Speaker 1: Welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast for parents who
Speaker 1: don't always listen to parenting podcasts. We like to take
Speaker 1: a look at the news and the trends and the
Speaker 1: culture and kind of what parents are thinking about. I'm
Speaker 1: Monique Bowley.
Speaker 2: I'm Amelia Lester, and I'm Stacy Hicks. And coming up
Speaker 2: on today's show, an Ozzie Kid has just released a
Speaker 2: viral banger and you're not going.
Speaker 1: To be able to get it out of your head.
Speaker 3: It's the parenting article of the week. A Wall Street
Speaker 3: Journal article on the rise of something called CEO parenting
Speaker 3: has triggered a debate on what you miss when you
Speaker 3: outsource your kids.
Speaker 1: And the kids party ritual that we need to abolish.
Speaker 2: But first, hot off the presses, my friends, Ashley Tisdale
Speaker 2: has brought up the mum group drama yet again, and
Speaker 2: long may she do that.
Speaker 3: It is the gift that keeps on.
Speaker 1: It really is, it really is.
Speaker 2: We're going on seven months now of this story and
Speaker 2: I'm not sick of it yet. So just a little
Speaker 2: mini recap if anyone has missed any of this drama.
Speaker 2: This all started on January one, New Year's Day. Ashley
Speaker 2: Tisdale puts out an essay with the cut titled breaking
Speaker 2: Up with My Toxic Mum Group. I thought I had
Speaker 2: found my village. Instead, I was back in high school.
Speaker 2: And this was significant at the time because Ashley Tisdale
Speaker 2: always posted photos with the Disney Star Holy Trinity, which
Speaker 2: was Hillary Duff and Mandy Moore, so all of them
Speaker 2: from Disney shows, all of them in a mum group.
Speaker 2: Meghan Trainer was also there, but seems largely unproblematic and
Speaker 2: uninvolved in this. I think she's just like off in
Speaker 2: the corner having a nice time. Then Hillary Duff's husband
Speaker 2: retaliated on her behalf mimicking the pose she was doing
Speaker 2: in the shoot for this story and saying calling her
Speaker 2: the most self obsessed, tone deaf person on earth, which
Speaker 2: you know is not backwards and coming forwards.
Speaker 3: Her husband goals, yes, he really is.
Speaker 1: He was like her ultimate defender.
Speaker 2: Mandy Moore brought it back up a few months ago,
Speaker 2: saying she was really disappointed. She just couldn't help herself
Speaker 2: by jumping in there. And now Ashley Tisdale is executive
Speaker 2: producing what's being described as a half hour dark comedy
Speaker 2: for Netflix called Toxic marb this.
Speaker 3: Is so selous.
Speaker 1: She sold the drama. She held it to the drama.
Speaker 2: She is making lemons out of this lemonade, lemonades out
Speaker 2: of this mom group drama, and it's so funny. Deadlines
Speaker 2: reporting it's an original idea informed by Ashley's life as
Speaker 2: a mom of two young children.
Speaker 1: Well, he gets to control the narrative now, right, Whenever
Speaker 1: she puts in this show, everyone's going to be like, well,
Speaker 1: that must have been how it went down. I do
Speaker 1: feel kind of like I feel kind of bad for
Speaker 1: the others that are involved here. It seems kind of
Speaker 1: one side. Yeah, completely agree.
Speaker 2: No word yet on when it's coming out, but I
Speaker 2: am already sat with my popcorn. I'm so ready to
Speaker 2: watch this, whether it's true or not.
Speaker 1: Guys, I know we have serious shit to talk about today,
Speaker 1: but actually all I want to talk about is Eastern
Speaker 1: Rosella's Eastern Rosella's Look at the Beautiful Colors.
Speaker 3: Say showed this to us earlier this week. She was
Speaker 3: first on the bandwagon, I want to say.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: The second I saw this, I thought of you too,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I need to send this to
Speaker 2: them now. They need to hear this. It has to
Speaker 2: be in the show somehow.
Speaker 1: If that sentence means absolutely nothing to you, Stacey, can
Speaker 1: you give the quick explainer? And do we have the music?
Speaker 2: Yes, we've got the music. We've got a little sampul
Speaker 2: for you here.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: So there's this Ozzie kid. We're not sure if he's
Speaker 2: seven or he's twelve. There's all kids like he's either
Speaker 2: of those.
Speaker 1: And nothing in between.
Speaker 3: Do we know where he lives?
Speaker 2: No, just that he's in Australia and his dad and
Speaker 2: him posted a video to TikTok and Instagram of him
Speaker 2: singing like an acoustic version of this song that he
Speaker 2: had written called Eastern Rosella's It went gangbusters, so him
Speaker 2: and his dad, Joel, So it's Miles Phillips's little boy.
Speaker 2: And his dad Joel recorded a full band version of
Speaker 2: this song. And I just need you to hear the
Speaker 2: intro to this song. You're gonna love it immediately.
Speaker 1: And it starts that in the boat Do you want
Speaker 1: this speciesus?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's so good. That's so good. It's so good.
Speaker 1: Doesn't it just sound like every cool band you listened
Speaker 1: to in the year two thousand and six?
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 2: It's just somehow nostalgic, even though a seven year old
Speaker 2: has written it. I love it so much, and now
Speaker 2: people are calling for this to be the Triple J
Speaker 2: Hottest one hundred number one song.
Speaker 1: It will be. It will be words, Yeah, it will be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so too.
Speaker 3: I just look it.
Speaker 2: It's such a bang up. This is going to be
Speaker 2: stuck in your head for the rest of the week.
Speaker 2: It's on Spotify like they professionally recorded it. You can
Speaker 2: listen to it. It's so good, so wholesome.
Speaker 1: I did that thing, that terrible thing. I couldn't help myself.
Speaker 1: But I was like, I wonder if I can turn
Speaker 1: this into a learning moment with my children because we're
Speaker 1: listening to it every morning. And then I said, this morning, guys,
Speaker 1: if you wrote a song about a bird, what would
Speaker 1: your song sah? I'm like, stop at money, what are
Speaker 1: you doing anyway? I saw a really funny meme that
Speaker 1: was like because now there's all these spin off memes,
Speaker 1: and the best one I saw today was this guy
Speaker 1: going all the Western rosellas listening to this song just
Speaker 1: being like, oh, yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 3: I guess I was there too.
Speaker 1: I was there too, but like, okay, whatever, No, big deal.
Speaker 1: My colors are kind of great too, No big deal.
Speaker 3: One nanny just isn't enough anymore for the super rich.
Speaker 3: There's an article in the Wall Street Journal this week
Speaker 3: by Jody lip McGraw about what Jody calls CEO parenting,
Speaker 3: and this article has gone absolutely off. It's triggered a
Speaker 3: big debate. But before I get into that, I just
Speaker 3: had to share a couple of crazy details from the
Speaker 3: piece with you. A woman interviewed who is a mother
Speaker 3: of two in fintech, and I know if I understood
Speaker 3: rot fintech was, I would be very rich as well.
Speaker 3: She spends three hundred and fifty thousand Aussie dollars every
Speaker 3: year on a team for her children. The team includes
Speaker 3: a bike riding tutor, a potty trainer, baby chef, personal
Speaker 3: assistant tasked with tracking down particular types of the boo boo.
Speaker 3: And the reason why she does all this is because
Speaker 3: she thinks that her time is better spent on more
Speaker 3: direct less sort of organizational tasks with her children. So
Speaker 3: that's what the debate basically boils down to. This is
Speaker 3: not just about CEOs. This is about how you approach
Speaker 3: parenting and what you think is most important. About parenting.
Speaker 3: On the one hand, you have the Emmagreeds of the world.
Speaker 3: She's that Skims co founder that we've talked about. She
Speaker 3: famously spends only three hours at a time with her
Speaker 3: kids on the weekend, and she prefers to prioritize what
Speaker 3: she calls high impact core memory, like taking fancy holidays.
Speaker 2: She's the one that said cutting up sandwiches is not
Speaker 2: for her exactly, so she never did it, chose not
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 3: So the most persuasive quote that I've heard from that perspective,
Speaker 3: it came from a woman in the article named Alexandra Fine.
Speaker 3: She is the CEO of a sexual wellness products company,
Speaker 3: and she says, every hour I spend folding laundry or
Speaker 3: scheduling a repair person is an hour I'm not present
Speaker 3: with my kids. That's not a philosophy, that's math. So
Speaker 3: the reason I like that quote and I bring it
Speaker 3: to you is because even though the CEOs exemplify particularly
Speaker 3: extreme sort of school of thought around this, every day
Speaker 3: mums and everyday dads have to make the decision about
Speaker 3: how to spend their twenty four hours in the day.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of the best argument for that side
Speaker 3: of the debate. On the other side of the debate,
Speaker 3: I guess at the extreme you might have tidwives, some homeschoolers,
Speaker 3: other women who think that any time spent away from
Speaker 3: your kids, particularly if you're a mother, is doing them harm.
Speaker 3: But then again, I wanted to pull in a quote
Speaker 3: from that side of the debate. Ivana Greco, who was
Speaker 3: a woman interviewed in the article with four children, a
Speaker 3: former lawyer who now writes a substack. She makes the
Speaker 3: argument that the most meaningful moments I have with my
Speaker 3: children are completely unexpected. They happen simply because we spend
Speaker 3: time together. So on the one hand, high impact core
Speaker 3: memory making, leave all the sort of like mundane tasks
Speaker 3: to someone else, And on the other hand, you have
Speaker 3: no the magic happens in the everyday moments, and that
Speaker 3: sort of the drudgery of folding laundry or making lunches,
Speaker 3: that is, in fact, where the most glorious moments of
Speaker 3: parenting come from. So that's the contours of this debate.
Speaker 3: Mon's where do you stand on that spectrum?
Speaker 1: Well, before I get to that, I think what was
Speaker 1: really interesting to me was the how charged the comments
Speaker 1: were on this article, and there were six hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty comments in less than twenty four hours, and they
Speaker 1: were all in the same kind of emotional register, which
Speaker 1: was this is sad, selfish, sickening, narcissistic. These clowns don't
Speaker 1: know what they're missing.
Speaker 3: This is ABOUTEO mums, this who are in the article.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is directed at the mums outsourcing the hard
Speaker 1: parts of parenting for the high value parts. One person wrote,
Speaker 1: these kids are going to make some lucky therapists very
Speaker 1: rich someday, and the top comment was being present for
Speaker 1: your child means clipping their tone, ouls, reading their favorite
Speaker 1: books seven times, getting vomited on, helping them open and
Speaker 1: close the door for forty five minutes, and somehow turning
Speaker 1: it into a game. The joys of parenting are inextricably
Speaker 1: tied to the work of parenting, and I think that's
Speaker 1: the crux of why everyone is so charged over this,
Speaker 1: because it does seem like this, this example of parenting
Speaker 1: breaks this kind of unspoken moral code that we have
Speaker 1: that we're sold about good parenting, which is that like
Speaker 1: love is proven through sacrifice, and that like the exhausting
Speaker 1: parts are the proof that you did it properly, and
Speaker 1: so when someone says, oh no, I'm going to delegate,
Speaker 1: all the tea spits out, there's this groundswell of people saying, well,
Speaker 1: hang on, that's not the deal, that's not what we do.
Speaker 1: So I thought that that was really interesting that there
Speaker 1: was even in the comments, there was no kind of
Speaker 1: devil's advocate or any pro lens on this. Everyone was
Speaker 1: vehemently against it.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll be the pro lens on this because I agree.
Speaker 2: Mon's like everything you see on that was everyone saying
Speaker 2: this is not what parenting is. If you want to
Speaker 2: be a parent, that is not how you do it.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting that we say that because, on the
Speaker 2: other hand, the thing that we hear again and again
Speaker 2: is that you cannot pour from an empty cup. Make
Speaker 2: sure you have time away from your children, make sure
Speaker 2: that you have a personality outside of your children, and
Speaker 2: that you get space to do the things that you
Speaker 2: want to do. And so, yes, it's to an extreme level.
Speaker 2: But when these CEOs go, Okay, well I'm going to
Speaker 2: outsource all those low joy tasks. I'm going to get
Speaker 2: rid of all those boring things that I don't want
Speaker 2: to do and be with my children in a way
Speaker 2: where I'm present with them, where I'm fun with.
Speaker 3: Them, where I'm my best self.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where I'm my best self with them, then we
Speaker 2: have a problem with it. And I think if given
Speaker 2: the opportunity, I'm sure all of us can think of
Speaker 2: a laundry list of things that we would like to outsource.
Speaker 2: My number one would be tipping the sand out of
Speaker 2: my daughter's shoes at the end of the day and
Speaker 2: having to clap them together to get.
Speaker 1: All the sand down.
Speaker 2: Lit There's so many things we would rather not be
Speaker 2: doing and so but when they do this, we don't
Speaker 2: like it. But I guess on the other hand, the
Speaker 2: main woman in this article, Christine Landers, she's the one
Speaker 2: saying she doesn't want to clip her baby's toenails, so
Speaker 2: she doesn't she outsources that. I loved her last line
Speaker 2: where she was saying they were asking her, does she
Speaker 2: think she'll look back and feel like she missed out
Speaker 2: on something if she's not in these menial moments, And
Speaker 2: she said the doing is handled, but the thinking is
Speaker 2: still me and I couldn't help. But think you spend
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty thousand Australian dollars on help and
Speaker 2: you still have the mental load, like we actually can't
Speaker 2: outrun the mental load. She still has to delegate and
Speaker 2: decide on those things with her children, no matter how
Speaker 2: much she tries to run for from it.
Speaker 3: Right, that's a great point, Stacy.
Speaker 1: Did you notice, Amelia the language in this article. And
Speaker 1: I know they are couching it as CEO parenting, but
Speaker 1: I really noticed how the language even to describe parenting
Speaker 1: by these people is quite corporatized, Like at some points
Speaker 1: it feels like you're on a zoom call. They talk
Speaker 1: about delegating, they talk about high impact moments, you know,
Speaker 1: low value parenting, low value tasks, And I think that
Speaker 1: language in itself makes people suspicious. Right, It's sort of
Speaker 1: that the idea that we've become so obsessed with self
Speaker 1: optimization that now we treat like simple tasks of caregiving
Speaker 1: as a waste of time, which just feels actually pretty despairing.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of the comments we're talking
Speaker 1: about that too, like where do you draw a line?
Speaker 3: But then the comments kind of make me uneasy as well.
Speaker 3: Because I think that was a great point you made, Stacy,
Speaker 3: that it's almost like mums in particular can't win because
Speaker 3: we are told put your life checket on first, and
Speaker 3: then we're told no, not like that. And the thing
Speaker 3: Mom's that you said about how the comments were so
Speaker 3: charged and so kind of angry. Actually it's sort of
Speaker 3: like why do you care? You know, like if you had,
Speaker 3: as you say, Stacy, if we had millions of dollars,
Speaker 3: we'd probably be doing the same thing. So where does
Speaker 3: the anger come from? Is it like because we feel
Speaker 3: resentful that we can't have that what we perceive as
Speaker 3: the easier time parenting.
Speaker 1: Now I have a theory on where the anger comes from,
Speaker 1: because historically this is how wealthy people parent, right, you
Speaker 1: think about about it, that's such a good that's true exactly.
Speaker 1: You think about Mary Poppins and literally mister Banks is
Speaker 1: the banker and he comes home for his slippers and
Speaker 1: his pipe. He packs the kids off their head and
Speaker 1: sends them off to bed, and that house is run
Speaker 1: by a governess, a nanny, a cook, a chef for
Speaker 1: cleaner and running around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean just that Amelia's boyfriend mentioned Dick van Dyke.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Or like the sound of music, like Captain
Speaker 1: von Trapp is there doing only the high value moments
Speaker 1: he gets to be in the family band with the
Speaker 1: kids while Maria takes on costumes. This is how they
Speaker 1: live and how they parent this. I think what's different
Speaker 1: in this case is that I wonder if it's kind
Speaker 1: of unspoken. We don't really read about it or hear
Speaker 1: about it that often. But the second part is that
Speaker 1: I thought this article was really gendered, and I first
Speaker 1: noticed it in the comments, where a comment that made
Speaker 1: me pause was a man that wrote, my wife quit
Speaker 1: her job and let and we let the nanny go.
Speaker 1: It was the best decision we have ever made for
Speaker 1: our family, followed up by another comment, my wife made
Speaker 1: a similar decision thirty four years ago and we've never
Speaker 1: looked back. And then the first line of this article
Speaker 1: reads It's very loaded. It says, as a mother of two,
Speaker 1: there are certain tasks Christine Landis won't do. And then
Speaker 1: I realized everyone they talked to in this piece, every
Speaker 1: parent whose choices are scrutinized in this article, is a mum.
Speaker 1: The article talks to Christine, Olivia, Emma, Alexandra Evana Like
Speaker 1: I just thought, haven't wealthy fathers been doing this for generations?
Speaker 1: And in the moment it's a woman saying the same
Speaker 1: words suddenly we feel disgusted by it.
Speaker 3: I think that's a great point too, But I just
Speaker 3: want to get back to something that really made me
Speaker 3: set up that you mentioned before, the idea that wealthy
Speaker 3: people have always done this, so why is it now unacceptable?
Speaker 3: And I think it's because we expect something even more
Speaker 3: from parents these days than we have in the past,
Speaker 3: which is that they have to do everything for their
Speaker 3: kid right. They have to be emotionally present for them,
Speaker 3: They have to both parents have to work typically now
Speaker 3: to pay at the exorbitant mortgages that Australians in particular
Speaker 3: have to pay. They have to think about setting them
Speaker 3: up for an ai world, setting them up for a
Speaker 3: warming planet. The demands on parents are greater than ever before,
Speaker 3: I would argue, and yet we don't want anyone to
Speaker 3: try and make it easier for themselves. Yeah, I'm working
Speaker 3: this out in real time. What is different about it?
Speaker 2: I found myself thinking about that too and thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: how does your child view you? Then if you're not
Speaker 2: the person who's doing the caregiving parts, So if you're
Speaker 2: their parent and you're in their life, but you're not
Speaker 2: the person they go to to ask for a snack
Speaker 2: and you're not the person they go to to ask
Speaker 2: to do up your shoelace, or you're not the person
Speaker 2: who they call out for in the middle of the night,
Speaker 2: because there's a night nanny for that. What is their
Speaker 2: relationship to you? Like, what are you to them?
Speaker 3: And I think for modern for modern times, we're made
Speaker 3: uneasy by beard that parents aren't the go.
Speaker 1: To for they and that we aren't everything and their
Speaker 1: whole world and all.
Speaker 3: Of it, the Captain and the sound of music. I
Speaker 3: think no one expected him to be a kind of
Speaker 3: emotional resource of gentle parenting for them.
Speaker 1: Contract kick exactly exactly right, Yeah, because we're more evolved
Speaker 1: as parents, You're right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I did want to bring in actually another extreme example
Speaker 2: of this, that is a man who's talking about this
Speaker 2: and it was received a little bit differently, so I
Speaker 2: think that that is interesting too. So this was Jonathan Swanson.
Speaker 2: He's an entrepreneur and he was on the run Rate
Speaker 2: podcast and I want to play you what they asked
Speaker 2: him about the most radical thing he does to outsource
Speaker 2: some of the parenting.
Speaker 4: What's one thing that you've delegated that most people would
Speaker 4: consider ridiculous. We have four kids and you know, as
Speaker 4: you know, babies and kids don't always sleep through the night.
Speaker 4: We listen to the baby monitors, so you could hear
Speaker 4: them cry and you could go in. And Catherine's like,
Speaker 4: why are we listening? Why don't we delegate that to
Speaker 4: insist in the Philippines. And so we now have two
Speaker 4: nurses who live in the Philippines and it's daytime for
Speaker 4: them and they're working, studying, but they have our baby
Speaker 4: monitors on and if the kids need help, they can
Speaker 4: play a song. If the kids are crying and really
Speaker 4: need us, they'll call us and we'll go in. But
Speaker 4: ninety percent of the time they can be calmed though
Speaker 4: without us going in. I mean, we've been doing it
Speaker 4: for years now, and it's freaking the last thing I
Speaker 4: would turn off.
Speaker 3: So see, why did this make me so angry? I
Speaker 3: just say why everyone got angry at the Wall Street
Speaker 3: Channel article and I wasn't angry at the Wall Street
Speaker 3: Chournal article. This makes my blood boil. Why? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I wonder whether it's because that part is the ultimate
Speaker 2: caregiving part.
Speaker 1: That is the part I think you look.
Speaker 2: Back on and go that was that's the harvest part.
Speaker 1: That's the thankless part.
Speaker 2: That's the dragging yourself down the hall in the middle
Speaker 2: of the nine kid.
Speaker 3: Is the most vulnerable, yes, all.
Speaker 2: Alone, and to think of them just getting a through
Speaker 2: the monitor from a random person in the Philippines is
Speaker 2: just wild.
Speaker 3: I think that's what it is. It feels like a
Speaker 3: bridge too far. Yeah. Is it also because a man
Speaker 3: is saying that he does this?
Speaker 1: Is that why I'm annoyed?
Speaker 2: I feel like it would we would be angry, or
Speaker 2: if it was a woman, if it was, yes, I
Speaker 2: think we probably would.
Speaker 1: I think that the reason you're angry is because, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably a bridge too far, like outsourcing bike riding,
Speaker 1: outsourcing cutting toenawls. Fine, but in a moment when your
Speaker 1: child's in distress in the night. When secure attachment, that's
Speaker 1: when it's built, built in high value tasks. Using their words,
Speaker 1: it's not built on vacations. Attachments are built with consistency
Speaker 1: with showing up, with doing all those really like perceived
Speaker 1: perceived as boring and low value tasks, shushing to bed
Speaker 1: and battime and meal time. That's when it's built.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think he would probably argue that they're
Speaker 2: well rested and show up as their best selves, like
Speaker 2: we said before, but it's showing up in this case
Speaker 2: is what they're missing out on, and that's something that
Speaker 2: can't really be replaced.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that that's the great irony of
Speaker 1: this piece is that these parents seem to be saying,
Speaker 1: I'm going to delegate all this stuff so that I'm
Speaker 1: more emotionally available to my kids. But if the emotional
Speaker 1: connection is built in all of those really small moments,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a false economy. But a Coeo talk
Speaker 1: for you guys. All Right, I have a bone to
Speaker 1: pick with kids' birthday parties, and it happens after everyone
Speaker 1: goes home. May I please have pick away? Yeah? Thank you?
Speaker 1: It's the post birthday party? Thank you text. Do you
Speaker 1: guys know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: So how it goes is you have a birthday party
Speaker 1: for your child. You go to the effort to find
Speaker 1: a venue, think about timing, duration, cost, wet weather contingencies.
Speaker 1: You think about inviting people, chasing RSVPs. You consider the
Speaker 1: parents that are attending, do they want booze or coffee?
Speaker 1: And then you have to think about food. Don't forget
Speaker 1: the allergies. What are you serving for drinks? Games? Balloons,
Speaker 1: party cake, party backs right when the party is over.
Speaker 1: That's not it, guys, It's not over yet. Right. There's
Speaker 1: this final step, this final unprecedented step that has crept in.
Speaker 1: That is the post birthday party thank you text. And
Speaker 1: this is where you gather up the gifts that your
Speaker 1: child's been given. And then it's a process where you
Speaker 1: have to identify which gift came from which kid, and
Speaker 1: then you have to photograph the birthday kid holding it
Speaker 1: and smiling. Then you have to locate the correct number
Speaker 1: of the parent of the gifter, and then send the
Speaker 1: text saying thank you, thank you so much, like Evie
Speaker 1: loves this lego emoji emojimoji, right, and it's that times
Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty or however many kids you invited to
Speaker 1: the party and brought a gift. I would like to
Speaker 1: propose a nationwide amnesty on this part of the birthday
Speaker 1: party process. Okay, yes, it doesn't need to happen. Here's
Speaker 1: my pitch one. This does not teach the children's gratitude.
Speaker 1: This does not teach the children manners. It's not them
Speaker 1: that's holding the phone and taking the photo and writing
Speaker 1: the text and choosing the emojis and tracking the numbers down,
Speaker 1: they're just opening the next toy.
Speaker 2: And surely this then continues on because then you feel
Speaker 2: like you have to reply and say it was an
Speaker 2: amazing party, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that they liked the gift. Right, Yeah, completely,
Speaker 1: just going around and round forever. And secondly, this is
Speaker 1: a task that generally falls on mums and it's just
Speaker 1: another piece of administrative load that I don't think anyone needs. Right,
Speaker 1: So here's my proposal. You attend a party and you
Speaker 1: bring a gift. On leaving, your child says thank you
Speaker 1: for having me, and then your child receives a party
Speaker 1: bag and they say thank you for coming, and that's
Speaker 1: the transaction.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 3: You made a proposal earlier on Parenting out Loud, which
Speaker 3: was that instead of the party bag, kids get a
Speaker 3: slice of cake.
Speaker 1: So I I think that's too much. I'm not prepared
Speaker 1: to follow through with that. Okay, that was.
Speaker 2: Me who wanted to cut party bags, and now Mons
Speaker 2: wants to cut the thank you.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I'm all for it. I have to add, though,
Speaker 3: I recently hosted a kid's birthday party and we never
Speaker 3: found out who gave my son a Hoytz gift card. So,
Speaker 3: if you are listening, because gift cards are really hard
Speaker 3: to keep track off, thank you so much for the
Speaker 3: Holtz gift card. I'm so sorry that I didn't say
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 1: Every parent actually just needs a podcast just say it
Speaker 1: on there. Thanks for the gifts. Everyone be done, one
Speaker 1: fell swoop. If we had the National Amnesty, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: feel the guilt because you would just know that the
Speaker 1: transaction ended at the party and they got the party bag,
Speaker 1: you got the gift. It's done.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I don't know. Am I wrong? Am
Speaker 1: I an asshole? Am I going to actually be able
Speaker 1: to follow through with this when my child has a party?
Speaker 3: The problem is it's sort of like how I've heard
Speaker 3: parents of older kids talk about how everyone has to
Speaker 3: agree on the no phone sing and on waiting to
Speaker 3: get a phone. We all have to agree on this.
Speaker 3: No one can kind of decide that they're actually not
Speaker 3: going to go along with it, because then we will
Speaker 3: look like an asshole.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The reason I thought of this is because we
Speaker 1: went to a party and then I texted the mum
Speaker 1: after to say thank you so much. Like great party,
Speaker 1: probably best kids party I've ever been to. And she
Speaker 1: her response wasn't thank you so much for coming, It was,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm sorry. I haven't thanked you for
Speaker 1: the gift yet. I just haven't gotten around to it.
Speaker 1: And that's where I was just like, this is nuts.
Speaker 1: What are we doing? And so my gift to her
Speaker 1: was like, take us off your list. You don't need
Speaker 1: to do that shit. Little gear change now. And something
Speaker 1: that I spied in the Mum and mea out loud
Speaker 1: face book group that I really want to talk about
Speaker 1: because apparently some of us has misunderstood what school is
Speaker 1: for this week, a former teacher and principal in the
Speaker 1: out Louders Facebook group had a few choice words to
Speaker 1: say about it. Her name's Lucy Loader aka Brave Parenting
Speaker 1: on Instagram, and this is what she had to say.
Speaker 5: It's school to teach everything, do you, because that's what
Speaker 5: I'm hearing in lots of places manners. Why can't the
Speaker 5: school teach that resilience?
Speaker 1: Isn't that the school's job?
Speaker 5: Money? Skills, respect, how to lose gracefully? School should cover
Speaker 5: that too, right, Because in the olden days, school is
Speaker 5: for reading, writing, maths, history, all the different things, but
Speaker 5: social skills and how to actually live in the world.
Speaker 1: That was the family's job.
Speaker 5: Now the curriculum is already bursting, and somehow it's expected
Speaker 5: to teach the things that families used to teach on
Speaker 5: top of everything else.
Speaker 1: And here's the truth.
Speaker 5: Whether your child's in mainstream school, private school, or homeschooled,
Speaker 5: you are all homeschooling teaching the stuff that actually matters
Speaker 5: long term. They can chat ept who was the first
Speaker 5: prime in the stuff, but that can't look up how
Speaker 5: to be helpful to others, how to bounce back from
Speaker 5: being wrong, how to be a decent human when no
Speaker 5: one's scoring them on it. That's not part of the curriculum.
Speaker 5: The proof is when someone stops you in the street
Speaker 5: and says, your child said a loon to me, use
Speaker 5: my name, had a real conversation, or they stuck up
Speaker 5: for someone being picked on, learning their family history, what
Speaker 5: they stand for, and what type of human they're becoming.
Speaker 5: That's on you, not the classroom teacher. And people ask me,
Speaker 5: tax mortgages, changing tires, why isn't that in the school curriculum.
Speaker 1: Because these things have never been the school's job. It's
Speaker 1: always been things that you learned at home. Did you
Speaker 1: think you could just.
Speaker 5: Have kids and let others teach them absolutely everything. You
Speaker 5: are not just the parent or the adult. You are
Speaker 5: another teacher in their lives. And this isn't aimed at
Speaker 5: every parent. You'll know if I'm talking to you, my opinion,
Speaker 5: your child, your call, no judgment.
Speaker 3: Lucy's president.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Amelia loved it. Does Lucy have a point?
Speaker 3: Yes? I think Lucy is so sensible. And I also
Speaker 3: look through the comments and I agreed with everything that
Speaker 3: she wrote in the comments, really engaging thoughtfully with sort
Speaker 3: of rebuttals and criticisms of her argument. But I don't
Speaker 3: want my kids learning how to change a tire at school. Look,
Speaker 3: I don't know how to change a tire. It's probably
Speaker 3: not something I should be proud of, but I just
Speaker 3: someone else can do that. I want them to learn
Speaker 3: the basics of reading and mathematics at school. That is
Speaker 3: all I want them to do. The teachers have enough
Speaker 3: to do, and those are the core skills that schools
Speaker 3: are meant to impart. This to me is a no brainer.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, give me the best argument for why Lucy's wrong,
Speaker 3: because I'm not saying it.
Speaker 2: Our curriculum is obviously still based on what it was
Speaker 2: years and years ago, and it sounds like from what
Speaker 2: she's saying, the curriculum is bursting. Things are getting added,
Speaker 2: but nothing is getting taken away. So is this just
Speaker 2: a case of now that we kind of need to
Speaker 2: look at what's in there? But it's where that line is, like,
Speaker 2: do I think they should be teaching them empathy and manners?
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. That is something that needs to be done
Speaker 2: in the house. Would I mind if they were taught
Speaker 2: tax because I don't understand it.
Speaker 1: That would be great. I would love if tax got
Speaker 1: added to the curriculum. Actually, that reminds me Stacy you
Speaker 1: mentioned before about there are some parents. There are pockets
Speaker 1: of parents who just expect schools to do everything. And
Speaker 1: I know earlier we were talking about CEO parents that
Speaker 1: kind of hire helpers to help with the boring, more
Speaker 1: mundane parts of parenting, but I think there are pockets
Speaker 1: of parents who don't do that and expect the schools
Speaker 1: to take on that load. And it reminds me of
Speaker 1: this article I read in the Herald s Son a
Speaker 1: few months ago about how there's a spate of small
Speaker 1: children coming to school, starting to school for the first
Speaker 1: time who aren't toilet trained, and so teachers are now
Speaker 1: expected to toilet train on top of introducing children to
Speaker 1: a curriculum, which just seems kind of crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right, and I think I see
Speaker 3: why people are asking about it, because we clearly do
Speaker 3: have a crisis when it comes to social skills as
Speaker 3: a society. I remember my kids preschool, which was the
Speaker 3: most magical place, had a school song that said we
Speaker 3: are kind and we are cool, because of course cool
Speaker 3: rhymes at school, and I always thought to myself that
Speaker 3: is that not the best motto in life, to say
Speaker 3: you're both kind and cool? I am, I am on
Speaker 3: good days one of those things. I don't think I've
Speaker 3: ever been both of them, but it's a great aspiration
Speaker 3: to have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think ones it's interesting what you were saying about.
Speaker 2: You know, those things are learned at school, but is
Speaker 2: it more that those things are practiced at school. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 2: I think that's maybe where the line has changed now,
Speaker 2: is that it's that there may be a certain subset
Speaker 2: of parents that are just kind of leaving all of
Speaker 2: it to the school. Because, as we've sag before, you know,
Speaker 2: most parents are working, and so the time they get
Speaker 2: with them is that time where they are doing those
Speaker 2: non fun tasks, you know, so the things the time
Speaker 2: we have with them now is so much smaller. The
Speaker 2: time to be just enjoying and teaching them, you know,
Speaker 2: random scenarios about how to show empathy like that's it's
Speaker 2: just so much smaller now, and so it's been blurred
Speaker 2: and we've just gone, Okay, well that'll they'll just figure
Speaker 2: that out when they get there. They'll deal with conflict
Speaker 2: resolution when they come up against it with a student
Speaker 2: at school.
Speaker 3: I think that's a great point and it's also about
Speaker 3: I think the rise in private schools, the rise. Australia
Speaker 3: has the highest private school attendance of basically any comparable country,
Speaker 3: and we've talked on the show about rising school fees,
Speaker 3: the idea of parents, parents thinking of schools as consumer products, yeah,
Speaker 3: rather than places to educate their children and wanting more
Speaker 3: quote unquote value from it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: And it shouldn't be the school's problem, but it inevitably
Speaker 2: becomes that because all these amazing teachers obviously wants want
Speaker 2: what's best for the students in their class. They want
Speaker 2: them to feel nurtured and loved and understand how to
Speaker 2: calm their bodies when they're upset, or how to make friends,
Speaker 2: and so those things are inevitably bleeding into the time
Speaker 2: and what they're trying to have to what they're having
Speaker 2: to teach to these kids, and that's where you know,
Speaker 2: maths and English is kind of probably getting shelved to
Speaker 2: the wayside.
Speaker 3: And also like, look, I might get some flak for this,
Speaker 3: but I think there's something a little bit anti intellectual
Speaker 3: about the idea that, in fact, what kids should be
Speaker 3: learning at school is how to manage their money or
Speaker 3: how to change a tire to use the other example,
Speaker 3: because there is a strain in Australian life which devalues
Speaker 3: more cerebral academic pursuits and it values sports people over scientists.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that's always the case. I'm just saying
Speaker 3: that that's been a kind of thread in Australian life,
Speaker 3: and sport is very important to Australian culture, undoubtedly, but
Speaker 3: I think we could do more and are doing more
Speaker 3: to lift up the people who work in labs or
Speaker 3: the people who think in universities. And I just worry
Speaker 3: that by sort of trying to squeeze out the bread
Speaker 3: and butter of school, which is again maths and English.
Speaker 3: In favor of all of these practical skills, we're undermining
Speaker 3: the pursuit of knowledge in itself and how important that
Speaker 3: is for a society.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean we all know how hard it
Speaker 2: is to get a child to listen to you, just generally,
Speaker 2: to get them to listen about maths is pretty impossible.
Speaker 2: So I would I would much rather that the amazing
Speaker 2: teachers that know how to do that are the ones
Speaker 2: that are teaching them.
Speaker 4: That.
Speaker 1: Yes, so true, and very true for music and arts
Speaker 1: as well. That's a true. Yeah. All right, it's time
Speaker 1: for recommendations. The little cosmic crisp at the end of
Speaker 1: the show, the little refreshing bite of an apple that
Speaker 1: we like to enjoy. Now, if you missed that reference,
Speaker 1: that was from last week when Stacy's in the pocket
Speaker 1: of Big Apple and has recommended we shun the Pink
Speaker 1: Lady and the Granny Smith in favor of the new
Speaker 1: tech bro of apples, the cosmic crisp, but in a good.
Speaker 3: Way, like biting apples in a good way, not in
Speaker 3: a like original sin Bible way. No, right, like apples
Speaker 3: are good on this yes, like.
Speaker 1: A wholesale way. We're pro apple. We are keeping the
Speaker 1: doctor away away. Do you know it worked on me?
Speaker 1: I actually bought the cosmic did you like? You know
Speaker 1: you're not wrong, You're not wrong. It's a decent apple,
Speaker 1: good apple. It's a hot apple. I saw it and
Speaker 1: I laughed. I thought of you. Okay, Stacy, what have
Speaker 1: you got to recommend this week? You're moving on to pears.
Speaker 2: Another fruit for you know, apart from Eastern rosellas, which
Speaker 2: is actually my record of the week. I've started using
Speaker 2: this bit of a hair hack. So my hair as
Speaker 2: dry as anything, and I started snapping off at the ends.
Speaker 2: And when a friend in the office very helpfully said, well,
Speaker 2: do you use a heat protectant? I said, I don't
Speaker 2: want to be attacked like this. No, I don't, and
Speaker 2: I don't want to. I then got another recommendation from
Speaker 2: my friend. She was like, if it's dry and it's
Speaker 2: brittle and it's not looking shiny anymore, use ha Hober
Speaker 2: oil so you know, like you can you can buy
Speaker 2: it from There's an Australian company, the Ha Hoober Company,
Speaker 2: and they have it as well, just for people use
Speaker 2: it on their skin. People use it on like dry
Speaker 2: knuckles and elbows and all of the things. You just
Speaker 2: do it like a hair mask. So just ladder your
Speaker 2: hair in this oil. And I did it yesterday and
Speaker 2: then did my hair today and the straightner it's the
Speaker 2: smoothest you know, curling I've ever done of my hair.
Speaker 3: Shine is whining.
Speaker 1: It's shiny right, like it is shinier than it normally.
Speaker 3: Is question for you. I've always wanted to try your
Speaker 3: hober oil. Yeah, because you beauty talks about it a lot,
Speaker 3: patron Saint of millennials Lee Ham specifically. But does it
Speaker 3: smell nice? Is my quest?
Speaker 1: Smells beautiful?
Speaker 3: It's really it's really nice and nice smelling a yeah, and.
Speaker 2: You you can get them. You can get them every
Speaker 2: like they think. They sell it on the Iconic. They
Speaker 2: sell it on Amazon, like you can get and it's
Speaker 2: quite affordable, like it's not like you know some of
Speaker 2: the mass a like twenty or thirty dollars. You could
Speaker 2: get a little tub of Hobe oil for about eight bucks.
Speaker 1: Does it make your pillowcase or oily at night?
Speaker 2: Because I just left it on during the day, like
Speaker 2: I worked from home and left it on during the
Speaker 2: day and then washed it out.
Speaker 1: So it was great. It was great.
Speaker 2: I was worried it was gonna still look oily, but
Speaker 2: because it's not heavy, it just comes straight out.
Speaker 3: It's giving Kate Middleton, thank.
Speaker 2: You so much. That is the biggest compliment you could
Speaker 2: give me. What's yours, monsie.
Speaker 1: If you've listened to today's show and thought I've had
Speaker 1: it with all these parents out saucy everything, to wealthy
Speaker 1: people and to the nannies and to the schools, I've
Speaker 1: got the perfect show for you to watch that will
Speaker 1: restore your faith in children and parenting. Okay, it's alone
Speaker 1: season four on SBS. Now this show, let me tell you,
Speaker 1: this is the best thing on TV right now. So
Speaker 1: season four has just started. You're not too late to
Speaker 1: start watching The Dropped out in the Wilderness. Yes, they
Speaker 1: take ten Australians and they drop them in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere and they say good luck. Last one standing wins.
Speaker 1: And in the last three seasons they've put them in
Speaker 1: like Tasmania and in Australia and it's been a bit
Speaker 1: of a snooze. Okay, no word of a lie. I
Speaker 1: love usps, but a bit of a snooze Fest. This year,
Speaker 1: they've dropped them in the Arctic Circle. And the best
Speaker 1: thing about it this cast they're amazing. They're so diverse.
Speaker 1: Their skills are incredible. They've all been doing since they
Speaker 1: were little kids, bushcraft and fishing and hunting, and they
Speaker 1: just have all these incredible survivalist skills that they've been
Speaker 1: taught by their parents or just like taught by their communities.
Speaker 1: And this show is so gripping and so wonderful, and
Speaker 1: it's best watched under your heated blanket with a hot milo,
Speaker 1: in the comfort and warmth of your own home. And
Speaker 1: then you have to yell things out, like put the
Speaker 1: fishing line back in, you idiot. It's the most perfect
Speaker 1: driving show to watch.
Speaker 3: Do you watch it?
Speaker 1: You're really great? Yes, And I watch some of it's
Speaker 1: a bit gory for kids, Like there's a bit of
Speaker 1: like actually it's not too bad. It's like they kill
Speaker 1: a fish in the fish guts, you see the fish
Speaker 1: guts and stuff like that. And there are some themes
Speaker 1: that it would be best to watch it with your
Speaker 1: kids in case there's there's some kind of like trauma.
Speaker 1: The people get emotional out in the bush and when
Speaker 1: nature starts to speak to them, but it is. It's
Speaker 1: the best thing on TV right now. Guys, get on
Speaker 1: a loan season four.
Speaker 3: Hopefully this will get my kids to stop watching what's
Speaker 3: that that YouTube star who's on Netflix now?
Speaker 1: Oh Kalish oh oh Saily?
Speaker 3: Oh god, we're going to get on alone?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: My wreck this week is an article. This one is
Speaker 3: in the New York Times magazine and it's called My
Speaker 3: Relationship with My Brother Fraught? Could Sibling Therapy Help Us?
Speaker 3: It's by a writer called Daniel Bergner, and it delves
Speaker 3: into why our relationships with our siblings are both so
Speaker 3: precious and so complicated, And it tests out whether or
Speaker 3: not if you go into therapy later in life, can
Speaker 3: that help you and your sibling come closer together? Sort
Speaker 3: of like marriage therapy, except for siblings. It's about Daniel,
Speaker 3: the author and his brother Bob. They're sixteen months apart.
Speaker 3: Growing up, Daniel was very jealous of Bob. He thought
Speaker 3: he was better looking, he thought he was a better athlete.
Speaker 3: He felt that they were locked in an undefined but
Speaker 3: dire competition, and that I was always at risk of losing.
Speaker 3: They grew apart as adults, but then they came together
Speaker 3: again to talk about their childhoods with a therapist and
Speaker 3: what they realize about how each other view the same events.
Speaker 3: It's really astonishing. Basically, Daniel realizes that Bob always felt
Speaker 3: bullied by him. So even as Daniel was walking around
Speaker 3: feeling in out of quit next to his brother, his
Speaker 3: brother was feeling intimidated and even threatened by him and
Speaker 3: his behavior. And he didn't realize that. It's such a
Speaker 3: moving piece. It's sort of like underscores, like how childhood
Speaker 3: is this incredibly formative time in shaping all of your
Speaker 3: attitudes to basically everything. No pressure parents, but also if
Speaker 3: you are a sibling, if you parents siblings, this is
Speaker 3: an absolute muster read.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. What a breadth, What a breadth
Speaker 1: we've brought to you today. Thank you for spending time
Speaker 1: with us on your Saturday or your Sunday, wherever you're listening,
Speaker 1: mowing the lawn, folding a laundry, driving to work. I
Speaker 1: hear a lot of people listen on their work commute
Speaker 1: on the weekend. That's us for this week. Eyes to
Speaker 1: the sky, guys, look for those Eastern rosellas and think
Speaker 1: about the Western ones who have been shunned and to
Speaker 1: go to therapy for that, yes, sibling bird therapy. All right,
Speaker 1: we'll see you next week. Mummie acknowledges the traditional owner
Speaker 1: of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.