog.
Speaker 2: You hosted our first season of Biz.
Speaker 5: She did, and she's an Aussie and lots of business experience,
Speaker 5: and she has two little boys.
Speaker 3: And this is a very good marketinga oh gosh, I'm like,
Speaker 3: this just goes to show that like brain fog in,
Speaker 3: like postpartum is not a thing for all people.
Speaker 4: Also that thirteen year could not own she could never.
Speaker 5: She could never. So they took out a full page
Speaker 5: ad in the New York Times that read, I don't
Speaker 5: give a fuck IDGAF is in the dictionary. Matrescence isn't
Speaker 5: It's time to give a fuck about mothers. Below that
Speaker 5: was a QR code and when you scanned it, it
Speaker 5: took you to a change dot org petition, which currently
Speaker 5: has over seven thousand signatures, and the petition says sixty
Speaker 5: seven percent of mothers have never heard the term attrescence.
Speaker 5: They go through one of the most destabilizing experiences of
Speaker 5: their lives, thinking they're broken, thinking they're alone, thinking there
Speaker 5: is something wrong with them. M had you heard this
Speaker 5: term before you saw this campaign?
Speaker 2: I had not heard this term, which I was surprised
Speaker 2: at because I work among men. I thought I knew
Speaker 2: everything there is to know about being a month the term.
Speaker 2: It's wild to me that it doesn't exist in the dictionary,
Speaker 2: because whenever I talk to my friends who have been
Speaker 2: through pregnancy, who are mothers, that's the first thing they
Speaker 2: tell me is like, how when they have their kids,
Speaker 2: how it felt like everything changed, like mentally, physically, emotionally.
Speaker 2: I wanted to know from the two of you, because
Speaker 2: this isn't in the dictionary, what would be your own
Speaker 2: personal definition.
Speaker 7: That's.
Speaker 2: What would yours say.
Speaker 5: The way I would describe it is, and I do
Speaker 5: think I think mothers go through something unique. I think
Speaker 5: fathers definitely have a version of this because I remember
Speaker 5: Rory and I leaving hospital with Matilda and saying, it's
Speaker 5: like in the Matrix when I always forget which way
Speaker 5: round with the red pill and the blue pill. But
Speaker 5: it's like you're seeing things through totally different eyes. You're
Speaker 5: seeing there's like and it's weird talking about this because
Speaker 5: I also understand that I don't actually think that Matressn's
Speaker 5: or motherhood is the only time where this happens. I
Speaker 5: think grief probably rewires your brain in a really similar way.
Speaker 5: But what it did to me, I felt like I
Speaker 5: unlocked a whole new level of empathy where I would
Speaker 5: look at everyone and think of them as a child,
Speaker 5: and I find it really hard to have. I think
Speaker 5: I had a lot more staunch opinions before I had
Speaker 5: a child, and now I'm like, but that person was
Speaker 5: just once an innocent baby, and it's not their fault,
Speaker 5: and what is any of our fault? Like I have
Speaker 5: a lot more kind of maybe compassion in that way,
Speaker 5: but also I reckon. Neurologically, it streamlines your brain where
Speaker 5: a lot of the things I used to care about
Speaker 5: I just simply don't care about anymore, and I couldn't
Speaker 5: if I tried. And it makes you a better decision
Speaker 5: maker for me, like a lot more efficient. I think
Speaker 5: you see it in the workplace. You can see some,
Speaker 5: but again, I think there are other experiences that do
Speaker 5: a similar rewiring. But sometimes you see a mother who
Speaker 5: works three days a week and you think she's doing
Speaker 5: five days of work because she is so bloody efficient.
Speaker 3: I think it's complicated, right, because how does parenthood change
Speaker 3: you is a big question. What matrescence is. It feels
Speaker 3: like a process, isn't that.
Speaker 4: The idea of it? Like it's a process that happens
Speaker 4: to you.
Speaker 3: That's partly physiological because of the hormones are changing in
Speaker 3: your body, and partly environmental because everything about your life
Speaker 3: has changed, as you just said. And I think one
Speaker 3: of the reasons why I struggle to verbalize it is because,
Speaker 3: just like adolescents or puberty, when you've been through it,
Speaker 3: it's just absorbed into who you are. I mean, when
Speaker 3: was the last time you really considered puberty and who
Speaker 3: you were?
Speaker 4: Before and after, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Whereas now I've been a parent for a long time,
Speaker 3: it's just so much a part of who I am
Speaker 3: that it's very hard to unpick what was that and
Speaker 3: what wasn't. I think this campaign's really interesting because I
Speaker 3: think that obviously it's a marketingployee for brands, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, so's lots of great content these days and
Speaker 3: lots of great ideas, but it is crazy that it
Speaker 3: isn't recognized and at the moment we sort of feel
Speaker 3: like we've been living through a moment where no one
Speaker 3: will shut up about menopause and perimenopause, for example, and
Speaker 3: that we're all getting a little bit tired of that
Speaker 3: in a way. But that's because for so long it
Speaker 3: wasn't recognized at all as also being something very similar
Speaker 3: to adolescence and puberty, which is this whole period where
Speaker 3: everything shifts for you again physiologically, environmentally, and of course
Speaker 3: it has an impact on you. But because these are
Speaker 3: experiences that affect women, I totally take your point clear that,
Speaker 3: of course becoming a parent affects men, but matressence in
Speaker 3: itself is a female experience that it's not important or
Speaker 3: interesting or why would you document it? Oh it's a
Speaker 3: little bit made up, you know. So I think it's
Speaker 3: really interesting to try and get it put in the
Speaker 3: dictionary because culturally we're not desperately interested in the experiences
Speaker 3: of mothers.
Speaker 4: I mean, other mothers are.
Speaker 2: That's a whole world.
Speaker 3: But as if you think about, say the dialogue around
Speaker 3: or what would Taylor Swift write songs about now that
Speaker 3: she's settling down, it's like, oh my god, I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe one of the most profound shifts you could ever
Speaker 3: go through as a human being.
Speaker 4: That sounds like good.
Speaker 3: I know that there's an out louder and a musician
Speaker 3: called Claire Tonti who wrote an album called Matrescence that
Speaker 3: was all about this, and I think it's very much Again,
Speaker 3: people can get a bit eyerolly about it because they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: mum's banging on about mum stuff. But it's like a
Speaker 3: really profound shift, and the profundity of it is is
Speaker 3: difficult to look back on when you're where I am,
Speaker 3: because you're like, but that's just who I've become, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean.
Speaker 5: I think that term and I think putting it in
Speaker 5: the dictionary, recognizing it more would mean, And I know
Speaker 5: that for me it allowed me to give myself a
Speaker 5: bit more grace about having changed and a bit more
Speaker 5: grace about like when you think about adolescence, you weirdly
Speaker 5: don't come out of adolescence thinking, oh, it was so
Speaker 5: good to not have my period.
Speaker 3: And also to be honest, But apart from the very
Speaker 3: clear Marcus like periods, the years and years that you're
Speaker 3: going through those shifts, you don't recognize that all of
Speaker 3: your moods and you're not all of your moods, but
Speaker 3: many of your moods, opinions, environmental factors are to do
Speaker 3: with that.
Speaker 2: You're just in it.
Speaker 5: It's just your water, exactly. And so that's why I
Speaker 5: always find it fascinating the question when people ask should
Speaker 5: I have children? Is it better or worse? You hear
Speaker 5: people have conversations about regretting becoming and I'm like, it's
Speaker 5: just such a transformational experience that I don't think you
Speaker 5: can ever answer that. And for me, it's been this
Speaker 5: thing where I think you can have an experience that's really,
Speaker 5: really hard, and I genuinely do not believe I'd been
Speaker 5: through any adversity before I gave birth. And had a child,
Speaker 5: not that it's like birth with an adversity, but raising
Speaker 5: a child and sleep deprivation and not knowing what you're
Speaker 5: doing and learning how to breastfeed, and fear and all
Speaker 5: of that, being more vulnerable than you've ever felt in
Speaker 5: your whole life. That adversity, I think it brings like
Speaker 5: a depth and a connection, like a connection to your
Speaker 5: mother and a connection to other women who have been
Speaker 5: through it. That is really quite found. You can go
Speaker 5: through something really hard and there's value in it. You're
Speaker 5: not wishing you didn't go through it. It's strange. I
Speaker 5: think the comparison to adolescence is actually quite helpful.
Speaker 2: After the break, we have two podcasts you need to
Speaker 2: listen to and one book that I cannot stop thinking about.
Speaker 2: Vibes ideas, atmosphere, something casual, something fun. This is my
Speaker 2: best recommendation. It is Friday, and we want to help
Speaker 2: set up your weekend with our very best recommendation.
Speaker 5: I'm going to go first. So my recommendation is a
Speaker 5: podcast called Hometown Boys, and it's by ABC's Background Briefing,
Speaker 5: so it's in the background briefing feed. So my interest
Speaker 5: in this started because I read an incredible digital storytelling
Speaker 5: piece on ABC called The Town That Turned its Back
Speaker 5: on a rape Victim, and I was just hooked on
Speaker 5: every word. And it was about a young woman named Elise.
Speaker 5: They've changed her name for privacy, but she was twenty.
Speaker 5: She grew up in this town called Balmoral, which is
Speaker 5: in Country Victoria, and then she went to UNI, came
Speaker 5: back for twenty first and at this twenty first she's
Speaker 5: it's just all people she's grown up with, went to
Speaker 5: school with. All the families are so in mesh because
Speaker 5: it's a small town. She ends up in a caravan
Speaker 5: with two young men that she had been to school with,
Speaker 5: knew them very well, and she was raped by both
Speaker 5: of them. And I can say raped because they were
Speaker 5: found guilty in a court of law twice. And the
Speaker 5: story is all about how when she pursues legal action,
Speaker 5: the town turns against her and her family because these
Speaker 5: young men are footy stars and they are beloved in
Speaker 5: the community. So I didn't realize until the out Louders
Speaker 5: put it in that this is also a six part
Speaker 5: investigative podcast, and I was sort of like, I read
Speaker 5: the article, like should I listen? And within five minutes
Speaker 5: you realize that there is so much more depth to this.
Speaker 5: Two reporters named Charlotte King and Andy Burns go to
Speaker 5: balmorl and speak to so many of the people involved.
Speaker 5: They read out court transcripts. There is so much more
Speaker 5: nuance to the story that can even be conveyed in
Speaker 5: the long form article. But what I just cannot stop
Speaker 5: thinking about is the fact that it really gets to
Speaker 5: the crux of cases like these and how we struggle
Speaker 5: to believe these kinds of allegations no matter the evidence.
Speaker 5: Like you can have all the evidence, you can have
Speaker 5: people found guilty, and we know how hard that is
Speaker 5: when it comes to sexual assault cases. You can have
Speaker 5: people found guilty twice and still people point the finger
Speaker 5: at the woman and you find yourself this is so horrible.
Speaker 5: But you find yourself thinking, and I think it is
Speaker 5: human nature. You hear these stories and you think was
Speaker 5: she telling the truth? And then you think, why on
Speaker 5: earth is my default to question the woman? And it
Speaker 5: also made me question the narrative that always gets brought
Speaker 5: up in these cases, which is she was embarrassed, she
Speaker 5: regretted it, so she called Rayah. And you think, putting
Speaker 5: yourself in those shoes, if I had sex with somebody
Speaker 5: and I've regretted it and I felt embarrassed. Yeah, I
Speaker 5: wouldn't stand in court twice and free.
Speaker 4: Tell through the hostile law environment to go through this,
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 5: In front of your family and your friends and everyone
Speaker 5: you've ever known, and said, he put his finger here,
Speaker 5: and then he did this, and then he did this.
Speaker 5: It just makes no sense. But it's just such an
Speaker 5: interesting story about footy culture, about small towns, about what
Speaker 5: happens in mesh community when somebody is accused of for crime.
Speaker 5: Cannot commended.
Speaker 4: It sounds amazing.
Speaker 3: Hol, I've got a podcast series to recommend, Claire. You
Speaker 3: recommended a podcast series the other week, and it made
Speaker 3: me remember how much I missed them, actually, those kind
Speaker 3: of episodic shows. But I've just listened to one that
Speaker 3: I'm recommending because it's so interesting. But I also need
Speaker 3: people to listen to it so we can discuss it
Speaker 3: because I'm conflicted about it.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: Do you remember last year?
Speaker 3: Was it last year when the big stink about the
Speaker 3: Saltpath blew up?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 2: I know exactly what we're going to recommend them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: here for it.
Speaker 3: So the Saltpath is this book that I recommended on
Speaker 3: the show once written by a woman called Raina Winn.
Speaker 3: I stand by the fact it is a brilliant, beautiful book. Anyway,
Speaker 3: last year a British broadsheet called The Observer newspaper did
Speaker 3: this big investigative piece that have been ages in the making.
Speaker 3: Rather this incredible investigative reporter that basically said that a
Speaker 3: lot of claims in that book weren't true. And now
Speaker 3: the same reporter, who is called Chloe had jim Asa,
Speaker 3: has made a podcast about it, a seven part podcast
Speaker 3: about it. Now she is the narrative editor and at
Speaker 3: the Obbos, which is a very well respected newspaper in Britain,
Speaker 3: and she's also one loads of awards for investigative journalism,
Speaker 3: so she's got the chops right. And basically after that
Speaker 3: she published that written piece about how the Salt Path
Speaker 3: was nonsense, all these people came out of the woodwork
Speaker 3: and said, I know them, I'll tell you more stories.
Speaker 3: Dead family members came out and said, oh, let me
Speaker 3: tell you about that time that she did this, and
Speaker 3: blah blah. And that's what's turned into this podcast that's
Speaker 3: called The Walkers. It's a very clever name because the
Speaker 3: Walkers is their real name that she's not really called
Speaker 3: Rayna Winn, she's.
Speaker 4: Called Sally Walker. But they also walked, and they also walked,
Speaker 4: so it's a very clever name. So it's called The Walkers.
Speaker 3: It's by Tortoise Media, and it is seven parts of
Speaker 3: kind of on picking Salt Path. And I'm recommending it
Speaker 3: because it's great and interesting, particularly if you've read the book.
Speaker 3: But the other thing about it that's really interesting that
Speaker 3: I need to talk about is like some of the
Speaker 3: things that Hadjimathau uncovers and debunks are really important, big things, right,
Speaker 3: Like there's these big questions about whether or not Sally's husband, Tim,
Speaker 3: who's called in the book, really has this terrible degenerative,
Speaker 3: incurable disease. That is a big part in that that's
Speaker 3: an unanswered question. Certainly she and he deny that that's
Speaker 3: nonsense and say that's deeply offensive. And also the fact
Speaker 3: that there are allegations that she also denies that she
Speaker 3: stole money from lots of different family members, which is
Speaker 3: it's fascinating personality study. But then a lot of the
Speaker 3: other things in here are really petty. They're like that
Speaker 3: cafe they went to on page six isn't really called that,
Speaker 3: they don't serve. Pannini's the guy who's a boss isn't there.
Speaker 3: But and I think maybe because I'm a writer, that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff really irritates me.
Speaker 4: I'm like, why are you?
Speaker 3: Like she's kind of obviously consolidated many cafes that she
Speaker 3: went to on that walk to tell you this story,
Speaker 3: and like, who gives a shit? And it's like, maybe
Speaker 3: it was March. She said it was May, she said
Speaker 3: it was raining, they said it was blah. Like some
Speaker 3: of them are really petty. But it's also a fascinating
Speaker 3: uncovering of how much people hate being misrepresented in other
Speaker 3: people's stories, because there are also in Rainer's book, in
Speaker 3: Sally Walker's book, to disguise family members and real people,
Speaker 3: she's given them pseudonyms and said, so there's a cousin
Speaker 3: who in the book is a friend called Vicki or whatever,
Speaker 3: and the real Vicky who's the cousin, hates the way
Speaker 3: she protect like, she made me sound rude, she made
Speaker 3: me sound this, She said this about me that isn't true,
Speaker 3: And it's like it's really fascinating because the ethics of
Speaker 3: it are dubious, but also there are bits of it,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, let the woman write a book, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, Like, it's really so anyway, I'm obsessed.
Speaker 4: I've listened to the whole thing.
Speaker 3: I need people who are particularly people who care about
Speaker 3: the Salt Bath to listen to it too, so that
Speaker 3: we can discuss the petty versus serious nature of this.
Speaker 4: It's called The Walkers and you'll find it wherever you
Speaker 4: find your podcast.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, I need to listen to that.
Speaker 2: So excited. I've done a lot of reading watching when
Speaker 2: I was on holiday. I was also on holiday, in
Speaker 2: case you missed it, I read a book by Jeanette McCurdy.
Speaker 4: She wrote I'm glad my mom died.
Speaker 2: Yes, which I think is getting made for the screen now.
Speaker 2: She's been a child actor. She was famously in I Carlie.
Speaker 2: A lot of people know her. She wrote her first novel.
Speaker 2: It's called Half His Age, and it's about a teenage
Speaker 2: girl named Waldo, which I didn't know was a real name.
Speaker 4: Yeah maybe it isn't.
Speaker 5: It sounds like a dog, Yeah, yeah, Waldo.
Speaker 2: She's seventeen and she has a huge crush on her
Speaker 2: teacher named mister Corgy, and it goes into these extremely
Speaker 2: problematic age gap relationships and the relationship between the two
Speaker 2: of them. But it's one of those like I feel
Speaker 2: like we're getting a lot of age gap relationship novels recently,
Speaker 2: and I love them all. It's one of my favorite tropes. Weirdly,
Speaker 2: this one just went in a way that I did
Speaker 2: not expect, and it's so well written. She also I
Speaker 2: listened to some of it on audiobook and Janette narrates
Speaker 2: it herself, and I love her voice because she also
Speaker 2: did I'm Glad my Mom died. And it's so well done.
Speaker 2: It's such a quick read. I think it's around two
Speaker 2: hundred pages. I think I went through the whole thing
Speaker 2: in one day on a plane on a plane ride.
Speaker 2: It's so juicy. It starts off with Kindlinger's hole you
Speaker 2: would love that. I like, I was, please, I need
Speaker 2: to correct the record.
Speaker 5: We'll never let you live It in as.
Speaker 3: A scene in my about coloring my coworkers, never let
Speaker 3: me forget. These are the things no one tells you
Speaker 3: about being an authort it and then I was just
Speaker 3: about to say then when you were like it starts,
Speaker 3: I was about.
Speaker 2: Saying I love a journey opening and then I was.
Speaker 5: Like, that's why I will never write a sex scene,
Speaker 5: because my family would never let me live it down,
Speaker 5: and neither would my friends.
Speaker 2: Continue out, there's a lot and a lot of sex
Speaker 2: in this. But what's also she does really well, and
Speaker 2: I wonder if this is from her personal experience, was
Speaker 2: the mother daughter dynamic. She writes that really well, her
Speaker 2: mum is a sex addict, and you see the interactions
Speaker 2: between the older character and the mum, and it's done
Speaker 2: so well. And I also remember in her memoir she
Speaker 2: also had was in an age gap relationship, and I
Speaker 2: think she brings a lot of experience to the story,
Speaker 2: which if you've read her memo you'll be able to see.
Speaker 2: But her writing is so beautiful, and I always feel
Speaker 2: a bit weird reading like celebrity fiction because I'm like,
Speaker 2: how good can you be? And this is really good.
Speaker 2: I really like it's.
Speaker 3: Smart of her because that's such a conversation in the
Speaker 3: zeitgeist at the moment with the Epstein Files, which obviously
Speaker 3: deals with horrific allegations of Peter philia, but there's also
Speaker 3: a lot of conversation going on about, well, what about
Speaker 3: the girls who are over eighteen? And there's a lot
Speaker 3: of defenders and naysayers who are like, he just likes
Speaker 3: them young, and who cares that all the guys were
Speaker 3: sixty and they were all eighteen, Like you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? Like that cultural conversation about what's okay what's
Speaker 3: not okay is like very in the air.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god, you got the biggest egg from
Speaker 2: this teacher.
Speaker 5: Oh but it's so good. That is literally next on
Speaker 5: my list. I have a spreadsheet where I cook books
Speaker 5: that I want to read, have to keep track.
Speaker 3: That is all we have time for today. Out louders,
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for being with us all week.
Speaker 3: Thank you Klaus Stephens, who is the new Jesse Stevens,
Speaker 3: thank you. And to my wonderful m who's back from
Speaker 3: her holiday.
Speaker 4: Not that you're mine, but you know who.
Speaker 3: Would like to thank our incredible team.
Speaker 5: Oh can I because I haven't done it? Yes, thanks
Speaker 5: to our group executive producer Ruth Devine, executive producer Sasha Tannic,
Speaker 5: our senior audio producer is Leah Porge's, our video producer
Speaker 5: is Josh Green, and our junior content producer is Tessa Kodovich.
Speaker 2: Bye bye, Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the
Speaker 2: land on which we have recorded this podcast.