We acknowledged the traditional custodians of the land we're recording on today.
They were like, oh, you have to lie on top of Kelly for five minutes, and then I just hear the mom from another room going, you guys are too young for this.
Hello, and welcome back to Eat, Sleep, Shit, Repeat, the Wildly, Wildly, wildly Unhinged podcast about the madness that is motherhood and everything in between.
I'm Kelly McCarran and.
I'm Key Resels. And in case you missed it, last week, we chatted to a lovely shitter, Jossy, who shared her story and decision after five organizing years of IVF, to put her mental and physical health first and called it quits.
We've had such an incredible response to Jossy's episode. She's just so generous sharing her story and like just all of her insights, and she's just got a really great, unique way of looking at things and I very much so appreciated it. And she spoke to us on her birthday. I know, what a coin. But today we are exploring a question that has been popping up left, right and center. Should I let my child go on a sleepover. It's
proving quite a divisive subject. We chat about the pros and cons and about what our shitters think about it and some things that we might not have even considered. But first key, you're up for peak and pitch.
So the pit actually happened last night. So I was actually doing peek and pit on my socials while Rue and Charlie were in the kitchen cooking at dinner. So Rue sits on the sorry, this is your pit, and I'm going no, but seriously, we lovedy. So Rue's always like, can I sit?
Can I sit?
And we put her up on the bench and it's like Charlie was cooking, so I guess he had his back towards her, and then she went a bit silent, and then I hear Charlie go, are you okay? And I didn't hear her say anything, and I'm like, is she okay? And then I don't know what happened, but it was like she made some kind of noise that I was like, oh, okay, I need to get up and assess, like, see what's happening here? So I went in and she kind of started gagging, like what happened?
And so we have a little like dryer next to the sink where we put her baby stuff, so like her drink bottles, and in this case, what was sitting there was like the applicator for medicine, so like the thing that you give like paracetamol or ibuprofen, the liquid stuff, so like one of the little syringes. Yeah, was just
there drying out on the rack. And she had picked it up and she had shoved it down her throat, but it was backwards, so the end of it is kind of flat, like a ten cent piece almost, And Charlie said it looked like what she'd done is shoved it down her throat and then it got stuck. And then he was trying to stay calm and just be like, okay, it's okay, it's okay.
And then while she's got it poking out of her.
Yeah, and she looks terrified. So she pulls it straight out and she's in shock. And then that's when she starts gagging, and I realize, like, oh, okay, she might actually vomit here.
Which is generally their response when something like that's happened. So she's a good thing.
Charlie's holding her. I've leant underneath them to go grab a bowl, like, because we've got these big mixing bowls that we also use as vomit bowles. We washed them, but they're big bowls that are like really light, so you can grab them quickly can chuck them to each other. Anyway, I wasn't quick enough. The words could not come out of my mouth before she started vomiting.
And I mur.
Underneath her. I stand up and move back because I've kind of realized what's happening. And she vomits like on my sleeves of my hands, but then a little bit gone to my mouth, didn't it. But I couldn't do anything in that moment. I just kind of like I had to.
Just take it, not immediately project our vomit back over because this is a really stressful situation.
I've got my mum had on because what's happened is I'm like grab a bowl and he's moved her towards the sink, and it's just comical at this point anyway, So we're trying to recover from that.
It's very She's crying, she's because of the choke and because of the vomit. And then we sit down crying because you covered in her vomit.
Anyway, fast forward to later in the night, she's gone down for bed. Everything's okay, we've recovered, and we're like watching something and I said, hey, can you pause it? And he's like yeah, and I'm like, I didn't tell you. But when she vomited, it got in my mouth.
And he was like, you want to kiss.
He's like, that is so foul, and I'm like, I know, I know, but I didn't want to make a big dealer at the time. It's like nah, because then that upsets them more and like it's foul, it's a little bit of vomit, but it's all right. So that was my pit. It was like just the shock of it happening, and like, you know how you're just really risk averse with having a kid, like I can anticipate when things are going to happen.
Syringe was not on my Bengo. He didn't have marbles sitting next to her thinking go for gold sicks.
No, but she does love shoving stuff in her mouth. She does it all the time with like the lids of the yogurt and stuff. Oh that's so so we pinched her nose and then she'll spit it out because she's like needs to breathe.
That is so smart.
Someone told me that I can't take credit for it. But someone's like just pinch their nose because they have to breathe, so they'll push it out with their tongue so that they can take a breath.
Touchwood Lenni's never put something in his mouth, and he hasn't needed to rudious leap on a dummy. He's like, listen, he still loves to shove a dummy into his mouth, doesn't he?
See he does little dummy all right, So let's finish on the puok.
Oh god, it's much better.
So friends of ours invited us to go to Disney on Ice.
Wait, I'm assuming you mean you took rue So we took her? Oh you're like, no, My peak was that I went by myself to Disney on Ice.
No, we took all the kids. So it was really cute. We got there, We came and we sat down. The first half she sat there just like eyes big, very kind of confused about what's going on. She's just like staring and I could like wave my hand in front of her, and she was just transfixed on like what was happening. And so I was like it was hard to tell if she was enjoying is this real low stimulation going on? And I'm like, maybe you need a
snack cause I like gave her a snuck. So she's just like staring down at the ice and Garlie's like, is she okay. I'm like, I'm not doing I reckon it's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. So then intermition came and then for the second half it was like whoa, she had settled in. She was like, all right, I know what's happening now. She's like clapping arms in the air. She loved it.
It's so cute.
Loved it, and it was just such a cute thing to do on the weekend because we kind of thought that when we got the invite, were it's going to be good, like like of course all bigger, but we didn't know whether or not it would be age appropriate, and we don't she doesn't watch any Disney movies, so she doesn't know any of the songs. But we just thought would give it go, and we thought, all, what
else we're gonna do. We usually just go to the markets, like, may as well change it up, and it was just so fun to do something different as a family that was like really wholesome, but also was super nostalgic for us, Like, yeah, when Aladdin came on, we were popping out what was the song for in Sallyalia bu? So do you know what we did when we got home watching the Aladden It's a great film, it's a great good It was
just like really wholesome. It just made us feel And then we also were like, we need to have like family movie fun stays on the way to teach her Disney film so the classics. She can't sit through more than twenty minutes, so.
I had twenty minutes is actually impressive.
We got through twenty minutes on Saturday, twenty minutes on Sunday. And then I was just watching Aladdin in my spare time by myself, doing a shot the movie because I'm like, what happens? Japa has just found it Genie's bottle.
And it was Robin Williams, wasn't it?
They did there?
It was also happen to be like what would have been his seventy third birthday over the world. So it's like quite a thing and it's just wonderful. There's something about like old animation that is just so nostalgia. Yeah, and you have a big appreciation for Also all the jokes that like I can recite but had no idea what it meant.
Yeah, like some of them had innuan don Yeah.
So we were both buzzing after.
That's so cute.
She fucking went out like a log, you know, with a lot of simulations. So she was like, oh, it was really good. So highly recommend if it's coming to your town sitting near you, buy the ticket. We've got some merch. Got at her a little Mowana T shirt which is really cute. I'm not that So next up, can I unpacking a topic that keeps popping up on our radar ya, the news, amongst friends or on socials.
It's sleepovers. So you might trust your friends or your family with your kids, but you never really know who else is going to be in someone else's home. There's also the issue of bullying and being exposed to things you might otherwise have kept from them. Typically seen as a rite of passage, sleepovers are so ingrained in our culture that the mere mention of it on our socials but an instant debate. So what are the benefits?
What are the risks?
Do they outweigh every other factor and do they still have a place and the childhood of kids today.
We are speaking from the perspective of being todd the mums not yet having to make that decision in real life. But we just thought it would be really interesting.
It's definitely having a bit of a moment culturally, especially in the realm of parenting. So first up, we threw it out to you. Shit is because we really wanted to get a sense of where you guys were at with the topic of sleepovers. Will you want you and why? So we asked you are you going to let your kid or kids go to sleepovers? And the responses were very close. So the yes's were at fifth fifty six point three percent and the no's were at forty five
point eight percent. You were surprised by this.
I thought that was wild because if I asked people just in my immediate circle that I know, it would be like, I reckon ninety five percent. Absolutely not.
Yeah, it's interesting, right, because I had a feeling it would be close because of a lot of my friends are saying no. But I also think that there is a lot of pressure to have your kids go to sleepovers.
No, it's very easy for us to say no when we don't have teenagers going at the back, ma'am.
Yeah. But also even just like when I was doing a lot of research for this, a lot of people were saying, like external pressures like family members also just like your significant other, the other parent in the relationship. And I put the question to Charlie last night in preparation for this, and he was like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna we'll let her go. And I was like, oh, this is gonna have to be something that we talk about because I'm not your same opinion.
Happy to let anyone look after her.
Well, not anyone. We have like one babysitter that we use who is her educator from her first.
Day, so she's got like the credentials in the background checks and everything exactly.
I was like, I don't feel like I want to try out a new babysitter, Like I don't want to just get one. Luckily, we were like, oh my niece, Like she's so good and she's got like younger siblings, like little little siblings. She's spending heaps of babysitting over the holidays and she's so good with kids, and were already knows her and she came, she put her to bed and she was so chilled and like she was like, oh, she was really easy to put down. I'm like, I'm like,
oh my god, that's so good. So now like I'm fine with our niece doing it. I just want to have to throw that on her. But she's at the age of when she wants to make money. So I'm like, yes, we have a line.
Yeah, amazing, And it's also nice ruin and.
She loves her lovely. Anyway, we got a little bit started tract there. So when we said, for those people who answered no, because we get white people answer yes, it's a ride of passage of people believe that it's part of childhood. Why not, like we don't need to like coddle our kids. But I think it was more interesting finding out other people said no.
Most of the responses were exactly as we sort of predicted the risk of childhood sexual assault, people that had known people or themselves had been sexually assaulted as a child, and then things like what movies are they watching? Is there any bullying? Social media? Like all of these things if you can't control them or know what's happening under your own roof. I guess just those sorts of concerns.
Yeah, And what I thought was interesting is like one of our shitters did answer yes, but she wanted to answer this question specifically because she said her step sons are allowed to go to sleepovers and without fail, every time they come home, they tell me so many stories that boil down to a lack of appropriate parental supervision in her opinion, So I think it's I like to go there, but she would still let her kids go, but she has said that it would be limited to
a few trusted family members. So I think there are varying degrees of also the definition of a sleepover, Like I think it's different to would you let your kids stay at their cousin's house? Some people would feel okay with that, maybe some people would. I guess it's like do you like your brother or sister in law or what kind of parents are they?
Like?
Do they have rules?
Do they not have rules?
Like?
There are lots of things that contribute to this, and I know we're kind of talking about it in a broad way, but I thought like that was really interesting. A lot of people sharing that they've listened too many podcasts and heard too many horror stories, so I think, just like the awareness exactly, it does change things a little bit. The other question I was really interested to hear from us it is, was had there been any fallout with friends or family due to the decision to
not let your kids have a sleepover. A lot of people saying that their parents didn't understand it, that they thought it was silly, but begrudgingly it's fine that you don't let your kids go to sleepovers. But for the most part, people were pretty understanding. They didn't agree, but they were understanding, which I think is a nice thing.
One thing that I think I've really struggled with since becoming a parent is that and I can admit this now, I probably wouldn't have, you know, a couple of years ago, but I used to be not judgmental. Actually yeah, I guess really judgmental about these sorts of situations because I used to just think, how can you not know, ah, yeah, that that is happening under your roof, or that that person's a pedo. But since becoming a parent, and I guess thinking about it more and hearing these stories they
didn't know. I was listening to a podcast where this girl was raped consistently by her grandfather from ages twelve to fifteen. Her mum had the most beautiful relationship with her father, like telling her broke the entire family because there was no possible way that anyone ever suspected he was a nice old man. Yeah, And I think that that's why for me, one of the reasons why I'm like, I think I just have to have the blanket rule because you actually don't know anyone.
Yeah, that is it. You don't know, And I just don't think you ever want to live with any regret when it comes to kind of like the mental and physical well being of your kid at the end of the day, Like you want to make sure that you
are protecting them as much as possible. And it is sad because obviously when you think about your childhood compared to theirs, because we have a lot more awareness about just how horrible people can be, the bad things that kids get up to by themselves, the bullying that can happen in these situations. Everything's not as like clean cut as like oh, yeah, go go to your friends sleepover, all good here, don't worry about that. It's like, no, no,
there's a lot of things to consider. Okay, well, let's start with the benefits of a sleepover, just so we keep it balanced and interview a licensed clinical psychologist, doctor Levers Landis, talks about sleepovers helping children to develop independence and to learn to adapt to situations outside of their routine. They also get to practice navigating social situations away from school. So she says learning flexibility is healthy for us humans.
It's good to be exposed to different ways of doing things, different foods, different ways of having a meal, and the different ways of interacting. It's healthy to not always do things exactly the same way. And a lot of other experts that I read were saying that in some cases, not having exposure to flexible learning and opportunities to practice independence can result in kids developing like separation anxiety, fears, even phobias when they kind of leave their safe space
of home and they're entering new spaces. So that's interesting and in consideration, so I think you want to kind of land maybe somewhere in the middle of that. So the negatives of it, though are sexual assault, well that is the obvious one. So there's also slip distruction. So think about winning away on holiday. You never sleep well,
the kids are staying up late. They yap and yap and up, and you pick up your kid in the morning and they are overtired, over stimulated, grumpy things, and they might take a day or two to settle down. Exposure to things that might not be age appropriate, so movies, music, I don't know, websites, things like that. Bullying came up a lot, so a lot of peer pressure in these situations to do certain things like and that could be anything,
it could be it's been the bottle. It's been the bottle exactly, something that is relatively like not that bad. But also you don't want to push someone into having a kiss, so they don't want to. Yeah, and of course the big one, which is abuse that something might happen to your kid, either mentally, physically or sexually. So Kel, when I first broached this with you, like I know your feelings now, but when I first broached this with you, you remember you gualked a little bit at me, being
like about the idea of no for sleepovers. And I'm talking about last year when I first talked to you about this, and then two days later that's story came out.
Yeah, the one that I had some feelings about I just thought that maybe he wanted a nice night of sleep.
But do you know what's funny is that that was actually his argument in court. See, so let me just share what we're talking about with our shit is. I think a lot of you would have heard this because it went viral everywhere. So in August twenty twenty three, a fifty year old man was accused of drugging three of his daughter's twelve year old friends during a sleepover.
Fifty seven year old Michael Meadan turned himself in this week after being accused of leasing mango smoothies with a drug that's usually used to treat insomnia and panic attacks, and then giving those drinks to three twelve year old girls at his daughter's sleepover.
So, they had had a spa day that when it got when nails done, and the dad was like taking them everywhere. They came back, they watched movies. I went in the hot tub, they had shower, and then I went downstairs and started watching movies in the basement. And the father came down about eleven and insisted that the girls go to bed and they drink these smoothies that he prepared. And the girls have since shed in an affidavit to police that the drinks had white chunk in
them and a white powder on top. One of the girls reported that she even told the friend's dad that HER's tasted funny. That girl, thankfully didn't finish her smoothie.
Her friends passed out around her, and then the father allegedly kept coming down and checking on the girls multiple times while the girl who was conscious, pretended to be asleep, and she alleges that he did things like wafer's hand in front of the sleeping girl's faces and put his fingers under their nose to check if they were breathing. So she messaged your mother asking her to pick her up, saying like say it's a family emergency. This was around
one am. Her mother didn't wake up, at which time she then proceeded to message her other friends to see if any of them could wake up one of their parents to come and get her. And that's what happened. So for family.
I love that this girl, though, has the courage to do that, because when I was twelve, I would have been like, I'm just going to go to sleep and hope that it's fine.
I know, I know. And also an argument there for giving devices to twelve year old. So I'm like, fuck, there's so many things. I've been challenged on a lot of things here. So that friend's mum picked her up. Weirdly, the guy let her leave. I mean, what was he going to do, but he let.
Her leave weirdly. He can't hold her there.
Well, I'm getting down to my story. The mum of her friend took her home, woke up her parents, who then alerted the parents of the other girls who were still there, and they went up and picked up the other girls. But the dad did try to intervene when those parents came back, saying that oh, no, no, they're asleep, you know, come back tomorrow, and they were like, no, no,
we want our children right now. They took the kids to the hospital, where it was confirmed that they had traces of benzo diazepine in their system, which is typically used to treat in stomia and anxiety.
So it's terrifying he told me this story. I didn't know all of those details. To be fair, though, you just told me like frontline and I go, oh, I think I'd clearly had a bad night sleep the night before, And I was like, oh, you know, what teenage girls like, they would have been up or not giggling. He probably just wanted a good night sleep.
Yeah, And I said, ah, Kelly, why are you defending the middle ages? Jill can't drug other people's kids. That's still punishable by law. And last month he was sentenced to two years in prisoner.
That's it.
Well, I mean, he drugged a bunch of twelve year olds and he got two years.
Well, yeah, he pleaded guilty for three felony counts of causing another person to ingest a controlled substance. Thank god, that's all that happened. Like, that's terrifying enough. Thank god, that's all that happened.
Though.
But his argument was kel that he was wanting them to go to bed because he wanted them to be asleep by ten or eleven. I think it's a convenient argument, so did the prosecutor.
Even though it kept coming down to check on their breaths.
And there's like a few more details. I didn't want to go into everything too much, but if you want to read about it, you can google it and have a little read. But I think what's interesting is like a few people have done it, all right, It's not like a thing, and some people have taken a bit further. So there are obviously these stories that are quite alarming, and we don't want to be alarmisted.
Didn't you When you were first looking into that, you came across a TikTok where a girl was like people asking me why I wasn't allowed to go to sleepovers?
Well, this is the other thing that went viral around the same time. A girl who had just turned eighteen or was maybe talking about when she turned eighteen going to her first sleepover that basically all throughout her adolescent
she was never allowed to sleep at anyone's house. And her friends asked her so, like you know, on the night, saying like, all, so, why were you not allowed to go to sleepovers as a kid, And she said, oh, well, my dad was sexually abused when he was a kid and he just never wanted that to happen to me. So she had a sleepover.
She rings us late at night crying emotional and I said, what's wrong, like saying wrong, I'll come pick you up. She has no I just want to say thank you to your mom for protecting me. Because she's sitting around in a circle with her friends, her closest friends, five of them, and they were all shocked, like they couldn't believe that this was Oceana's first sleepover. She tells them
why because my dad's story. He's very protective. Mom and dad work in the sector, you know, domestic violence and abuse.
Blah blah blah.
All her friends start crying and they said, we wish our parents protected us. Like you're She's like, what do you mean? So we've all been abused. All the girls one by one opened up how they were all touched and it wasn't stranger danger, there was a family member, it was a friend of the house. So when we talk about statistics of you know, who's being abused, like, you're not going to see the rule of the reality because most survivors don't open up till twenty thirty years plus.
Of course, that went viral because people aren't necessarily giving up that information freely. But when someone outlines it in front of you and they said, well, yeah, that did happen to me, it's like and typically people don't report abuse, especially kids, So especially kids. Yeah, it's very interesting. So I don't want to be all doom and gloom.
Well, what can we discuss like what your experiences were with sleepovers, like were you allowed to go on them? What was your upbringing like in terms of slumber party sleepovers, I.
Was allowed to go anywhere.
Yes, well your grandparents raised you and they were probably.
Like, oh, yes, well I was allowed to always sleep at my cousin's houses, which is good. But then I remember I would live at my friends' houses because a lot of people felt sorry for me, kind of adopted me as like there, you know, extra kid. But there wasn't really anything nefarious ever happening at sleepovers. I think obviously, as I got older, we would sneak out and drink, but that's like sixteen, you know, fifteen sixteen, which obviously I don't really want rue to do that.
But like, my.
Experience isn't dictating what I want rue, because I loved sleepovers as a kid. I loved like watching your movies and getting to hang out with your friends and talking at night and giggling. But I don't know, it's a difficult situation because I think sometimes like that's just pure luck. Yeah, well I was friends with nice kids, Like I wasn't really bullied into doing anything or.
Just bullied at all situations, So tell me about your experience in So, Yeah, when I was younger, no real rules. I mean there definitely was, like we've discussed how strict my parents were, but like mum and dad would go overseas and leave us with like our grandparents. We'd go for a couple of days at my auntie's house and like allowed to have slumber parties and sleepovers with our friends. And it's you're saying that, like all of your friends
were really good kids and good families. It does depend on that, because I'm thinking about, like I grew up in probably a little bit of not a rough area, but there's lots of different types of families, and there were some situations that I look back on and I'm like, oh, my goodness, that was so dodgy. Yeah, Like in primary school, I was bullied so badly, as I've discussed, and sometimes I think the parents would make the kid invite me to a big group slumber party because I was in
the group. But then yeah, it was just nasty and they'd make me do things or even just things like watching horror movies that I absolutely wasn't old enough to watch that literally terrified me to this day.
Yeah.
Yeah, things like spin the bottle and just things that weren't age appropriate. But the parents you can't sit in the room with the kids when there's ten or eleven as well, like they're doing their own thing. But I remember they were like, oh, you have to lie on top of Kelly for five minutes. And then I just hear the mom from another room going.
You guys are too young for this, and in my mind I thought, oh, thank god, someone like a parent's come in because I was just so uncomfortable with the thought.
Of a boy lying on top of me. I didn't have boobies or anything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then I think I told the story on another episode about we went to a slumber party for someone's twelfth or thirteenth birthday and the mom like fucked off to the pub and brought home a one night stand and she was kissed.
Yeah, exactly. That's one of our Shitters was saying, is like, like, not all parents parents.
The same, That's what I mean, Like, some parents are a little bit dodgy. Yeah, so you might think, oh, she's going she's safe.
I was not safe.
I had no one parenting me or watching out. And then she let some other bloke into the house.
Yeah, it's not great.
I would say most people were fine, But then there was this other friend. And my parents always very This was in high school. They were always very iffy about her and her family. But I used to get so upset because she was one of my besties. Yeah, and you know what happened the one time I was allowed to go to a sleepover. Her mom didn't give a shit. We went out, We went to the local park.
Did you get ground?
They never found out. They thought I was like curled up in bed with my friend, like giggling, eating popped corn. I'm so lucky that nothing bad ever happened, but there was still.
Enough that's happened for you to be like, I'm not sure.
Yeah.
I don't want anyone to listen to this and think if they let their kids go for god with sleepovers. I don't want them to think that we're judging them.
No, no, no, no.
I might change my mind. And also, I think it depends on the kid. I think I was shy. I was very subdued with things, and I just wanted to fit in and be liked. Well, I think your kid has to be emotionally mature spoken, yeah, or just just understanding like good touch, bad touch, or you know, if they can leave, if they want to leave and they're uncomfortable with you know what the other kids are doing, to give them a call, will pick them.
Up Like I had any other night.
I never ever would have been strong enough of a person to actually make that call. That's why I think it depends on the kid as well. But yeah, I think for the next few years at the very least, Well, he's a little boy, not a chance. Yeah, he had a sleepover at his cousin's house with my mum. Yeah, and I go for sleepovers with him to my girlfriend's house.
So how do we navigate sleepovers safely?
Then?
For those who are wanting to.
Do this, independent children that know no means no respect, my body.
All of those things, but communication with the parents in which they are going to be having this potential sleepover with.
Who's list every single person that's going, well, that's what I've got on my list.
It's going to be supervising the kids. Who else will be home? Are there any restrictions on what type of movies or TV shows that they can watch over the course of the sleepover. Disclosing medical conditions and food allergies and just saying like, hey, I don't really let them watch XYZ. And then just like bedtimes and wake times, just kind of like if your kid needs to be woken up by a certain time or whatever, just sussing that.
But the biggest thing that I came out of my research that I did was this kind of trending alternative which is called a sleep under. So this is basically where a kid stays at a friend's house late but eventually goes home to sleep, so you pick them up at the end of the night. And recently, this mum who is from America, went viral for this video and how she navigated her six year old daughter receiving her
first invitation to a sleepover. And she isn't a parent who feels comfortable with her child going to a sleepover, but the way in which she handled it kind of went viral.
So I got this message with the birthday invitation saying it's going to be a sleepover, and I immediately knew that my daughter would not be allowed to do that, so I just responded back and I said, my daughter would love to celebrate your child's birthday but she's not able
to do sleepovers. So I could bring her over evening time of the party, and I'll come pick her up for sleeping at home, and I can bring her back in the morning if you're planning on doing any activities in the morning, but also if you're not doing any morning activities, you don't have to say it's okay for her to come back. The other parent was super sweet about it, and she said, here are the things we're planning on doing the night before. Here's what we're planning
on doing the next morning. If you want to bring her back from this time to this time in the morning, then that would be great. Here's how I navigated it when my daughter, You're going to go to your friend's house to celebrate your birthday, but then at the end of the evening, I said, some friends are going to say the night and sleep there, and some friends are going to go home and sleep in their own bed. And you're going to be one of those friends who
goes home and sleeps in her own bed. But you're going to get to go back in the morning and partake in all the fun stuff that they do in the morning too. But I just want to say this. It's easy as parents to say absolutely no sleepovers, but then when you come to navigating, all right, what is that going to look like for us as my child's is not going to go to go to the party,
or what are we gonna do? And I found this time that taking my child in the evening, picking her up, taking her back in the morning has been a really easy process and I'm glad it's the decision I made for now that.
Is so good.
It's such a good spies like, it's just it's a way for them to still have that right of passage and still be involved in those social situations that you don't want them to miss out on. You never want them to be excluded by anything.
That's what because I'm thinking them home at the end of the night, of how heartbroken I would be when Lenny's like, everyone's gonna bully.
Me so I don't get to go?
Or what do I have to miss out? So in my mind I'm already like, what would I be able to offer him that's more fun?
Like as an alternative, well, it's just creating the boundary, right, Like you're still letting them do the thing, but you're creating a boundary and it's like you're meeting them in the middle, which I think.
I love that so much.
No wonder it went viral, right, Yeah, so good smart lady. Yeah, Well, we hope you enjoyed this episode, shit is, and we hope that we provided a little bit of food for thought. It certainly got us thinking. And look, never say never.
I think, oh god, you might be laughing at us so much because you might be like, just you two waste exactly exactly.
But we think it's an interesting topic to talk about. Chat great chat, and it's just something that I think all of us are trying to figure out with all the new knowledge and things that we have about parenting, how do we still give the kids a happy, fun childhood with but also keep them safe them safe from with the knowledge that the world is just full of psychopaths.
Exactly exactly. Thank you so much for joining us today. We love being in your ears. And I do just want to reiterate if you do go for gold with sleepovers, like I think that that's incredible if that's what you want to do and that's what you comfortable. And I also think that it would be really nice not to just think of the true crime conversations that go on in my head.
Yeah so yeah.
I just don't want anyone to listen to this and think that there's any judgment if you do, because there absolutely isn't.
Like yeah, and it's good cause for debate. This episode was produced by myself, Key Resales, and Kelly McCarran, with audio production by the wonderful and very talented Madeline Joanna. Have a great week, shitters will be in your ears next week.
Bye bye ah you gone.
I love this guy, show some respect down on one knee. I love it so much.
The words