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Speaker 1: This podcast was recorded on the lands of the boon Warong people of the Kulin nation, the land on which we're lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters, always was, and always will be Aboriginal Land.
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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Ready or Not, the show where two mums tried to figure out how to make work work.
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Speaker 3: I'm Lou, I'm Liz, and Hello producer Kitch, Hello.
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Speaker 4: Go come off on today's show?
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Speaker 2: How important are work relationships or really relationships in general? Laws was listening to a Mel Robins podcast episode called the One Study will Change how you think about your entire life, and it got her thinking, I can't wait to hear about that, and then me to you too. Jemima Kirk gives her most honest parenting advice yet one of our listeners DM to this piece and for reasons that I will tell you about soon, I had to get into.
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Speaker 4: This with both of you. But first, Laws, what's happening?
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Speaker 1: Look, I went away last week with the kids, or actually a couple of weeks ago now, and I just want to say, sometimes you just need a holiday.
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Speaker 3: I know how privileged and entitled that sounds. I'm just going to say it. I'm going to it. I love a holiday.
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Speaker 1: Holiday and there is nothing better that when your kids are driving you absolutely bonkers to have a change of scenery at a hot destination and just look at your kids enjoying their time in the sand and thinking, fuck, I'm lucky, so great, this is nice.
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Speaker 4: You've really reinvented the wheel.
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Speaker 3: I remember. I mean, a lot of people are like, how do you afford to holiday?
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Speaker 1: Make points? That's why I afford to holiday. I'm a points queen and I do not spend a lot of money on holidays. It might look like it, but I do not. I'm very handy, You're very clever. I'm very clever like that. But far out the reset was divine.
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Speaker 4: Oh heaven, And I just think going to yeamber soon. Actually here you are, and I.
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Speaker 3: Think he's a different people on holiday. What else was I going to say to you?
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Speaker 1: Settling period for us, just for anybody else, it's still at school, it's still I'm finding really tricky.
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Speaker 2: I've been shocked by how hard this is because a lot of people in my life have started prep for the first time. Honestly didn't realize what a big thing it would be. Yeah, it's really tough.
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Speaker 1: I think it's just hard when you've got like little people when you're at the door and they just don't want you to go, like mom, Mom. It's like a scene of like the Notebook, you know, where you're like both leaving in different directions and you know it's the right thing to go obviously, but then at the same time, I just keep wondering to myself, how are you supposed to go into work for like a nine thirty meeting when I'm freaking not getting to like ten and actually switch onund because half the day all I'm thinking about.
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Speaker 3: Is I hope it's settled. I hope she's okay.
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Speaker 1: And once you get to school, you do and get the daycares updates, like it's different.
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Speaker 4: It's just about to say that.
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Speaker 2: My friend Bianca was like, I don't know what he does all day because yeah, single update and it's really heartbreaking. Yeah, and she's like, I miss him so much. Like I'm having a massive griefy thing going on.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a weird thing.
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Speaker 1: So anybody that's in it, I'm unfortunately still having quite a few tears and it is just tough.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, but what about you?
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Speaker 2: Last week was fucked Oregon It was probably my worst mental health week as a parent. I was so anxious, so angry, and just like not doing well. Yeah, he's so little things that I did which are absolutely fucked just to make anyone else feel better about just dropping a few balls. Firstly, logged onto a zoom to you too to tell you that I left my beautiful dog tied up outside the butcher posey and I went for a walk, went to a few different shops, kept untying him and tying him back up. Last one I completely forgot. He must have seen me walk off without him. Hades is at home working downstairs. We do a bit of tag teaming on a Monday. Then he's looking after the kids while we us three meet and he goes, where's our doggie? Sorry, he does say doggie, and I just quickly did a mirage of like, where the fuck was the last place that I saw Louis and I realized it was the shop, So that was the first one.
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Speaker 4: Then Ray was an absolute mess.
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Speaker 2: The next day kinder drop off, we both cried we're about an hour late, which felt like such a luxury of freelance life that I know corporate parents do not get often, and it made me feel really sorry for both them. But then also my workday was absolutely smashed. I was so so emotional that day. I'd been working till one the night before. I kept crying. Ran into a friend, cried some more. She was like, don't worry. Another friend said exactly the same thing yesterday happened to her, and I was like, great, I'm not alone.
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Speaker 4: And then yesterday I.
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Speaker 2: Was coming out to Melbourne for a few events that we had on and I was so organized, had plenty of time to spare, dropped ray off to my dad. Shout out to my dad, here's the best best looker after a ray ever alongside my mum. But my dad's really been doing the Lord's work lately. Luckily, I am allowed an extra time because I got fifteen minutes down the road to realize I did yester case with me and so I had to turn back. Somehow still made it to the event on time, but I was just like, fucking hell, this just isn't my week sailed on all fronts.
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Speaker 4: I also have some quick wrecks.
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Speaker 2: So I listened to an awesome episode of Bern Cotton's podcast It's called Happy Place. She talks to Porner Bell all about feminism, womanhood and generational relationships.
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Speaker 4: It's really interesting.
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Speaker 2: She talks about how our parents were brought up in the analog age and we've been brought up in the digital ACD and how different that is for different experiences with like feminism and parenting and all of these things. Really good episode, and then a quick shout out to firstly home Room, which is an awesome Instagram for fashion. They're both mums, they're legends. I'm in an instagm group that they've created through their home room, I guess, substack and Instagram community and on there. I asked for work bag recommendations. Got the best recommendation for this bagger nylon shoulder bag. It's in a coffee color, ninety eight dollars. It came from a website called Simple Beautiful Things, which I've now discovered is a gorgeous online store and irl store in Sydney and one hundred dollars. Fits my laptop, fits my water, a few other things. It's the best work bag I've ever had, and that is it. Tell me a new story.
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Speaker 1: Okay, stay at home mums outproduced tech companies by eight point one trillion dollars a year. In twenty twenty five, the top ten tech companies generated two point seventy to one trillion in revenue.
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Speaker 3: Collectively.
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Speaker 1: Economists estimate the annual value of unpaid caregiving is ten point eight trillion dollars. That's four times big Tech's revenue.
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Speaker 2: Wow, I'm so glad that whis like this to name the value of caregiving.
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Speaker 3: Incredible.
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Speaker 4: Hopefully so already catches up. Shall we get into it, I'll do it.
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Speaker 1: I was listening to an episode of the Mail Robins podcast called this one study will change how you think about.
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Speaker 3: Your entire life.
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Speaker 1: I found it so interesting that I've actually gone back to listen to it probably like ten times, and I'm going to put it on the record. I really like Meil Robins. I think some of her tife is amazing, But I also think she can be quite intense as well as I can be. And sometimes, you know, when there's like a big movement of one person, there's very much There was a while back of very big movement.
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Speaker 2: I feel like it's almost the intensity of the theory, you know, Oh, there was so much momentum gathered, and I can't be fucked listening to that.
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Speaker 4: Thee once more.
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Speaker 3: Exactly right, but she doesn't rip episodes.
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Speaker 1: They're so good In this episode, mal I find it's so funny when it says she walks through this decade long study looking at how people actually spend their time across their lifespan and what predicts whether they feel fulfilled, connected, and well, I wanted to go through them with you because I thought it was so fascinating. I don't think you've listened to this either of you. Know, So time with family shrinks dramatically after your teens. The research shows that the majority of the time you will ever spend with your parents happens before you turn eighteen. So after mid twenties, time with siblings and parents drops off significantly and rarely ever returns to earlier levels. When we think about this, it really puts it in perspective, like the time that you have with your children is now, Yeah, like it is not forever.
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Speaker 2: It's something like eighty percent if the time you spend with them is before, like by the time they're eighteen. I think, well, I don't know if that's the exact stat but it's still arming.
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Speaker 4: Whatever.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so when you're having a shit day, really go back and remember that because you're like, this is it. You're living it like you're in it now, and I know it's really hard.
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Speaker 4: But I just spent the week yelling at them.
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Speaker 3: I know, I said the week yelling at them. I do it every day, yell of the time.
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Speaker 1: But I'm like, far out there is a definitive end point to that, like the research shows it.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Number three, I found this fascinating.
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Speaker 1: Your co workers shape your adult life more than you will ever realize. Between roughly ages twenty and sixty, the people that you work with because your daily relational environment, you spend more time at work than with any other person in your life. It is so important that you work with a team that you like because they're going to form some of the strongest relationships forever.
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Speaker 4: Have a good time.
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Speaker 3: You want to have a good time A very good point.
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Speaker 1: So if you're somebody that's like reevaluating your career, or maybe you're in a toxic workplace and you're thinking, hopefully it gets better, I'd actually urge you to think to yourself, culture matters. Don't be in a toxic workplace if you can avoid it, find somewhere else.
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Speaker 4: Fucking move on your energy. There is too much time there.
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Speaker 1: Yep, energy matters. Leadership managers, your manager matters. If they are no good, that is going to impact such a huge aspect of your time and your life. Your life partner becomes your primary human over time, your romantic partner becomes a person who spend the most consistent, sustained time with in adulthood. So it's not your friends, not your parents. So it's really important to choose your partner wisely. One of the things that I found this thing that said listen to your friends. So your friends know you better than yourself, and sometimes they see the blind spots that you don't.
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Speaker 3: So if you've got a collection of.
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Speaker 1: Friends that consistently tell you your partner's no good, he's not treating you properly, blah blah blah, I mean need to listen. You probably need to listen. It's really it's interesting want to that though, because like, when do you listen?
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Speaker 4: And when don't you?
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Speaker 2: I know, it's so hard, Like my friends came and said that to me, which God did Fuck.
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Speaker 4: That would be jarr it'd be horrible. And also, no one knows your relationship apart from.
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Speaker 2: Yes, exactly right, I don't see totally like I can see both of you separately, but they don't see you in your house together.
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Speaker 5: Like if you know ten eight different friends are also doing you the same thing, it's like, at least take note of what they're saying.
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Speaker 1: Well, this is what the study said anyway, Yeah, like I just want to be and you don't have to follow it. It might not be a personal believe of any of ours, but I found it fascinating. And I also think if you are spending that much time with your partner at some stage, like you're going to have to have something in common kids.
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Speaker 2: It's so true and outside of like whatever you did in your twenties, whether it was like partying with your group of friends or whatever it is. This really made me think of my parents in a really lovely way because they I wouldn't say, have ever been like while the romantic in front of us kids or whatever. Yeah, but they are best friends and they spend all their time together.
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Speaker 4: Yes, and not all their time together.
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Speaker 2: They still have things outside of each other that they do and good friendships and all of that stuff. But it is really nice to see them in their late sixties and my dad just turned seventy, being like, oh I think we chose well, like I'd like to go out and get a coffee with you now that we're both retired and all that sort of stuff.
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Speaker 4: Yes, and so that really really hits home.
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Speaker 1: Which out there the next one, opposites don't really attract long term.
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Speaker 2: This has a bit of a worry for you. And oh my god, with our partner. It's not with each other.
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Speaker 3: Exactly what I was thinking. Are you and your partner opposite?
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Speaker 4: You think?
00:10:47
Speaker 3: Yeah?
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Speaker 2: Interesting, I actually from the outside just seeing photos of them in understanding ways, like I would have thought you guys were quite similar.
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Speaker 5: I mean, I guess it's hard to know when you're in it because I see so many things we don't have totally. I mean I guess, like in a lot of fundamental ways like value.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, so this is what it boils down to. But I think that's so fascinating because I always actually think to myself, opposites attract, like most of the people that I know, Yeah, with people that are polar opposite to them, But the research actually shows the opposite. So they say in terms of opposites don't really attract long term, what they mean is you need to have core similarities like emotional regulation which we do not have, ambition levels, which we've spoken about before. They actually think it's really important that you need to be on a similar page drive wise with your partner.
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Speaker 2: That's a really interesting, fascinating both the same and opposite with this, Like I'm definitely more ambitious in a lot of ways, but I think we both still want the same things for our lot.
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Speaker 1: One massive thing was money values. You need to have the same values around money. I've actually found the older I get, the more important. This is probably because we've got less of it, or maybe we earn more, but we're like far out.
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Speaker 3: Our overheads are more expensive.
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Speaker 4: More pressure. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Parenting philosophy, which is fascinating because Ryan I have polear different ways and styles of parenting.
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Speaker 4: Okay, can you go into that quickly?
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Speaker 1: Well, I would say I probably focus on smaller everyday things that I'd like to change, and Ryan is more happy just to let those things go and deal with bigger problems.
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Speaker 4: Yeah. Interesting.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Or I can anticipate things arising and he is more likely to be like relaxed until it happens.
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Speaker 4: Do you know what that speaks to the pressure.
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Speaker 2: I think that mums face culture, like what we've grown up with there is our expectations on ourselves.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I feel like that paints that picture of like you just more in the micro because you're always foreseeing things and worrying about things and thinking about things.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm probably more of a disciplinarian. I'm like, you did this, that's not cool.
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Speaker 4: This is the consequence.
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Speaker 1: This is the consequence. Whereas Ryan will be like, you did this, that's not cool. Yeah, I.
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Speaker 3: Mean it's nice, but I'm like, we need to I give you a.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And then lifestyle preferences. So it says opposites. Obviously, opposites usually create spark. That's where you cant like passion, romance, whatever.
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Speaker 2: Those things.
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Speaker 1: But they say similarity creates stability. So stability is what's going to allow you to have career growth, a calm home, shared parenting styles, and long term financial planning.
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Speaker 2: I found that so I found it really interesting. I had to quick look at your notes this morning, and when I first saw opposites don't really attract long term, it did alarm me for a second. But then going back to what a similarity actually is, maybe feel better because it's like your personality types can be different, But Hayden and I fundamentally like to do the same thing. You know. We love, for better or worse, to go out and have a drink and have a fun night with our friends. We love an outdoorsy type holiday. We love caravet.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Like, I feel like as long as those fundamental principles are the same and your value is the same, it can be different in a million ways.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. The next one, you spend more time alone as you age.
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Speaker 1: I mean that's an obvious one, but it really gets me thinking, Like the older I get that, the more important it is for me to like my own company. Yes, Like that sounds so narcissistic in some ways. So you have to be able to enjoy yourself. Like if you're one of those people that is like I can't stand being alone, Yeah.
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Speaker 4: That's not going to to well, it's not good.
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Speaker 2: I'm interested to know your experience with being alone because you don't have kids kids, not sure what that will be for the future for you. But do you spend much time alone and how do you enjoy it? I feel like you would enjoy it.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, I love being alone.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm very like hobby focused as well, So I love painting and like being alone. And like my partner and I we have a two story house, it will often be like he'll you know, read his book downstairs and do painting upstairs or something like that. But also, I do feel like we spend so much time with our friends, Like you're always like, oh, they're coming over for dinner or I'm going to go here for dinner. So yeah, I feel like you can fit a bit more time with your friends. And because you don't have kids to also be like.
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Speaker 2: Home, Yeah, how you feel that alone time If you do decide to have children.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, next one, I'll run through them. Happiness is indirect. I feel like that's pretty self explanatory. So happiness tends to be the byproduct of meaningful work, strong relationships, physical health, and emotional resilience.
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Speaker 3: That is the last one. Sorry, I'm going mad.
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Speaker 1: The bigger thread around this whole thing is when I was kind of drilling down into it, when I was listening to it, the more prominent it became to me that it's really who you spend your time with. And I think as a mum, you can get so lost in the everyday life of your family and admin and making an effort at school and all this kind of stuff that you kind of lose that sense of actually focusing on the relationships that matter the most to you, which is usually with your partner, which is with your children, and which is with your closest friends. So if anybody is in the same phase of life at the moment where you're like, God, this just feels like a slog stupid right back. And my biggest piece of advice after listening to this podcast, which is very preachy but also very good, I.
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Speaker 4: Love preaching those, do you.
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Speaker 1: It's just I don't know, I don't know why it struck me, but I was like, you do need to invest the time in the people that you want to age with.
00:16:03
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:16:03
Speaker 2: Well, it's actually just good to sometimes think about your life because I think, especially when you have young kids, you are so heavily in the doing that you don't ever take a moment to step back and think, is this what I want right now in terms of I don't mean you're specific art now, but just in terms of how your life is going and what makes up your life and what you do day to day and week to week as opposed to year two.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's really important to step back and look at those things.
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Speaker 1: And you know what, I think that actually got me so down this rabbit hole was because I have returned to work and I absolutely love my team, and I know not everybody has that experience, but Ryan and I were chatting the other day and he's like, you've got so much on your plate at the moment, like what needs to come off at Like maybe you could reduce the amount of days that you work or have the conversation. I was like, do you know what, at this point in my life, I actually don't. That's the one thing that I don't want to drop because I feel like when I go to work, I have different conversations. I get to use my brain in a different way, and I absolutely adore the people that I work with.
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Speaker 3: A conversation yeah, and it really is fulfilling.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: And there was a stage where I thought to myself, when I've been in toxic workplaces, which I think everybody has encountered, at some point where I thought to myself, well, maybe it's me, or maybe I will stick it out for a bit longer and the environment will get better. It doesn't get better often, and you have to spend every waking moment with those people.
00:17:18
Speaker 2: I see the fucking moment you've actually really inspired me about is that line from Dawson's Craig from the opening trailer thing, whatever you call it, I don't unaway. Yeah, your life to be over, but.
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Speaker 3: At deep for me today because it really is important.
00:17:36
Speaker 4: It is, and you don't want to waste especially when you have young kids. You don't want to waste those years hating your work.
00:17:42
Speaker 1: No, And I think there is something to learn from the older generation, those people that are eighty ninety and one hundred. If you boil it down, they're not saying, oh, be kind, That's not the advice they're giving.
00:17:52
Speaker 3: It's so much deeper than that. We need to listen to it.
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Speaker 5: What can you say is both making you indirectly happy in this phase of your life?
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Speaker 3: Indirectly happy, That's a great question.
00:18:03
Speaker 4: God, Jesus Christ.
00:18:05
Speaker 2: Loving what I do for work, definitely, where I live, and having a partner that is happy to do it all with me and on the same page as me.
00:18:15
Speaker 1: I'm glad that is so relevant. I would actually say where I live. Sometimes I look at our mortgage and I feel so incredibly sick to my stomach and I'm like, I cannot believe I'm working for the bank, as in literally working to pay it off. And then I open my door every moment morning. And we do not have a glamorous house. It needs a shitload of work, but I think far out. I absolutely love where I live. I love having a safe street. I love knowing my neighbors. I love walking down the end of the street for coffee. I love the news agency which still exists. The guy knows my name, Tony, shout.
00:18:48
Speaker 4: Out love you Tony.
00:18:49
Speaker 3: It definitely, I really do enjoy it. So yeah, that's fine.
00:18:53
Speaker 4: Love great.
00:18:55
Speaker 1: Some people think we're crazy for traveling with kids, but the more prepared you are, the smoother it will go. As Mum's, the last thing that we want is to land in a new country with no data, no maps, tired kids and try to figure out how to get a taxi.
00:19:07
Speaker 4: Exactly.
00:19:08
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00:19:24
Speaker 1: It honestly saves so much stress and money we can message our families to say with landed safely, check maps, book rides, or without hunting for dodgy airport WiFi.
00:19:33
Speaker 2: As a Ready or Not listener, you can get fifteen percent off. Just download the Sale app via the link in our show notes.
00:19:39
Speaker 1: Thank you Sale for sponsoring this episode of Ready or Not and making our travel that little bit smoother.
00:19:45
Speaker 2: Jami mckirk appears to have a parenting column with LUs and I probably.
00:19:48
Speaker 4: Should have fact checked.
00:19:49
Speaker 2: That, but I couldn't be bothered, so I'm just telling you that.
00:19:51
Speaker 4: Looks like she does.
00:19:52
Speaker 2: And listener Step sent to a particular quote that was so pertinent to that discussion we had recently about anticipatory grief.
00:20:00
Speaker 4: Since that conversation, I've.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: Been thinking about something that I think of nearly or just as much as I do about this sort of nostalgia for the present, and that is that sometimes I also think it's helpful to think about the opposite and go it's easy to put on your rose colored glasses and think that everything was peaching and perfect when you kid was two years old and miss that, and you're allowed to miss that. Both things can be true, but sometimes it's also quite good to go but here's what I don't miss, yeah, about these sorts of things.
00:20:26
Speaker 4: There was a quote that really encapsulated that.
00:20:29
Speaker 2: From jemima kirk that I'm going to share later, but it also got me thinking about this post I put up about breastfeeding that instead of wallowing in sort of my breastfeeding days being over, yeah, I wrote a list of all of the things that I wasn't going.
00:20:41
Speaker 4: To miss, and it actually helped me move through it.
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Speaker 2: I feel like you're allowed to have that moment of acknowledging the anticipatory grief or grieving a stage that you're in or have just exited, but then also going, yeah, but he's.
00:20:52
Speaker 4: What I won't miss. So we're going to end with that.
00:20:55
Speaker 2: But what I ended up doing was reading this entire column because Jemi mc kirk, who's from Girls, is fucking funny as fuck.
00:21:01
Speaker 4: I just will way too much, but she would.
00:21:03
Speaker 2: Appreciate that, and I just loved this whole little Q and a of these readers submitted questions and her answering them all around parenthood. So I'll start with two other questions and then we'll get to the last one that relates to that anticipatory grief. First, question, does motherhood get easier or harder? She says it gets easier, which I thought was perfect, because it gets easier in some ways and harder in others. Lossy, quick fire, you have three kids. Yes, they are five. They are three, and they are honestly nearly one, which is in exactly you're so funny. You're one of these feeling. It's like I remember once saying to my friend whose kid is ten months old, oh my god, he's nearly one.
00:21:45
Speaker 4: She's like, no, he's not.
00:21:47
Speaker 5: He literally is.
00:21:48
Speaker 2: I don't know if we're talking about, but I want you to think about your kids ages and stages without now and quickly riff off some of the ways in which parenting gets easy in each of those ages. Or maybe you want to stick to Sienna because she's the oldest, Yeah, and which ways it gets harder. Actually, I think it's easiest for you if we just look at the five year old.
00:22:07
Speaker 1: Okay, easier they can communicate better, yeah, and more openly with you, so they can talk about their emotions, which actually blows my mind. I don't know what schools are teaching or kindergarten because I haven't really looked at the curriculum that deeply. But I swear to God, the amount of emotional awareness in children is mind blowing, not just in Sienna, Like I'm not saying oh I'm my child, I'm saying across the board. It is incredible and it is so beautiful to see. Like Senna will be like that makes me really angry or I feel frustrated right now, and I'm like frustrated.
00:22:43
Speaker 3: What But I'm so proud.
00:22:44
Speaker 1: So they can articulate how they feel, which makes it easier for you to meet their needs. I think ways in which it gets harder is they do pull away from you. So you know, when they're like that two, three, four age, they really do want their mum, and when they're five they still have that need. But like the day the playground, she was like, mom, I like way with my friends. Yeah, and I'm like, pe not it's sad, but I'm like, all right, I get it. So that definitely is harder. Yeah about Actually.
00:23:12
Speaker 2: I want to know one more save Yeah, okay, what's.
00:23:15
Speaker 4: Harder at three?
00:23:16
Speaker 1: Oh my god, the tantrums is a lot harder. It's like and they're so they're really strong.
00:23:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I don't know about you sent a video last week and the way he tantrums reminds me so much of the way Posy tantrums specifically, like more so than Ray, Like they those two.
00:23:32
Speaker 3: And he's in my face like, yeah, I'm like, I'm going to.
00:23:34
Speaker 4: Move away angry.
00:23:35
Speaker 1: You're so angry, Like I'm going to move away from this environment. And then he'll be like no, I'm pulling up a stool and I'm opening your door and I'm going to get in you.
00:23:42
Speaker 3: I'm going to be like I don't know what to do with it, and you're holding a bottle of milk. Literally I had it.
00:23:50
Speaker 1: I was like, mate, it's right, Yeah, I don't know what you want me to do. So I would actually say the strength has remised me. Yeah, and just the actual physic call strength, like oh so strong, like the days of being able to push him in a car seat if you don't want to do the buckles up, they've got there over.
00:24:05
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you're the same kid Posy like I actually had. So you just sort of get her handed out of my babe. I actually can't fight.
00:24:12
Speaker 4: Her on this. It's scary.
00:24:14
Speaker 2: Sometimes she's pushing so hard and I can't get her hand out of the way.
00:24:17
Speaker 1: Sometimes I worry that I'll break savior's hips. I'm like, they are so stiff that I'm like, if.
00:24:22
Speaker 2: I push, yeah, it could break a box. And do you feel like you're assaulting them? Like genuinely, but I'm serious wild, it's wild. They're very soft bones, so don't worry about that.
00:24:30
Speaker 3: No, but it breaks me out. So I'm like, lollipart, what do you want?
00:24:33
Speaker 4: Come on?
00:24:34
Speaker 1: So that and then I would say easier. I mean, I don't know, I'm such a suck. I just think three is such a beautiful as it's such a cute. Three and a half is the peak, most amazing age.
00:24:46
Speaker 2: I'm loving rose age so much and most amazingly four now, which is wild. But I love the other day when you're saying that about seeing it speaking out my emotions. The other day, we're just washing his hands at the sink and he goes everyone in the world is happy, and it just broke my heart. I was like, that is the cutest thing you ever said, And the fact that you're thinking about people's happiness.
00:25:05
Speaker 3: I see, Yeah, it's cute.
00:25:06
Speaker 4: It's so cute.
00:25:07
Speaker 2: The shit that they start to say. Best parenting advice. This next person asks Jemimah, and she lists a few. Not loving motherhood is not the same as not loving your kid. Finding other parents who fully understand that.
00:25:18
Speaker 4: Is incredibly important. Yeah, thoughts.
00:25:21
Speaker 5: I mean I love that because that's what I kind of think about when I see people complain about aspects of motherhood. Yea, and people like me that don't have kids say, oh, they're always complaining about it. Why did they even have them? I'm like two.
00:25:35
Speaker 2: Exactly, But that's what you see on social media so much, especially from what appears to me the older generation, is like, why do you have kids if you're going to complain or like, stop complaining?
00:25:44
Speaker 4: You chose to Complaining creates connection? Yeah, it does.
00:25:47
Speaker 3: That's how people connect.
00:25:48
Speaker 4: And do you know what annoys me?
00:25:49
Speaker 2: People on social media don't want to see videos of them and being like, look cute what my kid did was today? That didn't make sense. No one wants to see the cute stuff. They're all like, oh, boring, mum's too mumsy. Everyone relates to the fucking complaining.
00:26:03
Speaker 1: I think everyone relates to everyday life. Yeah, like I want to see what's happening? Yeah without exactly right.
00:26:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, without a rose colored shade and air on it the next one. It's exciting when your kid demonstrates a particular interest in something like animation, Irish dance, or cookie. If they love it, they'll find a way to explore it on their own. Don't go blowing money on a specialized camp or a bunch of kookie classes. That's more likely to put them off. I'm interested to know, especially at Sienna's age, what your experience has been with sort of the pressure to nurture certain things she loves, or like put her in classes for certain things.
00:26:37
Speaker 1: Oh, here's a great example. Siena has been harping on about wanting to do gymnastics for so long.
00:26:43
Speaker 4: Will she like it?
00:26:44
Speaker 3: Who knows? Is it expensive?
00:26:46
Speaker 4: Yes?
00:26:47
Speaker 3: All of the times for her to do it are really annoying.
00:26:53
Speaker 2: Don't get me started on trying to find an activity that actually works with your schedule and your kid's schedule and sleep schedules for you younger kids, all of that stuff.
00:27:01
Speaker 3: They're so annoying.
00:27:02
Speaker 2: Right.
00:27:02
Speaker 1: The other day, was like, she really wants to do gymnastics, and I was like, okay, if you want to take her, why don't you go on a weekend? And He's like, they don't have any more spots on the weekend.
00:27:10
Speaker 2: The only two he actually willing to do that on a weekend. Yes, that's really sweet because it's no weekend act.
00:27:15
Speaker 1: It was, And also for me, I was like, great, yeah, yeah, it's good little bonding time for them. But he was like, the only time that she can really do is like a Tuesday, non negotiable. I'm in the office that day, you can't do it, or a Monday from five till six. And I was like, oh god, I'm hard with the other kids. It's hard with the other kids. It's a shocking time. And then part of me is like, do I just figure out a way to make her work? And then the other part of me is like, she's five.
00:27:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's got the rest of her life at way that it is like throws off your Monday night.
00:27:43
Speaker 4: I know, but wild, I don't know. That's perfect. You've just perfectly encapsulated what it's like to have that. Yeah. Yeah, that's actually the end of the story at the moment. We'll report back.
00:27:55
Speaker 2: And one more from her parenting advice, stop denouncing the age of tech and social media and waxing poetic about your techless childhood In front of the children who used said tech and social media. So she's talking about older generations. Yeah, like we did, and I've phones and nowadays. They are aware that their relationship to these devices is problematic. They're also aware that everyone else's generation was vastly different and better quote unquote than theirs. They've heard about it in stories and watch movies about children living in their simpler time, having adventures, making and doing things. I'm sure it doesn't make them feel great about themselves, and i'd venture to guess that they daydream about life without tech and social media. Being addicted to these devices isn't a choice, So tell your friends to lay off that topic when they're around your kids. Also, don't judge loving parents who allow their kids to access to these things.
00:28:41
Speaker 4: It's not that simple.
00:28:42
Speaker 2: I'd like to know if there's anyone from older generations that have made you feel bad about certain ways that we go about things.
00:28:49
Speaker 1: As in me, Yeah, I mean screen time is just an obvious Yeah, it's such an obvious.
00:28:54
Speaker 3: Like I've had so.
00:28:55
Speaker 1: Many comments from like older people before I had kids, like look at those children on screens at that table, like they should be talking to their people love to judge that so much.
00:29:05
Speaker 5: And I definitely judge that. Do you acknowledge it? Like it's a subconscious bias that I feel uncomfortable about it. I'd never say it to a parent, it's not my place, no, but I definitely cluck it and feel weird about it.
00:29:17
Speaker 2: And you're, yeah, that's really interesting, And I actually get that because sometimes, do you know one thing I actually judge and I don't like myself for it, but I'm going to admit it. And I've done it before, so I'm judging myself here too. Seeing a mum at a playground just scrolling on my phone in the corner while the kid's playing Vine for attention, I get it. I've been that person, yes, but it is really clunky to watch Lou jumping in here to say that I meant all parents, it's not just mums. That goes to show how deeply rooted some of these expectations are.
00:29:45
Speaker 4: That I went straight to that word of mum. I guess, let's be honest. I see more mums at the park, but in this example, I really meant any parent.
00:29:53
Speaker 2: It's unfortunately something that I've done that I judge myself and others for doing.
00:29:58
Speaker 1: Do I love it? No? Is it there?
00:30:01
Speaker 4: Absolutely? Now let's get back to the show. So there is this sort of sense of I don't know what it is, but we don't like seeing that.
00:30:08
Speaker 5: I think because we know, like you kind of should be talking at parents, that doesn't mean that you can exactly.
00:30:14
Speaker 4: That's the thing.
00:30:15
Speaker 2: I'm like, if you're taking a four year old to a pub because you want to go out and have some human connection, and there's no playground in that pub, for example, and there's nothing for them to do, there's no coloring, you've forgotten toys, blah blah blah, I just think, what else do.
00:30:26
Speaker 4: You expect kids to do in that situation?
00:30:28
Speaker 3: Oh no, No, I completely agree.
00:30:29
Speaker 4: I agree.
00:30:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I'm also like, it's very I think.
00:30:34
Speaker 1: I actually think I was very much like Kitsch before I had children, And even I would go as far to say as until my children were in an age, when I roamed around and became boisterous, I was like, you don't need a phone, you need a screen. And now I'm like, you need a screen, yeah, not just for you, for everybody else, Yeah.
00:30:52
Speaker 5: Yeah, because it would be embarrassing and people judge you when your kids scream so it's like the way you actually could You're so right?
00:30:59
Speaker 2: Could you actually can't win because you either have your kid behaving well for half an hour looking at something on their phone after they did explore and play around and whatever, or you have older patrons, particularly looking at your kids running around giving you the grazy and it's like, what are parents are not allowed to exist in pubs and spaces like this? Do we just literally ostracize them? Yeah, which no one means in that situation.
00:31:20
Speaker 5: No.
00:31:21
Speaker 1: And I think the other thing I'm going to say on that is the cooking thing. I think there's a very big difference between our generation now and the accessibility of food, takeaway, eating out than there was back in the day. And I do think a lot of older it's a generalization, but a lot of older parents, grandparents look at our generation. I think, well, you know, every night my husband came home and I had a meal on the table at five pm.
00:31:42
Speaker 4: Oh well you guys were you were fed? Yeah? You know, we didn't do take vegetable Sunday night.
00:31:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, staking three vegetables every night. I'd love to know.
00:31:49
Speaker 5: Actually I'll have to like research this, but the cost of cooking back then versus going out.
00:31:55
Speaker 4: I feel such a distally.
00:31:58
Speaker 5: I don't know, feel free to call me out way off here, but I feel like sometimes it's almost cheaper.
00:32:02
Speaker 4: To eat out if you're not drinking a lot.
00:32:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, you meat are so expensive if you're eating red meat.
00:32:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, a steak, A twenty dollars steak night is better than a seventeen dollar piece of steak.
00:32:14
Speaker 4: From coals that you have to cook, agree to season, make tip part of the guy.
00:32:17
Speaker 3: I could not agree more.
00:32:20
Speaker 2: Sometimes we just need to get out for our sanity. The drinks part is obviously when it's a drinking cost. But I mean, obviously eating at home is cheaper, but the difference would definitely be less dramatic now than it was back in the day.
00:32:31
Speaker 4: I don't think it is cheaper.
00:32:33
Speaker 3: I actually think you're right.
00:32:34
Speaker 2: A steak night down the street at the local pub. Yeah, twenty dollars, three kids, and you're getting them all a meal.
00:32:40
Speaker 3: They usually get a free meal. There's a free kids meal on and Wednesday and Thursday.
00:32:44
Speaker 5: You go into a night if you're going to a nightly ways like, obviously, if you make like a bachelor lasagna for the week, that's going to be cheaper, I get it. Yeah, but if you're cooking a new meal every single night, I feel like nowadays and.
00:32:57
Speaker 4: A good quality a lot of people.
00:32:59
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just I'm honestly just going to give a sproup to the pupny me like that they are elite.
00:33:04
Speaker 4: Shout out to us. You'll have to tell them direct because we're not naming them.
00:33:10
Speaker 3: No, well, I've been bad, exactly right.
00:33:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, you don't want to you don't want people to know too closely.
00:33:15
Speaker 2: And then the last question, which leads to that quote that listener step sent me, which really relates to that sort of nostalgia piece we were talking about, is what's the hardest age to mother and the most joyful age to mother?
00:33:27
Speaker 4: Before I answer, have you already read the CA? Okay, so tell me.
00:33:31
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know because I know your periance.
00:33:33
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, okay, but from so far, the.
00:33:36
Speaker 3: Hardest age for me was two and a half. The best age was three and a half.
00:33:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, Oh you've been so specifical.
00:33:44
Speaker 3: I love that.
00:33:44
Speaker 2: It's actually different to this answer, which is interesting, but I loved this answer. She said, hardest age to mother is the one you're in right now. The most joyful age is the one you wish you could remember more clearly. I thought that was so clever the way she's put that, because sort of saying, look, whatever you're in right now always feels hard, and you're always going to have those rose colored glasses on the past. Yes, And it's a good reminder to be I don't know when you have those griefy moments to yes, like name them and feel them and then go.
00:34:14
Speaker 4: It's not always beers and skittles and.
00:34:17
Speaker 2: Sometimes you just don't know that's something about it. Okay, I'm want to be with a skittle.
00:34:21
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't drink.
00:34:24
Speaker 4: Love skittles. Are you lying to?
00:34:25
Speaker 3: Are you drinking?
00:34:26
Speaker 4: That's true?
00:34:27
Speaker 3: They're really banned, aren't they banded?
00:34:29
Speaker 4: The US? I don't know, never heard.
00:34:32
Speaker 3: I just googled it and it is a real phrase.
00:34:34
Speaker 2: Well, basically, what I'm saying is that we tend to look back at past moments with a layer of I don't even know, just say we tend to look back more fondly than they were. And I'm not saying fond but we often forget about the hard bits, and sometimes it's good to remind yourself after having your griefy moments, yes, but sometimes it's really fucking hard. It is in those moments that you thought were perfect, So enjoy the one you're in and acknowledge that it's bloody. Un Yes, I've wrapped this up emotional today.
00:35:00
Speaker 4: We've been very, very cut.
00:35:02
Speaker 1: We have. If you have love today's episode, please leave us a review, follow us on Ready or Not dot Pod, connect with us on dome, and submit your questions by the link in our bio on Instagram, On Instagram far out.
00:35:15
Speaker 3: It's going on, isn't it? On YouTube, there's a lot.
00:35:18
Speaker 5: Going on that's you really need to watch the YouTube because the facial expressions.
00:35:25
Speaker 4: Too much is what I've realized, my hands down too.
00:35:30
Speaker 3: Much, you actually do.
00:35:31
Speaker 4: I've never noticed that, but you're sort.
00:35:32
Speaker 3: Of very expressive.
00:35:35
Speaker 4: You're like and I'm like this, okay, that's it, was all right,
Speaker 1: This podcast was recorded on the lands of the boon Warong people of the Kulin nation, the land on which we're lucky enough to raise our sons and daughters, always was, and always will be Aboriginal Land.
00:00:12
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Ready or Not, the show where two mums tried to figure out how to make work work.
00:00:17
Speaker 3: I'm Lou, I'm Liz, and Hello producer Kitch, Hello.
00:00:20
Speaker 4: Go come off on today's show?
00:00:21
Speaker 2: How important are work relationships or really relationships in general? Laws was listening to a Mel Robins podcast episode called the One Study will Change how you think about your entire life, and it got her thinking, I can't wait to hear about that, and then me to you too. Jemima Kirk gives her most honest parenting advice yet one of our listeners DM to this piece and for reasons that I will tell you about soon, I had to get into.
00:00:44
Speaker 4: This with both of you. But first, Laws, what's happening?
00:00:48
Speaker 1: Look, I went away last week with the kids, or actually a couple of weeks ago now, and I just want to say, sometimes you just need a holiday.
00:00:56
Speaker 3: I know how privileged and entitled that sounds. I'm just going to say it. I'm going to it. I love a holiday.
00:01:01
Speaker 1: Holiday and there is nothing better that when your kids are driving you absolutely bonkers to have a change of scenery at a hot destination and just look at your kids enjoying their time in the sand and thinking, fuck, I'm lucky, so great, this is nice.
00:01:14
Speaker 4: You've really reinvented the wheel.
00:01:16
Speaker 3: I remember. I mean, a lot of people are like, how do you afford to holiday?
00:01:20
Speaker 1: Make points? That's why I afford to holiday. I'm a points queen and I do not spend a lot of money on holidays. It might look like it, but I do not. I'm very handy, You're very clever. I'm very clever like that. But far out the reset was divine.
00:01:34
Speaker 4: Oh heaven, And I just think going to yeamber soon. Actually here you are, and I.
00:01:37
Speaker 3: Think he's a different people on holiday. What else was I going to say to you?
00:01:40
Speaker 1: Settling period for us, just for anybody else, it's still at school, it's still I'm finding really tricky.
00:01:44
Speaker 2: I've been shocked by how hard this is because a lot of people in my life have started prep for the first time. Honestly didn't realize what a big thing it would be. Yeah, it's really tough.
00:01:53
Speaker 1: I think it's just hard when you've got like little people when you're at the door and they just don't want you to go, like mom, Mom. It's like a scene of like the Notebook, you know, where you're like both leaving in different directions and you know it's the right thing to go obviously, but then at the same time, I just keep wondering to myself, how are you supposed to go into work for like a nine thirty meeting when I'm freaking not getting to like ten and actually switch onund because half the day all I'm thinking about.
00:02:18
Speaker 3: Is I hope it's settled. I hope she's okay.
00:02:21
Speaker 1: And once you get to school, you do and get the daycares updates, like it's different.
00:02:24
Speaker 4: It's just about to say that.
00:02:25
Speaker 2: My friend Bianca was like, I don't know what he does all day because yeah, single update and it's really heartbreaking. Yeah, and she's like, I miss him so much. Like I'm having a massive griefy thing going on.
00:02:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a weird thing.
00:02:34
Speaker 1: So anybody that's in it, I'm unfortunately still having quite a few tears and it is just tough.
00:02:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, but what about you?
00:02:41
Speaker 2: Last week was fucked Oregon It was probably my worst mental health week as a parent. I was so anxious, so angry, and just like not doing well. Yeah, he's so little things that I did which are absolutely fucked just to make anyone else feel better about just dropping a few balls. Firstly, logged onto a zoom to you too to tell you that I left my beautiful dog tied up outside the butcher posey and I went for a walk, went to a few different shops, kept untying him and tying him back up. Last one I completely forgot. He must have seen me walk off without him. Hades is at home working downstairs. We do a bit of tag teaming on a Monday. Then he's looking after the kids while we us three meet and he goes, where's our doggie? Sorry, he does say doggie, and I just quickly did a mirage of like, where the fuck was the last place that I saw Louis and I realized it was the shop, So that was the first one.
00:03:30
Speaker 4: Then Ray was an absolute mess.
00:03:32
Speaker 2: The next day kinder drop off, we both cried we're about an hour late, which felt like such a luxury of freelance life that I know corporate parents do not get often, and it made me feel really sorry for both them. But then also my workday was absolutely smashed. I was so so emotional that day. I'd been working till one the night before. I kept crying. Ran into a friend, cried some more. She was like, don't worry. Another friend said exactly the same thing yesterday happened to her, and I was like, great, I'm not alone.
00:03:59
Speaker 4: And then yesterday I.
00:04:00
Speaker 2: Was coming out to Melbourne for a few events that we had on and I was so organized, had plenty of time to spare, dropped ray off to my dad. Shout out to my dad, here's the best best looker after a ray ever alongside my mum. But my dad's really been doing the Lord's work lately. Luckily, I am allowed an extra time because I got fifteen minutes down the road to realize I did yester case with me and so I had to turn back. Somehow still made it to the event on time, but I was just like, fucking hell, this just isn't my week sailed on all fronts.
00:04:28
Speaker 4: I also have some quick wrecks.
00:04:29
Speaker 2: So I listened to an awesome episode of Bern Cotton's podcast It's called Happy Place. She talks to Porner Bell all about feminism, womanhood and generational relationships.
00:04:39
Speaker 4: It's really interesting.
00:04:40
Speaker 2: She talks about how our parents were brought up in the analog age and we've been brought up in the digital ACD and how different that is for different experiences with like feminism and parenting and all of these things. Really good episode, and then a quick shout out to firstly home Room, which is an awesome Instagram for fashion. They're both mums, they're legends. I'm in an instagm group that they've created through their home room, I guess, substack and Instagram community and on there. I asked for work bag recommendations. Got the best recommendation for this bagger nylon shoulder bag. It's in a coffee color, ninety eight dollars. It came from a website called Simple Beautiful Things, which I've now discovered is a gorgeous online store and irl store in Sydney and one hundred dollars. Fits my laptop, fits my water, a few other things. It's the best work bag I've ever had, and that is it. Tell me a new story.
00:05:31
Speaker 1: Okay, stay at home mums outproduced tech companies by eight point one trillion dollars a year. In twenty twenty five, the top ten tech companies generated two point seventy to one trillion in revenue.
00:05:43
Speaker 3: Collectively.
00:05:44
Speaker 1: Economists estimate the annual value of unpaid caregiving is ten point eight trillion dollars. That's four times big Tech's revenue.
00:05:53
Speaker 2: Wow, I'm so glad that whis like this to name the value of caregiving.
00:05:58
Speaker 3: Incredible.
00:05:59
Speaker 4: Hopefully so already catches up. Shall we get into it, I'll do it.
00:06:04
Speaker 1: I was listening to an episode of the Mail Robins podcast called this one study will change how you think about.
00:06:08
Speaker 3: Your entire life.
00:06:10
Speaker 1: I found it so interesting that I've actually gone back to listen to it probably like ten times, and I'm going to put it on the record. I really like Meil Robins. I think some of her tife is amazing, But I also think she can be quite intense as well as I can be. And sometimes, you know, when there's like a big movement of one person, there's very much There was a while back of very big movement.
00:06:33
Speaker 2: I feel like it's almost the intensity of the theory, you know, Oh, there was so much momentum gathered, and I can't be fucked listening to that.
00:06:41
Speaker 4: Thee once more.
00:06:42
Speaker 3: Exactly right, but she doesn't rip episodes.
00:06:45
Speaker 1: They're so good In this episode, mal I find it's so funny when it says she walks through this decade long study looking at how people actually spend their time across their lifespan and what predicts whether they feel fulfilled, connected, and well, I wanted to go through them with you because I thought it was so fascinating. I don't think you've listened to this either of you. Know, So time with family shrinks dramatically after your teens. The research shows that the majority of the time you will ever spend with your parents happens before you turn eighteen. So after mid twenties, time with siblings and parents drops off significantly and rarely ever returns to earlier levels. When we think about this, it really puts it in perspective, like the time that you have with your children is now, Yeah, like it is not forever.
00:07:25
Speaker 2: It's something like eighty percent if the time you spend with them is before, like by the time they're eighteen. I think, well, I don't know if that's the exact stat but it's still arming.
00:07:33
Speaker 4: Whatever.
00:07:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, so when you're having a shit day, really go back and remember that because you're like, this is it. You're living it like you're in it now, and I know it's really hard.
00:07:40
Speaker 4: But I just spent the week yelling at them.
00:07:41
Speaker 3: I know, I said the week yelling at them. I do it every day, yell of the time.
00:07:44
Speaker 1: But I'm like, far out there is a definitive end point to that, like the research shows it.
00:07:48
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:07:49
Speaker 3: Number three, I found this fascinating.
00:07:51
Speaker 1: Your co workers shape your adult life more than you will ever realize. Between roughly ages twenty and sixty, the people that you work with because your daily relational environment, you spend more time at work than with any other person in your life. It is so important that you work with a team that you like because they're going to form some of the strongest relationships forever.
00:08:17
Speaker 4: Have a good time.
00:08:18
Speaker 3: You want to have a good time A very good point.
00:08:20
Speaker 1: So if you're somebody that's like reevaluating your career, or maybe you're in a toxic workplace and you're thinking, hopefully it gets better, I'd actually urge you to think to yourself, culture matters. Don't be in a toxic workplace if you can avoid it, find somewhere else.
00:08:35
Speaker 4: Fucking move on your energy. There is too much time there.
00:08:38
Speaker 1: Yep, energy matters. Leadership managers, your manager matters. If they are no good, that is going to impact such a huge aspect of your time and your life. Your life partner becomes your primary human over time, your romantic partner becomes a person who spend the most consistent, sustained time with in adulthood. So it's not your friends, not your parents. So it's really important to choose your partner wisely. One of the things that I found this thing that said listen to your friends. So your friends know you better than yourself, and sometimes they see the blind spots that you don't.
00:09:08
Speaker 3: So if you've got a collection of.
00:09:09
Speaker 1: Friends that consistently tell you your partner's no good, he's not treating you properly, blah blah blah, I mean need to listen. You probably need to listen. It's really it's interesting want to that though, because like, when do you listen?
00:09:21
Speaker 4: And when don't you?
00:09:22
Speaker 2: I know, it's so hard, Like my friends came and said that to me, which God did Fuck.
00:09:27
Speaker 4: That would be jarr it'd be horrible. And also, no one knows your relationship apart from.
00:09:32
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly right, I don't see totally like I can see both of you separately, but they don't see you in your house together.
00:09:38
Speaker 5: Like if you know ten eight different friends are also doing you the same thing, it's like, at least take note of what they're saying.
00:09:44
Speaker 1: Well, this is what the study said anyway, Yeah, like I just want to be and you don't have to follow it. It might not be a personal believe of any of ours, but I found it fascinating. And I also think if you are spending that much time with your partner at some stage, like you're going to have to have something in common kids.
00:09:58
Speaker 2: It's so true and outside of like whatever you did in your twenties, whether it was like partying with your group of friends or whatever it is. This really made me think of my parents in a really lovely way because they I wouldn't say, have ever been like while the romantic in front of us kids or whatever. Yeah, but they are best friends and they spend all their time together.
00:10:16
Speaker 4: Yes, and not all their time together.
00:10:17
Speaker 2: They still have things outside of each other that they do and good friendships and all of that stuff. But it is really nice to see them in their late sixties and my dad just turned seventy, being like, oh I think we chose well, like I'd like to go out and get a coffee with you now that we're both retired and all that sort of stuff.
00:10:33
Speaker 4: Yes, and so that really really hits home.
00:10:35
Speaker 1: Which out there the next one, opposites don't really attract long term.
00:10:39
Speaker 2: This has a bit of a worry for you. And oh my god, with our partner. It's not with each other.
00:10:44
Speaker 3: Exactly what I was thinking. Are you and your partner opposite?
00:10:47
Speaker 4: You think?
00:10:47
Speaker 3: Yeah?
00:10:48
Speaker 2: Interesting, I actually from the outside just seeing photos of them in understanding ways, like I would have thought you guys were quite similar.
00:10:55
Speaker 5: I mean, I guess it's hard to know when you're in it because I see so many things we don't have totally. I mean I guess, like in a lot of fundamental ways like value.
00:11:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, so this is what it boils down to. But I think that's so fascinating because I always actually think to myself, opposites attract, like most of the people that I know, Yeah, with people that are polar opposite to them, But the research actually shows the opposite. So they say in terms of opposites don't really attract long term, what they mean is you need to have core similarities like emotional regulation which we do not have, ambition levels, which we've spoken about before. They actually think it's really important that you need to be on a similar page drive wise with your partner.
00:11:37
Speaker 2: That's a really interesting, fascinating both the same and opposite with this, Like I'm definitely more ambitious in a lot of ways, but I think we both still want the same things for our lot.
00:11:46
Speaker 1: One massive thing was money values. You need to have the same values around money. I've actually found the older I get, the more important. This is probably because we've got less of it, or maybe we earn more, but we're like far out.
00:11:58
Speaker 3: Our overheads are more expensive.
00:12:00
Speaker 4: More pressure. Yeah.
00:12:01
Speaker 1: Parenting philosophy, which is fascinating because Ryan I have polear different ways and styles of parenting.
00:12:06
Speaker 4: Okay, can you go into that quickly?
00:12:08
Speaker 1: Well, I would say I probably focus on smaller everyday things that I'd like to change, and Ryan is more happy just to let those things go and deal with bigger problems.
00:12:19
Speaker 4: Yeah. Interesting.
00:12:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:12:21
Speaker 1: Or I can anticipate things arising and he is more likely to be like relaxed until it happens.
00:12:28
Speaker 4: Do you know what that speaks to the pressure.
00:12:29
Speaker 2: I think that mums face culture, like what we've grown up with there is our expectations on ourselves.
00:12:33
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:12:34
Speaker 2: I feel like that paints that picture of like you just more in the micro because you're always foreseeing things and worrying about things and thinking about things.
00:12:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm probably more of a disciplinarian. I'm like, you did this, that's not cool.
00:12:46
Speaker 4: This is the consequence.
00:12:46
Speaker 1: This is the consequence. Whereas Ryan will be like, you did this, that's not cool. Yeah, I.
00:12:53
Speaker 3: Mean it's nice, but I'm like, we need to I give you a.
00:12:59
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:13:00
Speaker 1: And then lifestyle preferences. So it says opposites. Obviously, opposites usually create spark. That's where you cant like passion, romance, whatever.
00:13:09
Speaker 2: Those things.
00:13:13
Speaker 1: But they say similarity creates stability. So stability is what's going to allow you to have career growth, a calm home, shared parenting styles, and long term financial planning.
00:13:22
Speaker 2: I found that so I found it really interesting. I had to quick look at your notes this morning, and when I first saw opposites don't really attract long term, it did alarm me for a second. But then going back to what a similarity actually is, maybe feel better because it's like your personality types can be different, But Hayden and I fundamentally like to do the same thing. You know. We love, for better or worse, to go out and have a drink and have a fun night with our friends. We love an outdoorsy type holiday. We love caravet.
00:13:48
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:49
Speaker 2: Like, I feel like as long as those fundamental principles are the same and your value is the same, it can be different in a million ways.
00:13:54
Speaker 3: Yeah. The next one, you spend more time alone as you age.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: I mean that's an obvious one, but it really gets me thinking, Like the older I get that, the more important it is for me to like my own company. Yes, Like that sounds so narcissistic in some ways. So you have to be able to enjoy yourself. Like if you're one of those people that is like I can't stand being alone, Yeah.
00:14:14
Speaker 4: That's not going to to well, it's not good.
00:14:16
Speaker 2: I'm interested to know your experience with being alone because you don't have kids kids, not sure what that will be for the future for you. But do you spend much time alone and how do you enjoy it? I feel like you would enjoy it.
00:14:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love being alone.
00:14:30
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm very like hobby focused as well, So I love painting and like being alone. And like my partner and I we have a two story house, it will often be like he'll you know, read his book downstairs and do painting upstairs or something like that. But also, I do feel like we spend so much time with our friends, Like you're always like, oh, they're coming over for dinner or I'm going to go here for dinner. So yeah, I feel like you can fit a bit more time with your friends. And because you don't have kids to also be like.
00:14:56
Speaker 2: Home, Yeah, how you feel that alone time If you do decide to have children.
00:15:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, next one, I'll run through them. Happiness is indirect. I feel like that's pretty self explanatory. So happiness tends to be the byproduct of meaningful work, strong relationships, physical health, and emotional resilience.
00:15:11
Speaker 3: That is the last one. Sorry, I'm going mad.
00:15:13
Speaker 1: The bigger thread around this whole thing is when I was kind of drilling down into it, when I was listening to it, the more prominent it became to me that it's really who you spend your time with. And I think as a mum, you can get so lost in the everyday life of your family and admin and making an effort at school and all this kind of stuff that you kind of lose that sense of actually focusing on the relationships that matter the most to you, which is usually with your partner, which is with your children, and which is with your closest friends. So if anybody is in the same phase of life at the moment where you're like, God, this just feels like a slog stupid right back. And my biggest piece of advice after listening to this podcast, which is very preachy but also very good, I.
00:15:55
Speaker 4: Love preaching those, do you.
00:15:57
Speaker 1: It's just I don't know, I don't know why it struck me, but I was like, you do need to invest the time in the people that you want to age with.
00:16:03
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:16:03
Speaker 2: Well, it's actually just good to sometimes think about your life because I think, especially when you have young kids, you are so heavily in the doing that you don't ever take a moment to step back and think, is this what I want right now in terms of I don't mean you're specific art now, but just in terms of how your life is going and what makes up your life and what you do day to day and week to week as opposed to year two.
00:16:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's really important to step back and look at those things.
00:16:26
Speaker 1: And you know what, I think that actually got me so down this rabbit hole was because I have returned to work and I absolutely love my team, and I know not everybody has that experience, but Ryan and I were chatting the other day and he's like, you've got so much on your plate at the moment, like what needs to come off at Like maybe you could reduce the amount of days that you work or have the conversation. I was like, do you know what, at this point in my life, I actually don't. That's the one thing that I don't want to drop because I feel like when I go to work, I have different conversations. I get to use my brain in a different way, and I absolutely adore the people that I work with.
00:16:59
Speaker 3: A conversation yeah, and it really is fulfilling.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: And there was a stage where I thought to myself, when I've been in toxic workplaces, which I think everybody has encountered, at some point where I thought to myself, well, maybe it's me, or maybe I will stick it out for a bit longer and the environment will get better. It doesn't get better often, and you have to spend every waking moment with those people.
00:17:18
Speaker 2: I see the fucking moment you've actually really inspired me about is that line from Dawson's Craig from the opening trailer thing, whatever you call it, I don't unaway. Yeah, your life to be over, but.
00:17:32
Speaker 3: At deep for me today because it really is important.
00:17:36
Speaker 4: It is, and you don't want to waste especially when you have young kids. You don't want to waste those years hating your work.
00:17:42
Speaker 1: No, And I think there is something to learn from the older generation, those people that are eighty ninety and one hundred. If you boil it down, they're not saying, oh, be kind, That's not the advice they're giving.
00:17:52
Speaker 3: It's so much deeper than that. We need to listen to it.
00:17:54
Speaker 5: What can you say is both making you indirectly happy in this phase of your life?
00:18:00
Speaker 3: Indirectly happy, That's a great question.
00:18:03
Speaker 4: God, Jesus Christ.
00:18:05
Speaker 2: Loving what I do for work, definitely, where I live, and having a partner that is happy to do it all with me and on the same page as me.
00:18:15
Speaker 1: I'm glad that is so relevant. I would actually say where I live. Sometimes I look at our mortgage and I feel so incredibly sick to my stomach and I'm like, I cannot believe I'm working for the bank, as in literally working to pay it off. And then I open my door every moment morning. And we do not have a glamorous house. It needs a shitload of work, but I think far out. I absolutely love where I live. I love having a safe street. I love knowing my neighbors. I love walking down the end of the street for coffee. I love the news agency which still exists. The guy knows my name, Tony, shout.
00:18:48
Speaker 4: Out love you Tony.
00:18:49
Speaker 3: It definitely, I really do enjoy it. So yeah, that's fine.
00:18:53
Speaker 4: Love great.
00:18:55
Speaker 1: Some people think we're crazy for traveling with kids, but the more prepared you are, the smoother it will go. As Mum's, the last thing that we want is to land in a new country with no data, no maps, tired kids and try to figure out how to get a taxi.
00:19:07
Speaker 4: Exactly.
00:19:08
Speaker 2: So that's why a sale e sim is a life saver, giving you affordable data in over two hundred destinations. You can download it before you leave, pick your plan, and you're connected the second you land. No airport simcues, no crazy roaming fees.
00:19:24
Speaker 1: It honestly saves so much stress and money we can message our families to say with landed safely, check maps, book rides, or without hunting for dodgy airport WiFi.
00:19:33
Speaker 2: As a Ready or Not listener, you can get fifteen percent off. Just download the Sale app via the link in our show notes.
00:19:39
Speaker 1: Thank you Sale for sponsoring this episode of Ready or Not and making our travel that little bit smoother.
00:19:45
Speaker 2: Jami mckirk appears to have a parenting column with LUs and I probably.
00:19:48
Speaker 4: Should have fact checked.
00:19:49
Speaker 2: That, but I couldn't be bothered, so I'm just telling you that.
00:19:51
Speaker 4: Looks like she does.
00:19:52
Speaker 2: And listener Step sent to a particular quote that was so pertinent to that discussion we had recently about anticipatory grief.
00:20:00
Speaker 4: Since that conversation, I've.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: Been thinking about something that I think of nearly or just as much as I do about this sort of nostalgia for the present, and that is that sometimes I also think it's helpful to think about the opposite and go it's easy to put on your rose colored glasses and think that everything was peaching and perfect when you kid was two years old and miss that, and you're allowed to miss that. Both things can be true, but sometimes it's also quite good to go but here's what I don't miss, yeah, about these sorts of things.
00:20:26
Speaker 4: There was a quote that really encapsulated that.
00:20:29
Speaker 2: From jemima kirk that I'm going to share later, but it also got me thinking about this post I put up about breastfeeding that instead of wallowing in sort of my breastfeeding days being over, yeah, I wrote a list of all of the things that I wasn't going.
00:20:41
Speaker 4: To miss, and it actually helped me move through it.
00:20:44
Speaker 2: I feel like you're allowed to have that moment of acknowledging the anticipatory grief or grieving a stage that you're in or have just exited, but then also going, yeah, but he's.
00:20:52
Speaker 4: What I won't miss. So we're going to end with that.
00:20:55
Speaker 2: But what I ended up doing was reading this entire column because Jemi mc kirk, who's from Girls, is fucking funny as fuck.
00:21:01
Speaker 4: I just will way too much, but she would.
00:21:03
Speaker 2: Appreciate that, and I just loved this whole little Q and a of these readers submitted questions and her answering them all around parenthood. So I'll start with two other questions and then we'll get to the last one that relates to that anticipatory grief. First, question, does motherhood get easier or harder? She says it gets easier, which I thought was perfect, because it gets easier in some ways and harder in others. Lossy, quick fire, you have three kids. Yes, they are five. They are three, and they are honestly nearly one, which is in exactly you're so funny. You're one of these feeling. It's like I remember once saying to my friend whose kid is ten months old, oh my god, he's nearly one.
00:21:45
Speaker 4: She's like, no, he's not.
00:21:47
Speaker 5: He literally is.
00:21:48
Speaker 2: I don't know if we're talking about, but I want you to think about your kids ages and stages without now and quickly riff off some of the ways in which parenting gets easy in each of those ages. Or maybe you want to stick to Sienna because she's the oldest, Yeah, and which ways it gets harder. Actually, I think it's easiest for you if we just look at the five year old.
00:22:07
Speaker 1: Okay, easier they can communicate better, yeah, and more openly with you, so they can talk about their emotions, which actually blows my mind. I don't know what schools are teaching or kindergarten because I haven't really looked at the curriculum that deeply. But I swear to God, the amount of emotional awareness in children is mind blowing, not just in Sienna, Like I'm not saying oh I'm my child, I'm saying across the board. It is incredible and it is so beautiful to see. Like Senna will be like that makes me really angry or I feel frustrated right now, and I'm like frustrated.
00:22:43
Speaker 3: What But I'm so proud.
00:22:44
Speaker 1: So they can articulate how they feel, which makes it easier for you to meet their needs. I think ways in which it gets harder is they do pull away from you. So you know, when they're like that two, three, four age, they really do want their mum, and when they're five they still have that need. But like the day the playground, she was like, mom, I like way with my friends. Yeah, and I'm like, pe not it's sad, but I'm like, all right, I get it. So that definitely is harder. Yeah about Actually.
00:23:12
Speaker 2: I want to know one more save Yeah, okay, what's.
00:23:15
Speaker 4: Harder at three?
00:23:16
Speaker 1: Oh my god, the tantrums is a lot harder. It's like and they're so they're really strong.
00:23:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I don't know about you sent a video last week and the way he tantrums reminds me so much of the way Posy tantrums specifically, like more so than Ray, Like they those two.
00:23:32
Speaker 3: And he's in my face like, yeah, I'm like, I'm going to.
00:23:34
Speaker 4: Move away angry.
00:23:35
Speaker 1: You're so angry, Like I'm going to move away from this environment. And then he'll be like no, I'm pulling up a stool and I'm opening your door and I'm going to get in you.
00:23:42
Speaker 3: I'm going to be like I don't know what to do with it, and you're holding a bottle of milk. Literally I had it.
00:23:50
Speaker 1: I was like, mate, it's right, Yeah, I don't know what you want me to do. So I would actually say the strength has remised me. Yeah, and just the actual physic call strength, like oh so strong, like the days of being able to push him in a car seat if you don't want to do the buckles up, they've got there over.
00:24:05
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you're the same kid Posy like I actually had. So you just sort of get her handed out of my babe. I actually can't fight.
00:24:12
Speaker 4: Her on this. It's scary.
00:24:14
Speaker 2: Sometimes she's pushing so hard and I can't get her hand out of the way.
00:24:17
Speaker 1: Sometimes I worry that I'll break savior's hips. I'm like, they are so stiff that I'm like, if.
00:24:22
Speaker 2: I push, yeah, it could break a box. And do you feel like you're assaulting them? Like genuinely, but I'm serious wild, it's wild. They're very soft bones, so don't worry about that.
00:24:30
Speaker 3: No, but it breaks me out. So I'm like, lollipart, what do you want?
00:24:33
Speaker 4: Come on?
00:24:34
Speaker 1: So that and then I would say easier. I mean, I don't know, I'm such a suck. I just think three is such a beautiful as it's such a cute. Three and a half is the peak, most amazing age.
00:24:46
Speaker 2: I'm loving rose age so much and most amazingly four now, which is wild. But I love the other day when you're saying that about seeing it speaking out my emotions. The other day, we're just washing his hands at the sink and he goes everyone in the world is happy, and it just broke my heart. I was like, that is the cutest thing you ever said, And the fact that you're thinking about people's happiness.
00:25:05
Speaker 3: I see, Yeah, it's cute.
00:25:06
Speaker 4: It's so cute.
00:25:07
Speaker 2: The shit that they start to say. Best parenting advice. This next person asks Jemimah, and she lists a few. Not loving motherhood is not the same as not loving your kid. Finding other parents who fully understand that.
00:25:18
Speaker 4: Is incredibly important. Yeah, thoughts.
00:25:21
Speaker 5: I mean I love that because that's what I kind of think about when I see people complain about aspects of motherhood. Yea, and people like me that don't have kids say, oh, they're always complaining about it. Why did they even have them? I'm like two.
00:25:35
Speaker 2: Exactly, But that's what you see on social media so much, especially from what appears to me the older generation, is like, why do you have kids if you're going to complain or like, stop complaining?
00:25:44
Speaker 4: You chose to Complaining creates connection? Yeah, it does.
00:25:47
Speaker 3: That's how people connect.
00:25:48
Speaker 4: And do you know what annoys me?
00:25:49
Speaker 2: People on social media don't want to see videos of them and being like, look cute what my kid did was today? That didn't make sense. No one wants to see the cute stuff. They're all like, oh, boring, mum's too mumsy. Everyone relates to the fucking complaining.
00:26:03
Speaker 1: I think everyone relates to everyday life. Yeah, like I want to see what's happening? Yeah without exactly right.
00:26:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, without a rose colored shade and air on it the next one. It's exciting when your kid demonstrates a particular interest in something like animation, Irish dance, or cookie. If they love it, they'll find a way to explore it on their own. Don't go blowing money on a specialized camp or a bunch of kookie classes. That's more likely to put them off. I'm interested to know, especially at Sienna's age, what your experience has been with sort of the pressure to nurture certain things she loves, or like put her in classes for certain things.
00:26:37
Speaker 1: Oh, here's a great example. Siena has been harping on about wanting to do gymnastics for so long.
00:26:43
Speaker 4: Will she like it?
00:26:44
Speaker 3: Who knows? Is it expensive?
00:26:46
Speaker 4: Yes?
00:26:47
Speaker 3: All of the times for her to do it are really annoying.
00:26:53
Speaker 2: Don't get me started on trying to find an activity that actually works with your schedule and your kid's schedule and sleep schedules for you younger kids, all of that stuff.
00:27:01
Speaker 3: They're so annoying.
00:27:02
Speaker 2: Right.
00:27:02
Speaker 1: The other day, was like, she really wants to do gymnastics, and I was like, okay, if you want to take her, why don't you go on a weekend? And He's like, they don't have any more spots on the weekend.
00:27:10
Speaker 2: The only two he actually willing to do that on a weekend. Yes, that's really sweet because it's no weekend act.
00:27:15
Speaker 1: It was, And also for me, I was like, great, yeah, yeah, it's good little bonding time for them. But he was like, the only time that she can really do is like a Tuesday, non negotiable. I'm in the office that day, you can't do it, or a Monday from five till six. And I was like, oh god, I'm hard with the other kids. It's hard with the other kids. It's a shocking time. And then part of me is like, do I just figure out a way to make her work? And then the other part of me is like, she's five.
00:27:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's got the rest of her life at way that it is like throws off your Monday night.
00:27:43
Speaker 4: I know, but wild, I don't know. That's perfect. You've just perfectly encapsulated what it's like to have that. Yeah. Yeah, that's actually the end of the story at the moment. We'll report back.
00:27:55
Speaker 2: And one more from her parenting advice, stop denouncing the age of tech and social media and waxing poetic about your techless childhood In front of the children who used said tech and social media. So she's talking about older generations. Yeah, like we did, and I've phones and nowadays. They are aware that their relationship to these devices is problematic. They're also aware that everyone else's generation was vastly different and better quote unquote than theirs. They've heard about it in stories and watch movies about children living in their simpler time, having adventures, making and doing things. I'm sure it doesn't make them feel great about themselves, and i'd venture to guess that they daydream about life without tech and social media. Being addicted to these devices isn't a choice, So tell your friends to lay off that topic when they're around your kids. Also, don't judge loving parents who allow their kids to access to these things.
00:28:41
Speaker 4: It's not that simple.
00:28:42
Speaker 2: I'd like to know if there's anyone from older generations that have made you feel bad about certain ways that we go about things.
00:28:49
Speaker 1: As in me, Yeah, I mean screen time is just an obvious Yeah, it's such an obvious.
00:28:54
Speaker 3: Like I've had so.
00:28:55
Speaker 1: Many comments from like older people before I had kids, like look at those children on screens at that table, like they should be talking to their people love to judge that so much.
00:29:05
Speaker 5: And I definitely judge that. Do you acknowledge it? Like it's a subconscious bias that I feel uncomfortable about it. I'd never say it to a parent, it's not my place, no, but I definitely cluck it and feel weird about it.
00:29:17
Speaker 2: And you're, yeah, that's really interesting, And I actually get that because sometimes, do you know one thing I actually judge and I don't like myself for it, but I'm going to admit it. And I've done it before, so I'm judging myself here too. Seeing a mum at a playground just scrolling on my phone in the corner while the kid's playing Vine for attention, I get it. I've been that person, yes, but it is really clunky to watch Lou jumping in here to say that I meant all parents, it's not just mums. That goes to show how deeply rooted some of these expectations are.
00:29:45
Speaker 4: That I went straight to that word of mum. I guess, let's be honest. I see more mums at the park, but in this example, I really meant any parent.
00:29:53
Speaker 2: It's unfortunately something that I've done that I judge myself and others for doing.
00:29:58
Speaker 1: Do I love it? No? Is it there?
00:30:01
Speaker 4: Absolutely? Now let's get back to the show. So there is this sort of sense of I don't know what it is, but we don't like seeing that.
00:30:08
Speaker 5: I think because we know, like you kind of should be talking at parents, that doesn't mean that you can exactly.
00:30:14
Speaker 4: That's the thing.
00:30:15
Speaker 2: I'm like, if you're taking a four year old to a pub because you want to go out and have some human connection, and there's no playground in that pub, for example, and there's nothing for them to do, there's no coloring, you've forgotten toys, blah blah blah, I just think, what else do.
00:30:26
Speaker 4: You expect kids to do in that situation?
00:30:28
Speaker 3: Oh no, No, I completely agree.
00:30:29
Speaker 4: I agree.
00:30:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I'm also like, it's very I think.
00:30:34
Speaker 1: I actually think I was very much like Kitsch before I had children, And even I would go as far to say as until my children were in an age, when I roamed around and became boisterous, I was like, you don't need a phone, you need a screen. And now I'm like, you need a screen, yeah, not just for you, for everybody else, Yeah.
00:30:52
Speaker 5: Yeah, because it would be embarrassing and people judge you when your kids scream so it's like the way you actually could You're so right?
00:30:59
Speaker 2: Could you actually can't win because you either have your kid behaving well for half an hour looking at something on their phone after they did explore and play around and whatever, or you have older patrons, particularly looking at your kids running around giving you the grazy and it's like, what are parents are not allowed to exist in pubs and spaces like this? Do we just literally ostracize them? Yeah, which no one means in that situation.
00:31:20
Speaker 5: No.
00:31:21
Speaker 1: And I think the other thing I'm going to say on that is the cooking thing. I think there's a very big difference between our generation now and the accessibility of food, takeaway, eating out than there was back in the day. And I do think a lot of older it's a generalization, but a lot of older parents, grandparents look at our generation. I think, well, you know, every night my husband came home and I had a meal on the table at five pm.
00:31:42
Speaker 4: Oh well you guys were you were fed? Yeah? You know, we didn't do take vegetable Sunday night.
00:31:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, staking three vegetables every night. I'd love to know.
00:31:49
Speaker 5: Actually I'll have to like research this, but the cost of cooking back then versus going out.
00:31:55
Speaker 4: I feel such a distally.
00:31:58
Speaker 5: I don't know, feel free to call me out way off here, but I feel like sometimes it's almost cheaper.
00:32:02
Speaker 4: To eat out if you're not drinking a lot.
00:32:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, you meat are so expensive if you're eating red meat.
00:32:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, a steak, A twenty dollars steak night is better than a seventeen dollar piece of steak.
00:32:14
Speaker 4: From coals that you have to cook, agree to season, make tip part of the guy.
00:32:17
Speaker 3: I could not agree more.
00:32:20
Speaker 2: Sometimes we just need to get out for our sanity. The drinks part is obviously when it's a drinking cost. But I mean, obviously eating at home is cheaper, but the difference would definitely be less dramatic now than it was back in the day.
00:32:31
Speaker 4: I don't think it is cheaper.
00:32:33
Speaker 3: I actually think you're right.
00:32:34
Speaker 2: A steak night down the street at the local pub. Yeah, twenty dollars, three kids, and you're getting them all a meal.
00:32:40
Speaker 3: They usually get a free meal. There's a free kids meal on and Wednesday and Thursday.
00:32:44
Speaker 5: You go into a night if you're going to a nightly ways like, obviously, if you make like a bachelor lasagna for the week, that's going to be cheaper, I get it. Yeah, but if you're cooking a new meal every single night, I feel like nowadays and.
00:32:57
Speaker 4: A good quality a lot of people.
00:32:59
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just I'm honestly just going to give a sproup to the pupny me like that they are elite.
00:33:04
Speaker 4: Shout out to us. You'll have to tell them direct because we're not naming them.
00:33:10
Speaker 3: No, well, I've been bad, exactly right.
00:33:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, you don't want to you don't want people to know too closely.
00:33:15
Speaker 2: And then the last question, which leads to that quote that listener step sent me, which really relates to that sort of nostalgia piece we were talking about, is what's the hardest age to mother and the most joyful age to mother?
00:33:27
Speaker 4: Before I answer, have you already read the CA? Okay, so tell me.
00:33:31
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know because I know your periance.
00:33:33
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, okay, but from so far, the.
00:33:36
Speaker 3: Hardest age for me was two and a half. The best age was three and a half.
00:33:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, Oh you've been so specifical.
00:33:44
Speaker 3: I love that.
00:33:44
Speaker 2: It's actually different to this answer, which is interesting, but I loved this answer. She said, hardest age to mother is the one you're in right now. The most joyful age is the one you wish you could remember more clearly. I thought that was so clever the way she's put that, because sort of saying, look, whatever you're in right now always feels hard, and you're always going to have those rose colored glasses on the past. Yes, And it's a good reminder to be I don't know when you have those griefy moments to yes, like name them and feel them and then go.
00:34:14
Speaker 4: It's not always beers and skittles and.
00:34:17
Speaker 2: Sometimes you just don't know that's something about it. Okay, I'm want to be with a skittle.
00:34:21
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't drink.
00:34:24
Speaker 4: Love skittles. Are you lying to?
00:34:25
Speaker 3: Are you drinking?
00:34:26
Speaker 4: That's true?
00:34:27
Speaker 3: They're really banned, aren't they banded?
00:34:29
Speaker 4: The US? I don't know, never heard.
00:34:32
Speaker 3: I just googled it and it is a real phrase.
00:34:34
Speaker 2: Well, basically, what I'm saying is that we tend to look back at past moments with a layer of I don't even know, just say we tend to look back more fondly than they were. And I'm not saying fond but we often forget about the hard bits, and sometimes it's good to remind yourself after having your griefy moments, yes, but sometimes it's really fucking hard. It is in those moments that you thought were perfect, So enjoy the one you're in and acknowledge that it's bloody. Un Yes, I've wrapped this up emotional today.
00:35:00
Speaker 4: We've been very, very cut.
00:35:02
Speaker 1: We have. If you have love today's episode, please leave us a review, follow us on Ready or Not dot Pod, connect with us on dome, and submit your questions by the link in our bio on Instagram, On Instagram far out.
00:35:15
Speaker 3: It's going on, isn't it? On YouTube, there's a lot.
00:35:18
Speaker 5: Going on that's you really need to watch the YouTube because the facial expressions.
00:35:25
Speaker 4: Too much is what I've realized, my hands down too.
00:35:30
Speaker 3: Much, you actually do.
00:35:31
Speaker 4: I've never noticed that, but you're sort.
00:35:32
Speaker 3: Of very expressive.
00:35:35
Speaker 4: You're like and I'm like this, okay, that's it, was all right,
