Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA mea podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia out Loud and to our Friday's show where
Speaker 2: we take a break from the news cycle and breathe out.
Speaker 1: That was a SMR. Someone's going, Jesse, you never do it.
Speaker 3: I hate ASMR. It makes me feel sick.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, fair enough, don't know good vibes.
Speaker 1: From jaure cracking start for a Friday.
Speaker 2: Today is Friday, the sixteenth of August, And I'm Holly Wainwright.
Speaker 1: I'm mea Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2: And on Today's show, if cats and dogs and rats
Speaker 2: and hamsters are our fur babies, what happens to them
Speaker 2: when human babies enter the picture? And a podcast worth
Speaker 2: binging And an Australian icon whose midlife vulnerability rocks me. Yes,
Speaker 2: It's recommendation time and best of Worst of the Week
Speaker 2: include Me as Logis, Jesse Is Margarita's I'm the best
Speaker 2: piece of.
Speaker 1: Advice I've had in forever.
Speaker 2: But first mea Friedman.
Speaker 1: If you are going away this weekend or in fact, ever,
Speaker 1: and it involves an airport and a suitcase. Don't tie
Speaker 1: a ribbon around the handle. Oh, in case you missed it,
Speaker 1: Muma Mia spoke to Mike Harvey, who is the managing
Speaker 1: director at First Move International. I don't even know what
Speaker 1: that is, but he explained why attaching a ribbon to suitcase,
Speaker 1: which many of us, including me do to help you
Speaker 1: not pick up the wrong bag off the carousel, which
Speaker 1: I have also done more than once. If you attach
Speaker 1: a ribbon, it can actually interfere with the scanning process
Speaker 1: in the luggage hall. So if the ribbon causes issues
Speaker 1: during scanning, your bag may need to be manually processed,
Speaker 1: which can cause delays, or it might miss the flight altogether.
Speaker 1: So you know her when sometimes you bag doesn't show up,
Speaker 1: it's probably maybe a ribbon, your ribbon.
Speaker 3: See, I never have a ribbon, and my bag's always
Speaker 3: shown up.
Speaker 1: So there, have you taken the wrong bag.
Speaker 3: Before I have? So I was going to say, I've
Speaker 3: never done a ribbon, I've never done a tag. I've
Speaker 3: never done anything. And I just buy the cheapest luggage
Speaker 3: I can, which happens to be the same luggage as
Speaker 3: everyone else. And I'm like, who needs a ribbon. I'm
Speaker 3: not an idiot anyway. I've taken the wrong bag home,
Speaker 3: opened it gone, these are not my things, and got
Speaker 3: very angry call from the airport as I had ruined
Speaker 3: someone's day. I don't like I need my stuff, and
Speaker 3: I was like, I'll be right there.
Speaker 1: So what I do is that my whole bag is
Speaker 1: a ribbon. I just buy a bag in the most
Speaker 1: lurid color. Then you can imagine I've got a hot
Speaker 1: pink suitcase.
Speaker 2: Oh of course, Friedman, of you, I like it. I'm
Speaker 2: bringing trouble today. It's Friday, and I'm feeling feisty. I
Speaker 2: would like to bring the group's attention to an article
Speaker 2: in the cut from New York Magazine by a woman
Speaker 2: who had possibly the best reason ever for remaining anonymous.
Speaker 2: While writing on the internet. She is complaining about her cat,
Speaker 2: not only complaining, actually, but confessing. The article is called
Speaker 2: why Did I Stop loving my cat when I had
Speaker 2: a baby, and it comes with an editor's note. The
Speaker 2: editor's note reads, this story is part of a New
Speaker 2: York Magazine exploration of the ethics of pet ownership, sharing
Speaker 2: a variety of points of view on whether we're equipped
Speaker 2: to care for the animals in our homes. The magazine
Speaker 2: confirmed the welfare of this cat prior to publication.
Speaker 1: Oh I was going to say you sounds so boring,
Speaker 1: but I mean now, oh my god, it's so good.
Speaker 2: As you might gather from the title, the woman in
Speaker 2: question has a baby and a cat, and the cat
Speaker 2: came first. She writes in blisteringly honest detail about how
Speaker 2: since the baby arrived, she not only is less interested
Speaker 2: in Lucky, her beloved pussy cat, but that she actively
Speaker 2: resents her. She writes about being tempted but not actually
Speaker 2: acting on it to kick said cat. She confesses to
Speaker 2: leaving the window open so that Lucky might escape, and
Speaker 2: she admits to forgetting to leave Lucky any water, so
Speaker 2: she found the poor prince all over the toilet where
Speaker 2: he was desperately drinking from the bowl. Forgetting to groom her,
Speaker 2: forgetting to feed her anything but the most basic of foods.
Speaker 2: She've spoke to lots of different pet owners who had babies,
Speaker 2: and she writes, like me, none of the women I
Speaker 2: spoke with had intentionally obtained her pet to use the
Speaker 2: animal as training wheels for a baby. None would think
Speaker 2: of seeing her pet in such frostily instrumental terms. They
Speaker 2: got their pets for all the usual sweet reasons for
Speaker 2: companionship to offer a safe home. Just because a pet
Speaker 2: can function as a prototype baby doesn't mean it must
Speaker 2: or that it's only that. But let's grant that that happens.
Speaker 1: You had a.
Speaker 2: Pet who was your baby, and now you have a
Speaker 2: baby who is your baby. Does that mean the pet
Speaker 2: is sentenced to irrelevance. I want to talk about the
Speaker 2: ethics and the drivers of our love for pets, but
Speaker 2: first I need to be mischievous and ask my co host,
Speaker 2: Jesse Stevens, didn't you say something quite similar to this
Speaker 2: about your beloved dog Chili.
Speaker 3: I resent the term similar, because I know I ever
Speaker 3: expressed a will to kick my dog or leave the
Speaker 3: doors open. I was a little bit horrified, to be
Speaker 3: completely honest, by some of the things I read in
Speaker 3: that article. But what I did say was that it
Speaker 3: surprised me in the aftermath, in that postpartum period, particularly
Speaker 3: sort of three or four months after having a baby,
Speaker 3: my response to my dog, because what happened. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure if I told this story, but we got home
Speaker 3: from hospital and Luca had the car seat and he
Speaker 3: put the car seat down on the floor in our house,
Speaker 3: and I felt a sensation I have never felt before,
Speaker 3: which was sheer terror.
Speaker 1: In the car seat. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, like, what do you call it when it's
Speaker 3: sure the capsule the cap I thought.
Speaker 1: It meant you just brought an empty capsule to just
Speaker 1: try out what it looked like in your loundry.
Speaker 3: Probably should have. Yeah, but the baby was in the
Speaker 3: cabcake and he put the capsule down, and the dog
Speaker 3: was on the other side of the room. But I
Speaker 3: felt just sheer terror, and I saw in my mind's eye,
Speaker 3: I was like, the dog attacks the baby. It was
Speaker 3: all playing out. Had a real visceral response, and from
Speaker 3: there it's not that I didn't love my dog. I
Speaker 3: always loved my dog. But I became a little bit scared.
Speaker 3: I became almost like, very vigilant of keeping the two apart.
Speaker 3: And since speaking to some healthcare workers and you know,
Speaker 3: people who work in hospitals, they've said that is very
Speaker 3: sensible because they have seen some horrific instincts, and it is.
Speaker 3: It was an instinct. And I've had a lot of
Speaker 3: friends say this as well, that whereas before they would
Speaker 3: be on the floor playing with the dog friendless hours,
Speaker 3: dog slept in the bed, all of those things. Dog
Speaker 3: can't sleep in the bed when you're up feeding overnight,
Speaker 3: like it just can't be done.
Speaker 1: Lower in the leaderboard. Yeah, the relationship has shifted.
Speaker 3: The relationship shifted, And so I spoke about it on
Speaker 3: the podcast and I said it it made me sad.
Speaker 3: That was a mistake, and I it was my worst
Speaker 3: of the week, right, and that I moved on with
Speaker 3: my life and continued walking, feeding and watering my dog
Speaker 3: you and loving my dog unconditionally. And then somewhere in
Speaker 3: the hours of the internet, a rumor started that I
Speaker 3: had rehomed and or put down my dog, which I
Speaker 3: learned through multiple podcast reviews that said on our shows,
Speaker 3: on our show on canceled saying, oh, someone called the RSPCA.
Speaker 3: If someone called the RSPCA and they turned up to
Speaker 3: my home, oh dear, they would find my dog on
Speaker 3: her throne in the biggest bed you've ever seen, with
Speaker 3: a very shiny coat, living her.
Speaker 1: Best life, almost her best life, almost wildly displaced as
Speaker 1: top of the leaderboard exactly, people who get your love
Speaker 1: in your house.
Speaker 3: But but I think that the idea that when a
Speaker 3: baby comes along, and it's funny, right, because another worst
Speaker 3: of the week that I had was about how I
Speaker 3: felt like I wasn't giving enough time and energy to
Speaker 3: my popuas dementia, to my cousin, who I've always cared for.
Speaker 3: That caring or the nurturing muscle is finite, It's not endless.
Speaker 3: There are only so many hours in a day, and
Speaker 3: when you are physically attached to a baby, you can't
Speaker 3: have the dog on your lap all day. You just can't.
Speaker 2: No, But you are talking about very practical things, and
Speaker 2: you're very sensible, and you're right one hundred percent. But
Speaker 2: there's something else going on here, and it's why we
Speaker 2: get pets in the first place, right, Because what this
Speaker 2: story was about, and what lots and lots of pieces
Speaker 2: that are about this very things about, is that very
Speaker 2: often people get pets before they have babies, and those
Speaker 2: pets are their babies. As she says in this right,
Speaker 2: we've repositioned the place of pets in our lives for
Speaker 2: lots of different reasons. I think we call them fur babies.
Speaker 1: You know, there was not everybody does, no, no, of course not.
Speaker 2: But culturally is what I'm talking about. Like, culturally we
Speaker 2: have elevated pets to their fur babies.
Speaker 1: Eat their food.
Speaker 2: You've seen those ads for the dog and the person's
Speaker 2: eating it, and there's like, now there's a fragrance that
Speaker 2: you can buy for your dog.
Speaker 1: I took my dogs to a psychiatr.
Speaker 2: Dog psychiatry. There are dog hotels. Dog like we have
Speaker 2: elevated the status of our pets, and like the three
Speaker 2: of us are all dog people and we all love
Speaker 2: our dogs enormously. But there is a very real thing
Speaker 2: at play here. And I've heard you describe it before, Jesse,
Speaker 2: as like you need a place to put your nurture
Speaker 2: because I didn't have a dog before I had a kid.
Speaker 2: I mean I had one when I was growing up.
Speaker 2: I think we got our family dog at a perfect
Speaker 2: time for me, and that it was just as I
Speaker 2: was coming out of that really cuddly nurtury thing with
Speaker 2: my kids because they're older, and now I've replaced the
Speaker 2: baby stage with my popul Like I could cuddle her
Speaker 2: all day long and she always likes to see me,
Speaker 2: and she's never going ooh, I'm looking at her phone. Like,
Speaker 2: so I get an emotional nurturing need met by my
Speaker 2: dog that probably for years there I was getting from
Speaker 2: my little kids.
Speaker 3: We do have an instinct to care for things that
Speaker 3: need to be cared for. Right, And just because you
Speaker 3: love dogs or love cats, I love your pets doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that it's a maternal paternal thing. I think that
Speaker 3: there are people who are brilliant pet owners who don't
Speaker 3: have any interesting kids, for example. But there's something about
Speaker 3: the nurturing that's very good for us. And also the
Speaker 3: physical touch element. Right parents talk about like being touched
Speaker 3: out and feeling like there's too much of that. I
Speaker 3: wonder if it is for people who feel like that's
Speaker 3: missing from their life, like something to love more than
Speaker 3: themselves and that will unconditionally love you back. I think
Speaker 3: that is sort of feeling that void for a lot
Speaker 3: of us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's that saying. If you have teenagers
Speaker 1: and you want someone to be happy to see you
Speaker 1: when you get home, get a dog. And I think
Speaker 1: there can be eras not just related to whether you
Speaker 1: have kids or not and how all those kids are,
Speaker 1: but just times in your life. I mean, we saw
Speaker 1: a lot of people get dogs, myself included, or get
Speaker 1: pets during COVID during lockdown when we were home all
Speaker 1: the time, and when those dogs and cats got a
Speaker 1: lot of love and a lot of time and a
Speaker 1: lot of attention because we had nowhere else to put
Speaker 1: any of that stuff. But then when we had to
Speaker 1: go back to work or we could travel again, and
Speaker 1: all of those things, it's no wonder we've got a
Speaker 1: generation of really anxious, confused dogs who were like, hang on,
Speaker 1: weren't we in love? What happened? We used to hang
Speaker 1: out all the time. And I think there are just
Speaker 1: times in your life where your dog is center stage
Speaker 1: or your cat, and times when they're not. And I mean,
Speaker 1: at its worst, some people are horrendous and just go
Speaker 1: and dump them. And thank Heavens for dog shelters, And
Speaker 1: if anyone wants to get a pet, please go and
Speaker 1: look at a pet shelter, because tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: dogs and cats that are beautiful get put down every
Speaker 1: day because someone either couldn't look after them anymore. I
Speaker 1: just didn't want to look after them anymore.
Speaker 3: That makes me so sad, right, Like it really doesn't
Speaker 3: be tragic. I was reading a different story about a
Speaker 3: woman who had three dogs and then she had two
Speaker 3: kids come along, and she basically went, oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: this is completely untenable, and you're right what you say,
Speaker 3: Mayor about there are seasons with pets, But the thing
Speaker 3: is where does that leave the pet? Right, So you're
Speaker 3: exactly and medication you lean in. But then I also
Speaker 3: think that the transition, the baby transition, is like I mean,
Speaker 3: maybe one day Luna will have a sibling and then
Speaker 3: Luna is going to have to share the limelight. Like
Speaker 3: that is actually how families. Families work and the dynamics
Speaker 3: are constantly changing, And as long as the dog's needs
Speaker 3: are being met, then I think we can all rest
Speaker 3: easy that the dog is okay.
Speaker 1: Dog is okay. Of course, the dog's okay. But I
Speaker 1: think we've also got to be realistic. It's like if
Speaker 1: you were in a polygamous marriage and your partner brought
Speaker 1: in your partner home and when it's so great, they'll
Speaker 1: just be more loved to go around. Well maybe maybe,
Speaker 1: but it's probably not going to be that good for you.
Speaker 3: But we're humans. We're humans with quite complex brains. I
Speaker 3: love dogs. I think they're superiod to humans in a
Speaker 3: lot of different ways. Dogs brains aren't quite as complex
Speaker 3: as like I think that the dogs are okay. I
Speaker 3: really think that the dogs are okay. I don't think
Speaker 3: they're sitting there doing the maths in their little diary going.
Speaker 3: I used to get seventy percent of the cuddle, true,
Speaker 3: and now it's down to forty two percent of the cuddles.
Speaker 3: But today it's up a little bit because the like
Speaker 3: I think they're fine, right.
Speaker 1: I think about this all the time, because we recently
Speaker 1: just send our dogs away for a month because we
Speaker 1: needed to, and I often thought about what they thought.
Speaker 1: One of them wouldn't have thought anything, because she's barely sentient,
Speaker 1: but the other one has deep thoughts, and I often
Speaker 1: wonder if she'd go to sleep going. We had such
Speaker 1: a great thing, we were so in love, and this
Speaker 1: I wonder if I'll ever see her again.
Speaker 2: People who love their pets, which is hopefully everyone who
Speaker 2: has a pet, but as you've very rightly point out me,
Speaker 2: that's not true. We create the entire worlds for them, right,
Speaker 2: And you also do that when you have a baby.
Speaker 2: Like so, my dog has a voice. Yeah, she has
Speaker 2: a lot of opinions. She you know, she knows exactly
Speaker 2: which of us she likes best. Yeah, she likes I
Speaker 2: know where she likes to sit most in the house.
Speaker 2: I know what she thinks about all the other dogs
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood, Like I've created a whole world for
Speaker 2: my dog. And I remember when I was going to say,
Speaker 2: when we got a baby, when we brought Matilda home
Speaker 2: and she was just a little tiny in the immortal
Speaker 2: words of Angelina Jolie Blob, which were just a little
Speaker 2: gorgeous little blob, we had a voice for her, and
Speaker 2: same thing, right, like, what does she do when we're
Speaker 2: not looking when she's in her cot Like we created
Speaker 2: a whole world for her. And I wonder if it's
Speaker 2: like when you love things, people, pets, whatever, like you
Speaker 2: create these worlds for them, and then as you say me,
Speaker 2: other things shuffle along and you've got to change that.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about how it's kind of a bit
Speaker 2: of an offensive idea to say that pets are basically
Speaker 2: baby substitutes, which is what this lady was sort of
Speaker 2: saying in this piece, as she was saying, we don't
Speaker 2: really mean for that to be the case, but that
Speaker 2: is what they are. And then I was taking that
Speaker 2: to the jd vance extreme of like childless cat laid
Speaker 2: and what a sort of insulting idea that is. But
Speaker 2: then I also know parents who get very pissed off
Speaker 2: when people who don't have kids but have pets compare
Speaker 2: those loves. We've read those IROLLI pieces about people who
Speaker 2: want pet bereavement leave, and people will roll their eyes
Speaker 2: about that. And I don't think anyone here necessarily would
Speaker 2: because we've all lost beloved pets.
Speaker 1: But there's almost like.
Speaker 2: We really want to create a leaderboard for everybody in
Speaker 2: the world about what matterson, who loves who most, and
Speaker 2: all those things.
Speaker 3: I don't know why that makes people so mad. If
Speaker 3: someone sees their dog as their baby. I think that's fantastic.
Speaker 3: I think if you love something that much, I think
Speaker 3: if you're trying to compare it in terms of how
Speaker 3: much work and responsibility it is, I think you're probably wrong.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's comparable. But I don't think that's
Speaker 3: a problem. I think that if you're a person who
Speaker 3: just goes, you know what, I'm going to have a
Speaker 3: dog or two, or a cat or whatever and love
Speaker 3: this as much as I would love a baby, I
Speaker 3: think that's a fantastic.
Speaker 1: I was reading an interview with Dan Levy, you know,
Speaker 1: from Shit's Creek. He wrote this movie and starting it
Speaker 1: about grief, and he was talking about how his inspiration
Speaker 1: for writing the movie was that his grandmother died during
Speaker 1: COVID who he was close to. But then his dog
Speaker 1: died right before filming started, and he'd had this dog
Speaker 1: and spent every day with this dog for like fifteen
Speaker 1: years and had come on to set with him and everything.
Speaker 1: And he said that impacted me more than my grandmother dying,
Speaker 1: because it was he wasn't trying to compare them and
Speaker 1: put them on the leaderboard, but he said it was
Speaker 1: the most significant relationship of my life in terms of hours.
Speaker 1: Like he doesn't have a partner, or he hasn't had
Speaker 1: a long term partner. And you know, he loved his grandmother,
Speaker 1: but he sort of saw her a few times a
Speaker 1: year kind of thing. But his dog he'd been with
Speaker 1: every day for fifteen years. And people can have seasons.
Speaker 1: And I think that instinct that you talk about, Jesse,
Speaker 1: were biologically programmed to prayor tise our children over our
Speaker 1: dogs when they're helpless, our babies over everything. I remember
Speaker 1: bringing my second child home or my third child home,
Speaker 1: and you have that thing when you haven't a second child,
Speaker 1: if you do and you think, oh, how will I
Speaker 1: ever love any one as much as this first child?
Speaker 1: And then I found myself. She got a little bit
Speaker 1: too close and she was about three, and I kind
Speaker 1: of lashed out. I didn't hit her or anything, but
Speaker 1: I was just like I gave her a bit of
Speaker 1: a fright because I sort of put my hand up instinctively,
Speaker 1: and I remember being incredibly guilty but feeling that visceral
Speaker 1: protective instinct. And I knew in that moment, if I
Speaker 1: had to choose who to protect, I just instinctively was
Speaker 1: going to choose the one that needed me to protect
Speaker 1: them the most of the weakest. And I remember someone
Speaker 1: who you know quite well, Jesse, talking to them about
Speaker 1: having a baby and saying, I don't know if I'll
Speaker 1: ever love anyone as much as I love my dog.
Speaker 1: And I know that feeling too, And then there's just
Speaker 1: there is more love. But in terms of what's in
Speaker 1: it for the dog or the cat, I would say
Speaker 1: it's a net negative. But that's also okay.
Speaker 3: I don't know Chili's getting a lot of leftovers, yeah,
Speaker 3: that she's getting a lot of feod in upside and
Speaker 3: look downside for Chili? Is that my camera roll my
Speaker 3: phone background. Yeah, used to be Chili used to be everywhere?
Speaker 3: And do I take less photos of chili? I do?
Speaker 3: I will admit that publicly. Does chili mind? I don't
Speaker 3: think so.
Speaker 1: Before you had Luna, we used to have a family
Speaker 1: group chat with some members of our family and your sister,
Speaker 1: and it used to be about our dogs, our shared dogs,
Speaker 1: of which there've been different numbers over the years as
Speaker 1: dogs have come and gone, but not being rehomeed, not
Speaker 1: being put down. Sadly, one died. We acquired a couple
Speaker 1: of new ones, and that used to be one of
Speaker 1: the most active group chats on my phone, and gosh,
Speaker 1: it's been dormant for a while. I couldn't even remember.
Speaker 1: I wanted to put something in there the other day
Speaker 1: and I couldn't even remember what it was called.
Speaker 2: I think when we lost our dog Elvi, I wrote
Speaker 2: a story I remember saying, like dogs are a place
Speaker 2: where you put your feelings, like I think pets are,
Speaker 2: like they are a place where you put your feelings.
Speaker 2: You know, you can be silly and fun with them,
Speaker 2: you can be cuddly and loving with them. And to
Speaker 2: the point about the Dan Levy story, I remember when
Speaker 2: we lost Elvie, and we were also upset, and Brent
Speaker 2: was particularly devastated. A lot of women said to me, oh,
Speaker 2: my husband or my brother or whatever. He couldn't cry
Speaker 2: when he lost his sibling or his parent, whatever. He
Speaker 2: cried a river when he lost his dog. Again. I
Speaker 2: think it's like a place you can put your feelings,
Speaker 2: that is like an uncomplicated place, you know.
Speaker 3: There's such a simplicity too. And the stage that I'm
Speaker 3: in with a you know, just over one year old,
Speaker 3: there's a simplicity to that too, which is that I
Speaker 3: will walk in the door this afternoon and there will
Speaker 3: be a dog and a baby that think I am
Speaker 3: the best person in the world. Like I walk in
Speaker 3: and there's smiles from her and the dog's tail wags,
Speaker 3: and it is like I am the best, and I
Speaker 3: know that's not going to be there forever. But I
Speaker 3: see a similarity in that way, that there's a simplicity
Speaker 3: whatever happens. People can accuse me of rehoming my dog
Speaker 3: on the internet.
Speaker 1: We do need proof ofly.
Speaker 3: I come home.
Speaker 2: She did a defensive post.
Speaker 1: I saw it.
Speaker 2: She posted a picture of Luca really cuddling Chili. It
Speaker 2: was a very handsome picture of both of them, and
Speaker 2: now it's like that is such a defensive post.
Speaker 1: She was like, dog's still here.
Speaker 2: She wasn't quite holding up a newspaper with the date
Speaker 2: on it, but she could have been yeah.
Speaker 3: Out louders. Last week we announced the Clare and I
Speaker 3: are doing our biggest Lazy Girl giveaway ever. It is
Speaker 3: a trip for two to Turkey with Explore and Explore
Speaker 3: have organized the whole thing for you. So as part
Speaker 3: of this giveaway, you win a holiday valued at over
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Speaker 1: Do you know why this is perfect? Because I like
Speaker 1: going on holidays, but I cannot organize them. I just
Speaker 1: don't know. You can't find it too, can fusing and
Speaker 1: I just can't so the fact that it's organized and Turkey.
Speaker 1: Turkey's beautiful. I've been there before. It's gorgeous.
Speaker 3: That's one of the best places in the world. And
Speaker 3: if you are a Mum and maya subscriber, you're already
Speaker 3: in the running. You've entered a competition today, you could
Speaker 3: be winning a holiday to Turkey. If you are not
Speaker 3: a subscriber, but you would love to enter and enter
Speaker 3: all future Lazy Girl giveaways, you can use the code
Speaker 3: VAC twenty for twenty percent off a yearly Muma mea subscription.
Speaker 3: There's a link in the show note that applies the
Speaker 3: code automatically at checkout. Prize draw is on the twentieth
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Speaker 1: It's Friday, so we want to help set up your
Speaker 1: weekend with our best recommendations. Holly, you're going first, And
Speaker 1: I'm jealous because I wasn't paying attention in the meeting
Speaker 1: and you said this, and I was going to say it,
Speaker 1: but i just want to add a plus one and
Speaker 1: then I'll do what I have had to do because
Speaker 1: you got it first.
Speaker 2: Dibbs are called DIBs, but it's like shutgun when it's
Speaker 2: that case, which I think a couple of our recommendations,
Speaker 2: I to say it can be from both of us.
Speaker 2: We are allowed to chip appreciate. You are allowed that
Speaker 2: to do that because it does involve one of your friends.
Speaker 2: One Lee Sales, who out loud as would know is
Speaker 2: one of our friends, because what's one of me as friends?
Speaker 2: But will alclaimer she narrated one of the videos that
Speaker 2: our live show she did. I forgot about such a
Speaker 2: great friend of the parts. Hardly sales on Monday Night,
Speaker 2: Australian Story was an interview with Like different from the
Speaker 2: usual Australian Story style, which was just an interview with
Speaker 2: her and Nick Cave. Right, I don't think I need
Speaker 2: to explain. Do you think I need to explain to
Speaker 2: Nick Cave is me? It is very good at always
Speaker 2: making sure you know iconic seeing a couple of Australian
Speaker 2: rock star particularly enormous in the nineties and naughties red
Speaker 2: right hand into your arms, like straight to you, that's
Speaker 2: my favorite ship song. Like just an icon, right, but
Speaker 2: an icon for many years of like a sort of
Speaker 2: nihilistic drug adult gothic bad boy. I'm just going to
Speaker 2: say bad boy.
Speaker 3: I'm going to have that context because I've only known
Speaker 3: Nick Cave sort of in the last ten year.
Speaker 2: Yes, so that's interesting and always very cool, like cool
Speaker 2: is the word, Okay, Like unbelievably cool Nick Cave in
Speaker 2: The Bad Seeds, the Birthday Party, just cool, cool cool.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The thing is is that, as anyone who lives vaguely
Speaker 2: near the Internet would know, in the past decade, Nick
Speaker 2: Cave has suffered unthinkable loss. Several years ago, he lost
Speaker 2: his son Arthur, who was fifteen years old and tragically
Speaker 2: appears to have jumped from a cliff near their home
Speaker 2: on the south coast of England. And then a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago he lost his adult son, Jethro, who
Speaker 2: was thirty one. So unthinkable loss for anybody. But one
Speaker 2: of the things that's happened to Nick Cave in this
Speaker 2: decade or so since is he has completely sort of
Speaker 2: changed his I want to say, like his persona in
Speaker 2: that he started this something you would never have expect
Speaker 2: a person like Nick Cave to do. He did in
Speaker 2: the years after losing Arthur, which is that he started
Speaker 2: a newsletter basically called The Red Hand Files where he
Speaker 2: wrote about loss and grief, and he invited other people
Speaker 2: to do the same. They began to share all these stories.
Speaker 2: And he's turned that into music, and he's turned it
Speaker 2: into art, and he's turned it into part of his
Speaker 2: live show. And the reason I loved this interview with
Speaker 2: Lee so much, and I've listened to lots of interviews
Speaker 2: with him, and He's written an amazing book and about
Speaker 2: all of this stuff is it's like it brings home
Speaker 2: this kind of change that can come upon people as
Speaker 2: things happen to them in their lives, like there aren't
Speaker 2: that many people who get to midlife and beyond without
Speaker 2: suffering loss, not this level of lost necessarily, I'm not,
Speaker 2: you know, And there is no leader board of grief.
Speaker 2: But the depth of that and what the change in him,
Speaker 2: And he speaks very honestly about that. He says to Lee,
Speaker 2: like I always lived for art and thought that my
Speaker 2: art was the most important thing, and if I was
Speaker 2: off locked in a room creating it, that's what I
Speaker 2: was doing. And he's realized that actually, no connection is
Speaker 2: much more important.
Speaker 1: That he's a father.
Speaker 2: First, which all sounds like cliches until you hear him
Speaker 2: talking about it.
Speaker 4: For most of my life, I was just sort of
Speaker 4: in awe of my own genius because I was involved
Speaker 4: in this great work that you know, and this just
Speaker 4: collapsed completely, and I just sort of saw the folly
Speaker 4: of that, that idea that art sort of trounces everything.
Speaker 4: It just doesn't apply to me anymore. I am a father,
Speaker 4: and I'm a husband and a kind of person of
Speaker 4: the world. These things are much more important to me
Speaker 4: than the concept of being an artist.
Speaker 2: It's like seeing this elder statesman look back on that
Speaker 2: young version of himself too, and sort of also like
Speaker 2: kind of laughing at him, which is interesting.
Speaker 1: There's something called post traumatic growth that doesn't happen to everybody.
Speaker 1: We're much more familiar with post traumatic stress syndrome and
Speaker 1: the terrible things that can happen to people after they've
Speaker 1: experienced trauma, but there's another group of people who experience
Speaker 1: the exact opposite. And I've got a friend who lost
Speaker 1: a child, and she said it was like the light
Speaker 1: in her life was turned up, not down. And by that,
Speaker 1: of course, she doesn't mean I'm happier that I was
Speaker 1: or I'm glad that she lost the child. She doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that at all, of course, but she means that
Speaker 1: it brought Like Nick Kay said, it brought her life,
Speaker 1: meaning it opened her up to other people, It made
Speaker 1: her bigger in the world and in her heart, rather
Speaker 1: than shutting her down. And clearly that's what's happened to
Speaker 1: Nick Cave Like he gets hundreds of letters every week,
Speaker 1: and he says he reads every single one of them,
Speaker 1: and he chooses a couple to answer in the newsletter
Speaker 1: and he sees it as it because you know, you
Speaker 1: might hear that and think, oh, that's a burden, but
Speaker 1: you can really see that he's found purpose in a
Speaker 1: way that he probably thought he found in his music.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure at that time he did find a
Speaker 1: degree of purpose, but you're right in comparison to that,
Speaker 1: this is for him a much more profound sense of purpose.
Speaker 2: It's like he's looked up and out and I think
Speaker 2: that's something that happens Ideally, happens as you mature. I'm
Speaker 2: going to say, but like it's not all about you anymore,
Speaker 2: and you look up and out and hit his grief
Speaker 2: and his loss has made him do that. It's a
Speaker 2: great interview because at times he's a bit testy with Lee.
Speaker 2: You can tell that he's been talking about this for
Speaker 2: a long time now and he's kind of ready to
Speaker 2: close the chapter.
Speaker 1: Almost that's actually not true. So I was talking to
Speaker 1: Lee about it, and I really liked that they left
Speaker 1: in the little niggle where he says, actually, today is
Speaker 1: the anniversary of Jethro's death, and he looks a little
Speaker 1: bit stricken and she says, oh, I'm so sorry. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that it was today, and then he's like, look,
Speaker 1: that's okay. I didn't expect it to come up so
Speaker 1: early in the interview, and she said that that made
Speaker 1: it seem like she'd kind of brought it up. Lee's
Speaker 1: never defensive, and she wasn't being defensive, but she said,
Speaker 1: what he was actually saying is that he is the
Speaker 1: one that always brings it up now and that he
Speaker 1: wants to talk about it all the time. And she
Speaker 1: said he kept bringing it back to that. And one
Speaker 1: of the most moving things was when he talked about,
Speaker 1: as you said, the meaning that he finds in being
Speaker 1: a father and a husband, and he said, and I'm
Speaker 1: a grandfather now.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just been the most amazing experience. I
Speaker 4: wasn't quite prepared for how much it would affect me.
Speaker 4: This little guy's names Roman Roman Cave is such a
Speaker 4: gorgeous looking little creature. I mean, it's extraordinary. It's made
Speaker 4: me extra extraordinarily happy.
Speaker 1: And the way that he says that I was just
Speaker 1: in tears through this interview. It was really really beautiful.
Speaker 2: And I didn't mean to suggest that Lee was at all,
Speaker 2: But what I meant is I've listen to a lot
Speaker 2: of conversations with him about this, and you can sort
Speaker 2: of feel that he's.
Speaker 1: Like, do you know the other thing that's interesting the
Speaker 1: almost try to move through it. It wasn't touched on
Speaker 1: in this, but I've heard him say before, because you're right,
Speaker 1: it does come up, and how could it not come
Speaker 1: up in every sort of long form interview that he does.
Speaker 1: There's an interview that he did with Llui Throw where
Speaker 1: it came up as well. That's a beautiful interview too.
Speaker 1: But he said, I can talk about Arthur, but Jethrow,
Speaker 1: who is his eldest son by his previous partner. Jethrow's
Speaker 1: mother doesn't like me to talk about Jethrow. And he
Speaker 1: said that's actually really difficult because Jethrow is my son too,
Speaker 1: and I don't want it to seem like his death
Speaker 1: affected me any less, but out of respect to her.
Speaker 1: In the issuew Lee, he talks about Susie, his wife,
Speaker 1: and Arthur's mother. He said a mother losing a child
Speaker 1: is different to a father losing a child. And he
Speaker 1: said I watched her just almost in toomb herself in
Speaker 1: the dark in bed, not being able to get up,
Speaker 1: and then he said watching her eventually rise from that
Speaker 1: and get back to work and rejoin the world, he
Speaker 1: said that was just an awe inspiring thing to see.
Speaker 1: It was such, it's on my view. Go to it.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful.
Speaker 3: I want to recommend a podcast. I haven't listened to
Speaker 3: a sort of podcast series in a very long.
Speaker 1: Time at Limited Series.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I came across it's called Hysterical and it's a
Speaker 3: wondering podcast. And I've listened to the first five episodes,
Speaker 3: which are all that are available so far, and I'm
Speaker 3: really enjoying it. I'm sort of racing through it.
Speaker 1: Need too.
Speaker 2: I'm calling DIBs on this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 1: In twenty eleven, something strange began to happen at the
Speaker 1: high school and Leroy in New York. There was a
Speaker 1: lot going on with these girls having outbursts.
Speaker 3: Reporting more than a dozen girls at Leroy High School
Speaker 3: say they have an illness that causes severe tics and
Speaker 3: verbal outburst.
Speaker 1: I was like my locker and came up to me
Speaker 1: and she was like starting super bad. I'm like stucking around.
Speaker 1: She's like I can't. I felt like Linda Blair in
Speaker 1: The Exorcise.
Speaker 3: It's about a mysterious illness that spread to a number
Speaker 3: of high school girls in upstate New York. I remember
Speaker 3: this story.
Speaker 1: From the ticking during COVID.
Speaker 3: No no, no before that. So it was like these girls
Speaker 3: started exhibiting like spasms, siezures, ticks, and it was the
Speaker 3: same kind of noises that they'd make, almost like tourette style, like.
Speaker 1: You know, this happened during COVID as well around the world. Yeah, yeah, this.
Speaker 2: Is in one little town.
Speaker 3: This is in one little town called Leroy in the US,
Speaker 3: And basically a bunch of psychiatrists looked at it and
Speaker 3: then they had the state come in and examine what
Speaker 3: was going on, and they put it down to like
Speaker 3: a type of social contagion, sort of like you know
Speaker 3: what teenage girls are, like they're a bit mad. Then
Speaker 3: what happened is they started looking at like is there
Speaker 3: an environmental explanation, And the podcast goes back, it looks
Speaker 3: at the Salem witch trials. It looks at if there
Speaker 3: was a similar thing going on there, why would these
Speaker 3: symptoms come up? And then they look at you know,
Speaker 3: it happened with a group of military men or men
Speaker 3: who were deployed the other side of the world and
Speaker 3: started coming up with these symptoms. It didn't make sense,
Speaker 3: but that were clustered group hysteria. Yeah, so it's kind
Speaker 3: of about mass hysteria and contagion and if there is
Speaker 3: an explanation and I'm still not sure, but it even
Speaker 3: involves Aaron Brockovich makes it an appearance because she came
Speaker 3: in to check, you know, with zer something in the
Speaker 3: water soccer field the water exactly? Was that it? And Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's about women's health. It's about when you kind of
Speaker 3: stop asking questions and what it means to say it's
Speaker 3: all in your head. How dismissive women's women have always been. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I'm really interested.
Speaker 2: It's all so funny. Like I'm really enjoying the podcast,
Speaker 2: Like it sounds really serious. Really like the way he
Speaker 2: tells the story is great. It's got humor, and he's
Speaker 2: spoken to all these girls and all their parents and
Speaker 2: it's just very satisfying.
Speaker 3: I find I'm loving it.
Speaker 2: For links to all our recommendations, you've got to be
Speaker 2: signed up to the mom and Mia out Loud newsletter.
Speaker 2: I often see out louders go in the Facebook group
Speaker 2: and they're going, like, what was that show? What was
Speaker 2: that thing? Just sign up for the newsletter and you
Speaker 2: will get the links to all our recommendations as well
Speaker 2: as lots of behind the scenes gossip and stuff from
Speaker 2: our friend m Vernon. There's a link in the show
Speaker 2: notes for how.
Speaker 1: You do that.
Speaker 3: One unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday
Speaker 3: and Thursday exclusively for Mom and Maya subscribers. Follow the
Speaker 3: link in the show notes to get us in your
Speaker 3: ears five days a week. And a huge thank you
Speaker 3: to all our current subscribers. It's time for our best
Speaker 3: and worst of the week. This is a part of
Speaker 3: the show where we share a little bit more from
Speaker 3: our personal lives. Maya, what is your worst?
Speaker 1: My worst is that I'm going to the Logis in
Speaker 1: I think forty eight hours and I don't have anything to.
Speaker 3: Waste my best. I'm so excited to the LOGI.
Speaker 2: I want to know what you're I'm so obsessed with
Speaker 2: the outfit journey.
Speaker 3: Like what are the options of the options?
Speaker 1: Like what? I don't mean to be rude. My worst
Speaker 1: is going to the logis And that sounds very privileged
Speaker 1: and ungrateful, but it's not my jam. I don't like
Speaker 1: going to big, fancy things. I don't like going then
Speaker 1: on a Sunday night, or actually any night.
Speaker 3: Can I tell you that? I follow Laura Burn on
Speaker 3: Instagram and this week she shared a story of her
Speaker 3: at a very fancy dress shop in a ball gown,
Speaker 3: being like getting ready for the logis, and I panicked
Speaker 3: for you. I was like, Maya really needs to get
Speaker 3: on a dress because Laura's really good. And Maya has
Speaker 3: miss Laura on TV.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not on TV. May J. Yeah, she's on,
Speaker 1: but Maddy J on TV. I don't know that on TV.
Speaker 1: Really not on TV. I really I'm glad that Laura's
Speaker 1: going to be there because that's another person I know.
Speaker 2: But there's people I've seen My Instagram is wall to
Speaker 2: wall people getting prosiegees, people get putting their face, musket
Speaker 2: in their hair, like people have been gaming this for weeks.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 1: So the reason I'm going out that is because Strife,
Speaker 1: which I co produced, is nominated for Best Comedy, and
Speaker 1: so I've been invited by Binge. I'm at the Binge
Speaker 1: table going with Bruner, feeling very anxious about it. Anxious
Speaker 1: because I feel like I'm gonna be bored because it
Speaker 1: goes for six hours and it's just not my thing, right,
Speaker 1: It's just not my thing. And then also it's a
Speaker 1: very tricky wardrobe assignment. Not onl like your wedding, Jesse, on.
Speaker 3: The invite to the logis because get your address, cod.
Speaker 1: Probably says black tight. I mean it's black tight. Everyone
Speaker 1: watched the logies. You've seen the logis. It's bloody fancy.
Speaker 1: You don't get much fancy than the logis. As you say,
Speaker 1: people have had things made. They're wearing ball gowns. Now,
Speaker 1: there has never been more of a side character at
Speaker 1: the logies than me. Right, Like, exactly why am I
Speaker 1: going to the logis? It is not my night. I'm
Speaker 1: like Asha Kenny, for example, nominated for gold Strife.
Speaker 3: Do you know what she's wearing and chatting?
Speaker 1: I forgot to ask. I just keep telling her I'm
Speaker 1: worried about being.
Speaker 3: So mayor what are your options?
Speaker 1: Well, so what I was going to do is, you know,
Speaker 1: with your wedding, Jesse. I went and tried on like
Speaker 1: forty five different dresses. Literally, I think it was forty
Speaker 1: five different dresses, and it was a whole thing. And
Speaker 1: I put on Instagram and I was like, I'll do
Speaker 1: that this time. It'll be great content. And then I went,
Speaker 1: I can't be bothered, and so I didn't, and I
Speaker 1: tried on two dresses last weekend I took photos of
Speaker 1: them and I was like, I'll start making it. No,
Speaker 1: I can't be bothered. I couldn't even be like even
Speaker 1: those two dresses was too much.
Speaker 3: So you're doing like a floor length number?
Speaker 1: Is that my shopping?
Speaker 2: Your closet is what you told So what we're doing
Speaker 2: is we're trying on things from the closet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sunday morning, binge, very kindly say more. Do you
Speaker 1: want to come and have your hair and makeup done?
Speaker 1: That's my other worst nightmare. We've got a slot for
Speaker 1: you at eight thirty am. I was like, what time
Speaker 1: do you have to be it? I don't know, Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to know all. You know what. My first
Speaker 1: thing whenever I'm asked anywhere, the first thing I asked,
Speaker 1: what time can I go home?
Speaker 3: And well, I'm not vain, but you need to get
Speaker 3: a hair made. No tell me that you're not doing
Speaker 3: a stand up.
Speaker 1: Of course I am.
Speaker 3: Of course I couldn't stand you can't do hair.
Speaker 1: You're getting my hairmake up done at eight thirty. Why
Speaker 1: you are a box of hair.
Speaker 2: This is why you're an enigma wrapped in a riddle,
Speaker 2: Mere Friedman. Because one of the things people think when
Speaker 2: they think mere freedman? Is they do think fashion, don't right? Yeah?
Speaker 2: They know you love clothes. Yep, they know you do.
Speaker 2: You would imagine that for a lot of people who
Speaker 2: love clothes. Yes, this is their like everything that you
Speaker 2: are pull the joy. It's a stylist is like, can
Speaker 2: I address you?
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, let because I can't be bothered. It's
Speaker 1: boring to me. It's not interesting.
Speaker 3: Can you wear eyelashes? You can't go to the.
Speaker 2: Bother explain over the makeup art is Lucy? Who does
Speaker 2: this for the show.
Speaker 1: I just don't want to. I'm going to leave and
Speaker 1: get there late. No one is looking at me. You
Speaker 1: know when you and you're going to let, no one
Speaker 1: is looking at you.
Speaker 2: You're representing us.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine my worst nightmare, which I'm also having
Speaker 1: anxiety about, if someone grabs me and says, will you
Speaker 1: be on that spinny thing?
Speaker 3: So people, I'll give you one hundred dollars if you get.
Speaker 2: I should just.
Speaker 1: March up and leap onto the spinny thing. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're at home and you're watching the logos and
Speaker 1: you're like, who the fuck is that?
Speaker 3: Please get on the spinny You're being a drain.
Speaker 2: I need you to lift a radiator for the logies.
Speaker 1: It's so true as I'm going to be back on
Speaker 1: Monday with all the gossip.
Speaker 3: And may are speaking of the logis you can still vote?
Speaker 1: You can that.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to say lines are still open, but
Speaker 3: we'll have a Lincoln.
Speaker 1: Keep Online online kind of line.
Speaker 2: I want to say the lines are still open. Good.
Speaker 3: If you want to see me, are looking revolting on
Speaker 3: stage after winning?
Speaker 1: Yes, loud as, if you want to see me in
Speaker 1: real time trying to get an uber? Actually what am
Speaker 1: I talking about? I will drive because I'm only going
Speaker 1: to have one drink.
Speaker 3: If you want to see me or in a tracksuit,
Speaker 3: a shiny face and bad hair. Yeah, we need to win.
Speaker 3: Needs to win, needs to win. So it's in the
Speaker 3: comedy category. And why are you there but for Asher? Yeah,
Speaker 3: for the gold.
Speaker 1: What's your best?
Speaker 2: Come on, cheer up, Dob.
Speaker 1: My best is my youngest child turned sixteen this week
Speaker 1: and we went out for a family dinner, which you
Speaker 1: didn't come to, Jesse because you had to babysit your
Speaker 1: own child. What do you call it? Anyway, we did
Speaker 1: and it was so No, she's not in the family
Speaker 1: group chat. We do have one group chat. No, she's
Speaker 1: in the family group chat. I just love this age.
Speaker 1: You know, I've written a lot about the sadness of
Speaker 1: your children growing up, particularly your sons and leaving you,
Speaker 1: and it bang sad and everything. And I'm now kind
Speaker 1: of at this stage where all my kids are at
Speaker 1: that age where they're kind of I'm going to get
Speaker 1: into seud of trouble saying this my mates disgusting. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: just kick her out at the group just burping into
Speaker 1: the microphone to go home anyway. Sorry, I like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm really tired of bearing him. It's been twenty eight
Speaker 1: years and now I feel like my youngest is sixteen.
Speaker 1: I know I'm not over the finish line yet, but
Speaker 1: it just feels like it's just at a good age.
Speaker 1: You know, you can swear in front of them, you
Speaker 1: can kind of just it's good. I love him. He's
Speaker 1: very drive. Someone has to not me. I'm the worst
Speaker 1: driving the family. But it's lovely. They're like, my kids
Speaker 1: are my favorite people to hang out with, apart from
Speaker 1: YouTube witches. They really I love hanging out with them.
Speaker 1: They're just good fun. They're funny.
Speaker 2: Did you have a really nice dinner.
Speaker 1: We had a really nice dinner.
Speaker 2: Yet there's Rabbil like food the way that looksal likes food.
Speaker 2: Some of you like food and some of you not
Speaker 2: as much.
Speaker 1: Remi likes fragrance. Yeah, that's right. Luca used to like
Speaker 1: food but now sort of doesn't really care. Holly, what's
Speaker 1: your worst of the way, Okay.
Speaker 2: It's a bit grim. You can probably tell from like
Speaker 2: my Nick gave recommendation. I'm feeling very nihilistic point of
Speaker 2: it all, you know. It's a bit like that meaning,
Speaker 2: But my best are related. So my worst is being
Speaker 2: far from my parents. I know this is like a
Speaker 2: recurring theme because okay, I have been living far from
Speaker 2: them for oh like twenty five maybe nearly thirty years.
Speaker 2: But anyway, they're getting old, as I've discussed because I
Speaker 2: went home earlier this year for my dad's eliath. But
Speaker 2: they're at the moment things are happening that are just
Speaker 2: not great, and it's just hard, right, It's really hard.
Speaker 2: It's hard to feel helpless at a distance. It's hard
Speaker 2: to not want to like jump in and order it,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can't.
Speaker 2: Lots of my friends because I've got quite a lot
Speaker 2: of friends, particularly Sydney friends who are from other places,
Speaker 2: and that a lot of them are having these similar things.
Speaker 2: And I've spoken before about the plane dashes they have
Speaker 2: to make, but one of the things too is that
Speaker 2: often their siblings will be back where they are and
Speaker 2: having to take on caring responsibilities, and it's hard to
Speaker 2: not be there. And also this kind of weird tension
Speaker 2: about like how involved can you be, how much can
Speaker 2: you control or suggest it's really hard watching them through
Speaker 2: a phone screen, like just not being great. And I'm
Speaker 2: finding that very difficult. And it's interesting because obviously a
Speaker 2: lot of the content are making for mid at the
Speaker 2: moment is about that kind of stage of life.
Speaker 1: So it's like a remote sandwich, like the Sandwich generation,
Speaker 1: but a remote sandwich.
Speaker 2: And also it's hard because you know, I'm not always
Speaker 2: very good at like making decisions to action, very unlike
Speaker 2: me who's very good at decisions to action. But like
Speaker 2: it really is perplexing to know what the right thing
Speaker 2: to do is because you can't be on a plane
Speaker 2: every week. Obviously you can't tell grown up people what
Speaker 2: to do, you know what I mean, Like you can't
Speaker 2: say I think this and I think that, and also
Speaker 2: you don't know you're not there all the time, Like
Speaker 2: it's perplexing to make decisions that you can feel comfortable
Speaker 2: and confident about. You can't plan too far into the
Speaker 2: future because you don't know how things are going to be,
Speaker 2: because generally speaking, things don't tend to get a lot
Speaker 2: better when it comes to There.
Speaker 1: Was a beautiful newsletter that I sent to you whole
Speaker 1: that was written by an out louder called Ruth Divine
Speaker 1: and her newsletters called bearwith She's also English and her
Speaker 1: mother recently passed away in the UK, and she wrote
Speaker 1: about what that felt like, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: didn't know whether to send it to you or not,
Speaker 1: but I thought ultimately it might be helpful, and I
Speaker 1: thought she articulated it really BEAUTI with me, absolutely beautiful,
Speaker 1: because I think it's such a difficult thing.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying it's not any more difficult. In fact,
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's a lot less difficult than caring for
Speaker 2: elderly parents or worrying about elderly parents who are down
Speaker 2: the road.
Speaker 1: And a different type.
Speaker 2: And that's also part of it, because then there's also guilt.
Speaker 2: You're also dealing with quite a bit of guilt about
Speaker 2: like the choices you made that landed you there and
Speaker 2: all that stuff. But my best is the flip side
Speaker 2: of that, right, it's the wisdom from the women who've
Speaker 2: been there before in lots of ways. So one of
Speaker 2: the things was I spoke to Kylie Gillies on mid
Speaker 2: this week. She lives in New South Wales and her
Speaker 2: parents living Quisland, and during the COVID lockdowns, her father
Speaker 2: died and she couldn't be there and her sister, she's
Speaker 2: one of two girls, and her sister has been the
Speaker 2: person who's doing all the caring for their parents. And
Speaker 2: I asked her, I said, what's your best advice for
Speaker 2: like long distance caring? And she said, the sibling who's
Speaker 2: on the grounds their job to do the caring for
Speaker 2: the parents right and do the things they need to do.
Speaker 2: Your job is to support them, to support the care.
Speaker 2: You're caring for the care. So it's quite an easy
Speaker 2: trap to fall into. I think to call your sister
Speaker 2: brother whatever and be like you should be doing this
Speaker 2: and why aren't you doing that? And I think they
Speaker 2: should be doing this, and da da da da da.
Speaker 2: She's like, that's not your place because you're not there.
Speaker 2: You should be the one who they can call and
Speaker 2: blow off steam to. You're the one who helps how
Speaker 2: you can, whether that's financially or emotionally, supporting the person
Speaker 2: who's doing all the caring. I thought that was really
Speaker 2: good advice. Yeah, and I've shared that with a few
Speaker 2: of my friends, and some of my friends are the
Speaker 2: person who's doing the caring. And I was saying, this
Speaker 2: is what you need to tell your sibling that you
Speaker 2: need from them. So I think that was very good advice.
Speaker 2: But also I was talking to a good maid of
Speaker 2: mine yesterday who has lost her dad and is, you know,
Speaker 2: going through watching her mom. You know, it's such an
Speaker 2: awful word to say, decline, but don't decline, right. I
Speaker 2: think her mantra is be nice to your mom and
Speaker 2: eat the truffles and what she means by that, and
Speaker 2: I think it's the.
Speaker 1: Best advice ever. Right.
Speaker 2: Be nice to your mom is an umbrella term that
Speaker 2: doesn't just mean literally be nice to your mom, but
Speaker 2: it means make the call you don't want to make.
Speaker 2: It's what we were talking about about caring the other week,
Speaker 2: not last week, but recently, Jesse. When you were talking
Speaker 2: about feeling guilty sometimes that you haven't called Simon or
Speaker 2: done whatever. It's like, be nice your mom just broadly
Speaker 2: means like do the right thing as much as you can,
Speaker 2: like do make those calls. It is sometimes boring and
Speaker 2: difficult talking to people who are elderly or sick or
Speaker 2: all those things, but you know, be nice to your
Speaker 2: mom and then eat the truffles. Part is about you,
Speaker 2: and it's about being kind to yourself. The reason that's
Speaker 2: my friend's mantra is that she loves trouble Now and
Speaker 2: she's like, I shouldn't eat the truffles, but I'm going
Speaker 2: to eat the truffles, and I'm like, it's like being
Speaker 2: kind to yourself. Whether it's having that glass of wine.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know that's not a healthy crutch, but
Speaker 2: you know, or letting yourself go on that weekend.
Speaker 1: Away or whatever. It is, like look after yourself and.
Speaker 2: Be nice to your mum is probably the best advice
Speaker 2: because you don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: It's great.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, that's where I've landed this week. Jesse Stevens
Speaker 2: cheer us all up.
Speaker 3: I like that a lot. Well, my worst isn't that cheery.
Speaker 3: But you know how earlier this week we're talking about
Speaker 3: panic attacks and talking about Carrie and Nate. Weirdly, this week,
Speaker 3: I was recording an episode of podcasts, not this one,
Speaker 3: and I felt myself panicking, and I reckon, I've recorded thousands,
Speaker 3: thousands of podcasts over eight years and years and years,
Speaker 3: and I went, oh, I can actually feel it, and
Speaker 3: I I felt really anxious. It's funny because when I
Speaker 3: was reading about this story too, I wondered if there
Speaker 3: was a contagious element to it, because you know how
Speaker 3: it's sometimes this of the prospect of the panic attack. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that can kind of trigger you. But for some reason,
Speaker 3: I was just in this context and the whole thing
Speaker 3: with podcasting, and maybe this is why I've enjoyed it
Speaker 3: and leant into it, is that less so than TV,
Speaker 3: I think you have to be very in the moment,
Speaker 3: Like you have to be very focused, and you can't
Speaker 3: spiral because you have to be having a present conversation
Speaker 3: that is unfolding at a rapid rate. In this moment,
Speaker 3: I just felt this, like this has to be good.
Speaker 3: This isn't good enough. You're not doing a good job,
Speaker 3: this isn't going very well, be better, be better, And
Speaker 3: then I was pulling myself out of it, which makes
Speaker 3: it impossible to actually be plugged in and paying attention,
Speaker 3: and it was so uncomfortable. I managed to kind of
Speaker 3: get back into it, but it was just funny that
Speaker 3: in light of did.
Speaker 1: You stop and say I just need a minute because
Speaker 1: it's not live podcasting, I mean we recorded as live, but.
Speaker 3: I needly did, which is I've said that a few times,
Speaker 3: and I reckon when I'm podcasting, I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 3: could really do with thirty seconds just to myself to
Speaker 3: kind of because I reckon, it's aboutating just right, But
Speaker 3: I actually did what. I was listening to a podcast
Speaker 3: recently with a psychologist I love, who said when that
Speaker 3: happens and you start to I think they call it
Speaker 3: like depersonalization, like where you feel as though you're kind
Speaker 3: of being pulled out of the most Yeah, and it
Speaker 3: can happen with social anxiety. Whoever you're talking to, if
Speaker 3: you feel like you're losing kind of touch with the situation,
Speaker 3: you have to just focus on a tiny bit of
Speaker 3: their face, like focus on their nose, or focus on
Speaker 3: their just something very much in front of you that
Speaker 3: will kind of hold reorient you into the moment, and
Speaker 3: I actually found that that did help and kind of
Speaker 3: stopped all the nosy thoughts. My best has been that
Speaker 3: my mum at the moment is doing Mondays and Wednesdays
Speaker 3: with a Luna and walking in like after my day
Speaker 3: when Mum and Luna have had that, and I know
Speaker 3: they've got their secrets, they think, I don't know that
Speaker 3: someone's having hot chips, and it's just such a joy.
Speaker 3: And then on there's another day that may or you
Speaker 3: have Luna. And last week you had Luna and Lucra
Speaker 3: and I work that day and we found an hour
Speaker 3: in the afternoon and we looked at each other and
Speaker 3: we went, let's go get a cocktail and we went
Speaker 3: up to the pub. Well, you had Luna and sat
Speaker 3: with each other and I had a margerator and it
Speaker 3: was just the best afternoon, like to actually just have
Speaker 3: that moment.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's funny the gratitude thing, and I've always been very
Speaker 3: bad at that, but I must say I have never
Speaker 3: been more grateful for like family and seemingly not those
Speaker 3: you know, massive shiny things, but just being able to
Speaker 3: come home and go my relationship with my grandmother's was
Speaker 3: one of the greatest joys of my life and to
Speaker 3: see that that gets perpetuated is just such sure, the best,
Speaker 3: the best thing ever.
Speaker 1: And after Luna this week as well, which was just
Speaker 1: hilarious and delightful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look the people being called on to babysit.
Speaker 1: And I love how it's only when you babysit a
Speaker 1: child that you get a relationship with them because one on one, Yeah,
Speaker 1: one on one, because otherwise you're always the B team.
Speaker 1: If someone else, like if I was only spent time
Speaker 1: with Luna around you, Jesse, I would never be the
Speaker 1: A team because it's you're the A team. But when
Speaker 1: there's no one else there, I'm the A team. And
Speaker 1: then when I'm not there, Jase became the A team
Speaker 1: and it was so nice, gorgeous.
Speaker 3: Speaking of families and people managing careers, babies, we actually
Speaker 3: had a very interesting conversation as part of a subscriber
Speaker 3: episode this week. It was all about a particular celebrities
Speaker 3: divorce dilemma. So she has separated from her partner and
Speaker 3: in an interview basically said despite all her status, all
Speaker 3: her money, all her capital, she fell into the trap
Speaker 3: that a lot of women do in terms of having
Speaker 3: all the domestic label while also making all the money.
Speaker 3: And we looked at the question as well of whether
Speaker 3: when you have small children you can both have big jobs.
Speaker 3: It's very interesting.
Speaker 1: We'll put a link in the show notes. You can
Speaker 1: listen right now.
Speaker 2: It's all we've got time for today and this week.
Speaker 2: A big thank you to all of you out louders
Speaker 2: for listening to today's show.
Speaker 1: I hope you're.
Speaker 2: All going to be watching the log He's on Sunday
Speaker 2: so we can see me.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine if I had to get up on stage, like,
Speaker 1: if we win, do you.
Speaker 3: Have to get a fo God?
Speaker 1: I hadn't even thought about that. I had because I'm like,
Speaker 1: I just want to wear trainers, Like can't I just like,
Speaker 1: who's going to care? And then I'm like, if we win,
Speaker 1: I mean, I won't say anything. I'll just be standing
Speaker 1: at the back.
Speaker 3: And you'll look terrible because you've not had your hair
Speaker 3: on making don't even look very shiny. You're gonna have.
Speaker 1: Proper out Louders.
Speaker 2: We'll be talking about it next week, you know it
Speaker 2: on Monday, and anyway, we're going to be back in
Speaker 2: the Thank you so much to also our amazing production
Speaker 2: team Emmeline Gazillis and audio production from Leah Porge's for
Speaker 2: making us sound good.
Speaker 1: We love you all.
Speaker 2: We'll see you next week.
Speaker 3: Bye bye.
Speaker 1: Shout out to any Mum and Mia subscribers listening. If
Speaker 1: you love the show and want to support us as well,
Speaker 1: subscribing to mom and Mia is the very best way
Speaker 1: to do so. There is a link in the episode
Speaker 1: description