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Before we start the show today, we just wanted to send our love and tell you that we're thinking of you if you are affected by the devastating floods in northern New South Wales. It's not just the people affected by the floods. There are many out louders in those areas who are part of the sees or who are some of the thousands of volunteers that have been saving lives and properties and doing incredible work. So we just wanted to say we love you, we're thinking of you, and hang in there.
There is a whole conversation going on about sleepovers. The new anxiety around sleepovers is very much about control.
There's this dual tension right that our kids are spending too much time on screens and not enough time with their friends, but also this very real fear about the risks that the world offers up.
Hello and welcome to Mama Mia out Loud and to our Friday show where we talk about nothing to do with the news cycle at all.
Today. It's Friday, the twenty third of May, and my name is Hollywayne.
Right, I'm Jesse Stevens and I'm.
And Burnham filling in for mea today we are back to regular programming.
How we all feeling We have just finished up the tour last night in Melbourne? What an absolute joy? Does everyone else feel like they're going to fall in a hate?
Yes, a very happy, saated heap Melbourne. You were wild. Thank you for finishing us off so well. We are still recording from all different corners. If we sound a bit weird, but my god, this tour has been a blast, right, It's been so much fun.
I'm horrified by how often on this tour we've said this must be how Taylor Swift feels so much like Oh, it's just like after the Ears tour, like you just take the energy of an audience. Look, it's not quite it, but we are a lot of solidarity with Taylor today.
Anyone who saw the show, and I know many out louders listening were not able to come, so we won't go on and on, but anyone who saw the show knows that the comparisons to Taylor Swift fastly and appropriate. It's very generous to us to costume changes anyway. On today's show, the sleepover is officially dead. What is lost by everyone staying home in their own beds? Thank you very much. Also, our recommendations include a tinly Flashblack, an
unput doubtable mystery, and Bleeding for a Cause. And our best and Worst of the week includes you lot out, Louders, routine fails, and some very talented people.
But first, Jesse Stevens.
In case you missed it, here's what your messy, disgusting desk says about you, or rather me, whose desk is a health hazard? In an article published in the Age by Kathy Bussowitz, if you's a psychiatrist and a medical director named Marietta Vanderberg, who says clutter is actually just a postponed decision or action. It's things we pick up and put down, so we're not making a decision about that piece of paper on your desk or that book. Now this blew my mind because that identifies precisely what
my problem is. I'm struggling to make decisions.
She said that.
Deliveries actually make this hard up because a lot of people have opened or not even yet opened packages on their desk, even she was saying, you can't find your pens, so you just buy more pens. And then there are things like a bill or a fine, which represents a task that you can't get around to yet. Researchers have found messy desks contribute to our stress hormones and even cause us to get less sleep. What's weird is that I feel like I'm tidy in most other instances, but
I have never been able to keep a clean desk. Holly, is it a Sagittarius thing? Because I know you're exactly the same.
I am exactly the same.
I think there's different kinds of clutter, because that's really true, that clutter is an unmade decision. There are things on my desk that are like books that I've been meaning to read, things that I know I've got to get back to. It's the rules of anti clutter. Do they mean that if I can't do it now, I should throw it away? Should there be nothing that is?
I'm getting to that.
What you're meant to do is factor in like five minutes a day for desk admin. That's what the clever people do. Now, m Are you a messy desk or a tidy desk?
I am, and I feel like my mom and mia colleagues would disagree. But I feel like I'm personally a tidy desk person but messy and every other factor of my life, because I feel like desk for me is like a public front. So I want people to assume something about me, and I think they'll assume that on how I keep my desk tidy. With that being said, though, I like to have a tiny bit of clutter because I feel like it gives the illusion that I'm a really busy person.
Yes, yes, I agree.
Things on my desk and I have, like my laptop and my notebook. It seems like I'm organized and I'm taking notes constantly, my little parcels. And then people walk past my desk and go, oh, she's so busy, look at her.
Go there's some mess that's deliberate because I don't have a desk at work. I don't know how that happened, but I was relegated to a point where I don't have a desk. We're about to move to a new office. I don't know if i'll have a desk there, you know. But at home, my desk is almost deliberately cluttered because it's a beautiful old desk, and I like it to feel lived in. So I have pictures on there that mean a lot to me. I have things I like to pick up and rub or hold when I'm riding.
I have like things I like to squirt on my face. I had like it's a deliberate clutter. It's not meant to be a sterile environment. It's meant to.
Be a so it's like organized mess. Yeah, but then of course there's also just the mess mess I reckon.
It's also a status symbol because I remember watching a documentary years ago with Caro Meldrum Hannah, who's like an ABAC journal who I'm just in awe of, and I remember there being a shot of her desk and it was revolting. Yeah, I remember that rappers, coffee cups, there were things living in it, there was a zoo like, it was revolting, and I just thought, that is an important woman. Well, it is has a lot going on.
But this leads me to another very strong opinion about clutter. So I saw on socials recently that Christianna, Mama Ja to the Kardashians famously busy woman.
Right, she made a point about messy cars. Listen to this. This is what she said.
They said, what advice do you have for these young girls? And I said, keep your car clean? And they were like what, And I said, have you ever noticed that people with a really messy car like French fries, paper cups and drinks thrown around and closed from last week? I could not think in a car like that.
I wish that it.
Was legal if I was interviewing somebody, to have somebody sneak.
Down and look at the inside. Go look at the inside of the car, and how does that look? Because it just kind of represents organizational skills and discipline and just the way that you feel about yourself. How do you want to present yourself when you go out into the world.
What do we think about that? What do we think about the state of your car? Because by that measure, that messy desk with the cups and everything says that that person is chaotic. What do we think about the messy car represents the state of your head.
I don't know if it's about representing the state of my head, but I can't stand messy cars. Like my car is probably the most pristine. I barely drive it, but it's the most pristine car.
Ever.
I don't mind people having messy cars if they're the only ones in it, But don't make me sit in your mess, Like, don't make me get into the passenger seat. And you have like McDonald's like on the steed and you have I can't even put my water bottle down because I just drink bottles. Ever, Like, I actually get quite flustered when I'm in a message.
No em, have I ever given you a lift anywhere?
Because the first thing I do when anyone gets into my car is apologized for the mess.
Yessee they apologizing, And then like you have to run to the passenger seat before me and about all of this stuff and dump.
It into the boot.
It's chaos.
And then you go, oh, are you sure you can fit? And the person's feet are like on three meters worth of bags and they're like yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm fine, And I'm thinking, well, you wanted a fucking lift. This is a reality. Look, I don't appreciate Chris Jenner's opinion at all. My functionality in life relies on my car looking like that. If you want my car not to look like that, I'm gonna be late. I'm already a little bit late, orbe even later. I will barely make
it to work. Like, I think it's easy for Chris Jenner to say that when maybe she has a driver.
Oh for sure.
The rest of us are carting around kids, and my car is my like transitional space between home and going out and child and blah.
It's like it's the baby seat as well, it's the baby because Jesse, if you were to offer me a lift, it would be me and Luna in the back with your baby seat like digging into my ribcake. Well, you and Luca in the front like rows a.
Room exactly, and I'd be like, sorry about the yoga you're sitting on.
Let's be honest. As someone who drives a lot, I eat most of my meals in the car, So.
My car is disgusting.
But I find this interesting about the idea of what private space of someone's you'd like to see to make you make an assumption about them. I find that really interesting because of course Chris Jenna doesn't clean her own car and probably never has. But she probably also thinks are the people who's coming to interview with her for a job, like, are they prioritizing a clean car. Are they getting it serviced that they're getting it clean?
Do you know what I mean?
Like to her, that probably means something. And I wonder if there's anything else in life that's like that. Like you can tell a lot about someone from their coffee order, whether they lunch at their desk.
Or if they make their bed before they go to work. I think that indicates something. But I reckon that cars are a deeply personal private space. Find Chris Jenna. I won't be offering you a lift.
Let's just say that, did you stay over at other people's houses when you were a kid?
And Jesse m absolutely.
Occasionally, mainly my cousins, but sometimes my friends.
Right, because there is a whole conversation going on about sleepovers again. Now, I've been a parent for fifteen years, and if I've learned anything in that time is that there's a whole lot of things you're doing every day that are going to piss off a lot of other people,
and raising the word sleepovers is one of them. This new conversation that's come back around about whether kids should be allowed to spend the night at other people's houses, and if so, who's and when has been everywhere lately, mostly thanks to a now deleted but completely viral tweet that caused a storm of agreement, which simply said, my daughter is not allowed to attend sleepovers. I hope somedays
she forgives me and knows is for the best. It's a topic that gets everyone talking because even if you're not a parent, you were a kid once and your experiences very much affect your opinion. Now, before we get into this conversation, we have to acknowledge, of course, and say that there are many people who have very strong, very good reasons for feeling unsafe about sleepovers, people who suffered abuse in that situation or are close to those
who did. Lots of people who work in child protection have very strong feelings about this, and child's safety comes first, always without question. But there's another level to this discussion, and that's where we're mostly going to be hanging out when we talk about it today. The new anxiety around sleepovers is also very much about control. It's about bedtimes, food choices, screens, technology in general. Jesse, You've been having
some big discussions about this. Tell me what you're hearing out there.
So there was an article in the Sunday Morning Herald about a week ago that covered this issue, and one of the people interviewed, I believe, was a counselor, And as you say, Holly, counselors hear some stories and I can imagine that that would influence your worldview. But I spoke on ABAC radio about it last week and had
the most interesting callers. One who was a police officer and so was his wife, and they made a conscious decision that they would not let the things they saw in the day job influence how they parented because they
didn't want to project that anxiety onto their kids. And one of the most interesting ones was a teacher who said she'd been teaching for like more than thirty years, and at the beginning of her career, you would have school camps where maybe you went away for two nights in year maybe seven and eight, and now they can barely do one night. A significant portion of kids will
not go away for one night. They cannot be apart from their parents because at that age it is the first time they will ever spend a night away from their parents, and that's causing an issue for schools. And she was saying that from a child development point of view, independence is critical at that age because everything from packing to doing the routine of brushing the teeth or having a shower or not doing those things because you're away
from your parents. They're just really important milestones that we appeared to be missing. And there's a theory that Jonathan Height and a bunch of other experts put forward, which is, this is why we're having this anxious generation because they're not having enough practice at resilience and independence.
And what do you think?
It's really hard because I feel so bad for kids who don't get to experience a sleepover and really want to. I remember, like I don't remember much from my primary school days, but I do remember all the sleepovers I went on. I started going to sleepovers really early on when I was younger, with just my cousins like family, and I remember when I started school, my parents were a bit hesitant on taking me to sleepovers, and I
think they were mainly concerned about the cultural differences. And I remember so specifically, like my Asian friends and my ethnic friends like myself were never allowed to go on sleepovers, and I think that was mainly because of the culture. I'm biguity of not knowing what happens at different people's houses. I felt so sad for those friends of mine, because I'm sure this has changed now with kids having phones
and computers. But I remember after a sleepover, for weeks on end, that's all we would talk about at school
was the sleepover. And there was one time in particular, I think I was around nine years old where I had a fever and I couldn't go to my friend's birthday party and it was a sleepover and I sobbed for like a week straight because that's all my friends could talk about, and it would be the most mundane little things, like remember when Jessica had that pineapple lolly, even though she said she hated pineapple lollies, Like it was those little things, but it just brought such a big,
different experience into our lives. And I just remember having so much fun, and I felt so sad for my friends who weren't allowed to go.
It's interesting because your point about what you just said. I think that one of the really good things about sleepovers is observing other families up close. Right if you only ever see your family and your you know, cultural setting, whatever that is, because lots of families have their own cultures, you know what I mean as well, Like if you only ever see your family up close, you assume that all of the world is like that. And I think one of the things that's really good is watching other
families operate. And I'm always really conscious of that When my kids have sleepovers at our house and there are other kids there, I sort of think, oh wow, like they're kind of studying us like a documentary. I think it's really interesting, right, because I understand the anxiety obviously the serious worst case scenarios that we've discussed, but it is worth pointing out in that that sleepovers also involve
grandma's house, anti's house, cousin's house. Those are also sleepovers, and the statistics will show that very often abuse occurs within families that are closed or like adults who are very close and known to you. So total control would mean no sleepovers ever, including at family's houses. Right, But then beyond that, you've got to start making some kind of risk assessment if you're going to be prepared to
do it. And one of the things I feel a bit bad about this kind of some of the dialogue I've seen around this new anxiety around sleepovers and Again, it's around more what time will they go to bed, and maybe they're gonna eat something that's bad for them, Maybe they're not gonna go to bed till late, maybe
they'll watch a scary movie. Is I think that this sort of value judgment around it and this idea, I've seen quite a lot of people online saying I've decided I'm not they've only got babies in there, Like I've decided I'm not gonna let my kids have sleepovers.
Is if you don't have.
Grandma down the road and an anti nextoor and all that things, that means you are now granting yourselves no nights off from parenting ever. Right, We're just constantly piling more and more pressure on tiny family units and then wonder why they crack.
It's like what about the village?
You know, Like the idea that if you don't have grandma who lives down the road and you're going to say no sleepovers, that means you and your partner, if you've got one and never gonna go and have a night away, You're never going to go out late.
Like there's a whole lot of.
Things you're never gonna do because you're afraid and I worry about that.
Yeah, And there's this dual tension, right that our kids are spending too much time on screens and not enough time with their friends, but also this very real fear about the risks that the world offers up. So if you can't leave a kid with a family member or a friend, then they're always at home. But something's got to give, so likely there are going to be moments when they're on their screen, which we know isn't perfect either.
This is massive on TikTok, on kind of parent TikTok, right, And I was listening to some of the sentences that some are experts like pediatricians, and others are parents giving some advice, and they said one was sexual assault is committed by people we know love and trust, and another was a father. And there's got so many likes and so much engagement when it comes to my kids, I don't trust anybody, and I don't think we can live
in that world. On the one hand, I totally understand it if you have had that experience, I can't imagine what it would be like raising a child when you have had a traumatic experience as a child yourself. But if you haven't, I think you can mitigate risk, you can make sensible decisions from knowing who the family is, knowing who's going to be around. Interestingly, the discussion in the US, and this is relevant, is there guns in the house. Luckily that isn't one that's relevant to Australia.
But I do reckon that at some point you've got to trust the adults around you and if you are sitting there with this like enormous anxiety, then your child is going to absorb that and that can't be good either, right.
Yeah, But I also have a question on if something does go a bit wrong, like how do you manage the parenting after that? Like another example I had at a sleepover was I was at a friend's birthday. I think we were probably eleven years old, and two of the girls got into the mum's alcohol cabinet.
Yeah, this is the most common scenario in the world, right, Okay, this is good to know because it's traumatized for life. It's the most common scenario.
And they were just like swigging, I want to say, like the worst alcohol. And then they started violently throwing up. And then the mom came in and she was like, oh my god, all the parents were called, we all got picked up, but then one of them wasn't allowed to go to any sleepovers for the rest of the year, and the other one just showed up at the next party. And as kids who weren't involved, we were very very confused, and even my parents were a bit like, well, you
were there, but did you do it? Like it was really hard to navigate. They were just very.
Confused, just like every bit of parenting. One of the things that we're all really afraid of now is everybody else's judgments, right, so that happens still happens all the time.
And that scenario that you talked about.
The first time I ever got drunk was a sleepover, or the first time I ever saw an adult magazine was probably a sleepover. Like, it is true that these things happen.
Your sleepovers are much cooler.
Them, but nothing disastrous occurred, you know what I mean. It was just that kind of stuff. And the thing is is, obviously I have a teenager and we've been through a lot of sleepover things.
It's different for me.
I'll talk more about my daughter's sleepovers because my son that's a little bit different, and kids who have different needs. You know, you've got to have different rules. But my daughter's very social. She loves her friends, and sleepovers is the thing they all want to do. And I'm not in the business of telling other people what to do, but I allow them, and I allow them at my house. But I'd have my own rules, which I think every
family does. It's like my house, my rules. So in our house, they're not allowed their phones after a certain time, so I'll go in and take everybody's phones and stuff. Sometimes kids get upset about that.
It's tough.
It's my house, my rules, right, same way that if we're having pizza for dinner, we're having pizza for dinner. Obviously, dietaries not exclusives.
Oh my god, I could never do the like, I don't know, aren't you just like?
What if they hate me? I don't care. And I'm not very particularly strict.
But the thing that I always do because when I was my daughter's age, I was a naughty teenager and I lied about where I was staying the night nearly always. So my number one thing is I always check. I have to have the parent's phone number, and I obviously when she was little, I had to know them and all that but she's older. Now I have to have the parent's phone number. I always check with the parent. So and so it says they're staying at your house, is that true?
Will you be home?
Like? That's base level stuff, And most I know this is big on TikTok, and I feel like it's a particular thing when your kids are little and you're looking ahead and you're going I will never But most parents I know sit somewhere in a sensible center on this, which is they have their own boundaries. Like, so, Matilda had someone stay over last week, I wasn't there, so obviously I made sure that her parents knew that I wasn't there and that Brent was there, and were they
okay with that? Like just communication, you know what I mean? And I think that most people are like that.
They're sensible, and things are going to happen at sleepovers that aren ideal. Like on the one hand, you've got I'm sure we all remember, you know, the two way conversations and the realizing how shit you feel the next day when you didn't get any sleep and all of that. But on the other hand, I remember instances of bullying, of complex friendship dynamics. It means being said, all of those things happen too, but they are something that you deal with as a teenager. You learn things from it,
and again it reinforces your independence. But for cultural reasons, for family reasons, for religious reasons, for a million reasons, some families won't do sleepovers. And it's not the only way that you can encourage independence, right, Like.
No, And actually what happens now is something called a sleep under. So I've got friends who do their kids have sleepovers and that's fine. And Matilda's got friends whose parents will other kids sleepover. So sleep under is where they come and they do all the fun things that the other kids are doing, so you know, like if you're getting some pizza or doing whatever, hanging out, but then they come and pick them up at about ten o'clock or like nine o'clock or whatever is the thing.
And that's called a sleep under, and that is really popular because if for whatever reason you're not comfortable with sleepovers, your kids still get some of the fun, but just not the midnight stuff.
Yeah.
What I struggle with, I guess, is the TikTok parenting experts wagging their finger at other parents, sort of suggesting that you're being irresponsible or naive or idealistic if you allow your child to do anything that is slightly risky. Because everyone out there is a monster. I don't want to live in a world where we are treating everyone as a monster. If this conversation has brought up anything for you, then we have some resources in the show notes.
Out loudest in a moment, we have some recommendations for your weekend. Vibes ideas Atosphere, something casual, something fun.
This is my best recommendation.
It is Friday, so we want to help set up your weekend with our very best recommendations. Holly, you go best.
You know how my recommendations. I have a reputation with my co hosts for being a bit basic. Yes, I am bringing you the most basic of all recommendations because I think we all know or many of us know that. And just like that's coming back, which is the polarizing new version of Sex and the City, which is about to come back with season three. When does it drop The end of May May thirty. So I'm like an athlete preparing for this event.
Yeah, she's done training.
And what I've been doing, and because we've been traveling a lot, which we'll talk about in a minute. But one of the things that I do for like a comfort wind down, is I have been watching the entire season six, which is the last season of Sex and the City, the TV show, Right.
I loved that last season.
Oh my god, it is so good.
And I know there are problematic things about it, don't at me. There definitely are. There's a bit where Charlotte puts a mascot and pretends to be blind. There's quite a lot of stuff that just is not okay. But as a season of television, in these thirty minute storytelling chunks, so much happens in that season. You know what I'm
talking about if you're familiar. Carrie meets Berger, gets dumped by Berger, Miranda goes out with the guy who lives downstairs, gets back together with Steve, they get married, Samantha gets cancered, Carrie meets the hot Russian, they have their whole thing, moves to Paris, Charlotte's getting pregnant child black Like, so much happens in this one season, and it is funny and light and so well told, and I am loving it.
And I'm just recommending that if you just want to turn your brain off and just enjoy some excellent classic like TV, especially if you are limbering up for and just like that season six it is untouchable. It is Oh, it's on Max.
By the way, everybody, how about you, M what's your recommendation?
So I recently got a notification on my book app because I had it said that I wanted to read fifty books this year, and then I got a note for saying, if you want to stick to your goal, you need to read six books a month.
So instead of reading goal on your reading app like Kindling, Yeah, I have fable.
It's an app that you can like track all your books and stuff on it. A lot of people use it similar to Goodreads.
Have you already read my book on there?
I definitely have read your book, Kelly, and I've given you five stars.
Thank you very much, my friend. Please proceed, Please proceed.
So I was recommended this book by a friend. It's called The God of the Woods by Liz Moore, and it's kind of a thriller mystery drama. And the reason I picked it up was because I've kind of been in a hole of romanticy novels like I've been reading my fairy smut. I've been reading about sexy dragons and I was like, I need to get out of this. I can't just this can't.
Be my thing.
But you love that stuff, right, I love that stuff, And I think it's when I first got into Romanticy. It was just something that's so different from everyday life. I feel like when I read books now, I'm always like in the back of my head looking for a pitch, like an article or something to talk about in a podcast, and with Romanticy, you actually can't do that because it's about dragons essentially.
I love that. So many people do. People just talk to me all the time about Romanticy. It's so good. I love it.
So this book is actually a thriller mystery drama. It's still a novel, but it's about this girl named Barbara, and it's set in nineteen seventy five at an exclusive, high end summer camp for kids. And I picked it up holes straight after your book, so I now know
a lot about camping two books. So it's set at this camp and Barbara goes missing, and Barbara in particular is the daughter of the extremely wealthy family that owns the camp and also employs pretty much the entire region they live in, so they're very very high up family, and her disappearance came fourteen years after her brother disappeared in a very similar way. Oh this is mye gripping.
It's so well written. Oh it's so well doneminds me a lot of your book Hold with the descriptions of the camp and the maps and everything, so you can kind of like see it in your head. And it's just one of those thrillers that I physically couldn't put down. It's very similar to like Gillian Flynn's writing. I absolutely loved it.
Remind me what it's called.
It is called The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.
All right, that's my next raad. My recommendation is purely here to make both of you feel like bad people. And that is my reco is giving blood. I gave blood last Friday. I've already told you both. I've already told everyone I've come across. I saw, you know, Amelia's husband is a doctor, and i'd run into him recently and I told him within thirty seconds that I'd give him blood because doctors really like it when you give blood.
So anyway, I should tell all of you too. I also tell everyone that I have magic blood, which is own egg, which means that I am obligated to give blood because I am a It's like you're a vampire's dream. Yes, when Spider Man says, with great something comes great responsibility, that's me with blood. So did you know that giving blood like needle goes in seven minutes? Seven minutes? I had to have a bit of a consult before because I traveled recently, and so that you should look that
up before you do it. It's like I'd been to Fiji and it's got to be four weeks before you can do it. So there's just some funny things and a few people get caught out once they're there. So I would definitely check. But I think a lot of people think with blood it's a car accident or these traumatic accidents, and that's true. Your blood is especially own negative, is
often used for that. But if you know anyone who is going through cancer treatment, the chances are they will need it at some point because it helps them, you know, do the chemo or the radiation or whatever. I have a friend's mum who's needed a few transfusions lately, and so it is such a privilege to be in the position where you're well enough to do it. And I have felt like such a good person for the last week. And every time you tell someone they really do have
to give you a pat on the back. It's just like, sometimes I don't feel like a good person, and that has just been honestly, it has given me a lot of self esteem.
It's on my list of things I've got to get around to doing when things calm down and inverted commas. And also plasma if you can do that too, that is incredibly.
Yes, plasma, and you can give plasma more often as well.
Jesse, I don't know if it was you, but someone said, if you're single, going to a blood bank.
It was me.
It was me.
I wrote a story, so I gave blood years ago, and I hadn't done it in a few years because I'd had some issues with iron deficiency. But we went as a workplace because someone that we love who we worked with was diagnosed with cancer and we all went and gave blood. And I was like, I know, this
isn't the point, but everyone here is really hot. And not only were they hot, but they had great values because they were like, I care about saving lives, and I looked around and went, this is a single girl's dream. And I remember speaking to Life Blood about it. It's often, you know, it's like a professional who's going on their lunch break and they're just like, honestly, em, I reckon go, don't give too much. You've still got to be standing.
You need enough blood for yourself. But I reckon go and just look around and I think you might meet the love of your life at the blood bank.
Whoa a win is a win?
After the break, the highs and lows of being on the road, a very inappropriate question, and a special birthday, it is time for Best and Worst.
One unlimited out loud access.
We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mamma Mia subscribers.
Follow the link of the show notes.
To get us in your ears five days a week. And a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
Holly, do you want to go first?
I will.
I'm breaking the rules a little bit to them.
I'm going to mush them up together because my best and worst are the same thing. We have talked about the tour a little bit. We're going to talk about it a little bit more in a minute too, some very special people on the road. But my best and worst this last week and the last few weeks has been tour travel because I absolutely love traveling. I love flying, I love hotels, I love doing the shows. I love pushing myself. I love hanging out with you guys and
all the crew. I love it, like I genuinely love it. But I have been away from my family so much. And this is exacerbated by the fact that obviously, as a lot of out loud as know, a couple of well four years ago now, I moved down the coast in New South Wales, so I don't live near Sydney.
I don't live near the airport.
So that complicates things in that it means that often when we come back to town, if we're going again soon, like I end up staying in hotels more and away. So there's been long stretches where I haven't seen the family. And we always knew, Like Brent and I at the beginning of this year, when we were looking at the year, we were like, well, May is just crazy because I've got a book coming out, which is an amazing, you know thing.
You work so hard on.
And finally comes and then we've got the tour, which is the highlight of my mom and me are out loud year.
I love it. But they were all colliding. So we're just new.
So we talked to the kids and we're just like, talk to the dog, talk to everybody, talk to the plants.
Just like, I'm going to be traveling a lot. I'm not going to be around.
It's not going to be great, but we'll get through it, and then we're all going to go on holiday together in the school holidays. But it's so weird, and I know there are so many people who have to travel for work or lots of different reasons. Maybe they're fly and fly out, maybe they're you know, doing lots of
different things. That it's like a great privilege really because you get to still with your parent and you've got a busy family life, because you get to live a little bit of just you, just you being selfish, like sitting in a hotel room watching sex in the city, right,
you know, winding down from a show. But then on the other hand, I just by the end of last week, I was just pining for them, like just absolutely pining for them, and you know, that you're not there for things you should be there for, and you know you're just not there for all the incidental little stuff, and you know that the cabbage is are and it's just the caterpillars are having their way with your broccoli.
How do you feel at the end of it, Holly, do you really really miss them? Do you just want to go in?
I really really miss them?
And then the thing that's funny about it, and again lots of people who travel for work will know this is then you get home and you're home for like a day, and it's like you are never gone, and the washing is up to the ceiling and they're all just like, oh, they're so happy to see you when you first get home. But then they're just everyone just slots back into normal life and you're like, oh yeah, and then you're like, oh, hotel room would be kind
of nice. No, So it's been like, I know, I sound like a very privileged winter because these are the best things about my job, right, Like, this is such good stuff, you know, talking to people about my book. He would never talk to people about the tour, meeting out loud as on the tour, traveling with all these smart women but fuck, I miss my family a lot and it's a weird.
High low situation.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Em what was your worst?
So my worst. This is gonna sound so lame compared to Holly's work, but it's kind of similar with the traveling around, Like I don't think I'm cut out for the rock star life. Like it's just a lot of hotels, a lot of flights, which I absolutely love and it's so exciting and it's so new to me. But I am the most undisciplined person in history, to the point where I genuinely think I need to be studied because I don't understand it. If I'm not held accountable for
doing things, I just won't do them. And I've been really taking the mickey out of this whole, like little stint of ours being away and everything's just out of control of my life, Like I haven't planned when to do my washing. My apartment's been in a constant mess. I've been in the office when I'm not allowed to be in the office because it's still under construction. I've
just been breaking so many rules. I've been sleeping in, I've been eating crazy, i haven't been taking my vitamins, and I'm starting to now feel the ramifications for all of that, Like I am starting to become a frazzle person. I'm not a frazzle person, generally hard relate.
And I've not eaten. I know, we don't do good food, bad food. God, I've eaten like crap and I'm feeling it. It's like, because you're so out of whack, you just sort of eat what you can get and you get to the end of it and go, no, I probably need a vegetable.
Literally, i haven't even vegetable. I've been like surviving on meta musial my whole boughs because it's just been insane, to the point where my mom came over I think it was after the Brisbane show, and she just came over and cleaned my apartment and kissed me food and was like, you need to figure this out because I can't do this.
For the rest of my life.
But I'm like, that's true.
I'm sure that's a Telesis's mum does too, surely.
But my best was also related to show because I celebrated my birthday for the Sydney show and it was hands down the best birthday I've ever had. It was just so much fun. I get a lot of anxiety from my birthday. On my twenty third birthday, I had my first anxiety attack and it was at like a big party I had for myself, and since I was twenty three, I haven't had a party for my birthday
since then. Like I've had my go to was like a dinner with three of my closest friends, a dinner with my parents, and a breakfast with my grandparents, and I've just done that every year. And then the Sydney Show.
It was just so much fun.
And I think it's because I had just sure a great habit to build, but I had so much anxiety for the Sydney Show that the anxiety for my birthday just never came.
And it was just fun and everyone was stay out loudest spontaneously sang you I need to.
Find out who started that, because it wasn't anyone I know. I've asked everyone and they were like, oh, sorry, it wasn't ass So it was. It wasn't out louder and it was so beautiful and the crew and you guys were just so nice and you made me feel so special. And it was the first birthday where it was all happiness and zero anxiety, and I absolutely loved it.
It was so much fun.
I was so special to spend your birthday with you and the big twenty nine. No, my worst is it's a question I got asked at the park. And I want to be clear because I actually don't think there's anything inappropriate about this question. And I've had great conversations with women about it, right, And that is the second baby question. I am constantly having conversations about it. You know, people can be really touchy, and I get it about when you're having a baby, did it? Like all of
that stuff can be a button for people. But I've had lots of women say to me, are you thinking about a second? And We've had great conversations and I'm really honest with them and we go back and forth. And I'm always asking people about the age gap and when did you decide to have a second and blah
blah blah. But I was at the park and this woman came over to me and asked how old Luna was and asked if I was thinking about having a second, which is fine, but it was the follow up questions that I found to be inappropriate, like bordering on almost a bit like aggressive, like annoid that I hadn't had a second. So she was like, she came over, asked you think about having a second, and then like why haven't you had one yet? What are you waiting for?
And when were you thinking? And if she's nearly two, then it might be time. And she was like nearly aggressive about it, And I thought, do you want me to turn to you, stranger who I have never met, and talked to you about my ovulation schedule and how that is intersecting with my husband's availability, Like do you help pride it? These conversations are you don't know if I've been struggling for twelve months. You don't know if I'm currently pregnant, you don't know if I have had
pregnancy loss. Like it's just a very sore topic. And on my way back from the park, I was like, the thing is that everyone who has one baby has thought about a second, either they've decided that they don't want to, or they do want to or whatever. It's like, you're not bringing.
Them the idea.
You're not planting an idea that hasn't crossed my mind. I'm obviously thinking about that. I am very aware of age all that kind of stuff. I just thought, if someone is a stranger, like love conversations with strangers, but just don't compound the fertility anxiety and don't keep going.
It's so funny, not funny, hahd. But Jesse, I think because you know, there's so much out there now, we share so much on STUCI. I don't mean usk, yes, but I sort of think everyone's got the memo about like not asking people those kind of questions, just like you don't ask people if they're pregnant, or you don't ask people if they want to have kids, or if they're about to get married.
You know what I mean.
Like, in my mind, we've all got that memo and we don't push it. But clearly that's a false reality. Clearly there's plenty of pushing still going on.
And I have a theory that it is worse when you've had one. I reckon that if you don't have kids. I've got heaps and mates without kids, and I think people go, you know what, none of my business. Maybe they don't want them, maybe they do whatever. When you've had one, it's like you've opened the door for people to go, Are you having more like they think that conversation is appropriate when I know a lot of people who have struggled with a second or for various reasons,
don't want one. It's just like, yeah, people think that it's an appropriate kind of thing, and if you're a mate, so happy to have the conversation, but strangers just different.
Oh my god, that's so stressful to me.
Exactly.
My best is we've been touring for six or seven years. We've been doing it for a while, and I reckon we've done more than fifty live shows. Yeah, and this has been my absolute favorite for a few reasons. We've had a few special guests on the road with us, and speaking of sleepovers, it's been like a big sleepover with just the best company because you spend so much time.
You have dinner together, you're backstage together, like I've just loved that incidental time and the crew, like you know, we get on stage and get an applause and do what I maintain is the easy bit, the logistics, the work that has gone on behind the scenes. And I couldn't possibly name everyone but Paula and Ruth and em Lucy Lucy's Oh, it's unbelievable.
So many co Co and Tessa who are traveling with us and doing all the socials that you're seeing. This one here Emily Vernon, who's stepping out on stage for the first time in front of all those people.
Exactly, And now we can actually name who the other special guest was, because now everyone knows. Of course, Amelia Lester. Amelia was on the road with us, and like, spending time with you two has just been so much fun. So we're just so lucky.
It's such a good team. Like it's so much fun.
Such a good team. So I've just enjoyed it so much. It's been not only my best for the week, but I reckon it'll be the highlight of my ear for sure.
Massive appreciation to all those amazing women. And you know what's funny we talked about this, it's not entirely true because there are some dudes behind the scenes who came upon the Sydney Show.
There's Josh.
We were in Brisbane and all the crew came up on the stage to take a bow and I knew someone who was there and she said, oh my god, seeing all that all female crew, you know, it was so empowering.
It was so powerful and Jesse.
I told Jesse that after dinner, and we looked at each other and went that had never even heard like We're just so used to being surrounded by amazing kicks women that like, it doesn't seem remarkable, but you know what, I bet it is remarkable.
Honestly, Wow, wow, wow wow, so much fun, so cool.
That is all we have time for today. We will stop talking about the tour now. It probably really annoys everybody who didn't get back to original programming. But a massive thank you to all of you out louders who listen to us today, any day every week. We'll be back in your ears on Monday. Jesse and them read us out.
Big thank you to our team group executive producer Ruth Devine executive producer Emmeline Gazillis, both of whom I have bought sympathy cards for after how much time they've i to spend with us over the last month.
Our audio producer is Leah Porge's, our video producer is Josh Green, our one man in our big team, Hey, and our junior content producers Coco and Tessa.
Bye bye, out Louders. We know you're not ready to say goodbye. We thought we would leave you with a little bit of a conversation we had on a subscriber episode yesterday about an out louder who was having a pretty good time with a situationship that needed to end it and she hadn't ended a relationship in more than twenty years. Look did she come to the right place for advice?
You will see a link to.
That episode will be in the show notes. Shout out to any Mum and mea subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to Mom and Mia is the very best way to do so. There's a link in the episode description