Speaker 1: Parents, friends, committees. Welcome to Parenting out Loud, where we
Speaker 1: bring you the news, the trends, the culture and what
Speaker 1: parents are actually thinking about. And they're thinking about Mother's
Speaker 1: Day most likely, and we will get to that a
Speaker 1: little bit today. I'm Monic Bowley, I'm Amelia Lester, and
Speaker 1: I'm Stacy Hicks. Coming up on today's show.
Speaker 2: If you can't decide what's surname to give your child
Speaker 2: of Melbourne couples just outsourced it to a game and
Speaker 2: I kind of love it.
Speaker 3: The school holiday dilemma and the rule that has parents blindsided.
Speaker 1: And do you ever feel a bit sad on Mother's Day?
Speaker 1: There's a very surprising origin story which might explain why.
Speaker 1: But very first, before we get into anything, I spy
Speaker 1: with my little eye. Someone's mother is in our Instagram comments.
Speaker 2: Of course, of course it's mine. Wasn't that the most
Speaker 2: classic mum common you've ever seen?
Speaker 4: Two?
Speaker 1: Like, So we put this post up of like getting
Speaker 1: to know us three. It's pinned to the top of
Speaker 1: our Instagram page and it's just like, here's Stacy she likes.
Speaker 1: She's a type AI mum. This is what she likes.
Speaker 1: And the first comment was Stacy's mom just being like, oh,
Speaker 1: I love this. I was so good, great mummy, did.
Speaker 4: You see that?
Speaker 3: Lena Dunham posted the text that her mom sent her
Speaker 3: during the met gala. Went to the met gala on
Speaker 3: Monday night and her mom sent these texts saying.
Speaker 5: You look lovely, dear, but you need to do a
Speaker 5: little bit more smiling.
Speaker 4: You're so a precy when you smile.
Speaker 2: Well, good on, my mum. Ly for the for the
Speaker 2: blind enthusiasm about all of us.
Speaker 3: But look, in case you missed it, the devil Wes
Speaker 3: prior to is fine. The movie is fine. That's all
Speaker 3: I'm going to say about Okay, but they did make
Speaker 3: one really interesting choice relates to parenting, which is that
Speaker 3: Andy Sachs, played by Anne Halfaway, who is once again
Speaker 3: pursuing her magazine dreams twenty years after the first movie,
Speaker 3: she does not have children. Now, this should not be
Speaker 3: groundbreaking for a woman in her early forties to be
Speaker 3: depicted on screen without children, But.
Speaker 1: Nice pun there, Amelia, nice pun, nice heavy groundbreaking.
Speaker 3: It turns out that Anne Hathaway had a hand in this.
Speaker 3: The plot thickens. Here's Mama MEA's very own Laura Brodnick,
Speaker 3: interviewing her insult, was.
Speaker 1: There a particular request that you put in that you
Speaker 1: wanted for your characters in order to do this?
Speaker 4: Equel?
Speaker 1: I Mine was a big one.
Speaker 6: Oh, it was really big because Eleen Rush McKenna, who
Speaker 6: came up with this unbelievable story that we all signed
Speaker 6: up for, we all reacted to so positively. She had
Speaker 6: originated Andy's backstory as being different. She thought that Andy
Speaker 6: had stayed in New York and had a family, and
Speaker 6: I thought that Andy had gone out in the world
Speaker 6: and had adventures and had you actually done that yet?
Speaker 6: And we had a long conversation about it, and she
Speaker 6: went off and side of that, and she decided that
Speaker 6: she was also interested in Andy having had adventures and
Speaker 6: having not taken that step in her life yet.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what she's saying is the writer wrote her
Speaker 1: as having children, and Anne Hathaways said, no, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be childless by choice. That's that's wild.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So did this occur to you while you were watching?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 2: I loved when we got to her And it wasn't
Speaker 2: that classic trope of like messy haired woman like flinging
Speaker 2: bananas at her kids as she runs out the door
Speaker 2: to her big job. You know, like we see that,
Speaker 2: we see that so much, and I really loved that
Speaker 2: it was just no, that's not what she's doing. And
Speaker 2: I feel like it's much more of a reflection of
Speaker 2: what you see now. We see women where they say
Speaker 2: it might happen, it might not, or I might want to,
Speaker 2: I might not at that time of their life. And
Speaker 2: so I love that we kind of saw both streams.
Speaker 2: We see one character who's had children and is, you know,
Speaker 2: juggling that busy job, and one that didn't. And it's
Speaker 2: not a major plot point that she didn't.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's very matter of fact.
Speaker 3: In fact, there's one scene where she's catching up with
Speaker 3: Emily Blunt's character, her former colleague, and she says, I'm
Speaker 3: not married, never found the right person. And my kids
Speaker 3: are at a doctor's office on eighty fifth Street. They're
Speaker 3: frozen eggs right now, but I like to think of
Speaker 3: them as my little ones, Shavn and Esther. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: I love that it was so matter of fact. Mon's
Speaker 3: I don't think you've seen the movie yet, but why
Speaker 3: do we have to be celebrating this like such a
Speaker 3: rare occurrence. Why is it still so rare?
Speaker 4: Do you think.
Speaker 1: Hollywood loves the whole working mum trope? Don't they the
Speaker 1: you can have it all trope? So it's kind of
Speaker 1: forward thinking, I guess, more reflective for what's really happening.
Speaker 1: It's kind of disappointing though, that they didn't go the
Speaker 1: full way with it. Do you think they put the
Speaker 1: frozen egg scene in there, just like I don't know,
Speaker 1: in case there's a Devil west Prata three where she
Speaker 1: is the harry mother.
Speaker 3: Maybe, although I think the reason they put the frozen
Speaker 3: eggs scene in is because that's very true to life
Speaker 3: for that particular millieure of kind of women who have
Speaker 3: done very well in their careers did not consciously choose
Speaker 3: career over children. And I'm so so glad by the
Speaker 3: way that we're doing away with that narrative too, because
Speaker 3: I don't think I know any woman who would actually
Speaker 3: say I chose my career over having a family, or
Speaker 3: I chose my family over having a career. That's not
Speaker 3: how life works. You don't choose things in that way.
Speaker 3: So I love that it seems more like life just
Speaker 3: happened to her and the way her life happened is
Speaker 3: that she had all these adventures.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was not a woe is me. It was just, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the situation for me right now, and we move on.
Speaker 2: And I just wanted to focus on all the dresses
Speaker 2: and I got to do that, which was great. Another
Speaker 2: thing that you might have missed this week was a
Speaker 2: video that went pretty viral about one of our favorite
Speaker 2: topics on this show, BLUEI. I mean, mostly we've spoken
Speaker 2: about Blue's hot dad. This is a little bit of
Speaker 2: a different take. Obviously, it's not being hyperbolic to say
Speaker 2: that Blue's the biggest show in the world, like it's
Speaker 2: in one hundred and ten countries, watched by millions and
Speaker 2: millions of kids and mostly their parents probably around the world.
Speaker 2: So it would be safe to assume that Blue is
Speaker 2: a bit of a cash cow or a cash dog
Speaker 2: as it were for the ABC.
Speaker 4: Did you just come up with cash?
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'll see myself out. But this video that got
Speaker 2: published by Charlie Gearside. He's the co founder of a
Speaker 2: tech startup called Eucalyptus, and he was talking about the
Speaker 2: deal that the ABC did at the time with Joe
Speaker 2: Bram when they commissioned this show, and he called it,
Speaker 2: and I quote, one of the all time shittest deals
Speaker 2: in history, which is not very complimentary. So basically what
Speaker 2: happened is when ABC commissioned the show, they did it
Speaker 2: in conjunction with the BBC, so the UK's public broadcaster,
Speaker 2: and as part of that deal, BBC paid thirty percent
Speaker 2: of the production costs. But in that deal they got
Speaker 2: all the global rights, all of the merchandising rights to
Speaker 2: Blue E and that is now worth an estimated one
Speaker 2: billion to two point five billion dollars a year.
Speaker 3: I think we have about seven hundred and fifty million
Speaker 3: dollars worth of blue merchandise in our apartment.
Speaker 2: As do I, including a drawer full of bluey toothbrushes
Speaker 2: for reasons unclear to me, there must have been a
Speaker 2: deal at some point where I bought about twenty of them.
Speaker 2: And basically the headline that everyone saw from this story
Speaker 2: is the ABC stuffed up. This would have been a
Speaker 2: great amount of money to bring into the Australian television
Speaker 2: industry and you know what an embarrassment that is, to
Speaker 2: the point where the ABC Managing director, Hugh Marx even
Speaker 2: spoke at a conference this week and he kind of
Speaker 2: addressed it and said, yeah, like, in hindsight, that would
Speaker 2: have been great. It would have changed a lot of
Speaker 2: people's lives. So is the ABC getting anything from.
Speaker 4: The fact that Bluey is the world's most.
Speaker 2: Probably yeah, they get the Australian rights to the show,
Speaker 2: but most of that is going overseas.
Speaker 5: But Mon's when I brought this up with you.
Speaker 2: You had a lot of big feelings and there is
Speaker 2: a lot of this story that Peple are kind of
Speaker 2: missing with the headline.
Speaker 1: So this is not a new story, and every time
Speaker 1: I hear it, I think, oh, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: nuance and complication that's being missed here. And I want
Speaker 1: just the idea that the ABC botched a deal that
Speaker 1: was worth billions is a little bit like saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you should have bought Apple shares in the eighties. Like
Speaker 1: it's technically true, but it just doesn't take into account
Speaker 1: how most TV gets made. I want to say, I
Speaker 1: do need to say I don't have visibility on this
Speaker 1: particular deal. What I'm going to say is like broad
Speaker 1: sweeping statements. Okay, because you worked at the ABC, right mans,
Speaker 1: I worked there for a long time. I worked there
Speaker 1: in peak Bluey mania, co commissions happen all the time, right,
Speaker 1: It's really normal for someone to make your TV show
Speaker 1: and share the costs around because rights are really expensive
Speaker 1: and no single person wants to like hold all the right.
Speaker 1: It just costs too much and takes too much risk
Speaker 1: on right. And the ABC is a public broadcaster, it's
Speaker 1: not really there to make like huge commercial bets. Do
Speaker 1: you remember when we had ABC shops, when we did
Speaker 1: do merchandise, when we did do kind of like bananas
Speaker 1: and pajama stuff, that all got shut down. So the
Speaker 1: ABC are probably not set up now to do these
Speaker 1: huge global distribution deals and merchandising deals, whereas the BBC are.
Speaker 1: The BBC have Top Here, they have Pepper Pig, they
Speaker 1: have all these shows that they just know. The BBC
Speaker 1: machine knows how to push this stuff out.
Speaker 3: And also what you're saying is that that's not even
Speaker 3: the ABC's mandate, right. It's mandate is not to make
Speaker 3: a lot of money from merchandise. It's mandate is to
Speaker 3: provide Australians with Australian content, quality Australian content. And Louis
Speaker 3: Is certainly.
Speaker 1: That they do have a commercial arm, but it's small
Speaker 1: and it's kind of not their their central focus. I
Speaker 1: just feel like, you know, you could argue part of
Speaker 1: the success of Blue globally is because the BBC did
Speaker 1: exactly what they were brought on to do. They got
Speaker 1: to push it everywhere. Merchandise is shit out of it,
Speaker 1: and so it's kind of like the system is imperfect,
Speaker 1: but it worked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and as much as we can say, you know,
Speaker 2: it is such a shame, of course, in hindsight that
Speaker 2: that money doesn't come into Australia and give those jobs
Speaker 2: people in Australian TV. Like, it's also a shame I
Speaker 2: didn't get the Lotto numbers last week. Like it's fine sight,
Speaker 2: as you said, it's something that you realize after the fact,
Speaker 2: and the fact that they did this with minimal risk
Speaker 2: and we do have a show that Australia is so
Speaker 2: proud of that is kind of ours regardless of that
Speaker 2: is a great thing.
Speaker 4: Don't cry that it's over smart.
Speaker 1: Well, so, yeah, the money does come into Australia, right,
Speaker 1: some of it does. We talked previously on a few
Speaker 1: episodes ago about this state of Australian TV. This is
Speaker 1: the great blue hope of Australian TV is Bluey because
Speaker 1: this is a Brisbane made production. It's hiring production stuff,
Speaker 1: it's hiring animators, it's all of that stuff. All of
Speaker 1: that money is coming into Australia. Can I tell you
Speaker 1: both something about Mother's Day that will completely change how
Speaker 1: you think about it?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 4: Please?
Speaker 5: Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I know this weekend there'll be lots of cups of
Speaker 1: tea in bed and cards and maybe flowers and hugs.
Speaker 1: And there's always that pressure to perform Mother's Day on
Speaker 1: social media, which I hate, but that's not everyone. And
Speaker 1: I feel like whenever Mother's Day comes up, it can
Speaker 1: feel really fraught because not everyone has that kind of
Speaker 1: like hallmark relationship with their mum or their own children,
Speaker 1: and it's not always a joyful day for people. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's quite a loaded one, which is exactly why I
Speaker 1: wanted to bring you something that I found this week,
Speaker 1: because it turns out that Mother's Day didn't start as
Speaker 1: this wholesome celebration at all. It actually started as a
Speaker 1: campaign for the women that everyone had forgotten.
Speaker 5: Oh see, that's nice. This is what it is still is.
Speaker 3: I just assumed it was a hallmark thing like yeah
Speaker 3: back and made up Poliday.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're telling me it actually has a history.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. The history is amazing, So very quick
Speaker 1: history lesson. It started in the US after the Civil War.
Speaker 1: There was this really big wave of women who had
Speaker 1: lost sons, husbands, and brothers at war. So all the
Speaker 1: women and mothers came together for this day of peace.
Speaker 1: And then in the early nineteen hundred a woman named
Speaker 1: Anna Jarvis. Her mother, Anne Jarvis was you know, with
Speaker 1: woman who would just get women together, support mothers in
Speaker 1: her community, support grieving mothers. Anyway, this Anne Jervis, she
Speaker 1: died and so Anna lobbied really hard and said, I
Speaker 1: think we should have a day to honor my mother
Speaker 1: and honor all these women. And her mother died on
Speaker 1: the second Sunday in May, and so she lobbied really
Speaker 1: hard and took it all the way to the White House,
Speaker 1: and the President said, you know what, great, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Let's make it official. So the second Sunday in May
Speaker 1: is going to be Mother's Day. And so that's the
Speaker 1: version that spread locally. But here's the part that most
Speaker 1: Australians don't know. Mother's Day in Australia wasn't started by
Speaker 1: a brand. It was started by a woman who walked
Speaker 1: into a hospital and saw something that completely broke her heart.
Speaker 1: Her name was Janet Hayden, and she was visiting a
Speaker 1: friend at the Newington State Hospital and she noticed something
Speaker 1: that was really shocking to her. There were elderly women
Speaker 1: and mothers who had been completely forgotten, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them had lost family in World War One. Some
Speaker 1: had no family left at all, some had never been
Speaker 1: able to have families. These were just invisible women. And
Speaker 1: she thought, who is making these women feel like they matter?
Speaker 1: So she got together local businesses and the public and
Speaker 1: she said, could you just donate something nice for these women,
Speaker 1: just like a soap or a toal conpowder or some fruit.
Speaker 1: And then she went to primary schools and asked the
Speaker 1: kids to sew little linen bags, little handmade parcels, the
Speaker 1: original analog bag, and then she just delivered them to
Speaker 1: these women who had been forgotten. So it didn't start
Speaker 1: Mother's Day, didn't begin with flowers and brunches and slippers
Speaker 1: and declarations of love. It began as this small act
Speaker 1: of community for the most invisible, most forgotten women.
Speaker 3: And I think that that key word you use there
Speaker 3: as community, because mothers say put so much much pressure
Speaker 3: on the nuclear family unit to celebrate it in the
Speaker 3: correct way. But what it started as was a community
Speaker 3: wide celebration and acknowledgment of the labor of women who
Speaker 3: were looking after children, and I feel like that's being
Speaker 3: completely missed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think what you said about the nuclear family,
Speaker 2: that's the part that does feel like pressure, because especially
Speaker 2: when you're someone who has their mother but you also
Speaker 2: have children yourself, You've got the pressure of your nuclear
Speaker 2: family of the children that you have, like will that
Speaker 2: live up to your expectations of what you're imagining in
Speaker 2: your head for that day, But you also have your
Speaker 2: own mother who's then wanting you to.
Speaker 5: Be with them.
Speaker 2: Potentially you have a mother in law, so then you're
Speaker 2: trying to do something there. So it actually becomes this
Speaker 2: day of like splitting yourself amongst people, and it's kind
Speaker 2: of like your birthday in that you feel a bit
Speaker 2: melancholy and a bit sad, and you don't quite know why,
Speaker 2: like people are expressing their love for you, but yet
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel right.
Speaker 3: And the other thing that I've been noticing this year
Speaker 3: is that in my kids' school and in their sporting activities,
Speaker 3: it's inevitably women who are the volunteers organizing stuff in
Speaker 3: both these cases, and they have been sending out notes saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: we've got this Mother's Day event. Mothers, please don't sign
Speaker 3: up to volunteer. We actually need people who are not
Speaker 3: mothers to volunteer for the Mother's Day stall. But it's
Speaker 3: really hard to find volunteers because guests who does most
Speaker 3: of the volunteering in a school community, it's the mom's Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like this redirection, like I love this redirection of
Speaker 2: that this is how it started, because it does kind
Speaker 2: of give you permission mentally to lower the bar.
Speaker 5: A bit on the day.
Speaker 2: Like it's like with any big day like that, with
Speaker 2: a Christmas or with a big holiday, you have a
Speaker 2: version of how you think it might be and a
Speaker 2: version of what it ends up being, and often they
Speaker 2: don't align.
Speaker 3: Mons does it change how you think about celebrating this day?
Speaker 4: To know this history does.
Speaker 1: And the other tidbit I loved was that the woman
Speaker 1: that started it in the US, remember the woman that
Speaker 1: lobbied the president for it, Anna Jarvis. She saw what
Speaker 1: it became, she saw the hallmarkification of it, and it
Speaker 1: drove her mad, and she spent the rest of her
Speaker 1: life lobbying trying to stop Mother's Day Oh, because she
Speaker 1: didn't like Yeah, because it had gone so far away
Speaker 1: from what she wanted it to be. And I just thought,
Speaker 1: that's fascinating and I get that. I get that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the real message from you telling that story is
Speaker 2: that I just want to rock up at a nursing.
Speaker 5: Home now and go and have a time with someone
Speaker 5: who's alone.
Speaker 4: Yes, they'd love it.
Speaker 1: Stacy. One of the joys of this show. One of
Speaker 1: your roles on this show is to bring us the
Speaker 1: trends of the Internet, the things you've seen on TikTok,
Speaker 1: what families are doing, what parents are doing. What have
Speaker 1: you found this week?
Speaker 2: Yes, I saw this video this week that made me
Speaker 2: chuckle so much because a Melbourne couple decided that instead
Speaker 2: of choosing their babies last name. You know, they're very
Speaker 2: forward thinking and they're like, well, it's not a given
Speaker 2: that it's going to be the husband's last name. They
Speaker 2: made their two families, their two extended families, battle it
Speaker 2: out in a series of games to decide which last
Speaker 2: name the baby would get.
Speaker 5: Take a listen to this clip.
Speaker 7: Welcome to the first and last ever Shiffiley verse Fleming
Speaker 7: Family Olympics, where we will be competing for one grand prize.
Speaker 7: The winning family will determine the name of our future children.
Speaker 7: Fleming's win, the children will take Fleming. If the Shiffiles win,
Speaker 7: the children will take Shiffley.
Speaker 1: It's so, what what? And what is a family Olympics?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 5: What game?
Speaker 2: They did a planking competition. They did a human wheelbarrow race,
Speaker 2: you know when you like hold the person's ankles.
Speaker 5: They did an easter egg hunt.
Speaker 2: Must have been done around Easter time and they've only
Speaker 2: just shared it now. They did so many tasks and
Speaker 2: then at the end they're like, it's neck and neck.
Speaker 2: So we're going to a round robin of rock paper scissors.
Speaker 4: So who won the Schiffie One?
Speaker 5: Is the wife's name?
Speaker 2: The wife's last names, Cheffiley's bragging rights, my favorite sh
Speaker 2: my favorite.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be spelling that for the rest of
Speaker 1: their lives.
Speaker 5: They really are.
Speaker 2: They should have gone with Fleming. But my favorite thing
Speaker 2: in the comments was someone saying, I love that when
Speaker 2: someone asks this kid why they've got their mum's last name,
Speaker 2: they'll be able to say, oh, because dad chose scissors.
Speaker 2: Like that he lost him the rock paper scissors.
Speaker 5: But I just thought that was pay And I love that.
Speaker 5: That's cool.
Speaker 2: We don't just take the last name as a given.
Speaker 2: Now it's not that important anymore.
Speaker 3: And it's also taking it to the next level beyond hyphenation. Yes,
Speaker 3: now it's like you've got to earn that last time. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 3: absolutely love it.
Speaker 1: That is so ballsy to do something like that. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you do that becomes the family
Speaker 1: story for the next one hundred years.
Speaker 5: That is cool.
Speaker 3: When my kids started at big school, I was at
Speaker 3: the same time planning a visit to see if family
Speaker 3: and friends in the US over the winter holidays, because
Speaker 3: that's where my partner is from. And I happened to
Speaker 3: mention this trip was coming up to another mom at
Speaker 3: the school, and what she said shocked me. She said,
Speaker 3: she goes, it's not a given that you're going to
Speaker 3: get that time off. You know, the principal has to
Speaker 3: approve the kids leave during term time. And I just thought,
Speaker 3: what is this country I have moved to where I
Speaker 3: can't yank my children from school whenever I please when
Speaker 3: the airfares A Yeah, but what an outright So in
Speaker 3: the end, we were granted to leave. And that's because
Speaker 3: I bowed blood, sweat and years into the essay, I
Speaker 3: wrote to the principle about the cultural reasons why my
Speaker 3: children had to go and visit America.
Speaker 1: Can did they ask you to do that? Or did
Speaker 1: you do that on bim?
Speaker 3: But I was told by other other parents at the
Speaker 3: school that I needed to lay out my reasons and
Speaker 3: they couldn't be like they have to see Aunt Greca.
Speaker 3: It was like much more like they need to learn
Speaker 3: about the They need to culturally immerse in the in
Speaker 3: the land of their father and learn all about diet
Speaker 3: and Dr Pepper and a great American invention.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to see the doctor leave in the end.
Speaker 3: But it turns out it's not just me that faced
Speaker 3: this issue. In fact, you know, in the nineties, I
Speaker 3: feel like we were writing letters in it, like our
Speaker 3: parents are writing letters in our lunch boxes saying I'm
Speaker 3: taking the kids out of school for a trip. And well,
Speaker 3: we didn't go on any international trips, but that's what
Speaker 3: other people told me happened.
Speaker 4: And now it's just.
Speaker 3: Become much more of a high bar for granting the
Speaker 3: kids leave. Now there are really good reasons for this.
Speaker 3: There are also actually good reasons for why it maybe
Speaker 3: shouldn't be so difficult to pull the kids from school,
Speaker 3: and we're going to get into that, but I am
Speaker 3: just curious about whether the two of you have ever
Speaker 3: encountered this stacy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I'm not at the school age just yet.
Speaker 2: But I had a friend say to me that with
Speaker 2: her daughter, they were told, well, that will just be
Speaker 2: an unexplained absence on your daughter's record, And I was
Speaker 2: imagining her at her first job interview and the interviewer going, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you went to Fiji for two weeks in year four,
Speaker 2: so I just don't think you're going to be able
Speaker 2: to commit to this role.
Speaker 4: Like I was, like, what record are you talking about?
Speaker 3: I remember when you were in school, we certainly we
Speaker 3: had this fear of it would go on our permanent record.
Speaker 4: Things going on our permanent record. Yeah, like the trip
Speaker 4: to Fiji. You don't want that on the path.
Speaker 2: And now I laugh about that because I'm like, no
Speaker 2: one asks even your UAI from year twelve, let alone
Speaker 2: how much you were there.
Speaker 5: So it feels really unusual that this would be.
Speaker 4: A pee on's have you run up against this or
Speaker 4: heard about it?
Speaker 1: I haven't. No, I just assumed to eat because they're
Speaker 1: your own children, right, you can make decisions in their
Speaker 1: best interests, might include going overseas. I I don't know.
Speaker 3: Let me run you through the fact that there are
Speaker 3: policies in different states. So the New South Wales Education
Speaker 3: Department has a list of justified exemptions. This is stuff
Speaker 3: like health concerns. You're competing in the Olympics. You have
Speaker 3: a religious holiday that's on their list of justified exemptions,
Speaker 3: but it can be unjustified, as you were saying, Stacey,
Speaker 3: in Victoria, you need to get the principal's approval and
Speaker 3: you need to obtain a student learning absence plan, which
Speaker 3: sounds so serious Victoria, like, that's quite impressive. In Queensland,
Speaker 3: for instance, the Catholic schools do allow holidays as a
Speaker 3: reasonable excuse for Queensland same. So I guess it's different
Speaker 3: in different states. But let me lay out very quickly
Speaker 3: the like pros and cons of this, because you might
Speaker 3: not necessarily have.
Speaker 4: Thought these three.
Speaker 3: You might have had the instinctive response I had before
Speaker 3: I looked into it.
Speaker 4: So on the side of actually, it should be kind.
Speaker 3: Of difficult to pull kids out of school, you have
Speaker 3: school principles who I guess kind of know what.
Speaker 4: They're talking about when it comes to kids' education.
Speaker 3: The Australian Primary Principles Association has talked about this in
Speaker 3: various press stories and they make the point that every
Speaker 3: day at school matters, Like there's this sense of like, oh,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter if they have like a couple of
Speaker 3: days off at the end of term two. In fact,
Speaker 3: the teachers have thought through every single day of learning,
Speaker 3: so to mislearning is a really big deal. It's also
Speaker 3: disrespectful to the teachers who did the planning. It's disruptive
Speaker 3: to the classroom. On the flip side, we live in
Speaker 3: a multicultural society. We also live really far away from
Speaker 3: the rest of the world. So for people who all
Speaker 3: jokes aside, do have family in other countries, and a
Speaker 3: lot of kids in Australian schools do. In order to
Speaker 3: make that trip, which is also very expensive, you want
Speaker 3: to be able to spend time with family and friends
Speaker 3: in other countries and build up those connections to your
Speaker 3: heritage and to your culture and to where your extended
Speaker 3: family comes from. So it does feel a little punitive
Speaker 3: or a little bit like not recognizing the fact that
Speaker 3: we live in such a multi ethnic and diverse community.
Speaker 2: But this does feel also like a bit more of
Speaker 2: a millennial problem that it has been for other generations, because,
Speaker 2: like you said, like when you grew up, didn't really
Speaker 2: go on holidays much, and I was. I was fortunate
Speaker 2: enough to get to go on holidays, but they were
Speaker 2: usually at Christmas time when there was that bigger break,
Speaker 2: we went to Dubbo and that yeah, Dubbos great as well.
Speaker 2: And there was this article in The Atlantic I've thought
Speaker 2: about a lot since I saw it, and it was
Speaker 2: called the New Millennial Parenting Anxiety, and it was about
Speaker 2: how we all came of age when flights became more
Speaker 2: accessible and housing became less accessible. So you're kind of
Speaker 2: looking at the fact that you probably won't pass down well,
Speaker 2: you're definitely probably not going to pass down multiple properties
Speaker 2: to your children. They're not going to inherit that from you.
Speaker 2: So what fut in the age? Oh, well, lucky you,
Speaker 2: I should have invested in blood. But that there that
Speaker 2: they're not going to get those things. So parents are
Speaker 2: looking around and going, well, what enrichment can we give them,
Speaker 2: What memories can we give them, what exp speriences?
Speaker 5: Can we give them.
Speaker 2: And travel is one of those things, and it's also
Speaker 2: probably a little bit of a post COVID effect as well,
Speaker 2: of like we lost those years. Now we want to
Speaker 2: take our kids with us and try and see the
Speaker 2: world and explore. And it kind of goes beyond what
Speaker 2: you said about going to see family, which I think
Speaker 2: is really important, and into just should we go backpack
Speaker 2: around Europe or should we go travel around Australia.
Speaker 3: That's so interesting that you say it's a post COVID
Speaker 3: thing too, because in researching the story, I discovered that
Speaker 3: the we've all probably.
Speaker 4: Heard that attendance rates have gone down.
Speaker 3: In schools, They've really gone down in schools between twenty
Speaker 3: nineteen and twenty twenty four. I was just shocked at
Speaker 3: the figures, at the precipitous decline in attendance rates. And
Speaker 3: I'm really connected to that, that sense that we have
Speaker 3: to seize experiences even if they're happening during the school term.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I wonder whether that's a good excuse for
Speaker 2: this thing of trying to stick to the school holidays
Speaker 2: is because then it may bleed out for teachers and
Speaker 2: for the educators that then it bleeds out from oh,
Speaker 2: we're just going for a week to Bali to then
Speaker 2: just oh, well, I wouldn't be bothered sending them, and
Speaker 2: then that is that does have a knock on effect
Speaker 2: like that, as you said, and get harder and harder
Speaker 2: as they get older.
Speaker 1: It might also be like one of those you know,
Speaker 1: every workplace you've ever worked in has a whole stack
Speaker 1: of policies right just sitting in a draw somewhere and
Speaker 1: they never really used. They're just there in case you
Speaker 1: need them. It might be one of those things where
Speaker 1: most teachers are pretty reasonable, most schools are pretty reasonable
Speaker 1: about holiday requests, but there will be one family, two
Speaker 1: families that take the piss and so the policy is
Speaker 1: there so that families can't have a valley holiday every
Speaker 1: term or whatever it's going to be like it does it?
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just there to keep those that one percent accountable.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I also kind of yeah, the
Speaker 1: thought I had. The major thought I had is like,
Speaker 1: in the spectrum of what schools are worried about, parents
Speaker 1: taking their kids on a holiday is probably pretty low
Speaker 1: down on the list of worries that school had.
Speaker 3: It's interesting you say that, Mom's because at the start
Speaker 3: of the year, we went to an orientation evening at
Speaker 3: my kids' school. I should mention it's a public school,
Speaker 3: maybe that's relevant, But the main message they wanted to
Speaker 3: convey to everyone at this primary school orientation was that
Speaker 3: concept of everyday matters. And it's clearly connected to the
Speaker 3: decline in attendance rates. So I do think schools are
Speaker 3: having to work a bit harder these days at getting
Speaker 3: the message across that you can't just skip school willy nilly,
Speaker 3: even if it is for a culturally enriching trip somewhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But I also think the stuff like this that
Speaker 2: is kind of quite restricting to families is meaning that
Speaker 2: we are saying a big increase in homeschooling and free
Speaker 2: schooling now. And I get so many people on my
Speaker 2: algorithm it must know that I like daydream about traveling
Speaker 2: the world full time that are doing that now where
Speaker 2: they're traveling around Australia full time with their children because
Speaker 2: they kind of don't want to be low into that
Speaker 2: school term system.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, seriously, can like, are you serious? Yes,
Speaker 1: it's want to be locked into a school term system.
Speaker 1: It's like a legal requirement that you send your children
Speaker 1: to school in a term, you sign up for a term,
Speaker 1: you go for the term, Like, can we just for
Speaker 1: a minute talk about the message that it sends to
Speaker 1: your child to go, you know what, fuck school, We're
Speaker 1: just going to go to Europe. Like sure, if you
Speaker 1: spend your life saving up, if you've got family over there,
Speaker 1: if it is going to be a culturally enriching experience,
Speaker 1: then yes. But that's why we need these learning plans.
Speaker 1: That's why schools need to know about it and go, yeah,
Speaker 1: we approve it, because a school is a commitment, Like
Speaker 1: you can't just you can't just sign up for something
Speaker 1: and then just go and you feel like it okay there.
Speaker 3: It's also really giving main character energy, which is that
Speaker 3: millennial parents often do.
Speaker 2: It is but I kind of love these people as
Speaker 2: such a rule follower. I kind of admire these people
Speaker 2: when they're like, well, the school system doesn't really work
Speaker 2: for me in the sense of how it is now,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to do this thing. And there's a creator.
Speaker 5: That came up in my feet.
Speaker 2: I didn't even follow her and got this post from
Speaker 2: her about the fact she's pulled her kids out of
Speaker 2: school for three months. Her and she's single, mum, and
Speaker 2: she's moved with her two children to the Greek Islands
Speaker 2: to do world schooling, which is like essentially where you
Speaker 2: travel but still maintain their education because they're in this
Speaker 2: world schooling system in Syros.
Speaker 5: I mean it looks beautiful.
Speaker 1: Why did she do that? Why does she say she.
Speaker 2: Felt like for her son it was wearing him down,
Speaker 2: that the school system was already wearing him down, and
Speaker 2: that she wanted to try something new. And a lot
Speaker 2: of it is these people who are like digital nomads
Speaker 2: where they can work anywhere in the world now, so
Speaker 2: they kind of go and travel in that system, out
Speaker 2: of a structure and a system that many other children
Speaker 2: are in and throw them into a completely new one. Yes,
Speaker 2: but I think there's so much to be said there
Speaker 2: for what that could do for resilience, for you know,
Speaker 2: social skills, of having to build those skills with different
Speaker 2: kids from around the world. I do I really want
Speaker 2: to go to take me to mign That is.
Speaker 5: What it is.
Speaker 1: It also could be incredibly destabilizing. You know who knows
Speaker 1: it's yeah, you know what it speaks to. It speaks
Speaker 1: to the individualization of parenting. Now we parent for what
Speaker 1: suits us. We parent for the way that you know,
Speaker 1: we center ourselves sometimes in the decisions that we make,
Speaker 1: and it also speaks to the kind of like professionalism
Speaker 1: or the intensity of parenting, where now instead of school
Speaker 1: saying you know what, I figure around Australia for six months,
Speaker 1: like should we right to no?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: This decision's going to impact your child's long term outcomes.
Speaker 1: Like that just feels like a really big prevalent thing
Speaker 1: now with raising kids. Okay, time for the part of
Speaker 1: the show where we bring you the things that we're
Speaker 1: trying or things that we've seen and loved or felt
Speaker 1: big things about. Stacy, what have you got this week?
Speaker 2: I never use this show normally to recommend things from
Speaker 2: Mom and Me are the site, because I'm the editor
Speaker 2: of the site and it feels like it's hard to
Speaker 2: be impartial and I would probably just recomon and fifty
Speaker 2: articles to you every week. But there is one that
Speaker 2: we ran this week that will really stay with me
Speaker 2: for a long time. And these types of stories pop
Speaker 2: up every now and again and I just kind of
Speaker 2: will carry them with me always. And this week on
Speaker 2: May eighth was do It for Dolly Day, so you
Speaker 2: might have seen this.
Speaker 5: I think it's in its eighth year.
Speaker 2: This year it's the National Day of Action, and parents
Speaker 2: Kate and Tick Everett, they do it to honor their
Speaker 2: daughter Dolly. She passed away by taking her own life
Speaker 2: after a period of horrible.
Speaker 5: Bullying and online bullying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's absolutely tragic, and I think when these stories
Speaker 2: come about, you kind of distance yourself a little bit
Speaker 2: in terms of thinking, oh that you know, that's that
Speaker 2: horrific thing over there, but that won't believe it won't
Speaker 2: happen to me, That won't happen to my kid.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's terrible.
Speaker 2: But we actually spoke to a woman this week named
Speaker 2: Carlie Campbell, and she shared the story of her daughter
Speaker 2: Bella Rose, who was in year three, so eight years old,
Speaker 2: when she started getting bullied at school.
Speaker 5: Horrific.
Speaker 2: She was tied up and left in a bin by
Speaker 2: students in her class and her mum, Carly, is so incredible.
Speaker 2: She's fourteen now and she is doing much better. But
Speaker 2: a lot of that actually was to do with this
Speaker 2: Do It for Dolly campaign. She used their Dolly's Dream
Speaker 2: bullying support line. I wanted to make sure I got
Speaker 2: the name right, so essentially kids can dial thirteen Dolly
Speaker 2: at any time call this line and speak to someone
Speaker 2: for support. So while she was confiding in her mum
Speaker 2: and professional, she also had this to kind of get
Speaker 2: her through this horrific period. And her mom said, like,
Speaker 2: she probably wouldn't be here now if she didn't have
Speaker 2: things like that, and she's doing really well all things considered.
Speaker 2: But I just thought it was such an important cause,
Speaker 2: such an important resource that kids will have, and you know,
Speaker 2: when you have little kids, you kind of think about
Speaker 2: this stuff being with like seventeen eighteen year olds, and
Speaker 2: to hear that it was an eight year old, just yeah, really.
Speaker 5: Hit me in the guts.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: That really important.
Speaker 2: So I would love if everyone read that'd support that cause.
Speaker 2: And the phone number is thirteen thirteen Dolly.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm so glad to know about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I just will add if that has brought
Speaker 1: anything up for you, please go to our show notes
Speaker 1: for some very helpful resources and or make sure we
Speaker 1: put the link to Dolly's Dream Bullying support line there too. Yah. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got a hot tip for any one that hasn't
Speaker 1: organized a Mother's Day gift, and it's going to cost
Speaker 1: you nothing, just a little bit of time. I saw
Speaker 1: it on an Instagram called parental Path and I'm sad
Speaker 1: I only saw it now. I wish i'd seen a
Speaker 1: few years ago. But dads or partners or other mums,
Speaker 1: here's what you do. You grab your phone, just use
Speaker 1: your camera, you grab your kid. Film each kid separately. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is quite key because you'll get better answers. And
Speaker 1: then you just ask them a few questions about their mum.
Speaker 1: Keep it really simple and just let them talk and
Speaker 1: don't interrupt them. And for little kids it's questions like
Speaker 1: what's Mum's favorite food, what makes mum happy, what makes
Speaker 1: mum angry? What does mum always say? Things like this?
Speaker 1: You know, what do you love about mum? And then
Speaker 1: for older kids you can ask them questions like what's
Speaker 1: something mum does that no one notices? Or you know,
Speaker 1: what's your favorite thing to do with mum? Don't coash
Speaker 1: them and don't over correct them. There's no wrong answers.
Speaker 1: And then you just record it and then you can
Speaker 1: either stitch the clips together or just send them as
Speaker 1: it is. And the premise really is this that your
Speaker 1: kids won't always sound like they do now. Oh, and
Speaker 1: their voices, their voices. Yeah, their voices are only little
Speaker 1: for a window and then it's gone. And you know,
Speaker 1: one day they have the chubby cheeks and the lisp,
Speaker 1: and then it's gone. Their faces thin out and their
Speaker 1: answers change. So do it now. It'll take five minutes.
Speaker 1: And I hope my husband's listening to this.
Speaker 4: That is a beautiful idea.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, love that.
Speaker 3: It also makes me a little sad, so I need
Speaker 3: to bring something more lighthearted. I guess that's the word
Speaker 3: that use. It's a TV show called caper Crew. We
Speaker 3: were talking at the start of the show about ABC
Speaker 3: shows and what makes them hits, and I reckon that
Speaker 3: they've got another big one on their hands with this show,
Speaker 3: caper Crew. I probably describe it as the Investigators if
Speaker 3: it was directed by Wes Anderson.
Speaker 4: Does that help feel cool? It's from the creator of.
Speaker 3: Hardball, which is another great ABC show, and it's said
Speaker 3: in a town called Woodspring. It has two twelve year
Speaker 3: olds as the main characters. It's actually quite high concept
Speaker 3: for a children's show. I don't want to get too
Speaker 3: much away, but basically, there's a grandmother involved who may
Speaker 3: or may not be a seasoned criminal. That's all I
Speaker 3: can say, and what I love about it, in addition
Speaker 3: to the quirky, gentle humor and the interesting cast, is
Speaker 3: that we spend a lot of time with this grandmother.
Speaker 3: And it occurred to me how often in on TV
Speaker 3: in general, but certainly in kids shows, do you get
Speaker 3: to see interesting, vibrant, fully formed older women.
Speaker 1: As never I'm not in kids shows, they're always they're
Speaker 1: always like homely grandmothers or witches. I wish.
Speaker 3: I actually can't remember another kids show that that provides
Speaker 3: such a full fledged depiction of an older woman.
Speaker 1: And I is it animated or is it actually?
Speaker 4: It's actually it's actually acted.
Speaker 3: And the creators said that they didn't want to make
Speaker 3: a kids show so much as a family show, and
Speaker 3: I think that's right. It's very much a show that
Speaker 3: you can sit down and enjoy with your kids. The script,
Speaker 3: as I say, it's quite it's quite ambitious what they've
Speaker 3: set out to do plot wise, but I think they
Speaker 3: really landed the plane. And I really enjoyed watching the
Speaker 3: first season. I hope there'll be more on ABC. I
Speaker 3: view with my kids.
Speaker 1: Do you need some caper crea metch because it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like it's going to take off.
Speaker 2: I got to say enough, I wouldn't mind some caper
Speaker 2: months could make you someone a cricket. She'll make you
Speaker 2: a little jacket with caper crew on the bat.
Speaker 1: That is so hurtful that you think I've got a cricket,
Speaker 1: do you?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: Of course I want one. I can't afford one. Of
Speaker 1: course I want one.
Speaker 5: Yeh see, I've had you pegged.
Speaker 1: Correct such a mom sledge you did.
Speaker 2: It's not because my best friend has one and she
Speaker 2: makes me excellent stuff all the time, and I wish
Speaker 2: I had the patience for it.
Speaker 4: I think is a cricket mum?
Speaker 5: Cry Card?
Speaker 2: Yes, I thought it was cry Cart until about twelve
Speaker 2: months ago.
Speaker 5: Cricket but yeah, they're really cool.
Speaker 1: I knowedge at all. I just think the other Facebook
Speaker 1: group I mean, yes, the cricket mums.
Speaker 2: Yeah, classic overachieving trope to want a cricket.
Speaker 5: So I thought you would have.
Speaker 1: Love to all the cricket mums. That's all we have
Speaker 1: time for this week on Parenting Out Loud. Have a
Speaker 1: great week. We will be back in this speed next
Speaker 1: Saturday mornings. The MMAMEA acknowledges the traditional owners of the
Speaker 1: land on which we have recorded this podcast