Well, well, well, who would have thought me and Ash coming into your ear holes?
Weird situation for everybody. We have a bonus EP going straight into your ear holes. Matt tell us who it is.
It is Sean Zepps. He is a hilarious content creator. You can find his stuff on Instagram with TikTok. Sean Zepps is his handle. He's also a podcast host and an author.
Yes, his book, not like other dads. And I have to say he's a very lovely and funny man and he was very welcoming. He had us in his house, couldn't get rid of us.
It's a great story. It's the very first time we've had a same sex couple. Sean is married to Josh and they have twins, Cooper and Stella.
Yes, and they are six years old, so he's got a little bit more experience than you and I, Matt, So I believe there will be some advice. It's a great chat, but we do touch on some mental health topics and if you or anyone is struggling, please reach out to lifel on thirteen eleven fourteen or Beyond Blue on one three hundred double two four six three six.
All right, let's get into the episode.
Welcome to three Doting Dads.
I'm Mattie Jays and I'm Sean's Apps.
And this is a podcast that is all about parenting. It is the good, the bad.
And the relatable.
And I will say definitely on this episode there will be some advice. Yes, none given from neither myself, your pads and your pans out. You're about to learn something, Sean. I need to apologize for the amount of faffing that we have taken this morning. We got here an hour ago.
We are pretty good at fafing.
Sorry, no, I love it.
We will get out of your house before nightfall, we promise you. What time do the kids come home?
Three o'clock? Yeah, right after three.
I have to work.
I'm not sure. Just stay outside until we finished. I would like to know Sean to start off the conversation, a young Sean.
He's young, now, young girl. Still you can't just go straight in like that.
Sorry, apologies, A younger beautiful Sean. Was he always wanting to have a family?
Yeah, interesting question, because it's like a roller coaster ride. When I was a kid, I really wanted to be a dad. I had an awesome dad, still alive, Still awesome, but a really great role model as a father and an amazingly involved mother. And so when I was really young, long before I realized who I was, we'll get there, yes, society, but you know all this stuff in your mind, I just thought, one hundred percent that's what I would do.
I was raised Roman Catholic, very religious family, and so the idea of you husband and wife and children, especially through the lens of the church, was just at the very top of my list. And so if you met me, like really really young, five six, seven, eight nine and asked me like what I wanted to be, I actually would have said a mother.
Wow, yeah, quite an astronaut.
No, I would have been like a ballet dancer, superstar and a mom. I just thought such an early idea and clearly as signed my homosexuality coming outside. But I just thought a dad at that time like meant something, and a mom was like really crafty and involved and cooking, and my mom was a stay at home mom, and I just thought that was really cool. Like, long before I knew what gender was or sexuality, I was just like, I would like that. I don't want to work, I
want to be at home with the kids. I want to have six of them. I'm going to be a really good mom six kids. I mean back then I just thought marrier. Right then I realized for you know, you're a dude, that's not an option for you. And then I realized I was gay. So it's like, in order, you have these massive roadblocks that go, well, you can't be a mom, You're definitely going to be a dad and that means something. Back then it meant something.
Can I ask what age is this roughly where you have the realization of who you are sexually?
Eleven?
Eleven? Yeah, oh my goodness.
Yeah. Ten is when I mean I knew around eight that I definitely liked guys, but eleven is like you do not like you keep trying and praying, dude, but the woman parts, you know, not waking up. God, it's not helping you. But eleven is like, oh shit, for sure, this is the thing. And around that time is when I just decided to kill off the parent dream. You got to like, just there weren't examples. You couldn't get
married legally. I didn't know a single queer person in any way, shape or form, And on top of that, the ones I did now that you might read about or see in a movie they didn't have children. So I just decided cool, Like, if this is your thing and it's going to cause drama and you're probably gonna get kicked out of your house and you're definitely going to get kicked out of the church, like just bury that dream.
Is this I'm assuming over an extended period of time that you'll just shoveling and stream into the basement and shutting the door.
Absolutely. It's the technical term would be internalized homophobia. Right, You're like taking all the homophobia from out there in the world and you start to just bury it and swallow it, and it gets bigger and bigger. The religious element is quite interesting because you're also, on top of that trying to apply pressure on yourself to be a good Christian boy. Right, you want to get through it. You want to like go to heaven if you can.
So I thought, okay, well I don't want to be a sinner, and I did, so like why not just not do any of that? Like why not you won't date? You want to act on it, and yeah, figure out how to be straight lie and so yeah, I guess like between eleven and all the way up until twenty two. Wow, I was like, that is you are never going to
be a parent. So that's the roller coaster. It's like I started wanting nothing more but to be like my mom, and then I decided you will never be a parent, and then boom, the world starts to change and you get to wake up to like, oh crap, Maybe you can go back to that dream and revisit it. Maybe you could be a dad.
When you're pretending to be straight, was it anything that you pretended to like that you didn't like?
But this is a straight People think that's so interesting because sos.
Vagina just a while. Yes, in the that's all I have to say.
Very good question. I mean that is the other than sexual organs more in the sport.
But yeah, you know, hard to unpick because the truth is who I am today is built up of most of those like I think we all do it.
We're young and we just like want to be like our dads or want to be.
Like yeah, you fit in with that. Even with your mates, so it's like they might like something as a as a hetro. Yeah, it's like some mates might like something that you kind of don't, but just because you want to feed in with them.
You like, yeah, me too, I love motocross, and then you can't unpick it. You're like, thirty years later you really like some forty one, and you're like, why do we like some?
I was like when I was a kid, I really didn't like him that much. I was just like everyone else did exactly.
I come from a sports family, like elite athletes. My mom, my dad, my brother, and my sister all went to college like full paid wow. And so if sports is the answer, like not, I'm a very big fan today of basketball and tennis and I watch every day and
I'm like, watch the recaps from the States. But how much of that actually is just because I wanted my dad to think I was cool, like I had the lingo that he had, Or like, if we're going to go to games, am I going to be the one whose days at home and does like arts and crafts on the fucking table? Absolutely not. So yeah, probably sports is the answer. Even though it's very stereotypical, It's definitely true.
I think you may have pretended to like like it for so long it became something that you actually really liked or lopd it.
I often say to other people when they ask that question, are in the realm of how much of being a young boy, specifically trying to be macho, how much of that performance lives in me today?
Mm?
Like, my voice is definitely lower than the stereotype of oh my god, like the higher pitch kind of gay. And how much of the way that I talk was even shaped back then? When I'm talking to my dad in the morning, you know, I say a lot of words that me and my brother would say, like, hey man, hey bro, what's going up?
Dude?
I still talk that way. I don't know if I was being raised today. You know, modern parents are pretty cool with kids expressing themselves. If I wouldn't even sound like this, I have no idea.
So then, in a world where your identity is so blurred, how nice was it to have that dream of being a dad be able to come back to life and be an opportunity again.
Oh? It was pretty cool.
Do you remember the moment?
Yeah? Definitely. Josh and I met in New York City when I was twenty two, and he was like, don't have kids.
Are we in a park?
We We're in a We're all good romantic story. Had a football game doing and cross. We were literally in the bathroom line at a gay bar, so like you know, yeah before like app culture had kind of exploded, and.
We probably just were next to each other.
He was behind me. He was actually an asshole. He goes a Santa Claus called he wants his hat back, and I had like a red beanie on, and I was like, I literally said fuck you, dude, and he just walked away into the like dropped the comment and then booked it. And then maybe an hour later, I had the hat off, like tucked in my back pocket, like took it right off. I was like, you asshole.
I don't want influenced you.
You know, I don't want to look at Santa. And he came back and he was like, don't fucking listen to people like that. Like I was being like, don't listen. Well, you put the hat back on, so I like put it back on and then and then we wait out.
Pushed me against the beautiful so.
Uh like maybe like date four or five, he's like, do you want kids? And I was like absolutely not, of course not. What do you mean what fantasy world are you living in?
Bro?
Like you think we're gonna have kids? Can't even get married. Use this in twenty eleven. Okay, so like technically there were definitely queer people having children, but it was you know, they were juggling, they were doing it with their friends and turkey bastering in the bathroom, or you know, they were adopting, but it was the stories up until then we're few and far between.
Yeah, I social media wasn't quite as at the forefront of either, so it wouldn't have been like you could go onto Instagram and follow someone's journey so closely.
Yeah, yeah, you would have to have really like we went to adoption classes and you would see gay couples there, but it was still one out of the like.
Fifty what's an adoption class.
When you are considering doing adoption, like before you're alone. Yeah, you just go and like sit in an audience, you know, you're just in the back, and they teach you about it and they talk about the process. They have a panel of people have gone through the process. I guess like an info session would have been better.
And being a same sex couple, are they welcoming to you or do you do you find that there was a level of judgment when you walk through the door.
When you're a queer person, you do a lot of I was going to say, unnecessary, but very necessary research long before you put yourself in that uncomfortable situation. So we just found the ones that on their website said like LGBTQI friendly or whatever. So we were in an environment where they would be like you and your wife.
Or.
You two, or you but mostly you know, you're surrounded by mostly straight people. And so I just thought he was living in a fantasy land. And so over the course of maybe five years, Josh changed his tune and decided, well, I want of kids Becausehan doesn't want them and I want him. So we just you know, got married and just thought that wasn't going to happen. But then when you're living in New York City, it's a lot like I mean, there really isn't that many examples in Australia unfortunately.
Pets.
No pets, absolutely not.
You think that maybe like a lot of people who think that they kind of have kids, they substitute it with pets.
I'm sure they do. I mean, gays love nothing more than like.
A little chill, a little baby dog or great yeah, but not for me.
I was like, no, I can barely take care of myself. I was like twenty four years old. Yeah, New York City. I was not going to have it. Like the idea of having a dog in a city just stresses the shit out of me, Like those small little apartments. It was the size of this told you, I mean tons.
I was a year later than like what you're sort of talking about, and I was like, there's fucking dogs. There's more dogs and paper.
But so at this point, you're twenty four. Josh's a bit older.
Though by decade. Yeah, yeah, so he has a decade on me.
Yeah, which I guess makes sense to why he was championing this cause.
Yeah, I think it mattered a lot more to him ticking time, Like he was like, how much longer do I have? No, But he specifically said early on, like I don't want to be the dad who can't throw his kid up in the air, Like I don't want
to start that far. And then what was funny is you just walking to New York City, one of the queerest cities in the world, right, and all of a sudden you're walking down the street and you start to see gay couples with children, like you know, you see one, and then five days later you see another, and then all of a sudden, you're in San Francisco or La where I worked, and you're just seeing right in front of your eyes like queer people and not just queer
people with children, like normally happy. They seem like just like everyone else. And it just started to like seep into my brain because I think it's important the distinction to understand. It's not just am I willing to do this? Because people have been willing to put themselves in uncomfortable situations, Diverse people have been willing to take huge gambles. It's are you willing to do this and deal with the
ramifications of it? And for me, the answer was no. And then you start to see people who genuinely don't seem afraid. You know, You're walking by a school pickup and there's gay dads who are like Billy and they seem you know, and the moms are talking to them, and I thought, Hey, maybe it's maybe all the stories you've told yourself, the fear that has lived inside of you forever and ever and ever, maybe it actually won't be scary.
That must be so fucking hard to digest.
It's like that's such a true comment too, like just around a really a lot of things like where you like the stories you've told you, So, yeah, what is probably way worse than the actual reality of it.
Totally. I think the gay lived experience is an insular like your parents aren't like you, your siblings aren't like you, your neighbors aren't like you. When you're young, it's really hard to find other people like you, especially if you grow up in a small town like I did. So when you're older, it's easy to convince yourself that everything you're going through is just you, like no one else has ever thought.
To have, no one else has gone through, this is just me.
And then you're in the city and you're like, well, here's a lot of options, tons of people, and they seem cool, like they obviously went through the same journey you did, Like maybe it is possible.
So did you guys initially go down the adoption route there?
Yeah, yeah, we didn't know that there were other options. As informed and clever and savvy as we were. I just thought you foster or you adopt. So we went to some fostering sessions and realized right away that that wasn't going to work out for us. Just the emotional stress of potentially falling in love with a child and then having them go back to the family. I was like, I can't do that. It's beautiful. People should absolutely look into it if they can.
And was there an expectation that you know, adopting was the right thing to do or the only option that you had. Was there like a big expectation on that.
Yeah, I think definitely. And I remember when I talked to other people about having kids. I think the pressure they put specifically on queer people, it's like, you're going to adopt, right, they would say it. So you're like, yeah, I guess that is what I'm going to do. And if you google back then, like I I never I didn't see websites that were like gay people can do IVF Sarahacy, I didn't even know what that word was.
The story goes I was on Facebook one day, as you do in twenty eleven, and some girl posts like pregnant, and I didn't even read the post. I just commented and was like, congratulations, so happy for you and your husband, And then she just sent me a DM that was like, Hey, not sure if you read the post, but I'm I'm sarrogate, like I'm caring for someone else, so it's actually not my and I was like, what are you talking about? What?
I googled it right away and was like, oh my god, she's pregnant for someone else.
That's wild yea.
And she said, when this pregnancy is over, I would love to carry for you and Josh, oh my, And then all of a sudden, you go from having no idea what this option is too, this is my option. She is going to carry my children, like you know.
It must be like such a surreal moment. And then you guys going because someone's willing to do that for us. Holy shit.
There's a few different pieces to the puzzle, right because you've got you've got someone to carry, but you do use her egg.
So you definitely can. So there are lots of options. There is anonymous donors for eggs, anonymous donors for sperm, so you could not use you or your partner at all and just take a sperm and an egg donor create the embryo, and you could have children that are not biologically connected to either one of you for whatever reason, maybe you have both of you and your partner. Would that be safe.
I don't want to sound horrible a cost effective option that way, No, I mean, yeah, how do you put a pross on a human life. I'm not trying to.
Say no, it's now. These are good questions because you have to pay for both yea and yeah. There's a cost attached to both of them. There's a cost attached sometimes to the retrieval process. So if you select someone who hasn't gone through the process, who hasn't donated to a bank either for egg or sperm, you got to
pay for them to go through the whole pot. So what a lot of people do is the most people who do serrogce or IVF for straight is they take the sperm or the eggs from whatever partner can give naturally, and then they combine. And so you can do that where one partner gives and then the eggs or the sperm come from a bank and then I guess the other. That's like the two IVF process. So for us, we had to throw a massive spanner in the works of
the story. I started telling everyone that we were going to do surrogacy, and then someone came forward from my family and offered to donate eggs.
Wow, I can't imagine the feeling like how amazing that would have been.
Also, I guess there must be a little cases though, where someone is like, that sounds great, I'd love to help out, and then when it comes to the actual point, they're actually, this is yeah.
Oh so many girlfriends of mine had said yeah, I'd love.
I am Now.
I think that whole three month period, because it was three months really between finding out that there was you know, we would go down the surrogacy path and then getting the offer. The world has been pretty dark, like if you just use social media, the news consumptioning, it's easy to get wrapped up and like things are not great. And at that time Trump states that's what it's like to live in America. At that time, it's like a
lot of tension. Then you have these two people who are like, I will put my life on the line because we're not talking about like, you know, pregnancy. Both of you do like you're literally risking your life for a stranger. All of a sudden, I thought, maybe the world's not so shit, Like this is pretty impressive.
It's pretty cool.
Selflessness to a t And then you think of my family member, what outside of the physical ramifications of going through an egg retrieval, the psychological layers of being around those children potentially for the rest of their lives and yours, and to always know that there is a biological component and there's a lot of layers there. For sure. You got you know, she went to therapy and she did that work, and before she brought it up to us, she did all of that stuff. So she did a lot of one.
I'm assuming because it's a family member. Josh used his spem.
You know that you were the first person to not immediately go So who gave this car? Good for you, Thank you. I'm always like if me and my family member maybe embryos that would not turn up. Yeah, So the decision was easy, Like, once you have that egg offer, it's just one hundred percent get Josh tested a okay, good to go make the embryos.
Wow.
So I guess in a sense there is a biological connection with your children to.
Both Yeah, did you was it.
Any different you're having children that are not from your sperm.
Yeah, it's a good question. I think for probably six months I was like, Okay, you got to come to terms with the fact that he's going to be the biological dad, and you're not going to have that relationship. When I looked into like the science of the way in which family members are connected. I don't know if you've ever met someone you're like, you look so much like your uncle, you look so much like your grandfather, but you don't look like your father, you don't look
like your mother. So I thought, maybe there's this hope that my kids are going to look just like me. And you've seen them. They look just like me. They look a lot more like me sometimes than my husband. And people say that, and I'm sure that feels like God to him because he's like, it's me.
But even even for like for us, like I'll say to Matt, Lola looks so much like Laura, but Marley looks so much like Matt. And my mom was like yeah. My mom was like, you just met these kids. And then she's like, oh, I see a lot of Laura, and I see a lot of metal on Laines. And then same with my kids, like my son is like mini me, you know, like but then some people be like, oh, I see so much people in Oscar. What hell?
But it does it does hurt when when people say, you know, along the lines of you didn't really get a looking with Lola. It's just a spitting image of Laura. And I'm like, oh my yeah, my jeans are weak like Oscar.
So like my half of my family, part of my family's indigenous. So Oscar really got that it's really dark. He had a Mongolian patch, like he's he is an indigenous kid. Then my daughter is she is pale, she's I always joke that she glows in the dark and a redhead. But I went to an indigenous school with
a lot of redhead indigenous kids. But like it's like a lot of people be like, look at her and then look at me, and they go, she's not your like as a joke, and I'm like, well, I'm just look at it was like the Milkman's kid probably, but like yeah, it's it's like it does hurt.
Sometimes and you're like, oh shit, do you think do you think it a great deal? Knowing that they had a load of, you know, appearance wise, very similar to yourself and your.
Family, Yeah, I think so. I mean, I'll be honest, I did a lot of work long before we made the decision to do it, because once you decide you want to have kids. You have to decide can you deal with all of this? Can you financially throw down the amount of money that is required to go through IVF and pay as arrogate all of that? Right, it's
hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's the average person couldn't even do it without taking out a huge long So you got to do all that, and then psychologically you got to decide am I cool with this? And I just decided really early on, like I just want to be a dad, Like I don't give a shit. I don't care the color of their skin. I don't care what their gender is. I don't care how we get these children. You know, for a lot of straight people, you know, but don't boom, it just happens like it's
an accident. You're like, here we go, shit, sorry. So I think for me it was like listen, you know you're already different. You got to hack the system to make this dream a reality. Who cares? Who cares? There is not a single moment that I've ever looked at my children since they were born and been like, do you know how much it costs to bring you this world? Like I tell them, I've never used like my lack
of biological connection. They don't know that they know exactly where they came from and how our family was made. But they don't think I'm less than than Josh right, and I went, it's an emotional story.
He saw it.
He is crying.
Sorry.
I tried to hold that in so bad that it made it work. So yeah, it's pretty good.
And so the kids were born in the States.
Yeah, so it's not legal to do what we did.
Can you just elaborate on that phone? Part of it is not legal.
So there are two types of surrogacy. There's altruistic or you do it out of the goodness of your heart. So your siblings, your they could totally do it for you, but they would need to do it for free, so
they would not get compensation. Right, So the moment you would pay someone for the time going to the hospital, the clothes that they need to wear, the food that they need to eat, all the visits, the actual surgery, the time off from work, like you know, compensating for what they're doing for your family.
And this could be sorry, this could be a really dumb question, and I apologize if it is. How much do you pay someone to do all of that.
So I think at the top range of like Beyonce, it's probably like hundreds of thousands of dollars, like eight hundred thousands. There's estimates about her specific story because it's similar to ours with the twins, anywhere between like five and eight hundred thousand. The average is like thirty to fifty to seventy five. And that's based off of the
sarrogates experience giving birth. So if she has, like our sarrogate, had three children already, her family's finished, she carried all three to term, didn't need any, didn't have ce Suasashi, she's perfect. Someone like that who who would probably charge a little bit more potentially than someone who this is their first time. Wow, but you know that thirty to like seventy five ranges, probably they're going cost So.
Then you've been through this very long and difficult, sometimes confusing, expensive journey. You're now a dad, the children are born. Is it everything you've dreamt.
Of being a parent? Oh? God, No, it's like so shitty. I mean, listen, we know it's just like kids don't go easy on you because you're gay. They don't go easy. They don't know your sexual heality, Well, society doesn't care really at all, Like they're all the additional elements that get you there, Like once the child is in your hand,
it's just as difficult as everybody else's. I think the one thing I have going for me and people who struggled to conceive straight couples who went down eleven you know, sometimes you'll hear those stories, they've gone down seven cycles eleven. The only difference is in the beginning you are absolutely a lot more thankful and gracious with yourself. When things are really difficult, you constantly check in and you're like, so I had this conversation with myself and I still do.
Or I'll look in the mirror and be like, do you understand that for all of human history, all of it, the whole entire time, people like you couldn't even get married the whole time, All for all of human history, people like you who loved like you do couldn't have kids. Yea, and you just happen to be born in the exact
fucking decade. That shit's crazy. So when parents, when parenting is really stressful, which is you know, every single day you're fighting with your partner, I do have these moments where I look in the mirror and I'm like, bro, you do not understand what an amazing lucky gift you had. And that does help like ten percent of the time.
Because can I ask that could do two things? Put wind in your sale, but then also put a huge amount of guilt on your shoulders if you can't snap out of it. And if you're like, I'm so fucking lucky and I'm not appreciating this, I'm not loving it with every fiver of my body. I'm a piece of shit.
Yeah, that's a good point. It's interesting I haven't gone down the negative path so much because, to be honest, every parent who's listening to this knows like there's not a lot that can coach you out of a shitty day. It just it's pretty stressed.
Once you're in it, you're in it.
It's intense. And I never on a day to day basis, I don't think about my sexuality. Ever. I'm not like walking to the cafe being like here, I am walking a flat it doesn't happen.
You put your pinky out.
See, But the moments where I am reminded are around other parents. Yeah, so you are constantly confronted with the fact that you're just a little bit different when you're filling out forms or at the doctor's off and you have to cross out mother and p father.
But I'm always surprised. I don't spoken about it before elsewhere, and it's just a sign of my naivety, I guess. But a mother's group for you, that was something that was very difficult. Can you explain that?
Yeah, listen, I moved to a new country with two month old twins. My husband had been gone for twelve years, so even though he's coming home, the world has changed. Like his mates have kids that are as old as you know, fifteen all the way down, so they're busy with their lives. I left my job the day that the kids were born, and so I don't have a job, I don't have friends. Josh's family didn't live here at
the time. I'm just starting fresh. And on top of that, I'm a stay at home down with twins, and so I thought, I gotta get into a parenting group. I have to, like or else, Like, what am I going to do? And so I just went to the New South Wales government website and started searching around and I called the local hospital and I was like, Hi, I've just moved to Balmain and I'm just wondering if you could connect me with a local parenting group. She was like,
I'm confused. Did you get birth here, sir? But she was like, you didn't get birth here? Yes it is, and so they couldn't help me. They were like, really sorry, but if you get birth here, we can connect you with that specific group. So but don't worry. The government website has information you'll be able to find something. I logged on and back then there was just mothers groups and I thought, well, I'll just find the local mothers group. Couldn't figure it out through the website, went to the
Facebook group. You got to apply for the new South Wales Mother's group. You have to apply and I obviously didn't get accepted. I'm a dude, like they didn't welcome me. I'm still waiting on the acceptance.
We should check on that.
And it's pending. And so I decided, okay, well, if it's not working through that formal process, just go up to the mother's groups. I went to the park, you know, five days a week in Balmain, and I saw that there was a group of women who were meeting every Tuesday and Thursday. No joke like psycho on my pH.
Like what she just did? Do? And I behave with two kids.
I went to school for active good morning, Hi ladies, you've got.
But I was like, those are my ones because all their kids are the same age. That's all I was looking for, was like are they around the same age? And so I slowly befriended one of them, who sometimes was there on her own. She was very nice to me, and then I just asked one day. I was like, hey, I'm new our kids are the same age, Like are you accepting new members?
Is there a form?
Really nice, I swear, and she they all this woman looked at me and she just had the look in her eyes of like I'm gonna let you down, bro. But she was like, I'm really sorry. We don't feel comfortable having a guy in the group.
Uh.
Wow.
To be honest, I got it in the moment. I'm still a little upset about it. But in the moment, I thought, our kids are brand new, they're all two months old. And her answer was like, we're talking about some serious shit, like we're talking about bloody. She told me, like I think what she said, was like, we're talking about like Vagina's ripping open to buttholes. And I was like, listen, I can handle that. You don't know what game, bloody buttles, that's nothing you're supposed to say.
Yeah, I would be like, whoa.
It's a bit of an asshole move.
Yeah.
The number one part of my book that I get contacted by by far eighty percent of women who reach out is just because of that story, and fifty percent of them are like, I totally get why they said no, because in that early phase, yeah, you want to go to that table and rip on your husband, just want to rip on them. And then here at the table is a dude like who might Yeah, he's a spy. I'm literally a spy. And I can't say to them, don't worry, I'm the wife in the relationship. I get
it too. None of that means anything. Also, they don't know me. I'm random. Yeah, and most of the time when I'm at the playground. And I'm sure you guys can relate to this, but in those early days in Balmain, at least, there weren't a lot of dads out there, and when there were, we didn't like we had awkward chats, but the moms didn't talk to me. Also, I'm young and beautiful. They were confused. I think they thought I was threatened. You just say to me all the time,
like how long have you been with the kids? Like their whole lives? But I think, you know, sometimes I look, I address the way I dress, like I think it's confusing to people, like what are you doing here? Clearly homosexual?
Like what are you doing?
You must be a nanny. So they just ignored me. So I think I just decided in that moment, like that's not going to be for you. So you're going to have to figure out your own way. And so I just didn't parenting.
So it would have made you feel really really isolated. I don't know where we would be without them in a way, so I can imagine that would have been really, really tough.
Who became your biggest support network?
Then I didn't have one. So I met my you know, my best parenting friend, and eighteen months and wow, okay, so I didn't time. I did it so well. But I guess like the elephant in the room as I spiraled, So it wasn't like I just skipped through the eighteen months by myself. I just decided to be isolated. I obviously have a great husband, but he was working full time and yeah, yeah, I just decided, you'll have to
figure it out by yourself. And that's what I've since learned because the government has changed their policy and now they're you go on the website and there are fathers scripts and parent groups and fathers.
As they totally should. Yeah, especially like I know for me, I've got mate, I've got friends that as as guys have sort of have isolated themselves in that early in those early moments as well. And since Matt and I did a mental health episode last year and since then, I've had heaps of them come back to me and say, shit, I didn't know you were feeling like that too, And I felt like that and now like now that they're now,
they're feeling better. But like it's it should It's crazy that the world was like that where it was like, you know, he gives a shit about it that, Yeah, no matter the circumstance. And I think it.
Depends where you live, like in Bondi and in most of the Inner West. I've heard a lot like Northern Beaches like parenting groups even back then where dads were able to kind of pilot in at random moments and watch the kids with the same group.
Also, yeah, that's.
Sort of what the deal that we have, But now we've all just developed into Yeah, but.
I guess you have to take into consideration like what Balmain is and what it was, then it's a different group of people. And so I just decided that Bowmain was all of Australia, which was a little naive, but in the moment, you know, you're very lonely, you're sleep deprived, so you do jump to these nasty conclusions. And so I, instead of doing what I could have done, which is like, if not Balmain, then Roselle, and if not Roselle then like Harden. If not Liker and.
Just working like a salesman, I'm.
Off the park, I would have found them.
When did you realize that your mental health was something that you couldn't deal with on your own.
I've had a long, tumultuous history with mental health, so you know, as a young queer kid in the church, popped up pretty early, and so my mom put me in therapy when I was twelve.
Wow, she was like, I don't.
Have the answers to deal with whatever the hell you're going through. In America, we have worked a couple decades ahead of Australia as far as it not being that shameful, specifically for men to get mental health support. And so she was like, I don't know, the answers will give you a local therapist. And so from twelve all the way up until the story, I had been in and out of therapy whenever I needed it, you know, when things were going tough, I would sign up and then
I would, you know, drop back. But I thought, specifically to go back to what you said about feeling the pressure of being the first generation of gay parents. I decided, you fought for this, you paid for it. People don't want you to do this, so do not complain. Bro, shut up. Oh you're sad.
Oh it's you know.
I just was like, shut you're.
Just like, you know, yeah, you wouldn't allow yourself to be sad and beyond great, not ungrateful, but like have that feeling. It's like, well, people have never had this chance, so just shut up and get on with it.
Literally, And I wasn't going to complain to my husband because I had begged him to be a stay at home dad, Like I'd put pressure on him, you got to get that next job, get the money, because I don't want to work, Like you know, I felt like I convinced my parents I was going to be great at this, so I just kept shot. But the moment that I was like, oh, do you need help for sure? Is I had been working out a exit strategy to get out of the country by myself, very kind of
like unbeknownst to me, it was just happening. I would like Google at night one way ticket's best place to escape to countries you can disappear, and just like almost as a joke, but like how many people do it? And then one night I went to the airport in the middle of the night, three in the morning, just
slammed the door of the kids. They had shit everywhere and I just couldn't handle it anymore, grabbed the keys, drove to Sydney International Airport, got out and just like I looked at the entrance and I was like, are you gonna are you gonna? Like? Whoa, Like your mind is broken, dude, Like huge, huge step.
What was stopping you? Then when you're at at the airport, Yeah, and you've been fantasizing about getting away. What was holding you back?
It's interesting it wasn't necessarily being held back. It was, weirdly enough, the reminder of what I needed, which was my husband. You know, those early days, it's the only thing you want to do is like to get a divorce, Like I don't want anything to do with you. I don't want your help. Plus I'm lying to you, so I'm not telling you what's happening because I want you
to seem like I'm really good at this. I don't want you to be afraid that I'm the one being left with the kids and I'm depressed and crying every day. Like if I had done that, I don't know what he would have done. I thought maybe the kids would get taken away. That's what I thought, Like, hey, husband, when you're gone at work, I cry in the shower. I cry when i'm make him in breakfast. I cry while they nap, Like, yeah, I just keep your mouth shut.
Super common though, So I was Josh in the situation, right, I would work full time, not what I do now, which I'm really reflexible. I was nine to five in the city from Northern Beaches. I was gone for twelve hours of the day. I come home to a broken person sitting in my house with my only child that I could have resented. So like, yeah, like you don't want them as much as Apel tried to hide it from me. You know you can tell.
Yeah, I mean exactly, even the fake smiles like they can sense something's up. But at the moment, I remember at the airport just thinking, oh shit, I just need Josh, like that's what I need.
So did you call them or did you drive home?
It was like four in the morning, so I I drove back home and I got into bed, and I didn't say anything, and I promised myself that I wasn't going to tell anyone.
He woke up totally unaware.
He found out when the book came out.
Holy shit.
I mean I obviously told them before. I was like, would you like to read this?
Just read this line? And you're sitting there with your see with you.
He wakes up and goes, I have this weird someone took the car.
At the airport.
No, but when you walk up, I did say I need help, like I need to get I need to get to a doctor. I think I think the words I used were I'm like, I think right now I might be a danger to the kids, was what I said. You just call the doctor's office and they're like, we can see you in seven seven business.
They're so brave love you to do that because so many people don't.
Thanks.
We've you know, had people reach out to us sort have said, like a lot of like young moms have said I think my husband going through a similar thing, or I think I'm going through a similar thing, or even even dad's like I think my wife's the same as what you know. And it's so it's so brave of you to like actually say it out loud, to even though it's the closest person to you, like it's crazy.
That's to hear. I think it goes back to like the foundation of therapy, the foundation of being like, hey, I'm struggling because even though I'm gay, like I have all the same issues that every guy has from being a man in society where it's like just tough enough, like shut up, yeah you didn't get birth. You hear a breastfeeding every day, get over yourself, like shut up. Was it like that that narrative was still in my head be tough, like man up a little bit. It
was absolutely that narrative. But if you have a foundation of love when things are shitty, of raising your hand just one person, it doesn't need to be a lot.
It isn't.
It can just be a stranger too. But in that moment of being like, okay, you got to you got to tell somebody.
And write it down. Yeah, write it down and slought him a not so whatever works for you.
When you started seeing someone professionally to get help. And this is coming from again a place of naivity because I haven't gone through that process myself. But are there any tools that you're given to better handle the situation or is it just a case of being with a therapist and airing out those thoughts is what helps in itself.
The government is pretty impressive, like this country when it comes to healthcare. You know, we can judge it in isolation, but when you consider some of the other countries in the world. The fact that I went to the doctors, I immediately took a postnatal depression test which said mother on the page twice, So like, you got to deal
with that drama. It work absolutely makes it worse. You're like, great, not only have I failed this is like the lot you're not a single man problem that they've never once considered before. And the doctor was like, my apologies fold at the top.
Subtle, at least he tried.
So you take the test and what comes out as a number, and if the number is above a specific thing like above twenty, it means you know things are bad, and if it's above thirty, that person needs psychchiatric support immediately.
And my number was in that category, so immediately I qualify to go to Trisillian, which is a full funded government house hospital where you can go and for a couple of days have help with sleep and they take care of the kids and they work with you to help sleep trains so that you can get to a place because all of this is happening, as we all know,
while you're sleep deprived. And so if you can get the parent in a better mental headspace through sleep so they're not literally sleep deprived, then they can think more clearly.
They take your baby from you at night. That was one. So like we did this thing. We did eight weeks essentially, and like the first week is really important for mom, dad, whoever to get rest because they're like the number one thing is just get some rest, like and you honestly, even week after, just like a week in and you've got the rest again, you start to think so much more clearly about your situation. Absolutely, it's so helpful.
There's a reason why sleep deprivation is a form of.
Torture because it works made like they're talking at you and you're just feeling worse and worse and worse, or they're asking you questions and or in another world thinking about escaping, and so to get the sleep and then be able to look at the doctor, I guess, like the best things that they did for me, I did get medical support, so I went on medication right away. It was clear that where I was at was actually dangerous for myself, for my husband, for my children, and
so I that medical support was embarrassing. Like I was embarrassed. Absolutely, that was one of the lowest points where I.
Thought not only of much medicated.
Yeah, and I didn't want that. When they told it to me, I said, what's the other option? Because I'm definitely not doing that too.
What do they say in that situation?
Oh, He's like, well, we can explore like the sunrise, like the sun outside and eating healthy, but.
Meditation, exercise that just the general jog and really.
And then I just had excuses and I was like, I'm an stay at home dad, like my husband works, what's going to happen. I don't have family here, I don't have friends, Like, I don't know what you want. I can't get to the local mothers group, so like you're giving me these options. It don't make sense for me. And what he said, which I will always remember, is we need to get Sean back and if we can use medicine, even if it's just for three months, a really short period of time, to get your clear head.
All of the things we're going to tell you to do, exercise, eating healthy, connecting with friends, maybe getting a job. You're going to be able to hear more clearly and then make sound decisions. And they use some power moves against me. They were like, it's not about this isn't just about you. This is for your kids. As soon as you hear that, you're like tiger Dad comes out and you're like, I
guess I'll do whatever it takes. I happened to be going home to America for the first time to see my family, and he said, why don't you go home and just be with your mom and dad and go on this medicine with them, and something about that, I
was like, that sounds great. I'll give my kids to like the people I trust most in the world, and I will go through the passive process of transitioning onto medicine, which is it rewires your brain and it's not enjoyable for like a couple of days, and then I just went on it and didn't look back. Its work.
It definitely makes those things that although other suggestions, more doable and like, yeah, the clarity for sure is something that's like, because you do, you sort of go, I don't.
I'm not that guy. It needs to be medicated. And for so long I hit it too, but it's like and then it's like, well, what you should do is you should exercise every fifteen minutes or meditate it every day, And you're like, when is that kind of fit in with the other shit I have to do, you know, to change nappies and all that sort of shit.
Yeah. Yeah, So what advice would you give to any other parents out there, moms or dads who are in a position where they're thinking about escaping. What advice would you give to them.
I mean my advice in general, which happens to be a nice van diagram overlap with people who are struggling, is we have a story in our head of the parents that we think we need to be or want to be, and it's usually based off of our parenting role models or sometimes our friends and the world that our parents lived in it no longer exists, and so what we're doing is we're trying to live a traditional
life in a modern world. And sometimes those things don't marry up, and we get caught in like being a certain parent, and I think it gets in the way of us actually building a life with our partner, or if we're doing it by ourselves, it just works for you. I was so anti going to work because I wanted to be a stay at home parent. I thought that meant something. I'm going to do it like my mom did. I thought mother's group didn't work out, You're not welcome in.
That's the end of that chapter. And the reality was when I got clear, probably two weeks after the medicine, I started to realize, like, Okay, you can't be a stay at home dad because you're living in a country with no friends or family, you need to make connections. So like the exercise of walking around your park with a prams not good enough. Find a group class. So I signed up in the yoga studio, got tennis lessons, and then I thought, you know what, this isn't working.
You got to find a part time job. Just find people your age, like Connecticut andverising job part time. And then all of a sudden, I had connections, which meant I had someone to complain to, which meant I had someone that been to It.
Makes a big difference. Someone you can wing jab.
Just whinge, go to work and bitch or forget about kids for a minute. Because I was at that age, you know, I was twenty nine where I could slip into work at an advertising agency and not be a parent for a little bit. People would forget, they would
know I'm just a fun, gay kid. And then all of a sudden, it's like I was able to go off the medicine because I had all these resources of connection and work and meaning outside of parenting, which I think every parent who survived a couple of years knows. You got to have meaning outside of your parent. You've got to feel like you can give yourself self care as much as possible, and when that happened, I haven't like parenting has been great ever since then.
I think there may be a lot of partners listening to this who their partner is dealing with a similar issue with their mental health. It might be helpful for them to know what Josh did for you in those moments.
I mean, the rude reality is Josh was struggling on his own, and I think that's what's tricky even about both of your stories, is on top of you struggling, your partner is and so sometimes you're just trying to keep your head above the water. And when you go back and you talk to Josh about those moments, he was like, it was really tricky because I had my own issues and all I needed wanted to do is
ensure that you felt supported. The best things that I think he did was took almost everything off my plate whenever he could. So when you're there, you're present, you're off your phone, you're asking what's on your partner's list, and you're saying, what can I take off of it. I give Josh a lot of credit because one of the ways we structure our parenting partnership it was built in those early days where he would say, what's one thing you don't like doing this week that I can
take from you? And you take one thing I don't like off my plate. Wow, And he did that even when I was depressed.
What were the things that you didn't like?
I do not like going to the playground. I think it is absolutely ridiculous that we take them there to play and then we have to play the whole time. I could not be more annoying. Do you want me to push you on a swing? The repetitive ass motion of that app I I actually like.
The swing because then I can be on my phone.
I don't like laundry. I find it really annoying, like if it were up to me, like they're going to ruin that shit in like thirty minutes, so just chuck it out of there, like, don't fold it. Those are probably the two things that I was like, just taking off my plate.
Please.
I want nothing to do with the laundry ever again. And then I guess the other thing is like your partner is going to say no, they're not gonna want the help. They're going to give you excuses for why things are good. It is completely acceptable to not ask, but to tell Josha that a lot. So we're going on a date night on Tuesday. I know you don't want to leave them. This is important for us. You're going to a hotel for twenty four hours on your own.
I booked it. It's done. I've got everything else sorted. I know you say that you're fine. I'd really love for you to go for a walk and listen to a podcast. My mom's coming. It's like, don't if you think there's a real issue, and they don't. They're not receptive to help. You're allowed to, as the love of their life to go. Guess what. You don't get a choice,
go to bed, take a shower. I'm making dinner. It's done, And I think the best way to do it, Unfortunately, when they're really in a hole is to spring it on them, like my mom is coming in five minutes and you and I are going on a date.
Yeah, Aaron, you and I are just gone for a walk. Makes a really really big impact for sure.
And if you're like, think of what your partner did in the times when things were good. So like he brought my sister and surprised me because he knows that her and I are really close, and so she just showed up at my front door. Or Okay, Sean needs to find a yoga studio. I'm going to find it for him. He wants he needs ten Okay, I'm just going to get him the tennis racket. Like it's your job. You've signed on hopefully till death to us, bar forever whatever.
You actually do know the intricacies of what makes them happy. They can't see it. It's not clear for them. So if that, I just think, wouldn't you want the same thing? Of course we're going to say. Now we're in a whole like shit, so like you need a little bit help.
How are your kids now six six yeees old? So you've got a little bit more experienced than Matt and I. What do you think looking back is the biggest shit show moment with your kids? Oh?
Wow?
So many.
I was gonna say I could write a book about it, but I did.
Let's try another bit, so every year, I reckon you could sit down and write a book about the shit show moment.
I think every six years you get a next chapter, right, I mean, literally the biggest shit show. Josh and I travel a lot because my family's in America. He travels for work. And when before we had kids, we sat down and I was like, what, what's really important to you after kids? And he was like, I don't want to lose the wonderlust. Like he loves to travel. It's fundamental to who he is. So how do you have
kids and do that? And so we were traveling, like, my kids are six and they've been on more than one hundred flights easy, Like, yeah, probably one hundred and fifteen or hundred.
My son would be like, I want to go to all those plays.
My kids love it. It's just important to Josh. And so we go on a lot of trips. But I was the one having to deal with the jet lag on the way back. Right, He just gets to go to work and like deal with it with adults and just be an asshole or whatever. But I have to like deal with kids. So I was like, I don't want to go to America anymore. I'm sorry. He was like, I promised your mom we'd get back twice a year.
We got to figure out a solution and they were like, well, Josh starts talking to all his friends and people go, what about giving him anergen or like Benadrilla or whatever. It's fine, like people have been doing it forever and ever and ever. And I was like, okay, well you're older than me. I trust you. I think a grandmother his best mate's mom, who's a doctor and a grandmother, was like, we did it with all of our kids their whole lives.
They also gave them rum and literally literally.
So we get on the plane, we test it before we go, because you did the test.
We didn't.
No, we tested and they were both fine. We get on the plane, give it to my son. He just passes out with Josh and they just sleep for like, you know, the whole fucking flight. And I'm with my daughter and she starts playing and keeps playing and then starts to get agitated, Like I mean, I don't know what it's like to do coke.
But I've heard a reverse effects.
The reverse effects. She lost it and not just lost it like agitated, but and screaming and crying, but like the look of someone who's just taken acid and knows they can't get it out and there's no way to stop it, like her eyeballs got mad. She loving it. And we're on a plane and not only We're on a plane where La to Sydney? So we yeah, brilliant, a nice fourteen hour trip. She lost it, I mean,
and I just think back to that moment. There's like the funny story which is like her, you know, throwing herself against the edge and the women, the flight attendants being like what are you okay? Like what's happening here? Where's your wife? Like can someone come and help us? Situation? So that's your show. And then there's the scary bit, which is you're like, what have I just done to my kids?
Yeah?
They ever gonna come back?
I my daughter for sure. So that's probably one of the biggest shit shows.
Yeah, check medication.
Did I give her the right one? It was my pill?
Damn it.
Did she sleep at all?
She did?
Oh?
Actually, when she slamm through, she threw herself again door and then she just was like me tired and then just.
Finger again.
So don't drop your kids.
How do you navigate the conversations with your kids? Because now they are a bit older, they kind of understand at what age do you say you have two dads?
We decided really early on that the best and we stole this from kids who are adopted because I think that's probably the story we heard growing up, was the kid who's adopted who finds out when he's eighteen, or she finds out when she's fifteen, or always knew but never knew who the parents were. So many movies, so many because it's the lifelong quest for answers. And so when you meet people who were adopted who are.
Cool, I find out saying they drive me.
You know, they say they just they knew early on. They were always told, so before they could talk, before they always knew not just that they had two dads, but that that wasn't normal, but that wasn't common. We had the gay books, you know, like two dads or whatever, and I think there's one called like Stella has two dads literally, so we had that one. But like all the other books, we were constantly reinforcing like everyone else,
like you're going to be one of almost always. But then also we gave them the layers of like this is what a sarrogate is, this is her name, okay, this is your this is the biological mother. Here's what that means. So it felt very weird to be telling an eighteen month old that and a two year old. But the reality is they start to ask the weird, uncomfortable questions, and by the time they're six, they understand so fully exactly who they are, and they've worked through
the discomfort in a comfortable place. What you don't want to do is have them work through that discomfort at school, an uncomfortable place with other kids that go, you have two dads, that's weird.
Yeah, it's it's like that old conversation you have when you're a keep with my dad could paid up your dad like my dad's could be.
Literally both of them. But also, I guess the world has changed a lot, like our kids are growing up in a very different world where diversity even just through the phones, Like they have more access on television to people who look different, of different color. Like when we grew up, you wouldn't be outside of maybe one play school character every six months. You weren't seeing a bunch of people with different colored skin or kid in a wheelchair.
And so when Stella told this girl at school, she said, why isn't your mom ever pick you up? And Stella said, I have two dads. The girl goes, I wish I had two dads, sobbing sobbing, and Stella's like, don't worry, I'm sorry. She just looked at me like people are jealous of me, and so I think, like, that's beautiful, it's great, you know.
It's like, but like the sobbing.
I mean when she was three, well.
She was not sex It must be so nerve wracking. You know, everyone gets a little bit of bullying when they were younger, and me was. He believes me, but it's it's really scary. You're sending him out to the big wide world. You can't wrap him in cotton wool, and you're so fearful of them being an easy target. Is that anxiety tough to deal with?
I'll be honest. I think the fact that I grew up as that kid who was bullied, the clear black sheep in the town, the obvious gay kid everyone you've ever met, who was filled to the brim with empathy and sympathy and grew up a little bit strange. It's just a reality. Like when you're the kid in a wheelchair, you never grow up to be a dick. It just
doesn't happen. I mean, that's not true. There are bitch queens for the most part, but I think for me, what I came to terms with really early on through the coaching I got from my parents is is if it wasn't my gayness, it would be my freckles. If it wasn't because I had freckles, it's because I was a redhead. If it wasn't because I was a red head, it was because my dad got my parents got divorced.
They will find something, But what I will not do is pretend that them having two dads is genuinely worse than their friends' parents getting divorced. I just don't believe it. I really believe that like who I am is just as normal as anything else. And yes, I might not be as common as the rest of the population, but I'm a great dad. They have a good life, they have love all around them. That shit matters so much more than what a lot of straight people have to
go through. And so I just I'm not going to carry the trauma from my childhood and put it onto these kids who didn't ask for that. Yeah, and also, we live in Sydney, in a really cool, pretty progressive city where there were there's a lot of examples of difference all around them, and so instead of my parents trying to coach me the obvious and only one. Don't worry. There are other people like you somewhere. I hope Ellen. Ellen just came out public. She lost her show. I
don't have to do that. I don't have to do that. There are lots of other examples, and if I needed them, you know, they're literally gay parent meetups once a month and the Inner West where you can go so your children can have access and so if things got bad, I would I would feel that I could connect them with other people.
There's way more avenues now for you and your kids to connect.
Before we go, I want to ask you one last question.
Here's arms crossed. What something serious?
When you are an old man that's a gray hairs and your children, Stella and Cooper have grown up, what's the one thing you want them to remember about your home, the household that they grew up in.
Oh wow, oh that's good. The one thing I did not have as a child, And no fault to my parents. It's just because of the way that I was made was I didn't feel that I could talk about the problems that I was having. The greatest issue that I was having, the one that easily could have been the end of me. I couldn't talk to them about it, and again, it's not their fault. They're loving and accepting.
And I constantly think about how terrible about ten years of my life was to struggle internally alone every night by yourself. And then when I became an adult, to tell my parents those things and to hear them say we had no idea. Is oh that it hurts to know that they had no idea. If you're listening to this, you do not have access to the script inside your child's head. You might feel that you know them in
their totality, and we do. We understand our kids and the nuances and when they're in a good mood or a bad mood. But the reality is there are things that are going on in our kids head we won't have access to ever. And the only way you can fix that is creating a home where they can tell you anything and you nail home that message not when
things are bad, but when things are good. Good. Yeah, So when things are bad, people aren't capable of stretching and reaching on to the tools and techniques that will make them feel better. But when they're good, when they're in a great place. That's when you lay the foundation, like you understand that you can always come to me, that there is not a single thing that you could
say that's going to change my love for you. That if anything bad ever happened, like, I won't tell a single So those things that we all know we should say, I'm an example of that necessarily not working, and the damage that it did is something that I'll never be able to fully unpick. And I love my parents and
they're incredibly wonderful and supportive. But I know for a fact that my kids are aware of that, and I know that if things are bad and it started to happen, you know, when they hit KNDy and you're one and now the friendship drama is starting the stress of teacher dynamics and we're starting to get those that are dropped in your lap each day, and how you respond when your kid comes with that. You don't brush them off or oh you'll be fine, made that just happens sometimes,
Oh that's just kids shit. No, that when they come to you with those problems, you are writing the script for the rest of their fucking life, not just for you and them, but the way that they talk to partners and friends, and so I hope when they look back at that they think those four walls, when the outside world was scary, the inside was a real safe place.
Wow, there is no doubt in my mind that that's exactly how they're going to feel. You doing it, I can tell you showing that was a beautiful fucking chat.
Thanks, Thanks very much, Sean, Thank you for allowing us to enter your hass and have this conversation.
I was going to say thanks for having me, but you're welcome.
Than just to remind that if you have any guest suggestions, we would love to hear, because the plan is from now on we'll be doing guest episodes every fortnight from this Monday. So send us suggestions to two Doting Dads on Instagram or hello.
At twodding dads dot com.
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Two Doting Dads Podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and the connections to land, see and community.
We pay our respects to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestraight Island, the people's today. This episode was recorded on Gadagle Land