You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Hello and welcome to Mom and Mia out Loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Friday, the sixteenth of January.
I'm Holly Waynwright, I'm EMM Burnham.
And I'm Jesse Stevens.
And here's what's on our agenda for today, the last episode of our first full week of the year.
Yes, it's been great.
Today I'm bringing us the latest stupid thing that a celebrity dad said that I've said everybody, what was it?
Stupid? That's what we are going to unpack.
Yes, plus us our eCos that we've been loving over the break.
I'm very excited to share mine with you.
And apparently twenty twenty six is the year of friction maxing. What does that mean? And some of us already doing it?
But first, in case you miss it, we have been doing Sundays wrong the French.
I've been doing it right.
Of course they have, because the French do things right.
I recently came across an article in this Zoe report that pretty much said that we should be adopting the French Sunday also known as the demoche.
Ah, you looked that up.
I did look at that. I was the word for this.
French out louders and out loud as French to say, may we apologize, may we apologize, especially if chat gpt.
Completely lied and I mean something completely different.
So it's the idea that Sundays are meant to be lazy, stress free, filled with doing nothing. We don't do that over here. Sundays are for admin they're for doing our taxes, they're for doing our shopping, meal prepping.
Meal prepping.
And this is why we need to adopt the French Sunday because now in France, Sundays are seen as like a day to enjoy during the week, not a day of dread.
And they have always seen the day as sacred. I saw that from like nineteen oh six or something. It was enshrined in law that you can't open your shop, which has Christian roots, Catholic roots, but it's also got roots in like the union movement, and was like you can't force someone to work a Sunday, whereas the rest of like you know, London is buzzing on a Sunday. Everything's open, go out to lunch, go out and like
enjoy yourself. But I kind of love the idea that the entire country takes a deep breath, the ideas that you stroll through Paris or your like countryside and just relax rather than frantically preparing for the week.
I get anxious on Sundays as the morning wears on. I start going all the things I've got to do right, and yeah, so I need to reset my mind. I looked at the list of how to have a French Sunday.
Do you want to hear one?
Yes?
What it involves, so wake up late and maybe by a question.
Yeah.
I liked a bit about the chroissant.
That was nice.
Do not touch a to do list in any way. Enjoy some gentle self care. Brush your hair slowly, put on moisturizer slowly, Stretch slowly.
This is all sounding a lot like it do list.
Take off the pajamas and leggings unless they're ears, which is I think a fancy brand. Apparently you're not allowed to slob around, even though this is French lazy Sunday, we're not slobbing. Apparently you're allowed to wear a cotton shirt and soft jeans.
Yeah, that's what you're allowed to wear. Her breathe.
You're gonna this isn't gonna work with you. But take off the pajamas and leggings, have a proper Sunday chicken roast, and forget about brunch forever. Apparently brunch is seen as being quite stressy and like, you know.
To be seen.
Yeah, and it's also like you've got to be there by a certain time to meet someone, and then all of a sudden you're rushing.
And then if it's bottomless brand, you're like, I need to get as many drinks.
Exactly, which is really actually stressful. I also read Make Love.
Yes, that was on the list. It says, pretend all establishments are clothes, wander aimlessly on purpose, read a book, and make love.
Which, again it's sounding to do listing, but.
It's like non strenuous to do list.
Non streous love, a very specific kind of sex on some there maybe just starfish it yeah, easy.
Like Sunday, as easy as possible.
I'll just be lying here, thank you. I really I do like the idea that we've talked a lot about how we need to kind of reclaim rest a bit. But the problem with this is like who's cooking the roast chicken?
You know?
And I don't know very many women who find cooking roast that relaxing.
No, and then I saw like, oh, I just take my children down to the markets, and I was like.
Ah, wait till the shops are open. Then you just get the bachelor's handbag and you bring it.
That's true a barbecue chalk. I think we should reclaim our day of rest.
Have we eliminated too much friction from our lives? There was an essay published in The Cut over the Break called in twenty twenty six, we are friction maxing, and the argument goes that tech companies have led us to believe that everything from reading to talking to me, moving to leaving the house, to cooking dinner, to apply to texts,
all of it is simply inconvenience. These are all frictions which tech companies have designed the ability to eliminate, and deep down we know that eliminating every inconvenience in our lives is bad for us. It feels bad for us, yet we all do it.
So.
Writer Catherine jess and Morton says she is building up tolerance for inconvenience. That is what her year is all about. No more using chat GPT, saying I've got a few things in the fridge. What should I make for dinner? She says she is inviting people to her house, but she is not properly cleaning it before they get there. She wants to ask a friend for advice rather than
the internet. What do we think about this? Because on the surface, I read this article and it really impacted me, and I kept trying to tell friends about it over the break and they were like, so the whole article is just about making your life a bit harder. Yeah, but there's something to it that feels important and meaningful. Is twenty twenty six the year we lean more into friction?
What do we think?
I agree with you. I loved this article. The opening par is really as you've said it's about. She talks about how tech companies have erased all of our little frictions, and she says reading is boring, talking is awkward, moving is tiring, leaving the house is daunting, thinking is hard, Interacting with strangers is scary, Risking an unexpected reaction from someone isn't worth it. Speaking at all overrated. These are all frictions that we can now eliminate easily, and we do.
According to the emergent ideology of Silicon Valley. Most people would prefer not to be human. They've demonstrated this through their revealed preferences in the way that they use the apps. They're being sold that is so true because the culture, and I know it's not necessarily true on an individual level for everybody, but the culture broadly does tell us that all of those things, anything that is a tiny
bit inconvenient or unpredictable, should be eliminated. Yeah, because it's difficult and stressful, and so the argument that we should start retraining that muscle, I think is really good.
And we know that to struggle against something is to imbue, meaning like anything that is ultimately satisfying. Like I'm reading at the moment a book called The Luminous Solution by Charlotte Wood, which I think you might have talked about
years ago. Charlotte Wood is amazing, so good, and it's all about creativity, right, And it's called The Luminous Solution because it's basically saying that creativity is about solving a problem you design, and it's about playing with the problem and the darkness that comes with it and the time and the waste and the frustration and all of it, and that's why creativity is so satisfying. And creativity, I guess,
is the ultimate friction. All it is is friction. You're coming up against something that's hard, and a lot of these technologies offer even in our line of work, like there's a lot of pressure to be using aibots or whatever to come up with your.
Intro or your show notes.
Or whatever it is. But I always think of like the great creatives like Michelangelo or whatever, where the struggle was the thing, not the outcome.
And in that case, it's like the friction is kind of the whole.
Point of living, right, m.
What do you think about the idea of making a deliberate attempt to make your life a bit harder.
It's really confronting. When I read this article, I felt so confronted because it made me kind of analyze how much of my life I've realized I've automated without actually realizing I've been doing it. And I made a little list of things that I've been doing that I once I saw it on paper, I was like, that's actually while did I do this? Wearing AirPods to go get lunch?
So no one talks to me, like in the elevator. Yes, ordering uber eats on my way home while I'm in an Uber Yes, I do it all the time, so I get there at the same time.
This one.
What I've been doing is I've been buying gifts for friends, but without a card, because a card is too hard. The gift part is easy because you order it online, it gets to you. You can select prepackaged so it like comes up and wrap it so sometimes you.
Just send it straight to the email address.
And then for me having to go outside of work walk one hundred meters to like a card shop, buy a card and then write in the card and attach you to the gift too much.
Oh wait, and it.
Actually hurts my hand to write the card too much.
I can learn how to write reading versus audio books.
For me, I feel like audiobooks.
Has changed so many people's lives and you can now take so many different books. But for me, whenever I listen to an audio book, I automatically start doing something else, like I'm always on my phone, I'm always cooking, And then I realize I have no idea what this book is about.
Yes, it's really interesting, because your list just there. I don't think you should be in the least bit embarrassed. I think that's the whole point of this, is that everybody's living like that to a point, right, Because then I realize that I have been friction maxing the last few years, not on purpose, but moving out of a big city hasn't made my life much more inconvenient in lots of ways. And so then I started thinking about, well, has that made me happier? Are things better or whatever?
So for example, where I live, the shops close at lunchtime on a Saturday and they don't reopen till Monday, and that's it. There are no shops open after seven o'clock. So if I run out of milk at seven o'clock, I'm not getting milk. You know, there are there's no delivery, there's no Uber eats, there's no door dash, there's none of that, right, So you can get woollies ordered or whatever, but you can't do anything that's quick and immediate.
There's no Uber. I can't just order an Uber to my house.
So I have eliminated a lot of those like very modern big city conveniences that are now very you don't even think about it. And I was thinking, does that make me better somehow, And I was like, no, I don't think so. But what does happen is you get used to it really quickly. So you probably find that quite horrifying that I live somewhere where you can't get some milk sent over or car.
Do you have your coffee exactly?
You know, you either make a coffee or you go to the coffee shop when it's open, but it's only open at these very specific times.
It sounds horrifying.
And I remember when we first moved there and there was no Uber Eats and there was a pizza restaurant that did deliver.
At that time, I was like, what is this?
But you adapt, just in the way that we've adapted to all the convenience, you also adapt, but it's not having it.
What does the adaptation? What is it robbing us of? Because I think it is robbing us of something, it's infantilizing us.
Well, it is like if I'm at home and I want to eat something, I have to make it right.
There's no other option.
And is the meal more satisfying because you made it?
Maybe?
I don't mean in a Nara Smith way, whether I'm like rolling out the dough bread.
And churning the button.
I'm not doing that. I do have to make the salad. I can't just order a salad bowl. And I think, yes, you probably eat more healthily and those kind of things and it is more mindful. What I can tell you is I don't miss those things like I did at first. And when I'm in the city, am I ordering my fish bowl?
Absolutely?
But I don't miss it. So what does that tell you?
Is this what we used to call character building? You know how in parenting it was like what I remember from my childhood. It was like anytime friction was introduced, it was like, this is character but we just know it's good for you instinctively. I don't even need to explain why we know it's good for you. But it reminded me of this article that I saw him Maya recently, which had a headline like not depressed, just unimpressed, and it was about the experience of innui e n and ui.
I thought you were talking about Americans.
How did you say it? As it was about on wii, which is a French word for a feeling of listlessness, weariness and dissatisfaction. And apparently this is like it's so widespread now, like so many people experience this.
I feel like the French have just got it together.
Oh they've just got it together. They describe as a deep existential boredom or a case of the BLA, stemming from a feeling that life is meaningless or too easy. And I wondered if those two things are somewhat related. That if life is just you go through the motions and there's this monotony and there's no friction, and therefore there's no meaning and you don't feel proud of yourself, then like, but here's.
The interesting friction in that argument is do people feel like life is easy? You know, you might have all this long list of like conveniences of things you don't have to do. But most people I know who are not sitting around thinking life is easy.
I don't know if those things kind of.
I wonder if I'm a muscle though, because I think we just find other problems. Yeah, our muscle for discomfort and uncertainty is really weak. Right, So it's like I have found myself and again it's instinct more than anything intellectual. But like I have started swimming laps again, right, Yeah, And I said to someone, you know I get in the pool and I swim for thirty forty minutes and I won't have any input. It's the only time in
my day that I don't have any input. And someone was like, well, you know, there's waterproofs headphones that.
Would be the anti friction mass, and I was.
Like, every time I walk past as in office works the other day and I walked past them and I went, no, like I'm making a there is something that tells me, like, it would be great to keep listening to my audiobook in the pool, but I'm like, there's something that tells me that the friction and the discomfort of swimming in silence is good for me. I don't know why. And then sometimes I'll get in the car and like not put the address in maps and let myself get.
Lost that Sydney.
I'm sorry, but there are some It's funny because although I'd love to know what you think about this, Jesse, because the thing is some of this is like an anti technology movement, which is very understandable because, as this writer writes, the people who design this stuff are now the most powerful people in the world, and they're literally taking away our humanity. One thing I really noticed over the break because I know some people are using AI
heats and some people not so much. And I had a friend come to stay who says, you know, she does a makeup then she puts the picture onto AI to tell her, you know what, could she have done better? She does everything from her face to her meals, to her where I put my pop plant everywhere. And I noticed when I do that, when I start asking AI for advice, how quickly it feels naughty to ignore the advice, Like how quickly you feel like, oh, I'm disobeying the robot if I don't do what it's like.
So that's interesting, and I start losing my internal compass of like I find it with parenting. You know, there was that quote recently by Sam I think it was Sam Oltman who said it's impossible to parent without chat GPT, and that made me feel so sick that I was like, no, I'm never asking it a question again, because shouldn't it be more instinctive rather than every problem you face as a parent, you just plug.
It into the bottle, it's like.
But also at the same time, I would say that thanks to chat GPT, you don't have to deal with the anxiety and the stress of having to work it out yourself.
Isn't the point?
But why would you want that?
Like, what do you mean.
It's the point?
Because then what happens in life when you are thrown something stressful, which inevitably we are, which is illness or tension or a relationship breakdown or loss or whatever. My muscle for that and my sense of how to deal with that is just going to be totally depleted because I haven't faced any hardship or struggle in months.
You know what I mean?
Like, I just think that it's something we need to practice, and the satisfaction of having done something hard and worked it out yourself. Again, it's like we've got to reparent ourselves, right, Like every day I could pick Luner up and put her on her chair that she has, But something tells me that her doing it herself and kind of nearly falling but not getting to the top tells me that that's better for her and her own development. And so I'm like, I think that's the same for adults.
I think you're right, But then I think we need to be a little bit careful of a kind of virtue signaling about rejecting all technological advancement, because technological advancements, domestic ones freed women a.
Lot from the drudgery of It.
Used to be that if you're going to wash your clothes, it would be that's a day long tash, right, I'm.
Not washing in the scene.
Although so you know, you could argue that certain technological advances changed lives. There are some obvious, massive ones in terms of health and all those things, but even just social and domestic things that are what we're talking about, like whether it makes your life easy to make a meal or whatever, No question, have freed many, many people and lots of women. But on the other hand, I remember you talking about this a while ago when we
were talking about parenting, Jesse. You said, yes, but now we've just created a whole lot of other.
Things to worry about.
Yeah, so, like the physical demands of parenting, for example, might be a bit easier because you've got all these you know, you don't have to hang wash all your own nappies, and you don't have to make every bit of food from scratch with a pestle and mortar or you know whatever. But now it's like, is there enough protein in every single mouthful I'm giving it like we've
raised the bar on perfection that then whispinning around about that. Yeah, exactly, So I wonder, but I'd love to know what people think that are the conveniences that you could never friction ma, because I think that the GPS in your car that one.
I think that has too many people are and I need you guys to start using it.
I love the bit here where it said do not location share.
It spoke to my very soul.
She had a line where she said where you are as none of anybody else's business, and privacy is a right. And I'm like, absolutely, sing it is everyone brushing their face. I feel like, you know, when you see something online, do you mean brushing your teeth?
No, I mean literally your face.
Sometimes when I look at my face in my mirror in my car, I think it needs a brush. How much hair I can?
Well, yeah, but I so, you know when you see something once and you're like, and then suddenly it's everywhere, and I know that's algorithm, but also sometimes it's just a trend and suddenly everywhere I look women are brushing their faces with these kind of facial brushes. And the thing that made me go oh, is this really something that everyone is doing? Is Nicki Glazer was doing it
before the Golden Globe? So she did one of those Vogue Get Ready with Me kind of beauty routines and she's there brushing her face and I was like, I swear I saw Hailey Beaber brushing her face. It looks like a horse. What do we call the one we use for lymphatic drainage? Like a yes, but with bristles? Is this a thing that the people are doing? And I'm asking you because you're young and cool and beautiful.
I haven't seen a physical brush on a face as yet, but I do gwasher most nights.
And why do we do that?
Oh?
Lymphatic drainage?
And why are we doing that?
Because you don't want all your face to hold all the liquid. You want your face and your body to drain the liquid that it holds. Sometimes when I I can like feel it dripping out the back of.
The can, you really, can you really wo tell me how long that takes?
This is friction maxing.
This is like I'm sure there's a cream you could put on that would make your face, but like spending the time to.
Sit there and go like that actually, yeah, that is my one maction maxing thing I do.
I do it when I clean, so I use an oil cleanser because you don't want to be pulling your skin, and then I just kind of give my face a little massage. I did it just to make my face feel nice, to treat it.
Do you notice, honestly a difference in how your face looks?
Not when I do it myself, but when I do e lymphatic facial at my facial list, I notice a huge really yeah, my cheekbones are like jutted out, and like my jawl line is like crisp.
It's so weird.
And I've had friends do it and we'd always take before and after photos of like before the facial after facial, and it's wild.
Because I'm feeling a bit puffy this stage of pregnancy. You get a bit puffy around the face.
Face brush shawl.
I think I need to start doing a face.
Brush or just use your fingers.
So you get your two knuckles and you put them on either side of your jaw and you up to like where your ears and then down on your neck.
So they're not brushing their faces for hair reason. No, I know Gwin has always been into dry brushing. That's a similar vibe. And why do we dry brush for the same reason.
It's about.
And you brush up to heart too long? That takes a while. I was going to say, how much time are we spending on the.
Oh, like a few minutes, not that long. I don't have that too much. Face brushes are in all of our futures.
Out louders.
In a moment, a famous man has made an offer to his eleven year old daughter.
That's freaked a lot of people.
Out out louders.
It's Miya, in case you missed it, I am back on subscriber episodes Tuesday and Thursday all year, and I wanted to tell you what I spoke about this week with Holly and Jesse. We spoke about on Tuesday, very emotional conversation, very candid, honest conversation about why I decided to leave, what the last couple of years has been like behind the scenes for me and.
For all of us, and also why I decided.
To come back in this way.
So that's Tuesday, and then on Thursday, for a complete change of pace, heated rivalry, the Smutty Gay Hockey Show. I'm obsessed with it, and Vernon joined that conversation, and we also spoke about the Taylor Swift documentary. Have a listen, there's a link in the show notes. You can get me in your ears right now.
Look, I feel like I'm just mentioning Dak Shepherd every five minutes, So I'm good.
You love this man.
So I'm going to get through the Dak shepherdness of this story quickly because I think it's about something bigger.
Even I was interested in this and I'm not a Dak Shepherd Stan in the way that you know, I know.
On Monday's Golden Globe show, we talked about how podcasts are becoming more and more famous and the proliferation of Dak Shepherd Kristen Bell stories very much an example of this. And it used to be you could bang on on the podcast, as we know, you could bang on a podcast of all kinds of private things and no one knew because the only people listening were like your friends, like twenty people.
But now they can clip it up and put it on tiptok and go. These people are mad.
And this is what happened to Dak Shepherd when he talked about his eleven year old daughter's fertility journey. So here's a little grab just for context. Again, the Dax and Monica of this is not the important part. But Dax is talking to his co host Monica Padman. They have a bit of their show after the interview all is where they just sort of talk about stuff, what's
been going on. And he is talking about his daughter, who is eleven, and a conversation they had about when she wants to have babies.
So she's seen she wants to have a baby, And I said, when do you think you'll have your first child? When you turn eighteen? Oh okay, and she don't want to be supportive of whatever. Yeah, yeah, no one playing any seeds that I'd be judgmental or whatever. And she said, no, eighteen, what do you think? I really? And I said, my guess is between thirty five and forty five is when I think you'll have kids. I said, and I think if you want to, we'll freeze your eggs when you're eighteen.
You know, like, wow, I'll pay I'll pay free to get your eggs frozen, so you don't have to think about that.
Yeah.
Now the internet is mad about this conversation. General sample of the feedback is ew they seem to think it's creepy. I don't think it's creepy, but anyway, my question is not about that so much more like with technological advances in fertility. Oh my god, this is back to friction maxing again.
Isn't it?
Does that? Or should that change the way we talk to kids about families? And if you're a parent and you can afford it, is it a thoughtful gift to freeze somebody's eggs on their eighteenth birthday? Or should it be a bit more freeze your own freaking eggs love?
Or should it be a bit more friction maxing? Like having kids is friction maxing?
How like there's nothing but friction.
There's nothing but friction. Give the girl some friction.
But gen z aren't having sex.
Yeah, so they could do it in a lab. That's so true. My first instinct was that I hated this look. Having listened to it, I think sometimes comments like this are a conversation starter. I don't think it's creepy. I don't think that that's fair. But I bristled at the use of we will freeze your eggs, because to suggest that it isn't an invasive, and people who have gone
through it will either consider it invasive or not. But it's a serious thing to do, like it has side effects and hormonally, you know, bloating and headaches and all that kind of stuff you go on to general anesthetic. I think we can treat some of these procedures as though you just click your fingers and it's done, like it is a big decision. And the other thing I didn't understand in what Dax was saying was it he was like, do you want to do it at eighteen? No, well,
I guess it'll be thirty five. What's for seventeen years in between? Christian Bell had her babies at thirty three and thirty four or whatever, even if she decided to have them at thirty five, like she probably could.
I just thought, I think the point is is they're just saying as an insurance policy so that you can live your life in whatever way you want to with a perceived we have to say, a perceived safety net about when you may not want to have kids. Is it a generous act for a parent who can afford it, In the same way they might help you with a deposit for a house, or might help you buy your
first car or whatever. Is it now being seen as a generous act to a female child to go, I'm going to buy you some fertilite freedom.
And I've died to the car of this.
I remember when I think I was twenty two, and this is quite a personal story. I had a really bad relationship with alcohol. Like I was one of those kids at the minute you could start drinking. I was drinking and I was twenty two, and I went to the doctor and like, my blood works were all over the place. He was genuinely concerned, and he said, if you keep up with this lifestyle, you won't be able to have kids.
Really, and as a doctor, and.
I dread to think what a doctor would have said to me at twenty two.
My face was literally just like okay. And then he realized that that was not the reaction he thought. He thought I would be crying on the ground, and I was like, there's no way, I mean, thinking about kids right now.
I could have kids right now.
And I remember that conversation so deeply because even now, as a twenty nine year old, I would.
Most likely still have the same reaction. I'd be like okay, because.
It's not on your radar. It's not what he was saying. I mean. And again the speciicifity, specicificity specificity, thank God Jesus Christ. Of this conversation is not really the point. But what he was kind of saying he started off saying, is that if my two daughters, one of them is really maternal, she always carries toys everywhere, she really talks about wanting to have a baby. So he's not like just going and the other one not so much.
But like so was I when I was He lie.
Of course, it doesn't mean anything.
I get that.
But I think the point is, is it an act of generosity? Is whether you want to have a baby or not have a baby. With everything that we know now that we didn't know before and the technology of it being available, can you see a world where more parents are doing that?
I think it's generosity If they ask if money is a hurdle and it is really expensive, and that is something that you're looking towards. Doctors generally do not advise that twenty year olds freeze their eggs, But if you were, you know, a little bit later in life, and it was something you really wanted to do and your parents had the means, I think then it would be generous. I worry that if it becomes the status quo or something that privileged people, very privileged people do for their children,
then it actually reinforces the biological clock sense of urgency. Paradoxically, it says, if you're not going to have them at eighteen, you better freeze your eggs.
That would make me panic. It made me feel a bit. I haven't even considered having a conversation like this with my daughter. Not to get too personal about my daughter, but like I just I don't know, but maybe that's irresponsible. This is one of the things about parenting in all its different ways, is that you're supposed to have prepared them for all eventualities. And why didn't your mom ever tell you about that? And why didn't someone ever tell you about that?
And you're like, because your frontal lobe hadn't developed and it's not on your radar.
And also you just think, well, aren't there things you meant to figure out for yourself? This is an example if it is a thing that people are doing, you know, as I said, in the same way that parents of means can smooth the path for their kids in a way in lots of areas of life right that parents who don't have means can't. This is a classic snowplow parenting maneuver, right. Is that's literally they say, I want
to raise any obstacle you might find. So saying I want to give you an insurance policy about whatever life choices you might make. You might never use them, but you might use them is a classic snowplow move right, and it's snowplow parenting good like as in do you expect it? Do you expect your parents to make your adult life easier?
I just think with the whole egg freezing, I mean similar to what Jesse says, if it was something that you would get maybe when you're old enough you feel like, okay, I want to start having kids, and then your parents are like, well, we've actually put all this money aside for you to freeze your eggs. I think that is generous.
But if you're going to an eighteen year old saying we should freeze your eggs now because this is when you have the most eggs, and then the eighteen year old has to go through the process of freezing their eggs, which is still quite an invasive process when they're still like developing. When suggesting that you force it on them though, no, but like it's even putting the thought in their head.
And then if we get to the point where your friends are doing it when they're eighteen, and you're like, oh, I guess that's something I should be doing, I kind of even it just feels like it's so colloquial, all like going back to the days where it was seen as a burden to have a daughter because you're ending up spending so much money on her.
I feel like that we're.
Going to yeah, yeah, we all know that, Like, is there a sadder kid than the kid who was given everything? Like it doesn't end well often. And I remember having this same reaction a few years ago when Mindy Kaling came out and said, I wish every nineteen year old girl would come home from college and that the gift, instead of buying them jewelry or a vacation or whatever, is that their parents would take them to freeze there. She said the same thing. She said, use your twenties
and thirties to focus on your career and love. Have children basically when you're emotionally ready. And I understand what she's saying because the pressure is so disproportionately on women. But there's also this idea that like children end your life, right, It's kind of like life has to be lived in these stages where you go, let them be young and they're gonna forge their career and achieve everything they want to do, and then when you're finished with that, you
can finally have children. And like, as if life is something you can plan out that.
I agree with you, and you know, I'm a big fan of the fact that you can't. And I'm always saying that, like I think you know people who make too many plans and assumptions about what chapters of their lives will look like, like this is the years I'll do this, and this is the years I'll do that.
Like that's rarely the way it works out, but I can see a world where it might feel almost like a feminist parental act to go, I want my daughters to have a fertility freedom that wasn't available to my generation, you know what I mean. And I'm not necessary. I'm not saying I would do that or that I particularly think it's a great idea, but I can see the perspective which is that maybe she never wants to have kids, maybe she wants to have kids when she's twenty one,
Like who cares, that's entirely her business. But giving her the freedom that her brother has because arguably he does. Like I know, I know, that's a complicated thing to say, because we would expect that he would be involved in any child rearing situation. But let's be honest, his life would not be impacted and derailed, perhaps or enriched in the same way that I can see how it could seem like a feminist parental statement to go like I'm buying you fertility freedom.
Yeah, but I think the wording has to be correct on that because in my head, if my parents were to say, we put all this money aside for you to freeze your eggs, even if they said it like if you want to have kids.
Can have a holiday instead, can I can I please go away?
In my head I had just been thinking, oh, they want to have grandkids and that will in a badly influence my choice choice.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it is a clear marker of value, I suppose, Like, are you saying two an eleven year old? One of the most important things is the freedom for you to have children, whether or not you believe that. And maybe that's true, maybe that is true for that family, But I just think it's a lot to put on a child who, you know, by that age, I hadn't even had a period, like I hadn't waste did one ag gift.
I don't think he's putting it on her. He just was talking about it, like, you know what. I mean to be a little bit defensive of that, because I think people have a lot of opinions about what you should talk to kids about when only you know your kid, and what conversations have right, And I think it's a different thing if they're going in our family when we're eighteen, we freeze our rex. I think that that would be quite strange.
After the break.
Our recos for the week, including a very friction maxing one from me.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, we drop new segments of Mummy out Loud just for Mummy A subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to get your daily doseph out Loud and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.
Vibes ideas, Autosphere, something casual, something fun.
This is my best recommendation.
It is Friday, and we want to help set up your weekend with our very best recommendations.
Who wants to go first? Jesse?
Jesse, I'm going to go first because i read a bunch of books over the break. I've got a list in my phone of all the ones I've been told to read, and then was anyone else inundated with best reads of twenty twenty five tiles on Instagram, and so I kept screenshotting them, and then I just went, all right, I've got to read Heart the Lover. It appeared in everyone whose opinion I respect. They said this was my book of twenty twenty five.
And I sat.
Down and I read it, and it was just stunning. It was one of those books that I'll always remember having read it. It's an experience. It's sort of in two parts. The first is about first love and university and the intensity of that experience, and then the second is almost a midlife reflection on it.
How everything's changed. Oobulous.
It's so difficult to even explain why it's so beautiful.
It's Who's it?
It is by Lily King, who's written I think about nine books. I've read another book by her called Writers and Lovers. After you read Heart the Lover, read that them related, but you don't need to have read one before. But it's quite literary, Like the writing is really really beautiful, and I will be thinking about that book for such a long time. Oh my god, I love that Heart the Lover by Lily King do it.
I did not do a lot of reading in the holidays because I was writing, so all my moments when I was meant to be reading, I was writing. I did reread Wathering Heights.
We're going to discuss that when Weathering Heights comes.
When does that a few great books? It's February. I know that in the US and in the Northern Hemisphere it's coming out for Valentine's Day.
I have many thoughts about that.
But so because of the nature of that part of my summer, I am just going to recommend another glowy skin product because I recommended well before the holidays and out louders liked it.
People love your recommendations.
I was like, this is my thing. All I want to look like is like I've been mainlining broccoli and sleeping well and let's be honest, neither. So the foundation I recommended at the end of last year, it was an exy they did, and lots of out ladders talking about it, which is great, but it was an exy, exy treat. This is not an exy treat, so it's good for the new year budget. Laurel Loomy Glosian. I never heard of this one, so it's not really a foundation.
It's like a tinted moisturizer. But I just put it
where I need it. So the way that I do my face these days, probably influenced by lots of people on the internet, is instead of necessarily just getting my foundation and slapping it everywhere, I'll be a bit more like strategic strategic, and maybe I will put my foundation on, but then I'll put a bit something a bit glowy on my cheeks, or maybe I'll just put concealer and then you know, over the holidays, I'm not sitting around a full face of foundation, but suddenly you're like, oh,
I've got to go somewhere, so instead it's just a bit of anyway. Paula Joy was wearing this product when she came into I interviewed her last year about the grief of losing her mom, and she was really glowy and when she left, I said, what's with this glowiness? And she said, Laurel loomy gloi and I was like, right. I put a note in my phone forgot all about it.
Then I was in a price line recently.
It's twenty bucks, Like it's not expensive at all. I got it. I love it. I put it on my cheeks and a bit on my forehead. You just like glowing. But it is a tinted boystrizer, so you could put it everywhere if.
That's your vibe.
So you don't wear it with a foundation if you want, okay, you could put some foundation on and then you could put a bit of this on, or you could just wear this or you know, like put it where you want it.
I play want it.
It's if you want a bit of shine, because it is quite glowy. Like it's very glowy. And you don't always want to be glowy everywhere, yeap, but you can be because it is officially a tinted moisturizer. So and it comes in lots of shades, as loreal things do. And it's twenty dollars and that is my record.
I love that.
At the beginning of this year, before we came back to work, I went on a little bit of a escape. I went to one of those tiny homes where they don't really disclose the location.
Until the day off.
Oh, I loved it, and then follow like a little physical map.
That's friction maxing.
Was friction maxing?
What was it like? Did you enjoy it?
Okay, it was really nice.
Being at the place was really really nice, but it was so friction maxing.
Where I had to talk about it.
I had to hike from my car with all my stuff to the cabin and it was down this really really steep hill and the whole thing was friction maxing.
Including the toilet.
And the only issue I had was like I have to have a coffee every morning, Like that's my one thing. I know they say it's bad to have coffee the minute you wake up, but it's my one joy and I'm never giving it up.
I prize it from my cold dead hands.
When I did a hike through Tasmania that I was really looking forward to, I had to send an inquiry. Yeah, and I need a coffee, and also like not just any coffee, like I need a good like zere Berustar.
A small flat white I couldn't get a small, light, flat white. I'm a little cabin But they had this little pot that I thought was like a French decoration because I've seen it movies. And then I realized, Oh, they expect me to make coffee in this little pot. A MoCAA is that what it's called? Now, it's a moka.
I only love moccas. I mean moccas all the time. They make it. I've got a moca necklace. Look at my MoCCA necklace. Oh my god.
I okay, I got it for my birthday.
I'm a convert because I made this coffee. I figured out how to make it. I've never been so proud of myself of making this coffee that took ten minutes.
Need paper, no tell tell Okay.
So this was like a lot of them I've never never made. You've never embraced.
You need a stove.
You need a stove, all right.
You need a stove and hot water, so you need like it felt like I was an escape room. So I was like, something's missing. And then I was like, oh wait, there's coffee beans. But the coffee beans can't go straight in. And then I was like, oh wait, there's a coffee grinder there grind the beans physically, a reception to ask GPT how to make I had reception, but I was doing the whole no, no, but I did have to kind of turn it on for one bar.
To watch a YouTube video.
But I only did it once. I only did it once, and then I remember, put the water in. You put the water, You put water in, then you put the coffee grinds, and then you put on the stovetop and then you check it. Jesse, It's like magic because somehow the water from the bottom comes to the top with the coffee across.
The coffee pot.
In your life.
It is so the European thing because I acker on the stove at home, smells smells so good.
And the coffee tastes amazing.
I honestly thought whenever I saw these pots it was decoration only, like I didn't actually think anything happened in there. But then I came home immediately ordered one from my uncle.
I got and then this is so weird because I got my mock at necklace. But I also got a new moker for Christmas and rent a red one because our market we always have a mocka often have a little one for making one coffee and a big one for making lots. And what you do this is what the posh people do in front. Teach me. Leave the lid open, like as it bubbles up, and then as it starts coming out, you close the lid, turn the heat right down and it will slowly come out and
it'll be a bit creamy. And then so you put whatever milk you want in it. But it's strong coffee. It is heaven right, so oh no you don't put the milk in.
No, no, no, It's like it's changed my life and it makes them you know, so friction vaccine because you spend ten minutes to it is and you know you were talking about before the break, you're talking about making your house smell nice.
It's a classic maneuver for that. You put a mocker on the stove. It makes your house smell lovely, and anyone who walks in is like, I'd like to pay lots of money for this house.
Please, Oh, incredible one.
Oh we have to post pictures of our mockers. I love that.
Okay, we've had we've maxed.
A lot of friction today. Out louders, please tell us your recommendations for Friction Maxing Joy. Before we go for the week, we do have to tell you about subs and what happened this week. Big deal, Hey Jesse.
Yeah, So yesterday's subscriber episode is with Maya and you two talking about Heated Rivalry, the biggest show of the summer that everyone's yelling at me about, and also Taylor Swift's end of an era to a documentary that's the sixth part of that dropped Maya was desperate to discuss. There's a link to that episode in the show notes and a reminder as well, Summer book Club. We are reading Mala Luka. I did read that over the That was if we weren't doing it for Summer book Club,
that would have been recommend recomendation, recommendations. Seriously, one of the best books I've read in a long time. I am so so into it. It's like I'm excited to get into bed to just like keep going. It's great. So it is mal Luca by Angie Fay Martin. Make sure you are reading along with us because we are dropping that episode at the end of the month. That's
part of our Summer book Club series. Thanks to Royal Caribbean, And in case you missed it, our last episode of Summer Book Club was all about Emily Henry's book Great, Big, Beautiful Life. There is a link to that in our show notes.
Thank you for being here with us all week out loud As. We are very happy to be back in your ears.
We have some big thank yous to do.
A big thank you to our team group executive producer Rude Divine, executive producer Sasha Tanic.
Our senior audio producer is Leah Porges, our video producer is Josh Green, and our junior content producer is Tessa Kodovich. Goodbye, bye bye, Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.