You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to MoMA Mia out Loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the thirteenth of August. I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm Jesse Stevens.
And I'm Amelia Lester.
And here's what's made our agenda for today. Pobs restaurants and the tennis One female player's reaction to a noisy child has reignited a debate about where kids are welcome, and we do not agree.
There's a lot happening in the world this week, and I'm going to give you the talking points you need in under five minutes.
And why the MoMA Mea office went into a frenzy over Taylor swift yesterday. We are gonna unpack the pr of it all because some Swifties are saying it was a bit clumsy.
So there is a theory.
Yep, there's a theory.
An orange. You're gonna explain to me orange good? Okay, good? Please excuse me while I press refresh on my pre order for Pammy's Pickles. Okay, yes, I'm talking about my gardening buddy and my no makeup icon, Pamela Anderson and her new pickle line. This week, she announced that she has made some pickles. If anyone doesn't know what pickles are, cucumbers, vinegar, that's pretty much it right. She's made a new line
of pickles. All the money's going to charity. They are fifty eight dollars a jar Australian.
I like pickles. I love pickles, not fifty eight dollars.
But they've also got rose petals in them, which is a little concerning, but a bit Megan. Pamela's pickling news tickled me no end because I love me a celebrity condiment and I like to see some new entries to the marketplace. So Brooklyn Beckham's cloud twenty nine hot Sauce. I love hot sauce like I've got twenty five different hot sauces in my Fridgrookies. Yet no, I'm trying. I would like it. It's fifty three dollars a bottle has a
hot sauce. It's called tingly ted Chili sauce. It's a very reasonable twelve dollars.
Did you know that one of the FAQ's on the website is ed Sharon Whitey have a hot sauce, and he's like, I really like hot sauce. That's the whole reason I should have a hot sauce. Yes, you could have a hot sauce.
Holly's Hot sauce. Glenn Powell Smashed Kitchen has an eye out for your wallet. He's got ketchup mustards, barbecue sauce, and mayonnaise and they're all only about five dollars a piece. Swoon Megan's jam of course, sorry preserve good luck getting your hands on that. And John bon Jovi has a pasta sauce And question why celebrity condiments? And also, as much as I love condiments, do they taste better if a hot person makes them?
Yeah, they absolutely do. So there's a few reasons.
I think.
The first is I feel like you can own unlimited condiments, and that we all feel like we might be one condiment from yummy. Right, So it's like ben products, I'm one product from.
Beautiful, I'm one lipstick away, yeah from exactly, yeah exactly.
And that's that's the thing where one condiment from going And it's kind of the lipstick effect in that you may not be able to afford all of the fancy foods at the moment, but you will get that condiment that you know isn't one meal, but you use it over many. And that's why they say condiments are recession proof. So they's something that if you invest in as a celebrity or you put your face to it, then it's a good economic move. And apparently I didn't know this
condiment talk big deal. Oh, condiments are very big on TikTok, so all the slubs are jumping on.
I've got a bit of a Megan angle on this, which is that Pame is doing this for Fu Mngo Estate, which is a Los Angeles based kind of farm goods beauty products line. It's actually sold in Mecca here and many people say that Megan's as ever is modeled on Flamingo Estate. Now what is interesting is one I have been to Flamingo Estate. I once did a story where I went there, and it's the most beautiful farm in southern California and it literally looks like the Garden of Eden.
And I just imagine Pame with her hair up in the iconic claw clip bun. Yeah, because that's also hygienic when you're making condiments to get the hair out of the way, just sort of pickling her cauliflower and her cucumbers in this beautiful garden.
This is my dream. You are describing my dree light. She wears white while she's in the garden at all times. Also, Pami, which is very very very like unpractical, impractice impractical.
And did you follow the fact that when she was first asked about Megan and Megan's cooking products Empire, she was very dismissive of it, But then when she was asked about it recently, she said there's plenty of room for celebrity cooking shows and that she didn't invent them. So there's a way in which Pammy and Meg's are kind of evolving on parallel tracks.
Heah, that's so interesting.
I also reckon that there's nothing controversial about a condiment like it feels like a very safe, low barrier to entry space to enter into. There's a few other things that would probably be harder.
I have a question. Does Liam Neeson like Pam's pickles.
I'm sure he does, so.
I wanted to show you something. Okay, what do we got?
We got ah brief curse.
Yep, Mick Greens, Yep.
This is my brand new album, The Life of a Showgirl.
I like grown men losing their shit.
No, that sounds like the office twenty four hours ago is exactly the sound that was ringing through the Mummere office. There's a tweet that we republished on our Instagram yesterday morning that read it's a big day for annoying people and then in brackets it said me And on Tuesday, if you were in a workplace, you may have noticed a considerable drop in productivity around twelve minutes past two Sydney time. Perhaps there were people gathering at desks. It
sounded exactly like that. There were groans, there were screams, there were sqheels, something something ts twelve New Heights, Showgirl, Mint Green a podcast clip. Friends. I don't understand much, but what I do know is that Taylor Allison Swift Friend of the Pod, has a new album and it is called.
Friend of the She listens finitely listen.
No, I have beef because she did not decide to come on here to announce this album. It is called the Life of a show Girl. We also know that tomorrow we will be able to listen to the first podcast interview Taylor is done in years and the interviewers will be her boyfriend Travis Kelce and his brother Jason. If you are not a swiftye if you don't know that Taylor's favorite number is thirteen something minus one equals twelve, I don't know. And you're not into decoding puzzles that
include something about a glitter emoji, then don't panic. We're not here to delve into every single little detail. But what we do want to do is look at this PR strategy because some of it, by Taylor's standards, felt a bit rushed, and the decision to sit down with Travis rather than say Alex Cooper on call her daddy, some people have feelings about it. Now I want to take a few steps back, Amelia. This is one of your areas of expertise. We know you went to Harvard.
This was one of the courses. Speak to me about the leak theory.
Here's how things happened yesterday, how I experienced them Australian Eastern Standard time. Yesterday morning, was walking around a supermarket and my phone started blowing up with images on x and on Reddit of what looked like photos from Taylor Swift's new album. There was a photo of her in
a very dramatic black bob. There was also a photo of her in sort of Vegas showgirl garb, and there was also a list of tracks, and people were speculating that this was the album that there's been chatter about for a while, because when.
I put my hand up and asked a question, wasn't the last album just like five minutes ago the tortured poets, was that last year being.
The second longest hiatus that she's.
Sayless me and it's only been what ae longest a year? And their collie she just so see, I didn't know we were expecting a drop there was because I'm not a sniff.
You weren't clowning. There were various clues that one was coming, which I won't bore you with. But these images got leaked, and then also some lyrics leaked on the lyrics website Genius, and then we all somehow went to tailorswift dot com. You know how these things happen on the Internet. Everyone suddenly on tailorswift dot com. It turned into a bright orange, glittery countdown to twelve twelve twelve Eastern times, so that's the time on the East coast of the US, which
was two pm Australian Eastern. And then when the countdown ended, we were greeted with a shop with the pre sales for an album which, as you mentioned, Jesse is going to be called The Life of a Showgirl. And then as if that wasn't enough, then the New Heights clip dropped. New Heights is the podcast at Travis and Jason Kelcey host which they recently got one hundred million dollars for, and that's when she announced that she's going to be on the show tomorrow Thursday.
Have another question, Do I have to buy the album? Don't I just get to listen to it for nothing? What do mean in pre order? What do you mean shop?
Yeah?
People? Actually what am I talking?
Apparently the Australian shop was literally impossible to get into and people kept being redirected to the American shop. That's how popular it was.
Do you mean to buy a vinyl pre order.
A vinyl copy? I want to talk a bit about why she chose to go on New Heights though.
Yes, this is the part I am really interested in because I'm impressed. Okay, and your sentiment, Holly. It is reflected on the internet. There is a viral comment that says, Taylor Swift has led me to places I wouldn't even go with a gun listening to a podcast hosted by men. Commentator Hannah Ferguson wrote, yes, I will be the first listener. But imagine being one of the most successful women in the world and announcing your next huge career milestone on
your boyfriend's sports podcast. Why do we think she decided to do that?
Wain right, Well, Amelia, I can't tell you why, but I can tell you that I don't like it, but we'll get to that.
I'm wrong. You were wrong. Taylor and Travis have become an iconic unit in themselves and just also overnight, as if there wasn't enough news, Travis came out on the cover of usgq's September issue, which is a really big deal, and he was styled in that by law Roach. She styles Zenday like. He has become a huge iconic figure in American pop culture as a result of his relationship with Taylor. In addition to his football career.
He plays football apparently tight end.
When he's not being Taylor Swift's boyfriends.
I want to unpack why I think they're such a good couple together and why it therefore makes sense for her to announce this on his podcast. Let's run through a few things they have in common. Both have parents who separated in their early adulthood, and this is something that is a big canon event for Travis. He talks about it a lot in the GQ article. They were both in their early twenties when their parents divorced. They maintain close relationships with their parents, and their parents maintain
close relationships with each other. Secondly, both very close to their brothers. Taylor's brother, Austin, is in charge of a music licensing business. Travis hosts this pod cast with his brother. Both talk a lot about having a really strong work ethic. They both love self promotion. They're both very unabashed about it, and we love that for them. And then, finally, not all of us do. Before the gen Exit talks about
selling out. There's an anecdote in the GQ piece which I want to share because I think it really gets at what these two seemingly very different people actually seeing each other. Travis is at a restaurant with a singing waiter. I don't know why. It's one of those odd celebrity profile tropes where you go to a weird restaurant and the singing waiter comes over to the table and starts
singing Lauren Hill's song X Factor. Now that sounds a little cringe inducing, a little mortifying, and the interviewer is very embarrassed, but he looks across at Travis, and Travis is sitting hands in lap, gazing up respectfully at this singing waiter and just listening until the end of the song and then thanking her for her service as she
moves along to the next table. That reminded me of how the one thing we know about Taylor Allison Swift outside of the law is that she's extremely respectful to people, no matter their station. We've heard a lot about how she tips people enormous amounts over the holidays. Everyone fans says she's extremely gracious to them. I think that's what
these two people have in common. They're people who market themselves as normal people, and they have the good manners and the behavior to kind of back up that demeanor.
Yeah, but all you've done there is tell me why they're a good match and that's fine, right, that's so fine. I'm so glad for them, very happy for them, very happy. We've all heard a lot about the less good matches that Taylor has dated, and I love those songs. In fact, I'm much more here for heartbreak song than a happy song. And I know this is my gen X coding that is deep within me, right that finds it a tiny bit icky that it's all so marketing like all the time.
And I'm so sorry because I know swift Is will hate me so much for saying this, But I love Taylor Swift. I think she's a genius. But the thing about her that grates me is the intensely thought out everything at all times. I love that, the twelve eyes in this, the twelve pictures on the thing, the twelve, the twelve that and the fact that nothing is organic. I find that difficult. And I know it's my gen EX coding. It's like intrusive thoughts. I can't help it.
I'm like, shut up, Holly, and I'm like, isn't it great that she's going out with a blokey bloke? And then I'm like, but DoD Jocks really need another win? No, I surely stop it, like I just can't with them, and so I know that they're lovely. But here's my thing that I find really interesting is sure they're very happy, and I'm sure they're going to go on to be
very happy. But it's so interesting to do such as one ady from being a very private person in your love life, because even with all the song lyrics, she's always intensely private, like she when she went out with that what's his name, the one who's not very good actor Joe al Yes, like they went out of their way to barely be photographed together, like silhouettes of him would appear. And then so her and Travis are on stage, they're on each other's podcast, and I think that's wonderful
because maybe he's really comfortable with her success. But isn't it a weird relationship? One eighty and then to go, I'm going to direct millions and millions of listeners to this show, Like it's.
Just no, because we don't know if that was Taylor's choice, right, Like she did have boyfriends, yes, yes, yes, yes, if that was her choice when it came to Joe Urwiner or other relationships that she had, those relationships didn't work and she's landed with Travis.
But they did work for a time, like you know, but.
They ultimately ended. And Travis is the first partner of Taylor, who is a sort of an unashamed fanboy.
I'm going to pull you up on that. Tom Hitdleston wore the iHeart t s tank.
They were pat pictures, so it's different like paparazzi being caught out. Like you know, there are photographs of her with all these people, but most of them are pap Generally speaking, she has tried to keep it very on the download and I'm I'm all for evolution, So maybe she's very much like and look at that. That was bullshit and I think of all the wasted energy of not being out and proud and the two of us. But it's just I don't.
Know, Okay, I have some pr theories that I have gleaned from the internet. Okay, So she is above doing the circuit, the podcast circuit.
Oh obviously hasn't even given anything.
That's what they wanted to ask, why this podcast a football podcast as opposed to call her daddy?
Well, I reckon that it is about She can obviously do any podcast in the world. She would be most comfortable with Travis. She gets to be candid, but she also gets to have total control, whereas if she were on anyone else's platform, she probably wouldn't. Imagine how reluctant you would be after she has done sort of podcast interviews in the past, like five years ago or so. But we know she controls publicity around her so.
Care she would have total control if she went on call her daddy, total control, Like there is no more powerful pop culture figure in the world. We all know about Tree Pain, who's her legendary public says too, you know what cracks a whip like she could have chosen any of them, Dax Mark, they're all blokes, yeah, except for Alex.
The format of those is long form, and I don't think that Taylor is particularly comfortable doing long form. She gets to decide if this is five or ten or fifth how long do you think it's going to be. I don't think it's going to be an hour. I reckon it's probably going to be like fifteen.
I don't think Travis is really into an hour long interview anyone.
No, And this is my other theory. Okay, So GQ interview Travis does talk a little bit about Taylor, and you know, anything he says has been Tree has checked it, and he's just repeating what he's allowed to say. He talked about how Taylor is like an athlete, he's been blown away by she walks off stage and he just goes, that was an athletic performance. How tired she is afterwards. All of that, which I think is hyping up the album because the album is going to be all about
the Eras tour and the Showgirl and blah blah blah. Now, why would she go on New Heights because it's her boyfriend Theory Hollywayen. Right, there is one thing she's never done. She's never done the super Bowl, right, And she has been on the record as saying I want to do six albums or something before I do the super Bowl. She was doing the Eras to a few years and years and years.
Jesse, I just got chills. And see where you're checking this.
There's something about the super Bowl happening next year, something about it happening in California, which has some relationship to Orange. I think she's doing the super Bowl.
What's the Orange?
I don't know, Amelia, I don't understand any of the clues.
This is such a good theory up until what were you through orange.
Into Everything is orange?
Now? All right, it's my cynical side. I know it is my genic cynical side. Every relationship is a happy ending till it isn't. You often regret being quite so gushy and open in a relationship who hasn't been there. Two years in, you're telling everybody, this is my person. I've never felt more understood. Six months later you're like, what did I ever see in that?
What?
Like even if they break up tomorrow. It's like she's done so many different announcements for albums. Remember last time she got so much because she did it at the ground Gray and so people went, yeah, you're feeling someone's moment. And then with this one, it's like with your boyfriend. I mean, it's just an album.
That's one hundred percent true. That is one hundred percent true. But I think that one of the things that the tailor law does is encourages over analyzation. That's the whole point.
Yeah, she's a walking point for it.
So it's not like who cares, It's like, there's got to be.
A reason I have one more question familiar, which is, if we go these leaks started yesterday, Tree Pain would have been on the phone having a panic attack. Do we think that something hasty happened yesterday. Do you think that yesterday unfolded like the plan was, or did they have to make changes in real time about the kind of announcement.
It's interesting because it is her twelfth album, so the numerology of it all kind of added up. I looked closely at her presentation in the podcast video. She had
a perfect cat eye, which was interesting. But I imagine it's probably not hard for Taylor Swift to rustle up and make up artist on short notice, or maybe she's even perfected her own cat I. I think she was wearing a shirt that she tucked in because she wanted to avoid pregnancy speculation as to whether this was planned the podcast appearance, she could have done that on the fly.
They appeared to be home together at one of their many mansions in the American Midwest, and it could have been something that was pulled together very quickly.
And maybe that's the reason. Maybe there wasn't time to do all the contracts and all of that for call her Daddy and they just went screw up. We'll do Travis here he is with his microphone.
I also love that Taylor Swift's version of a chaotic album launch would be anybody else's like mastermind quisition.
I will say one of our content producers is swifty.
Just show me one.
There's quite as so many of them, and they're yelling. There was an equation on the board yesterday, and I still don't understand someone's an equation.
It's like Russell Crow in a beautiful Wine.
It's exactly like that the Swifties. And she says that the Chief's colors, the Chiefs is who Travis played with and he won the Super Bowl. The Chiefs is red and yellow. And what do those colors make together? Ladies, Oh my goodness, it's orange.
But one question about the Super Bowl. There's no guarantee the Chiefs are going to be in the Super Bowl. Is it like? If the Chiefs get to the Super Bowl, and if the Chiefs do not, she will.
There.
The Carpenter could do it.
There is scarrelous gossip, very scurlous that the Chiefs. It's in the NFL's interest, the National Football League's interest, to make sure that the Chiefs get to the Super Bowl. They have made it to the Super Bowl two of the last two Super Bowls. I'm just leaving that there. In a moment, I break down some of the big stories happening in the world this week.
You might have noticed that there is a lot going on in the world at the moment, and there is a lot going on specifically in foreign policy. Now, our Amelia Lester has a day job. Do you know what it is, Jesse Stephens.
She is a boss lady at a place called Foreign Policy Holly Wainwright.
She is an editor there. Yes, we often ask Amelia to explain things to us, to break things down for us, and we thought it would be great to do that on the show this week. Complicated stuff gone on in the world. We asked, Amelia, can you get us across it in five minutes?
And I should tell you, Amelia the other day I was reading the Substack and it was referring to it was giving an example of like, you know, I'm not blah as in some really smart you know publication, and it said foreign policy and she is actually really smart.
Yeah, there is certainly a lot going on in foreign policy around the world at the moment. Too much for five minutes, But there are three big stories that I want to get you across in the next five minutes. Here goes. On Monday, Anthony Albanezi joined France and Canada in announcing that Australia was going to recognize the state of Palestine. This is going to happen at next month's
United Nations General Assembly in New York. Now, look, what's interesting is that seventy five percent of countries in the world already recognized Palestine as a state. But what's been happening in the last few weeks is that these Western countries, including Australia, have been getting on board with this. And it's a sign of how much international opinion has shifted on Israel in recent weeks. Okay, next, I have a
Chump update. It's been seven months since he was inaugurated, and a lot of the discussion I've noticed around in the American left has been revolving around this idea of how bad are things and how bad are things going to get. That's where a lot of the conversation is right now in terms of Trump's kind of authoritarian tendencies. Last week, I was really startled because the TV host Rachel Maddow called it. She said that the United States
is now a consolidating dictatorship. So let's listen to what she had to say.
Life has not stopped, and none of our personal lives have stopped. But also at the same time, life in the United States is profoundly changing, is profoundly different than it was even six months ago, because we do now live in a country that has an authoritarian leader in charge.
So matdaw is very much, i should say, a liberal commentator. She is very much on the left. But the evidence that she gathered for that claim and giving it that name was really compelling. She was pointing to, for instance, Trump's secret police forces, immigrations and Customs enforcement agents who go around scapegoading immigrants.
That's ice.
That's ice. Yep. So that was last week. But if she'd been doing the segment this week, she could have mentioned another new development, which is that Trump authorized what is essentially a federal takeover of the capital of Washington, d C.
Okay, I've seen those headlines. What does that mean?
Yeah, So this is personal for me because I lived in Washington, d C. For many years. It is my United States home. People in Washington, d C are not happy about it. Basically, what he did is he mobilized the National Guard, which is a branch of the military that's meant to look after national emergencies. There's a flood somewhere, there's an earthquake somewhere, They're going to be there to help out.
And was this in response to anything in particular.
No, he said that DC was full of filth and scum, and he used inaccurate crime statistics to prove his point that DC was kind of a hell hole.
That when he said filth and scum, he meant human beings.
Yes, So, finally the world is going to be watching what's happening in Alaska. On Friday, Big deal. Trump is going to be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. There it's Trump's seventh in person meeting with Putin. That's seven more times than he's met with Anthony Albanisi. Trump and Putin are meant to be hammering out a peace deal on Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February of twenty twenty three.
They haven't invited Ukraine's president Vladimir Zelenski, and Zelenski and European leaders are really worried about what Putin and Trump are going to discuss here and what terms they're going to put on this so called peace deal, especially since both Trump and Putin have been talking about the idea of a lance op Zwanski doesn't want a land swap. He doesn't want any Russian land. He doesn't want Russia taking Ukrainian land. Putin, though, is a very devious man.
He is a former KGB agent. He knows a lot about how to push people's buttons. He's shown that he can manipulate Trump time and time again. He famously, I don't know if you remember this, but one time when he was meeting with the former German leader Angela Merkle, he had a dog wander into the meeting. Merkle is famously scared of dogs, and she visibly tensed up when this large dog came in and wandered around her ankles for no reason, and it really did put her on the back book in the negotiations.
He doesn't even like dogs.
So Trump, I think, is pretty inclined to go along with what Putin has to say anyway, But I'm sort of wondering what Putin is going to bring to scare Trump? Is he going to bring a salad or maybe a climate scientist or what about an older woman climate scientist.
Over the age of thirty five. I was thinking Putin might bring a cold the flu, because isn't he a germified so just with a real dirty hand.
And he hasn't gotten his flu vaccine, we can almost.
I also wondered some reading material, imagine Trump's reaction to that and the other thing I went, what would really scare him? I'll never forget this when Trump said that humans are built like batteries and if we exercise too much will run out, Like he worries about exercise because he doesn't. He doesn't because he thinks it's bad for help. So I'm thinking, like if he brought a treadmill or like weights, or like what about if.
He turned it into you know how there was this trend for walking meetings years ago, was like, let's take a walk around Alaska.
Yeah, be terrified.
After that rundown, I'm like, no wonder people are doing equations about when Taylor fucking album is coming out next?
After the break?
Should children be allowed in public spaces like at all? Ever? Vigorous debate about sport, restaurants, pubs.
One unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Muma Mea subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week. And a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
Okay, over to tennis News.
I like tennis news.
I know you do. You are a tennis correspondent and I will be relying on your knowledge. Healy here, just as we were relying on a Melia Leicester for the Taylor Swift knowledge. Twenty two year old British tennis player Emma Radakanu was playing a match against Arena A Saberlenka at the Cincinnati Open in the Land of the Free this week. She was losing and during a crucial point in the third set, a child in the crowd started crying. After a while, Radikannu gestures to the umpire like, you're
always saying quiet please, So what about this bullshit? Then? And this is what happened. This is what the umpire said back, it's a child.
Do you want me to send the child out of the stadium.
What you can hear there is the crowd or saying, yes, kick the baby out, and they all applauded, and Emma was kind of I shouldn't say it, but she was kind of like shrugging, like, yeah, kick the baby out. Details a sketchy on what actually happened next, but Emma did lose the match. Jesse, should the kid have been at the tennis match in the first place.
I am on the record as saying that kids and babies everywhere let them in. I remember we talked about a comedy show we go well, oh me. I think that it's really important because where kids don't allowed, their parents aren't allowed either. But in this case and how it works in tennis is this was a really critical point. This was a really important moment in the match. And what actually should have happened is that umpire should have sorted that out, like it's their job to keep quiet,
keep everything quiet. I think the important context is that wasn't a baby squawking. It wasn't a baby who had cried for thirty seconds. It was a baby who had been crying for ten minutes, according to reports, and it was kind of starting and stopping and starting and stopping, and she was finding it really distracting. Now a tennis match, if there are people walking around, if a phone is going off, like there are signs everywhere at tennis saying
turn your phones off. There have been cases where someone's wearing a watch and the watch is distracting to the person who's about to serve, and they ask them to take the watch off, Like that is how the sport works.
Yeah, but isn't that changing because I feel like we've discussed this a lot that you know, at Wimbledon now at the Australian Open, now, people get up and go to the bar, people cheer, people cheer, and there's been a lot of yeah, lighting up everybody, like we can't expect people to sit in silence anymore.
Well, apparently, what they ordinarily do is make sure that if you have young kids with you, they sit you near the exit. So there's an understanding that if the child starts making noise, then you move out.
At Wimbledon, the like kids under five in.
Yeah, and I can understand that because of the nature of the match. So I actually am on the side of the tennis player here. I think that the umpire probably should have sorted it or someone in the crowd. But in defense of the mother or father who is with that child. The other thing you're not really meant to do during tenths tennis matches is move It's really distracting.
So often an umpire will turn around and go, can you sit down, because they're trying to serve and there's all this movement, So they might have just been like, oh, I don't know whether I'm meant to move or not. But I do think and this is just common sense, right. I think sometimes we treat parents as though they have no self awareness about any context or environment. It's like I've brought I remember having to take her to a premiere for something. Babysitter fell through the second she started
and she got upset. It was just you get her out. In the same way that if I was sitting at the tennis and I had a coughing fit, I would go, oh, I'm going to get out, because I am just aware of everyone else. So I think that the media has tried to drum this up as like, ooh, hostility towards kids. I don't think that's what it is. I'm actually on the side of the tennis player, do you think, Amelia.
I think that there is this encroaching hostility towards kids. And I was reading the comments section on stories around this tennis story, and people were like, this is how I feel on planes. And I wonder if there's a distinction to be made between spaces where children kind of have to be if they're going to be living their lives, and that includes going to airports and you know, supermarkets
other places where you have to go. And I do think there's an argument to be made that maybe children shouldn't be in more optional spaces like a tennis match.
I wonder though, if they're allowed, if the venue is open to them being there, then like I've gone to comedy shows or theater things, and there's a certain age bracket of when you can go. But look, would I take Lunar at that. I think that she would find it really boring. Apparently it was really really hot. It's very long thing.
I hate the idea of setting kids up to fail. And part of the reason why I prefer not to take my children to restaurants, even though I know lots of people who think it's a very important life skill for children to acquire, is because I just think it's setting them up to fail. You're taking them to a place where, as you said, at the tennis they can't even move like that. Don't take children to a place
where they can't move. At a restaurant, they're forced to sit down and order off a menu of things that probably doesn't include mac and cheese, and you know, speak in an indoor voice and all these things which I guess children should be learning how to do, but which they're not always equipped to do at the end of a long day.
But what do you call a restaurant? Right? Because I sympathize with you if I'm paying lots of money to sit in a rarefied room, you know what I mean, like some kind of fancy, very adulty space. But increasingly cafes, restaurants, pubs with beer gardens, all those kind of things cater to kits like they do, so surely that's fine.
Well, that's actually a really interesting question around pubs because that's a very much live issue in Australia right now. And what I didn't realize is how recent a phenomenon it is to take children to pubs. Do you know It wasn't until two thousand and seven that New South Wales made it technically legal to take children.
Into really, because there used to be a thing I remember when I was growing up, when I was a kid, if we were ever at a pub, then it was like there was an area you couldn't cross.
Do you remember that? And also children can't go near the bar.
Yes, yes, But a lot of pub owners are sort of saying that they've gone too far in making them to children friendly to family friendly, because when adults drink, they don't become responsible parents and their kids are running around this space that really was designed for adults, and the parents are taking their eyes off the ball, so to speak. And I was curious about whether we think it's a good idea in terms of what we're teaching
children about. Look, I have to be honest, every Monday night in my neighborhood the pub has kids eat free and it is a huge social scene and I go there every Monday. This is very much me interrogating my own patterns here. But it turns out that there is this new study from Australian researchers that makes the claim that the more time kids spend at pubs I want to get the wording here exactly right, the higher the risks they face from alcohol in the future. And that's
essentially because one it's glorified advertising for alcohol. You see your parents out at the pub, they're having fun. You think alcohol's fun. And two it sends a longer term message that it norms alcohol and the use of alcohol. It says that when adults get together, they drink. And when I read that, I felt sad about my Monday evenings.
Oh no, I'm here to defend your Monday evenings with my life because I accept all that. But the thing is, and this certainly isn't true for everybody. Like Australia is a very multicultural society, and there are lots of sections of Australia where alcohol is not a part of all socializing, but there is in the mainstream norm alcohol is legal.
When you're over eighteen, you're allowed to drink. Response. We have some very strict rules that govern around that and who can be served in pubs and all those things stricter than in some other places in the world. So there's also an argument that children seeing parents drink responsibly is not the end of the world. Right. So for myself, if I know when it's particularly when I lived in
the city, I don't live in the city anymore. But for all the time that my kids were young, I lived in an area of the town where me and all my friends lived in small units that didn't have gardens, that didn't have We couldn't have each other around, you know what I mean. That isn't what happened, And that's not even an of course not there was not a dinta. It's not any of that stuff. So we would meet in public spaces, and we met in parks, and we met in cafes, and we met in pubs, no question.
And sometimes now I cringe a little bit at some of the places I took my kids to. But I had no family support, I had no you know, official baby cities, like we were our community, and the kids went where we went, right And I went to bowling clubs where the kids would run a mark like they really would and they'd have a great time. And we went to beer guns were set up for that, pubs
that had playgrounds, all of those things. And in England, which obviously is where I grew up, although that wasn't necessarily the norm when I was a kid, but they're now, like lots of pubs have big play areas and it's very much encouraged. And the reason for that is because the publicans are making money. It's because of food. You
introduce food into an establishment like that. Pubs once upon a time are just the preserve of men, working class men broadly speaking, and women bust their way into those front bars and snugs over a while and said I want to be and then they bought their bloody kids. And I think in a way I would never argue for oh, I think it's great for kids to see their parents drinking. I am very aware of how problematic
our over acceptance of alcohol is in social situations. But I think, as you said at the beginning, Jesse, the more places where children aren't welcome, the more isolated parents are. I would say it's even different now where I live in a regional area and much more suburban environment. There are more options for how you get together with people.
There's more space. There are also clubs, which places that often you never go to until you have kids, and you go there because they're very often open to kids, right, And they'll have a green space and they'll have a green space and they've designed it that way because they want you to spend your money there. And at least it's a communal place where people are getting together. So the more places kids can't come, the more isolated I am. I would have been at home alone.
Yeah, And it's sometimes the only option where you don't have to cook and clean, and that's the kind of relief for a you know, mum or dad. But I also find the cultural difference as a point of tension because I know people who have gone overseas and expected that they can bring their child to a restaurant and you go, oh, that's not how they do it here. Like,
it's very dependent on different places. We're talking to someone at work who lived in Sweden and you simply wouldn't you wouldn't take your kids.
Yeah, But then when I was in Italy, anyone will tell you it is in Italy kids will run around to eleven o'clock at night. No one bats an island like not in a form dining setting. Again, like to the common sense point you were saying about the tennis, I think there's a formal dining setting where it would be irritating to have a kid there. Although if that kid is quiet and on a screen, if I'm irritated by that, that's just about my judgment. It's not about
my actual experience, and I should examine that myself. But you know that in lots of sudden Europe, kids are part of every interaction and nobody gets upset about it.
What I'm interested in is why you think people are getting more upset about it these days as well? What's that about? Because Claire Stevens wrote a fantastic substack about an experience she had recently along these lines.
Yeah, on a plane, And I just think a plane is the fin It's the most ridiculous place for someone to get mad about you being with your toddler because you're like, by the way, I don't want to be spending time with this toddler on a steel box in the air either. I'm not enjoying this. And again it's somewhere where it's like we have no other choice. But I wonder. We talked last week about declining birthrate, and I wonder if that does cause an increasing hostility.
If people just see fewer kids around.
Yeah, the less it happens, the more you kind of go, oh, well, we don't expect children in this space, and maybe we build less spaces that cater to them in that way, I think that you get the aggressional the irritability of people who maybe have never experienced that before.
Yeah. And it's a fine line, isn't it, Because you know, it seemed like before I was saying that you shouldn't take kids to sort of optional public spaces. But hole, you've made me reflect on the idea that when you have children and you want them to be interesting and interested people, you want to take them to different experiences from an early age, which includes the tennis, it includes a premiere if that's part of your life. You want
to expose them to diverse sets of circumstances. And there's something a little bit sad about the idea of keeping your kid cooped up at home where they can't upset anybody until the age of eighteen, when they're suddenly allowed every year.
Yeah, And should we always be meeting kids in there world or sometimes are they welcome into the adult world as well? And is that good for them to see their parents socializing and living their own lives.
I think about the planes. I've never met a parent who's delighted about taking their small child on a plane. But if they have to travel, for me to be they're going to do it. The reason people are grumpier and granpierre, and it's nearly always men who are grumpier and gropier, is again, there were used to be many fewer women in these kind of public spaces. And although and although I'm always always the person who's saying parenting isn't just for women, very often it's the mother who's
if she's traveling, the kid comes. If she's going out, the kid comes very often, And it'll often be a man in a business suit who thinks that planes are a place that he's working, that he's.
Got to concentrate.
It's quiet, it's serious here, I should and I should be able to get my shut eye and all those things, and he doesn't think of it as a public space when it is one. And surely the other one is just our increasing discomfort with discomfort, right, because I've also seen young women get very upset about mums and babies on planes, or parents and babies on planes. And I understand why they like to be able to control any interaction in their life, because they can because of everything
we talk about all the time. You know the fact that you can curate the opinions you have to hear, you curate what you're going to eat, and who you're going to see and who you're going to pick up the phone to. And in a plane, everybody's lives are like on you know, whether it's the guy who's snoring or the baby who's crying, or the person with a cough, or you know, the person who insists on not putting their headphones in or whatever.
It is welcome to public space exactly.
And we're just less and less comfortable, I think with public spaces. In another chapter of Mothers Can Never Win is Sophie Turner, you know, the actress former Games Thrones actress, very famously divorced from a Jonas. She was recently posting pictures of herself at the one of the Oasis concerts at Wembley and she looks like she's having a great time and all the comments are like, wry are kill men?
Carry you kill it? And so she clapped back and said, oh, have you ever heard of this thing called shared custody? Maybe the kids were with their dad that day, and I just was like, so if you don't take your kids, you're going to get criticized. If you do take your kids, you're a bad mother, like there is no winning in this situation.
I have some feedback. There's been a lot of hate thrown around lately, and I feel incredibly defensive. The Internet has inexplicably turned on what has been labeled stump clap hay music, which feels incredibly disrespectful to the early two thousand one post.
On poor millennials. Everyone's coming for you, coming for.
All about things. A post on X reads this whole generation of stomp clap ho hay indie folk was terrible, And to refresh your memory, if you're going I don't recall this genre, well here's a little taste.
Because we will never around us.
I was immediately transported to a barn in a field, drinking a cocktail with a sprig of rosemary and a mason er.
It was a simpler time, Amelia. It was such a lovely time. So think Mumford and Sons of monsters and men the luminius. Think man in a waistcoat, another has an indie hat. Maybe throw some suspenders in there. Maybe the man with the hat had suspenders. He's also got a basoon and a beard and a mustache. So much, but very unkept This was the moment where millennial Hipsterdam
hit its peak. And you see, those were the days days and they took our skinny jeans, and they took our socks, and they took our parts and just leave our Stom Club hay Home music alone because it wasn't anyone.
Have anything to do. Also with Anna Kendrick and the Cups, remember, and then that was fine.
I feel like Zoey Deschanal's all over this moment.
God, it was such a lovely time, and I just feel the Genz's just keep going back and just like raining on our parade. But I have such nostalgia for that moment and I think it should come back.
A massive thank you to all the outlauders who've been here with us. It's been a roller coaster today. Oh goodness me listening to our show and to of course our fabulous team for helping us put it together. We're going to be back in your ears tomorrow and.
If you're looking for something else to listen to, well, we did a deep dive on Holly's latest rabbit hole that she's fallen down, which is there are more wild allegations about Prince Andrew. We spoke last week about the new book entitled that has come out and it turns out there was so much more to it. So Holly got behind the mic with M and I and explained to us everything that's come out, what the impact will be, what we think Charles might do. Look, it's very very interesting.
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