The 3-Hour Mum & The Viral 'Jessica' Hack

0:08Speaker 1:You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.

0:20Speaker 2:Hello, Welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast of parents who don't always listen to parenting podcasts. We talk about the news and the trends and the culture, and we read everything on the internet so that you don't have to. I'm Monique Bowley, I'm Amelia Laster, and I'm Stacy Hicks. Coming up on today's show, the Kardashian whisperer and CEO who says three hours with her kids is enough? I mean fair? Is it rage bait or is it actually genius?

0:49Speaker 3:And did millennials kill kids sport?

0:51Speaker 4:We have a theory, and Mon's has a genius low cost school holiday idea, and Stacy has another one of her deranged TV recommendations.

1:02Speaker 1:But first, but first, two.

1:05Speaker 4:Incidents last Saturday got me thinking about whether we're back in kids should be seen and not heard territory. Now I've told you both about them, but I want to hear your thoughts. I haven't heard what you think about what happened.

1:18Speaker 2:Yeah.

1:18Speaker 3:The second, do you tell us anything?

1:20Speaker 4:Now?

1:20Speaker 3:We just say save it, save it for the pod. We're not going to tell you and we're on air.

1:24Speaker 4:So both of these happened on Saturday last Saturday. The first one was that I am now doing a weights class on Saturday.

1:33Speaker 1:Excellent, So Pracey inspired me.

1:35Speaker 4:And it's my attempt to not fall off the aging cliff at forty four.

1:40Speaker 1:Apparently you got to lift weights to.

1:41Speaker 2:Not fall off the loving it Amelia and.

1:44Speaker 4:I'm lifting my weights and it's an outdoors class by an oval, and I see that there is a roaming, marauding gang of probably like ten to twelve preteen boys on bikes, regular bikes, not your bikes, regular bikes, just kind of zooming around near the oval, making a lot of noise, doing dangerous things. They have a makeshift round that they're all like riding their bikes up. I'm really worried about their collar bones, and my first instinct, I'm not gonna lie. My first instinct was they're making a lot of noise and that is very dangerous. But then my second thought was, this is exactly what children should be doing, being together outside, doing something physical, taking risks.

2:31Speaker 4:Why am I condemning them for it. So that was the first thing that happened, and then shortly after that, I went to the park with my children and my friend's children. And there was a group of three five to seven year olds playing two boys on one girl.

2:50Speaker 1:That was our collective group.

2:51Speaker 4:And we were at a picnic table nearby, and a man comes up to me. That's never a story, is that. A man comes up to me and he says, are those your children?

3:05Speaker 3:Hang on?

3:05Speaker 2:How what was his tone?

3:07Speaker 4:You just you know what his time was whatever the equivalent of Karen is for a man.

3:12Speaker 1:That's what he was giving.

3:14Speaker 2:Colin and.

3:17Speaker 3:Colin energy.

3:18Speaker 4:And he says to me, yeah, those are your children. I say yes, I mean I didn't want to split hairs. Some of them were, some of them weren't. He said, the boys are playing with a stick, and that is very dangerous. And I thought, news at eleven boys playing with a stick. Stop the presses. This is unprecedented. Forget Trump and Iran boys are playing with a stick. We must stop them. So, instead of responding with anything sarcastic or outwardly aggressive, I thanked him for his input and continued gabbing away with my friends.

3:55Speaker 2:Did he just scuttle astic?

3:57Speaker 1:He continued, is weird walk around a children's playground?

4:01Speaker 3:But it's so interesting that you say, like even you had that reaction to other kids well around, but it's because we don't see it anymore. It's like an endangered space.

4:10Speaker 1:And this is what I wanted to ask you both about.

4:13Speaker 4:I do think that the Victorian adage of children should be seen and not heard has come back with screens because we're so used to seeing mute, silent still children enraptured by a screen in public spaces because parents have been shamed into doing that as a way of keeping them quiet. That that's our expected way of interacting with children now. And when children are doing something, making noise, moving around, doing exactly what Jonathan Hate says we should do, we get freaked out about it.

4:41Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't disagree. I think you're right. I think the only reasonable rational response is to push your kids out in the yard and say, make as much noise as possible. Yeah, do not go quietly into the gentle night, no screen, thank you.

4:56Speaker 1:Well.

4:56Speaker 3:Speaking of keeping kids quiet, parents have now figured out that there was a hack for stopping a tantrum all along, and all we needed to do was summon the power of them. Most millennial name that has ever existed, Jessica, What okay? You're not seen this around.

5:13Speaker 4:Everywhere we're talking about this, and I didn't understand there.

5:16Speaker 3:Are videos everywhere parents doing it, and I tried it. On the week it is, there will be a kid, a toddler. Usually you know, we're talking two three, losing the plot really just about you know, those ones where they're about to spiral and the parent, just in the middle of it starts going Jessica Jessica, looking around for a fictitious Jessica.

5:38Speaker 1:Okay.

5:39Speaker 3:They stop instantly. It is like a switch is flicked. They stop. And I tried this, and I have a five year old, so I thought she might be more evolved than this. It worked. She looked around, like, what are you doing?

5:52Speaker 2:It just like interrupts a little Jessica Jessica, as if she's about to go right around the corner.

5:58Speaker 3:And there's something about a lot of parenting experts are now weighing in and saying it's because kids can kind of only focus on one thing at a time, that it's the randomness of the Jessica like being so unexpected that they shift gears. They can't they can't continue the tantrum because they're suddenly concerned that your fictitious friend is about to rock up. Okay, studies have not been done yet to decide whether other names work. We might be able to yell Mon's Amelia who knows, but it works.

6:26Speaker 3:And the funniest thing is all the Jessica's in the comments, being like, I'm busy, I've been called on a hundreds, I'm on my way. But yeah, it seems to work.

6:36Speaker 2:Okay, excellent. I think if we can ask our listeners to try it. Yes, it's the todd the tantrum hat. Yeah, yelling out Jessica and then yeah, report back in the comments or in comments on Spotify or on podcast Apple reviews would be good. Also, perhaps we can use it as a safe word on this show, because I am going to have a tantrum a little bit later about one of the topics we're talking about, and so if I get to deep in, I just want to hear Jessica.

7:01Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, we'll cut you off.

7:03Speaker 2:Okay, well, Jessica will all right? Many hours a day you spend with your kids? Oh my god. A headline in the Wall Street Journal caught my attention this week, and I want to go there. The headline was the Kardashian whisper who says three hours with her kids is enough. And the profile was a woman called Emma Greed. Now, if you don't know who she is, she was the co founder of Skims. She also works on Good American.

7:31Speaker 4:With She has an amazing up in council housing in the UK and is now a self made billionaire.

7:38Speaker 2:Yeah, she is the CEO of multiple billion dollar brands. She also has four children, and she's written a book that's going to be published next week called Start with Yourself, sort of a self help CEO boss bitch kind of book.

7:52Speaker 3:This is like the opposite to what you guys spoke about on the show last week with the you finish, you go last, Like this is the opposite. She's like, no, it's me first.

8:01Speaker 2:It absolutely is Stacy. Now, the part that everyone is talking about in this profile piece in the book is how she calls herself a max three hour mum. On a weekend, she'll spend from nine till midday with her children and after that she's done and she's off to activities, which she says fill her cup. She doesn't engage in any of the busy work of parenting, so she won't be reading school emails or newsletters. She doesn't do lunchboxes, she doesn't engage in any activities that she thinks are overparenting. Instead, she says the time she spends with her kids is high impact, core memory times. So it's all killer, no filler for Emma Greed, What did you think when you read this, Amelia?

8:42Speaker 4:I went on a real journey with it, because at first I thought hard relate, like I would prefer to do things on Saturday that were not exclusively with my children, such as my weights class. But she had me until she compared time spent with her children to limited edition fashion collabs. This is when she mentioned that she's all about creating high impact core memories. Some of these sample she used with fishing trips or New York getaways. Now my issue with that is I have no problem with women filling their cup and trying to make quality time as opposed to just a quantity of time with their children.

9:19Speaker 4:But I just don't think that kids' core memories are what adults want them to be. When I look back at my core memories, it wasn't necessarily the high impact quality time that crystallized in my mind. It was, in fact, regular everyday, banal moments that just seem to feel really cozy and encapsulate the closeness of family life, like how we always used to have a big fry up breakfast on Saturday mornings, or we went to Blockbuster on Friday nights.

9:46Speaker 4:I don't think either of those are high impact core memories.

9:49Speaker 3:One of my favorite memories with my dad is going to the tip. I can remember it so clearly. Anymore, we need to go to the tip too.

9:59Speaker 2:Did you get to sit on the back of the trailott?

10:01Speaker 4:Yes?

10:01Speaker 3:Yes, why I remember it? And you're right, like, that's the most That is not a limited edition. That's it's not a fashion. No, that is not a fashion No, it's the complete opposite. But I think we have to acknowledge as well what she said and what I did like about this, because I was the same as you, Amelia, where I was like, well, like that would be nice. Of course, that would be nice. She is very upfront about saying how much help she has, which I do appreciate because it makes you feel like, well, this person just is in a bit of a different realm.

10:32Speaker 4:Including multiple nannies, yeah, and a chef, so she can opt out of those things that she thinks are you know, too intensive, Like none of us would like to make the lunch boxes, but someone's got to do it.

10:44Speaker 3:But they've got someone who can do it.

10:45Speaker 2:So I went down a massive emmagred rabbit hole because I didn't know really much about her or who she was or what she stood for. And there are a couple of things that she's doing that I think are pretty radical. One of the ones is that she kind of removes the apology layer of a working mother. You know, when you work, and there's this layer of guilt and it's I'm sorry, I have to go to work. I'm sorry, I have to go to Sydney. I am I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Have a listened to what she says about this on the j Shatty podcast.

11:10Speaker 5:On purpose, I was constantly in some cycle of apologies. I'm sorry that I'm leaving, I'm sorry that I'm going to New York, I'm sorry that I'll be back late tonight. And what I realized is that I created a narrative that I didn't really like what I was doing. So I'm working really hard to let my kids know, Yeah, like I'm not the mom that is out every drop off. I'm not the mom that is volunteering at the school. But guess what, there are all of these other amazing things that I do that I enjoy.

11:40Speaker 2:That feels radical to me to stop apologizing for being a working mother, and it is just and this is what I do, and I enjoy doing it.

11:48Speaker 3:Because the second you start apologizing, it's the second they're kind of getting that narrative in their head ye that you have something to be sorry for, like that you're doing that because you don't want to be with them, And that's just not the case. You're either doing it because you enjoy it, or you're doing it because you need to make money to raise them.

12:02Speaker 2:So I really love that. But the other I just want to zoom out for a minute and just I'm a bit done with the way that we talk to successful women. And I know this is a bit like small f feminist, but this piece isn't just like a profile of a successful business founder. It has this like overlay of mum. Like no one's asking Jeff Bezos how many hours he spends with his children on a weekend. No one's asking Elon Musk. It just feels like it feels like a trap. These articles are pretending to be about like ambition and modern success. But the headline is about how much time she spends with their kids.

12:33Speaker 4:Well, and they clearly thought they were stoking outrage with that. Yeah, they like it was picking the most impleammatory part of it, when in fact, what she's saying is you need to be comfortable with trade offs.

12:43Speaker 1:That's very much the bottom line of her message.

12:46Speaker 4:It's like, you can't do everything, figure out what your priorities are and then unapologetically go after them.

12:52Speaker 3:Yeah.

12:52Speaker 2:The other thing I heard her talk about on this podcast was she's not lying anymore. She said women have just got to stop lying about the amount of help they get and about how they feel about things. And I think it's gonna ruffle some feathers, but I think she's doing like it's for the greater good.

13:09Speaker 5:Right, I just stopped lying about it. I started to say, this is really hard. I really have to make difficult choices. And when I made choices that were seemingly selfish or about me, I stopped hiding them because I thought that was doing a disservice to other women.

13:27Speaker 4:Why do you think women do lie about how much help they have and how they're balancing everything.

13:34Speaker 2:I don't know, what do you think, I don't.

13:38Speaker 3:I think it's probably competitiveness, Yeah, probably probably, and probably a little bit of guilt because you know that other people don't have that same amount of help. Like, if you're in a position where you can afford a lot of that help, that's amazing. I mean, it does make you look like a more competent person that you can do all of these things. So it's probably guilt.

13:59Speaker 1:I think it's.

13:59Speaker 4:Also that women are taught that there are finite resources out there and that we're having to compete with each other for them feel that way. They don't feel that there's a limited pool that just all of mankind has to attain. And I think for women that's why we do shrod a lot of how we parent in secrecy, because I think we've been taught to feel zealous and protective of what we have.

14:25Speaker 2:It's also like we're expected to do it all so all pretending that we are, aren't we.

14:31Speaker 3:Yeah, And I think that's the thing that's interesting about her is that she's kind of making something clear that I think we all know is that nothing really responsibilities didn't get taken off women. Other ones got at it on top like we got. Yeah, okay, go and achieve your dreams. But you've still got to do all of this stuff as well. And what she's saying is something has to give. You will have to do less in one of those spaces, either parenting or work, you will have to do less. So just pick what that is and go with it, and don't keep apologizing for it.

15:01Speaker 1:That said, what three hours would you pick?

15:05Speaker 3:I would pick eight eleven am obviously, well, I mean maybe PM if they go to bit early, you're not doing anything. I would pick eight to eleven am because there's no meals happening in that time, but optimum mood before they cried out eight to eleven with a protein rich breakfast immediately before my shift begins.

15:26Speaker 2:Yes, hours, I'm not picking five till eight pm.

15:30Speaker 3:You mean the ones that we get, the ones that we are doing every week night. Yeah, no, no one's no one's opting for those. So I'm at the point where I am thinking about sport for my daughter. I'm thinking about it a lot.

15:45Speaker 2:I'm cracking my knuckles because I'm stretching to get ready for this conversation.

15:50Speaker 3:Waiting for me to ask about this. I am looking around going what's the most expensive, what's the best for teamwork, what has the least annoying training schedule? What time are the games? And I'm gonna be honest, I'm scared because every single person I know with older kids who are kind of in that system of sport, it doesn't look fun, it's expensive, and it seems to take up every single minute they have, like they're not enjoying it. I've never had one of my friends be like, yay, I get to sit in a field at eight am on Saturday instead of hanging out with you, Like that's just not that's not the narrative. And then I saw a clip this week that perfectly summed up what I think is wrong with kids' sport in twenty twenty six. It's from the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. This is Glennan Doyle and Abby Wombach and then Glenn's sister Amanda is on it as well, and she says this, it's so brilliant.

16:46Speaker 2:Shout out to the parents who have kids in sports. It's not It's awful, is what it is.

16:51Speaker 6:It's awful.

16:53Speaker 3:Half the time.

16:55Speaker 6:I want to just stand up in the middle and being like we're doing this on purpose, for the purposes of fun. And I'm looking around and all the parents either look pest that they're a kid in playing, pissed that they're not playing like they should be because of all the training and the money that they put into them, mad at the coach for running a play. The coaches are mad at the kids. This isn't an elective thing in our life. This is something that no one has to do, and we're all came here to do it.

17:25Speaker 3:And raise your hand if.

17:27Speaker 2:Any of you are having fun?

17:29Speaker 1:What a great question?

17:30Speaker 3:Isn't it great? And now, like Amelia, I don't want to make judgments about your sporting prowess, but I'm going to hedge your bet. But Mon's is the sportiest of the three.

17:39Speaker 1:I think that's probably right.

17:41Speaker 3:What do you think is going on here?

17:42Speaker 2:Was okay?

17:43Speaker 3:That affair?

17:44Speaker 1:When did? And was it always like this?

17:46Speaker 3:Yeah?

17:47Speaker 2:No it wasn't. Sport is broken. And there are a few things that I'm seeing and I'm hearing and I'm witnessing that are raising some big alarm bells for me. Try not to get bored in this, Amelia. Okay, I'm going to try and help you, like to stay interested.

18:03Speaker 1:In glazing my eyes.

18:04Speaker 4:Okay.

18:06Speaker 2:Kids are now being put on pathways at six years old, right, Kids as young as eight are doing private strength and conditioning sessions in gyms in like academy style trainings. This is on top of what they're currently doing with the club. Some parents are tracking stats at AFL games like Division five games, like there's an AFL scout, like waiting in the wings to pick up their child, to pick up their underten child. What we are seeing is really worrying and it's a structural problem and the reason for it is it's the corporatization of sport. Right in Australia. Sport used to be about having a go and grassroots and everyone is welcome, everyone can do it. But what it is now is that we have with these clubs and corporations whose best interests are themselves and their own viability.

18:54Speaker 2:So instead of putting the kids at the center of what they're doing, they often put themselves or their profit or their viability ahead of it, right, which is a problem.

19:03Speaker 1:And it's only the sports associations.

19:05Speaker 2:Yeah, clubs and things. Clubs need to stay alive via money, you know, and it's often they'll make decisions based on keeping their corporation going rather than what's in the best of the kids. So extra trainings and whatever. This is following an American model. Okay, now this is not this is like not my wheeling.

19:22Speaker 1:This on Americans too.

19:24Speaker 2:In Europe, it's not like this. In Europe, it's sport is very social. It's not about competitiveness or who wins or who loses. It's actually a much more social approach to sport. In Scandinavian countries like Norway, they have actually legislated that kids cannot go into specialist programs before the age of thirteen, and every kid thirteen they cannot play at an adult level until they're thirteen, and they are encouraged to play a wide range of sports. Now. As a consequence, their sports participation rates are double what they are in Australia. Right, every kid in Norwegian countries plays sports like ninety percent.

20:02Speaker 4:It's crazy because kids get alienated here, don't they from all the pressure.

20:06Speaker 3:Well that's it. It feels like even now when I'm looking at it, not even involved in any sport, not even knowing what my daughter's ability would be in any sport, that I'm kind of like well, you better make the right call, because you know, if she's not put at that, then she misses a chance to do another sport. And if you're saying thirteen, that is such a big gap for them to experiment and play, literally play and see which of those things they're good which are having to.

20:28Speaker 1:Make the call, and it'll probably make them better sports people. Anyway.

20:31Speaker 4:There's a book called Range by a sports writer named David Epstein, and his basic premise is that if you look at some of the greatest athletes, they didn't specialize until late in the piece, and in fact, getting to know their bodies and their physical capabilities across a range of different activities stood them in really good stead.

20:50Speaker 2:So yes, the science is there. And I want to say to every parent, Michael Jordan didn't start playing basketball until he was twelve years old, I, who played for Australia, didn't get good until I was fifteen. Like all these parents hinge their hopes on their eight year old and nine year old, They're not going to be an elite athlete. It's not what that's not what creates good elite athletes. What the science and the data says is a range of sports and keeping them engaged in sports is about fun and participation, but it's really hard when all of these clubs put pressure and parents too.

21:28Speaker 4:Now, I don't think it's just the clubs, like anecdotally, what I've been observing is that parents themselves are putting a lot of pressure on kids. And I was speaking to a friend, yes in the US, who told me that among like super rich parents like you know, one percent parents, having kids who are good at sport is now seen as a gateway to success in life, which used to be academic achievement. So because we live in an age of anxiety around what students should even be learning in school, or the hyper privileged, parents are saying the only short way to success is getting a kid who's good at sport, and really putting a lot of pressure on kids to perform in sport as a way of getting a hat.

22:13Speaker 2:This is such a problem that Sports Medicine Peak bodies, the AIS and amongst others had to put out a position statement a couple of years ago about kids specializing in sport too young. They're seeing so much of it that they had to say this is damaging, Please don't do it, Please stop doing it. These are the experts in it saying just stop, it's much better to play a range of sports. But the other thing that's really striking is that something I heard Kieran Perkins say. Now he was an Olympic swimmer gold medalist fifteen hundred meters.

22:42Speaker 2:I remember watching that when I was a kid, and now he's the CEO of the Australian Sports Commission, and he was on the sport Ish podcast with Georgie Tricket and Livy Trigket's a really good podcast that talks about exactly this right participation in sport. And he said, you know, these days, when you ask a kid, you say what sport do you play? Whereas when I was growing up, it was what sports plural do you play? Because it was really normal to play many. But now I guess the cost of it well and the access to it the time exactly.

23:13Speaker 3:Seven eight year olds who are in training three or four nights a week and then they play a game on the weekend, like, how could you pot? You couldn't, You couldn't go and do anything else, and it just feels like there's no room for mediocrity now, like you can't do it socially, it feels like you're all in or you're out.

23:29Speaker 2:You cannot think like that, okay, because if you start to think that sport is not for you and your child, that is when all that grassroots stuff starts to fall away and then we end up only with elite people and crazy parents.

23:43Speaker 4:Okay.

23:43Speaker 2:So what I want to say is like the Australian Sports Commission is actually so aware of this, and they're trying to work on like a participation strategy, which is like, hey, remember sport being fun, everyone like, come and play sport and just have fun. And what they say, what Georgia Trickett said to me today because I rang around, was like, God, I get to talk about very Roman empire. We need parents like you, Stacey, who aren't super sporty to still get your kids into sport and have fun with them, right, because the more we can get kids participating, the better it is, the better outcomes for everyone.

24:16Speaker 1:But that makes me.

24:17Speaker 4:Feel so much better because I don't have sporty kids and I'm plugging away at it, and sometimes I worry that they're like a liability to the team.

24:25Speaker 2:But keep plugging, keep plugging, and there is no pressure to pick a path. The more they can play the better and at any level and free play and whatever it is. It doesn't all have to be elite performance pathways.

24:36Speaker 3:This is also a message for those parents as well, because it's the parents on the sidelines that can get scary. You're like, you're not watching a first grade NRL game here. This is like five year olds running around and probably running in the wrong direction, Like just let.

24:48Speaker 2:Them something so wild to me. So this year my children play club basketball, and the club sent out an email. The entire organization of BASWA and South Australia now has a red card system for parents on the cymos. If you get red carded, you've got That's how bad the behaavior is of parents at sport. And this is something that happens across all kinds of codes.

25:12Speaker 3:So this is really this is what they need, is the non sporty parents, because I want to know if the kids are doing it wrong, I'll just.

25:18Speaker 1:Be like, yes, a great benefits to the well, we.

25:22Speaker 3:Should be ambassadors for average sport.

25:25Speaker 2:Yeah, you're more important than ever. I mean, this is my Roman Empire right. If I wasn't sitting here talking about a podcast, I would be trobably trying to work for the Australian Sports Commission and get more kids playing sport. And if it's your Roman Empire two are you're interested in it? Go and listen to sport Ish. It's a really good podcast run by these two women, two intelligent mums. Libby Tricket, Olympic swimmer and her sister in law Georgie Trickett, and they are trying to spread the word to exactly parents like you. Stacy and Amelia.

25:53Speaker 4:Well, it's time for that part of the show where we tell you the things that we are loving. Sick and Mon's I know you're excited about yours.

26:01Speaker 1:Let's go.

26:02Speaker 2:Okay, all right, so I have it's school holidays right, oh god, how are we going to fill the days? I have three low cost school holiday ideas or burn half a day? Okay Number one. This is when you're feeling good at the start of school holidays. You've got the energy. Go to the art gallery. I'll tell you why. It's free and it burns half a day and there's cool things to look at and most of the art galleries are so thankful that children are there and they're like pro kids, pro kids. They have like a little studio that kids can do fun art things in and it costs you nothing except to stand there and say, don't touch anything, all right. My second idea is called beach patrol. If you live near a beach or you don't take a trip to the beach, and tell your children they are on beach patrol and give them each a bag and they have to fill it with rubbish.

26:46Speaker 2:I'm not joking. I did this with my kids and they thought they were the Octennaughts cleaning up the beach and they loved it.

26:53Speaker 3:Yes, and have looked so smug to the other parents.

26:57Speaker 2:No, they are all probably other parents like why she letting her kids pick up syringes on the beach, but dress warmly, they don't feel the cold beaches in autumn. Lovely, Just say your job is to pick up the rubbish like the oxen Norts, would you know? And yeah, beach patrol is a real winner in my house. And the third one is called rock bottom Bunnings. Now save this for on a day when you're feeling so low, like you're a low ebb. You might be hung over, you might just be done, burnt out or over stimulated. And what you do is you take your children to Bunnings and you give them five dollars and you can say you can buy whatever you want. It will blow their minds.

27:37Speaker 2:It's a warehouse, it has pieces of pipe, it has little screws and knobs. You can say, sure you want a plant, of course you can. Let's go look at the plumbing aisle. Their minds will be blown. And it definitely because there's always playground in a Bunnings too, right, It's a really good way to burn half a day. And if you're lucky, your Bunnings will also have a cafe so you can like have the coffee while they're on the playground, and it just is a really good time was stuff.

28:00Speaker 4:And then you're done with your Emma Gred three hours and you hand them off to the naw.

28:04Speaker 3:Yeah, perfect, love perfect.

28:08Speaker 1:I have a book series called Brinkley Yearbook.

28:11Speaker 4:I discovered these at the library because I feel like they plug an interesting hole or a difficult, awkward moment in reading development where kids are too old for picture books that are not yet on chapter books and their graphic novels.

28:29Speaker 1:They're set in kind of upper primary and.

28:32Speaker 4:I love books where you get to know, like all the kids at a school Hating Alison Ashley was my favorite book growing up, so it's giving Hating Alison Ashley. It's set in an upper primary level, but it's perfect for like those kids who are maybe in year one who are looking for an in between book. They're by an author called Sarah Sachs. The first one is called Picture Day. There's three that.

28:55Speaker 1:Are out at the moment.

28:57Speaker 4:They're very believable plots, Like my kids really liked that in one of the books, this girl has a big crush on someone and she gets embarrassed around him, and they know.

29:06Speaker 1:They're fievable for the age group.

29:08Speaker 4:They're not overly sanitized, very diverse set of characters, and get them from.

29:13Speaker 1:Your local library.

29:14Speaker 2:Yes, what's it called.

29:16Speaker 1:The Brinkley Yearbook? B R I N.

29:19Speaker 3:K Ellieway, exactly cute. I've gone a bit rogue this week and have two. I've broken the rules as well. You had three, yes, so I figure I can have two and it's fine. My first is just a terrible, great show to watch on it.

29:33Speaker 1:That's kind of your beat on this podcast.

29:35Speaker 3:I'm never going to bring you a highbrow documentary or like a drama. It's always going to be this type of show. I'm so sorry, but just trust me alone.

29:43Speaker 1:Don't apologize.

29:45Speaker 3:You're right, No, use your your afternoon filling your cup watching this show instead of with your children. It's age of attraction. Have you seen this?

29:53Speaker 1:Is this the one about people who are very different ages?

29:56Speaker 3:Yes, so it's forty. They put forty people into this retreat, so it's like twenty men twenty women. The only thing they are not allowed to ask one another is what is your age? Not allowed to tell each other their age under any circumstance. And you also don't know their age. Okay, So as they start dating, so they speed date everyone. They all date each other at least once, and then they start gravitating towards people. Now, some of them are obviously younger or older, but some of them are like, I don't know, Like this person could be fifty, yeah, this person could be twenty. If they decide that's the person they want to stick with. In the retreat, they have to go to the promise room and then reveal their ages to one another and give each other a ring, like not an engagement ring, but like a promise ring.

30:41Speaker 4:I assumes ring come out after they've said their ages, no before so they do it, and then they tell each other the ages and the promise ring is legally bind you.

30:51Speaker 3:Yes, you cannot take it off ever again. And some of them are.

30:55Speaker 2:Cooked, like really, oh car.

30:58Speaker 3:And it's so interesting because some of them where they are perfectly reasonable, you know, like where they're like two or three years difference four or five, you just never see them again in one episode and then they're like, bye, we care about these people over here with a thirty three year age gap. It is wild. And then they move in together immediately, date for the length of the experiment, and then decide if they're going to make it on the outside. And I've spoiler looked up a lot of them.

31:23Speaker 3:Some of them are still together, some of them not, but some of them are.

31:26Speaker 2:During TV execs are just like, what stories?

31:30Speaker 3:What else can we do?

31:31Speaker 2:What stories do people click on? All the time? Now everyone likes an age gap? Oh I've got an idea for a show.

31:37Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so juicy, it's great to watch. And then my other just little bonus, tiny reco is something I listen It's a song. I listened to it three times this morning and was like, I could listen to this five hundred times in a row and not get sick of it. It's Harry Styles has done a cover of Everybody Wants to Rule the World.

31:54Speaker 1:I love now.

31:56Speaker 3:I clearly sing it like Harry does. It is the best cover of a song I've ever heard. It's amazingly that's amazing. Mike was on like he was, he's amazing. You need to need to listen.

32:07Speaker 1:That's great.

32:08Speaker 4:I looked it up on it wasn't on Spotify. I guess you have to go to YouTube. That's the annoying thing.

32:12Speaker 3:You do. Have to listen to it on YouTube instead of on Spotify. And I'm hoping they'll put it on there at some point because it's.

32:16Speaker 1:Got a saxophone, which I was not expecting.

32:19Speaker 3:He's got a brass band in it. Like it's it's amazing.

32:21Speaker 1:It's great.

32:22Speaker 2:That's so good. Yeah, thank you for your rex. That is what we have time for this week on Parenting Out Loud. So if you're listening, if you're watching sport, good on you don get red carded. Good luck these school holidays, and a big thanks to our team that works on this show. Our exec producer is Sashtanic, our audio producers Jacob brown a Content manager of Podcasts is to Listen Asas and Group executive producer is Ruth Divine. Have a great week. We'll be back in this feed next Saturday morning.

32:49Speaker 3:You're just some sports.

32:50Speaker 2:Yeah bye bye bye.

32:54Speaker 3:Mumma.

32:54Speaker 2:Me acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.