This podcast is for general information only and should not be taken as psychological advice. Listeners should consult with their healthcare professionals for specific medical advice.
Well. Hello, I'm Amanda Keller and I'm Anita McGregor, and welcome to Double a Chattery.
Amanda, I need fashion advice.
Please, You've come to the right liceinate. I know I'm wearing a moon move. Let me help you.
So I've seen all the cool kids now are doing like their shirts are untucked at the front. And I came in this morning to go and record this, and I think I look like an imbecile.
Stand up like and I'll tell you whether you look like an embole. So, Anita, you've got a linen shirt and a nice skirt.
Yes, a linen skirt too, And I'm falling off my chair.
You are ok, your legs hitting the ground. They are swinging, free swinging. I think see, because you'll slim all around, you don't need to do any of this. But though you think you're talking about the French tuck, am I the shortening of that as fuck, which is rude. The French tuck and the reason it suits a lot of people, and why I like the French tuck is because you tuck in a tiny bit of your shirt and it still covers the bulk of your stomach and your bum.
So that's what that is. Where you tuck a little bit or you scrunch a bit at the side and put that in and so it sort of sits nicely. I don't feel comfortable doing the tuck in. I often feel like I think I've got a high waist. My mother always said to me that I was long in the fork, and I have no idea what I think. What that means is there's a lot of distance from my navel to my fork. So if I wear pants, you know, I can either have a camel toe or stomach fat hanging over the top. I have to make
a choice. They're my only choices in life. I don't know which to go for. I once went into a jean shop and it was might've been just jeans or something, and they said we can fit anybody type, and after an hour he'd just given up. I just I just go away, I just go away. I've never felt wearing pants. I don't know where to put myself with it, and wearing skirts same, I don't know where to put myself with it a slight tux. That's why I'm happier in winter.
I can wear a jacket and layer things up. In summer, I don't feel comfortable always tucking things in because there's a bit of a stomach or a bum self conscious nature going on.
Oh for me, it's always like I just have to hem stuff. That's that's always been like, no matter what size I've been, it's always that the pouts are like four feet too long.
And do you do your own hemming? Oh yeah, I'm a sewing machine or by hand, both depending on what the material is. Do you pin it yourself? I do? How do you know you've pinned against other pants?
I do well? Either that or sometimes I'll even get EMMT to go and pin it for me. Really, yeah, I just need one.
Knights must fly by at your house. Women, I'm going to put on some pants and you pin them.
You know the agendas of our evenings. Yeah, honey, guess what we're doing next. I'm getting out some pin But it's not what you see. You don't even know what that means. Well, you look lovely, you're sorted now. I am all sort of things French. Yes, I was going to say, I'm all fucked.
French tucked, anita, French tucked. No abbreviations here, no abbrevas. You don't have to be mad to work here. But it helps, But it does help. All right, let's get started. You know how, a little while ago I told you about the myth that kayale is good for you. It was just a marketing campaign. Kale had only ever been used for garnish at Pizza Hut, really as a garnish around the salad.
I was delighted to hear that amount it.
Kale isn't particularly good for you, and it doesn't break down easily. Well, we know that when you try.
And eat it.
But it was a myth that it is a super food. I have another myth, and it's not about a food. Okay, the only child myth. You know how, we've always been told that only children are inherently or if you only had an only child, they'd be inherently selfish, difficult, lonely.
They don't share. Well, no, all that stuff. Remember that I saw this.
I know you think I just listened to podcasts about French tucking, but I saw this on a psychologist podcast.
So the idea that like only children are like selfish and jealous and our argant and spoiled whatever it is, actually came from a pr campaign to increase birth rates after World War Two. Back then everyone wanted like a very polite, nice child, and so the government thought, if we tell people if they only have one child, this child is going to be a spoilt brat, they'll have more than one, they'll have siblings for their children. And turns out it worked, but also the misconception has stuck.
So the whole idea of that was brought about so people would have more than one child.
Wow, yeah, wow, and so and it's just not true. They've done studies with you know, single kid households.
They're not more selfish, they're not more maladjusted, they're not any of that stuff.
Wow, that's what a reassuring thing to hear. But it's you know, if you're the only child in a household. But wow, what a what a crazy I wonder what crazy scientists thought that up.
Like you hear a story once and it sticks with you in the same way, you can debunk the link between vaccinations and autism a million times, but people will still choose to believe that. So, yeah, that's how that goes.
Wow, that is I don't even know where to sit with her, because that really has really been deep in my Sachi, and it was actually I'd like to hear your thoughts on it, but from me, it was definitely part of our decision to have a second child.
How will you, Yeah, Well, we took us so long to have Liam years of IVF that Actually we had a much beloved nanny who had lost a child when she was a teenager. When the child was a teenager and she said if she didn't have other children, she'd never got out of bed. And she was working with us at the time when we were wondering whether to have another baby or not. And I think she passed away not so long ago actually, but she was a big part of our lives and still is. We love
her very much. I sometimes think because of her, we went on to have Jack and I thought, I don't want to get to fifty and wonder if I should have tried again. That seems like a million years ago, saying into the age of fifty, But if ever, I have to talk to people and they asking me about whether they have more than one child. Every decision is your own. But I know about my brother and I is that you feel like we're the only people in the world who know the wonderful craziness, the madness, the
strangeness of where you come from. You're like shooting off into space, but on some level you're sharing a spacecraft with somebody.
Yeah, they're the only person that probably knows all the secrets that you haund when you were you know, in the craziness of your parents and all those things. So, yeah, siblings, I think you're an important part of it. That was, as I said, I think it was a huge part of the decision for us to make sure that Connor had a sibling so.
He wasn't selfish. Well think they also say that that China's one child policy was going to breed a whole lot of small emperors. Yeah, of small, bossy, self important children. I wonder how that's played out.
Well, they dismissed that policy a few years ago because they are really struggling to go and have you know that their population growth is limiting and that there aren't you know, the people aren't getting married, they're not having children early, they're doing all kinds of things, and whether it's because of that one child policy or not. It's hard to tell.
Well, it's interesting how parenting ideas come and go. I saw this post recently. It was in a parenting magazine. I think the title of this was Mum's adorable nineteen ninety three baby picture is a modern pediatrician's worst nightmare. So the first picture of her is her as a
baby in nineteen ninety three and her crib. She's got toys, she's got crib bumpers, she's got a blanket and pillows, versus her baby in a crib with no adornment, no crib bumpers, no cutesy cutesy in there, nothing that the baby can hold on to and presumably smother itself with.
Yeah, that's well, and I'm we So my youngest was born in nineteen ninety two and my oldest in nineteen ninety one, and so we just are absolutely in the
drop zone. That picture would have definitely of the nineteen ninety three crib would have been definitely the same, and the crib bumpers were just to go and prevent the children from baking their hands and putting their arms through the slots, putting their arms through and in fact, there probably were still you know, lead based paint cribs around at that time too. We know that was a big thing, is to make sure that the paint on the cribs and on the toys weren't lead based paint.
Yeah, so that was that was the modern parenting. It's trying to have letting your kids mouth. But you now have a young grandson. I guess he's sleeping more like the baby on the right in this picture.
The absolutely Logan sleeps in a little sleeping bag without blankets, your blankets. There's no crib bumpers. The crib itself. Like the crib we had, the front came down and they don't do that anymore currently. I'm sure it's some safety issue, but no. The bed of the bottom of the crib goes up and down if you need it to. It's the baby gets taller. But no, there was like, it's crazy how different raising our children is from how logan especially you know certainly how he.
Sleeps, Which brings up the question of the latest research for anything you think is the definitive research and will always be so. And that's why I think the often parents clash with their parents because rather than seeing this woman here is just saying, isn't it interesting that they dealt with the information they had at hand, and this is the information I have at hand, rather than my parents know nothing and they're so outdated they don't know anything.
It's being generous about well, they didn't know all of this but did their best anyway. But also it's important maybe for the older generation to say, well, there is new research now and maybe I'll stay in the background. I'm not saying, oh, things haven't changed that much, girly. It's interesting, interesting, isn't it. But there's lots of other parenting stuff at the moment that what's this thing about?
You let the baby dictate when it wants to go into solids it can, and let it hold a friggin chicken leg at the table.
Baby lad weaning is and I really struggled, Well, it's the weaning, but then it's also baby lead feeding. It moves on to and a lot of this is that you just like the child basically will tell you when they're hungry and what they want to eat and how much solids they want. You know, everything when I was a young parent was about choking hazards, and now that doesn't seem to be really anymore. Really, Yeah, let them.
Have a big turkey leg.
Yeah, turkey leg, and yeah like Fred Flintstone, Yeah yeah, and wow as we were cutting up grapes and tiny bits of cheese, nothing big to go in your mouth and spoon feeding it all.
Yep, nothing now like it's it's a very different world.
They're also saying in this article about how looking at the things that modern parenting allows, all that insists, and then you wonder what those things will be and used to come.
Like.
For example, and I was a big proponent of this, is letting the baby cry itself to sleep.
Yeah.
I did that because I came back to breakfast radio and I trained my children's sleep like that in the army. And it was brilliant. It really was brilliant. I've got friends whose babies slept with them till they were four or five because they couldn't self comfort. And I know
those moments of doing it are heartbreaking and hard. But my children show no psychological distress for having that little tick that they both tell Oh they both still cry every night, but other than that, and every time they call me, I say, you know the rules ten minutes of crying go. But it made I think if it
makes a household better, that's okay. And we had a friend who once came over and he's in the medical profession, and they came over from another country and they said that they slightly doped up the baby with venergun or something. You just have a bit of alcohol in it. Because he said, everyone's calm, or when the baby's calm. And he was a medical professional and he said, I'm not doing the baby any harm, but this has comed mum, baby, me,
everybody down. Wow. Because when you look at those old remedies, a lot of them were alcohol based. And that's what the grandparents of today going, Oh, we used to put scotch on the baby's gums.
Or give it a My sister was a tiny baby and apparently the doctor told my mom to give her a little bit of wine before meals, yes, to stimulate her appetite. Really yeah, as a kid, as a baby, like like you know, less than a year probably, really.
Yeah, because a lot of those early remedies were alcohol like that. Fernergen. I don't know fernergan these days has alcohol in it, but there was things. But you know, as I said, rubbing scotch on the baby's gums. And actually we asked you guys to get in touch with us about some of the stuff that you remember through the years. My mother, This is from Meryl. My mother put brandy in my bottle with the milk if we were being left for the babysitter.
Good for the babysitter. I mean, I want you to do it for you though, really that's right. Why make it harder yourself?
Wow?
And then this one was about like and having honey on my dummy. This is from Lyndall Seymour, and she was saying that was a big no when my babies came along, and still is. But it's you know, even the dummy now is kind of controversial whether you should go and raise a child to self soothe with the dummy, but dipping.
It in honey, all that sugar and all that stuff. Yeah, it was kind of whatever got you through When everyone says, well I've survived, but if you've got better ways of doing it that don't make you a sugar added maybe that's okay.
I think I would just would have wanted a lot of for nergen. But yes, myself, Yeah, the one that I was that really kind of hit me was the one by Jenny Keynes, but she was saying, my dad was big on table discipline, and it was it was, you know, manners appreciation. Eating was in front of you. All that we definitely when I was being raised, it was lots of table discipline and it was eating what's put in front of you. And I remember that my mom used to make borsh, which is a beat soup,
and it would you hate beat truth. I hate beat root because of this, and I hated borsh. It just it would kind of it was one of those things you'd put a spoonful in, it would go down, it would come up, it would go down, it would come up.
And did you have to sit there?
I had to sit there and get through a ball of borsh and before I could leave the table, and I just it was the hardest. It was awful.
It was this power struggle what modern nutritionist, some imagining would say, don't force your children to to finish everything on their plate, because I, as you know, eat a lot and ate really quickly. And I think it was probably because I was brought up to eat everything on the plate. And that's so those eating habits have completely changed, haven't they.
Well, I don't know what the answer is. I was talking to my niece about a year or so ago because her son, who's a teenager, will just will eat very very little and very particular foods, and she was saying that the nutritias said, just let them eat what
he needs to eat. And I appreciate that sentiment. And this is a growing kid, and you you know, as a parent, it probably just tears your heart out to go and say, you know, but this kid needs protein and carbs and you know whatever else that the you know, vitamins, vegetables, you know, things that'll make them grow and be strong and healthy. And where does that come in? Because the more you force, probably the worst it gets.
One of the things that was in this article about things that we might look back on and think, what were we thinking? They said here, I wouldn't be surprised if pediatricians decide we can't be trusted to make our own baby food at home anymore. That had been an interesting one, because you can't trust that someone's feeding their child properly by cooking for them, or that they're using in date ingredients and what they're what they're using. Maybe we'll go back to all the food should be pre
manufactured of an organic kind. Who knows.
I mean, as I'm thinking about it, I sound like a troud waife because I actually so. Tell me I sold my own the dapers for my children. No, I did. Actually they were all out of flannel. They all have the little the little velcrow on them. They were very sweet. But I also made all the baby food for for the for the kids. I did.
I was that parent, which is that because you felt you had to, because I read somewhere that they did an environmental side by side and the amount of water and heating and all of that that it takes to washerappy is the same as using a disposable that it doesn't. You don't necessarily come out on top. Do it because you want to, but don't do it for environmental purposes.
It was.
It was all for the environment. And you know, and I mean I was raised like really really healthy, like we you know, my parents had a you know why, as I said, I used to be raised on eating moose. But we'd you know, have not chocolate game, not chocolate moose, but we would have all kinds of you know, vegetables preserved. We had our own huge garden, and every year we would preserve some of it. We'd had of it in cold storage. It was all that kind of stuff. So
I was really really healthy. And I remember looking at the little packages. They had little jars of baby food, and and I just had a reaction to that. That looks like processed food to me. So I made I made baby food.
You know.
There wasn't a lot available then. So you do sound up one of those treadwives.
I do, don't.
Yeah, yeah, did you dress.
Like you're a little house in the prairie? I did?
No, I didn't, but it was I was completely cool. Memories, don't they ready to do? Yeah? You can see some pictures of me when I was twenty five and oh my lord. Yeah, but no, it was like I really had kind of bought into a lot of the parenting you know, myths that were probably well maybe not myths, but certainly the trends.
And there were freshes.
Yeah, and there was really I remember thinking there wasn't many books. There was what to expect when You're expecting, and then there was doctor Spark.
Who was the we didn't really have that through so much here.
What did you did you have anything.
I know of doctor Spock only from watching American television. I had a book called Baby Love by a woman called Robin Gardner, and she was an early childhood nurse I think at one of our local hospitals. But her book I recommend it to any new mother. It covered everything, was almost like an encyclopedia. But her main thing was if you love your child and praise the achievements you're doing. Okay, but yes, it was great. So isn't it funny? In
our society. On one hand, we have the pressure to do all your things yourself, organic food and this and that. On the other hand, we have a whole lot of parents who are struggling to get by, and if the kid has a cannic coat for dinner, that's what's happening that night. A handful of hundreds and thousands. So somewhere in the middle is most of us. I think.
I think so too. I think that that. And I don't think anybody has a child going wow, look a new baby and wonder how I can screw this one off. No, you know, I think most people go in with that into.
Some mistake that I said that, and Jack has overcome a lot.
He has that little therapy jar that you filled up every night. But it's yeah, but I think that we do. We go in with the best of intentions thinking, you know, I'm doing the best I can. I think at the end of the day, we all try our best, and that really that hopefully we have more wins than losses. That you know, and when you kind of think about years of parenting, it's you know, we're we're doing okay.
We're doing okay, and you're allowed to put you make yourself part of that equation too. There were some birthday parties where I just said to the kids, look, not this weekend. I cannot I can't stand around for another four hours at a birthday party. I've got stuff I've got to do at home. I'm sorry. Yeah, there was.
Always those competing demands between you know, a soccer game and birthday parties.
And and you know my need to sit at home and churn. Butter, I love it when you laugh at me. Should we get to our glimmers.
Let's get to our glimmers.
Do you know of a small outberta town called Torrington.
Yes, it's near a drum heller.
Of course it is why didn't I start with that, Anita, I have seen something that's from that small Alberta town, and I'm shocked at A I've never spoken about it every single minute of your life, and B that you've never taken me there. It's an entire museum dedicated to taxidermy gophers. Have you heard of it? I actually have heard of it about Oh wow, it's everything I've ever dreamt a museum would be. I'm looking at the pictures here. Look at that, there's a little gopher. He's got a
fishing outfit on. Look at this one?
Is that the stage coach one?
Yes, he's driving a stage coach.
My husband's well, she's not really really wasn't their aunt, but this and men she used to do taxidermied golfers and I think she actually has the stage coach. I think may have been hers. Wow, I'm gonna have to check with them. What a claim to fame, I know, it's amazing.
So there's one with a little hat on driving a stage coach. There's one here dressed as a priest, blessing roadkill. I'm imagining giving the last rates to its little buddies. This one is a summer lady on a holiday. She's got a swimming costume on, and she's stand next to a barbecue.
That is charming.
I a long with this one because the outfit on that that one is well sort of Elizabethan outfit it is. This is a Shakespeare maybe a Shakespeare kind of thing, or an early seventy year fellow. I know it's not right to say it, but I love that stuff. Oh, I love that quirky taxidermy. I assume the gophers have all been have all died from passive smoking. There is no nastiness in the way they met their maker.
I'm sure that there's not. Like it is a sure sign of spring in Alberta when the gophers start running across the roads so their roadkill. You probably can't help but run over a couple.
Is it gopher a squirrel?
No, well it's a rodent, so it related. But a squirrel lives up in a tree and a gopher lives in little gopher holes.
It's like Punk's attorney Phil that we saw in Groundhog Day.
Yeah. So they well much tinier though, and they live they tunnel under fields and stuff. So there was an inventor a few years ago that came around like from Torington area, probably not in Torrington, that had a big vacuum truck and he would put the vacuum on the little gopher holes stuck them all up. I don't know what he did with them. I don't want to know, but yeah, I think we're looking at a stagecoach driver.
I think so well, Anita, that is my glimmer that such a place exists, and then it could be our future travel plan.
It's a very very very good glimmer.
What have you got?
I am delighted that my part of going off camping, and the best part of it is.
That where's any glimmering?
I know, I know you don't, but I get to go with my grandson had been like my son and daughter in law and my husband, and that they're organizing it and I don't have to do anything.
It's just the best.
I don't have to do any meal planning. I don't have to do anything.
Is that their gift to you? That is a huge gift to me that you don't have to do any prep. Oh, because that's why I think that's why I wouldn't like camping because of the pa lava. I'm not good at Pa Lava.
I know, like I still remember my mom would be packing four kids, you know, into a small little station wagon and that we would be you know, all the kids would be going, can we go already? And my mom was just you know, sweat on her brow as she was packing up the station wagon.
It was just and the minute she got there she would have had to plan what meals were happening. Yep, I didn't make the beds, all that unpacking all that horrible.
It would be canvas tents and it would be it would be awful.
So yeah, yeah, well, how's yours going to be any different to that?
Well? No, I mean we have like ultra marble and tents.
It's still an intent.
I'm still not but it's yeah, but it's comfortable.
We do have.
It's comfortable and we get to be outside and it's it's gorgeous.
I love it. Well, you and I can't be somewhere all the time. No one of us has to be a fool.
And luckily it was you, lucky meat.
Lots of love and see next time.
I love you. But mhm