Speaker 1: Welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast for news, trends, culture,
Speaker 1: all kinds of parenting chitchat. What we like to do
Speaker 1: is talk about the things that parents are thinking about.
Speaker 1: I'm Monice Boy, I'm Amelia Lester.
Speaker 2: And I'm Stacy Kicks. And coming up on today's show,
Speaker 2: we have some Muma mea Baby news. But everyone is
Speaker 2: talking about the name. That's not the part we want
Speaker 2: to talk about.
Speaker 3: There's an article about how no one is reading anymore.
Speaker 3: It sent everyone into a tisio over the last week.
Speaker 3: But we have some counterpoints.
Speaker 1: When you hear the words my daughter is my best friend,
Speaker 1: what do you think really? Truly? I want to talk
Speaker 1: about how the biggest show on TV right now is
Speaker 1: making the case for best friend parenting.
Speaker 3: But first, the Men's World Cup is reaching its final
Speaker 3: exciting stages. Yes I said it, the Men's World Cup.
Speaker 3: But one parent may have taken their pride in their
Speaker 3: child's achievements a tad too far. Have you heard of
Speaker 3: Erling Harland.
Speaker 2: This is the man with the big blonde pony.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, the Norwegian striker who looks like a Viking
Speaker 3: and has a man burn.
Speaker 2: I want his haircare routine immediately. That is extent of
Speaker 2: my knowledge of this man.
Speaker 3: Everyone loves him. He's kind of like the unofficial star
Speaker 3: of the tournament. That said his team Norway was knocked
Speaker 3: out by England over the weekend, but Erling's dad couldn't
Speaker 3: let it go. He happens to also be a former
Speaker 3: professional soccer player. His name is alf Inger Harland. And
Speaker 3: instead of saying well done, son, you tried hard, I'm
Speaker 3: proud of you, I mean he may have said that
Speaker 3: alf Inger Harland instead took to X and that's never
Speaker 3: a good sign when you take to X. But someone
Speaker 3: had posted on X well done to Jude Bellingham, who
Speaker 3: was one of the English players who kicked a goal
Speaker 3: during the game, and Alfinger re spawns well done Bellingham
Speaker 3: and referee, basically implying that the referee kind of rigged
Speaker 3: the game for England.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: This really tickled me because it reminds me of the
Speaker 3: signs that I see at my kids football games. There
Speaker 3: are these signs up basically telling parents to calm down,
Speaker 3: take a chill, pill, not take everything so seriously, don't
Speaker 3: argue with the referee. And the sign ends with this
Speaker 3: is not the World Cup. But the question is what
Speaker 3: if it is the world this is the actual World Cup, minds,
Speaker 3: would you be able to resist weighing in?
Speaker 1: Do you know what? I'm over this? Like this is
Speaker 1: the exact kind of unsports some like behavior that we
Speaker 1: are trying to stamp out in junior sport. And so
Speaker 1: to see a parent on the sideline blaming a ref
Speaker 1: on the world stage is actually disgusting, and I'm not
Speaker 1: about it, and I think, I just I don't even
Speaker 1: know what to say. When I saw this, I just
Speaker 1: thought it's everything we're doing, the kid's sport is trying.
Speaker 1: It's a horrible example of unsportsmanlike behavior. And I'm a
Speaker 1: bit over men just thinking that they can come out
Speaker 1: and just say awful things about people all the time
Speaker 1: and just get away Scott Free. Not on my watch, girls,
Speaker 1: not on my watch, but Red Card.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm famously not a sporty gal. You know,
Speaker 2: I played golf for about four months before before retiring,
Speaker 2: and that's about as sporty as I get. But you
Speaker 2: said he was an athlete himself, like he played this
Speaker 2: game as well, And I imagine it's then very hard
Speaker 2: once you're retired and you're watching your child do that
Speaker 2: exact thing that you did to kind of turn off
Speaker 2: that passion for the game. I'm not excusing him, you know,
Speaker 2: I agree you probably shouldn't say that, but like, isn't
Speaker 2: that just passion for the game. Don't you kind of
Speaker 2: need that passion to get to that level.
Speaker 3: Well it's sort of extra sad though, because earling is
Speaker 3: kind of a famously good sport, and in fact, when
Speaker 3: that player, Jude Bellingham kicked that goal, those two players
Speaker 3: are very close, and so I bet he was really
Speaker 3: mad at his dad for this, because he's out there
Speaker 3: giving Drew Bellingham a hug and being so respectful and
Speaker 3: supportive of the opposing team's achievements, and then his dad
Speaker 3: just kind of ruins it all. The end of reading
Speaker 3: is here. That's according to an article from the Atlantic,
Speaker 3: which is everywhere this week. Now, that conclusion, it feels shocking,
Speaker 3: but not necessarily surprising. Let's face it, I think we
Speaker 3: all know how our attentions fans have been shot over
Speaker 3: the last decade or so by short form video and
Speaker 3: social media, and we're just generally less likely to pick
Speaker 3: up a book. I think that's sort of a given
Speaker 3: at this point. But what I found most chilling about
Speaker 3: the article was the idea that the kids who are
Speaker 3: growing up today, so these are kids who are theoretically
Speaker 3: not yet on social media, not yet on smartphones, certainly
Speaker 3: not even using the Internet with any regularity or without
Speaker 3: close supervision, those children are actually facing the same problems
Speaker 3: and are also not reading. So it might be something
Speaker 3: like in the air which is causing people not to read.
Speaker 3: I pulled out some facts from the article to share
Speaker 3: on this point. First is that this next generation coming
Speaker 3: up now reads much less than today's adults did when
Speaker 3: they were kids. Second fact, I've got three of them.
Speaker 3: Every year older a child gets, the less they are
Speaker 3: likely to like to read. And then final scary fact,
Speaker 3: high school students have started to think of reading for
Speaker 3: pleasure as an alien practice. This is what people told
Speaker 3: The Atlantic Reporter again and again. In high schools, students
Speaker 3: just don't understand the concept of picking up a book
Speaker 3: for pleasure. So that's kind of horrifying. But at the
Speaker 3: same time, I'm a little skeptical about articles like this.
Speaker 3: They induce a lot of panicinness there's a lot of
Speaker 3: kind of getting clicks because you're scaring people, and they
Speaker 3: don't offer a lot of solutions. And this Atlantic article
Speaker 3: even concedes this really interesting point that I don't think
Speaker 3: it makes enough of, which is that people are actually
Speaker 3: reading more text now than ever before on their phones.
Speaker 3: It's just that that text isn't necessarily in the form
Speaker 3: of a bound book that you sit down and read
Speaker 3: in the way you used to. So the big question
Speaker 3: that I want to put to you both, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to start with you Stacy, is this really the
Speaker 3: end of reading or are people just reading in different ways?
Speaker 3: Do we all need to come down? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I do feel like this is a little bit of
Speaker 2: a moral panic and that we're reading in different ways,
Speaker 2: and that we're consuming knowledge in different ways too, Like
Speaker 2: if you think about podcasts that people are listening to
Speaker 2: and audiobooks, and the fact that there's so much more
Speaker 2: television at a disposal now, it's not the same three
Speaker 2: channels and you've kind of just got to watch what's on,
Speaker 2: Like there is so many there's so much slot, But
Speaker 2: there's also so much educational content on there as well,
Speaker 2: And isn't that essentially like the purpose of reading is
Speaker 2: to kind of spark creativity to learn. It's just that
Speaker 2: we're doing that in different formats. Now, and as you said,
Speaker 2: we're reading so much like between the school WhatsApp group
Speaker 2: and the emails you might do during the day, like
Speaker 2: we are consuming a lot of words. It's more just
Speaker 2: that it's not the high fluting books that some literary
Speaker 2: types might.
Speaker 3: And in fact, arguably we're even writing more than a
Speaker 3: yeah before too, because so much of how we communicate
Speaker 3: with people now is through texts, which was not the
Speaker 3: case to say when we were growing up. Mon's what
Speaker 3: was your reaction to this article, Amelia?
Speaker 1: This was the longest article you've ever sent me to read,
Speaker 1: and I didn't. I couldn't even read the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Case in point, I boring. Oh my god, Amelia, it
Speaker 1: was four thousand words. So I skimmed it and look,
Speaker 1: then I got the gist and I went straight to
Speaker 1: Australian research because I was like, okay, America, shut up,
Speaker 1: you're just falling to pieces. We don't want your panic
Speaker 1: to say a state like what are we doing in Australia.
Speaker 1: It's different, and you're right, it's not so bad here,
Speaker 1: like everything's going to be okay. But the point you
Speaker 1: made before about us reading more texts and we read
Speaker 1: more words, and we read words differently. That may be true,
Speaker 1: but educators are sort of concerned because what books do
Speaker 1: is when you read a book across a period of time,
Speaker 1: you have to There's lots of skills that come with
Speaker 1: kind of deep reading and long form reading, like you
Speaker 1: understand metaphor, you understand figurative language. Yeah, so educator is
Speaker 1: a concern because while kids can read words, and words
Speaker 1: are great, and it's great that they have good knowledge
Speaker 1: of what a word is, they're lacking comprehension. They don't
Speaker 1: understand metaphor, and they can't sort of think more deeply
Speaker 1: or about books and stories. And so that's I think
Speaker 1: some of the panic is around that while they can,
Speaker 1: literacy rates are great, it's those soft skills that come
Speaker 1: with sitting with a book for a long time. And
Speaker 1: the other point someone made is that it requires kind
Speaker 1: of attention and focus because a novel means you have
Speaker 1: to sit with it and you have to hold a
Speaker 1: story in your head. You have to think about different characters,
Speaker 1: different story arcs, you have to think about the entire
Speaker 1: like sort of life cycle of a book. When you're
Speaker 1: watching TV or you're consuming other media, it barely asks
Speaker 1: you to hold anything for very long, and so that
Speaker 1: was the concern too about sort of like deep focus
Speaker 1: on something.
Speaker 3: But the funny thing is that when novels first came
Speaker 3: about in roughly the seventeenth eighteenth century, they were not
Speaker 3: seen as a worthy endeavor. In fact, people reading novels
Speaker 3: were seen as wasting time. So it's sort of funny
Speaker 3: that we've now decided as a society that reading novels
Speaker 3: is just the most educated era thing you can do.
Speaker 3: That said, I'm going to argue against myself a little
Speaker 3: bit and say that there does seem to be something
Speaker 3: kind of magical about reading books. And just to pick
Speaker 3: one interesting example, this is Australian research modes. Outside of schoolwork,
Speaker 3: a child can read as few as one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: words per year and as many as ten million words
Speaker 3: a year, and that is just determined by how much
Speaker 3: they are reading outside of school. That is a huge range.
Speaker 3: There's a huge opportunity there to kind of stuff a
Speaker 3: child's head full of interesting words that they can then
Speaker 3: draw on in their everyday life. So there does seem
Speaker 3: to be something kind of inherently magical that happens when
Speaker 3: children in particular.
Speaker 1: Pick up books. The other moral panic we see is
Speaker 1: around book Week, which is coming up in August. FYI,
Speaker 1: if you haven't sort of your costume thinks, start to
Speaker 1: think about it now, because August will be here in
Speaker 1: a blink. Every year the book Week rolls around, we
Speaker 1: see these kinds of opinion columns come out and say, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: my school's full of Pokemon characters and we had Disney princesses,
Speaker 1: and we had Spider Man, and it's just terrible and
Speaker 1: that all these purists that come out and want children
Speaker 1: to dress up as proper book characters. And that is
Speaker 1: also fraught and not entirely helpful. Because I read this
Speaker 1: great piece in the Conversation by an education researcher Joanne O'Mara,
Speaker 1: and she says, don't worry about what they come to
Speaker 1: as book week. The important thing is like, if you
Speaker 1: want kids that read, you've got to let them choose
Speaker 1: what to read. So if they read a blue book,
Speaker 1: who cares, They're into it, they love it. If they
Speaker 1: read a Spider Man comic, who cares, it's all reading.
Speaker 1: And she says that's what builds a reading habit, Like,
Speaker 1: do not judge your kids on what they read. Don't
Speaker 1: force your kids to read what you deem a worthy book.
Speaker 1: In fact, too many kids experience what she calls and
Speaker 1: I love this term. It's actually coined by author and
Speaker 1: teacher Kelly Gallagher. She called it read aside, which is
Speaker 1: the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated
Speaker 1: by the inane, mind numbing practices of school. So the
Speaker 1: argument is is like, if you make reading not fun
Speaker 1: in your house, if you're like it becomes a forced
Speaker 1: chore and your child doesn't have any choice of what
Speaker 1: they're reading. It becomes this kind of rote thing that
Speaker 1: they feel that they have to do, they're not going
Speaker 1: to love reading. So what they're saying is just let
Speaker 1: them go for it. Whatever an audiobooks count to. And
Speaker 1: but I see from what you deem I think that
Speaker 1: point about listening the range is so important. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I'm also told to create habit, and
Speaker 1: habit is so much about doing something every day, whether
Speaker 1: or not you especially feel like doing it. So sometimes
Speaker 1: when I hear that advice, I feel like I'm getting
Speaker 1: slightly mixed messages from experts, because yeah, I do try
Speaker 1: and read with my children or have them read to
Speaker 1: themselves every single night, but that's like brushing her teeth.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they really don't want to do it. Am I
Speaker 1: committing read? Aside by forcing them to do it every night?
Speaker 1: Are you forcing them to read like told story? Or
Speaker 1: do they get to choose when they read?
Speaker 2: Mostly they get to choose. But I wonder whether this
Speaker 2: now for parents is a bit trickier because it's like
Speaker 2: a do as I say, not as I do situation
Speaker 2: in that when you become a parent, a lot of
Speaker 2: what you when you read is by yourself once your
Speaker 2: children are asleep. Is kind of that moment of solitude
Speaker 2: where you do it. So they're not seeing you do that,
Speaker 2: but they do see you pick up your phone quite often.
Speaker 2: So it's very hard to like them be engaging them
Speaker 2: and making that something that they see as something that
Speaker 2: they really want to do.
Speaker 1: So I asked Sally Hepworth about this.
Speaker 3: You might know her.
Speaker 1: She's a friend of the show. She's an amazing host
Speaker 1: of Unleashed, another mum of meer podcast, which is hilarious,
Speaker 1: and she's also a New York Times best selling author.
Speaker 1: And she has three children, all of whom are voracious readers.
Speaker 1: And I said, tell me your secrets. What are you
Speaker 1: doing in your house to create these conditions where your
Speaker 1: kids will just dive into books four hours. And she
Speaker 1: gave me some great tips. The first one was, just
Speaker 1: as you said before, Stacey, kids need to see you read,
Speaker 1: so if they're seeing you enjoy books, that kind of
Speaker 1: modeling is really powerful. And she said reading needs to
Speaker 1: be valued in your house and prioritized. So she'll say
Speaker 1: to her kids when they're at the shops and they
Speaker 1: want a toy, she'll say, no, I'm not getting you
Speaker 1: a toy, but if you want a book, you can
Speaker 1: have any book you like. I will never not buy
Speaker 1: you a book if that's what you want, Like, there
Speaker 1: is no limit on how many books I will buy you,
Speaker 1: So she prioritizes books over toys. She says reading to
Speaker 1: your children long after they can read to themselves, is
Speaker 1: really important. She says, let them read whatever they want
Speaker 1: to read. A comic book counts and audiobook counts. And
Speaker 1: the last tip is kind of like controversial I thought,
Speaker 1: is that age inappropriate books are fine. In her opinion.
Speaker 1: She says, kids want to be like titillated, and they
Speaker 1: want to read things that are scary, and they want
Speaker 1: to read things that are a bit rude. So if
Speaker 1: you think like she said, give them books that will
Speaker 1: make their heart wild and make their brain fire up,
Speaker 1: you know, like kids want that make it exciting and
Speaker 1: fun for them. So yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3: I mean, of course, she's a New York Times bestselling author.
Speaker 3: She just coined the phrase gives them books that make
Speaker 3: their hearts wild. That is so beautiful, Sally, thank you.
Speaker 1: No one else is cute?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 1: You know? When it comes to researching for this show,
Speaker 1: I found out all these great things about the way
Speaker 1: Australia does stuff. Do you know every single state and
Speaker 1: territory runs a Premier's Reading Challenge where kids are encouraged
Speaker 1: to read like twenty or thirty books a year. They
Speaker 1: write them all down, send them into the Premiere or
Speaker 1: the head of state of territory and they get an award.
Speaker 2: That's so cute.
Speaker 1: I want an adults Premiers Reading Challenge.
Speaker 2: You know. While we're on reading, I have recorded on
Speaker 2: this show, but it was a long time ago. Now
Speaker 2: is that Dolly Imagination Dolly's Imagination Library. So Dolly Parton
Speaker 2: sponsors books to get sent to kids all around the world.
Speaker 2: So if you're you're in an eligible area, you get
Speaker 2: a free book a month until they're five years old.
Speaker 3: Taylor and Travis just don't two million dollars.
Speaker 2: Yes, so they're probably expanding it out now. So my
Speaker 2: daughter got a book a month from Dolly Parton.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the best and the cues are so carefully chosen,
Speaker 3: so great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're often really tiny books too, so they're
Speaker 2: not like these big you know, because they're posting them
Speaker 2: out to you, so they're very easy to lug around
Speaker 2: and have them read wherever you are. It's the best thing.
Speaker 2: So our beloved Claire Stevens, the host of Mum and
Speaker 2: Me Are Out Loud and the sometimes host of Parenting
Speaker 2: Out Loud as well, she had her second baby, little
Speaker 2: boy called Darcy, who is honestly one of the cutest
Speaker 2: newborn babies.
Speaker 3: I've honestly said, this is what everyone is saying about
Speaker 3: this baby.
Speaker 2: He is so so cute. He's like a fully conscious baby,
Speaker 2: like he looks like he's been here before.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: But there is a detail that really spoke to all
Speaker 2: of us in the photos that Claire posted, and that
Speaker 2: was Claire's Claire just looking so so happy with her
Speaker 2: post birth meal, which was a large macas meal, which
Speaker 2: I think is brilliant. She had gestational diabetes. She has
Speaker 2: been waiting to have some junk food and I can
Speaker 2: just imagine how good that would have tasted to her.
Speaker 2: So it got me thinking about, like, what was your
Speaker 2: post birth meal, because so many people are like, I'm
Speaker 2: banging it for sushi, Like I want sushi or I
Speaker 2: want a champagne? What did you two have? I when
Speaker 2: I had my.
Speaker 3: First child, I had no idea about how it would
Speaker 3: all feel afterwards, but I had this vision that I
Speaker 3: would be sweaking champagne. Yes, so we bought champagne to
Speaker 3: the hospital, And as you may know, it's not really
Speaker 3: the thing you do after giving birth. So I think
Speaker 3: my first post birth meal slash treat was not realized.
Speaker 2: Oh maybe you need to just treat yourself to a
Speaker 2: really nice meal. Now I've been treating myself ever since.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, mon's.
Speaker 1: I remember the cup of tea that I had in
Speaker 1: the birthing sweet was the best cup of tea of
Speaker 1: my life. And they gave me an egg sandwich as well,
Speaker 1: and I've never been happier, Honestly. I remember saying to them,
Speaker 1: this is the best cup of tea I've ever had.
Speaker 1: It was because I just lipped in in a polystyrene cut,
Speaker 1: just yeah, you're so, you're just a different person after
Speaker 1: you give birth, and it just yeah, it just felt
Speaker 1: really intense.
Speaker 2: I remember the similar mons having a sandwich, like the
Speaker 2: sad little sandwich they give you on the tray, and
Speaker 2: being like, oh, this sandwich is the best sandwich. I
Speaker 2: think it was about two days old, like it was
Speaker 2: not fresh. But I remember thinking how amazing that sandwich was.
Speaker 2: But I ordered a family pizza for myself to the
Speaker 2: hospital that night. I ate a whole good pizza and
Speaker 2: it was iconic. Yeah, it was great. All of this
Speaker 2: to say, congratulations, Declare, and I hope you have many
Speaker 2: more macas meals in.
Speaker 3: Big Macs to come.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to.
Speaker 1: Talk about a different parent child relationship, and that is
Speaker 1: the mother daughter relationship in l Now, this is the
Speaker 1: number one show on Prime at the moment. It's the
Speaker 1: Legally Blonde prequel, right is it good about blonds?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. I I am so happy to bring this
Speaker 1: recommendation to you because I feel like all I do
Speaker 1: is watch what Stacy tells me, and now I shall
Speaker 1: bring this to you. Please, watch l and the Reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I haven't seen any I'm really glad to
Speaker 2: hear this.
Speaker 1: If you're not across it. It's kind of the Legally
Speaker 1: Blond prequel. As I said, it's Elle Woods when she's
Speaker 1: a teenager, so before she goes to Harvard, before she
Speaker 1: goes to law school, before she does the bend and snap.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like when her family moves from LA
Speaker 1: to Seattle. And the story is that she's this LA
Speaker 1: girl living in an LA world, and then she goes
Speaker 1: to the very grungy city of Seattle. It has to
Speaker 1: kind of find her bearings there. But everyone's talking about
Speaker 1: sort of the love triangle part of it, the best
Speaker 1: friend part of it. But the thing I can't stop
Speaker 1: thinking about and why I want you to watch this
Speaker 1: is because of the relationship with the mum, Eva Woods.
Speaker 1: And she's played by June Diane Raphael, who is mesmerizing
Speaker 1: in this. She is magnetic. You cannot stop watching her.
Speaker 1: She's so much fun to watch. And what's interesting is
Speaker 1: that she is positioned as Elle's best friend.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So Elle's an only child. She's got this mother who
Speaker 1: they watch the same TV show they watch, Bold and
Speaker 1: the beautiful or days of our lives, whatever it is. Together,
Speaker 1: they tell each other everything, They dress the same, They
Speaker 1: love each other in a very best friend way. It's
Speaker 1: very much we tell each other everything. Vibes and normally
Speaker 1: the second a mum sort of says, oh, my daughter's
Speaker 1: my best friend, we're supposed to clock it as this
Speaker 1: sort of warning sign, as a bit of a red flag.
Speaker 1: It's that do you know that cool mum trope that
Speaker 1: I'm not like coolmay Yeah, the idea is like, oh no,
Speaker 1: it's a mother that's just like living through her daughter,
Speaker 1: and it's quite cringe. But I what Eva and L
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh I love this. I think I
Speaker 1: want this, like this very aspirational kind of best friend parenting.
Speaker 1: So it sounds wrong, but it feels so right when
Speaker 1: I watch this, So I want to talk about it
Speaker 1: and kind of like pull it apart, Stacy, Why does
Speaker 1: like my mum is my best friend get red as
Speaker 1: a red flag?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It's so interesting, isn't it? Because on one hand,
Speaker 2: I'm like you. When I hear you say that, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: I hope my daughter affuse me as her best friend
Speaker 2: when she's older. Like it does seem like a lovely
Speaker 2: thing to have, but at the same time it's given
Speaker 2: a bad rap because it comes across as maybe that
Speaker 2: the mother is living vicariously through her child, that she's
Speaker 2: kind of unwilling to grow up and see herself as
Speaker 2: the age she actually is. And in a real world sense,
Speaker 2: like experts worn against this often they're kind of like,
Speaker 2: you know, it leads to parentification of the child because
Speaker 2: you're making them kind of mature before they should be.
Speaker 2: That they're that you're acting immaturely and not acting your age,
Speaker 2: And to me, it kind of feels like that thing
Speaker 2: of why they tell you should never be best friends
Speaker 2: with your boss, Like it's okay for a while, but
Speaker 2: then eventually the boss or the parent is going to
Speaker 2: have to set a boundary or tell you to pull
Speaker 2: your socks up in some respect, and then things get
Speaker 2: awkward because it's a big shift in the dynamic. So
Speaker 2: I think that's I think that's why we're kind of
Speaker 2: told no, no, no, no no, like be close with them,
Speaker 2: but but don't be that close, right.
Speaker 1: So count counterpoint, wouldn't you want your best friends to
Speaker 1: tell you to pull your socks up when they thought
Speaker 1: you needed it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but not the other way around. You don't want
Speaker 2: your child telling you what to do. Like that's a
Speaker 2: weird flip when it gets to that point, right, I
Speaker 2: think you're.
Speaker 3: Both completely wrong. I do not want my daughter to
Speaker 3: think that I'm her best friend. I want her to
Speaker 3: have a best friend. Yeah, I mean, like that's why
Speaker 3: why doesn't she have a best That's so weird, Like
Speaker 3: that's a completely different role in someone's life.
Speaker 2: Do you know who I think has a lot to
Speaker 2: answer for for this is Laura Gilmore and Rory Gilmore
Speaker 2: in The Gilmore Girls. I think it romanticized that mother
Speaker 2: daughter relationship, that best friends tell each other all this secrets,
Speaker 2: Like we don't actually have good examples of normal mother
Speaker 2: daughter relationships in pop culture, like we have that we
Speaker 2: have the extreme closeness, or we have like Moira Rose
Speaker 2: and Alexis.
Speaker 3: And mother's son relationships. Even you've got literally psycho on
Speaker 3: one end of the spectrum. Yeah, I think that What
Speaker 3: makes me uncomfortable about this is that friendship versus a
Speaker 3: parent child relationship, there's a very different notion of privacy
Speaker 3: and what's appropriate to share. So I think with your
Speaker 3: best friend you can share a lot of details of
Speaker 3: your emotional life that I don't think would be right
Speaker 3: to share with your mother, Like your mother isn't designed
Speaker 3: to solve all your problems. I think that friends are
Speaker 3: performing a different function.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I entirely agree with that, because Amelia,
Speaker 1: I think we're seeing millennials and generations below millennials, that
Speaker 1: one's coming up, the z's, the alphas doing more best
Speaker 1: friend parenting, and I think it ties into relationships. You know,
Speaker 1: parenting styles have changed, and Boomers and Gen X it
Speaker 1: was very much like do as I say, lots of
Speaker 1: like stick and no carrot, discipline and authoritarianism. But now
Speaker 1: we're seeing the rise of gentle parenting and permissive parenting,
Speaker 1: and so there has been this dynamic shift. And I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.
Speaker 1: I don't there I've said it. I think best friends
Speaker 1: is a trusting relationship and I think that that can
Speaker 1: hold between a mother and a daughter.
Speaker 2: And I mean we're seeing a lot of we're seeing
Speaker 2: a lot of estrangement now on the rise as well,
Speaker 2: between like the boomer generation and the millennial gener Like aguably,
Speaker 2: estrangement is kind of at an all time. How does
Speaker 2: that fit in with this? Well, that's the thing is
Speaker 2: that is this now that millennial parents are trying to
Speaker 2: correct that and go the opposite way. So if they
Speaker 2: had that really authoritarian parenting that Mon's is talking about,
Speaker 2: then they go, okay, well I have to do something
Speaker 2: else to ensure my child wants to be around me,
Speaker 2: and so then that seems to be okay, Well I
Speaker 2: just have to make them.
Speaker 3: It's basically a marketing exercise. Yeah, your parents, millennial parents
Speaker 3: are saying, I'm not only your parent, I'm also your friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's going to make it harder for you to
Speaker 2: cut me off. Yes, exactly, you need to keep me
Speaker 2: well into adulthood.
Speaker 1: It's funny that you mentioned Gilmore Girls before as a
Speaker 1: good pop culture example of this same thing, because this
Speaker 1: show Elle was modeled on that exact Gillmore Girls show.
Speaker 1: So the writers, the writers said, we want it to
Speaker 1: be like Gilmore Girls, and Jeane Diane Raphael in interviews
Speaker 1: for the show, said that TV mother daughter relationships usually
Speaker 1: come loaded with competition and with criticism, and they wanted
Speaker 1: this to be deliberately different. And I think the word
Speaker 1: competition's really key here because, like picture two moms that say,
Speaker 1: my daughter is my best friend, and in one corner
Speaker 1: we've got mum A and her whole personality is her daughter.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: These are kind of like dance Moms, you know that
Speaker 1: sort of show where she has no interests outside of
Speaker 1: her daughter's life and when her daughter wins, she wins.
Speaker 1: Like that is not an ideal mother daughter relationship, right.
Speaker 1: But Mother B the other mom. She has her own
Speaker 1: stuff going on, She has her own life, she has
Speaker 1: her own story arc she has, and she has her
Speaker 1: own friends, and she still chooses to spend time with
Speaker 1: her daughter because she just likes her. So that's what
Speaker 1: we're seeing in this l movie, in this LTV show,
Speaker 1: it's like Mom A as my daughter is my best
Speaker 1: friend feels problematic. Mum B just feels good.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about it. The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader season three
Speaker 3: that you recommended, I think Stacy and I started watching
Speaker 3: the new season and this is not a spoiler because
Speaker 3: this storyline existed in season two as well. There's a
Speaker 3: mother who was a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and her daughter
Speaker 3: who has never made the team and who keeps auditioning,
Speaker 3: and I feel so uncomfortable when her mother. Her mother
Speaker 3: is a lovely lady by all accounts, and she's so
Speaker 3: encouraging and nurturing, and she says, I just want Dayton
Speaker 3: to be herself. But there's a part of me that
Speaker 3: feels viscerally nervous about a mother encouraging her daughter to
Speaker 3: do the same thing as her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like this is maybe a new breed
Speaker 2: of mother daughter in this show. Mon's in that it's
Speaker 2: not that thing of they have to follow in my
Speaker 2: footsteps and they have to or they have to achieve
Speaker 2: what I wasn't able to achieve. This is just genuinely,
Speaker 2: I just want to be around them, like that's all
Speaker 2: you want, right, for them to just like you as
Speaker 2: a person and you like them back.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to posit one theory to you both
Speaker 1: that I read, which I thought was really interesting, that
Speaker 1: duel income households are now the norm right in a
Speaker 1: way that they weren't for boomer raised millennials like us.
Speaker 1: So one proposed theory is that this shift towards best
Speaker 1: friend parenting is partly a symptom of nobody having time
Speaker 1: to be like the boring authority figure anymore. Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: we don't have time, we can't be bothered. It's just
Speaker 1: easier to take the path of least resistance and let's
Speaker 1: all just be friends.
Speaker 3: But doesn't someone have to set boundaries and create rules
Speaker 3: like and is that perhaps why teachers are complaining that
Speaker 3: more and more is being put on them, because parents
Speaker 3: are thinking, I'm stressed, I'm harassed, I've got all this
Speaker 3: work to do. I'm just going to pass the discipline
Speaker 3: part of this relationship onto my child's educator totally.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that there's no
Speaker 1: discipline in this. Like one of the things that parenting
Speaker 1: experts talk about a lot is like if you put
Speaker 1: those their working in the early years, that all the
Speaker 1: years are easier for you. And like, we don't know,
Speaker 1: we don't Maybe we need like the pre prequel to
Speaker 1: it and see Elwoods as a child and a toddler.
Speaker 1: But one thing I noticed in this is there's lots
Speaker 1: of scripting that the mother does about what Woods women do,
Speaker 1: so Elwoods and Evil Woods. And that's another thing I
Speaker 1: picked up from this show because I remember parenting experts.
Speaker 1: It might be Maggie Dent talks a lot about the
Speaker 1: words that you use around the home of what kind
Speaker 1: of a family you are are really powerful and they
Speaker 1: call it scripting. And so Eva Woods says a lot
Speaker 1: of things like woods women lift people up. Woods women
Speaker 1: are really resilient. You know, us woods women, we can't
Speaker 1: wear green. You know, there's lots of like this is
Speaker 1: what we do and this what we don't. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I just thought that was an interesting bit to love
Speaker 1: her recommendations, Amelia, what have you got this week?
Speaker 3: So Christopher Nolan's Odyssey is coming out in movie theaters
Speaker 3: this week. Yes, it is starring quest to.
Speaker 1: Know about this? Is this a big blockbuster?
Speaker 2: It's got like every star in the world in it,
Speaker 2: Like name a person they're in it? Ze Day, Matt Damons,
Speaker 2: I'm stealing your thunder, Amelia under Anne Hathaway, Charlie Saran.
Speaker 3: I'm not recommending that you take your children to go
Speaker 3: and see a three hour ultra violent movie. But what
Speaker 3: I am doing is reading to my kids a version
Speaker 3: of the Odyssey which stars Nanny Piggins.
Speaker 2: Oh So.
Speaker 3: Ari Spratt is the Australian author of the Nanny Piggins series.
Speaker 3: She lives in Barrel, New South Wales, and her new
Speaker 3: book is the epically awesome Odyssey as told by Nanny Piggins,
Speaker 3: and it stars Nanny Piggins, who, if you're not familiar
Speaker 3: with her, she is a ca Yeah, it's a great
Speaker 3: Aussie book series. God, she is a cake loving pig
Speaker 3: and she is in the role of Odysseus. And one
Speaker 3: thing that's great about it is that you're reading it
Speaker 3: to your kids, and if they're vaguely familiar with the Odyssey,
Speaker 3: they'll be like, isn't Odysseus supposed to be a boy?
Speaker 3: And you say, yes, but now he's a girl and
Speaker 3: he is a pig, and so you're kind of like
Speaker 3: introducing them to the idea that these kinds of stories
Speaker 3: can be told again and again in different ways. And
Speaker 3: I love expanding their brains, making their hearts wild in
Speaker 3: that way. It's also just very funny. It's brilliantly told.
Speaker 3: I don't know the story of the Odyssey, but I
Speaker 3: do want to see the movie, so it's helping to
Speaker 3: sort of prepare me for the movie. And I also
Speaker 3: feel like I'm expanding their brains at the same time.
Speaker 1: You just expanded my brain. I have no idea what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. I have not heard of the Odyssey.
Speaker 1: I have not heard of Nanny Piggins.
Speaker 3: I realize if you were not tuned into The Odyssey
Speaker 3: or Nanny Piggins, what I just said bonds must have sounded.
Speaker 3: It's so strange.
Speaker 1: It was like another language. I had to focus so hard.
Speaker 1: But there will be people out there who are with me.
Speaker 2: I think. I also think there are people with me.
Speaker 3: The ven diagram of people who want to see the
Speaker 3: biggest movie of the year and also have kids into
Speaker 3: Nanny Piggins. That is a real group of people, those
Speaker 3: of my people, and I see them and this is
Speaker 3: for them.
Speaker 1: I believe you. Stacy, what do you recommend this way?
Speaker 2: Mine is very different to that. My recommendation.
Speaker 4: You're both just looking at me like I am like Bony,
Speaker 4: your most famous story of all time re told in
Speaker 4: the form of a beloved Australian children's work characters.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of The Odyssey. What are you even
Speaker 1: talking about?
Speaker 3: The producer has her head in her hands, That's all
Speaker 3: I'm saying, Stacy.
Speaker 2: And now now you've said that you're going to see
Speaker 2: The Odyssey absolutely everywhere, You're not going to be able
Speaker 2: to scams movie. Yeah you are, get ready. Buckle up,
Speaker 2: mine on the Venn diagram is a very broad range
Speaker 2: of people that would be able to appreciate my reco
Speaker 2: this week because mine is a particular type of apple.
Speaker 2: Stick stick with me.
Speaker 1: Everything Oyssey bigger than is the Odyssey? Bigger than Titanic?
Speaker 1: Like I thought Titanic was the biggest story.
Speaker 3: If the if Homer's Grand Epic is bigger than the Titanic,
Speaker 3: yes it is. The It is the most famous story
Speaker 3: humans have ever told to each other outside of the Bible.
Speaker 3: Now it is with Matt Damon. I don't know what
Speaker 3: more to say to you about how big the Odyssey is.
Speaker 3: Like it's yes, it's bigger than the Titanic.
Speaker 2: Okay, back to Apple.
Speaker 1: We've just been told to move it on by our
Speaker 1: producer Tessa. She's like, get off the Odyssey.
Speaker 2: And she's like recommending the apple. Goddamn it, Stacey. Okay,
Speaker 2: this is a new type of apple. This apple got
Speaker 2: released two years ago. I didn't know they were developed
Speaker 2: different variations of apples, but they are. It is the
Speaker 2: cosmic crisp apple.
Speaker 3: Okay, so tell me what it's like.
Speaker 2: Okay. It is like the crunchiness of a red Delicious
Speaker 2: and the sweetness of a Royal Gala. They are huge.
Speaker 2: They're like the size of an orange, kind of kind
Speaker 2: of like kind of like that, but they are massive,
Speaker 2: and the thing that they have is a really long
Speaker 2: shelf life, so they're really slow to brown. Even if
Speaker 2: that's the.
Speaker 3: Least sexy thing anyone's ever said about apples, it's basically
Speaker 3: like a cyborg apple.
Speaker 2: Amelia, I brought you one of these apples to try today,
Speaker 2: and can you at least tell me that it's delicious?
Speaker 2: It is so delicious, Like I'm obsessed with them. People
Speaker 2: think I have shares in this apple. I don't. I
Speaker 2: buy this apple every week. I really really love that.
Speaker 3: She's not going to be back next week. She's going
Speaker 3: to be off on a yacht in the Green Island.
Speaker 3: Apple profits.
Speaker 1: I wish with apples with Apple branding, Like have they
Speaker 1: gone right? Guys? Listen, We've got We've got the Pink Lady,
Speaker 1: We've got the Granny Smith. They're all sort of like homely.
Speaker 1: They're there for women, the women's apples, Pink Lady, Grace.
Speaker 1: We need a man's apple. What are we going to
Speaker 1: call it? Fuck it? Call it cosmic cris that's sick cosmics.
Speaker 1: It does does need an apple tech bros. We need
Speaker 1: futuristic apple anyway.
Speaker 2: The bit about the browning was that you could put
Speaker 2: it in a kid's lunch box and it wouldn't look
Speaker 2: like dirt by lunchtime. Wow, stay like apply. Do you
Speaker 2: see how.
Speaker 3: Your apple recommendation because the.
Speaker 1: Then diagram of people that eat apples is just one
Speaker 1: big circle. Amelia, we all know what an apple is.
Speaker 2: What's your apple? I think Amelia is telling us we
Speaker 2: need to read Mormon.
Speaker 1: Tell me, I'm recommending it's it's a book, it counts
Speaker 1: as a book. It's an audiobook. I guess it's an
Speaker 1: audio story.
Speaker 3: You said all that stuff before about audiobooks counting exactly.
Speaker 1: I was setting myself up to look good at the end.
Speaker 1: So Sally Hatworth says, audiobooks count because it's even though
Speaker 1: it's not words on a page, kids are still having
Speaker 1: to use their imaginations. So I'm bringing you this show
Speaker 1: that I've only just discovered, which is terrible of me,
Speaker 1: given I used to work there. It's called Story Salad
Speaker 1: by the ABC. It's on the ABC Listen app. It
Speaker 1: is so fun. It is these two hilarious kids from
Speaker 1: drama school. I guess they're adults, they have drama kid vibes.
Speaker 1: And what they do is they pluck three words out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. They get children to submit words, any random words,
Speaker 1: and then they have ninety seconds to tell a story
Speaker 1: with those three words. And it is so heavenly to
Speaker 1: listen to. It's just a really really funny concept and
Speaker 1: a fun show.
Speaker 2: It's really into it.
Speaker 3: I have listened to it with my kids. And the
Speaker 3: thing I love most is that the hosts are just
Speaker 3: living their drama kid best lives, like ye, having so
Speaker 3: much fun. And I love when they make each other
Speaker 3: just crack up spontaneously.
Speaker 1: Yes, and they're so good at it.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: So that's my reco good to listen to when you're
Speaker 1: lying in bed on the little smart speaker. That's when
Speaker 1: we do it. All right, that's all we have time
Speaker 1: for this week on Parenting out Loud. If you have
Speaker 1: to see The Odyssey, good luck with that. If you're
Speaker 1: diving into a cosmic crisp, keep an eye out in
Speaker 1: the fruit aisle for the cosmic Crisp, Give a little
Speaker 1: head nod the tech apple and get some story salad
Speaker 1: into you. Have a great week. We'll be back next
Speaker 1: Saturday morning for more chats. Mummy acknowledges the traditional owners
Speaker 1: of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.