Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mom with mea podcast.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast for parents who
Speaker 2: don't always listen to parenting podcasts. Do we think we're
Speaker 2: better than the other parenting podcast I'm not sure, but
Speaker 2: we might sometimes because where you try to bring you
Speaker 2: sort of the news and the trends and the culture
Speaker 2: rather than the toilet training tips.
Speaker 3: I'm Monique Bowley, I'm Amelia Lester.
Speaker 1: And I'm Claire Stevens.
Speaker 2: Hey thoughts impressed to anyone camping this easter? Just like,
Speaker 2: hope it's going well for you. Hope the weather's holding out,
Speaker 2: Hope the petrol tanks are full.
Speaker 4: I'm picturing friend of the podcast, Holly Waynwright. She's going camping,
Speaker 4: and I just get the sense everything's going to be damp,
Speaker 4: even if it's not raining, it will just be damp
Speaker 4: because that is camping.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's resilience building, all right.
Speaker 3: Coming up on today's show.
Speaker 4: Is Chris Pratt, the most hated dad on the Internet.
Speaker 5: We look at his supposed crimes.
Speaker 6: And why do Australians love school uniforms so much? A
Speaker 6: Sydney school ditched them to its peril.
Speaker 2: And the U come last rule, which blew up the
Speaker 2: comments section this week. But first Easter aside, what has
Speaker 2: been happening this week online?
Speaker 6: This might be the parenting version of the Fire Festival.
Speaker 6: The Fire Festival was a twenty seventeen music festival in
Speaker 6: the Bahamas.
Speaker 1: You might remember.
Speaker 6: It failed so badly. It was documented in a Netflix
Speaker 6: special and all these hipsters were like showing these sandwiches
Speaker 6: that they'd paid thousands of dollars for on this remote
Speaker 6: island where the musical accident show up. It was just
Speaker 6: like an epic fail. Well, Florida parents who spent a
Speaker 6: lot of money on tickets to something called Barbie Dreamfest
Speaker 6: this week are comparing it to the Fire Festival. Tickets
Speaker 6: to this event cost something like one hundred and ninety dollars.
Speaker 6: It was marketed as an immersive celebration of Barbie with
Speaker 6: interactive experiences and themed installations. Let me pause to say,
Speaker 6: this is exactly the kind of event I love to
Speaker 6: waste money on. Yeah, because in my head I think
Speaker 6: that Saturday taken care of the children will be so
Speaker 6: grateful to their mother for providing them with this immersive
Speaker 6: themed experience. I will pat myself on the back and
Speaker 6: we'll all go home happy.
Speaker 2: It's also the kind of event Amelia that you know
Speaker 2: is going to look good on your social media. I
Speaker 2: can't believe I have to say that, but in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six, like you know, people buying tickets going, I
Speaker 2: know what my aesthetic's going to be on my Instagram
Speaker 2: page for when I take my children to this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 6: And you also want to be that parent who's like
Speaker 6: I just try and find an interesting and unique experience
Speaker 6: to have my children exposed to every weekend.
Speaker 1: Or maybe that's just me.
Speaker 6: Anyway, most found themselves very disappointed with the Barbie Dreamfest,
Speaker 6: and they left with their children after an hour.
Speaker 3: To picture for us of what it actually was like.
Speaker 2: So you think it's gonna be like the Barbie movie, right,
Speaker 2: what happens when they walk in Amelia?
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, it's a sparsely decorated warehouse space and there
Speaker 6: is not even any music playing. So just imagine like
Speaker 6: a giant warehouse like situation with a few sort of
Speaker 6: like desoltry pink cardboard spaces throughout.
Speaker 1: Very quiet because again, no music.
Speaker 4: They should just play the Barbie movie soundtrack.
Speaker 1: They could so.
Speaker 4: Well for one hundred that's one hundred and ninety USDs tickets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they could afforded.
Speaker 6: Let me quote from one attendee who told People Magazine
Speaker 6: as we walked to the entrance around opening, it was
Speaker 6: empty and there was no music. The first things you
Speaker 6: saw were the eighties skating rink and the bike event.
Speaker 6: The rink was metal bars and a tiny disco ball,
Speaker 6: no music.
Speaker 1: No theme.
Speaker 6: The Barbie dream House, which I would have pictured myself
Speaker 6: kind of wandering through a La Margo Robbie, was a
Speaker 6: cutout cardboard box with a pink blanket in front, a
Speaker 6: couple of chairs and a VW bus that you couldn't
Speaker 6: even go oh no.
Speaker 5: The kids would have been so pissed.
Speaker 6: It gets worse because there were apparently a few vendors
Speaker 6: there doing activities, so there was a Mad Scientist stall
Speaker 6: and a crafting store, but the.
Speaker 1: Experiences weren't included in the cost.
Speaker 6: Is there anything that enrages a parent more than paying
Speaker 6: a lot of money for something and then your children
Speaker 6: harass you to spend more.
Speaker 5: Because there's nothing to do.
Speaker 1: There's nothing to do.
Speaker 3: I couldn't start looking at this.
Speaker 2: I was like one of those I just didn't know
Speaker 2: what to think, and I went so deep into the comments,
Speaker 2: and I think I messaged you Amelia. I was like,
Speaker 2: don't disturb me. I'm in the comments eating popcorn. This
Speaker 2: is like the greatest and the worst thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: At the same time, it it feels to me like
Speaker 2: madly unfair, Like can't we just have nice things?
Speaker 3: The world is a lot right now.
Speaker 2: I just want to walk through the Barbie dream House
Speaker 2: and it is just a cardboard cutout, like it just
Speaker 2: feels so symbolic of everything right now.
Speaker 1: It reminds me.
Speaker 6: Also, do you remember the Glasgow Willy Wonka?
Speaker 1: I think about that, so I know you do, Claire.
Speaker 6: I didn't even ask you about this beforehand, but I
Speaker 6: just know there's a little corner of your brain devoted
Speaker 6: to that.
Speaker 1: Can you remind us about that? Yeah?
Speaker 4: So it was basically it was similar and then it
Speaker 4: was all all set up like Willy Wonka, but really
Speaker 4: it was shit. No, timmy shallah. It was really bad,
Speaker 4: but even potentially worse than this. It was scary. All
Speaker 4: the umplopers really terrified the children, and I was like,
Speaker 4: oh God, imagine you're not even getting the fun experience,
Speaker 4: but your kids are actively upset from attending oh man,
Speaker 4: I would have been soapy sed off.
Speaker 2: Weren't my favorite comment. My favorite comment was and there
Speaker 2: was there were thousands.
Speaker 3: If you have.
Speaker 7: A Barbie event and you advertise for scale dream house,
Speaker 7: then your only priority is one hundred percent to make
Speaker 7: sure that the dream house is there, come hell or
Speaker 7: high water, like.
Speaker 1: They come hell or high water.
Speaker 2: But I don't think the kids would have cared that much. Really,
Speaker 2: like you take a kid anywhere, you take a kid
Speaker 2: to an elaborate thing, and they're like playing with the
Speaker 2: cardboard box they're playing with, like the one free balloon
Speaker 2: that they got given.
Speaker 3: On the way.
Speaker 2: I think it's all the parents that feel mightily ripped off,
Speaker 2: and as they should. It's very much like Barbie Budget
Speaker 2: Cut Sedition. Okay, another thing that I saw that went
Speaker 2: wild online this week. I saw it and I thought,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I just would like to put this
Speaker 2: to the podcast to discuss it because it was an
Speaker 2: Australian couple that went viral for this little postpartum video.
Speaker 2: So picture the inside of a maternity hospital room, private room.
Speaker 2: It's filmed sort of point of view from the basinette
Speaker 2: and the text on the screen on the Instagram real
Speaker 2: screen says, when you didn't tell the grandparents about the
Speaker 2: birth of their grandchild. And what you watch is the
Speaker 2: grandparents walk into the hospital room and see the mother
Speaker 2: and say hello, you know, how are you feeling hard?
Speaker 2: Card hug and that moment when they spot the baby
Speaker 2: and they're like, what a baby?
Speaker 1: When did this happen?
Speaker 3: And they're just completely shocked.
Speaker 2: So congratulations mum and dad, I guess and they do
Speaker 2: say in the bid, well, she came early. But Claire,
Speaker 2: have you planned a sort of rogue surprise birth and
Speaker 2: baby reveal for your own life?
Speaker 4: Well, the thing is, I can't keep secrets for shit,
Speaker 4: so I would be so bad at this. But I
Speaker 4: remember before I gave birth for the first time, we
Speaker 4: had a discussion in the office about whether it is
Speaker 4: whether when you have a baby, it's just baseline expectation
Speaker 4: that grandparents free reign to come whenever suits them, like
Speaker 4: the night you deliver, the early morning hours, whatever, that
Speaker 4: they are entitled to be there as soon as they
Speaker 4: want to be. And a lot of other people were
Speaker 4: saying no, and I said yes because I was like,
Speaker 4: this is a shared joy. The baby is that everyone
Speaker 4: don't hug the baby. And then once i'd been.
Speaker 1: Through it, I thought, absolutely not.
Speaker 4: I am all for that couple needing a minute, just
Speaker 4: needing a minute. And I think it's so clever to
Speaker 4: actually not tell anyone. There is nothing more annoying than
Speaker 4: being in labor and getting a million questions from people
Speaker 4: about how it's progressing, when you're like, this is really
Speaker 4: slow and I'm bored as fuck. But I love that
Speaker 4: idea of not telling them and them getting a massive surprise.
Speaker 4: It also means that you then don't have to rush anything,
Speaker 4: like you don't have to rush, how you feel, you
Speaker 4: don't have to rush, how your recessing, any of it.
Speaker 4: But I'd love to have the self restrained to do this.
Speaker 1: I just don't.
Speaker 6: You're not a Kylie Jenner no how She famously kept
Speaker 6: her first pregnancy completely secret from the world. Yeah, and
Speaker 6: then dropped the Instagram video revealing the baby. My first
Speaker 6: thought here was like, was this a Kylie Jenner situation?
Speaker 6: But that's interesting ones that that the baby came early.
Speaker 6: I had a baby early, and I remember that after
Speaker 6: the baby came out, I snapped a pick of the
Speaker 6: baby and sent it to one Mere Freedman.
Speaker 1: Oh, and she wrote back saying.
Speaker 6: Who is this because no one expected that baby to come.
Speaker 6: I said, that's my baby, Maya. She's like, oh beautiful.
Speaker 6: But like you can when you have a baby early,
Speaker 6: it is a silver lining. The nursery might not be ready,
Speaker 6: you might have a lot of medical complications, but one
Speaker 6: silver lining is you get to surprise your friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah and your family. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, congrats guys. All right, there's a new rule for
Speaker 2: parents this week. And as you're parental correspondent, I wanted
Speaker 2: to bring you across it. It's doing the rounds online
Speaker 2: after it went viral on X, which used to be Twitter,
Speaker 2: but we will still call it.
Speaker 1: I resent having to call it.
Speaker 4: X formerly known as Twitter. No one can call it
Speaker 4: X because it's a bad name. Elon, it's a terrible name.
Speaker 3: Has not got good form with names. He really doesn't.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me read let me read you the X.
Speaker 2: My super strong parenting opinion is that while the kids
Speaker 2: are awake, you come last. Laura Hudson at Latter Day
Speaker 2: Laura wrote this week, no spending all of Saturday golfing.
Speaker 2: That's family time, six a m.
Speaker 3: T time only.
Speaker 2: Maybe want to go to the gym? Go after the
Speaker 2: kids go to bed or wake up at five. In
Speaker 2: a few short years, they'll be out of the house
Speaker 2: and you have all the time in the world for
Speaker 2: your own stuff. She said, it's okay, come last for
Speaker 2: a little while. So what do we think of the
Speaker 2: U come last rule?
Speaker 4: They're sad, So it will it'll surprise everyone to hear this.
Speaker 4: But I don't think how we approach parenting can be
Speaker 4: summed up in three to four sentences on Twitter.
Speaker 5: I think it's probably a little bit more nuance than that.
Speaker 4: So, like every take ever, I do feel like as
Speaker 4: rage baity as this is, there is a tiny.
Speaker 1: Nuggative truth no nuggative.
Speaker 4: I think the nugget of truth is that some mothers
Speaker 4: unconsciously internalize this and it's how they're living their lives.
Speaker 4: And so in that case, it would be helpful to
Speaker 4: have a conversation with your partner where you say, at
Speaker 4: least we're both on the same page, and then you
Speaker 4: can kind of ironically end up having a bit more
Speaker 4: time for yourselves because you're tag teaming rather than your
Speaker 4: husband living his own life. This is a heterosexual relationship
Speaker 4: because I'm not at all speaking from experience, but so
Speaker 4: that your husband isn't just living his life, and then
Speaker 4: you're kind of doing all the sacrificing at the same time.
Speaker 2: Can I just stop you and ask a question about that,
Speaker 2: because I think that's a really good point. What do
Speaker 2: you mean unconsciously internalizing it? Like can you or does
Speaker 2: it consciously have to come from somewhere? I think it's
Speaker 2: you don't just suddenly decide to be a certain way,
Speaker 2: Like there's things that make your way, right.
Speaker 4: I think that for mothers there can be a certain
Speaker 4: level of guilt that comes with the decisions you make.
Speaker 4: So for example, when I saw this, I thought of
Speaker 4: a few a few ways I do this, and no
Speaker 4: one's told me to do it. But and like, lol,
Speaker 4: I'm not putting my child first all day.
Speaker 1: Every day or when you see that's the time.
Speaker 4: See that's the thing. I don't play golf, and you
Speaker 4: know how much I'd love to. But for example, with
Speaker 4: a lot of social stuff, I will intention on plant
Speaker 4: like an eight o'clock dinner, because I know my daughter.
Speaker 6: Will not having eight o'clock dinners regularly, are you.
Speaker 4: Well, Like with friends with young kids, eight o'clock is
Speaker 4: a great time because the kid's in bed, and then
Speaker 4: you don't feel that guilt that you've left your poor
Speaker 4: partner to do bedtime or any of that, and I
Speaker 4: have done that without even thinking about it.
Speaker 1: So I will.
Speaker 4: I'll do a lot of stuff at night. I do
Speaker 4: a lot of cleaning at night. It becomes my time
Speaker 4: to get anything done because I'm.
Speaker 3: Prioritizing time clean out the free.
Speaker 4: Don't even because I have this weird idea that it's
Speaker 4: like I should be maximizing I should be maximizing time
Speaker 4: with Matilda when she's awake.
Speaker 1: My husband does not do that at all.
Speaker 4: And the golf thing just made me laugh because there
Speaker 4: are just full saturdays that are riten and I couldn't
Speaker 4: I couldn't even think of doing something like that. With
Speaker 4: that said, I don't think that's good, and it's something
Speaker 4: I want to challenge because when I think about my childhood,
Speaker 4: I think that some of my absolute favorite memories were
Speaker 4: being with my parents while they did the things that
Speaker 4: they loved. Yes, like, every every week my mom would
Speaker 4: play tennis with her friends and the four of us
Speaker 4: kids would just literally play outside the court and it
Speaker 4: was a total vibe. And the thing I loved about
Speaker 4: it was that my mom loved doing it and she was.
Speaker 3: Why did your mom have to take you to tennis?
Speaker 1: Yeah, great question.
Speaker 2: To babysit her and go to tennis herself. Couldn't your
Speaker 2: dad have looked after you while she went to tennis?
Speaker 5: I bet you like paying.
Speaker 3: That is not selfless decision.
Speaker 2: No drag four kids to tennis, I know, not me
Speaker 2: time for an Stevens.
Speaker 4: Mum dragged us everywhere and I loved it because you
Speaker 4: just wanna You just want to be around and the
Speaker 4: thing that you enjoy is seeing your parents happy. The
Speaker 4: older I gets, the more I think the biggest gift
Speaker 4: that you can give to your children is to see
Speaker 4: you happy.
Speaker 6: Okay, but I think that that idea of taking the
Speaker 6: kids with you everywhere is one way to rebut this,
Speaker 6: and in fact, one of the comments said, my super
Speaker 6: strong parenting opinion is that you bring the little shit
Speaker 6: with you to the golf course. You live your life
Speaker 6: for you, but with the kids. To me, that's another
Speaker 6: form of guilt tripping.
Speaker 5: I agree, because you genuinely cannot take it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to take the kids to golf.
Speaker 6: Golf is my me time, and by golf I mean
Speaker 6: margs with my friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to take them.
Speaker 6: It's not relaxing, don't paying them in the guise of, oh,
Speaker 6: it's so easy to bring them along. I agree, I
Speaker 6: don't think like I wonder if you asked your mom
Speaker 6: was that stressful to bring the kids along? Like I
Speaker 6: take your point that you enjoyed it, but there must
Speaker 6: have been a part of her which was always thinking
Speaker 6: a little bit, I hope the kids.
Speaker 1: Are playing okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I'm sure it was. But the other thing was,
Speaker 4: you know, that was something that would happen during the week.
Speaker 4: But I also remember my Nan lived with us when
Speaker 4: we were growing up, and I remember that Mum would
Speaker 4: go to dinner, go wherever she was going on a
Speaker 4: Saturday night, and it would be our responsibility to like
Speaker 4: get nun ready for bed because she couldn't move around
Speaker 4: a lot, and like put her pajamas on and stuff.
Speaker 4: And I loved that, and I loved that it was
Speaker 4: actually also teaching one the world doesn't revolve around the kids.
Speaker 4: The kids have to learn to care for other people
Speaker 4: as well, like the world in that instance revolved around now.
Speaker 6: And the kids also don't want their parent just standing
Speaker 6: there staring at them all the time, saying you're awake,
Speaker 6: you're awake, what shall we do. I just think that's
Speaker 6: not what kids want either.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I think, like my question is like, at what point
Speaker 2: did being a good parent start to be be totally
Speaker 2: selfless and put them ahead of yourself? Because it does
Speaker 2: feel like that's the kind of dominant narrative. And I
Speaker 2: was like, where is this coming from? Is it coming
Speaker 2: from the pop culture models that we see? Like you
Speaker 2: look at Bluie's dad, what's his name?
Speaker 3: We always freaking talk about him.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, he's like the epitome of a good dad,
Speaker 2: and he is always doing He's not off playing golf,
Speaker 2: is he He's there with the kids, playing with the
Speaker 2: kids all the time, or like the kind of parents
Speaker 2: that we were modeled to us in pop culture was
Speaker 2: probably like Tim the Toolman, Taylor's wife who just was
Speaker 2: like the stay at home mum. And I know certainly,
Speaker 2: like I think when you were talking before about like
Speaker 2: how we unconsciously internalized stuff, you've got to also think
Speaker 2: about how it was modeled to you as a child.
Speaker 2: Like my mum was all about like putting herself last,
Speaker 2: Like it was always her that had the burnt chop,
Speaker 2: it was always her that went without so that we
Speaker 2: could have things. So, yeah, at what point did becoming
Speaker 2: a good parent look like just being selfless?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 6: There was another comment on it that said, I'm big,
Speaker 6: I'm begging millennial women to do as little parenting as
Speaker 6: their grandma mothers did. Keyword through is grandmothers because I
Speaker 6: think that experience you had, Monds of a very self
Speaker 6: sacrificing mother was I would say perhaps quite common amongst
Speaker 6: the mothers of millennials m M.
Speaker 1: And I wonder why.
Speaker 6: Then we took that to the extreme and just said
Speaker 6: that we we have to do everything for them.
Speaker 4: And I now, and I'm not saying this is true
Speaker 4: of you Monds, but I now look at families or
Speaker 4: mother child dynamics where that was a thing, where the
Speaker 4: self sacrifice was just the bedrock of the relationship. And
Speaker 4: I don't think a child can unlearn that. I see
Speaker 4: friends in their twenties, thirties, and forties who still cannot
Speaker 4: see and it often is their mother as a human
Speaker 4: being worthy of integrity outside what they can do for them.
Speaker 1: And that as a parent.
Speaker 4: Now that scares me because I don't want that kind
Speaker 4: of relationship with my kid as an adult. I want
Speaker 4: to be like I want it to be richer than that,
Speaker 4: So it scares me that you're kind of setting yourself
Speaker 4: up for a lifetime of being a bit of a slave.
Speaker 3: Do you think kids benefit more from our attention or
Speaker 3: from seeing us have a life.
Speaker 4: I think it depends a lot on age. And I've
Speaker 4: also been thinking a lot about the mothers of young
Speaker 4: kids who feel sick when you talk.
Speaker 5: About attachment theory.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you guys have so many moms
Speaker 4: I know will just express worries about all the complete
Speaker 4: You get so much content about attachment theory, and you
Speaker 4: hear so much about how the way you interact and
Speaker 4: the amount of time you spend with your child in
Speaker 4: those early years affects their relationships for the rest of
Speaker 4: their life. Blah blah blah. I've freaked out about.
Speaker 5: It the more you read.
Speaker 4: It's like, if you're sensible person who there's been no
Speaker 4: kind of massive thing that has separated you from your
Speaker 4: child in those early years, it's fine, You're fine, But
Speaker 4: we panic that we're just going to rupture some part
Speaker 4: of that bond if we are not with them constantly
Speaker 4: in the early years. But I do think by the
Speaker 4: time your kids are primary school age. They want other kids,
Speaker 4: parents are adults are boring.
Speaker 6: And I also think it's about quality time. And I
Speaker 6: once did this parenting course with a pediatrician who specialized
Speaker 6: in children with additional needs. But the point was that
Speaker 6: he said, to us, seven minutes a day, that's really focused,
Speaker 6: without a phone, without scrolling, without cooking dinner, that's gold.
Speaker 1: Seven minutes a day. That's not a lot.
Speaker 6: I mean, actually some days I don't even hit the
Speaker 6: seven minutes. But it's a comforting metrick to think about.
Speaker 2: Quick story about my parents having one moment where they
Speaker 2: were totally selfless. So my parents had four children, and
Speaker 2: my dad worked two jobs and was very you know,
Speaker 2: money was tight, and they really put themselves last in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways. And I think they must have
Speaker 2: had this moment where Mum said to Dad, go and
Speaker 2: do something for yourself. Go and join a club, or
Speaker 2: you know, you need to find a life outside of
Speaker 2: the kids. And so Dad joined a malt whiskey club,
Speaker 2: which is I guess a club where people go and
Speaker 2: try different malt whiskeys. And someone probably forgot to tell
Speaker 2: him to like try it and spit it out. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I vividly remember all four of us piling into the
Speaker 2: Holden station wagon and Mum going to pick up Dad
Speaker 2: from the Malt Whiskey club.
Speaker 3: Where he had his like alone time, and then Dad
Speaker 3: vomiting up.
Speaker 2: Gone to school on the mundane and being like, you
Speaker 2: know when they always say what'd you do on the weekends?
Speaker 3: I would have been like, well.
Speaker 2: Dad was talking funny and informed it outside of the car,
Speaker 2: so beware, beware of having a life outside.
Speaker 6: There's a story that I cannot stop reading about this week,
Speaker 6: and it's to do with an experimental school in Sydney's
Speaker 6: North that was founded in twenty nineteen, by which the
Speaker 6: New South Wales government has called time on. The experiment
Speaker 6: just didn't work. It was called Linnfield Learning Village and
Speaker 6: it tried to do things a little bit differently was
Speaker 6: K through twelve. In many ways, it was trying to
Speaker 6: break the mold of Australian public schools. So I'll give
Speaker 6: you some examples. Students addressed teachers by their first names.
Speaker 6: They progressed through stages, not by ages, through multidisciplinary learning projects.
Speaker 6: So it wasn't like they did some English and then
Speaker 6: they did some Mass. They would like ask a big
Speaker 6: question about the world and then explore it through various disciplines.
Speaker 6: There were no report cards for grades through year ten.
Speaker 6: The parent teacher conferences were student led. Recess and lunch
Speaker 6: were called KitKat and picnic, respectively. Don't quite get that one,
Speaker 6: but it.
Speaker 1: Turns out that it's cool. Yeah, I like it, but
Speaker 1: it's just a little school.
Speaker 4: The KitKat one. I'm gonna need some like picnic. I
Speaker 4: get Picnic kind of survived.
Speaker 2: Oh what are we gonna call it? Let's call it
Speaker 2: KitKat because it's a little break. And then they would
Speaker 2: have said, well, what are we going to call lunch?
Speaker 2: And then someone would have said, let's keep the chocolate.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, so you should work at this school.
Speaker 6: But it wasn't even the names of recess and lunch
Speaker 6: that were controversial. The most controversial part of this experiment
Speaker 6: was to do with uniforms, and there was no uniform
Speaker 6: and the government noticed that that families who were moving
Speaker 6: into the area were not enrolling their kids in this school.
Speaker 6: Like there was a lot of enthusiasm for it when
Speaker 6: it all started in twenty nineteen, but they started to
Speaker 6: notice that that enthusiasm was tapering off, and they ask
Speaker 6: respective parents why aren't you sending your kids to this school?
Speaker 6: The number one reason that parents gave was a lack
Speaker 6: of uniform and I thought this was so interesting because
Speaker 6: it is actually one of those things that is an
Speaker 6: Australian quirk. And a lot of parents who come from overseas,
Speaker 6: certainly from the US, but from many European countries as well,
Speaker 6: comment that it's unusual to see public school children wearing
Speaker 6: a uniform. Now, I know not all public schools in
Speaker 6: Australia wear uniforms, but the majority do. And the government
Speaker 6: has said that they hope that by implementing an uniform
Speaker 6: is going to do away with a bit of a
Speaker 6: stigma that existed around having a school without a uniform.
Speaker 6: So apparently uniforms were introduced to Australian schools in the
Speaker 6: nineteenth century because they wanted Australian schools to emulate British schools.
Speaker 6: But a lot of British schools, a lot of British
Speaker 6: comprehensive schools now have done away with uniforms, whereas we
Speaker 6: stick with them.
Speaker 1: Why do you think we're so attached to uniforms.
Speaker 4: I know why were so attached to uniforms?
Speaker 5: And I get it.
Speaker 4: Firstly, I did a bunch of research before this because
Speaker 4: I thought from studying psychology, I thought it was well
Speaker 4: established that wearing a uniform is an overhall that positive
Speaker 4: for behavior, because there's all sorts of studies about when
Speaker 4: you wear a nurse's uniform you behave in a more
Speaker 4: altruistic manner.
Speaker 6: Start wearing a nurse's uniform, you actually should, yes, And
Speaker 6: if I were to wear a police uniform, I would
Speaker 6: kind of assert more authority, like you kind of end
Speaker 6: up cosplaying.
Speaker 1: To record. We're like, we're just testing out this theory.
Speaker 4: But with school uniforms, I assumed that there was robust
Speaker 4: evidence that if you're wearing a school uniform you behave better,
Speaker 4: you kind of slot in more naturally with the community,
Speaker 4: all that stuff. There's actually not that research. It's it's
Speaker 4: not as black and white. But I reckon the reason
Speaker 4: it has stayed as such a kind of hallmark of
Speaker 4: Australian culture is because it symbolizes equality and it and
Speaker 4: it flattens all differences in socioeconomic status. It means that
Speaker 4: there is no room at a school for fashion. Who's
Speaker 4: got the cool shoes? Who can even like at my
Speaker 4: high school, you couldn't dye your hair, you couldn't paint
Speaker 4: your nails. It's kind of this and at the time
Speaker 4: I was frustrated by it, and I broke many rules
Speaker 4: many times, but I did actually get the ethos that
Speaker 4: the idea was an environment where.
Speaker 5: You could keep people as equal as possible, which.
Speaker 4: Is very I think it's quite Australian mons.
Speaker 1: What do you think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's really interesting what you said about
Speaker 2: being a hangover from Britain, Like it does seem very
Speaker 2: kind of colonialist in its approach.
Speaker 3: But I think, God, it sounded really serious, didn't it.
Speaker 2: What's interesting about this is that this Linfield College, on paper,
Speaker 2: it looks like it's doing all the things that kind
Speaker 2: of we we're asking education to do, pivot be more
Speaker 2: kind of like less rote learning and more real world learning.
Speaker 2: And interesting that the uniform is kind of this sticking point.
Speaker 2: I think we like you know, I agree with your
Speaker 2: points clear about why we like them, but I think
Speaker 2: also a uniform is a great signaler saying this is
Speaker 2: a real school and we are you know, this isn't
Speaker 2: some crazy experimentation school is one of the places where
Speaker 2: people where parents don't feel like they have heaps of
Speaker 2: control over what goes on in a school, whereas uniforms
Speaker 2: is one way of saying, hang on, this is kind
Speaker 2: of serious. It's like a visible marker of safety. I
Speaker 2: guess for people to say, yes, this is a controlled environment,
Speaker 2: maybe it's that.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's why we like them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd be interested, because I know I'm starting to
Speaker 4: do this. If people when they're sort of in their
Speaker 4: local area and you're kind of making a bit of
Speaker 4: a decision about where you're going to send your kid
Speaker 4: to school, if you are observing the low cool school uniforms,
Speaker 4: well not the uniforms themselves, but the kids who are
Speaker 4: wearing their uniforms and making a judgment on which kids
Speaker 4: behave well, which kids look like they'd be in a
Speaker 4: positive learning environment. I mean, I do that all the
Speaker 4: time in my local area. I'll see kids in a
Speaker 4: uniform who are being really naughty, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: we won't be sending Mattilla there.
Speaker 2: I agree with your point, but to that point, I
Speaker 2: was on public transport recently and I saw children in
Speaker 2: their school uniform that behaved so well that I did
Speaker 2: the middle aged mom thing, and I emailed the school
Speaker 2: and I said what a credit these students were to
Speaker 2: your school. And I remember being in assembly when things
Speaker 2: like that would happen and thinking, when I'm older, I'm
Speaker 2: going to be the person that dobs on the students
Speaker 2: or sends bouquets to the students.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I remember uniforms.
Speaker 4: I remember at school they'd say that in assemblies, and
Speaker 4: I would think, what kind of person has at the time,
Speaker 4: has the time to send that correspondence?
Speaker 1: And I love that it's Mon's I really love that.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine being a teenager these days all you're
Speaker 2: getting from the media and from people is just like
Speaker 2: your shit, you're stinky, you're gross, your brain's not developed.
Speaker 2: I want to show shine a light on the ones
Speaker 2: that are doing it well.
Speaker 1: I think that's beautiful.
Speaker 3: The positive reinforcement teams for.
Speaker 4: Those who aren't aware. I used to host a podcast
Speaker 4: called Canceled, where I'd prosecute celebrity crimes in a made
Speaker 4: up courtroom, and one of my favorite episodes was about
Speaker 4: a little known man named Chris Pratt. Now, Chris Pratt
Speaker 4: is a dad and he gets a really bad rap online,
Speaker 4: so I wanted to chat a little bit about his
Speaker 4: alleged crimes and I wanted you guys as the jury
Speaker 4: to weigh in. Now he is in the headlines again
Speaker 4: this week for something new Amelia What happened?
Speaker 6: Yes, so he is, I would say, the Internet's most
Speaker 6: hated dad. Everything he does, specifically as a dad, people hate.
Speaker 6: Now this week came some groundbreaking news from People magazine.
Speaker 6: Katherine Schwarzenegger praises Golden retriever husband Chris Pratt.
Speaker 1: You may ask, why what did he do?
Speaker 6: He built their daughters a Dolls house in their backyard.
Speaker 6: Now that sounds really sweet, right, that's great, that's really nice.
Speaker 6: It looks like it's kind of one they can walk
Speaker 6: inside like. It looks equally impressive as the Barbie dreamhouse
Speaker 6: that we talked about. And here's the problem. Everything he
Speaker 6: does is a little bit annoying. Because then Katherine Schwarzenegger,
Speaker 6: his wife, posted a picture of the Dolls house with
Speaker 6: him building it, and the caption reads, I'll never understand
Speaker 6: when women say I don't need my husband, when I
Speaker 6: very much, in fact do need my husband, because who
Speaker 6: else would build our daughters a Dolls house? She set
Speaker 6: this to the song man I Need by Olivia Dean.
Speaker 6: Good song, but like a little cringe in this cond text,
Speaker 6: and she also wrote another caption on it, when you
Speaker 6: have a golden retriever husband. So even when he's doing
Speaker 6: something ostensibly good like building his daughter's a doll's house,
Speaker 6: the internet vomits.
Speaker 4: It's annoying because not everybody has a husband for so
Speaker 4: many different reasons, Like it's just such a dicky, tone
Speaker 4: deaf thing to say.
Speaker 2: Also, Catherine Schwartzenegger like pick up a spanner instructions. You're fine,
Speaker 2: you can do this. You don't need anyway, But I digress.
Speaker 4: You don't need Chris.
Speaker 6: But this is the only the latest in a series
Speaker 6: of crimes that he has perhaps committed as innocential, proven
Speaker 6: guilty as a dad, right, Claire.
Speaker 5: Exactly so.
Speaker 4: And I do think that one of the reasons that
Speaker 4: people are so mad at him is because we liked
Speaker 4: him so much. A little bit of background. He's an
Speaker 4: actor known initially for his roles on television.
Speaker 1: He was in The.
Speaker 4: Wood, then he was Parks and Recreation andyon Parks Recreation,
Speaker 4: and then he was he was really good in Zero
Speaker 4: Duck thirty and Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers. So
Speaker 4: let me give you a quick rundown of his alleged
Speaker 4: crimes that came before this, and I think really set
Speaker 4: the tone for why people feel weird about Chris Pratt. So,
Speaker 4: he was married to comedy actor Anna Faris from two
Speaker 4: thousand and nine to twenty eighteen and they share a
Speaker 4: son named Jack. And they met in two thousand and
Speaker 4: seven when they were working on a film together. And
Speaker 4: at the time, she was a far bigger deal than
Speaker 4: he was because she was in scary movie. I love
Speaker 4: Anna Faris. I think she is so funny. And over
Speaker 4: the course of their marriage, Pratt celebrity grew and grew,
Speaker 4: and Anna Faris has talked since about how it's hard
Speaker 4: when two actors are in a relationship because you're competitive
Speaker 4: about who's doing better, and when people read between the
Speaker 4: lines a little bit, they think was he competitive because
Speaker 4: she was slag. Then in October twenty seventeen, they released
Speaker 4: this combined statement saying they were legally separating. It wasn't
Speaker 4: until the following year that their divorce was finalized, and
Speaker 4: three months after that, Pratt began dating Katherine Schwarzenegger. Katherine
Speaker 4: is the daughter of Arnold Swarzenegger and Maria Shriver, who
Speaker 4: is John F. Kennedy's niece, so it's quite a prominent family.
Speaker 4: But the vibe generally seems to be we liked Anna.
Speaker 4: Anna was weird. Anna was funny, and whereas Katherine, she
Speaker 4: writes self help books and she's written a children's book
Speaker 4: about adopting her dog.
Speaker 1: I don't think we need to explain why the vibe
Speaker 1: was given the caption exactly exactly.
Speaker 6: He had one child with Anna correct, yes, Jack, and
Speaker 6: has two daughters with Catherine.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: So there were also some cheating rumors around Chris Pratt.
Speaker 4: They seem to have been based in nothing. But it
Speaker 4: wasn't even that he was cheating with Katherine Schwarzenegger. The
Speaker 4: idea was that he was cheating with Jennifer Lawrence while
Speaker 4: they were filming Passengers.
Speaker 5: But it didn't happen.
Speaker 4: And it's also I just like, didn't have happened?
Speaker 1: I heard, didn't Jennifer herself?
Speaker 5: No, genuinely.
Speaker 4: But I will say I don't think it's a crime
Speaker 4: to get divorced. Are we on the same page there?
Speaker 6: Do you?
Speaker 2: There are no crimes so far? Okay, he got separated,
Speaker 2: he met someone else. She's vastly different from the first lady.
Speaker 4: Not illegal, not a llegal, good point mons annoying maybe okay,
Speaker 4: this is the bit that might be illegal. In twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: Pratt and Schwarzsnagger had their first baby, daughter Lilah, and
Speaker 4: in November twenty twenty one, Pratt posted a photo to
Speaker 4: Instagram of he and his wife with this caption, Guys,
Speaker 4: for real, look how she's looking at me? And that
Speaker 4: was about Catherine. I mean, find you somebody that looks
Speaker 4: at you like that. You know we men in church.
Speaker 4: She's given me an amazing life, a gorgeous, healthy daughter.
Speaker 4: She choose so so loudly that sometimes I put in
Speaker 4: my earbuds to drown it out.
Speaker 5: But that's love.
Speaker 4: She helps me with everything. In return, periodically I opened
Speaker 4: a jar of pickles. That's the train. Her heart is
Speaker 4: pure and it belongs to me.
Speaker 5: It goes on.
Speaker 4: And looking at the comments, the thing that people were
Speaker 4: so angry about and the potential crime here was the
Speaker 4: wording around Catherine giving him a gorgeous, healthy daughter. So
Speaker 4: the comments were, f off your own chromosomes contributed to
Speaker 4: your firstborn complications, You're an asshole, trash post devalues your
Speaker 4: wife's a person, devalues your ex for giving you an
Speaker 4: unhealthy child, because the post was perceived to be a
Speaker 4: dig at his son, Jack, who he shares with Anna Faris,
Speaker 4: and Jack was born nine weeks early, and his premature
Speaker 4: birth caused.
Speaker 5: A lot of health issues.
Speaker 4: At first, they were worried that they would be really,
Speaker 4: really severe because he had brain bleeding, and they thought
Speaker 4: that Jack would have a developmental disability. After eighteen months,
Speaker 4: it appeared he didn't have those issues, but he does
Speaker 4: have visual impairments and an ongoing heart problem. So if
Speaker 4: you ever see photos of him, he is so gorgeous.
Speaker 4: But if you ever see photos, you can often see
Speaker 4: that he's wearing special glasses and that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: So the question was was he having a dig by
Speaker 4: saying healthy baby daughter?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I hate this so much, the word healthy.
Speaker 6: I hate this, and I hate the Internet for making
Speaker 6: this a crime because first of all, it's none of
Speaker 6: our business about Jack and his health, and the fact
Speaker 6: that we're even having to explain he has maybe a
Speaker 6: visual impairment.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. We don't need to.
Speaker 6: Know, and maybe just let this speaking of someone who
Speaker 6: has mentioned in this episode had a premature baby, I'm
Speaker 6: very sensitive to the idea that people who have premature
Speaker 6: babies or in any kind of birth complications, somehow wanted
Speaker 6: that or somehow that was preferable to having a more
Speaker 6: straightforward delivery.
Speaker 1: That's not at all.
Speaker 6: The case, of course, like you love the child, who
Speaker 6: you get and however that child arrives in the world
Speaker 6: is totally up to them. But the idea that I
Speaker 6: wouldn't have preferred to have a more straightforward birth is nonsense.
Speaker 6: Of course I would have preferred to have a more
Speaker 6: straightforward berth. Everyone wants to have a quote unquote healthy baby.
Speaker 6: That's not saying anything about anyone's child's health.
Speaker 4: I think you're so right, Amelia, that the idea of
Speaker 4: the idea of using the word healthy can be so
Speaker 4: politicized and controversial, and that is what really got people upset.
Speaker 4: Mon's do you think do you have sensitivity around that?
Speaker 4: Do you think it was a dig Do you think
Speaker 4: that when Chris Pratt wrote this caption, he was thinking
Speaker 4: I'm going to have a dig at my ex wife
Speaker 4: and my eldest child.
Speaker 6: And more broadly, do you think that we should be
Speaker 6: avoiding the word healthy around babies?
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't think, Ah, I don't think it was
Speaker 2: a dig. It might have just been a genuine mistake,
Speaker 2: but the Internet does not forgive mistakes.
Speaker 3: There is no nuance anymore.
Speaker 2: And I think it's unfortunately included that word because it
Speaker 2: is just that one word that feels problematic. And yeah,
Speaker 2: Amelia is it's a loaded word to describe a baby now,
Speaker 2: and I think it's not the most sensitive word to
Speaker 2: use given his past. I also wonder if Katherine Schwarzenegger
Speaker 2: is kind of pring him, you know, like there is
Speaker 2: something like there's a stink around Chris Pratt. There's this
Speaker 2: I learned this week that there's a Hollywood Chris ranking
Speaker 2: where people rank Chris Pine, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratten. Chris
Speaker 2: Pratt always is bottom no matter what. And I just
Speaker 2: wonder if she's kind of trying to renovate his via
Speaker 2: the Dolls house via look at this great husband.
Speaker 3: She's trying to bandit her husband.
Speaker 4: And I think it's a mix because I reckon that caption.
Speaker 4: I almost reckon if the caption itself hadn't been so annoying,
Speaker 4: people might not have jumped on the healthy baby thing.
Speaker 4: But it is a little bit annoying and gushy, and
Speaker 4: it's just annoying and I think our vibes around Chris
Speaker 4: Pratt are that he's religious, which we know he is,
Speaker 4: that he's Christian, although he has not explicitly said anything
Speaker 4: super conservative or anything that would offend anyone. It's just
Speaker 4: that he's Christian, which I've checked also not a crime,
Speaker 4: and that he's like giving Republican, but again he hasn't
Speaker 4: even said that he's a Republican.
Speaker 6: Maybe we just said to be like, I'm so glad
Speaker 6: the daughters have a Dolls house or a cubby house,
Speaker 6: as you've pointed out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, having a closer look while we've been chatting, I
Speaker 4: have my real crime here is that's not adult out.
Speaker 5: So that's a cubby house. It's huge.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Every week we like to bring you the best of
Speaker 2: the Internet, the best of the shops, things that we're reading, watching,
Speaker 2: looking at, listening to. With our recommendation segment, Claire, I
Speaker 2: have you got from the world of Pragante Pregante?
Speaker 4: Well, I have the most practical recommendation ever that's going
Speaker 4: to be born to anyone who's not in this phase
Speaker 4: and life changing to anyone who is a promise. It's
Speaker 4: called the Houdini strap, and you get from big w
Speaker 4: and what it is when you have your frickin' child
Speaker 4: in a car seat and they learn to Houdini. They
Speaker 4: learn like I have what is meant to be the
Speaker 4: safest car seat on the market, and I look at
Speaker 4: it and I'm like, not when she's not got straps on,
Speaker 4: it's not freakin' safe. And I yell at her and
Speaker 4: I bribe her about like mummy will t the car
Speaker 4: around if you don't put your straps back on all
Speaker 4: of that stuff, and she just laughs at me. No,
Speaker 4: there is this thing you can buy that is a
Speaker 4: chest strap and it clips to the car straps and
Speaker 4: holds them closer together so that your child cannot wriggle out.
Speaker 4: And it has changed my life. My friend lies shout
Speaker 4: out to lives front of the pod. She told me
Speaker 4: about it, And you can also use it in high
Speaker 4: chairs and prams and so you will be protecting your
Speaker 4: stupid little child from Houdini.
Speaker 6: I love that you've reminded me of the threat of
Speaker 6: turning the car around. I feel like every every nineties
Speaker 6: baby has a story of their dad literally turning the
Speaker 6: car around, and it became like family law.
Speaker 4: I've been tempted, but usually it's like, damn it, I'm
Speaker 4: going somewhere I want to go.
Speaker 6: You come last. I have something called brain Quest smart cards.
Speaker 6: These are these little sort of like card decks. They
Speaker 6: come in packs of two in a little box, and
Speaker 6: you can get them for each of your school as
Speaker 6: well as age two and preschool. And they're basically like
Speaker 6: multiple choice quiz questions. And I love doing the big
Speaker 6: quiz in the newspaper on the weekend. And this is
Speaker 6: a way of involving the kids because they don't seem
Speaker 6: to know many of the answers, and I'm like, come on, kids,
Speaker 6: how are you not helping me get trivia? But they
Speaker 6: know the answers to these. They're on Amazon. They're about
Speaker 6: twenty five dollars. I'm sorry to recommend something on Amazon,
Speaker 6: but they're actually Americans, so a little bit hard to
Speaker 6: get in regular brick and mortar shops. Another reason I
Speaker 6: love them is you can take them to a cafe
Speaker 6: on the bus. It's a way to keep kids engaged
Speaker 6: without running down your phone battery.
Speaker 5: That's really wholesome.
Speaker 3: That is great.
Speaker 2: I love I also have a wholesome recommendation, but mine
Speaker 2: is Australian and mine is free and so for anyone
Speaker 2: connection with nature this weekend. If you're out camping, what
Speaker 2: are you doing. I have a recommendation for a podcast.
Speaker 2: It's called Noisy by Nature and you find it on
Speaker 2: the ABC Kids Listener app.
Speaker 3: It is it is so wholesome and pure.
Speaker 2: The host her name is Anne Jones, and she's like
Speaker 2: the David Attenborough of Australia, but she's sort of David
Speaker 2: Attenborough crossed with the Wiggles, so she's like this.
Speaker 7: You Hey, I'm Ann. Do you know what I love?
Speaker 3: I love a boo book ol And.
Speaker 2: It's just like our noises, fog noises, you're learning things.
Speaker 3: It's nature. It is just so I love it.
Speaker 2: It's such such a great nighttime thing to listen to
Speaker 2: as the kids going to sleep. Noisy by Nature just
Speaker 2: like Undiscovered Gem I reckon on the ABC Listen app.
Speaker 1: Oh that's all right, so cute.
Speaker 3: So thank you. That's all we have time for this week.
Speaker 3: A big, big.
Speaker 2: Thanks to our team Junior content producer Tessa Kotovich, Exec
Speaker 2: producer Sashtanic, audio producer Jacob Brown and content manager of
Speaker 2: Podcasts is to Listen, Azaz Chocolate Eggs to you all.
Speaker 2: Have a great week. We'll be back in this feed
Speaker 2: next Saturday morning. Bye mm hmm