The Text You Need To Stop Sending

0:04Speaker 1:Welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast for parents who don't always listen to parenting podcasts. We like to take a look at the news and the trends and the culture and kind of what parents are thinking about. I'm Monique Bowley.

0:17Speaker 2:I'm Amelia Lester, and I'm Stacy Hicks. And coming up on today's show, an Ozzie Kid has just released a viral banger and you're not going.

0:25Speaker 1:To be able to get it out of your head.

0:26Speaker 3:It's the parenting article of the week. A Wall Street Journal article on the rise of something called CEO parenting has triggered a debate on what you miss when you outsource your kids.

0:38Speaker 1:And the kids party ritual that we need to abolish.

0:42Speaker 2:But first, hot off the presses, my friends, Ashley Tisdale has brought up the mum group drama yet again, and long may she do that.

0:51Speaker 3:It is the gift that keeps on.

0:52Speaker 1:It really is, it really is.

0:54Speaker 2:We're going on seven months now of this story and I'm not sick of it yet. So just a little mini recap if anyone has missed any of this drama. This all started on January one, New Year's Day. Ashley Tisdale puts out an essay with the cut titled breaking Up with My Toxic Mum Group. I thought I had found my village. Instead, I was back in high school. And this was significant at the time because Ashley Tisdale always posted photos with the Disney Star Holy Trinity, which was Hillary Duff and Mandy Moore, so all of them from Disney shows, all of them in a mum group.

1:28Speaker 2:Meghan Trainer was also there, but seems largely unproblematic and uninvolved in this. I think she's just like off in the corner having a nice time. Then Hillary Duff's husband retaliated on her behalf mimicking the pose she was doing in the shoot for this story and saying calling her the most self obsessed, tone deaf person on earth, which you know is not backwards and coming forwards.

1:52Speaker 3:Her husband goals, yes, he really is.

1:54Speaker 1:He was like her ultimate defender.

1:57Speaker 2:Mandy Moore brought it back up a few months ago, saying she was really disappointed. She just couldn't help herself by jumping in there. And now Ashley Tisdale is executive producing what's being described as a half hour dark comedy for Netflix called Toxic marb this.

2:14Speaker 3:Is so selous.

2:15Speaker 1:She sold the drama. She held it to the drama.

2:19Speaker 2:She is making lemons out of this lemonade, lemonades out of this mom group drama, and it's so funny. Deadlines reporting it's an original idea informed by Ashley's life as a mom of two young children.

2:34Speaker 1:Well, he gets to control the narrative now, right, Whenever she puts in this show, everyone's going to be like, well, that must have been how it went down. I do feel kind of like I feel kind of bad for the others that are involved here. It seems kind of one side. Yeah, completely agree.

2:49Speaker 2:No word yet on when it's coming out, but I am already sat with my popcorn. I'm so ready to watch this, whether it's true or not.

2:55Speaker 1:Guys, I know we have serious shit to talk about today, but actually all I want to talk about is Eastern Rosella's Eastern Rosella's Look at the Beautiful Colors.

3:03Speaker 3:Say showed this to us earlier this week. She was first on the bandwagon, I want to say.

3:08Speaker 1:I was.

3:08Speaker 2:The second I saw this, I thought of you too, and I was like, I need to send this to them now. They need to hear this. It has to be in the show somehow.

3:15Speaker 1:If that sentence means absolutely nothing to you, Stacey, can you give the quick explainer? And do we have the music?

3:22Speaker 2:Yes, we've got the music. We've got a little sampul for you here.

3:27Speaker 3:Yes.

3:27Speaker 2:So there's this Ozzie kid. We're not sure if he's seven or he's twelve. There's all kids like he's either of those.

3:33Speaker 1:And nothing in between.

3:34Speaker 3:Do we know where he lives?

3:35Speaker 2:No, just that he's in Australia and his dad and him posted a video to TikTok and Instagram of him singing like an acoustic version of this song that he had written called Eastern Rosella's It went gangbusters, so him and his dad, Joel, So it's Miles Phillips's little boy. And his dad Joel recorded a full band version of this song. And I just need you to hear the intro to this song. You're gonna love it immediately.

4:02Speaker 1:And it starts that in the boat Do you want this speciesus?

4:17Speaker 3:Oh, it's so good. That's so good. It's so good.

4:28Speaker 1:Doesn't it just sound like every cool band you listened to in the year two thousand and six?

4:34Speaker 3:It does.

4:34Speaker 2:It's just somehow nostalgic, even though a seven year old has written it. I love it so much, and now people are calling for this to be the Triple J Hottest one hundred number one song.

4:44Speaker 1:It will be. It will be words, Yeah, it will be. Yeah, I think so too.

4:48Speaker 3:I just look it.

4:49Speaker 2:It's such a bang up. This is going to be stuck in your head for the rest of the week. It's on Spotify like they professionally recorded it. You can listen to it. It's so good, so wholesome.

4:58Speaker 1:I did that thing, that terrible thing. I couldn't help myself. But I was like, I wonder if I can turn this into a learning moment with my children because we're listening to it every morning. And then I said, this morning, guys, if you wrote a song about a bird, what would your song sah? I'm like, stop at money, what are you doing anyway? I saw a really funny meme that was like because now there's all these spin off memes, and the best one I saw today was this guy going all the Western rosellas listening to this song just being like, oh, yeah, it's okay.

5:30Speaker 3:I guess I was there too.

5:33Speaker 1:I was there too, but like, okay, whatever, No, big deal. My colors are kind of great too, No big deal.

5:38Speaker 3:One nanny just isn't enough anymore for the super rich. There's an article in the Wall Street Journal this week by Jody lip McGraw about what Jody calls CEO parenting, and this article has gone absolutely off. It's triggered a big debate. But before I get into that, I just had to share a couple of crazy details from the piece with you. A woman interviewed who is a mother of two in fintech, and I know if I understood rot fintech was, I would be very rich as well.

6:07Speaker 3:She spends three hundred and fifty thousand Aussie dollars every year on a team for her children. The team includes a bike riding tutor, a potty trainer, baby chef, personal assistant tasked with tracking down particular types of the boo boo. And the reason why she does all this is because she thinks that her time is better spent on more direct less sort of organizational tasks with her children. So that's what the debate basically boils down to. This is not just about CEOs. This is about how you approach parenting and what you think is most important. About parenting.

6:45Speaker 3:On the one hand, you have the Emmagreeds of the world. She's that Skims co founder that we've talked about. She famously spends only three hours at a time with her kids on the weekend, and she prefers to prioritize what she calls high impact core memory, like taking fancy holidays.

7:02Speaker 2:She's the one that said cutting up sandwiches is not for her exactly, so she never did it, chose not to do that.

7:07Speaker 3:So the most persuasive quote that I've heard from that perspective, it came from a woman in the article named Alexandra Fine. She is the CEO of a sexual wellness products company, and she says, every hour I spend folding laundry or scheduling a repair person is an hour I'm not present with my kids. That's not a philosophy, that's math. So the reason I like that quote and I bring it to you is because even though the CEOs exemplify particularly extreme sort of school of thought around this, every day mums and everyday dads have to make the decision about how to spend their twenty four hours in the day.

7:48Speaker 3:And that's kind of the best argument for that side of the debate. On the other side of the debate, I guess at the extreme you might have tidwives, some homeschoolers, other women who think that any time spent away from your kids, particularly if you're a mother, is doing them harm. But then again, I wanted to pull in a quote from that side of the debate. Ivana Greco, who was a woman interviewed in the article with four children, a former lawyer who now writes a substack. She makes the argument that the most meaningful moments I have with my children are completely unexpected. They happen simply because we spend time together. So on the one hand, high impact core memory making, leave all the sort of like mundane tasks to someone else, And on the other hand, you have no the magic happens in the everyday moments, and that sort of the drudgery of folding laundry or making lunches, that is, in fact, where the most glorious moments of parenting come from. So that's the contours of this debate.

8:54Speaker 3:Mon's where do you stand on that spectrum?

8:56Speaker 1:Well, before I get to that, I think what was really interesting to me was the how charged the comments were on this article, and there were six hundred and fifty comments in less than twenty four hours, and they were all in the same kind of emotional register, which was this is sad, selfish, sickening, narcissistic. These clowns don't know what they're missing.

9:24Speaker 3:This is ABOUTEO mums, this who are in the article.

9:27Speaker 1:Yeah, this is directed at the mums outsourcing the hard parts of parenting for the high value parts. One person wrote, these kids are going to make some lucky therapists very rich someday, and the top comment was being present for your child means clipping their tone, ouls, reading their favorite books seven times, getting vomited on, helping them open and close the door for forty five minutes, and somehow turning it into a game. The joys of parenting are inextricably tied to the work of parenting, and I think that's the crux of why everyone is so charged over this, because it does seem like this, this example of parenting breaks this kind of unspoken moral code that we have that we're sold about good parenting, which is that like love is proven through sacrifice, and that like the exhausting parts are the proof that you did it properly, and so when someone says, oh no, I'm going to delegate, all the tea spits out, there's this groundswell of people saying, well, hang on, that's not the deal, that's not what we do.

10:29Speaker 1:So I thought that that was really interesting that there was even in the comments, there was no kind of devil's advocate or any pro lens on this. Everyone was vehemently against it.

10:39Speaker 2:Well, I'll be the pro lens on this because I agree. Mon's like everything you see on that was everyone saying this is not what parenting is. If you want to be a parent, that is not how you do it. But it's interesting that we say that because, on the other hand, the thing that we hear again and again is that you cannot pour from an empty cup. Make sure you have time away from your children, make sure that you have a personality outside of your children, and that you get space to do the things that you want to do. And so, yes, it's to an extreme level.

11:08Speaker 2:But when these CEOs go, Okay, well I'm going to outsource all those low joy tasks. I'm going to get rid of all those boring things that I don't want to do and be with my children in a way where I'm present with them, where I'm fun with.

11:21Speaker 3:Them, where I'm my best self.

11:23Speaker 2:Yeah, where I'm my best self with them, then we have a problem with it. And I think if given the opportunity, I'm sure all of us can think of a laundry list of things that we would like to outsource. My number one would be tipping the sand out of my daughter's shoes at the end of the day and having to clap them together to get.

11:38Speaker 1:All the sand down.

11:39Speaker 2:Lit There's so many things we would rather not be doing and so but when they do this, we don't like it. But I guess on the other hand, the main woman in this article, Christine Landers, she's the one saying she doesn't want to clip her baby's toenails, so she doesn't she outsources that. I loved her last line where she was saying they were asking her, does she think she'll look back and feel like she missed out on something if she's not in these menial moments, And she said the doing is handled, but the thinking is still me and I couldn't help. But think you spend three hundred and fifty thousand Australian dollars on help and you still have the mental load, like we actually can't outrun the mental load. She still has to delegate and decide on those things with her children, no matter how much she tries to run for from it.

12:31Speaker 3:Right, that's a great point, Stacy.

12:33Speaker 1:Did you notice, Amelia the language in this article. And I know they are couching it as CEO parenting, but I really noticed how the language even to describe parenting by these people is quite corporatized, Like at some points it feels like you're on a zoom call. They talk about delegating, they talk about high impact moments, you know, low value parenting, low value tasks, And I think that language in itself makes people suspicious. Right, It's sort of that the idea that we've become so obsessed with self optimization that now we treat like simple tasks of caregiving as a waste of time, which just feels actually pretty despairing.

13:15Speaker 1:And I think a lot of the comments we're talking about that too, like where do you draw a line?

13:19Speaker 3:But then the comments kind of make me uneasy as well. Because I think that was a great point you made, Stacy, that it's almost like mums in particular can't win because we are told put your life checket on first, and then we're told no, not like that. And the thing Mom's that you said about how the comments were so charged and so kind of angry. Actually it's sort of like why do you care? You know, like if you had, as you say, Stacy, if we had millions of dollars, we'd probably be doing the same thing. So where does the anger come from? Is it like because we feel resentful that we can't have that what we perceive as the easier time parenting.

14:03Speaker 1:Now I have a theory on where the anger comes from, because historically this is how wealthy people parent, right, you think about about it, that's such a good that's true exactly. You think about Mary Poppins and literally mister Banks is the banker and he comes home for his slippers and his pipe. He packs the kids off their head and sends them off to bed, and that house is run by a governess, a nanny, a cook, a chef for cleaner and running around.

14:29Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean just that Amelia's boyfriend mentioned Dick van Dyke.

14:34Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. Or like the sound of music, like Captain von Trapp is there doing only the high value moments he gets to be in the family band with the kids while Maria takes on costumes. This is how they live and how they parent this. I think what's different in this case is that I wonder if it's kind of unspoken. We don't really read about it or hear about it that often. But the second part is that I thought this article was really gendered, and I first noticed it in the comments, where a comment that made me pause was a man that wrote, my wife quit her job and let and we let the nanny go.

15:16Speaker 1:It was the best decision we have ever made for our family, followed up by another comment, my wife made a similar decision thirty four years ago and we've never looked back. And then the first line of this article reads It's very loaded. It says, as a mother of two, there are certain tasks Christine Landis won't do. And then I realized everyone they talked to in this piece, every parent whose choices are scrutinized in this article, is a mum. The article talks to Christine, Olivia, Emma, Alexandra Evana Like I just thought, haven't wealthy fathers been doing this for generations?

15:55Speaker 1:And in the moment it's a woman saying the same words suddenly we feel disgusted by it.

16:00Speaker 3:I think that's a great point too, But I just want to get back to something that really made me set up that you mentioned before, the idea that wealthy people have always done this, so why is it now unacceptable? And I think it's because we expect something even more from parents these days than we have in the past, which is that they have to do everything for their kid right. They have to be emotionally present for them, They have to both parents have to work typically now to pay at the exorbitant mortgages that Australians in particular have to pay. They have to think about setting them up for an ai world, setting them up for a warming planet. The demands on parents are greater than ever before, I would argue, and yet we don't want anyone to try and make it easier for themselves. Yeah, I'm working this out in real time. What is different about it?

16:55Speaker 2:I found myself thinking about that too and thinking, oh, how does your child view you? Then if you're not the person who's doing the caregiving parts, So if you're their parent and you're in their life, but you're not the person they go to to ask for a snack and you're not the person they go to to ask to do up your shoelace, or you're not the person who they call out for in the middle of the night, because there's a night nanny for that. What is their relationship to you? Like, what are you to them?

17:21Speaker 3:And I think for modern for modern times, we're made uneasy by beard that parents aren't the go.

17:28Speaker 1:To for they and that we aren't everything and their whole world and all.

17:32Speaker 3:Of it, the Captain and the sound of music. I think no one expected him to be a kind of emotional resource of gentle parenting for them.

17:38Speaker 1:Contract kick exactly exactly right, Yeah, because we're more evolved as parents, You're right. Yeah.

17:43Speaker 2:I did want to bring in actually another extreme example of this, that is a man who's talking about this and it was received a little bit differently, so I think that that is interesting too. So this was Jonathan Swanson. He's an entrepreneur and he was on the run Rate podcast and I want to play you what they asked him about the most radical thing he does to outsource some of the parenting.

18:05Speaker 4:What's one thing that you've delegated that most people would consider ridiculous. We have four kids and you know, as you know, babies and kids don't always sleep through the night. We listen to the baby monitors, so you could hear them cry and you could go in. And Catherine's like, why are we listening? Why don't we delegate that to insist in the Philippines. And so we now have two nurses who live in the Philippines and it's daytime for them and they're working, studying, but they have our baby monitors on and if the kids need help, they can play a song. If the kids are crying and really need us, they'll call us and we'll go in. But ninety percent of the time they can be calmed though without us going in. I mean, we've been doing it for years now, and it's freaking the last thing I would turn off.

18:48Speaker 3:So see, why did this make me so angry? I just say why everyone got angry at the Wall Street Channel article and I wasn't angry at the Wall Street Chournal article. This makes my blood boil. Why? I don't know.

19:02Speaker 2:I wonder whether it's because that part is the ultimate caregiving part.

19:06Speaker 1:That is the part I think you look.

19:08Speaker 2:Back on and go that was that's the harvest part.

19:10Speaker 1:That's the thankless part.

19:11Speaker 2:That's the dragging yourself down the hall in the middle of the nine kid.

19:15Speaker 3:Is the most vulnerable, yes, all.

19:18Speaker 2:Alone, and to think of them just getting a through the monitor from a random person in the Philippines is just wild.

19:27Speaker 3:I think that's what it is. It feels like a bridge too far. Yeah. Is it also because a man is saying that he does this?

19:35Speaker 1:Is that why I'm annoyed?

19:36Speaker 2:I feel like it would we would be angry, or if it was a woman, if it was, yes, I think we probably would.

19:43Speaker 1:I think that the reason you're angry is because, yeah, that's probably a bridge too far, like outsourcing bike riding, outsourcing cutting toenawls. Fine, but in a moment when your child's in distress in the night. When secure attachment, that's when it's built, built in high value tasks. Using their words, it's not built on vacations. Attachments are built with consistency with showing up, with doing all those really like perceived perceived as boring and low value tasks, shushing to bed and battime and meal time. That's when it's built.

20:20Speaker 2:Yeah, And I think he would probably argue that they're well rested and show up as their best selves, like we said before, but it's showing up in this case is what they're missing out on, and that's something that can't really be replaced.

20:32Speaker 1:Yeah, And I think that that's the great irony of this piece is that these parents seem to be saying, I'm going to delegate all this stuff so that I'm more emotionally available to my kids. But if the emotional connection is built in all of those really small moments, it's kind of a false economy. But a Coeo talk for you guys. All Right, I have a bone to pick with kids' birthday parties, and it happens after everyone goes home. May I please have pick away? Yeah? Thank you?

21:01Speaker 1:It's the post birthday party? Thank you text. Do you guys know what I'm talking about?

21:05Speaker 3:Yes?

21:07Speaker 1:So how it goes is you have a birthday party for your child. You go to the effort to find a venue, think about timing, duration, cost, wet weather contingencies. You think about inviting people, chasing RSVPs. You consider the parents that are attending, do they want booze or coffee? And then you have to think about food. Don't forget the allergies. What are you serving for drinks? Games? Balloons, party cake, party backs right when the party is over.

21:32Speaker 1:That's not it, guys, It's not over yet. Right. There's this final step, this final unprecedented step that has crept in. That is the post birthday party thank you text. And this is where you gather up the gifts that your child's been given. And then it's a process where you have to identify which gift came from which kid, and then you have to photograph the birthday kid holding it and smiling. Then you have to locate the correct number of the parent of the gifter, and then send the text saying thank you, thank you so much, like Evie loves this lego emoji emojimoji, right, and it's that times fifteen or twenty or however many kids you invited to the party and brought a gift. I would like to propose a nationwide amnesty on this part of the birthday party process. Okay, yes, it doesn't need to happen. Here's my pitch one. This does not teach the children's gratitude.

22:24Speaker 1:This does not teach the children manners. It's not them that's holding the phone and taking the photo and writing the text and choosing the emojis and tracking the numbers down, they're just opening the next toy.

22:34Speaker 2:And surely this then continues on because then you feel like you have to reply and say it was an amazing party, thank you so much for having me.

22:41Speaker 1:I'm glad that they liked the gift. Right, Yeah, completely, just going around and round forever. And secondly, this is a task that generally falls on mums and it's just another piece of administrative load that I don't think anyone needs. Right, So here's my proposal. You attend a party and you bring a gift. On leaving, your child says thank you for having me, and then your child receives a party bag and they say thank you for coming, and that's the transaction.

23:12Speaker 3:That's it. You made a proposal earlier on Parenting out Loud, which was that instead of the party bag, kids get a slice of cake.

23:22Speaker 1:So I I think that's too much. I'm not prepared to follow through with that. Okay, that was.

23:28Speaker 2:Me who wanted to cut party bags, and now Mons wants to cut the thank you.

23:32Speaker 3:Oh no, I'm all for it. I have to add, though, I recently hosted a kid's birthday party and we never found out who gave my son a Hoytz gift card. So, if you are listening, because gift cards are really hard to keep track off, thank you so much for the Holtz gift card. I'm so sorry that I didn't say thank you.

23:50Speaker 1:Every parent actually just needs a podcast just say it on there. Thanks for the gifts. Everyone be done, one fell swoop. If we had the National Amnesty, you wouldn't feel the guilt because you would just know that the transaction ended at the party and they got the party bag, you got the gift. It's done.

24:05Speaker 3:I love it.

24:06Speaker 1:And so yeah, I don't know. Am I wrong? Am I an asshole? Am I going to actually be able to follow through with this when my child has a party?

24:12Speaker 3:The problem is it's sort of like how I've heard parents of older kids talk about how everyone has to agree on the no phone sing and on waiting to get a phone. We all have to agree on this. No one can kind of decide that they're actually not going to go along with it, because then we will look like an asshole.

24:29Speaker 1:Yeah. The reason I thought of this is because we went to a party and then I texted the mum after to say thank you so much. Like great party, probably best kids party I've ever been to. And she her response wasn't thank you so much for coming, It was, oh my god, I'm sorry. I haven't thanked you for the gift yet. I just haven't gotten around to it. And that's where I was just like, this is nuts. What are we doing? And so my gift to her was like, take us off your list. You don't need to do that shit. Little gear change now. And something that I spied in the Mum and mea out loud face book group that I really want to talk about because apparently some of us has misunderstood what school is for this week, a former teacher and principal in the out Louders Facebook group had a few choice words to say about it. Her name's Lucy Loader aka Brave Parenting on Instagram, and this is what she had to say.

25:18Speaker 5:It's school to teach everything, do you, because that's what I'm hearing in lots of places manners. Why can't the school teach that resilience?

25:24Speaker 1:Isn't that the school's job?

25:26Speaker 5:Money? Skills, respect, how to lose gracefully? School should cover that too, right, Because in the olden days, school is for reading, writing, maths, history, all the different things, but social skills and how to actually live in the world.

25:39Speaker 1:That was the family's job.

25:40Speaker 5:Now the curriculum is already bursting, and somehow it's expected to teach the things that families used to teach on top of everything else.

25:48Speaker 1:And here's the truth.

25:49Speaker 5:Whether your child's in mainstream school, private school, or homeschooled, you are all homeschooling teaching the stuff that actually matters long term. They can chat ept who was the first prime in the stuff, but that can't look up how to be helpful to others, how to bounce back from being wrong, how to be a decent human when no one's scoring them on it. That's not part of the curriculum. The proof is when someone stops you in the street and says, your child said a loon to me, use my name, had a real conversation, or they stuck up for someone being picked on, learning their family history, what they stand for, and what type of human they're becoming.

26:21Speaker 5:That's on you, not the classroom teacher. And people ask me, tax mortgages, changing tires, why isn't that in the school curriculum.

26:27Speaker 1:Because these things have never been the school's job. It's always been things that you learned at home. Did you think you could just.

26:33Speaker 5:Have kids and let others teach them absolutely everything. You are not just the parent or the adult. You are another teacher in their lives. And this isn't aimed at every parent. You'll know if I'm talking to you, my opinion, your child, your call, no judgment.

26:47Speaker 3:Lucy's president.

26:48Speaker 1:Yeah, Amelia loved it. Does Lucy have a point?

26:53Speaker 3:Yes? I think Lucy is so sensible. And I also look through the comments and I agreed with everything that she wrote in the comments, really engaging thoughtfully with sort of rebuttals and criticisms of her argument. But I don't want my kids learning how to change a tire at school. Look, I don't know how to change a tire. It's probably not something I should be proud of, but I just someone else can do that. I want them to learn the basics of reading and mathematics at school. That is all I want them to do. The teachers have enough to do, and those are the core skills that schools are meant to impart. This to me is a no brainer.

27:37Speaker 3:I'm sorry, give me the best argument for why Lucy's wrong, because I'm not saying it.

27:41Speaker 2:Our curriculum is obviously still based on what it was years and years ago, and it sounds like from what she's saying, the curriculum is bursting. Things are getting added, but nothing is getting taken away. So is this just a case of now that we kind of need to look at what's in there? But it's where that line is, like, do I think they should be teaching them empathy and manners? Absolutely not. That is something that needs to be done in the house. Would I mind if they were taught tax because I don't understand it.

28:11Speaker 1:That would be great. I would love if tax got added to the curriculum. Actually, that reminds me Stacy you mentioned before about there are some parents. There are pockets of parents who just expect schools to do everything. And I know earlier we were talking about CEO parents that kind of hire helpers to help with the boring, more mundane parts of parenting, but I think there are pockets of parents who don't do that and expect the schools to take on that load. And it reminds me of this article I read in the Herald s Son a few months ago about how there's a spate of small children coming to school, starting to school for the first time who aren't toilet trained, and so teachers are now expected to toilet train on top of introducing children to a curriculum, which just seems kind of crazy.

28:56Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's right, and I think I see why people are asking about it, because we clearly do have a crisis when it comes to social skills as a society. I remember my kids preschool, which was the most magical place, had a school song that said we are kind and we are cool, because of course cool rhymes at school, and I always thought to myself that is that not the best motto in life, to say you're both kind and cool? I am, I am on good days one of those things. I don't think I've ever been both of them, but it's a great aspiration to have.

29:33Speaker 2:Yeah, I think ones it's interesting what you were saying about. You know, those things are learned at school, but is it more that those things are practiced at school. Yeah, Like, I think that's maybe where the line has changed now, is that it's that there may be a certain subset of parents that are just kind of leaving all of it to the school. Because, as we've sag before, you know, most parents are working, and so the time they get with them is that time where they are doing those non fun tasks, you know, so the things the time we have with them now is so much smaller. The time to be just enjoying and teaching them, you know, random scenarios about how to show empathy like that's it's just so much smaller now, and so it's been blurred and we've just gone, Okay, well that'll they'll just figure that out when they get there. They'll deal with conflict resolution when they come up against it with a student at school.

30:24Speaker 3:I think that's a great point and it's also about I think the rise in private schools, the rise. Australia has the highest private school attendance of basically any comparable country, and we've talked on the show about rising school fees, the idea of parents, parents thinking of schools as consumer products, yeah, rather than places to educate their children and wanting more quote unquote value from it.

30:50Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so.

30:51Speaker 2:And it shouldn't be the school's problem, but it inevitably becomes that because all these amazing teachers obviously wants want what's best for the students in their class. They want them to feel nurtured and loved and understand how to calm their bodies when they're upset, or how to make friends, and so those things are inevitably bleeding into the time and what they're trying to have to what they're having to teach to these kids, and that's where you know, maths and English is kind of probably getting shelved to the wayside.

31:18Speaker 3:And also like, look, I might get some flak for this, but I think there's something a little bit anti intellectual about the idea that, in fact, what kids should be learning at school is how to manage their money or how to change a tire to use the other example, because there is a strain in Australian life which devalues more cerebral academic pursuits and it values sports people over scientists. I'm not saying that's always the case. I'm just saying that that's been a kind of thread in Australian life, and sport is very important to Australian culture, undoubtedly, but I think we could do more and are doing more to lift up the people who work in labs or the people who think in universities. And I just worry that by sort of trying to squeeze out the bread and butter of school, which is again maths and English.

32:15Speaker 3:In favor of all of these practical skills, we're undermining the pursuit of knowledge in itself and how important that is for a society.

32:25Speaker 2:Yeah, And I mean we all know how hard it is to get a child to listen to you, just generally, to get them to listen about maths is pretty impossible. So I would I would much rather that the amazing teachers that know how to do that are the ones that are teaching them.

32:39Speaker 4:That.

32:39Speaker 1:Yes, so true, and very true for music and arts as well. That's a true. Yeah. All right, it's time for recommendations. The little cosmic crisp at the end of the show, the little refreshing bite of an apple that we like to enjoy. Now, if you missed that reference, that was from last week when Stacy's in the pocket of Big Apple and has recommended we shun the Pink Lady and the Granny Smith in favor of the new tech bro of apples, the cosmic crisp, but in a good.

33:06Speaker 3:Way, like biting apples in a good way, not in a like original sin Bible way. No, right, like apples are good on this yes, like.

33:13Speaker 1:A wholesale way. We're pro apple. We are keeping the doctor away away. Do you know it worked on me? I actually bought the cosmic did you like? You know you're not wrong, You're not wrong. It's a decent apple, good apple. It's a hot apple. I saw it and I laughed. I thought of you. Okay, Stacy, what have you got to recommend this week? You're moving on to pears.

33:36Speaker 2:Another fruit for you know, apart from Eastern rosellas, which is actually my record of the week. I've started using this bit of a hair hack. So my hair as dry as anything, and I started snapping off at the ends. And when a friend in the office very helpfully said, well, do you use a heat protectant? I said, I don't want to be attacked like this. No, I don't, and I don't want to. I then got another recommendation from my friend. She was like, if it's dry and it's brittle and it's not looking shiny anymore, use ha Hober oil so you know, like you can you can buy it from There's an Australian company, the Ha Hoober Company, and they have it as well, just for people use it on their skin. People use it on like dry knuckles and elbows and all of the things. You just do it like a hair mask. So just ladder your hair in this oil. And I did it yesterday and then did my hair today and the straightner it's the smoothest you know, curling I've ever done of my hair.

34:36Speaker 3:Shine is whining.

34:38Speaker 1:It's shiny right, like it is shinier than it normally.

34:40Speaker 3:Is question for you. I've always wanted to try your hober oil. Yeah, because you beauty talks about it a lot, patron Saint of millennials Lee Ham specifically. But does it smell nice? Is my quest?

34:55Speaker 1:Smells beautiful?

34:56Speaker 3:It's really it's really nice and nice smelling a yeah, and.

34:59Speaker 2:You you can get them. You can get them every like they think. They sell it on the Iconic. They sell it on Amazon, like you can get and it's quite affordable, like it's not like you know some of the mass a like twenty or thirty dollars. You could get a little tub of Hobe oil for about eight bucks.

35:13Speaker 1:Does it make your pillowcase or oily at night?

35:17Speaker 2:Because I just left it on during the day, like I worked from home and left it on during the day and then washed it out.

35:23Speaker 1:So it was great. It was great.

35:25Speaker 2:I was worried it was gonna still look oily, but because it's not heavy, it just comes straight out.

35:30Speaker 3:It's giving Kate Middleton, thank.

35:32Speaker 2:You so much. That is the biggest compliment you could give me. What's yours, monsie.

35:37Speaker 1:If you've listened to today's show and thought I've had it with all these parents out saucy everything, to wealthy people and to the nannies and to the schools, I've got the perfect show for you to watch that will restore your faith in children and parenting. Okay, it's alone season four on SBS. Now this show, let me tell you, this is the best thing on TV right now. So season four has just started. You're not too late to start watching The Dropped out in the Wilderness. Yes, they take ten Australians and they drop them in the middle of nowhere and they say good luck. Last one standing wins.

36:14Speaker 1:And in the last three seasons they've put them in like Tasmania and in Australia and it's been a bit of a snooze. Okay, no word of a lie. I love usps, but a bit of a snooze Fest. This year, they've dropped them in the Arctic Circle. And the best thing about it this cast they're amazing. They're so diverse. Their skills are incredible. They've all been doing since they were little kids, bushcraft and fishing and hunting, and they just have all these incredible survivalist skills that they've been taught by their parents or just like taught by their communities.

36:50Speaker 1:And this show is so gripping and so wonderful, and it's best watched under your heated blanket with a hot milo, in the comfort and warmth of your own home. And then you have to yell things out, like put the fishing line back in, you idiot. It's the most perfect driving show to watch.

37:09Speaker 3:Do you watch it?

37:10Speaker 1:You're really great? Yes, And I watch some of it's a bit gory for kids, Like there's a bit of like actually it's not too bad. It's like they kill a fish in the fish guts, you see the fish guts and stuff like that. And there are some themes that it would be best to watch it with your kids in case there's there's some kind of like trauma. The people get emotional out in the bush and when nature starts to speak to them, but it is. It's the best thing on TV right now. Guys, get on a loan season four.

37:37Speaker 3:Hopefully this will get my kids to stop watching what's that that YouTube star who's on Netflix now?

37:43Speaker 1:Oh Kalish oh oh Saily?

37:48Speaker 3:Oh god, we're going to get on alone?

37:50Speaker 1:Yeah yeah.

37:52Speaker 3:My wreck this week is an article. This one is in the New York Times magazine and it's called My Relationship with My Brother Fraught? Could Sibling Therapy Help Us? It's by a writer called Daniel Bergner, and it delves into why our relationships with our siblings are both so precious and so complicated, And it tests out whether or not if you go into therapy later in life, can that help you and your sibling come closer together? Sort of like marriage therapy, except for siblings. It's about Daniel, the author and his brother Bob. They're sixteen months apart.

38:30Speaker 3:Growing up, Daniel was very jealous of Bob. He thought he was better looking, he thought he was a better athlete. He felt that they were locked in an undefined but dire competition, and that I was always at risk of losing. They grew apart as adults, but then they came together again to talk about their childhoods with a therapist and what they realize about how each other view the same events. It's really astonishing. Basically, Daniel realizes that Bob always felt bullied by him. So even as Daniel was walking around feeling in out of quit next to his brother, his brother was feeling intimidated and even threatened by him and his behavior. And he didn't realize that. It's such a moving piece. It's sort of like underscores, like how childhood is this incredibly formative time in shaping all of your attitudes to basically everything. No pressure parents, but also if you are a sibling, if you parents siblings, this is an absolute muster read.

39:26Speaker 1:Thank you so much. What a breadth, What a breadth we've brought to you today. Thank you for spending time with us on your Saturday or your Sunday, wherever you're listening, mowing the lawn, folding a laundry, driving to work. I hear a lot of people listen on their work commute on the weekend. That's us for this week. Eyes to the sky, guys, look for those Eastern rosellas and think about the Western ones who have been shunned and to go to therapy for that, yes, sibling bird therapy. All right, we'll see you next week. Mummie acknowledges the traditional owner of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.