You're listening to a mom and Mere podcast.

Oh go, just before we start, status check on school holidays.

How's everyone going.

I'm fine.

I'm still in daycare land.

I'm not in school hell like you, it feels like a long time.

Yeah, if your kids are still on school holidays, thoughts and prayers.

If you are a school teacher going back to work in a matter.

Of days, also prayers.

I don't want to talk about school holidays.

I want to talk about the Taylor Swift and Blake Lively text.

Let's do it?

Hang on, wait, I've read them now, I'm at to speed.

Can I start the show and then we'll do it?

Hi, if you're near here, welcome to Parenting out Loud.

We are not here to tell you how to parent.

We're here to talk about parenting culture, like trying to make sense of the trends and the news and the things that you see online or in real life.

And you think, wait, is this what we're doing now?

Bully?

I'm Amelia Lester and I'm Stacy Higgs.

What happened with the texts?

All right?

So this very long ongoing saga with it ends with us the movie that Blake Lively maybe with Justin Baldoni.

There's many court cases associated with it.

But just this week, text messages were subpoened between Taylor Swift and Blake Lively.

Now they were best friends, unclear whether they still are, and what I love about the text is that they're incredibly relatable.

There's one text exchange where Blake text Taylor says, are you mad at me?

You know that kind of text that you send to a friend when you're like, I just feel like there's something weird happening here.

And the best part is that she goes, yeah, there is.

You're correct, there is, and they address it.

What did you think of the tech?

I loved it.

I was like, Taylor handled this like a pro.

She kind of was gentle and said, I know you're under a lot of stress.

I know there's a lot of things going on, but yeah, the messages you've been sending me have been with I want my friend back, Thank you very much.

But I loved it.

It also did make me think that we do have to be careful about everything we write down.

Yes, yeah, documenting that is like scary business, Like that is my worst nightmare, a friendship disagreement getting out in the public.

You need to move to Signal.

So you told us that your friends are moving.

I have a mum friend where we like to text each other things that we would not want to be leaked or subpoened or released, whatever the you say.

And we've moved our chats to Signal so that they self combust you can't see them.

Is this a journalist friend, because Sale is a very intense, very encryptied messaging app that I would not think that most people would need to use.

It's not a journalist friend, it's just a normal friend.

But we had an incident where I texted her something that I didn't want someone else to see, and they saw it.

They picked up her phone and saw it.

Her husband.

Okay, I texted her something.

It probably was only for her eyes.

Her husband saw it.

It was a bit of a moment, a disaster, a reckoning.

So we moved to Signal and.

Now, like a snapchat for mum like so it just vanishes after a couple of seconds.

It's like WhatsApp, but it's like heavily encrypted and then it disappears after a certain amount of time.

So that's what we're doing now, We're doing Signal.

Yeah, Okay, Taylor should have taken a leaf out of.

Your book and use that.

So coming up on today's show, the Beckham Family got us thinking about controlling parents and what it means to have control and then when it slips over into control ling.

Have you ever snuck out of work early to pick up your kids?

Yes?

Yeah?

Was it a career ending move for you?

I cannot wait to tell you about this story I found.

But first I've got some good news.

Stop blending kale into your kids' moothies or saying that you will.

Kale's done, it's out, it's over.

Wasn't doing it.

But that's good.

Good.

You don't need to worry about it now.

According to Vogue, twenty six is the year of the cabbage.

Cabbage is hot.

What yeah, Vogue?

Yeah, like the fashion magazine.

Yeah, well, you know, through the forefront of what's cool in life in the zite, guys, Apparently cabbage is in the zite.

I feel like this is like in the nineties when everyone said that celery was negative calories because it takes so much energy to crunch it.

Is that why voguzine cabbage so quintessential diet food.

Yeah, that's what it feels like.

It does feel very diet coded.

But it's like protein had its moment last year, Cottage cheese had its moment, and like big fiber has gone, No, what do we have?

What's our best food?

We can roll out?

And it's cabbage.

Cabbage.

You got some pr Yeah it did.

Yeah.

Do you know what this is also making me think is that when I was breastfeeding my first child, yeah, midwife Cath Melbourne's met my.

Cath was my guru and in her book The First Six Weeks, she says that if you feel that your breast are engrged, you can whack a cabbage leaf on them.

So multi purpose very much.

Associate cabbage with those first crazy weeks breastfeeding.

And that's not a particularly delicious connotation, I gotta know.

And they also smell like farts when they're cooked, and I won't hear otherwise.

I don't think it's very enticing to the kids.

Thank you for bringing me this culture, But I don't understand why Vogue, a fashion magazine, is talking about food like stay in your lane, Yeah, stay in your lane.

Vote you tell me what jeans I need?

That's the answer I need.

And can answer that question.

But I do think it's there's something like what humble things need to be brought back to the forefront of culture, because come, what cabbage is quite humble?

Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, very basic.

I would like to see Makona coffee in voke.

Don't you think it goes a long?

Wait?

And it's not bad?

I was also so nostalgia and that.

Yeah, oh you're good at that.

Thanks.

I don't anything potatoes.

You never see it be the year of the potato, and yet they are the best food we have.

Yes, the humble, everyday things that now need to be championed.

Yeah, twenty twenty seven, look, yeah, Ostereoterione nominations.

As mum of me.

As you, correspondent, I got another bit of food news for you.

I need to inform you that the Trump administration has an official beverage and that beverage is whole full fat milk.

Immediate reactions because people have strong feelings about full fat dairy Stacey.

I love a bit of milk aways have, Yeah, full fat's fine.

I can't taste a different, so I don't really care.

Give me any pro milk, pro fil fat milk.

Okay, so maybe it's not so controversial for you, but you join Robert F.

Kennedy Junior in your love of full fat milk.

He released a new food pyramid.

It's basically the old food pyramid turned upside down.

Full fat dairy right there at the top YEP, top YEP.

And then in between threatening to invade Greenland and avoiding the Epstein files, Trump made time this week to sign a law saying that all American schools can only serve full fat milk.

Because you know, American schools have cafeterias, like you've seen.

Teenages, they had all been serving low fat milk because medical professionals, you remember them, they said that that was better for you.

But now he says, saturated fat we it.

So now full fat milk is back in US schools.

And then, not to put you find a point on it, the White House released a picture of Trump as an old fashioned milkman with the caption make whole milk great Again.

So that's where we're at, guys, Cabbage and milk get into.

I don't know much about Trump.

I don't don't follow politics.

But he loves the nostalgia pool, doesn't he.

He loves reminding people that things used to be great, back when you could eat meat and drink dairy and fool like.

Is it a nostalgic play?

Is it a life was better back then?

Yes?

And I think I think that there's sort of like this sense that like low fat milk's a bit trendy.

Let alone the armond and the oak.

Yeah, I don't, No, guys, I want to talk about autistic Barbie in case.

She's been everywhere this week, Like I have not seen something like this cut through to that level like it was on everything.

Okay, but how should I feel about this?

Yeah?

Okay, stop stop because some people listen to this might not even know that Mattel released an autistic bar Yeah.

We live in the new cycle.

Yes, not everybody does.

So Mattel released this doll.

A couple of facts that you need to know.

It was developed with the autistic community, from guidance from the autistic community, took from eighteen months to develop it, and I noticed in the release of it they were very careful in their language, saying that the doll reflects some experiences on the autism spectrum, but it doesn't represent everyone.

You know, we can't be all things to all people, but you know, this is kind of us start and we did it with the community.

So the doll has a few features.

It has noise canceling headphones, It comes with the fidget spinner.

It has wrists and elbows that can quite flexible so it can stim and it also has like flat shoes.

And the eye contact something they did the eye contact so that you can't quite make eye contact with the doll.

Yeah, and there's been lots of chat about it, pros cons, yadda yadiyada.

But what I want to talk about, what I'm fascinated with, was the timing of this release.

This doll was released on January the twelfth.

What's the significance of January the twelfth?

Though?

I just think it's interesting.

I clocked this because I thought, no one's releasing the hottest toy of the year on January the.

Twel Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, yeah, think about January twelfth.

It's post Christmas.

No one's out there buying toys.

But the holiday period is kind of over and news journalists are back at work right and they're looking for stories to cover.

But it's kind of a dead time of the year.

There's not much news around.

So Mattel have come out on jan twelve, going, we're releasing this doll because I think they just wanted earned media and this was like a brand play.

Right.

So there are two types of media.

There's earned media and there's paid media.

Now, paid media is where you buy a billboard, you buy an ad, you spend millions of dollars advertising autistic Barbie.

But instead they this is an earned media play.

And earned media is where you get talked about on a podcast, you get talked about on a TV breakfast morning show, you get news articles written about you.

And it worked.

It was everywhere.

So are you saying that rather than expect this to be a blockbuster release, they basically wanted headlines about how inclusive they are.

I think so yeah.

And I'm not putting a value judgment on that.

This is a business play, but I think toy companies release their big toys in Q three, which is like October, you know, you're starting to ramp up into Christmas, and I think releasing this in kind of January and talking about this was them kind of saying, look at what our brand stands for, and this is our value.

I don't think, yeah, can I say that?

When I read about it, my immediate thought was I'm surprised that they're doing this because we particularly learned in recent years that the autistic community is very diverse.

The members of that community do not all.

Agree on how they want to be portrayed or talked about.

So I'm wondering how was the reception to this doll, because it's sort of presenting one particular way of representing that community.

But was that seen as controversial?

Yeah, of course it was.

It's the Internet.

Everyone's going to be predictably outraged over something.

So there was two camps.

One was this doesn't represent me.

I feel offended, how dare they?

But the other camp was it's something.

There were people.

Yeah, absolutely, and you know, inclusion has to start somewhere and you can't be all things.

And that's why I thought the line in the Mattel CEO whatever said something to that effect.

We can't be all the things.

We cannot represent this in every single way that it exists, but it is something that's great.

Australian author Craig Sylvie has been charged with the possession and distribution of child exploitation material.

Sylvie wrote Jasper Jones, that's more of a young adult read, but he also wrote Runt, which was made into a movie that came out last year.

The Education Minister has ordered that Sylvie's books are no longer used or studied in schools, and this is why we can't really talk about it beyond this, because the legal proceedings are ongoing.

But one thing that we really strive to do on this show is to validate what parents are thinking about.

So it felt important to acknowledge to our listeners that we're going to be continuing to track the story as the court case and legal proceedings unfold.

If I took a shot every time I heard the name Brooklyn Beckham this week, I'd be dead, long gone from this earth.

Rip me forever.

Oh your liver, Oh my god.

This was like a big week for Mamma Mia.

Huge story, Yeah, huge story, Like Christmas Day for me.

Really when these stories happen.

Of course, I never want to celebrate the breakdown of a family, but it is rare that we get someone going to so much detailent was great.

I will explain it to you if you have missed this story completely, welcome to the fun house that is the Beckham family.

So I'm actually full a record.

I'm so horrified at the vulturous nature of media and people around this.

There, I've said it.

It makes me sound insufferable.

Some of us just gather with my culture talents and get into it.

Yeah, let's do it.

Can we just you act like you're not interested in this?

I tell you thet you'll love it.

Tell us the tea is your tongue burnt from all the tea?

Too much tea.

On Monday, the eldest of the Beckham children posted a six page Instagram story.

Didn't have the guts to put it on his grid.

He just went with stories so would.

Be deleted not putting it on the grid.

Now, he should have said it with chest Yeah, just put it on the grids like everyone's screenshotting.

That's right.

It's not a picture of him kissing his wife, which is the only thing that this man does put on his grid.

He put out a statement detailing all the reasons he has become a strange from his parents, David and Victoria Beckham.

Now Claire Stevens did this hilarious literal line by line recap of this statement for us.

It's on Mamma MEA will drop it in the show notes.

It's very funny if you want to see it all in detail.

But there's one line in particular I would love to discuss with you both, and it's where he said, I'm not being controlled.

I'm standing up for myself for the first time in my life.

For my entire life, my parents have controlled narratives in the press about our family.

Their performative social media posts, family events, and inauthentic relationships have been a fixture of the life I was born into.

Like he went ham on them.

Now, some things for context.

He's twenty six now, so very much a grown man.

When he chose to get engaged to his wife, Nicola Peltz, he was twenty one, she was twenty five, so very young.

But of course that's his choice.

He's a grown up, but he is in that gray area where you know you're an adult.

But in a family dynasty like that, where you're seen as being very close and one really tight knit unit, it probably would have felt very scary to David and Victoria that their son was going to go off and marry this billionaire American heiress.

And he's their firstborn son.

First born Yeah, okay, side note for you.

There was a long held belief that Brooklyn was named after the place he was conceived.

I thought that was what it was.

Yeah, So they had to clear it up later and say it was where they found out that they were pregnant with Brooklyn.

But I wonder if that's actually a lie, a little bit narcissistic of them to name him after that.

But it got me thinking about where the line is with controlling parents, Like I think up until now, if you were a fan or a follower of the Beckham family, you would look at them as the gold standard of what you want with your kids.

Like that, you would have fully grown adult kids or teenagers that want to be around you, that are posting loving, you know, tributes on your Instagram for your birthday.

That's what everyone wanted.

And now their eldest has said, no, this is all fake.

This is all a facade.

They control us, and I'm not being a part of it anymore.

I'm out.

Yeah, this really hit a call for me.

Yeah.

I really wanted to talk about that word control that you see throughout the statement from Brooklyn, in part because I kind of identify as a control freak.

We've spoken on the podcast before about I'm not type A.

I'm not very famously TYPEE.

But I am a control freak.

And the way I know this is that I once met a German lady and we had sort of an ongoing interaction, and I thought I was being very friendly and introducing her to the neighborhood that she just moved to, and you know, Germans are famously quite blunt people.

And she turns to me and she says, I'm not going to try and do a German accent.

She's like, you are a control freak.

And when a German tells you that you're a control freak, you listen.

And ever since then, I've been aware of the ways in which my parenting style can be very controlling.

Now, the reason why I'm controlling is not because I'm a wicked witch.

It's because i want the best for my children, and I'm trying to provide them with the experiences in life that I think is optimal.

But what that comes along with is a sense of needing to control the environment.

And like, if you ask Victoria, well, what do you say to this allegations that you're controlling, I think she'd say exactly the same thing, which is that she only ever wanted the best for her son by all accounts.

She and David are very dedicated parents.

No one could accuse them of checking out of parenting, and that's not even what Brooklyn's accusing them of.

But maybe there is something in this idea that when you think that you're providing a children with the best possible opportunities and life choices, you're also controlling their life in a way that when they look back on it, they might resent you.

For I also feel like it's a boy mum thing too.

I wonder, I wonder if there's a gendered thing here.

Annalie's Todd wrote this piece for Mum and Mia as well about how for boy mums, you know, you're seen as toxic at a certain point, like when they're little, it's fine, but when you get to that point where you go, well, they can't possibly leave me.

And there's you know, that saying of a boy as yours until he meets his partner and then he's gone, whereas a girl is yours forever, Like you don't see that with girl mums.

If you are very close as a mother daughter, it's seen as oh, what a beautiful bond you've got, how unbreakable you can be best friends?

But it seems like as the ages creep up, it gets to a point where it's like, it's weird if you're too close with your son and they get labeled toxic for that.

To loosen the grip, Yeah, yeah, let them go.

Yeah.

And I think you're probably right that when it comes to boys that dynamic.

It's a bit harder to loosen the grip.

I think that's right.

Yeah, you're looking at me a bit confused.

Do you not relate?

Are you more control for it?

I'm thinking, thinking what am I going to say?

I don't know what to add.

I don't have a hot take.

I don't look at this and think anything in particular.

I think the whole thing's really sad.

I think he's really damaged.

I think, but doesn't it feel like it would be your worst nightmare if your child, if you've raised and you love so much and you don't want to detach from your family goes, I'm choosing this other person like that is every parent's last night?

A universal nightmare?

Yeah?

And look at connected with the cut article that I read, maybe I'll throw this in the mix.

It was by the brilliant Catherinees of More Than We Talk About Her a lot.

It was called Mom's How Much Power Are You willing to give Up?

And this.

Came out pre Beckham scandal.

In it, she lays out what she says is this universal, uncomfortable truth, which is that it is at home.

It is in the domestic sphere that women often have and have accrued the most power.

Now we're talking about heterosexual relationships here, I should add, but she describes this way in which even when a household is run roughly equally between a man and a woman, between two partners, there exists a very persistent reality that mum is boss.

I think we all can recognize that, even if maybe we don't identify with that.

I think we've seen that trope where it's like Mum decides when the play dates are, Mum decides what's in the school lunchbox, Mum decides what the school camps are.

And the thing about it is that power is very hard to give up, even when you're ambivalent about it, Even when you're sick of the emotional labor and and the mental load.

You don't want to give up that power to run your household the way you want to run it.

Yeah.

I love this article.

I thought I've never heard anyone talk about the control of the domestic sphere.

When people talk about the mental load of motherhood, it's always framed in this term of like, oh, we suffer under it and it's such a burden.

But what this article does is say, actually, it's really powerful and some women really love the control of it.

And I fully related to that.

I was like, I like being the CEO of mummy dot com at my.

House because things go the way you want them too, yes, and the way that you think is best for your kids.

To bring it back to old Victoria.

Yeah, and then you lay it on all that pressure on their brand as a family, and it feels like, from what's been said, it's almost like they didn't approve of her as a part of brand.

Beckham, I'm talking about Nicola Peltz here.

She's American, she's a billionaire.

They do things in a very different way.

I think that's too cynical.

I think it's why possible that David and Victoria didn't think that Nichola.

Was right for their son.

Yeah.

I definitely think that's why I did it.

That he got married quite young.

Yeah, And it's.

Possible that they just thought she was wrong for him, and I think they've exerted that opinion and not held that back because to be controlling.

People regard the Beckhams as sort of on par with the Royal Family, right, yeah in the UK, yes, So they are the pop culture equivalent of the Royal Family, and Brand Beckham comes first, right, Everything they do serves Brand Beckham.

And so you're saying Nicola Pelts didn't fit Brand Beckham.

What's wrong with Nikki.

I don't think anything's wrong with her, but I just think she probably didn't fit with what they saw for their son and what they thought was best for him.

And even the Washington Post has now weighed in on this.

Their advice columnist Carolyn Hacks, she was like, I love her, She's great.

I didn't know about her.

So she's waited in on this and gone a lot of what happens with family strangement, which is obviously what's happened here.

They are completely no contact now, they are not allowed to even like each other's Instagram posts.

That's how bad this relationship has severed.

And she was saying, one option for kids in families where they're unhappy and feel controlled a lot of the time, is that they date their way out of the family, so they almost latch onto someone who feels like the antithesis of what they're dealing with.

We don't know their family dynamics, We don't know the Peltzers, but they seem like a lovely family.

But maybe they do it very differently.

I was being very generous, but say that they are.

He's looked at that and gone, this is my way out, all attached to them, and the disapproval has been the thing that's actually finally cut that cord.

Question why is and I understand that there was a twerking or a lap dance at a wedding, and then there's a lot of talk about the wedding and da da da dah, But why is Victoria getting all the heat If the Beckhams are a family and it's like Victoria did this victory that it's the trope of the mother in law being an evil witch against the daughter in law.

Where is David in this conversation?

That's a really interesting part.

Victoria is mentioned seven times.

David is mentioned once.

Wow, all of.

The angers and is very much direct cause the power.

You know, whose boss in the Beckham household?

Victoria yes, And David is the classic trope of the bumbling dad that's out in his garden or playing his goal for whatever it is, yeah, and kicking them.

And maybe she's had the conversation.

He's the fun dad and she's the witch.

And all I'm saying is that the pendulum of public opinion swung this week.

Pretty much everyone had been team Beckham up until these messages, as in David and Victoriatoria, and then he did this post, and I feel like public opinion changed in favor of Nicola and Brooklyn and the Peltz family.

And I'm just here to say.

That if you asked Victoria why she did all these seemingly evil, terrible things, her honest, genuine answer would be because I can about my son.

Yeah, I think two things can be true.

You can love someone and you can ruin their life with your controlling tendencies.

And a quick conversation in the office this week and every boy mum in the office said I would love to go up and steal that dance with him.

Because she talked about that posh.

Overshadowed their first dance together as a couple and everyone and when yeah, I'd love to have a first dance with my son at his wedding.

I can't wait to do that, Like this is born out of love, but it's when control and trying to control the situation tips over into controlling.

The most interesting comment I was seeing from people was people saying, if you've been on David and Victoria's side up until this point, you've never had a narcissistic, controlling family, and it shows.

I think this is so unfair.

I don't know.

I just think that there is a fine line between control and controlling, and moms do have to become the boss of the household because someone's got to step up and do it.

And that's such a telling stat where As David and all of this this great question.

Let me tell you a story about a working mother.

I want you to sit with this before you decide how you feel about it.

Okay, this GP in the UK, doctor Helen Eisenhower, mother of two, who could never leave work on time because she would always have these last minute appointments that would get dumped on her.

Right.

You know what it's like in a GP office.

It's just walls to the wall, all day long, patient patient, patient patient.

So she struggled getting out to pick her kids up from after school care by six o'clock.

So she got crafty, and she blocked the last appointments of the day out so that no one could dump a patient on her last minute.

So like in the calendar, it would look like she had a patient, yes, correct, so that she could get out on time to pick up her kids.

And she did it twice.

One of the partners at her clinic noticed the anomaly and dubbed on her.

Who was this person who is staring at her calendar?

What a creen?

I don't know.

Here's my question.

What happened next?

Was she a high fived by the other working mothers at the clinic and gone, great job, Helen, awesome work.

Wish I'd thought of that.

Was she be supported by her manager who said, oh, Helen, you shouldn't have to do that.

Let's work on a more flexible working arrangement so that you can pick up your kids on time.

Or was she see cross examined by a tribunal, shamed and suspended from work for five months for misconduct.

You know what, you sound like one of those sexual harassment training courses they make you do where the answer is very very obvious.

But you have to go through the motions anyway.

What I hope it's be, but I'm gonna guess it was Seene.

She got pulled up on it, she had to go in front of a tribune or suspended for five months.

And her comment what was her quote?

I am thoroughly ashamed and determined to never compromise the medical profession or myself.

Again.

I'm sorry, mistreating about Sorry, I know I'm putting this in my mind in the same bucket as when you like do washing when you work from home, or like if you had your camera off during an all staff meeting and were, like, you know, tidying the hat, Like, is that not the same thing?

You're kind of bending the rule a little, but you're working on the basis that you get your job done, you do the thing you need to do, you do no harm as a doctor, and you move on Like.

No, it's also really hard to get to these after school things at exactly the right time.

Yeah, And one thing that I think we can be grateful for with COVID is that a lot of people now have the opportunity to work from home who didn't before.

But for those who continue to have to go into an office like this, poor GP.

I can see why she had to do something like that.

Yeah, I think it was so.

I just I could not believe this story and the comments that she made in this tribunal.

I was under extreme pressure and stress at the time.

That's why I had to do something.

You know what's going to add pressure and stress to her life, going to a tribunal to try and save her job.

Poor Helen.

I'm not so bad for her.

It's time mums to tell each other to pitch to each other the things that we've discovered, the things we've watched and seen and loved and want to tell each other about and tell the listeners about, so that you too can find our hacks for life and make your weeks better.

Stacy, I'm sorry.

I'm really not okay.

I had the best time over the Christmas break because I became fair girl level obsessed with a show, and so did half of the world, clearly not you two, because you looked at me very blankly when I told you what I was going to recommend.

Today, I have become like a cult member, going door to door trying to recruit people to this show.

That is how obsessed I've become the show is heeded rivalry.

Oh yeah, yeah it is.

You explain this to it.

I has the Thermo mix of TV shows.

Everyone's like, you gotta watch it, you gotta watch it.

I'm like, what MLM, Are you on a pyramid scheme?

But I am like an MLM.

That's what my friend, my best friend was like, are.

They paying you?

Why won't you shut up about this show?

Because I was determined to get as many people to watch this as possible.

It's a show, so I'll set up the premise.

It is group chats.

Your mum group chats are full.

Group chats are exploding.

My mum group chats aren't explaining.

This is all anyone's talking about.

All I get is memes edits things about the stars of the show.

That is my entire algorithm.

I have to actively search for other things.

This is how I missed the Taylor messages this week, Like I just it wasn't even in my ether because all I get is edits of these beautiful, beautiful men.

So here's the question.

Because a Canadian show about gay ice hockey players seems like an unlikely show to dominate an Aussie mum's group chats explain why.

Okay, I think that has been the best part of this story and why people have loved this show so much.

It was made on a tiny budget.

They had thirty days to shoot this show and they didn't even know if it was going to get picked up by a streamer, so it was made, as you said in Canada, really tiny crew.

All the stars.

It's like for the main two cast members, their first major show that they've been in.

Is it because are you beating around the bush?

Is the answer that mom's a horning?

Yeah?

I think so listen to it.

Oh, it's like it is.

Okay.

So the premise, it's two all star hockey players.

They're like young up and coming top of their game.

So there's Illi A Rosenoff and Shane Hollander.

They are on opposing teams.

They're meant to hate one another, and they do hate one another, and they get pinned against each.

Other in a lot of games.

So the stakes are set enemy, they're enemies, and they are the two best players in the entire NHL, which I didn't even know what NHL was, but that's hockey.

Can you get to answering the question, No, I'm into the stakes all right, okay, Hpace Superstars Hot.

Yeah, have all the money in the world on these contracts, right rich Hot.

They start banging.

And I love that you use the word banging because it always reminds me of Shaggy's song It Wasn't Me.

Their eyes meet across the park, so Shane introduces himself.

There's kind of a connection.

Okay, so there's like a spark.

There's a spark.

There's a spark.

They're not sure what it is.

They're not sure if it's because.

They're every single romance I know.

But this is where it gets you.

Everyone's describing it as the gay hockey show, but that would be to massively undersell it.

That's how it gets you.

Initially with the saucy scenes, it's very steamy, but then it is just the most incredible love story where there's no it's a queer love story, where there's no tragedy.

They have to go through hard ship, like there's obviously obstacles to them being together, but they fall in love.

But why do we call it a gay hockey I know and a queer love story.

Just call it a love story.

And that's what the stars of the show have said.

They've said, if these scenes are sex in the city, it's no more graphic than sex and the city in any in the cities are straight.

Exactly exactly mentioned that just because I think that what is interesting about this phenomenon is that women enjoy shows and stories about women.

Yes, Like I would say that Mum and mea as a network, is kind of predicated on the idea that women want to hear about what women are talking about.

Yeah, yeah, I think, yes, that is the common unpack that's who's a man in a love story?

Yeah.

So it's based on a novel by Rachel Reid, and this was a genre that I just didn't know was a growing genre.

So they call it mm romance, so male on male romance.

But obviously the majority of the readers are women.

And that's what surprised me about this show, having not been a consumer of that genre before, is how hot you find it?

Like you go, I really do love this, And I think a lot of the reason for that is you're not seeing anyone that is like you represented in the show.

It is full escapism and you can just watch two people like Unfortunately, for me, it did confirm that I like men because I was like Wow, how beautiful to watch these men.

There's no fanoirs, just distracting you from your own fanoir.

Yeah, you're not seeing yourself in one of those characters.

You're not relating to these experience pure escapists.

Yes, it is pure escapism.

It is gorgeously shot considering the budget.

It's just all the things.

It's just so much fun.

And the women, the peripheral women in this show, so each of the men kind of has a woman that's either a friend or a confidant.

They are fucking legends too, Like, it is just brilliant.

You love everything about it.

You just made me think something about when you said that there's no one to compare yourself to.

I think that's really interesting because women are always looking for ways to assess.

Okay, am I at the right life stage?

Do I look the right way at this life stage?

It would be disingenious to say that we're not always thinking those things.

And remember when nobody wants this Season two came out another romance on TV.

That's what that show is.

It's a romance.

And a lot of the discourse around season two was that people were distracted by not understanding how old Kristen Bell's character was because women in their thirties and forties are thinking about stuff like do I want to have a family, how many children do I want to have?

Should I settle down with this person?

And so we were constantly being taken out of the pure sweet romance and wondering about but how old is she?

I need to understand that so I can compare myself to it.

Yeah, so you can just kind of get swept up in that universe and enjoy it for what it is.

You will find it hot, you will cry towards the end, like it is just so beautiful.

And on top of all of that, there has obviously been debate in the queer community about the show what it represents, but a lot of the overarching sentiment has been a lot of people coming out of being like it did change my perception of how I would take it if my child came out to me.

And there has been a lot of people messaging the stars saying this convinced me to come out and that it would be okay to do so, which is just like so lovely.

I've got some lowbrow questions.

Yeah, do you see the egg plants?

You don't see the eggplants.

You see lovely bottoms though, yeah, gorgeous, gorgeous, beautiful arms and just people saying the most beautiful things to one another and like you'll swoon, like you'll feel like, Okay, this is ev and now the stars of the show, the two stars of the show, went from having a couple of hundred Instagram followers, they are on millions.

These guys, the two main stars, Connis Story Hudson Williams.

This is coming out of my head.

By the way, didn't write this down.

I'm just so obsessed with you literally put your script as Yeah.

I was like, I don't want to, I don't need it.

I know this by heart.

They presented at the Golden Globes.

They were on the Late Night Show with Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers.

They went from being absolute nobody's to the biggest stars in the world.

Like they're calling it beatle Mania widely in the in the media, like it is that level of mysteria.

It feels important that it's Canadian because right now Erica is doing a lot of things on.

The world stage.

It could be construed as toxic masculinity, not so much.

These men are like the antithesis of toxic masculinity.

They haven't spoken about their sexualities, but they refer to each other as soulmates, like they just love each other so much and they are just the sweetest boys.

I'm obsessed.

Do you need a drink of water?

Maybe if he did a Ted talk on this show?

What would you call it reheated rivalry?

Because it's all I'm doing is I can't get out of the cult.

I'm just rewatching it again and again and again, watching fan edits, reading the book.

Yeah, obsessed.

Yeah, So to do it like.

An equivalent so I can understand, like, you know, every so and these shows come along and they're just like a full cultural thing, Like what is it the equivalent of, like other than Beatlemania, which is like my parents would understand that.

I literally don't think that this is unprecedented.

Yeah, And people who are now watching People we Meet on Vacations, which is a big Netflix film based on the Emily Henry book, are now saying this got ruined for me by how good Heated Rivalry was?

What about Theretty?

Is it the Dawson's Creeker Baby, It's summer.

I turned pretty level hysteria, but I'd say it's bigger, because it's bigger.

I was staying in an airbnb over the holidays and I picked up you.

Now, how like there's often like a pile of books in like a holiday rental, and one of the books was the Summer.

I term pretty I haven't seen a TV show.

Oh that's pretty good, captivating.

That's not even my recommendation, but I loved it.

Yeah, okay, well yeah, it's kind of like you said, for a sweet romance.

And it's six episodes, so a short like four and a half hours probably of your time all up.

It's on HBO Max, which is annoying, but just get it for a month, watch this and repeat, then let it go so good.

I'm sorry I can't watch Heated Rivalry.

I'm too busy watching other balls at the Australian Open.

Thisay, this is my recommendation for this week.

PG balls.

Yep, let me set the scene.

It's the Australian Open, Blue tennis school.

You guys watching it, You guys watching the tennis.

It's like the biggest sporting to send the blo looks on our face.

I'm watching Naomi asaka a beautiful outfit.

That's all I saying, I cannot take my eyes off the ball kids.

I want my children to be ball kids.

Ball kids are disciplined, they are quiet, they are professional, They run the court.

These kids are twelve years old to fifteen years old and they are elite.

That's not an age group, no one for its like diligence, no.

Right.

There is something about the precision of bull kids that I am obsessed with.

Right.

And then my friend was like, oh, You've got to watch the ball Kids documentary on Netflix.

Yes, and so that's what I'm recommending.

If you have ever watched a ball kid at the Australian Open, watch this documentary.

Just as a parent, watching these kids go and train to be ball kids is so amazing.

So they train for six months and the organizers are like, we have the globally the best ball kids in the world kids.

They get rankings, right, like I saw on that trail, what.

Are they based on?

So they bring all these kids together and you know, of all the people that apply, only one in six kids is going to make it even to the auditions.

It's a bit like Dallas Cowboys.

You know that Netflix would have been that.

It's not that, but it could have been.

I could watch four seasons.

Of but what are they ranking them on speed?

How fast their roles are, how straight their army is when they put them.

They have to anticipate what Jokovic needs.

So you know tennis players if you watch it, if you don't watch tennis, tennis players have like a lot of rituals that they do.

They need to drink at this point in their left hand.

They need the towel in their right hand.

They needed it to do four bounces.

They need a ball that's got like a thing.

And the ball kids have to anticipate what these players who are worth millions of dollars need it every moment.

They have to remain also unobtrusive, right, it's.

So do they study them, but like they know that they've got a particular player and they study them.

Yeah, and then they and then the ball kids get ranked of who's the top ball kid all the way down to like number two hundred whatever, and they get scored on every game.

So there are people watching the ball kids and the Australian Open ranking them to see who gets center court men's final.

And are they paid?

I don't know.

I'd be so interested to know that because is that why grown ups don't do it?

Or are they just like because they're little, the nimble, they can just like get in there.

Maybe that's why they use kids.

And the supervisors are talking about what makes a good ball kid and it's like they have to have a presence, but not too much presence.

They have to run the court.

And this woman says, these kids actually run the court and it's amazing to see twelve year olds running like multimillions are.

Like that Australian that's on Netflix.

So Netflix, bo kids.

I can't start watching it.

I would watch one hundred episodes of it.

Well mine, it's an app and it's to do with the fact that, you know, the sonic assault that you are treated to as a parent when your kids like are doing something electronic like this Sounds electronic is just so horrible and the worst thing of those toys that make all sorts of noises and sounds and they're so loud and so grating.

There's an app that I discovered over the Christmas period.

It's from Belgium, and I think that kind of says it all.

The Belgians are not inflicting a sonic assault on us.

It's an app for kids.

It's twelve single player logic puzzles and it's called Playroom.

It has the most delightful.

Sonic accompaniment you have ever heard on a children's app, Like you'll hear little chirping sounds from it, but somehow actually soothing, Like when your kids playing the little logic game, you're not bothered.

In fact, you like hearing these little sounds.

It's this little oasis of calm that you can download and then they'll play these logic games, so they're kind of getting into like a maths sort of state of mind.

You can get a free trial of it for a couple of weeks, and then there is a subscription fee each month, and for the moment, I'm going to pay for it because we did a lot of travel over the holidays.

It's one way to hand your phone to.

Your kid where you feel like, ay, they're doing something vaguely educational, but b you're incredibly soothed.

Oh here's the other thing that's key.

You know, if your kid's playing a game or watching some nonsense on Netflix, they end up feeling really hyped up afterwards, so when you take it away from them, they scream.

There's no screaming with this because they feel kind of like calm and accomplished.

All right, that's.

All we have time for this week.

Look, I feeled a lot today.

There was so much to get through.

Yeah, so good.

If you have kids starting school this week, good luck.

Go easy on yourself.

Go easy.

Remember weet bix is a fine dinner to have, and have it at four o'clock in the afternoon if you can.

If you have kids starting school the following week, like I do, what do we meant to do it?

We've got to go extra easy in ourselves and watch the heeded rivalry.

Yeah you do, you do.

A big thanks to our team.

Junior content producer Tesakotovic Are, senior producer Leeporges and executive producers Sashtanic and the group EP's roots are fine.

All right, Hey, we would love you to come back next week and spend some more time with us.

So chuck us a follow and then the episode will just drop into your fee automatically.

That seems sensible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, have a great week, See you next time.

See up.

Bye.

Muma me acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.